A Liverpool Girl

by Elizabeth Morton

  There was a silence. ‘You look nice,’ Violet said, changing the subject suddenly. Babby tutted. She regretted the outfit, but it was the only thing she had been able to find that fitted her, an old flounced tea dress of Violet’s made from a Butterick pattern that she had discovered in the bottom of the wardrobe under a layer of tissue paper. The frilled bodice disguised her full breasts, but her curves made it ride up her smooth thighs and she thought she looked like one of the dock road prozzies. She didn’t respond and Violet grew angry again. ‘Look Babby, like I said. This is the only place for you for now—’

  ‘And Callum? Finding him.’

  ‘How on earth are we going to find Callum? It’s impossible – you’re impossible. Even if we did know, would we just walk up to his house, knock on the door and ask him, come home? Marry Babby? You read his letters.’

  Babby sighed. ‘We can go to the port. I bet they have a list of all the English people who boarded ships bound for Italy. I bet they have names and everything. Great big books of names. I could ring them. Tell them I’m coming.’

  ‘No!’ Violet shouted. ‘Stop talking so daft. What’s wrong with you?’ she asked, putting her head in her hands and pressing her temples.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ echoed Babby, thinking that she had no real idea where Callum was, that she hated it that Violet didn’t seem to be able to stop drinking despite her sporadic announcements of abstinence, that she felt sick all the time – and her mother was asking what was wrong with her. It was laughable.

  Babby sighed again. She saw the desolation in her mother’s face and Violet, in turn, saw Babby desperately hoping that finding Callum and having this baby might be the answer to all her problems. She went into her pocket and brought out a handkerchief, offered it to Babby who had begun to sniffle again.

  ‘Babby, I only want what is the best for you. I always have,’ she said.

  But Babby decided that, given the present circumstances, Violet was not to be trusted.

  Finally, after passing three stations adorned with hanging basket flower arrangements – that was when you knew you had truly left the city of Liverpool behind – then chugging on through the sand dunes stretching towards the stick-like pinewoods, past the rifle range and the gun site with the sound of shots popping in the distance, past the Victorian red-brick power station looming out of the marshes, beyond the sewage works with the pungent smells that forced themselves even through the closed windows, they reached Waterloo and then Freshdale. Remembering Pauline’s little house and Saint Hilda’s, Babby thought back wistfully to a less eventful time in her life. How unhappy she thought she had been then. And now this. They had reached their stop. Not even the ticket collectors bothered to turn up here, it was so quiet.

  ‘Come on, love. You must just see this as part of life’s journey.’

  ‘But I want the baby and Callum to be part of the journey.’

  A sob rose to her throat.

  Violet put down her bag. She hugged her, pushed a piece of hair behind Babby’s ear, allowed her hand to rest on her cheek.

  Babby continued, ‘And if I give the baby away to the nuns? Will I never see it … him, her … again?’

  ‘That’s generally how it works.’

  Babby began to tremble. Clacking their rosary beads all the way to hell, she thought. Her mother had said this once, and she knew now that she was right.

  Violet took her hand and Babby heard her swallow in her throat. ‘I don’t want people talking about you, love. Your bump will begin to show soon and I don’t want them talking the way they talk about me – oh, I know they do. People can be cruel. I want them to think of you as a good girl. We can make this problem go away. We should be grateful for the sisters who have said they will help. It’s best Callum doesn’t know.’

  Babby shifted from one foot to another.

  ‘You’re different to me. You’re talented and bright as a button. You can be better than me. Is that too much for a mother to ask? Isn’t that would any mother would want?’ said Violet.

  The train disappeared, towards where it would eventually reach the end of the line at Southport with its beaches that never saw the tide come in and the pier stranded ignominiously on its spindly seaweed- and barnacle-encrusted legs, from where the train would then head back towards Liverpool and the docks. A forlorn Violet and Babby stood for a moment, gazing up and down the platform aimlessly. Babby was carrying a heavy carpet bag which contained a few changes of clothes, a nightdress, spare shoes, and a toothbrush.

