The Lost Children

by Theresa Talbot

  ‘No, not really,’ said Oonagh.

  ‘Where was I? I’m always doing that, losing the gist of things.’

  ‘Father Kennedy, the Magdalene laundry,’ Oonagh prompted. By this time her mind was working overtime. She had no idea Father Kennedy had any connection to the Institutes. No wonder he was so against the idea of Tom helping her. It would have destroyed his reputation as the champion of good causes if it had got out that he had been instrumental in incarcerating young girls into a life of slavery.

  ‘That’s right,’ continued Maureen, ‘I’ll tell you, I wasn’t sorry he died, and there’s many like me who’ll be glad to have seen him go.’ She blessed herself again.

  ‘He would come and say mass every morning before we started work. He knew how bad things were in that bloody laundry. But we were told we were lucky. We were getting a chance to “wash away our sins”. We did that all right. Every day we would scrub tons of soiled sheets from the local hospital. In the summer, the heat became unbearable. But we weren’t allowed to take off any clothes. And the stench! Oh God, it was unbelievable. There was always someone coming down with some illness or other. But we weren’t allowed any time off if we took sick. The winter was worse, mind you. It was so cold our hands would crack and blister. Frozen wet we were. And our legs would go numb and blue from standing on the stone floor all day. Anyway, I did that until I was too far gone, then I was allowed to tend to the older nuns in the nursing home until the baby was born.’

  ‘What happened after that, Maureen? What about the baby?’

  ‘Oh, she was gorgeous. I know all babies are beautiful, but my Lord, she really was something special. Alice, I called her, though she was never baptised of course. I was back working within a couple of days. I got to see her every day though, she’d be in the nursery with the others. I got to help with her feed and things. But they didn’t like you playing with the babies, getting too attached or stuff like that.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The nuns. The mammies were never allowed to hug or kiss the children, or show any kind of affection. Nuns can be very cruel you know, cold-hearted like. But every day when I saw Alice, I would whisper in her ear and tell her little stories, and tell her how much I loved her and things. And how one day I’d get a big house and we’d both live there. Fourteen months we had together. I just lived for those precious moments. I waited and waited for Ma and Da to come and take me home. But they never did. So I was just stuck there. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I was allowed to leave, nobody told me. Anyway, one day when I went to the nursery I couldn’t find her, couldn’t find my Alice. I remember looking round, searching for her, in her bed, in the yard, I thought she might have taken sick. I was frantic. God, I was absolutely terrified something terrible had happened. Especially with her not being baptised. I asked one of the nuns where Alice was. That’s when they told me she was gone. America, they said. Adopted. Just like that. Never gave me a second thought, never gave me a second glance… I should be grateful she was given the chance to live in America, they told me, instead of bleating and crying…’

  Maureen’s voice trailed off as the tears fell down her cheek. Oonagh switched her machine off. She hadn’t been prepared for this.

  ‘Oh God, Maureen, I don’t know what to say. Couldn’t you tell someone? I mean, they couldn’t just give your child away without your say so, without your permission.’

  ‘Give her away? No, she wasn’t just given, pet. I reckon thousands of wee babies were shunted across the Atlantic to couples who had enough money not to have to bother with all the paraphernalia of adoption agencies. But I was told I was lucky she went to such a good home. That it was a better life than I could give her…’

  Oonagh felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She was almost too scared to voice the question. ‘Maureen, are you saying your baby was sold?’

  ‘Aye, pet, that’s right. But it was common enough.’

  ‘Oh my God, that’s dreadful! I really don’t know what to say.’ Compassion quelled Oonagh’s journalistic instincts. ‘I know this is hard for you… would you like to take a break for a bit?’

  ‘No, pet. I want people to know the truth about that place. D’you know, for years I felt so ashamed at what I was. At what I’d done. Ashamed because I was such a bad, bad girl. But I’ll tell you, no matter how wicked or evil I was, I would never take a baby away from its mam. Never. Never.’ She shook her head, and for the first time lines of bitterness formed round her mouth.

  ‘Have you managed to find any trace of her?’

