Suffer The Little Children

by Frances Reilly

  One cold, frosty morning we got up to our normal routine. After two Masses and a meagre breakfast we answered to our numbers and were given our duties for the day. I prayed to get anything but scrubbing floors. After weeks of kneeling my knees were killing me and looked more like the knees of an old woman than an eight-year-old child. Loretta and I were called together.

  ‘Here, Reverend Mother,’ we said in unison. At least we’d be working together.

  ‘Corridor duty.’

  My head drooped. There was to be no respite today. But at least I’d be with Loretta. Every moment spent with her was precious. We were each given a heavy metal bucket full of water and Jeyes Fluid, a large wooden scrubbing brush, a cloth and a bar of carbolic soap. We took up our position in the corridor and began scrubbing. As usual, the horrible musty smell of the Jeyes Fluid made me feel sick.

  I tried to ignore the pain in my knees, but after a while I could hardly move my legs.

  Loretta noticed me struggling along the corridor with my bucket. ‘You stop for a while, and I’ll go faster,’ she whispered.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, sitting down with my back resting against the corridor wall. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand up again. I tried to bring life back into my knees by rubbing them hard with the palms of my hands.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Loretta, who was scrubbing as quickly as she could.

  ‘I’ll be all OK in a minute.’

  I tried to stand up, but as I got to my feet and felt the blood starting to circulate, I was paralysed by the sensation of burning red-hot pins and needles in my legs. Struggling, worried about what would happen if I was caught skiving, I forced myself to walk up and down the corridor. The feeling was slowly returning to my legs when Sister Thomas came round the corner.

  By the time she reached us, her face was flushed red with anger. She grabbed my head and lifted me into the air by my hair. The pain was agonising. A few seconds later she released her grip, and I fell like a sack of potatoes onto the floor. She bent down to slap me viciously around the face and head.

  ‘It’s my fault, Sister!’ Loretta said. ‘Her legs are sore so I told her to stop working for a while.’

  Sister Thomas stopped hitting me. ‘To my office, both of you.’

  We knew what we were in for and somehow that made it worse. I hobbled along, my heart beating faster the closer we got to her office. Sister Thomas had hidden depths of anger, wells of it, and seemed to enjoy inflicting pain. There was nothing we could do now but hope for a miracle from God. But we knew there’d be no miracle, because we’d prayed for one so many times before and nothing had happened.

  Death must be better than this, I thought. The waiting was awful; Sister Thomas knew it was awful and so she deliberately drew it out. The harder things were on her victim, the more pleasurable it was for her. Sometimes she sent girls away for days before finally beating them, but today she was too angry to be so cruelly patient. I began to sob in expectation of what was to come. Loretta stood perfectly still, her expression grim.

  Over years of abuse Loretta had learnt to appear indifferent to even the most savage punishment. It was something she’d perfected painfully. She simply wouldn’t give the nuns the satisfaction of ever seeing her cry. It was a small act of defiance but an important one. However, it came at considerable cost to herself because the ferocity and duration of her beatings increased in response to her apparent indifference. I looked up to her and wished I could be as strong as she was, but that day was a long way off.

  Sister Thomas walked to the cupboard and took out one of the canes. She began pacing back and forth, tapping the cane against the palm of her hand, as if deciding which of us she’d hit first. My sobs grew louder, and she looked at me coldly, then raised the cane high above her head and brought it down by her side with a swish.

  ‘You’ll be first!’ she shouted at me. ‘Put your hand out and don’t move it until I’ve finished, or you’ll get double.’

  I held out my hand and shut my eyes. I heard the whoosh of the cane and a stabbing, throbbing pain shot through to the very tips of my fingers. Instinctively, I pulled my hand back and tucked it under my arm, before realising my mistake.

  ‘Put out your hand!’ Sister Thomas screamed, her face flushed and frenzied.

  ‘Sister, it wasn’t her fault!’ Loretta shouted. ‘I told her to have a break and that I’d do her work. Her legs are so sore she can’t kneel on them.’

  ‘I will have no more excuses for not doing the Lord’s work!’

  She raised her arm again and started beating me all over my body, harder and harder, until eventually the cane snapped in half. I lay huddled up on the floor of the office, my arms curled protectively around my head. Almost immediately, she dragged me up again by my hair.

  ‘Stand on your feet, girl!’ she shrieked.

  The moment I stood up a hard slap on the face sent me flying across the office. Bouncing off the wall, I fell to the floor, momentarily stunned.

  I heard Loretta scream, ‘Leave her alone, just leave her alone!’ followed by the sound of scuffling. I wiped away my tears with my sleeve to see what was happening. As I began to focus, I saw Loretta pushing and shoving Sister Thomas, who was trying desperately to slap or grab hold of her.

  ‘Oh God, if you can hear me, please help us!’ I prayed aloud. ‘You’re the only one who can help. Please hear my prayer. Please hear my prayer.’

