“Will ya look at Gabriel,” murmured Bernice. “She’s like the cat that got the cream.” Every head turned in the nun’s direction. She was sitting right beside the bishop, who seemed to have her enthralled with some sort of theological discussion, though every so often she would drag her gaze away from his shining cheeks, nose and double chin, and her lizard eyes would flick quickly around the refectory to check that the penitents were behaving themselves. All the nuns listened as the bishop and parish priest discussed Church matters.
“Laying down the law, like all men,” muttered Maura, “and those silly women agreeing with every word they say.”
“Sssh Maura, Gabriel’s got to do what they say,” murmured Detta. “The bishop’s the one who oversees the convent and the laundry and the orphanage.”
“I don’t give a damn about that shower of shites. Not one of them priests and holy men ever did a bit of good to help me or my family. Oh! They were quick enough to come knocking on our door looking for the Christmas and Easter dues, collecting money from those that could barely afford it every Sunday at mass. They live in big houses with women who wash and clean and cook for them, getting only a pittance in return. They are no friends of women at all, d’ya hear!”
“We’re only poor souls that need to be saved, low and dirty, fallen women,” added Bernice bitterly.
“Jesus was low and poor,” argued Detta. “He was one of us!”
“Detta’s right!” argued Esther. “Anyways, not all priests are the same. Father Devaney was good to me. He was real kind to my family when my father and little sister died. ’Twas he organized for me to come up here to Dublin, when he knew that I had nowhere else to go.”
“Aye!” chuckled Maura sarcastically. “He was right kind, sending you to a place like this, Esther, right kind!”
Esther felt bewildered by Maura’s bitterness and anger. She had enough to deal with trying to keep her sanity and good humour through all this. Without these women she couldn’t have borne it.
“Ah, will ya shut up, Maura! We’ve enough of sermons, ’tis the Christmas dinner, and the turkey’s getting cold.” Detta tucked into the tiny piece of white meat, enjoying every morsel of it.
Afterwards a group of the orphan girls and a few of the women sang Christmas carols, Father Enda Clancy leading them all in a chorus of “Silent Night.” Esther felt so sad and lonesome. This would be her first Christmas ever away from home and those she loved. The bishop was nodding off, his double chins sinking on to his chest; another few seconds and he would be snoring like a mere mortal. Sister Gabriel tried to wake him discreetly.
“His Grace has to leave and I’m afraid that I must end our choral session,” she announced. “Father O’Connell and Father Clancy are busy men too, and must be about the Lord’s business. On your behalf I thank them for taking the time to visit us.”
All the Maggies stood back to let the men pass, some of the women stretching to try and touch the bishop’s robe, whereas the nuns knelt in front of him or bowed low and kissed his ring. With a wave of his hand he dismissed all the women kneeling and standing around him before stepping into his car.
“See ya next year!” roared Rita as they all departed, repeating her obscene gesture behind the nuns’ backs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“The Three Marys,” that’s what the other women called them.
Maura had calculated that between them Mary Donovan, Mary Byrne, and Margaret Mary Hennessy had spent more than a hundred years in the Holy Saints Convent and Laundry. They came from three provinces, Munster, Connacht, and Leinster, and yet despite different circumstances and various backgrounds had all ended up together in the dismal drudgery of this Dublin laundry. Over many years the constant companions seemed to have lost the rhythms of speech and developed an unusual slurred dialect of their own. Esther found them strange and eccentric, hardly understanding a word they said, yet in some way they reminded her of her sister Nonie and what might have happened to her if she had grown to full adulthood. Mary Byrne was the fittest and brightest of them, and seemed to be the leader. The other two were big strong lumps of women, generally biddable, always doing what the nuns told them, eyes downcast as they constantly washed the convent corridors and laundry floor with their mops and buckets.
Mary Hennessy was the only one of them ever to have a visitor, her brother Peadar coming twice a year from his farm in the midlands to see her. In summer he’d bring her a colourful blouse in an accommodating outsize, and in winter a warm, chunky cardigan. He had come to make his usual pre-Christmas visit, a huge red-faced farmer, not unlike his sister, who was one of the few men that Sister Gabriel made in any way welcome in the convent. “The brother’s good to me,” Mary would mumble.