  Maureen shook her head. ‘There were no proper records kept. And none of the babies kept their real names. Anyway, what good would it do even if I did trace her now? I’ll not mean anything to her. But I just want her to know that I wasn’t a bad mam. Just need to tell her that I didn’t abandon her. That I loved her very much… and still do.’

  ‘I’m sure she knows that, Maureen. I’m sure she knows, somehow.’

  *

  By the time Oonagh was back in the car, the tears that were welling had spilled down her cheeks. Great fat wet blobs stung her skin before falling onto her jacket. Her sobs escaped in rhythmic gulps.

  She drove towards the West End, desperate to be home. Trying to make sense of it all.

  A few blocks from her house, she stopped the car and put the hazards on as she ran into a pharmacy. She returned to the car a few minutes later, clutching a home pregnancy kit stuffed into a white paper bag.

  13

  Glasgow, 2000

  She looked in the mirror. Everything was as it had been before, yet she was changed.

  Her fear had a shape, it had a colour: a thin blue strip on a piece of white plastic. The phone rang and made her jump. It was Jack, anxious.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’ Her voice was flat.

  ‘Oh, Oonagh, I’m sorry about the other day. Things are… difficult just now.’

  Oonagh chewed on a ragged piece of skin on the side of her thumb. ‘Look, what is it you want?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said, what—’

  He interrupted her. ‘Yes, I heard what you said. Oonagh, I just want to speak to you.’

  ‘Really? I thought we got everything cleared up the other day.’

  ‘Oonagh, please stop this. Can’t we talk about something else?’

  ‘Okay.’ She waited a few seconds, then filled the silence with, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Great news, eh?’

  ‘Christ, there’s no way you can keep it, can you?’

  ‘Good God no, that would be far too inconvenient, we can’t let it… interfere with our lives… Or your life, or even your wife’s life come to that.’

  Her sarcasm sounded hollow and misplaced. She wanted to tell him to piss off. That she didn’t need him. But she suddenly felt scared of being alone. She didn’t want to lose him. Not right now. Right now, someone else’s husband was better than no husband at all.

  She traced her finger round her reflection in the mirror and felt like an idiot. She’d told Tom about her fears during their ‘confession-thon’ the previous evening. He’d been shocked and perhaps a little horrified, but he’d had the decency to spare her a lecture.

  Jack cleared his throat. ‘Oonagh, darling, listen, don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. You know money’s not a problem, and—’ His voice on the other end of the phone brought her back to the present.

  ‘Money.’ She sniffed and rolled her head back. Her voice trembled as the words caught the back of her throat. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. I earn more than I could ever spend. Why would money be a problem?’ She ran her fingers through her hair, scraping her fringe back from her forehead. A tiny sob escaped from her chest. ‘Christ,’ she cried, ‘is that the best you can do? You’ll be telling me next you’re a decent sort of fella.’ She knew the last sentence would be lost on him.

  ‘Oonagh. Calm down, Oonagh.’ He sucked
in an exaggerated breath between his teeth. ‘Come on, Darling, pour yourself a glass of wine and go upstairs to bed. Try and get some sleep.’ He was on his mobile, and Oonagh could hear his car door close and the soft beep of the alarm as he flicked on the central locking with the remote control. ‘You sound exhausted.’ His breath quickened as the gravel path crunched beneath his footsteps. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’ His voice dropped to a whisper as he fumbled with his key in the lock. ‘We’ll talk properly tomorrow. I promise.’ He hung up without saying goodbye, which sent a wave of sadness washing through Oonagh’s entire body.

  She looked down at her belly, and then back into the mirror. Her face was pale and blotchy, and her eyes still pink-rimmed from her visit that afternoon to Maureen O’Hara. God, she was a mess. A big fat bloody mess. She thought of calling Tom, she wanted to tell him that her fears had been confirmed. She was also desperate to tell him about Maureen O’Hara’s baby being sold, and of Father Kennedy’s involvement with the Galway Magdalene.

