“How’s teacher-training college going?”
“It’s great, Esther. I’m having the time of my life, stuck in books, studying, and have made great friends. That’s why I’m in Dublin: one of the fellahs lives over on the north side in a place called Clontarf. I’m staying with his family tonight.”
Tom Doyle tried to hide his dismay at seeing his sister. She was all out pregnant, her apron and overall stretched across her mound of a stomach, her arms and legs scrawny and stick-like, her face washed-out and exhausted-looking. Why, even her hair looked dirty! “Why did they cut your hair?” he blurted out.
“Everyone has to, because of the lice and nits,” she said matter-of-factly, noticing the look of disgust on his face.
“Jesus, Esther! You should never have come here. It’s a desperate place. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
Esther tried to compose herself. What would her younger brother know of women’s suffering or the life of a Maggie?
“What are the nuns like? Are they treating you all right?”
She considered before answering, knowing well that there was nothing Tom could do to help her. “I’m fine,” she lied, “just fine.”
“You’re not fine! You’re not bloody fine!” he shouted angrily. “You look exhausted.”
“Hush, Tom! Sit down or the nuns will hear you! They’re not the worst, Tom, honest. It’s just that the work is hard, I’m not used to standing all day and because of the baby I get tired.” She wiped her nose and eyes with her sleeve not wanting to cry in front of him. “Tell me about college and the rest of them at home,” she begged, changing the subject.
“The college is great. I’m in digs with three other lads. Two are in my year.”
“Are you enjoying it?”
“Aye! ’Tis the best thing ever happened to me, and I can’t wait to be qualified. Imagine, me, a teacher, standing up in front of a class, teaching them!”
She laughed. “That’s what you’ll be doing, Tom!”
“Paddy’s getting on great at school. Mr. Brennan complains that he’s a bit of a boyo, but that fellow has brains bursting out of him. Liam’s the total opposite, doesn’t give a damn for school and studying. He has the brothers driven mad as all he wants to do is play hurley and football, and get on one of the county teams.”
“Aye, he’ll do it too.”
“Donal’s thinking of going to England in the summer.”
“I don’t believe you! Donal’s such a home-bird.”
“He’s been talking about it for ages. I suppose he’s fed up of Ger ordering him around; anyways, he’s a new boss in his life now. You know Barbara—she’s one of the Joyces, they have a big farm up beyond Carraroe way? Well, he’s doing a strong line with her. She’s going nursing in England and Donal wants to be near her. She’s going to one of those big fancy hospitals in London.”
“Donal, in love with a nurse, I don’t believe it! She’s really pretty, isn’t she? Her sister Fidelma was in school with me.”
“Talking of romances, Ger’s getting married,” declared Tom ruefully.
“Brona, I presume.”
“Aye, of course. John Joe is giving them a huge wedding in the summer. Half the parish will be invited and they’re having the breakfast in that fancy hotel in Salthill, at least eighty people!”
“I suppose I’ll get no invitation,” she joked indignantly.
Embarrassed, Tom could barely meet her gaze.
“Wouldn’t want the likes of me disgracing them, waltzing around the floor. What would the McEvoys and all the neighbours say?”
Tom leant forward in the mahogany chair, pulling her close. “I’m sorry, Esther, I shouldn’t have told you, upset you. You know I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I’m a stupid ass. Things will get better, once the baby’s born, get back to normal. You’ll see.”
“Aye,” she replied bitterly, patting her bulge, “once this is out of the way.” An awkward angry silence lay between. She didn’t want to be fighting with her brother. “How’s Mammy?” she ventured, noticing that he became more guarded at once.
“She’s happy about the wedding, and all Ger and Brona’s plans. They bought Vera’s place, you know.”
“Did poor old Vera die?”
“Nah! She fell on the way out of the church and broke her hip. She’s in the hospital in Galway, but is going to an old folks home after.”
“So Ger got what he wanted in the end. John Joe’s daughter, a house with a bit of land. Things always seem to work out for Ger. Did Mammy get my letters? I wrote to her so many times and she never writes back.”
Tom spread his hands. “She won’t read them,” he confided apologetically. “I read them out to her, but she won’t budge. I’ve tried, Esther, honest I have, but anger is choking her.”
“She still blames me for Nonie.”
“That was nobody’s fault! We all knew that Nonie wasn’t right in the head, that something could happen to her at any time. God took her early, that’s all. It was no-one’s fault, just God’s will.”
“Does she ever talk about me, mention the baby?”
He shook his head. “She’s eaten up with bitterness. Daddy’s gone, Nonie taken away from her, Donal going away, even me going to college, though I try to get home at the weekends, and you here in Dublin … well you know just the way things worked out.”
“Me having a baby and not being married.”
“Aye! Aunt Patsy’s been trying to talk to her, to make her see reason, but you may as well be talking to the wall, for the moment anyways.”
“Tom, have you seen Conor at all?” She couldn’t help asking about him; wondering if he missed her.
“Christ, Esther! Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about that bastard after all he’s done to you.”
“I can’t help it!”
“Well, he married that McGuinness one last month.”
