by Anne Bennett
Saturday night was bath time and a time for Sister Maria and Sister Clement to have fun at the girls’ expense. They mocked their bodies and compared and laughed at them and often made them run on the spot, noting whose breasts bounced the more or whose bottom was more wobbly. For Millie and Cora, who looked as if they were ready to deliver any day, you could see this running and jumping up and down was causing them severe discomfort, but Lizzie didn’t say anything and neither did anyone else. Lizzie supposed the heavy work in the laundry didn’t help either, but no allowance was made here for pregnancy, and Lizzie knew her time would come when the baby would lie heavy on her and everything would be an effort and she would have to cope as these girls did.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The following Friday, two letters arrived at the farmhouse for Lizzie. ‘Put them in the fire,’ Seamus said gruffly. ‘Burn them.’
‘We can’t do that,’ Johnnie said.
‘Hush, we don’t want the weans to know,’ Catherine cautioned both men.
‘Well,’ Seamus challenged his son, but in a lower voice, ‘what would you have us do, send them along to her?’
‘Aye, maybe we should. We can’t just ignore them.’
‘Why not?’ Seamus growled.
‘Look,’ Johnnie said. ‘If you want to pretend Lizzie doesn’t exist that’s fine. I personally think you’re wrong, but I’ll live with your decision. But other people won’t know this and maybe it will be suspicious to them if they receive no reply to the letters they send. We should at least open them and see who they’re from.’
Seamus looked across at Catherine and she shrugged. ‘Johnnie has a point, but not now. We’ll open them when the weans are out the way, especially Niamh, she’s too knowing altogether.’
Niamh was too knowing, and needed to find out why her mother hadn’t been there at her First Communion as she had promised she would be. Wasn’t there someone else who could have looked after her other granny for a few days? It wasn’t much to ask. But she knew she’d get no answer to these questions if she were to ask her granny, and not even her Uncle Johnnie seemed to want to talk and speculate about her mammy like he used to before.
So, unknown to any of them, she had written to their house at home. She didn’t know if her mother was there or at her grandmother’s house, but she worked out that her mother would have to go home sometimes, and so she said as she came into the room dressed for school, ‘Any letters?’
Catherine thanked God she’d thought to put the letters behind the clock on the mantelpiece. She knew what Niamh meant. She wanted a letter from her mother, for previously Lizzie had written every week. How would she explain an absence of letters? She didn’t know. Having a woman disappear for a few months was a hard thing to do when that woman had a family and friends who cared about her.
But Niamh deserved an answer. She’d been upset at her mother’s absence on Sunday but had bravely held back the tears, and this would be another blow to her. ‘No,’ she said, but gently. ‘No letters.’
‘She’s had time to write by now.’
‘Maybe she’s busy.’
‘Huh.’
‘Don’t sulk, Niamh, it’s a bad habit.’
But Niamh wasn’t really sulking, she was hurt. She’d begged her mammy to write quickly. She’d told her all about her First Communion. You’d think she’d find time to write a few lines.
Catherine watched her grandchildren surreptitiously, the outspoken Niamh and the more introverted Tom, and knew both children were suffering in their own way. Whether or not Lizzie had sinned was a matter of opinion, but what wasn’t in doubt was the children’s innocence. They were affected too, and she knew that whatever she did, it wouldn’t make it any better for them.
Later that morning, with Niamh on her way to school and Tom in the fields with his uncle, Catherine opened the envelopes.
One of the letters was from Violet. She told her of the happenings in the street and said her description of Ireland sounded lovely and that maybe she’d make the trip herself someday and urged Lizzie to tell her all the news.
Catherine knew what Violet meant by ‘all the news’. The woman had been a good friend of Lizzie’s for years, and if she’d confided in anyone it would be Violet. Lizzie herself had said it was Violet who found her collapsed in the yard after the attack. She could take a bet Violet knew everything.
The other letter was from Lizzie’s mother-in-law.