  She thought again. By now he would have told Father Watson he was leaving the Church. She could imagine a whole flock of priests descending on the Parish House this very minute trying to talk him round.

  She went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine to take to bed. Subconsciously her fingers strayed onto her belly and she put the unopened bottle back in the fridge. ‘Come on, wee thing,’ she whispered as she made her way toward the stairs, ‘just you and me.’ She switched off the lights as she went, leaving only the glow from the computer in the boxroom downstairs that served as her office.

  … HELLO GORGEOUS… HELLO GORGEOUS…

  The words on the screen moved effortlessly across the monitor. She went to switch it off and decided against it: it would give her some kind words to wake to.

  *

  The next morning she called Tom. The machine answered, and she shuddered when she heard Father Kennedy’s voice asking her to leave a name and number.

  ‘Hello, this is Oonagh O’Neil, with a message for Father Thomas.’ She tried to keep her tone business like, but thought she ended up sounding pompous. She wasn’t sure who else would listen to the message and she didn’t want to make things any worse for Tom. He was probably already in the shit. For no reason she could think of, she was getting panicky. ‘Father Thomas,’ she continued, ‘can you please call me as soon as you can. It’s important. I need to speak to you… It’s… it’s about… about the Magdalene project. As I say, it is quite urgent. Thank you.’ She left her number and hung up.

  14

  Galway, 1957

  Irene Connolly was fifteen years old and five months pregnant when they strapped her down and stuck electrodes on her head. She tried to resist the rubber bar being stuffed into her mouth, but they held her nose and her throat, forcing her mouth to open. They told her to bite down onto it – it would make it feel better. She didn’t believe them. She squeezed her eyes tight, and there was a brief silence before something shook her so hard she bucked against the bed. Shook her until the air cracked with blue light and caused her to burn from the inside out. Her bones turned to twigs, snapping against the force.

  The first session was the worst. The first time her convulsions were so severe that she ended up with fractures to her arms, ribs and ankles. But they were good to her and made sure she got something to help ease the pain of her broken bones. It didn’t take long before her memory dulled and she forgot. Forgot the pain, and other stuff, until she couldn’t even remember what it was she’d done wrong in the first place. She was a very good girl after that.

  She went quietly to the Magdalene Institute, where the Sisters of Mercy could take good care of her. Lucky girl. If it hadn’t been for her dad she would have been forced to stay in the loony bin.

  Irene wasn’t kept in Galway like her mum had promised. She went to Glasgow. The Sisters of Mercy did good works there too. Frank Connolly told his wife it was for the best.

  By the time her daughter was born in the January of fifty-eight, Irene Connolly was barely sixteen and registered as medically insane. They held her down again, not on a bed this time, but on a chair. They forced her legs wide apart, and shoved a bucket underneath to catch the blood, catch the mess. She knew not to scream. So instead she sang the songs in her head that took her to another place and drowned out the pain.

  She didn’t scream even when the baby got stuck and she heard a voice say they’d have to cut its head off to get it out. Just pushed the way her dad had told her to with baby Isaac. She pushed and someone else pulled and the tiny wee thing eventually fell out of her.

  When she saw the tiny malformed torso, the misshapen head, the eyes that were no more than black empty sockets and the twisted arms and legs, she prayed the baby wouldn’t last until the morning.

  Irene held her through the night. Refused to let her go. Cradled that little scrap of humanity in her arms until every last drop of life had left the baby girl’s body. For once Irene’s prayers were answered. Unconditionally. The wee creature died before sunrise. She named her Patricia after her sister, and thanked God for sparing her the torture of life. Only then did she let them take her away and wrap her in a torn sheet before stuffing her in a wooden box, like a tiny Egyptian mummy.

  15

  Glasgow, 2000

  He’d arrived back at the chapel house early, just after seven thirty that morning, parking on the street rather than the gravel drive, so as not to disturb Mrs Brady. He hadn’t noticed the man sitting in the car parked just behind his, its engine switched off and the window open just three inches at the top.

  ‘Been out clubbing again…?’

