Colum
Bridget said she'd call, but she really wasn't very good at keeping in touch. I sent her letters every now and then, but I only heard from her on holidays. It was terribly lonely, and boring. With only Dermot and I around it was very quiet. I didn't particularly miss arguing with her, but I did miss having her around, even if she was disagreeable and tempermental. Things just didn't get any better after she left. I did manage to get my motorcycle, and was accepted to a nearby university - with scholarships - when I graduated, but wouldn't you know Uncle Dermot had to go off and do some stupid gombeen thing?
I had never liked him being involved with the lads. It was dangerous and foolish, wasn't it? But he wasn't one to care what we thought of it. He and Bridget are like that. They'll do just as they please no matter what anyone else things of it.
And Dermot, the eejit, ran out of luck and got caught, didn't he? So by the time I started university, mum and da were dead, gran was dead, Bridget was out of the country, and Dermot was in prison in Letterkenny, and I was all alone. I was just glad gran hadn't lived to see what had become of her family. Wouldn't it have broken her heart?
So I wrote to Bridget and told her what had happened and gave her Dermot's address in case she wanted to write him. (I visited him when I could and it seems she wrote to him more often than she did to me.) And then I concentrated on my classes, because there wasn't much else I could do, was there?
The terrible thing is it was lonely. I didn't really have any friends and Bridget never called or came to visit. Of course, I didn't go to visit her either. I got the impression she didn't want me to. She wouldn't even tell me about anything important, like graduation, until after it was over. Wasn't she a sweet one?
I was thinking I may never see her agian from the way things were going. So wasn't I surprised when she showed up right under my nose in Donegal?