My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind.

by Annette Sills

  I made myself a coffee and had turned on the radio when the doorbell rang. A shaven-headed lad in a blue boiler suit stood on the doorstep looking at me expectantly. Tess’s radiogram stood on the path and an orange house clearance van nudged over the hedge behind him.

  “Oh yes, thank you,” I said. “Could you just leave it in the hall for now, thanks.”

  I’d received a text from the house-clearance people telling me about today’s delivery but in my rush to get ready for my trip I’d forgotten all about it.

  I stepped back and opened the door wide as the boy picked the radiogram up and carried it into the hall. Rattling noises came from its belly, like something might have broken inside. Before I could complain he had scarpered out of the door. Shaking my head in annoyance, I went back into the kitchen and sat down with the Manchester Evening News and my coffee. From the hallway, the radiogram reproached me, like a frail old lady who’d been removed from her home of fifty years and put into care. I felt like stroking her sleek wooden lid and apologising.

  As I looked down at the front page of the paper, a familiar face stared back at me. It took a few moments for me to realise who it was. I could just about make Conor O’Grady out under the unkempt mop of grey-white hair, bushy beard and three chins. I read the headline and gasped.

  ARMY VETERAN ATTACKS

  LOCAL POLITICIAN

  Kahn was outside his mother’s house in Brantingham Road, Chorlton when he was approached by his neighbour on a mobility scooter. A passerby, who witnessed the scene, said she heard O’Grady shout, ‘Go back to where you came from!” as he produced a knife from under his jacket. He proceeded to stab the Labour MP for Withington three times. Kahn escaped with minor wounds to his arm and abdomen.

  O’Grady, a former soldier who lost both legs while serving in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, was described by neighbours as a bit of a loner who kept himself to himself.

  I looked down at Conor’s glassy eyes staring back at me. I clenched the edges of the paper and took a few deep breaths. I was back in the Irish Club car park again: the stench and heat of his breath, his grabbing hands and his gruff voice calling me a slag over and over. Rose O’Grady would be turning in her in grave and his poor father Tommy would never be able to hold his head up in Brantingham Road again. Not to mention Samira. She’d probably had to come back from Pakistan. Conor had never been right in the head. But this? Stabbing Adeel Kahn and telling him to go back to where he came from? What the hell? Adeel was born and bred in Manchester just like he was. They’d grown up together in the street and played together as kids. I shook my head. UKIP, the anti-immigration party was gaining support from nutters like Conor O’Grady every day and people were taking its leader Farage seriously. When did all the hate kick in? Conor O’Grady and Adeel Kahn were both the children of immigrants, for Christ’s sake. The world was going bonkers.

  Ten minutes before the taxi got here. I checked my documents one more time then went into the hallway to get my coat. Stopping by the radiogram, I lifted the lid to see what damage was done and if it was still worth repairing. I knelt down. Two corners of the metal turntable that were slightly loose before had come apart. As I lifted up the arm of the needle the whole thing came off. A small white folded-up envelope slipped out from underneath. I picked it up and dusted it off then I took it into the kitchen, placed it on the table and sat staring at it for a while. The sun warmed the back of my neck and my heart pounded as I opened it. Inside were two newspaper cuttings from the Irish press.

  One was one of the first reports of the discovery of the mass grave in Tuam. The other was a published list of the names of the seven hundred and ninety-six babies who’d died there.

  Chapter 16

  As the plane started to descend, the elderly woman sitting next to me held out a boiled sweet in her mottled hand.

  “They say it’s good to chew when you’re landing,” she said in a pure Mayo accent.

