Bird of Passage

by Catherine Czerkawska

  In the middle of the night, they wheeled Kirsty down to the unit to feed her. She had been insistent about breast feeding, although the nurses came and asked her if they could give the baby a bottle ‘just to start her off’. Nicolas might have agreed but Kirsty was wide awake by this time, exhausted and in pain, but determined.

  ‘No. I have to feed her myself,’ she said. ‘If I don’t start now, I might not be able to do it. And I don’t want her getting used to a bottle before she gets used to me.’

  ‘You don’t argue with my wife when she’s in this mood,’ said Nicolas with a certain amount of pride. ‘She is a redhead, you know!’ So they trundled her down in the lift, in a wheelchair, with a drip still attached to her arm and in the quietness of the special care unit, they put the baby to her breast. After a few false starts, the child turned towards her mother, nuzzled close, latched on.

  Kirsty looked down at the dark head against the white of her skin, at the little screwed up face, suckling and suckling as though in pain. She smoothed her hand over the dark hair and felt its softness and strangeness against her palm. ‘What have I done?’ she thought. ‘Oh dear God, what have I done to you, Finn?’ She had a sudden terrible fear for the future, compounded with an extreme of love for her daughter.

  They called the child India, which was Nicolas’s choice of name, although Kirsty didn’t object. She liked its air of mystery. And it went well with the dark, exotic beauty of the little girl.

  ‘I wonder where we got her from?’ said Nicolas, happily.

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘But your mother was quite dark, wasn’t she?’ Nicolas peered into the child’s face, trying to spot resemblances.

  ‘She was, yes. And this wee one’s not going to be a redhead, that’s for sure!’

  ‘No. Well, I love your red hair, Christine, but I suppose it’s one less thing to worry about. At least she won’t get her leg pulled when she goes to school.’

  ‘And nobody will think that she’s unlucky to have on a boat! Or unlucky to meet on the way to a boat.’

  Nicolas was puzzled. ‘Is it? Unlucky to meet a redhead on the way to a boat?’

  ‘I told you that story ages ago.’

  ‘No. You’ve never told me.’

  ‘I must have told you. It was old Ian McNeill. He just thought that whenever he met me on the road he had no luck at his fishing.’

  It was Finn she had told. Not Nicolas. Finn, of course.

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘It was nothing. My grandad sorted it out.’

  The baby had a rosebud mouth, sallow skin and a corona of dark hair which could never be persuaded to lie flat, even weeks after she was born. But then, her baby blue eyes darkened. She was a wide awake child, watching everything in the room with intense interest.

  They were doomed to months of sleepless nights. Although India was alert and good humoured when she had something to distract her, she was a colicky and complaining child at night. Nicolas offered to employ a nurse, but Kirsty wouldn’t hear of it. She was still feeding India herself and was reluctant to let anyone else interfere. At last, in desperation, they took the baby into bed with them. They were both so ragged from lack of sleep that they would have tried anything. And neither of them could bear to leave her to cry. Once she was fed and changed, Kirsty would put her on Nicolas’s chest, while he lay on his back, propped up on a pillow. The baby seemed to find the position comfortable, and they would all three of them fall asleep, Kirsty tucked in against her husband, the baby sprawled on top of him, soothed by his breathing and his heartbeat.

  Annabel sent her a little sling and whenever the weather was fine, Kirsty would put the baby in it and walk up to Dunshee. Partly this was because the walking seemed to soothe the child, but mostly it was to get out of the house and visit her grandfather. Alasdair was increasingly crippled with arthritis. He ought to have retired long ago, but there was nobody else to take on the farm and he still didn’t want to leave it. Kirsty was glad, because she still liked to sit up in her old bedroom, gazing towards the sea. Often she would trundle the buggy down the track to the beach, park India in the shade, and sketch the cliffs at the south end of the island, trying to capture their soaring, vertiginous quality.