Lizzie,
Just what are you playing at? All I’ve had from you is a note to say you’d arrived in Ireland safely. I never doubted it, and since then there has been nothing. No letter and no indication of how long you’ll stay. Steve hasn’t had a letter either and I think it’s very remiss of you not to write to him when you think of what he faces daily. Of course, you always did think of yourself first, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
We can’t hold this house for you forever. How would it be if Steve came home from the war to find no home at all to welcome him? You were happy enough to run when the going got tough and leave the rest of us to cope with the rationing and blackout and the constant threat of bombs, while you live the life of Riley over there. And I know that at first Steve was fine about you going home for a while, that just shows you the type of man he is, but he thought of you going over for a wee rest, not languishing there for weeks on end. After all, you have been there over two weeks, long enough to get over anything that ails you I would think. Surely you will be thinking of coming back any day now.
Steve will be writing to you about this I’m sure, when I point it out about the house and everything…
The censuring letter went on in a similar vein, talking about people and places Catherine didn’t know and taking every opportunity to complain about or denigrate Lizzie. Lizzie hadn’t complained much about her mother-in-law and Catherine had to admit she generally complained about little. This woman was a cow of the first order and she detested Catherline’s daughter, that much was obvious. But, that being so, she would grasp any opportunity to shame Lizzie, and if her family were caught in the fallout she’d lose no sleep over it.
This woman’s suspicions had to be allayed at all costs. And yet Catherine didn’t know what could be done. She put the letters back behind the clock. She’d ask Seamus and Johnnie if they had any ideas, although she knew this would probably have to wait until evening when the children were in bed and the chores done.
She knew Seamus wouldn’t want to discuss it at all at any time. He was so embarrassed by the whole episode anyway that he even found it hard to say Lizzie’s name. Whatever she’d claimed had happened, the outcome was she was having a bastard child, the thing a father dreads his daughter saying, and he wanted nothing to do with her till the child was born and sent away somewhere. Then he might feel differently about it, but for now…
‘But, Seamus, what are we to do?’ she asked that night, as he sat smoking his pipe before the fire as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘Do what you want. Just don’t concern me over it.’
‘Come on, Daddy,’ Johnnie said. ‘We can’t pretend this isn’t happening.’
‘I can do as I please in my own house,’ Seamus said, his voice rising in anger.
‘Hush,’ Catherine said, glancing at the bedroom door. ‘You’ll have the weans awake.’
‘Aye, well, for a man to be told what to do by a mere lad.’
‘I’m not a lad, Daddy,’ Johnnie said, enraged. ‘My opinion is as valid as yours, and I say this attitude will not help.’
‘Let’s not argue about it now,’ Catherine pleaded. ‘Let’s leave it a few days and think it over. A decision has not got to be made tonight.’
Johnnie shook his head. He knew his parents ran the risk of the whole thing blowing up in their faces. But what could he do? Very little, and he took himself off to bed where he found Tom curled up in a defensive ball in the middle of it. He stroked the little lad’s hair gently and he stirred in his sleep. Johnnie slid in beside him and lay wide
awake for hours, though his eyes smarted with tiredness, and worried over the letters and what to do about them.
In the convent, where the only hint that you were still a member of the human race was a glimpse of sky, or occasionally, when pegging the laundry out in the garden, smelling the fresh air while carefully guarded by one of the nuns, days had no meaning. One slid into the other effortlessly, punctuated only by Sundays.
When Celia told Lizzie some girls stayed for years and some never got out at all, she began to score her hobnailed boots on the underside of the wooden palette she slept on: six notches for the days of the week and a long line through them for Sunday. So she knew she was in her third week when Millie had her first pains. ‘Is it the baby?’ Lizzie asked, going over to the girl’s bed when she heard the groans. ‘The bedroom door is locked until morning.’
‘That’s all right,’ Millie panted, breathless with pain. ‘I’ll not want the nuns to know yet awhile.’