  They looked at the scrawled map that Babby had made before they left and set off down Virgin’s Lane – that’s a joke, thought Babby, darkly – walking as fast as they could past the mansions and nursing homes, past Saint Sylvester’s orphanage – Saint Sillys as it was known, though there was nothing silly about that place – and eventually reaching the building looming up out of the scraggly pinewoods at the bottom of a potholed road that led to the beach. Saint Jude’s – a draughty, leaky Edwardian mansion, with its mock Gothic turrets, gables, and vaulted windows. A thought came to Babby that she puzzled over. She had a memory once of coming here with her Aunty Pauline and her father, delivering wilting flowers and teddy bears from a child’s funeral to the nuns. Babby said nothing to her mother but she wondered, what would her father have thought of this? Kathleen? Pat? How big a secret was it? It occurred to her, had Violet lied earlier on the train when she said he knew nothing about this? Did he have any part in sending her here? She was certain her brother loved her, just as she did him, but did he really think this was for the best? Surely not if he could see this place. She kept the thought to herself.

  All this was running through her mind as they approached the building that was set off the road with a rose garden laid out in circular beds, a large pram in the front porch, and a red-painted door with a brass knocker. Babby clutched her mother’s hand and Violet, for once, looked scared.

  ‘I want to go home. Please don’t leave me here, Mam,’ Babby hissed, as the gate clanged behind her. She worried that the noise may have alerted the nuns to their arrival. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Oh love, chin up …’

  ‘I don’t like it here!’ said Babby, grabbing on to Violet’s sleeve. She felt she was going to cry. Then suddenly, she gasped. ‘Look,’ she said, hopping from foot to foot. Beyond the hollyhocks which grew in clumps on the edges of the front lawn, she pointed past the low wall, past the stone fountain, past the cement crucifix. None of these registered. She was pointing at the statue of Saint Theresa of Lisieux, stuck into the ground at an angle, a stone bench beside it. It was exactly the same one as at Saint Hilda’s. A tremor jolted through Babby’s body like electricity. She yanked Violet towards her.

  ‘Please don’t make me! That’s a bad sign. It’s the same statue as Saint Hilda’s and the nuns at Saint Hilda’s were horrible.’ She was twisting the belt of her dress, winding it tightly around a purpling finger.

  ‘What do you mean? I can’t see a statue.’

  ‘Behind the hollyhocks. You can’t miss her. She’s got a stump for a hand …’

  ‘Don’t be foolish,’ said Violet.

  Babby couldn’t stop herself from walking across the lawn towards it. She stood before it and shuddered. That settled it. Saint Jude’s was a bad idea. And she had to think of a plan.

  Chapter Thirty

  An hour later, they were sitting in Sister Agnes’s office drinking weak tea with grey sludge on the surface and clinging to the sides of the cup, and trying to avoid staring at the small carving of Jesus whose legs were buckling under the weight of a crucifix, next to the plate of garibaldi biscuits. Babby cast her eyes round, glancing into the corridor through a door that had been left slightly ajar, darting from the Child of Prague on the mantelpiece to another of Jesus proudly displaying his weeping wounds in an alcove; from the obligatory framed print of the Last Supper on the wall, to an empty holy water font nailed beside the door. Violet tried to settle into an old suite made of brown
corduroy, hidden by loose covers of flowery stretch nylon, some of which had slipped off at the corners and curled up around the edges, showing frayed brown patches underneath. There was a three-bar electric fire with moulded plastic logs and living-flame effect provided by an orange light bulb, quite the modern thing, a nest of teak tables, a chrome drinks trolley with an empty bottle of milk on it, two more small crucifixes and a tatty bookcase groaning with hymnals, Bibles, prayer books, and copies of the National Geographic magazine. An ornate wooden wireless was tucked away into the corner.

  ‘Now, child, there’s no need for you to tell us why you’re here. We have been through this with your mother. You understand what will happen? We will take care of you and you will help us with the domestic chores until your time, and we will arrange for your baby to be adopted. Despite what you might have heard, the babies from Saint Jude’s go to loving homes and will have a much better future than you can offer. You understand that, child?’

  Father O’Casey, who was also present, had already come to the house and talked and talked about God looking after Babby and cherishing her child, saying that this was a gift and her burden would leave her exalted, so she didn’t want to go into that again, and she just nodded briefly. Violet gave a tight, worried smile.