“They’re married!” Esther sat down. She felt physically sick. It was totally over. Con had actually married Nuala. He didn’t give a damn about her.
“Aye, but Father Devaney refused to do it. He said that someone of Conor’s character wasn’t fit to get married, and told Nuala that he’d seduced an innocent girl! Didn’t matter, though, some distant cousin of hers is a priest in Athlone and he performed the ceremony, so now that bastard’s back running her farm like king of the heap.”
Esther didn’t want to hear any more of Conor and his new bride. It pained her too much.
“How long till the baby?” asked her brother.
“About six weeks or so.”
“You’ll be glad to have it over, Esther. Once the child is born you’ll be able to put all this behind you and no-one will be any the wiser.”
“What do you mean, Tom?”
“Well, when you give the baby up.”
“I don’t want to give the baby up!” she protested. “This is my baby, my flesh and blood, part of our family! Why should I give my child away to some other woman to raise?”
“But you’ve agreed to giving the baby up for adoption,” argued her brother. “You can’t go changing your mind now!”
“I can do what I want with my child!”
“I’m just saying that—”
“Ah, shut up, Tom! D’ye know something, you may be the one getting an education but you’re still ignorant as can be. Keep your nose out of my business!”
“Look, Esther, in a few weeks you’ll have had the baby, the nuns will look after it, then you can begin to think about the future and coming back home.”
“Future? I have no future. What kind of person do you think I am, that I can hand over my baby and pretend that none of this ever happened! I’m not a man, I can’t just walk away! Maybe I’ll stay here in Dublin in the laundry; some of the girls have children in the orphanage.”
“What kind of life would that be?” cajoled her brother.
Sister Margaretta arrived at the parlour door. “You’re needed back in the laundry, Esther. I’m
afraid your visitor will have to go.”
Esther stood up awkwardly, her brother giving her a hand. Why was she fighting with the one person in the family she was close to, the one who’d saved her life?
Tom Doyle didn’t know what to say. He’d intended his visit to comfort and cheer his sister, but instead had only managed to annoy her. “Look, I’d better be going.”
She nodded, trying to pretend it didn’t matter.
Tom pulled back on his jacket and wrapped his scarf around his neck. It was freezing outside.
Sister Margaretta stood waiting at the heavy front door to let him out.
Despondent, Esther walked him across the mosaic-floored hallway, wondering when she’d see him again.
“Esther, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he apologized, bending down towards her.
She looked in his eyes, seeing his confusion and guilt.
“Young man, I’ll have to ask you to leave now. The penitents, strictly speaking, are not meant to have visitors during working hours. Your sister has work to do.”
“Will you be up in Dublin again?”
“I don’t know, but if I am I promise I’ll get out to see you.”
They hugged each other clumsily. Tom hated leaving her like that, but promised to try and visit again, Esther with the tears running down her face, wishing she could escape this place and go with him. She watched from the doorway as her brother walked away, the bare trees on Convent Road standing to attention like sentries in the drizzling rain.
“You know you are not supposed to have visitors, especially during laundry hours,” complained the nun. “I made an exception today, but will not be able to in the future. Do you understand?”
She didn’t even bother replying to the old biddy.
Esther sat silent in the recreation room. Rita, Sheila, and a few of the others were playing with a greasy, limp pack of cards at a table in the corner. Tonight she was in no humour for cards. Some of the orphans and women were gathered around listening to the wireless on the sideboard. The BBC had nothing but talk about the death of King George VI, the quiet gentle man who’d taken over from his brother Edward when he’d abdicated. England would now have a queen for the first time in centuries, when his elder daughter Elizabeth was crowned. “The poor thing, losing her father like that when she was away out in Africa!” murmured Maura.
“Will ya switch that radio over!” bossed Sheila. “We’ve no need to be listening to sad stories about English kings. None of them gave a spit for Ireland! God knows we fought hard for our independence.”
“He was a good man!” insisted Maura stubbornly as Saranne fiddled with the dial and tuned in Radio Eireann. They were playing songs from the Hollywood musicals, Gene Kelly’s voice filling the room.
Sister Gabriel had given out yards to her about having a visitor during working hours and the time she’d lost in the laundry. She’d been too distracted and upset to argue with her.
“Are you all right, Esther girl?”
She looked up. Maura had drawn up a chair close to hers.
“I overheard Gabriel giving out to you down below. Don’t mind her! You had a visitor, one of your family was it?”
“Aye, Maura. ’Twas my brother Tom.”
“He upset you?”
“No, not really! I was glad to see him. He’s the best of them all, we’ve always been close. It’s just that seeing him made me think of home. So much has happened since I went away, it’s as if I’m not part of it anymore. I’ve made such a mess of everything!” she sobbed. Tears welled up in her eyes and she had to rummage for a hankie in her pocket.
“Home visitors always do it,” murmured Maura. “They always manage to upset us.”
“Did your mother ever forgive you for having a baby, Maura?”
“My mother died when I was twelve, Esther, and I didn’t give my baby up. My two children are being raised by my husband Billy.”
“You’re married!” gasped Esther, incredulous, though she supposed that Maura had always seemed more motherly and mature and wise than the rest of them. That’s why people always went to her in times of trouble.