‘You’re right,’ another agreed. ‘Hang on as long as you can,’ and in explanation went on to Lizzie, ‘They just use it as an excuse to point out what a sinner you are. There is no attempt to make it easier for you. Pain’s good for the soul, they say.’
‘Pity they don’t suffer a lorry-load of it then,’ put in a girl called Freda. ‘For their souls must be as black as pitch keeping us cooped up like this.’
‘Ah,’ said a girl named Dot, ‘but they’d have to do the monkey business first.’
‘D’you think they don’t want to?’
‘Aye, that’s what’s the matter with them.’
‘Maybe the priest would do the necessary.’
‘He’d be delighted, the dirty old bastard,’ a girl said with feeling. ‘He’d like to do it with the lot of us, if he had the bottle.’
Lizzie was shocked at such talk about a priest. She resented Father Brady for whisking her away from her home the way he had, but this was dirty talk, and about a man of God.
The lights were turned on so that they could see Millie properly and Celia caught sight of Lizzie’s face. ‘Oh, our little Pansy is disgusted with us, so she is. She thinks we’re making all this up. She pressed her face close to Lizzie’s and said, ‘I tell you, you might get your eyes opened yet. Wait till he asks you to wait behind sometime in the sacristy.’
‘What does he do?’
‘You’ll find out, and I wouldn’t spoil it for you by telling you.’
Some of the girls laughed nervously, while others wore a mask of misery, and Lizzie wondered what other horrors were in store for her in that place.
But there was little time to worry about it now, for Millie’s contractions had become stronger and closer together and she clasped the hands of the girls closest to her, her nails scoring into them when the peak of the contraction was reached, and she writhed in the bed and moaned. Cora watched her, knowing in a few days, maybe a week, it would be her turn.
Lizzie remembered the old midwife she had helping her when Niamh was born who’d told her the pain of childbirth was forgotten when the child is in your arms. She’d been in agony and hadn’t believed a word of it. However, she’d found it to be true. It had faded from her mind as she looked at the perfect little person she’d helped create, and when the baby’s rooting mouth found Lizzie’s nipple she’d felt utter contentment.
But none at the convent would have that consolation, including her, but she’d had two children already so maybe she’d find it a little easier. For these girls it would be hard and painful and the last thing any woman in labour wants is being berated when they are at their most vulnerable.
All through the long night, the girls took turns to stay with Millie, holding her hand, soothing her, one using the flannel from the bathroom to wipe her gleaming face, and when the bell eventually shrilled out and the girls reluctantly left Millie and began to dress by their beds, Celia said to Lizzie, ‘That’s the last kind word or kind act she will know.’
And it seemed she was right. Certainly, Sister Mary, who was in charge of the dormitory, was totally lacking in any compassion. ‘Get up,’ she said to the painravaged girl. ‘Stop making such a fuss and go down to the infirmary.’
Too scared to disobey, Millie swung her legs over the bed and tried to stand on them. She’d gone two paces when a pain doubled her over and she felt the whoosh as her waters gushed from her.
The nun was outraged. ‘Look at the mess, and all over the floor,’ she railed at the girl who’d collapsed in a heap onto the wet floor. ‘Two of you stay behind and clean this up and two more might as well help the girl down to the infirmary.’
Lizzie and Celia were the two chosen to clean the bedroom, and as they collected mops and buckets from the store cupboard, Lizzie whispered, ‘Is it right what you said about Father Conroy last night?’
‘Aye.’
‘But what does he do?’
‘I told you, you’ll find out,’ Celia said. ‘But whatever he does, never say a word about it and don’t complain.’
‘Why not?’ Lizzie said. ‘If he should behave improperly…’
‘Listen to me,’ Celia hissed. ‘This isn’t the real world here and normal rules don’t apply. This is a world of priests and nuns and filth and depravity. It’s a world where power over others is the most important thing. The minute you walk in here, you lose any basic rights you might have had or thought you had. We had a girl in here once who complained and she was taken away one night and we never heard of her again.’ Celia gave a sudden shiver and said, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget her screams.’