  ‘So, all we need you to do is sign these forms.’ Sister Agnes pushed papers and a pen across the table to her. Babby hesitated, looked to her mother for reassurance.

  ‘Go on, love,’ said Violet. ‘It’s just a formality.’

  Babby took the pen with a quivering hand, considered flinging it across the room, but instead wrote with spidery, sloping words, her name, age, and address. Sister Agnes told Violet, gently, that she should probably leave. She said that there should be no contact for three weeks so that Babby could get herself into some kind of routine. When Violet began to cry and blame herself for what had happened, Sister Agnes told her that, as so often in these case, she felt that the fault lay at the door of the young man and that Violet was being too hard on herself; she wasn’t to blame for this and should direct her rage at this Callum boy. It didn’t help much. Violet sat there weeping, mumbling that if it hadn’t been for Jack’s death this wouldn’t have happened. The nun asked, ‘Who’s Jack?’ but Violet just shook her head and cried some more.

  ‘Now, now,’ said the nun. ‘We know how lively Babby is, bit of a flibbertygibbet.’ And Father O’Casey smiled and said that was about right, and Violet added again that if Jack had been here they wouldn’t be in this mess. He would have known what to do. Violet sniffed and decided Sister Agnes was a good woman. From where she was standing, anyhow. Babby, though, was angry and frightened and longing for Violet to take her home.

  Violet exchanged a tearful goodbye with Babby and promised she would visit her in three weeks. Everyone agreed it was for the best. Biscuits had been eaten, tea drunk – at least by the sister and Father O’Casey – and now it was up to Babby to make the best of it.

  ‘We need you to take off your clothes and wash in the bathroom down the corridor. Follow me,’ said a nun, who came into the room the minute Violet left.

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ replied Babby.

  They set off up a flight of stairs and along a corridor. The nun opened a door at the end of it. There was a sink and a bath full of cold, used water with a skein of grease on it. Babby shivered at the thought of it clinging to her skin and getting under her nails and between her toes. More alarmingly, the bath had a lid on it, a wooden board with hinges in the middle. It was folded back in half but the nun told her she should fold it over so it covered her, with just her head and shoulders poking out from the end, presumably so no one could see her naked when she washed, or indeed so she wouldn’t see herself, and be distracted by lustful or narcissistic thoughts. Babby, however, suspected some of those nuns liked a good look – and by the way the nun lingered at the door and watched her undress, she was probably right.

  Ten minutes later, when she had lowered herself into the cold bath, the door was flung open and Sister Agnes stood there with a freezing pail of water, ready to pour it over her head.

  ‘Deep breath,’ she said. She came towards her and Babby felt the ice-cold water splashing against her back as the nun tipped the bucket. It was so cold it felt like shards of glass sticking into her flesh.

  ‘Don’t make a fuss, dear,’ said the nun. ‘Now, out you get.’

  She stood against the door and watched Babby as she got out of the bath, water dripping from her body as she stood on the stone floor.

  ‘Here,’ she said, giving her a shift dress, and told her to dry herself with a thin piece of fraying linen, and dress.

  After that she was led to the dining room, where she sat on her own at the end of a long table, and had soup which was also grey and cold, like the bathwater, and bread that was stale and tinged blue around the edges. From there the nun took her down yet another long corridor, but not before she took her into an alcove and made her get on her knees in front of the statue of Our Lady and pray for forgiveness. ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,’ she said, instructing Babby to beat her chest, watching over her and wondering why she wasn’t crying for her sins.

  Father O’Casey might have been kind, Sister Agnes stern, but Sister Benigna had cold fish eyes and a mean mouth, and a look so fierce it seemed she could strike the fear of God into you with one glance.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked, joining Sister Agnes at the alcove.

  ‘Babby.’

  ‘What kind of a name is that? That’s not one of God’s names. Where in the Holy Bible is Saint Babby? Anyway, in here we don’t use real names. You will be called Marie until you leave.’

  From a door at the end of the corridor that squeaked open, she heard one of the girls that she hadn’t yet met, but knew were in the dormitories where she would be sleeping that night, sniggering. Were they laughing at her?

  ‘Babby’s not my real name,’ she said. She was sure that the nun could sense the waves of fear that shuddered through her body.