  Sister Thomas grabbed Loretta by the shoulders and started shaking her. ‘You Reillys are children of the Devil!’ she yelled. ‘It’s no surprise your mother hasn’t come for you. Nobody wants you, so we have to put up with you. You’ll all burn in the fires of Hell because there is no way you’ll get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Is this how you repay the nuns for taking you in? Well, we’ll soon knock the disobedience out of you.’

  She stopped shaking Loretta and began pacing the floor again. Loretta and I exchanged glances. The deep sadness I felt at that moment was mirrored in my brave sister’s eyes. Up until then it had never occurred to us that our mother didn’t love us or want us. For so long Loretta had fed me the dream that she must be having a really hard time and was still trying to sort things out for our return that I couldn’t imagine any other explanation for her absence. Since I couldn’t remember anything about her, I’d built up a picture of a flustered, overworked matronly type in an apron, but now Sister Thomas had said the unthinkable. Maybe she was right when she said we weren’t wanted, that our mother would never come back for us. If so, the only thing that had been keeping us going for all these years had been nothing but an illusion.

  Sister Thomas broke the silence. ‘Get yourselves ready for chapel. I’m already late, so I’ll have to deal with you later. And believe me, I won’t forget! I’ll reflect on what your punishments will be after prayers.’

  As we left the office, Loretta put her arm around me. ‘Are you OK?’ she said.

  I didn’t reply. I was far from OK. In fact, I was in a tremendous amount of pain; my knees creaked as I walked, and the rest of my body felt like it had been used as a punchbag. We made our way along empty corridors and up a long flight of stairs leading to the chapel door. Pausing, we listened to the sound of girls praying. We didn’t want to go in, partly because we’d be stared at for being late but mostly because there was no acceptable excuse for not being in line for chapel as far as the Reverend Mother was concerned. If she was in a good mood, she just might listen to our explanation, but if she wasn’t, we’d be getting another punishment.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ I sobbed.

  ‘No, it’s not. You can’t help it if you’re in agony. Anyway, I’ve got an idea,’ Loretta said. ‘We’ll go down the stairs and around the corner, and when everyone comes out we’ll try to get in line with them, without the nuns seeing us. I think it will work. Come on, it’s too late to go in now, anyway.’

  She helped me back down the stairs, and we stood next to a wall where we wouldn’t be noticed. Just then the big chapel
door opened, and we heard footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Quiet now, here they come,’ Loretta whispered, pushing me close to the wall.

  Our hearts were racing. Sister Anthony came into view, followed by a long line of girls. So far, we hadn’t been spotted. Then came Sister Thomas, followed by another line of girls. She’d entered the chapel by a door near the altar that only the nuns were allowed to use. Just then Loretta saw a few of her friends. Pushing me forward, she fell in step behind me, and we disappeared into the line.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Bridget murmured.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  We carried on walking until we came to the refectory. So far nobody had noticed that we hadn’t been in chapel, but we still couldn’t relax. Sister Thomas’s next punishment hung over us like a thick black cloud.

  By the end of dinner Loretta had told Bridget everything. Bridget couldn’t believe that she’d attacked Sister Thomas. She was really worried for her.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be ye, Loretta, when she gets her hands on ye.’

  Loretta came to find me. ‘Come on, Frances, the bell’s gonna go in a minute.’

  I tried to stand, but my legs had seized up. ‘I can’t move! My knees are locked.’

  Loretta leant over and tried to straighten my legs out, and Sister Justin came over to see what was going on. Sister Justin was an overweight nun in her late fifties, and although she was very strict, she was in no way as bad as Sister Thomas. She looked at me through her thick-rimmed glasses.

  ‘Are you going to sit there all day? The bell will be going off soon.’

  ‘We know, Sister,’ Loretta said. ‘We’re trying, but she can’t move her legs.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong with your legs?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sister. They’ve been sore all day, and now I can’t move them.’

  ‘You’ll have to see Dr Hanna. Loretta, get someone to help you carry her to the dormitory and get her into bed. If anyone asks what you’re doing, say I told you. I will have the doctor here as soon as he can get away from his surgery.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister. I’ll take Bridget with me.’

  ‘Hurry along, then.’

  We waited until everyone else had lined up and left, then Loretta and Bridget clasped hands to make a cradle for me to sit on. I was very small and light so it wasn’t too much of a problem getting me up to the dormitory. In no time at all they were helping me into bed.

  They sat on the end of the bed and chatted, while I listened in. We knew from experience that it would be quite some time before the doctor arrived. He’d only come after his surgery and regular rounds were complete, so it was likely to be early evening before we saw him. It was a running joke among us that he was often accompanied by the strong smell of Irish whisky.

  ‘Well, Frances, it looks like Sister Thomas is going to have to leave ye alone for a while now. But she’ll have it in for me, though, for sure,’ Loretta said.

  ‘But once the doctor says what’s wrong with my knees, she’ll know we were telling the truth. She can’t punish ye then.’

  ‘Ye know it won’t matter if we’re telling the truth or not. She gets some sort of kick out of hitting us. Why did she ever want to become a nun?’

  It was a good question, and one that we had often pondered.

