by Emily Gunnis
‘Who?’ said Nana.
‘The girl in the letter,’ replied Sam, as Nana cleared her throat and began to read.
Chapter Twelve
Sunday 16 December 1956
Ivy waited until she was sure everyone was asleep, then reached under her pillow for the ballpoint pen and folded sheets of paper that she had smuggled out of letter-writing that evening.
The writing pad she had brought with her was in the suitcase that Mother Carlin had confiscated on her arrival, but on a Sunday they were allowed a few minutes before prayers to write home. Their correspondence was strictly supervised and double-checked by Mother Carlin before the letters were handed to Patricia to give to the laundry delivery driver. Patricia, the mousy-haired girl with freckles who sat next to Ivy at dinner, had whispered to Ivy that only tales of the nuns’ kindness and the girls’ deep appreciation were permitted. But after much pleading on Ivy’s part, Patricia had agreed that if Ivy wrote a second letter, she would slip it in with the others. Ivy had smiled at her, gripping Patricia’s hand tightly under the table until Sister Faith had barked at them to file out from the dining hall, their stomachs still rumbling with hunger.
Now she looked up to the locked window next to her bed. She guessed it was nearing midnight, but the moonlight cast just enough light for her to see. As her pen hovered over the page, Alistair’s face flashed into her mind. It had been months since his smiling brown eyes had watched her every move but she could still smell him, feel his hands on her back, slowly pulling her into him. She missed him so much her whole body ached. She didn’t know how to begin to describe how desperate she felt. As she lay on the coarse blanket of her dormitory bed, she could still reach out and touch the crisp white sheets of their hotel room, recall her cheeks flushing as he smiled over at her from the open balcony doors, the goose bumps forming on her skin as the sea breeze danced over it. She had to find the words to make him act. It was her only hope of escape from this terrible place.
My love,
I have found myself in a place where I have never felt so wretched and alone.
Things at home got unbearable. Uncle Frank was so angry that he raised his hand to me most nights. He would drink, then come into my room and shout that the neighbours knew I was a slut and a whore, and as I curled into a ball and waited for the pain, I dreamed of you walking in behind him and knocking him to the ground. Mother did her best to pull him off me, but the one time she couldn’t get between us, he punched me so hard that I feared for our baby’s life. Things at home had become so wretched that when Dr Jacobson told us Father Benjamin had got me a place at St Margaret’s, I was relieved to have somewhere to go, away from the tension and the shouting and Mother’s pain.
But now that I am here, I am so utterly miserable and homesick I would do anything to be back home. Uncle Frank refused to drive me, so I had to get the bus. Mother was too upset to say goodbye. St Margaret’s is way out in the countryside, beyond the church at Preston. ‘This is your stop, love,’ said the driver, without me even asking him. How many other girls must he have dropped here, I thought, their bumps making them carry their cases awkwardly. And as he drove off and left me all alone, there it was: a huge Victorian house alone on the horizon. It was surrounded by a brick wall and in its centre a wrought-iron gate adorned with a heavy padlock. As I approached, I saw a steel bell hanging from it. I hesitated for a moment, then reached out my hand and pulled the string from side to side, so that the bell let out a high-pitched ding that unsettled the crows in the trees overhead.
I stood there for a while and was about to ring it again when a nun in full-length black habit appeared at the door of the house and began to walk down the long stone pathway towards me. She looked very solemn and her hands were clasped in front of her, and as she walked silently towards me, the keys hanging from her belt jingled noisily like those of a jailer.
Eventually she reached me, and we stood for a moment staring at one another until eventually I said, ‘I’m Ivy Jenkins, Dr Jacobson sent me.’ I held out the piece of paper in my hand, but she just looked at it as if she might catch something from it. Eventually she undid the padlock and said, ‘I’m Sister Mary Francis, follow me.’ The hostility in her voice was like a speech bubble that hung in the air between us.
I dragged myself and my case through the gate, then she closed it behind me with a slam and secured the padlock once more. She was no taller than me, but her frame was narrow and she moved fast, her starched skirt hovering along the path as if she had no feet, while I staggered awkwardly behind her, stopping to set my case down several times. The ash trees looking down on me rustled, as if whispering their disapproval to one another. Finally we reached the dark wooden front door, criss-crossed with black iron, which brought to my mind a dungeon. Sister Mary Francis had her back to me, and as I finally caught up with her I could hear her keys jingling before one rattled in the lock and turned with a heavy click. Slowly the front door opened.
One of the younger girls let out a cry in her sleep, and Ivy startled. She pulled back the covers and tiptoed over to her. If Sister heard her, they would all suffer.