  I wondered what her story was. Did she leave Ireland when she was a girl and was returning to visit family who stayed behind? Or had her children left and she’d just spent a holiday tuning herself into the unfamiliar music of her grandchildren’s English accents? I took the sweet and thanked her. I felt guilty. Throughout the flight I’d avoided her attempts at conversation and turned back to my book even though I couldn’t concentrate on it. She had such a kindly face. I knew if we got talking I’d have to tell her everything – how all my dreams and hopes had been dashed that morning and how my despair was quickly turning to rage. As the plane descended I looked out of the window at picture-box Ireland: the scattered white houses, smooth strips of road and lush green fields. I gripped the arm of my seat, anger coursing through my veins. Babies were buried in unmarked graves in fields all over the country and my brother was among them.

  The list of dead children had been published in a national Irish newspaper. I’d missed it in my search but Tess hadn’t. Seven hundred and ninety-six names, dates of birth, age and cause of death, all in chronological birth order from 1920 to 1961. Many died of flu, whooping cough and gastroenteritis. Others suffered from epilepsy, fits and convulsions and others died of respiratory illnesses. There were twins, Anthony and Mary, described as “congenital idiots” – probably with Down Syndrome, I guessed – who died at two and three months from bronchitis. The youngest baby, Haigh, died at ten minutes because he was premature. The oldest, Mary Connolly, died when she was seven after an outbreak of measles. One word “marasmus” recurred again and again. The dictionary definition was “undernourishment causing a child’s weight to be significantly low for their age”. Three children died in 1960. Donal Dempsey, my brother, was one of them. Dempsey – Tess’s name. His date of birth was listed as 29/11/1960, his age of death 5 months and the cause of his death was unexplained heart failure. Tess had underlined his name in black ink and beside it she’d written,

  “Rest with the angels, my beautiful boy.”

  I let out an involuntary cry when I saw it. I imagined her discovering it in the reading room at Chorlton Library where she went to read the Irish papers. I saw her tearing it from the newspaper, her hand shaking as she slipped it into the pocket of her shopping trolley. She probably sat alone in her armchair by the gas fire reading it over and over. So much unbearable pain after spending a lifetime thinking he’d been adopted and was living a good life in America or somewhere else. She had given birth to a healthy baby so why would she think otherwise? I looked back at the cause of death again. Unexplained heart failure. Had she made the connection with Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy as I had? She’d already passed the faulty gene on to Mikey and blamed herself for his death. So after seeing this, did she think she’d killed her firstborn as well? I checked the date on the newspaper. Tess died three weeks after it was published. Had the shock of the discovery killed her?

  “Welcome to Ireland,” the cabin crew said as we taxied into the airport. Céad míle fáilte. A hundred thousand welcomes.

  Rain splattered the windowpane as the plane ground to a halt. It looked like the forecast had been wrong. I wasn’t going to get blue skies and sunshine after all.

  Chapter 17

  Dusk was falling by the time I got to the site of the Mother and Baby Home. The sky over Tuam was a swollen mass of bruised grey-blue clouds edged with yellow.

  It wasn’t at all what I’d imagined. The building itself had been demolished in 1972 but I’d still pictured the site in a rural isolated spot. Instead, I found it in the middle of a modern housing estate, overlooked on all sides. To get there I had to walk through a small playground. It was empty apart from a shaven-headed boy of about ten. The boy was hanging upside down on the climbing frame, his bike abandoned nearby. When I stopped and looked around, he swung back onto his feet. He pointed in the direction of a small iron gate with a white wooden cross on it.

  “The dead babies is over there, missus!” he shouted, then he hitched up his shorts, hopped on his bike and rode off.

  A gentle dr
izzle was falling and I put up the hood of my waterproof and walked towards the gate. A lawn the size of a large garden was enclosed by a tall grey stone wall. In the far corner a woman stood under a red-and-white striped golfing umbrella in front of a small grotto. I went through the gate and walked across the lawn, conscious of every footstep in the dampening soil and what lay underneath. As I approached I saw a statue of the Virgin standing in a glass case. The blue of her dress glowed in the darkening air and her arms were outstretched. She was surrounded by lilac blossom, and bunches of other flowers, cards and soft toys were piled on the stony grass.

