They could all tell that Tina would far prefer to stay with them than go with the nun.
“Come along, Tina! I’m moving you to the mothers’ room on the next floor. Rita, you help me walk her down.”
They all chorused, “Good luck,” wishing her well, Sister Gabriel switching off the light. “You ladies had best get back to sleep. You’ve to work in the morning!”
Esther fell asleep listening to the others talk, telling all kinds of horror stories about childbirth. She had yet to tell that she had already helped to deliver a baby. That was something else she intended to keep secret.
Never did a day pass so slowly. Even kind Sister Jo-Jo had lost patience with them and their constant questions about Tina. “There’s work to be done!” she kept repeating.
“She’s not even sixteen yet.” Detta sighed. “The poor creature, and her childhood gone already!”
Esther scrubbed at the collars of shirts belonging to a gentleman named D. V. Pimm. Bernice and Joan were just up from her at one of the huge sinks, bleaching bundles of hospital sheets and towels. The fumes of the peroxide tore at her throat and eyes, making them water. “Is this what you use on your hair, Bernice?” jeered Joan, an overweight, pudding-faced girl from the midlands.
Bernice stopped, running her fingers through her dyed blonde hair, the roots now showing black. “What did you say?”
“You heard me!” Joan smirked. “This is the stuff all the scrubbers use!”
Grabbing a cup, Bernice took a measure of bleach-soaked water from the sink and flung it, soaking the other girl’s mouse-coloured hair.
“You bloody madwoman!” screamed Joan, grabbing hold of the towels and sheets, trying to stop the stinging water from dripping down on to her eyes and face.
Esther ran to help and see what she could do.
Bernice and Joan tried to continue their fight, skirmishing across the floor, Joan pushing the pregnant Bernice against the sink. “I’ll kill you!” she threatened, sticking her elbow into Bernice’s side.
“Joan O’Connor, I’m fed up with this carry-on,” roared the small nun, pulling the girls apart. “Sister Vincent and Sister Gabriel will hear of this. If you can’t be civil and behave with your workmates then you’ll have to work on your own at the mending and repairs with Sister Vincent. Hopefully it will quieten that temper of yours!” Nobody wanted to work with the weasel-like Sister Vincent. “Bernice! You’re to work on pressing for the rest of the week and will lose all privileges.”
“That’s not fair!” argued Bernice. She would not be allowed to use the recreation room and would miss her turn for having a bath and washing her hair.
Watching through the narrow barred windows that overlooked the courtyard, Esther saw two pretty girls drive up almost to the back door in a polished grey Austin, their laughter sounding right across the yard. How she envied them their smart clothes, stylish hairstyle and pointy shoes! Giggling, they pulled a heavy laundry basket from the boot of the car.
“Run out and give them a hand, Esther!” called the nun. “It’s the O’Reilly sisters.”
“This thing weighs a ton!” One of the girls grinned, pulling the basket in her direction. They all pulled and shoved at the handles, trying to slide and drag the heavy load across the cobbles and through the doorway.
“There you are!” called the taller girl. “We missed the laundry van so Daddy told us to deliver it ourselves.”
“That’s fine, miss,” replied Esther, suddenly ashamed of how she looked, the damp patches on the front of her dress and her bare feet. “I’ll manage it now.”
The younger one insisted on helping her pull it the rest of the way on to the tiled floor. “It’s the laundry for O’Reilly’s. We have the hotel out in Bray, on the seafront.”
Esther nodded. “I’ll put it in the book, miss. It’ll be done as quick as possible.”
“That’s fine! Thank you.” The older one smirked, pulling her sister back outside.
Esther pushed the basket along the floor. She’d sort it out in a few minutes.
“Did you see that one?”
“Who?”
“The poor Maggie!”
“She’s about the same age as you, Eileen. Imagine getting yourself into trouble like that! Mother and Father would kill us if it happened.”
“They’re all just sluts and prostitutes, God help them!”
