Free Till the Sun Shines Through by Anne Bennett Page B

Bridie repeated. ‘Why, in God’s name? And don’t you think if I’d had just one sniff of that, I’d have been around to your house straight off to ask you about it?’
    Of course Rosalyn knew: telling Bridie was what she’d dreaded most about the whole affair. ‘Why on earth are you leaving?’ Bridie demanded. ‘Do you mean really leaving, or just going away for a wee while?’
    â€˜No!’ Rosalyn couldn’t let her think that. ‘You know my aunt Maria, well, Uncle Aiden has somewhere for them all in America now. But Maria can’t face the journey alone and is afraid of something happening to the weans, so she’s offered to pay my fare to go over with her.’
    â€˜To what?’ Bridie cried. ‘Here you have a job – a life. What would you get in America?’
    â€˜Experience,’ Rosalyn said. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She knew Bridie was hurt and upset and she wanted to explain it to her, make her see what a chance it was. Bridie knew, or she’d realise when the hurt had eased, that Rosalyn would never have been happy in rural Ireland all the days of her life. God! She’d made that plain enough from when they were in their early teens.
    Now her young aunt had handed her the means to leave on a plate and her mother, far from opposing it, had urged her to go. She told Bridie this. ‘Mammy’s all for it. She says it’s a chance that might never come again. ’Course, the weans are older now and able to help more. Nora’s only a year behind Declan at ten. I was a fine hand in the house when I was ten and there’s no babies to see to now either. Mammy says I must go. She said these are opportunities that you must take when you’re single.
    â€˜As for a job, I’m sure I could get one over there soon enough if I wanted one. Maria doesn’t want me to work, not at first anyway. Aiden earns good money and he wants me to stay with her too, for he says Maria is bound to feel strange at first. He thinks she’d settle better with someone of her own beside her.’
    Bridie couldn’t believe it. Neither Terry leaving, nor Mary moving to Birmingham, had affected like this. Rosalyn had been living next door to her since they’d both been babies and they’d been inseparable ever since. She couldn’t visualise life without her. Even when Rosalyn began work and had been in town during the day, they’d still seen each other in the evenings and at the weekends. Unlike Rosalyn, who’d made other friends at work, Bridie had had no opportunity to do that. It had never bothered her. She’d never really needed anyone but Rosalyn.
    Hurt and frightened of the loneliness she’d feel at her cousin’s departure, she spat out sneeringly, ‘Oh, that’s it then, you’ll be a skivvy for your sister-in-law. Fine job that will be.’
    â€˜Don’t be like that, Bridie!’ Rosalyn cried. ‘I’m sorry I’m going, for your sake, and I’m going to miss you like crazy, but …’ She shrugged. ‘Maria can’t go on her own, not with the three weans so small. If your Mary asked you for help, you’d break your neck to do it and you know you would.’
    She might like to, Bridie thought, but knew she couldn’t up sticks like Rosalyn could, no matter what fix Mary was in. The heavy cloak of duty and responsibility kept her successfully on the farm. A lump lodged in Bridie’s throat and she was scared she was going to cry. She fought to control herself; she couldn’t bear to make a holy show of herself like that. She swallowed the lump and suddenly she felt anger at the unfairness of life course all through her and turned once again on Rosalyn. ‘Go to bloody America then,’ she snapped. ‘And I hope it stays fine for you.’
    â€˜Bridie …’
    But Bridie turned away from her cousin. Tears had begun to seep