  ‘Oh, for fu… Je-sus! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ Tom clutched his chest, and raised one hand to his throat to stop his heart escaping out of his mouth. Charlie Antonio looked nonplussed.

  ‘Get in.’

  Tom hesitated, and looked around. The street was deserted. He opened the passenger door and got inside. It was a cold morning, raining lightly, and the windows were already steaming up. Tom rubbed his palms together, blew hot breath onto his fingers and then wedged his hands between his knees.

  ‘What is it you want? I thought I told you never to come here.’ He shivered, despite the warmth of the car, and his voice came out in an unconvincing staccato.

  Charlie switched on the windscreen wipers to clear the screen, making the pair of them visible to any early morning joggers or postmen.

  ‘Never rains but it pours, eh?’

  ‘Oh God, just get this over with.’

  ‘I’ve got something of yours…’ He took a small, dark brown prescription bottle from his pocket and held it up for Tom to see.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Tom lunged at him and tried to grab the penicillin.

  Charlie stuffed it back in his pocket, and gripped Tom by the throat, forcing his head into the side window. ‘Where do you think I got it? It’s got your name on it. I took it – out of your bloody bedside cabinet, next to the bloody rosary beads!’

  ‘Je-sus Christ, what were you doing in my house?’

  Charlie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just wanted a wee nosey.’

  ‘Well, you can’t blackmail me anymore, I’ve got nothing to give you, I’ve got no more money! Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. I’m coming clean about this whole stinking mess. I’m not going to be held to ransom by a, a…’ he delved into the reserves of his courage ‘… a shitty wee low life like you.’

  Charlie started to laugh. ‘Ach, I’m a bit hurt. There was a time you quite fancied me. Remember? Let me spell it out to you, Tommy Boy, because that collar has obviously cut off your blood supply and starved your brain of oxygen. You can leave the priesthood for all I care, come out about being gay – tell the Pope, why don’t you, put an advert in the Jewish Chronicle!’ He loosened his grip round Tom’s throat, and sat back in his seat, pulling down on the cuffs of his jacket. ‘No, they can’t lock you up for being queer anymore, but by Christ they’ll go to town on yo
u for killing that old priest!’

  Tom sat bolt upright. ‘Is this meant to be some sort of sick joke? I didn’t kill Father Kennedy. That bottle proves nothing; I got that prescription for a dose of tonsillitis months ago. I didn’t poison anyone. I wouldn’t know how!’

  ‘No? Well, why don’t you just tell that to the polis then? Oh, I’m sure they’ll believe you. Of course, by that time you won’t be able to hide behind your collar. You’ll just be another catholic at the mercy of the Big Boys in Blue. No. No. Let me rephrase that. Another bent catholic who’s just killed an old man dying of cancer… after robbing the Church oot a’ hundreds… at the mercy of the Big Proddie Boys in Blue. D’ye think they’ll go quite so easy on you then? Think maybe they’ll no’ give you too hard a time of it? Even if you do get off with it, where’ll ye go? Everywhere you turn the papers’ll be two steps in front. The press love this kind of stuff.’ Charlie rubbed his hands in glee.

  ‘It was you ya bastard, wasn’t it? You killed him.’

  ‘Nice try, Tom. Close, but no cigar.’ Charlie let out a snort. ‘Aye, everyone’ll believe that. I killed an old priest for no reason whatsoever. What’s my motive, Tom?’

  ‘To get at me.’

  ‘You? And who the fuck are you? Och, don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘You probably stole that medicine weeks ago. Had this planned all along. How did you get it without me knowing?’

  ‘You’re really losing it, you know? I took this after that poor old sod died.’ He nodded his head towards the house. ‘Not exactly Fort Knox in there. You could do with a better security system. I know somebody in the business, could get you sorted with a wee alarm at cost. Anything for a pal.’

  Tom knew it was no great shakes for Charlie to get in and out of a house unnoticed and uninvited; according to Oonagh he was well known for it. It wasn’t unheard of for journalists to raid people’s bins in the hope of finding that telltale piece of salacious evidence to back up a story, and it wasn’t beneath Charlie to go that one step further when he felt he had to.