Gripping the edge of the basket, Esther had to resist the impulse to fly out and grab the older girl by her pale pink cardigan and kick and punch her. She watched enviously as they climbed into their car and drove away. She knew she must look a sight in her overall and her hair now cut to above her shoulders and side-parted like everyone else’s; to them she was just another Maggie. But what did they know about anything?
She checked off the list and was kept busy sorting bundles of filthy clothes for the afternoon: semen-stained sheets, soiled baby clothes and the used sanitary napkins from a girls’ boarding school on the outskirts of Dublin. In the early afternoon a white ambulance drew up outside the convent. They all tried to peer out: perhaps one of the elderly nuns was ill.
“‘Tis Tina!”
“Stop gawping!” snapped Sister Josepha. “Sister Gabriel is transferring her to the National Maternity Hospital. She is in some difficulty with the baby.”
“She’s far too young to be having a baby!” declared Kathleen. “How could some fellah go and get her in the family way!”
“By Christ I’d kill the man that put his mickey inside that little girl!” swore Bernice in her strong Dublin accent. “I’d bleeding kill him!”
The nun pretended to look shocked, but they could all tell that her sympathy lay with young Tina.
At teatime the news spread around the refectory that Tina had been delivered in Holles Street, of a stillborn boy, by Caesarean section.
“Is Tina all right?” Maura had enquired from Sister Gabriel.
The nun had refused to give any information on the young girl’s condition, telling Maura to sit down and attend to her own business. Maura had returned to the table beetroot-red with embarrassment. The women considered her a spokesman on their behalf and she knew the nun had taken pleasure in rebutting and demeaning her in front of them all.
“That poor little girl!” Detta sighed. “Poor Tina.”
“‘Tis God’s will and Nature’s way that the child was taken,” murmured Maura. “Tina’s already had more than her fair share to contend with.”
That night the nuns made no mention of the young girl or her dead child in their prayers.
Chapter Eighteen
Tina returned from the hospital about ten days later. She looked skinnier than ever, her hair caught up in short bunches on the side of her head. Esther had really missed her. She joined them in the huge refectory at teatime, making no mention of the baby or what had happened. They each murmured how sorry they were, Esther barely able to say the words. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if her baby died. Tina had kept on buttering the stale-looking soda bread, piling runny scrambled egg on top of it as if nothing had happened.
The doctors had forbidden any heavy work, so she was assigned to help in the kitchen with Ina Brady, setting the tables and washing-up. Twice Tina had fainted at mass and Sister Gabriel had actually sanctioned her not rising too early, and having a later breakfast for the moment. “The Lord will understand,” was all the nun would be drawn to say.
Even when they were on their own Tina made it clear to Esther that she didn’t want to talk about what had happened in the hospital, and made no mention of the baby or its father. “Jasus, Esther! I want to forget it. He wasn’t a proper baby, not really.”
Perplexed, Esther agreed, no longer making any mention of it at all, glad to see that the colour had returned to Tina’s cheeks and she had begun to lose that haunted look that clung to her childish face, and was almost back to her chatty self. Tina would gossip about everybody else in the place and told endless stories of growing up in Dublin’s Libe
rties and its narrow rows of houses, on top of each other, and the grand tenement building she lived in, surrounded by neighbours and all the local children. “Janey Mac, Esther, they’d drive you crazy, always in and out to each other and the childer fighting and playing games till it’s dark out in the street, and all the mammies screaming for them to “come to bleedin’ bed!’” Esther knew how much Tina loved and missed her home, no matter what it was like. “I miss the kids something terrible,” she complained.
Esther in turn missed the peace and tranquillity and wide-open spaces of Carraig Beag, the sound of the sea, the constant turn of the tide and the shifting of the sand, the lone cry of a gull buffeted by the sea-breezes, the smell of the ocean …
One Sunday they’d all been sitting in the recreation room with a novice called Sister Goretti, who was endeavouring to get the women to sing a selection of hymns. She normally worked in the orphanage and had been sent over to teach them songs that they would sing at a special All Souls mass that the parish priest was saying for them. The Maggies were for the most part being obstreperous, deliberately singing off key and mixing up the words, which was making the Sister’s pretty face flush with annoyance. “Come on now, girls, I know you can do better!”