  Like the old ruin, these massive basalt cliffs were becoming something of an obsession with her. She would make sketches and then take them home to Ealachan, where she would use ever larger canvases in an attempt to explore them. When she was sketching, all went well but when she tried to paint them, she was seldom happy with the results. She would complain that the paint had become ‘stuck’ and hard to work, that everything had become too solid, too dragged down, that there was no freedom in it. The work she wanted to achieve, monumental, non-negotiable, would not take shape beneath her hands.

  Kirsty would have judged that she was happy at that time. The child so filled her mind that there was little room for anything or anyone else and she missed her mother more than she missed Finn. She would gaze at India’s rosy face and wish that Isabel was here, wish that there was somebody to confide in, to ask about things such as potty training. She had taken the decision to put Finn out of her thoughts and she had largely succeeded.

  He’s not coming back. He’s gone for good, she told herself. He was my friend, but I can’t live the rest of my life wondering if he’s going to get off the next ferry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Finn perched nervously on the edge of a couch, waiting for her to come. The room where he had been asked to wait was so clean that every surface shone. The floor was wooden, with a single blue rug, the walls painted white. There was an alcove with a white marble statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a posy of sweet smelling pinks in front of it. The scent of them reminded him of his childhood. There had been a procession of some kind – a holy day - when the church was strewn with petals. The whole place had been full of the spicy clove perfume of pinks and stocks, their shredded petals making a kind of scented confetti. What a big part the church had played in his life back then, its rituals stitched into the fabric of his days, giving them shape and meaning. But he marvelled at how the same set of beliefs could result in such polar opposites of experience.

  The room was full of sunlight, very warm and quiet. Occasionally he would be aware of distant footsteps, the muted sound of a door closing, a snatch of conversation. But these singular sounds only served to emphasise the silence. The impression was of a stillness which was not oppressive. It was so peaceful that Finn found the tension draining out of him, his eyelids drooping.

  He was again aware of footsteps, but this time they grew steadily closer. He could feel his heart pounding, could hear the drum beat of it in his ears. He rose to his feet as the door swung open but when she came into the room, her face eager and afraid, his first definite thought was, this can’t be her, she’s too small. She always had been small, a slim, diminutive woman – it was just that back then, he had been even smaller, and she had been everything, she had been huge, she had been his whole world.

  She had a sweet face, like Sister Rosalie, how strange, all pink and white, but with many fine lines around eyes and mouth. She turned her face towards him, glistening eyes and a smiling, uncertain mouth, dwarfed by the white wimple and the dark veil. She moved smoothly, as though there were wheels beneath the habit. He didn’t recognise her at all. He thought, this must be a mistake. This is a stranger. Why did they think this might be my mother?

  But she was reaching out to him, a tiny hand, red and rather rough. She put her hand on his. Her fingers were cool and dry. And then the hand was withdrawn, tucked safely back inside her sleeves again.

  ‘Oh, Finn!’ she said. ‘Is it really you? Can this really be you, all grown up?’

  He was a whirlpool of feelings: sadness, resentment, regret. He had no words. No words at all

  ‘Mammy?’

  ‘It is you. But I can hardly believe it. Look at you, Finn. Look at you.’

  She sat down on the couch, an
d he sat beside her, but then moved away from her a little, old habits dying hard. You never touched a nun. Never. Was she really his mother? She didn’t attempt to touch him again, didn’t even take his hand. ‘This is difficult. I know.’

  ‘Difficult?’ he echoed.

  ‘Well.’

  ‘When did you... ?’

  ‘Take my vows? Years ago. Years.’ The fingers suddenly emerged from the voluminous sleeves and she counted on them. ‘It must be nine years now.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because I wanted to.’

  ‘Why would you want to? After all they put you through? And what about me?’

  It came out as a wail, the yelp of a miserable little boy. Still she didn’t touch him.

  ‘I hated it. Hated it. I could only think about getting out and getting you back.’

  ‘I wish you had,’ he said, but she didn’t hear him, too intent on explaining.

