Midday had turned to afternoon. Now the pain had become more rhythmic and stronger, harder to bear. Her contractions were coming in waves, and she felt hot and tired and rather breathless. She took a sip of water to dampen her dry cracked lips, for despite the February cold she was covered in sweat, her hair damp too. She would have given anything for Maura or Bernice or Sheila to be there with her, to hear their encouragement, to have one of them hold her hand as the pain came. Sister Bridget had checked between her legs again.
“You’re just about ready to push, Esther. Sit up a bit more in the bed. Pull those knees up and flop them wide!”
Sister Gabriel had stood up beside her.
She felt like she was going to burst.
“Push!” shouted the nun.
Groaning loud and pushing as hard as she could, Esther tried to follow the pain.
“Again!” shouted Sister Bridget.
Two more pushes and all the pressure disappeared as her daughter slid out into the nun’s waiting hands, the long twisting cord connecting them still. Her baby was born easily. A perfect baby girl!
She couldn’t believe it. She watched anxiously as Sister Bridget held the baby before methodically clamping and cutting the cord. She then weighed the baby in a basket on top of cream-coloured scales before wrapping her warmly.
Sister Gabriel took hold of the child as the midwife attended to the afterbirth, pressing on Esther’s stomach with the palm of her hand. All the time Esther just stared at the baby. Jet-black hair stood up on her head, and her eyes looked almost blue-black. She squirmed, restless in the nun’s arms, mewling for attention.
“Let me hold her!” she insisted fiercely.
“Are you sure you want to hold your baby?” asked Sister Bridget gently.
Esther hesitated. Maura and Denise had both told her not to hold her baby if she wanted to save herself grief and pain, but she couldn’t bear not to hold her daughter. “Give her to me, please!” she sobbed. Sister Gabriel nodded at the other nun as she passed the child into her waiting arms.
“You have a beautiful daughter, Esther!” said Sister Bridget kindly. “She’s as pretty as her mother.”
Shaking, she held her baby daughter close in her arms. She was perfect and beautiful and alive. Greedily she searched every detail of her baby’s face, storing every image, her nostrils breathing in that special scent of her own child. She is mine. She will always be mine, no matter what the nuns or anyone else says or does. The baby moved against her, skin touching skin, as if they were one again. The baby relaxed against her, recognizing her. She ignored the movements of the two nuns as they pulled the soiled sheets from underneath her and checked the afterbirth. The only interest she had lay in her arms. She was a good healthy child, with Con’s strong black hair and a definite look of Nonie when she was a baby, but her actual face shape was like her own, thought Esther, kissing her dainty little nose. Her limbs were long and well shaped. She would be tall. Gently she caressed the small naked body. “You’re beautiful! You’re beautiful!” she crooned. “My beautiful Roisin!” Somehow the name just seemed to suit her.
“Here, I’ll take the baby now,” interrupted Sister Gabriel, ignoring her protests and scooping the baby into her arms. “You can feed her in a while!”
“Let me hold her! Please! Don’t take my baby away! Don’t take her away! I still want to hold her.”
The nun deliberately ignored her, turning away and leaving the room.
“Sister!” she begged, feeling almost hysterical. “Tell her to bring back my baby! I want my baby!”
“Shush! Shush now, Esther! You’ll see your baby again, by and by. You need to rest now.”
With Roisin gone she felt bereft, empty and scared as the nun helped her to wash, and brought her across the corridor to a room equipped with four beds. Sinking into the starched pillow covers and sheets, she longed to sleep, for her body felt bruised, battered, and torn, her emotions surging between triumph and despair.
A few hours later she woke to find Sister Bridget had brought baby Roisin to her. She felt exhausted, but was so relieved to have her back in her arms. The baby had been washed, her hair damped down and plastered to her head, and put into a starched white gown and wrapped in a heavy cotton blanket. Esther inhaled deeply, recognition and joy filling her senses. She was glad that Sister Gabriel had finally returned to her normal duties, leaving her in the care of the midwife.
“Are you ready to feed her, Esther?”
“Aye.” She nodded, trying to sit herself up on the pillows. She opened the front of her nightie, positioning the baby so her dark nipple touched her cheek. Roisin started, her head turning, lips and nose searching blindly.
“Well, you look almost like an old hand, you don’t need much teaching.” The nun grinned approvingly.
“My mother fed us all. I often watched her with the young ones.”
The baby stirred, clamping her lips around her nipple as Esther leant forward, squeezing it between the tiny lips, as the first thick creamy drops filled the baby’s mouth. Interested now, Roisin sucked firmly.
“That’s it!” The nun smiled. “That one’s going to be a great feeder, thank God!”
Drink my milk, urged Esther silently. Fill your self with it! I always want to be a part of you, just as you were a part of me.
Holding her newborn baby in her arms, Esther tried to forget that she was only another unwed mother, in the care of the nuns at the Magdalen laundry. Where her child was born didn’t matter. For now, nothing mattered, nothing was going to spoil the love and joy that her little daughter had brought into her lonely life.