‘But where did she go?’
Celia shrugged. ‘People said to the asylum. Wherever she went, I imagine it was worse than this place. By Christ, just think of that and don’t let the same thing happen to you.’
There was no doubting Celia’s words, no doubting the passion or sincerity, and it chilled Lizzie to the marrow. She still believed in God, though. What these people did was not in the name of Jesus. He was a God of Love, surely, and didn’t he forgive sinners—even Mary Magdalene—and what of the prostitute the town people had wanted to stone.
Did they ever think of that, she wondered, or were they so puffed up with the idea of their own importance that they thought all their actions justified? They were more malicious and vicious than anyone she’d ever had dealings with, and that included her mother-in-law By God, she was just an apprentice troublemaker when you measured her up against these nuns.
‘Help me, Father,’ Lizzie prayed earnestly in her bed that night. ‘You are the only one who can, for here we have no rights at all, as Celia pointed out. Protect me, Jesus, from this priest.’ But she didn’t feel comforted and wondered for the first time if there was a God, and if he was prepared to listen to her if he did exist, and her dreams when she eventually dropped off were punctuated with terrifying nightmares.
The next day, they found out Millie had had a baby boy. There was no joyful announcement, no congratulations, just the bold statement that Millie was well and would be joining them in the dormitory in a few days. ‘Bully for Millie,’ Celia whispered in Lizzie’s ear as they sat in the refectory having breakfast. ‘I bet she can hardly wait.’
Aye, I bet, Lizzie thought, but she said nothing for Celia’s words, soft as they were, had brought the nun’s head swinging round to scrutinise them, although she wasn’t sure where the sound had come from. Lizzie had learnt that in the convent it was safer to keep your head lowered. If you were forced to lift it, if they demanded it, you fixed your gaze on a point above their head and you kept it there. So now she studied her feet on the polished floor.
Eventually, the nun, rapped out, ‘Now we will say Grace, to thank the Good Lord for his bounty,’ and though Lizzie mumbled the prayer she couldn’t help feeling she’d be a lot more thankful if she’d had the rashers and eggs that she’d seen carried behind the nun’s screen, and the smell of bacon rose in the air, tantalising them as they ate their lumpy porridge.
Five days later, Cora announ
ced she’d begun her labour by collapsing in the laundry room just after they began work. Millie hadn’t returned as she was still lying in, and Cora was taken to an adjoining room. By teatime, Cora’s screams could be heard reverberating off the walls. ‘They’ll kill her, behaving like that,’ Celia hissed as she and Lizzie worked the mangle together. ‘They’re not above giving you a slap if you make a fuss.’
Slap or not, the screams went on, even in the chapel, though it was fainter there. By bedtime, Cora was crying for her mother, the Blessed Virgin, the Living God, and tears for the girl so filled Lizzie’s eyes she could hardly see what she ate, and the lump in her throat made it hard to swallow and her stomach was tied in knots. Others besides herself looked equally miserable. No one said a word then, but later in the dormitory, with the door locked and bolted, Freda said, ‘She was terrified anyway and small wonder in this place. I mean, it’s a frightening enough thing if you have your man by your side and a neighbour woman in attendance who has done it many times before, knows what she’s doing and is doing all she can to help you.’
‘Aye, and you know she’ll have a doctor look at you if she’s at all worried.’
‘Do you have no doctor at all?’ Lizzie asked.
‘There’s one in the village,’ Celia said. ‘You’d have to be on death’s door to see one, and I mean it literally.’
‘Aye, Sister Clement trained as a nurse. They think what she can do is enough and that only basic medical intervention is suitable for ones such as us.’
‘Aye, and when did she train? The year dot, I bet’.
‘God knows. It’s a wonder she doesn’t prescribe leeches for everyone, whatever ails them,’ Celia said.
‘Christ, will you be quiet and stop giving them ideas.’