  ‘Not my real name, Sister. Show some respect, girl. Now, Saint Ursula. One of the Holy Virgins. She bore the world’s sin on her shoulders and she never complained. Indeed, she got her head chopped off for it. That’s the thanks she got. Wasn’t going to let any filthy man’s hands stain her virgin soul.’

  ‘Yes, sister.’

  ‘If we could all be like Saint Ursula … You know, Saint Ursula was mortal. But she resisted the temptations of the flesh. You’re not born a saint, you become one, do you understand?’

  ‘You mean I could become a saint?’

  ‘Don’t be idiotic, girl. You! You’re a little whore!’

  Babby flinched at the word. It was hurtful and cruel and she knew then it would always sadden her to hear it because she would remember this moment. That was the first time Sister Benigna cursed her. And Babby, hard and determined, decided it would be the last.

  The dormitories were long, draughty rooms with about twenty beds in each. Some of the girls were heavily pregnant, some not showing, like Babby. Their hunched bodies were covered with thin sheets. There was a skylight, and windows that had ill-fitting frames and rattled when the wind blew. The noise was terrible. Groaning, coughing, but mostly sighing and sniffling. Feeling as alone as she had ever been in her life, Babby fell asleep that night at nine thirty, mostly because she was exhausted. But an hour later, at ten thirty, she was woken by a clanging bell.

  ‘Chapel,’ said the girl in the bed next to hers.

  ‘At this time?’ asked Babby. ‘I’m half asleep.’

  The girl turned. A slice of light fell on her and it was the long red curtains of limp hair that Baby recognised first. She gasped. ‘Frying Pan!’

  ‘Oh my God! Is it Babby? From Saint Hilda’s?’

  ‘Yes! What are you doing here?’ asked Babby.

  ‘Same as you, most likely,’ said Frying Pan.

  Babby smiled. Frying Pan was grinning. ‘Couple of eejits, us two. Getting knocked up,’
she said, indicating her heavily pregnant stomach.

  Babby nodded.

  ‘What happened to your fella? Couldn’t get him to marry you?’

  ‘Something like that,’ answered Babby, sadly. ‘And you? When did you get married?’ she said, indicating the ring on Frying Pan’s finger.

  ‘This, love? This is from Woolies. The nuns make us wear wedding rings. They might give you a curtain ring if there’s not enough to go round. No, my fella was married already. Though he does still love me and we will get married one day. Just the bloody baby that’s the problem. Don’t get me wrong, sure and I would love this baby – just me and Declan have a bigger love. The Cause. Ireland. One Ireland. You know what I mean, Babby?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Babby, not quite sure, but supposing it was something to do with her being Irish.

  ‘Bloody hell hole, this place. Makes Hilda’s seem like a holiday camp. It’s the praying that gets you down. Not only prayers at the beginning and end of each chore, the laundry, peeling the potatoes, the coal sacks – and there are at least ten chores a day, so that makes twenty novenas, plus the Angelus and grace and Holy Intentions. But the list goes on if it’s say also the month of the Sacred Heart. And there are so many feast days and saints days – Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Boniface, the First Martyrs of the See of Rome – and any excuse to get us pure means these Masses seem to take place every week. It’s a wonder we don’t all top ourselves.’

  ‘Frying Pan, what’s your real name?’ asked Babby. ‘You told me once, but I can’t remember.’

  ‘Mary,’ she replied. ‘But the nuns said I had to use me confirmation name. You’ll have to have a new name an’ all. In here, I’m Theresa.’

  ‘I’ll call you Mary. I’m supposed to be Marie.’

  ‘Well, I’ll call you Babby, so I will.’

  Babby would find out later that night about Mary’s big love – and her lover. In the meantime, she put her feet into her slippers and followed another girl out. Collette was her name, she told her, and they walked in file to the small chapel off the corridor with statues of Jesus pointing at his bleeding heart, genuflecting at each of the Virgin Mary images in the alcoves. When they entered the chapel, the warmth hit Babby – a carefully designed conceit to make the place seem more welcoming than the draughty dormitories and cold corridors. In one of the pews an old nun sat weaving a pair of rosary beads through her fingers. Babby was told to sit next to her and she could hear her lisping her Hail Marys. ‘Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God …’ There was a general shuffling and shoving and sniffling as they took their places in the pews.