Anne Bennett - The Child Left Behind

Finn laughed and he clapped Christy on the back. ‘No change there then. So do you want to go out with this lustful man this evening or don’t you?’

Christy put his head on one side as if considering the proposal, then said, ‘D’you know, I don’t mind if I do.’

Finn did, however, tell at least something of his relationship with Gabrielle in his letter to his brothers, which provoked much interest and speculation between Tom and Joe.

I have to tell you both, I have met the most wonderful girl and her name is Gabrielle. She is the most beautiful girl in the whole world. She isn’t a camp follower, I don’t want you to think that, but a respectable girl from a decent Catholic family in the town. I saw her and her younger sister, Yvette, walking through the town with their father a few weeks ago. He hardly lets the two girls out of his sight and I can’t say I blame him, with the place teeming with soldiers, but I did manage to sneak a word with her and we are in love and I can’t tell you how happy I am.

‘Well, well, well,’ Joe said, folding up the letter and handing it back to Tom. ‘I thought that the purpose of our young brother going to France was to fight the Hun, not try and bed every girl in the whole country.’

‘He has never said he loved anyone before.’

‘You know what?’ Joe said. ‘All that means is that this Gabrielle has held out longer than the others.’

‘You think that’s all it is?’

‘Don’t you?’ Joe said. ‘He’s a boy. What does he know of love?’

‘Huh! What do any of us?’

‘Well, that’s true, I suppose,’ Joe conceded. ‘I expect you know when it hits you. But you need to have more experience than Finn.’

Tom laughed. ‘To judge from his letters he has had more experience than both you and me together.’

‘I still don’t see where he has the time,’ Joe grumbled.

‘Well, they have free time sometimes.’

‘In the middle of a battle? It isn’t a matter of saying to the advancing German armies, “Hold your hand, chaps, while I have a quick dalliance with a French damsel.”’

‘Sure this isn’t just sour grapes?’ Tom asked.

Joe sighed. ‘You know. Tom, you could be right. Don’t get me wrong. I know war is a serious business and I do miss Finn and worry about him, and I know he can tell us very few details, but he does seem to be leading the life of Riley at the moment.’

Nuala knew that her brother was in love, because in his letter to her he had poured out his heart, knowing that she wouldn’t laugh at him. She would be sixteen in the spring of 1916 and it thrilled her that her brother Finn, who she loved dearly, was beginning his very own love story.

She guessed he would not have said face to face what he committed to paper, for he spoke about his limbs trembling when he was near Gabrielle, the way his heart turned over when she smiled at him and the tingle that ran between them when they held hands. Her romantic soul drank it in eagerly and she wrote a supportive letter back to him.

Nuala would have liked to have discussed Finn’s letter and his declaration of love for Gabrielle with her brothers. She wouldn’t have divulged all the romantic things that she guessed were for her eyes only, but it was difficult to talk to them about anything without her mother hearing and it would never do for her to learn about Finn’s romance. That would be the very last thing Finn would want.

It wasn’t that they never talked of Finn; sometimes Nuala thought they talked of little else, for her mother would almost dissect every word he wrote to her and they would talk about him as a happy young child. They remembered that he usually went about the place with a smile on his face and his laughter often used to echo around the yard.

‘He would talk nonstop sometimes,’ Thomas John said one night. ‘And plague me to death with questions wanting to know the whys and wherefores of every damned thing. I would often tell him to stop his blether and give me some peace, but what I’d give now to hear him chuntering away.’

They all knew what Thomas John meant. They missed Finn and when he had been gone some months Thomas John began to look forward to the end of the war and Finn coming home. He’d say things like, ‘When Finn is back where he belongs, I’ll look to getting a few more cows.’ Or, ‘When the lad’s back home, I’ve a mind to till that top field that’s lying fallow just now.’

The end of the war seemed as far away as ever as 1915 drew to a close. Finn and Gabrielle’s lovemaking grew more ardent as the days and then weeks passed. If they met in the park, they were as respectable as they had been in the beginning. It was different in the confines of the farmhouse though December was halfway through before Finn kissed Gabrielle properly.

She was astounded at first, and quite perturbed by the strange yearnings coursing through her body and the moan she let slip. When she felt Finn feeling her clothed body, it felt so right, so good that she let him continue.

Afterwards, in her bed, she remembered what Finn had done and how it had made her feel, and she grew hot with shame. Yet she knew she would do it all again, for when she was with him all form of reason, even what was wrong or right, didn’t seem to matter any more. Further than this, though, Finn refused to go. He was more experienced than Gabrielle and knew just how easy it was to lose control, but he was aware that it got more difficult and frustrating every time he pulled away.

Finn often talked of his family and Gabrielle loved hearing of them all.

One night, as they snuggled together, Gabrielle said, ‘You told me all about your sister Aggie a while ago. You said everyone had a good time with the music and everything. Why did it stop?’

‘Well,’ said Finn, ‘that was a mystery and a half. You see, one day Aggie just disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Aye,’ Finn said. ‘She was fifteen and they say she ran away with the gypsies. I was only five and I was scared of gypsies for some time after that. But as I grew up, I was less and less sure, because it would be such an odd thing for her to do. Tom never believed that story either, and he and Aggie were close. Not that we could talk about it openly, because our mother disowned her and we were forbidden to speak her name, but I would sometimes hear my brothers talking about her when they didn’t know I was there.’

‘So what do you think did happen to her?’

Finn shook his head. ‘I don’t know, and likely never will.’

‘That is awful,’ Gabrielle said. ‘She was only two years younger than I am now, and to just disappear like that…’

‘I know,’ Finn said. ‘I remember the Guards coming and all, and no trace could be found of her. The point was she had nowhere to go. She had apparently taken clothes, not that any of us had many, but she had no money at all.’

‘What a terribly sad story.’

‘Aye,’ Finn said. ‘Aggie brought me up nearly as much as my mother did and was very much nicer and kinder altogether, and I remember crying for days. I kept getting into trouble because I kept forgetting we weren’t supposed to mention her name.’

‘But you were only a little boy.’

‘That didn’t matter to my mother,’ Finn said. ‘She used to fly into the most terrifying rages. I tell you, Gabrielle, they would scare the stoutest of hearts. We are all scared of her, Tom most of all, and she has a cane hanging up by the fire that we have felt the sting of. She beat me with it one day when I mentioned Aggies’s name by mistake, but my father put a stop to it when he found out.’

‘So he was kinder?’

Finn considered this. ‘I suppose,’ he said at last. ‘Fairer, maybe. He is the only one Mammy listens to, but except for Nuala, hugs and kisses were just never part of our growing up.’