As it was Christmas, he produced the usual cardigan and three big bags of sweets and a huge home-made sponge sandwich for his sister, remembering her sweet tooth. Mary Hennessy, clutching the spoils to her huge chest, reappeared in the recreation room following his visit. The other two Marys were on top of her in a flash. Luckily Sheila managed to grab a hold of the cake and put it up on the sideboard before it went the way of the sweets, which were being flung around the room.
“Give it here!”
“They’re mine!” squealed Mary Byrne.
“No! Peadar give them me!” insisted Mary Hennessy.
“He wants us to share them sweeties!” declared Mary Donovan, grabbing for the bags. Esther, sitting knitting in the corner, watched as the three women clawed and pulled and fought like aged wildcats, trying to get hold of the lemon drops and bull’s-eyes and sherbet dips and humbugs, each of them screaming and shouting, “They’s mine!” Somehow or other the two Marys had convinced themselves over the years that Peadar was their brother too.
“Will ya shut up, the three of ya! Stop it!” ordered Maura, trying to come between them. “I’ll take those sweets off you if you don’t stop the fighting!”
They paid no heed, Mary Byrne landing Maura a shove in the chest and a kick in the shins for her trouble.
Sister Gabriel, hearing all the commotion, suddenly sailed into the room, looking furious. “What is the meaning of this? Mary Hennessy, are you to blame for this disturbance?”
“She won’t give us our sweeties, Sister!” caterwauled Mary Donovan.
“You three stop this fighting immediately! Behaving in this fashion, fighting on the Lord’s day, I’ll not tolerate it!” The tall nun pushed her way in amongst the women. They would not budge an inch. “Give me those bags of sweets at once!” she ordered disdainfully.
Mary Hennessy hesitated, unsure and unwilling to loosen her grip.
“This minute!”
The other two looked at each other warily as Mary Hennessy wavered, trying to raise her fat arms over their heads to pass the nun the sweets. Mary Donovan gave Sister Gabriel a push. The nun swung around, one hand stretching to receive the now tattered and torn brown-paper bags of sweets, the other taking hold of Mary Donovan. The linoleum was covered with lemon drops.
“Outside immediately, Mary Donovan!” she ordered, the lumbering Cork woman obeying her, terrified. The other two women scrabbled on the ground for the sweets. “How dare you attack and raise your hand to me!”
Mary Donovan had begun to cry, tears running down her moon-face, Sister Gabriel leading her to her office to discipline her. Mary Hennessy collapsed in a heap, bawling her eyes out like a small child would for her missing sweets and friend. Esther watched as the two forgotten women wrapped their arms around each other, trying to ease the unfairness of it all.
“Don’t mind that crowd of imbeciles!” warned Maura, lowering herself on to an old orange-coloured raffia stool. “Will you look at the bruise that one’s after landing me with!”
Esther couldn’t help laughing.
“Gabriel always has to take the sweets off her; she’ll dole them out to them over a few weeks, and Ina will share out slices of the cake. Honest to God, they’re like children.”
“Aye. T
hat’s the sad part of it.”
“What are you knitting for the baby?”
“It’s a blanket, well, meant to be anyways.” The strange-looking square lay spread out on her lap. “I was going to try a cardigan; maybe I’ll do one next, but I thought a big cosy blanket would keep my baby warm. This place is full of draughts.”
“Are you putting a picture on it?”
“No, that’s just the pattern. These are the stitches my mother uses. This zigzag one is like the waves on the sea. These symbolize the blackberries that grow on the briars all around the fields where we live. These are the stone walls—”
“It’s lovely, Esther, your mother must be a great knitter, and has passed it down to you.”
“‘Twas something she always did. Knitting for the boys, knitting for my father, knitting for myself and my sister Nonie. The winter’s evenings she’d have to sit right up close to the lamp. Her eyes would be strained with it.”