“I got married when I was eighteen, younger than you,” she confided. “Billy’s a good man and we lived with his mother and spinster sister down near Wicklow town. Our first baby, Eoin, was born about a year after. Always wanting to be fed, such a pet, then when he was about two and a half I had Catriona, the prettiest little thing you ever did see. Billy was mad about her. The following year I had Cormac. He was a fractious child, God help him, always whingeing and crying, but I did love him though he weren’t a bit like the other two. Then one night I went to lift him for his last feed and there he was dead in the cot. I nearly died myself, Esther! He was cold and white when I lifted him. I tried to warm him, get him to breathe, but ’twas no use. My husband Billy didn’t know what to make of it. I told them all what I’d found, but his mother kept on saying that she’d seen me and that I killed my baby, smothered him, that he’d been crying all night and I’d tried to make him stop. As God is my judge, Esther, I don’t remember touching him. He were gone when I found him.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Esther couldn’t believe what Maura was telling her.
“The police were called, and the doctor. I was in shock! Nobody’d listen to me. I’d just lost my baby. They brought me to the courthouse in Wicklow town, charged me with killing my baby. The judge, a Justice Hanratty, sentenced me to prison, but instead sent me here for three years. Catriona and Eoin still live with their daddy and granny. Billy didn’t want me to come home when my time was up, said it would upset the children and his mother. Do you know what he told me—that my children had forgotten me and he didn’t want to remind them of what kind of a mother I was!”
“Oh, Maura!” Esther tried to hide her dismay and bewilderment. What could she say to console her, a woman locked away for murder?
“Don’t say nothing, Esther, you know there’s nothing to say. I was put away for murdering my baby. I’ve heard it so often that at times I almost believe it. Poor little Cormac was taken from me and I’ll never see my other two children again. You think the Marys are crazy, well I’m telling you girl, there are far worse here. This place is full of the ghosts of women gone mad.”
“You’re not mad, Maura!” protested Esther, trying to convince herself. Everyone was fond of Maura and respected her. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed it before, but in some strange way maybe they feared her, unsure of what she was capable of doing. “Some day your children will grow up and they’ll find out the truth and come to find you.”
“You think so?”
“Aye, of course. You’re their mother and nothing can change that!”
Sitting there thinking about her brothers and her mother, and the distance that had grown between them, Esther began to realize that the Maggies had become her family now. She couldn’t imagine surviving without them.
Dublin, 1952
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Give me back my child!”
The scream rose up from the nursery window and spread through the cold building, penetrating every brick and window and beam. They heard it even down below in the laundry, those that had given up children steeling themselves as, standing at the stone sinks, elbow-deep in lathered water, they washed bucket after bucket of clothes. Esther and the rest held their breath in sheer panic and fear, and the young orphan girls looked bewildered.
Bernice yelled and screamed for hours and hours non-stop. Sister Gabriel, furious with temper, had started up the stairs after her. “I’ll not have the likes of that Bernice Doherty causing an upset in my convent. What’s the matter with her anyway? She knew that after six weeks her child was going to the orphanage, same as the rest of the babies.”
Sister Jo-Jo, her face creased with sympathy, pleaded with the women to work, the noise of the heavy tumblingmachines drowning out the commotion going on upstairs, the women scrubbing at shirt collars and cuffs in rage.
&nb
sp; “Have a care, girls! Should we say a prayer for poor Bernice?”
They all recited an Our Father.
“Will I go up to her, Sister? Bernice and I are close,” offered Rita. “She’ll listen to me.”
Puzzlement and indecision filled the fifty-year-old nun’s face. She was never sure whether to trust the Maggies or not. She had been warned often enough by her superiors about how deceiving the women were, and how they would take advantage of her kind Christian nature.
“No words with Sister Gabriel, mind!” she finally agreed as Rita slipped away.
Esther was almost asleep when Bernice joined them back in the dormitory. She had been given Detta’s old bed near the window, as Saranne had moved into her normal spot. Her eyes were red and raw with crying and she had rubbed welts under them. She moved slowly, her breath coming in deep shudders. She looked like an old woman instead of an attractive twenty-five-year-old drapery assistant. Rita led her towards the bed, helping her to undress. Her breasts were engorged and swollen with milk. She hadn’t tried to wean her baby, hoping that as long as little Stephen kept feeding she would be allowed to stay with him. Her white breasts with their brown-tinged nipples were hard and hot and sore. She could barely raise her arms. They were all afraid to do or say anything in case it would set off her weeping and wailing again, only Sheila and Maura getting out of bed to go and hug her.
“Honest, Ber, it’ll be all right!” whispered Sheila. “You’ll get a bit better every day, honest, lovey, you will!”
Rita talked to her like she was a little child, fixing her pillow, tucking her in, sitting with her till she eventually fell asleep.
Esther’s thoughts were racing. Pain was etched on Bernice’s face. She had witnessed that very same expression on her mother’s face when her brothers had carried Nonie back from the bog. Such was the grief of losing a child. She did not think that she was capable of bearing such pain; already her life had been touched by too many sorrows, too much tragedy.
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