Till the Sun Shines Through Read Online Free
Author: Anne Bennett
in the cupboard. Thereâs a hook if you want to hang anything up, unless itâs anything special like your clothes for Mass â Iâll put those in my wardrobe. Leave them down on my bed and Iâll see to them.â
In the attic another rag rug had been placed between the mattress laid on the floor and the cupboard, covering the bare boards. There was no other furniture and the room was dim with the only light coming from a dusty skylight.
Having put her belongings away, Bridie was glad to return to the living room. Mary had drawn the curtains and lit the gaslights which now popped and spluttered. Sheâd lit the fire too and it danced merrily in the hearth and Bridie was glad of it, for the evening had turned chilly. She had to admit that it all looked rather cosy. Mary handed her a cup of tea while she lit the gas beneath a pan of potatoes and another of cabbage.
âNow,â she said, âI donât have to do the bacon for a while yet, so take the weight off your feet and tell me the news from home.â
What Bridie found particularly hardest to cope with in those early days in Birmingham was the noise. Inside the cottage in Ireland, it was often so quiet you could hear the peat settling into the grate, the ticking of the mantle clock, or her father puffing on his pipe.
Outside, she might hear the gentle lowing of the cows and the clucking of the hens, or the sweet singing of the birds. Sheâd hear the wind setting, the trees swaying and the soft swishing sound as the breeze rippled through the long grass, or the river rumbling as it ran across its stony bed.
There was nothing to prepare her for this crush of humanity, the walls so thin every sound the neighbours made could be heard. She hated the shrieking of the children in the street just outside the window and the cackling laughter and shouting of the women doing their washing in the brewhouse. She hated the tramp of hobnail boots on the cobbles as the men made their way to work and the factory hooters slicing into the quiet of early morning.
But most of all she hated the traffic: the clanking trams and rumbling omnibuses, the roar of petrol-drawn lorries and vans and cars. Even the dull clop of horsesâ hooves disturbed her. These city horses were as unlike those at home as it was possible to be. They were tired and sad-looking. And why wouldnât they be, Bridie thought, with hard roads beneath their feet day in, day out. She wondered where they were stabled because there was precious little grass to be found. She guessed the horses saw as little of it as the people.
And that was another thing, the people. They unnerved her. She supposed they were kind enough, but their voices grated on her and she could barely understand what they said anyway, their accents were so alien. She couldnât seem to get away anywhere to be alone, to have a bit of privacy, and she wondered if Rosalyn would have made a better fist of it than she was doing. Frowning, she admitted she probably would.
She couldnât say any of this to Mary though. How could she? Mary had chosen to make her home in this hateful place and so Bridie couldnât go around moaning and complaining. But she was incredibly homesick and eventually felt if she didnât tell someone how she felt she would burst and so, without mentioning a word to Mary, she poured her heart out to her mother in a letter, telling her everything that she hated about the city her sister lived in. She told her parents of something else too. Sheâd wondered when sheâd arrived why there were so many idle men about. They lolled on street corners, hands usually in their pockets and flat caps on their head. Back home in Ireland, sheâd seldom seen a man idle in the middle of the day, unless it was a Fair Day, and sheâd asked Mary about it, revealing all to her parents in a letter home:
Mary said the men have been that way since they were demobbed from the army. There
In the attic another rag rug had been placed between the mattress laid on the floor and the cupboard, covering the bare boards. There was no other furniture and the room was dim with the only light coming from a dusty skylight.
Having put her belongings away, Bridie was glad to return to the living room. Mary had drawn the curtains and lit the gaslights which now popped and spluttered. Sheâd lit the fire too and it danced merrily in the hearth and Bridie was glad of it, for the evening had turned chilly. She had to admit that it all looked rather cosy. Mary handed her a cup of tea while she lit the gas beneath a pan of potatoes and another of cabbage.
âNow,â she said, âI donât have to do the bacon for a while yet, so take the weight off your feet and tell me the news from home.â
What Bridie found particularly hardest to cope with in those early days in Birmingham was the noise. Inside the cottage in Ireland, it was often so quiet you could hear the peat settling into the grate, the ticking of the mantle clock, or her father puffing on his pipe.
Outside, she might hear the gentle lowing of the cows and the clucking of the hens, or the sweet singing of the birds. Sheâd hear the wind setting, the trees swaying and the soft swishing sound as the breeze rippled through the long grass, or the river rumbling as it ran across its stony bed.
There was nothing to prepare her for this crush of humanity, the walls so thin every sound the neighbours made could be heard. She hated the shrieking of the children in the street just outside the window and the cackling laughter and shouting of the women doing their washing in the brewhouse. She hated the tramp of hobnail boots on the cobbles as the men made their way to work and the factory hooters slicing into the quiet of early morning.
But most of all she hated the traffic: the clanking trams and rumbling omnibuses, the roar of petrol-drawn lorries and vans and cars. Even the dull clop of horsesâ hooves disturbed her. These city horses were as unlike those at home as it was possible to be. They were tired and sad-looking. And why wouldnât they be, Bridie thought, with hard roads beneath their feet day in, day out. She wondered where they were stabled because there was precious little grass to be found. She guessed the horses saw as little of it as the people.
And that was another thing, the people. They unnerved her. She supposed they were kind enough, but their voices grated on her and she could barely understand what they said anyway, their accents were so alien. She couldnât seem to get away anywhere to be alone, to have a bit of privacy, and she wondered if Rosalyn would have made a better fist of it than she was doing. Frowning, she admitted she probably would.
She couldnât say any of this to Mary though. How could she? Mary had chosen to make her home in this hateful place and so Bridie couldnât go around moaning and complaining. But she was incredibly homesick and eventually felt if she didnât tell someone how she felt she would burst and so, without mentioning a word to Mary, she poured her heart out to her mother in a letter, telling her everything that she hated about the city her sister lived in. She told her parents of something else too. Sheâd wondered when sheâd arrived why there were so many idle men about. They lolled on street corners, hands usually in their pockets and flat caps on their head. Back home in Ireland, sheâd seldom seen a man idle in the middle of the day, unless it was a Fair Day, and sheâd asked Mary about it, revealing all to her parents in a letter home:
Mary said the men have been that way since they were demobbed from the army. There
Readers choose
Writer
Justine Davis
Rusty Williams
Alessandro Baricco
James Raven
J. T. Ellison
Pat Simmons
Richard H. Smith
H.W. Brands
Lizzie Lane