“You must miss her a lot. Have you any word of her?”
Esther shook her head. She was fed up of it! She still wrote a letter once a week to her mother, paying Ina to post it for her, and hadn’t had even so much as one reply. “She’s a proud woman. She’s fierce angry with me!”
“She’ll come around. Things will be all right once you’ve had the baby. For heaven’s sake, you’re her daughter.”
“It’s not just about the baby, Maura, though that’s bad enough! She blames me for my little sister Nonie dying. She’ll never forgive me for that, not ever.”
“Your sister died? I’m sorry, Esther. The death of a child changes everything.” Maura took hold of her hand.
Slowly the story of Nonie and Conor and home all seeped out. It was strange, but she felt she could trust Maura, that she would keep her confidences and not go whispering and gossiping about the place. “It wasn’t your fault, Esther, what happened to your sister. You did her no harm. ’Twas God decided to take her, and your mammy will realize that in time.”
The bell for bedtime rang, and folding up her knitting, Esther prepared to go upstairs, many of the others going ahead of her as she completed two rows of cable and zigzag.
At night the convent’s corridors were silent and ghostly. The lifesize plaster and marble statues of the grim-faced saints stared down at the penitents as they made their way to bed. Whipped and shot with arrows and tortured for their Christian beliefs, they were a reminder of what the church expected from its followers. Above a flickering red night lamp, burning in constant adoration, a painting of Jesus watching over them, his bleeding heart exposed.
Esther was just turning on the landing when she spotted Mary Donovan, standing arms outstretched in front of a large statue of Our Lady, a small crowd around her.
“Janey Mac, will you look at your woman!” said Bernice. “She thinks she’s Saint Bernadette or something.”
“Mary, what are you doing?” asked Maura, concerned.
“I’m saying my prayers like Sister Gabriel told me,” she mumbled. “She said I was to do my penance here all night.”
Esther could see the poor simple woman was weak after hours of punishment. She was almost in a trance. At about two o’clock in the morning four of them went out to check on her. She was still standing praying, becoming more disorientated and confused the longer she was left there.
“Mary, I think you should say a last prayer and then go to bed,” suggested Maura.
“But the nun’ll kill me.”
“She won’t know! The old bitch is asleep in bed. You can hear her snoring from outside her door!” promised Rita, yawning.
Reluctantly Mary was persuaded to return to the dormitory, where she fell into a deep, innocent sleep. Esther lay half awake for hours, wondering what kind of warped mind would force a simple-minded woman to pray all night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Magdalens and the nuns, an isolated community of women, celebrated Christmas together. Sister Gabriel had supervised the erection and decoration of a rather lopsided fir tree in the large hallway; also a large plaster-cast set of nativity statues had been unwrapped and placed at the bottom of the stairway, the crib on its bed of straw left empty. A serene-looking Mary with a rather austere, cross-eyed Joseph were watched by a chipped grey donkey and an ox, the scent of pine in the air the only real indication of any change to the convent’s drab routine. All Christmas week the penitents worked as ever, though a small haphazard procession of family members were permitted through the gates and up the driveway to visit a few of the women. The local shopkeepers and laundry customers, as part of the festive season, delivered small hampers and charitable gifts to the Sisters of the Holy Saints.
The Maggies worked late into the dark December nights, trying to clear a huge backlog of washing, as all work ceased late on the eve of Christmas. The laundry lights were dimmed, the huge machines fell silent, and all the sinks along the tiled wall drained for the Christmas.
Father Enda came to say the midnight mass. The chapel was illuminated by what seemed about a hundred candles, the nuns sitting rapt and attentive in their carved wooden seats along both sides of the chapel, the Maggies crowded into the benches. The women’s voices had never sounded as sweet as they rose to praise the coming of the saviour, the birth of the child Jesus. Father Enda was confident and excited as he proclaimed his favourite gospel to the crowded female congregation. Esther could not help but think of the midnight mass back home in the simple stone chapel in Carraig Beag, with all the neighbours and family gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Afterwards there was a mug of hot tea and a warm mince pie for everyone before they climbed the stairs to bed.