  ‘It was appalling, Finn. Just appalling. Worse than prison. But there was nothing I could do about it. Well, I did run off once. Me and another couple of girls. We got out one night, and then we got over the wall. The three of us had some idea of getting to England and I thought I would try to get you back. I might have some rights over here. But it was winter, and it was foggy and the Gardai caught up with us before we’d gone more than a mile or two... oh you don’t want to know what it was like.’

  ‘I do know what it was like. It was like that for me too.’

  Worse, he thought. It was worse. He hated himself for his sudden resentment but he couldn’t help it.

  She hesitated. ‘Do you remember anything about that day? The day they took you away?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not much. I don’t like to think about it. I remember Mrs Maguire from the Legion of Mary. I remember being taken to the school. It seemed like a very long way. I fell asleep in the car and when I woke up I needed a pee. They had to stop the car and let me do it by the road.’

  Where had that come from? How had he forgotten that, until now? Mrs Maguire, studiously averting her gaze. The little stream of piss in the road. His embarrassment.

  ‘I couldn’t bear to think about you...’

  He interrupted her. ‘They said you weren’t fit to look after me. That’s what they told me. They said I was a bad boy, and a charity case...’

  ‘You were never a bad boy. Never. I wasn’t the best of mothers but you were such a lovely little boy...’

  ‘There was nothing wrong with you.’

  ‘But you’ve done alright, haven’t you? Look at you. You’ve done alright!’ She wanted to believe it, wanted to persuade herself of the truth of it.

  ‘I’m alright.’

  ‘They told me you were living in Glasgow. Is that right?’

  He gave her a sketchy account of his recent history without going into too much detail. He told her he had been doing evening classes, had just sat his exams. The results would be coming out in the summer. His teachers were pleased with him. They thought he might go far. But it felt as though he were recounting somebody else’s story.

  ‘So you’re alright. Thank God for that. You’re alright, so. And this priest. The one who contacted our Mother Superior. He’s helped you?’

  ‘He’s been kind, yes.’

  ‘So it hasn’t all been bad?’

  ‘I wanted to come and find you. I wanted to get you out. But they wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t tell me where you were. I thought you were dead!’

  There was a muted knock at the door, and a lay sister came in, wheeling a trolley with china cups, home made biscuits, a big pot of tea. There was nothing, Finn thought, so momentous, that it couldn’t be cured or at least alleviated by the generous application of quantities of tea. That was the way it was in the Church. And perhaps they were right.

  When they were alone again, balancing cups, he asked, ‘But why did you do this? Was this the only way out? ’

  She gazed towards the high window, drank a mouthful of tea.

  ‘I always intended to get out. And to find you. If ever I prayed at that time, it was only to find you. To save you from wherever they had you. But years passed, and nothing changed, and then something did change. The Mother Superior, she was such a bloody ould dragon, God forgive me, Finn, but I hated her, if ever I hated anyone. Anyway, she died. Quite suddenly. Took a stroke and keeled over in her cell one night. And there was a new regime, and things changed. It was gradual. But things changed. The new one was a good woman, and I think she was appalled by what she found, and needed to manage the change somehow. And there was one day, in church, when we were singing, we did a lot a singing there, and I found myself thinking that I was happy. I was content. It was a feeling in myself that I couldn’t ignore. I told Mother Anne about you and she said she would make some enquiries, but years had passed, and you were gone. You were gone from that school and they said you were gone from Ireland and nobody knew where you were. Grown and gone. And I thought, well, you’d made a life for yourself, and why would you want me interfering?’

  ‘How could you think that?’

  ‘Because it’s true. It seemed to me that if I pursued you it would have been an imposition on you. I’d have been this long-lost mother, appearing out of the blue. I couldn’t do that to you. I was like somebody who has fallen asleep for a hundred years and finds everything changed when she wakes. Like those people in the old stories who are taken by the fairies, but when they come back they find that years have passed and nothing is the same...’