Chapter Thirty
The baby thrived, feeding through the day and night, greedy and hungry for life. Away in the mother-and-baby home, Esther felt as if she were marooned on an island, far from the hurt and pain of the past nine months. Each day perfect as she and Roisin were together. Usually a nursing mother had just six weeks with her baby unless the infant was sickly, or premature, or a poor feeder. Esther thanked God that Roisin had arrived early as it meant she had an extra two weeks with her.
Only two of the other beds in the room were filled. A girl she had never seen before, loud and brazen, with peroxide-bleached hair, had given birth to a baby girl a few days before her. It was a tiny, wizened little thing with a bald head. She refused to feed it and after about five days was gone, her baby already signed away. “I just want to be rid of it, and try and get back to normal,” she had tried to explain. “Normal” was working as a waitress in the bar of the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street.
Across from her there was Myra; some of the others in the laundry were terrible, they used to jeer at her and call her Mad Myra. Esther didn’t consider her mad at all, just a little soft in the head and slow-witted. She had been sent to the convent about five years ago, when her mother had died. At times she reminded Esther of Nonie, with a constant need for protection and care. Sister Bridget was always kind to her, no matter how she tried her patience. With her broad pretty face and huge liquid brown eyes and dimples, Myra was an attractive-looking woman. There had been consternation when the nuns had discovered that she was pregnant, everyone supposing that one of the van drivers or gardeners had taken advantage of her.
“‘Twas a disgrace!” confided the nun to Esther. “A big lump of a girl like that, and she didn’t know a thing about the facts of life. She thought she was dying when the baby was coming. I never had such a job, with all the roaring and screaming.”
Esther kept an eye on Myra and her baby boy, Kevin. Myra seemed to think the baby was like some kind of a dolly and was forever walking off and leaving him balanced on the edge of the bed, or forgetting to change him. Even Sister Bridget got annoyed when Myra ignored his crying at night, saying she was too tired to feed him and begging the nun to let her sleep, though how anyone slept with the noise of all the babies in the nursery was a mystery to Esther.
She loved looking into the iron cot, watching her little daughter sleep, t
he tiny, fleeting movements of her mouth and eyes, wondering what did babies dream of.
“Esther, put the baby back in the nursery when you’ve finished feeding her!” ordered the nun. “The baby has to get used to the nursery and not being picked up every time she wants attention!”
Still Esther couldn’t resist keeping Roisin with her for as long as possible, holding her in her arms, dozing with her in the bed beside her.
Sister Gabriel had only visited twice. The last time she had sat beside Myra’s bed. “Would you like your old job in the laundry back, Myra? Sister Josepha and the girls were all asking for you. Do you think you’re well and strong enough to come back to us in a few days’ time?”
Momentarily confused, Myra glanced down at baby Kevin, asleep in his cot.
“The baby will be fine. Sister Bridget will take care of him for you. You can come up and see him and feed him in the evenings if you want to.”
Myra seemed slightly hesitant, but finally agreed. “The nuns is going to mind my babby for me,” she confided to Esther that night. “‘Cos I’ve got my job to do.”
“Aye,” she replied, not wanting to let Myra see the tears well up in her eyes.
Myra moved back to the convent dormitory and another woman took her place. After only a few days, Myra came less and less to see her son; soon he would be forgotten, Sister Bridget eventually transferring his care to the orphans’ home, which the Mother Superior ran. Within a few months he would be placed with a family.
Roisin was putting on weight, filling out. Esther studied each little change in her, noticing everything. Maura had been given permission to visit and had brought along her knitting-bag from her locker.
“You may as well finish the blanket for Roisin now.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I wasn’t planning on her arriving early, but I want to get it finished.”
Esther had written a long letter home, telling of her baby’s arrival, and Sister Bridget had promised to post it. She was hoping above hope to hear from her mother. She told Roisin about her family, all about Carraig Beag and her grandmother and her uncles, hoping that somehow the words would soak into the baby’s brain and stay there, never fade away. She herself felt well, energetic, and longed to put the baby in a pram and wheel her around the convent grounds, letting her see the snowdrops and golden crocuses that speckled the lawn. Soon there would be daffodils and blossom too.
“Esther, didn’t I tell you to put the baby in the nursery? You fed her more than an hour ago!” There was an unexpected crossness, even irritation, in the nun’s voice. Esther did what she was told, not wanting to annoy her further.
The days were slipping by too fast, the weeks had turned to a month and more, her time with her baby was running out. The daffodils on the convent lawn were shrivelling up and withering away as pink cherry blossom began to tinge the trees.
She had recognized Sister Gabriel’s heavy step in the corridor, outside the door. Judas-like she had come and sat down beside her, enquiring after the health of her baby and asking how she herself felt now.
“I think you might be able to return to work soon, Esther. Sister Bridget will look after your baby during the day, and you know that you can visit her in the evenings, feed her, well, for a while longer anyway.”
She had sat silent, not trusting herself to speak. They wanted to part her from Roisin, separate them during the day! She needed more time. They couldn’t do it! She wasn’t ready yet! “My mother will have me home, me and the baby! I know she will, sister, honest! We’ll be going back home to Galway.”