  ‘No, Frances,’ Loretta went on, ‘I’m still going to have to face her, especially after going for her. I bet she drags it out, though, just to make me suffer some more, the old witch. God forgive me, I’d love to see someone lay into her with one of those sticks. She needs a dose of her own medicine. Perhaps one day I’ll get her back for all of us.’

  ‘Oh God, Loretta!’ Bridget exclaimed. ‘How can you even think of doing something like that?’

  I sensed that Bridget was unsure how much more Loretta could take before either breaking down or exploding. Because Loretta was always putting on a brave face, she sometimes seemed like a ticking bomb of unexpressed pain and anger, and what made her most furious of all was seeing me being harmed.

  ‘Can you imagine what the nuns would do to you?’ Bridget continued. ‘What the rest of your life here would be like? It would just be awful. The only winners in here are the nuns. They get away with everything and still have a place reserved in Heaven because they’re nuns. For God’s sake, it’s not fair, but that’s the way it is and we can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘We can when we’re grown up,’ I said. ‘One day I’ll write a book about this place and tell the world what the “good sisters” are really like.’

  ‘But ye don’t even know how to write, sure,’ Bridget laughed.

  ‘Quiet, someone’s coming,’ Loretta whispered.

  She and Bridget jumped to their feet, not wanting to get into trouble for sitting on the bed. We could hear movement outside the dormitory door, and Loretta and Bridget busied themselves tidying up my bed, tucking and smoothing. The door opened and in walked Sister Aloisius on a routine cleaning check.

  ‘What are you girls doing in here?’ she demanded.

  Bridget explained about the doctor’s visit.

  ‘Well, it looks to me like you’re all done here,’ said Sister Aloisius said. ‘Now be on your way. I’m sure you’ve work to do.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ They hurried away.

  Sister Aloisius wandered around the dormitory running her fingers along every available surface where dust could gather, including the windowsills, skirting boards and bedside cabinets. She completed her inspection with a methodical examination of the floor underneath each girl’s bed before coming over for a chat.

  Sister Aloisius liked me, and I preferred her to the other nuns. I’d always found her to be quite fair, but unfortunately, we only ever met when she was on dinner or recreation duty. She didn’t seem to pick on girls just for the sake of it, although she could be as strict as any other nun if she was crossed. I often wished that she were in charge of my dormitory instead of Sister Thomas. It would certainly make life a lot more bearable. But there was little point in wishing for something that was never going to happen. I told her about the pain in my legs, and she suggested that we pray together.

  When she’d gone, I lay on my bed for hours before anyone came. It was a relief not to be standing or kneeling. Every part of my body seemed to ache from the battering I’d received that morning. My hands were in the worst condition. It was getting dark, so I couldn’t see the wounds clearly, but I could make out long red welts across my palms and fingers. The fingers of my right hand were particularly painful, especially when I tried to move them. I found similar wounds on my back, my legs and particularly on my arms, which I’d used to protect my head. The back of my head throbbed, and I had a huge bump just behind my left ear. I knew that by morning the bruising would be much worse and that I would be in pain for days. But at least the beating was over, for now.

  More troubling was the thought of what Sister Thomas would do to Loretta. I was so proud of my sister for trying to protect me but knew she was in for it now. I was convinced it was all my fault. If I hadn’t stopped working, then none of this would have happened. Demoralised and overwhelmed by feelings of worthlessness, I decided that it would have been better for the rest of my family, especially Loretta, if I’d never been born.

  Reeking of alcohol and swaying, Dr Hanna finally arrived and prescribed tights. Not rest or lighter work duties, but tights – to keep my legs insulated as I slaved away on my knees. I suppose he was just being practical, but at the time I could have done with a bit more support from the so-called medical profession. I slept fitfully that night and dreamt about Mammy. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back for you, Frances,’ she said in the dream. ‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

  CHAPTER 6

  The Visitor

  By now Loretta and I had lost all real hope of our mother ever coming back for us. We talked and dreamt about it, but neither of us really expected it to happen. We both knew that life for us was our miserable existence in N
azareth House, which really was more like a prison than a children’s home. The ‘good sisters’ ran their prison with an iron grip, with the full moral backing of the Roman Catholic Church and, presumably, of the community at large. We accepted the regular beatings and other punishments – including losing the ‘privilege’ of seeing our younger sister – as a normal part of our everyday life in the convent. What other choice did we have?

  Now we were worried, however, because we hadn’t seen Sinéad for a long time. Often, when we were due to see her, one or both of us would be summoned by Sister Thomas, who would accuse us of doing something that we hadn’t done. We’d get beaten until we owned up and then get beaten some more for the offence, and, of course, we wouldn’t be allowed to see Sinéad. Obviously, we could have just owned up straight away, but there was always the hope that this time she might believe us. Besides, we’d been brainwashed into believing that lying was a mortal sin and that anyone who lied would burn in the fires of Hell forever.

  We were desperate to know how Sinéad was, and she was always on my mind. I comforted myself by thinking that at least she didn’t have Sister Thomas on her back night and day.