  Despite being surrounded by houses, there was a stillness about the place, a silence only interrupted now and again by the rush of a passing car or the cawk of a crow. As I approached the woman turned and looked at me from under her umbrella. A string of Celtic stone rosary beads hung from her wrist. She smiled then closed her eyes again and went back to her prayers.

  I reached into my bag and took out the bunch of lilies I’d bought at a Centra store on the way. The woman moved to one side as I leant over and placed them at the foot of the statue. On the card I’d written: ‘For our beloved brother and son Donal, All our love, Mummy, Daddy, Mikey and Carmel.

  Donal. At least he had a name and sex now. But Tess’s maiden name – Dempsey. If Tess and Dad had kept him, he’d have been a Lynch. Donal Lynch. One of us.

  Not one for prayers, I stood up and glanced around. The damp lawn glistened in the fading light. I wondered where his body might be. Would I ever know? All I wanted was to take back what was left of him to Manchester and lay him to rest with Tess and Dad and Mikey where he belonged. How could that happen, though? Even if they excavated the site and used DNA techniques, would they really be able to identify the remains of eight hundred children after all this time?

  I stared at the statue of the Virgin with her welcoming, outstretched arms. The irony of it was not lost on me. An icon of virginity and motherhood watching over this grave. I dug my hands into my pockets and read the notes attached to the flowers:

  God bless the angels.

  May the Lord look over you.

  I pray for your souls.

  I had a sudden urge to pick up a stone and hurl it at the glass case.

  “Lord have mercy,” mumbled the woman, kissing her rosary beads and slipping them into her pocket.

  “He didn’t though, did he?” I said.

  “Pardon me?” she said in an American accent.

  “Your Lord. He didn’t have mercy. Not on any of the children here, anyway.”

  She lowered her eyes. She was sixtyish with a creamy complexion and faint freckles. She wore expensive Gore-Tex and spotless white trainers and I imagined her preening a garden behind a white picket fence in a tidy suburb in Ohio, smiling and waving to passersby and telling them to “Have a nice day”.

  An awkward silence ensued. We both watched as a young chaffinch landed on one of the teddy bears scattered at the Virgin’s feet. It hopped for a while then took flight, the white flash of its wings disappearing into the grey mist of rain.

  “I get your anger,” she said after a while. “I lost faith in the Church a long time ago and I haven’t been to Mass in years. But I never lost my faith in God. Praying and forgiveness are very important to me.”

  “So you can forgive this?” I snapped.

  Sadness fell over her face and I immediately regretted my outburst.

  “I’m sorry.” I felt myself well up. “I found out today that my brother’s buried here. I’d only just discovered he existed and I was hoping to trace him.”

  She turned and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said and I broke down at her touch.

  To my embarrassment, minutes later I found myself sobbing and holding on to her hand, finding solace in the comfort of a stranger.

  “Sorry,” I said when I finally pulled away.

  “Not at all.” She handed me a pack of tissues from her bag. “I’m Louisa. Louisa Schulter.”

  I wiped my eyes and blew my nose.

  “Carmel Doherty.”

  “You’re English?”

  “My parents were from Mayo but I was born in Manchester.”

  “We have a Manchester in Boston too. I really am so very sorry for your loss.”

  I sighed. “My mother got pregnant by my dad when she was fifteen. She never told me or my brother anything about the baby. Shortly before she died she got hold of the list of children who died here and discovered he was on it. He was called Donal.”

  “They never told her he’d passed?”

  I shook my head. “I think she assumed he’d been adopted.”

  Louisa Schulter frowned down at the rain firing on to the muddy lawn and tucked a stand of hair under her hood. “That’s terrible. When I eventually found my birth mother she told me she hoped and prayed every day of her life that I’d gone to a good family and had a happy life.”

  “Oh. So you were in the home here? You’re a survivor?” I reddened, mortified at the way I’d spoken to her.

  “Not here. I was born in the Bessborough home in Cork in 1952. When I was six months old I was taken to Boston to live with my adoptive parents.”