They all liked Sister Goretti, and often wondered how in God’s name such a pretty young woman had ended up joining a convent. Bernice and Rita had surmised she must have had a broken romance and been jilted at the altar, for what else could have persuaded her to join the order? Only the young ones from the orphanage sang properly, their sweet voices filling the room.
Sister Margaretta had appeared all flustered at the door. “Is Sister Gabriel here?”
“She’s upstairs having a rest.”
“Run up and get her straight away, Goretti, tell her I need her urgently.”
The older nun glanced around the room quickly before slamming the door and disappearing back across to the entrance hall. It wasn’t often they got to see the nuns running around. Goretti returned with Sister Gabriel racing along the corridor, her habit flying behind her. Despite the singing they could all hear raised voices and shouting coming from the visitors’ parlour.
Fifteen minutes later Sister Gabriel opened the door.
“Excuse me, Sister, but I have to ask Tina to come and join me. She has a visitor.”
“Janey Mackers, there’s someone come to see me.” Tina grinned, getting to her feet.
Through the open door Esther got a glance of the bowsie-looking man who had managed to free himself from the nun and was trying to enter the recreation room. He was drunk and, spotting Tina, pulled her towards him the minute he saw her.
“Daddy!” she wailed, the two of them falling into each other’s arms. Father and daughter were alike, thought Esther, both having the same almost ink-black hair and buck teeth.
“Please, Mr. Hegarty! Wait in the parlour, you must wait there!” remonstrated Sister Gabriel, her expression filled with utter contempt.
“I’ll thank you not to interfere, Sister. This is between me and Tina. A father’s entitled to see his daughter, you know!” Tina stood between them.
“I’ve come to take her home, Sister. The family need her.”
“Your daughter is in our care, Mr. Hegarty. I must remind you that she is under-age.”
“I don’t give a shite about that! She’s my child and I’ve come to take her home. None of youse are going to stop me!”
“She’s not well.”
“I don’t bleeding care. I’m taking her out of this place!” he said, grabbing at Tina’s arm.
“I absolutely forbid this, Mr. Hegarty. Tina is settled here,” said the nun, grabbing hold of Tina too, the two of them beginning a tug-of-war. “I’ll go to the authorities and get an order against you, if I have to,” threatened the nun.
Tina began to wail. “I want to go home! I hate this bleedin’ place! Don’t let them make me stay here, Daddy!”
“Youse have nothing! I can take my child out of here if I want to, and no nuns nor bishops or the Pope himself can stop me!” he declared grandiosely.
“Then there is nothing I can say or do to stop you, Mr. Hegarty. It’s a pity that you didn’t show more consideration to your daughter before this, or even visit her in Holles Street when she lost her child.”
“That’s none of your business!” He sprang forward as if he were going to punch the nun who towered above him.
A look of pure disgust flitted across her face. “Tina, go upstairs and pack your things, if that’s what you want.”
Reluctantly Mr. Hegarty agreed to wait in the parlour, Sister Margaretta standing guard at the door, while Tina went upstairs to the dormitory to pack her few items of clothes.
Esther couldn’t understand it. She’d really miss Tina, but if going home was what she really wanted, then the nuns had no right to stop her. Sister Gabriel stood aloof and angry in the hallway when Tina came back downstairs.
“You don’t have to go, Tina. You can stay here with us,” suggested Sister Margaretta, uselessly trying to change the girl’s mind. “Your father can’t force you to go with him.”
“I know, Sister. It’s just that I want to go! I want to go home and see my little brothers and sisters again. I really miss them!”
“Come on, Tina girl!” cajoled her father. “The nuns don’t own you! They’d have you slaving away here in the laundry for the rest of your days if they had their way.”
“How dare you, Mr. Hegarty!”
“Sssh, Daddy! I’ll be fine, Sister Gabriel, honest. Things will be different this time. The young ones need me; Daddy can’t manage them.”