The next day was strangely relaxed, with none of the urgency to get to work. Ina and two of the kitchen girls were off for the day, insisting that they wanted to spend it with their own families, so the meals were being prepared by the women themselves. A few of the Maggies were showing off wearing new cardigans. Esther wished she had something new to wear too, though she doubted anything could make her feel less drab and dreary. Huge joints of roasting beef were sliced and served with mounds of boiled spuds and carrots for the dinner, followed by steaming hot Christmas pudding with a little cream. Ina had made most of the puddings herself, though a few were gifts from customers. Esther couldn’t help getting downhearted thinking of her little sister Nonie and how much she had enjoyed Christmas, their mother chopping onions for the stuffing, taking the goose out of the oven, begging Nonie not to touch it or she’d blister her skin. It made no difference: Nonie had to touch it, blister or not. Home would never be the same without Nonie, and she said a silent prayer for her mother who had to endure this Christmas too.
“Are ye having any more pudding?” enquired Sheila, passing round the dish.
“I’m stuffed! I couldn’t eat another thing!” Esther laughed, as her stomach was already protesting at the unaccustomed amount of edible food.
“Give it to me! I’m starved!” joked Bernice.
Over the past few weeks Bernice had become enormous and bloated, her fingers, face and ankles and feet puffy.
“The crater should be in bed resting, instead of standing and working,” worried Detta. “‘Tis dangerous late in the pregnancy to get like that.”
Sister Gabriel had seemed unconcerned, letting her keep on working although the baby was almost due.
“Will youse all stop worrying. My ma was just like me on all five of us, she was like a barrage balloon on my brother Billy, and it did none of us any harm!”
However, Bernice was glad of a bit of a rest and the chance to put her feet up. She was in high dough, laughing and singing at the table, herself and Rita telling dirty jokes, all of them laughing and eating and singing loudly to try and hide the lonesomeness and hurt of Christmas Day. Not one single visitor crossed the threshold of the iron gateway or the convent door that whole day. Esther had never imagined she would find it so hard, and yet looking at the pretty face of young Sister Goretti, who was from K
ilkenny, she recognized a fellow-feeling. If nobody had bothered to come and see the Maggies, then the nuns were equally abandoned. They too must have memories of sitting around the family table, sharing the Christmas meal with those they loved, instead of the false gaiety of the refectory.
As soon as the last heavy pots of tea were poured and all the teacups stilled, Sister Gabriel rose from the table at the top of the room. A hush descended on the women.
“The speech!” nudged Maura.
They all sat back to listen as the nun rambled on about goodwill to all men and women, and the rewards of hard work. Then she moved on, mentioning Mary and the birth of her child. The Christmas speech went on for an age and some of the listeners started to doze off.
The end was signalled by Sister Josepha and Sister Margaretta coming to stand alongside her. They each had a wicker basket filled with individually wrapped packages. Each woman and girl was called in turn, some swaggering, some stumbling nervously as they went up to receive their Christmas gift from the nuns. Esther’s package contained a bar of lavender soap and a matching toilet water; she was also given a bag of golden humbugs supplied by Mellon’s, the sweet and grocery store on the corner of Convent Road. Each penitent examined her simple gift intently, though by and large they were all the same, except for the scent of the soap or different-tasting sweets.
As Esther was leaving the refectory to go upstairs, Sister Margaretta stopped her, and brought her to the office to collect a large brown-paper parcel which bore a Galway postmark. Her heart leapt as she ran upstairs to open it. Her Aunt Patsy had sent a large flannelette nightgown for her confinement, and some outsize underwear which, considering the size she was now, she was glad of. There were two slabs of fudge and a small fruitcake. Her brothers had each sent a Christmas card and a brief note. None of them had mentioned the baby at all. Her aunt had also included a small bottle of cologne and some hair slides. Sitting there on the hard metal bed, looking at these unexpected gifts from home, her family seemed less distant and she felt less forgotten.
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