  “So that’s why you’re here now?”

  She nodded. The rain was starting to come down heavily and she moved her umbrella over my head.

  “I guess I wanted to come here and pay my respects to the ones who didn’t make it. I don’t really think of myself as a survivor though. I’m one of the lucky ones. I can’t remember anything about my time in Bessborough and I ended up in a loving home in Boston.”

  “Were you legally adopted, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Yes, I was legally adopted. But when I was searching for my mother I came across a number of people who weren’t. It was tough for them. I remember one woman finding out when she was fifty-seven years old. Her adoptive parents died without telling her – then one day she heard it from an elderly aunt during a family argument. And because it was done illegally her adoptive parents were named on her birth certificate, not her natural parents. So when she started searching for her birth mother she had no information to go on.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She lost hope in the end and gave up.”

  I shook my head. “Imagine waking up one day and discovering that. You’d feel like your life had been one a big lie.”

  “I know. I count myself lucky. I met my birth mother.”

  She looked down at the ground.

  “Do you mind me asking what happened?” I asked tentatively.

  She shook her head. “Not at all. My adoption was easy. Dad was serving in the armed forces in the UK at the time and he popped over to Dublin to fill out all the papers. He collected me from Cork the next day.” She laughed. “Like collecting a parcel. I was ten when I found out. Mom and Dad sat me down after Mass one Sunday and told me. I’d always had this feeling I was different, though. Not because I felt unloved or unwanted. My family were Italian. Mom, Dad and Elena my sister were dark-haired and olive-skinned and I mean – just look at me.” She pulled her hood down to reveal a thick head of strawberry-blonde curls. “I always looked like Annie from the musical.” She smiled. “We had a lot in common, Annie and me. I could never put my finger on it, but it felt like I didn’t belong. When Mom and Dad told me, it was a relief.”

  “But you had a good childhood?”

  “The best. When he left the forces Dad started his own printing business and Mom worked part-time as a third-grade teacher. We had vacations by the ocean, a college fund, a nice home in a good area. My parents treated my sister and me exactly the same too.”

  “So you think being adopted was a good thing?”

  “In some ways, yes. I mean there was so much poverty here back then. People were emigrating in droves and everyone, the Church, the politicians, they all truly believed children like me would have a better life in America.”

  “Everyone except th
e birth mothers. Most of those women wanted to keep their babies. I’m pretty sure my mum did. They were forced adoptions.”

  “Most. But the way I see it, I was lucky. I could have ended up abused in an industrial school or washing priests’ underwear for forty years in a Magdalene Laundry.”

  I laughed. I was warming to Louisa Schulter and I was sorry I’d misjudged her.

  “What was it like, finding your birth mother?”

  An unmistakable flicker of sadness crossed her face.

  “Sorry,” I said, touching her arm. “I’m asking too many questions.”

  “Not at all. I understand. It’s all new to you.” She looked out past the wall into the distance. “It took me ten long years but I finally found her in 1983. It was so goddamn hard. The adoption agency, the Boston charity who vetted the families, the nuns at Bessborough, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, they all shut the door in my face so many times they put my nose out of joint.”

  “Let me guess. They all told you it was to protect the privacy of the birth mother?”

  She nodded. “I’ve heard it’s easier now. It was actually with the help of a nun from Cork that I found Eileen, my birth mother. Sister Mary Teresa was a beautiful person and she did so much for the poor communities in Boston. She died in a home for the clergy last year. It was a sad place, full of nuns and priests who’d dedicated their entire lives to the Church. Most were good people but in their final years they had to watch the scandals unfold – we had a huge paedophile problem in Boston – everything they believed in was up for scrutiny. Mary Teresa said it was like watching your house burn down slowly in front of your eyes.”

  Louisa looked down at her watch.

  “Sorry. Am I keeping you?” I said. I didn’t want her to go. I had so many more questions to ask.