Maura and Sheila had pushed their way out into the hallway. “Listen, Tina love!” pleaded Maura, rushing up to her, catching hold of her hand. “Do what Sister says! Stay here, you’ll be safe!”
“He’ll be at you, lovey, the minute you get home!” warned Sheila. “Leopards don’t change their spots, no matter what promises they make!”
Tina pretended not to hear them as she pulled on an ill-fitting red coat, her father steering her in the direction of the hall door.
“Take care of yourself, Tina!” called the group from inside.
“Best of luck, Tina!” shouted Esther.
“Thank you, Sister Gabriel.” The nun drew back as Tina tried to shake her hand, nodding to Sister Margaretta to open the door, her eyes gleaming furiously as the stocky figure of Jackie Hegarty led his daughter out of the Holy Saints Convent and down the driveway. The rest of them shouted and waved goodbye. Sister Gabriel didn’t even bother to chastise them; turning her pale, marble-like countenance to them she only sighed, before climbing the stairs back to her room.
“Isn’t it well for Tina,” declared Helen, one of the orphanage girls, enviously, “having her daddy come and take her out of this place!”
“Shut up, you!” rounded Sheila disdainfully. “What would you know about it?”
“Well, I hope things go well for her too,” added Esther.
“Jesus, Esther! Are you some class of an eejit or what?” She hadn’t a clue what they were going on about. “‘Twas Tina’s daddy put her in the family way. Didn’t you know that?” said Maura sarcastically.
Esther blushed. God almighty! She’d never heard the like of it.
“I’ll split that bastard if he lays one more hand on that little girl. What kind of a man is he at all, sneaking into his child’s bed!”
Esther felt sick to her stomach thinking of what Tina had endured. No wonder the nuns and the rest of them wanted her to stay in the laundry. No matter how hellish they all thought it, at least it was safe. Esther knew the others considered her a “country girl,” unwise in the ways of the world and a big city like Dublin. Down home she had never heard of such a thing, never heard speak of it; yet here in the city awful things happened. Thinking about Tina would break your heart if you let it.
Sister Gabriel O’Sullivan walked slowly back up the stairs. From the landing window she caught a last glance at t
he child Tina walking through the gates with that father of hers. She’d be back. Next year or the year after, pregnant once again, looking for their help and charity. The next time she’d send her down to their home in the midlands, where her father wouldn’t be able to find her and drag her home. Kneeling down by the side of her bed, she prayed. She had failed in her duty to the young girl. She should have been able to protect her from the likes of Jack Hegarty. She asked the Lord for strength to carry on her work with these feeble, fallen Magdalen women.
Chapter Nineteen
The Maggies loved Saturday evenings, when the work was finally done and the laundry locked. “There’s a dance night on the wireless tonight, Esther; we’re all going to stay up and listen to it!” announced Sheila. “Will ya stay up too?”
“I’m tired.” Esther felt exhausted. She’d only finished in the steam room at six-thirty, almost missing her tea.
“Holy God, Esther, don’t be getting all mopey on us!” warned Rita. “What would you country girls normally do of a Saturday night?”
“Go dancing!” they all screamed in unison.
There was a rush for the toilets and odds and ends of make-up were found and shared, even Detta putting blusher on her cheeks and a smidgin of lipstick on her mouth, Esther brushing her hair till it shone and coating her long eyelashes with mascara. The recreation room filled up, all the Maggies sitting around on chairs listening to the wireless, the volume turned as high as it would go.
“We’ll pretend that we’re at the Metropole, having a dance and the time of our life with a gang of gorgeous fellahs,” joked Bernice.
As the music swelled and the tempo increased, shyness disappeared and one by one the women got up and danced.
“Will you look at Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers!” jeered Rita as Detta and another old lady called May Noonan took to the floor.
Esther laughed, watching the shenanigans of her friends, the lack of male partners no bother as the women danced together. “Will ya stop sitting there like a feckin wallflower, Esther, and get up!” Bernice and Sheila screamed, pulling her to her feet. She’d always loved dancing, as it made you forget things. “Hey pretty baby, come dance with me!” blared the song as Rita swirled her round and round the room.
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