The nun looked sceptical. “Well, we’ll see after the weekend then.” That was as much leeway as the nun would allow.
Sister Bridget had been watching their conversation from a distance. She avoided Esther afterwards. Perhaps she was spying on her, reporting her behaviour. Esther looked down at the bed coverlet. She did not rant or scream or cry. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of saying that she was mad. By Jesus, she wished that she were mad, like poor Myra, so that she could forget her child. Unfortunately she was sane. Searingly, scrapingly, sharply sane!
Chapter Thirty-One
She had returned to work on the Monday, feeding Roisin at six o’clock in the morning as the sun rose in the sky.
They’d put her on collars and cuffs, scrubbing them, soaking them, starching them. It was one of the easier jobs, so she supposed she should be grateful for that. Four times during the morning she was sure she heard a baby cry, her baby! Sister Josepha had stared over at her, pointing at her to stop daydreaming and get on with her work.
Her breasts felt hot and sore and full as she sat at the refectory table with the rest of the women at dinner-time. They had all congratulated her, then welcomed her back. She had begun to tell them about Roisin, but then realized that there was no point to it. She worked all afternoon, her mind lost. Finally teatime came, and the work bell sounded. She could barely eat in her haste to get back to the nursery.
Roisin lay in the grey iron cot alongside about five other babies, her eyes flying open as Esther lifted her. Her breasts had started to leak even before she had time to unbutton herself. The baby was confused by the sticky wetness and the force she used squeezing her taut nipple into her mouth. Roisin sucked strongly, her small fingers trying to grab hold of her mother’s breast.
Esther did everything she could to keep visiting and feeding the baby, but whether it was the long hours, or the hard work, or just the sheer exhaustion of it all, her milk began to dry up. Even Roisin sensed it, crying angrily at times when she fed her. The baby hungry! Within less than two weeks she had returned to sleeping in the dormitory, as Sister Bridget said that another unwed mother needed her bed, a red-faced Kerry woman now sleeping in her bed in the nursery. Anyway, she had no choice in the matter.
Then, one night after work, when she had walked across to the annexe and climbed the stairs as usual, opening the cream-coloured nursery door, she realized that Roisin was not lying in her cot with the bainin-coloured blanket she’d knitted her. A newborn lay in her place. She could tell it was Roisin’s cot because she knew the scrape that covered the top rail of it, and the way the fifth and sixth bars on the right-hand side were slightly curved. Roisin was gone!
“They took her across to the home this morning,” Jean, one of the new mothers, informed her.
Sister Bridget came out of her office in the corridor, walking towards her, fixing a bright but almost puzzled expression on her knowing face. “Don’t take on, Esther! You knew she was being given up! You always knew that!”
“Given up!”
Esther just could not believe it. Roisin was gone. Over yonder to the orphanage, where she’d never set eyes on her again!
“It was all agreed when you came here, Esther!” said the nun peevishly. “You had your baby, why, you even had plenty of time with her, but now she’s across in the home with the rest of the infants. You know the babies can’t stay here for ever. Mother Benedict and the social workers will do their very best to find a good home and family for your little girl now that you’ve given her up.”
“Let me see her!” she begged. “Ask them can I go over to the orphanage and see her tonight! Please, sister! You know how much I love her. I’m not like Myra and some of the others. I can take care of my baby. Pleeease!”
“Your child is gone!” said the nun firmly. “And there’s nothing you can do about it. If you want to talk to Sister Gabriel, well, that’s your decision, but it won’t change a thing!”
Esther returned to the dormitory. The room was empty. She undressed slowly and got into bed. She lay staring up at the ceiling. Rolling on her side, she turned away as the others started to come to bed in dribs and drabs. She couldn’t bear it.
“Esther! We heard! Sister Margaretta told us. Are you all right?”
Maura was standing beside the bed, peering down at her, her face concerned. What would someone who was brought up for murdering her baby know about her child being take
n from her? How could she understand it?
“Leave me alone!”
Esther pulled the blanket up around her. She wanted to block out the light, and the sight of the rest of them. She wanted privacy in her grief.
“It’s all right, Esther. We’re here. You’re not alone.”
She wanted to be alone. Why couldn’t they mind their own bloody business and leave her alone? Saranne and Sheila had come over too, standing over her. She wanted to tell them “Fuck off!,” the way Rita would have. Instead she just closed her eyes tight, shutting them out. The pain was worse than anything she had ever felt before. Much worse than when Conor had broken it off with her, abandoned her. Ten times worse than when Nonie had died and she had watched her laid to rest in the cold Connemara ground. The pain choked her so that she could barely speak or breathe. She had not believed that a human being could endure such pain. It ripped and tore at her heart and lungs, her veins and skin and bones, and settled somewhere deep in the part they call the soul. Her child had been taken from her and she would never ever see her daughter again. At last she had some understanding of the grief her mother had endured.
Gradually the others fell asleep, their exhausted snores filling the darkness. She could not sleep; there was only the awful blackness now that the light had been taken from her.
“Esther!” Bernice was leaning over the bed. “I know you’re awake.”
A sigh escaped her. She opened her eyes.
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