  ‘But... this?’ His gesture took in the room, the statue, her habit.

  ‘It was what I wanted to do. I looked in my heart and saw that it was what I wanted.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. It’s the truth. I found my vocation. I found my faith again in the strangest of places. A candle in the dark. Mother Anne was my spiritual advisor and counsellor, and she put me through the mill. She didn’t believe me either, just at first. She had to be sure that it wasn’t false. Wasn’t all some illusion. It took a long time. But I took my vows at last. And then, I was sent over here. There’s a nursery school attached to the convent. We go out into the world from time to time. But on the whole, we stay still and people come to us. We sing. I love the singing. And we pray.’

  ‘Did you pray for me?’ It came out as a croak. An ugly sound.

  ‘Oh Finn, all the time.’

  ‘How can you still believe? How can you believe any of it?’

  ‘But you go to church don’t you? I heard you went to church in Glasgow. That priest, the one who contacted me. He told me you still had the faith.’

  ‘Kevin’s been a good friend to me. But I don’t believe in anything!’

  He wanted to curl up and become small again and tuck himself in close to her. But he wanted his real mother, not this small stranger, her hair hidden by wimple and veil. She made him feel big and clumsy. He wanted to run away from this smooth, beeswax scented place, and forget that any of it had happened. He wanted her to be dead, so that he could mourn her in peace and move on with his life.

  ‘I can’t mend the past,’ she said. ‘None of us can. I thought I would die without you.’

  ‘You couldn’t beat them, so you joined them.’

  ‘No. I found myself. I’m Sister Dominica now. Ah God, let me look at you. I know this is too much, too soon. You need to think about all this. Sort things out in your head. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go away and turn your back on me. But you can come and see me you know. If you want to. There’s a guest house. You could come and stay. We could spend a little time together. There’s so much to talk about. Things you should know. About that time. About what happened...’ She frowned. ‘There are things you don’t remember, Finn.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to remember it. I’ve spent all these years trying to forget and I don’t want to dredge it up again. There’s nothing you can tell me that I want to
know. Nothing!’

  She gazed at him, anxiously. He couldn’t be angry with her but he was disappointed. He knew that she had been helpless, as helpless as he was, in the face of inhuman and intractable cruelty. But she had capitulated when she should not.

  He thought, I wouldn’t have done that! I wouldn’t have given in! I wouldn’t have joined the enemy! The words came into his mind with such fierceness that they tumbled over one another and made him dizzy with the venom of them.

  When he was on the bus on the way back to Glasgow, he remembered the sudden sadness that had shaded her serenity. Things we should talk about, Finn. About that time. About what happened. What things? But he hadn’t wanted to talk about it and he didn’t want to think about it any more. He had spent his life so far blaming himself for the seismic shift that had destroyed his world and his mother’s world too. But she was alright. And he was alright, wasn’t he? He was free now. He would follow Kirsty’s advice and make something of himself, but he would do it alone and unaided. When he was rich and successful, he would go back to Dunshee. He would go back and see Kirsty and say ‘Look. Look at what I’ve done! Did you think I couldn’t do it? Look at what I’ve made of myself!’

  And then she would see. They would all see. All the doubters. They would all see just what Finn O’Malley could do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Three years later, Kirsty gave birth to another daughter, Flora, a tiny red-headed replica of herself. During this second pregnancy, she found that she and her work had vastly outgrown the bedroom, and Nicolas made a studio for her in one of the old outbuildings at the back of the house. She still liked to walk about the island, sketching, taking photographs or just observing the layers of light and colour, the subtleties of each season. Whenever she could, she would take India with her, admiring her daughter’s energy as she toddled along on sturdy legs, covering three miles for her mother’s every mile. Sometimes, Alasdair would come down to the beach below Dunshee with them, and make sandcastles or sand boats. India could be an obstinate and fractious little girl when she chose, but she would always smile for Alasdair.