‘Shh.’ She held the girl tight as she sobbed, rocking her to calm her down. ‘Shh, go back to sleep, you need your sleep.’ She stroked her tear-drenched cheek, then crept back across the floor, her heart hammering in her ears. She waited for her own breathing to calm before picking up her pen again.
As Sister Mary Francis disappeared down the long, gleaming tiled corridor, I looked up briefly at the vaulted ceiling and the vast staircase, at the top of which hung a huge sign: ‘Dear Lord, may the fallen find their way back to you through the strength of their prayers and hard work.’ I hurried to catch Sister Mary Francis, and passed three or maybe four girls in brown overalls – some with large stomachs, some not – all on their hands and knees scrubbing the spotless floor. No one stopped their tasks to look up at me; no one spoke.
A bellow of steam hit me then as I passed a huge doorway and briefly looked in to see a laundry. Dozens of girls stood at sinks, pulling sheets from mangles and hanging them from drying rails. It was all too much to take in in such a short time, but what struck me again was the deafening silence. It was broken only by Sister Mary Francis, already waiting for me at the end of the hallway with a scowl on her face. ‘Mother Carlin doesn’t have all day, hurry up. You can leave your suitcase there.’ I rested it on the ground next to the door and nervously entered the Mother Superior’s office.
It was a dark, miserable room that contained only a small window and a fierce-looking woman in full habit behind a large mahogany desk. I stood in silence while she continued to write in a little black book. I knew better than to speak. Finally she looked up at me, and with her pointed chin, white complexion and hooked nose, I knew her immediately to be a witch. A portrait of her hung on the wall behind her. It was a great deal more flattering than the real-life version.
She cleared her throat, then spoke. ‘What is your name?’ I told her, and she said I would no longer be called Ivy; that I would be known here as Mary instead as our own names are forbidden. I felt a rush of panic, and a sting of tears to my eyes that I managed to swallow down. ‘All the girls who come here have duties assigned to them, and you will be working in the laundry. You will be expected to work just as hard as we do, to rise early and use the day productively, to attend mass and ask the Lord’s forgiveness. Do you understand?’ It was hard to stay composed but I managed it and said I understood. She told me that Sister Mary Francis would show me to my dormitory.
When I came out of her office, my case was gone and Sister Mary Francis said I wouldn’t be needing it again. I was hysterical. It had my only picture of Father in it and a blanket I had knitted for my baby. A pink one, as I am so sure it is a girl. I begged them to give it back to me, until Mother Carlin appeared and started to thrash me with a belt right then and there in the corridor. She told me that I should be ashamed, carrying on like that.
Ivy bit her lip at the me
mory of the moment she realised they had taken her father’s photograph. It was like they had stolen his final touch, his final moment with her, when he had blown her a kiss from the bottom of the stairs as she stood in her nightie staring down at him. It was as if Sister Mary Francis had gone back in time and taken it away. But she knew she shouldn’t keep mentioning her father. She needed Alistair to feel that she saw him as her saviour, that there was no hope other than him.
Her eyes stung; she desperately needed to sleep. Her arms throbbed from propping herself up to write, and her whole body ached. But she needed to leave the letter under her pillow before morning or it wouldn’t be ready for Patricia to give to the laundry delivery boy.
Afterwards I followed Sister Mary Francis up the stairs to my dormitory. More girls were on the stairs, but no one looked at me, no one smiled, no one said a word. She left me in the dormitory and told me to change into my overalls. The room was cold and grey, with hospital-style beds, a chipped washbasin under a sash window, faded curtains and a bell on the wall. Then they showed me the laundry. We are expected to work the huge machinery, and all the girls’ hands are red raw from scrubbing in the cold water. After six hours in the laundry we had dinner – watery soup and hard bread. We are not allowed to talk at dinner; we are never allowed to talk.
The nuns are beyond cruel. They beat us with canes or anything they can get their hands on if we so much as talk. A girl burnt herself so badly on the red-hot steel sheets that she developed a blister up her arm that is now infected. Sister Mary Francis just came over and scolded her for wasting time. The only time we are allowed to speak is to say our prayers, or to say ‘Yes, Sister.’ There are prayers before breakfast, mass after breakfast, prayers before bed. And then black emptiness before the bell at the end of the dormitory wakes us again at 6 a.m. We live by the bell; there are no clocks, no calendars, no mirrors, no sense of time. No one talks to me about what will happen when my baby comes, but I know there are babies here because I hear them crying at night.
She winced as a little foot inside her suddenly kicked her hard. Her bladder throbbed; she needed the bathroom desperately, but they weren’t allowed to get up in the night. She thought of her baby, warm and safe inside her. She had no idea how it would come out. She had heard a girl at school saying that they came out of your belly button, but she couldn’t see how. All she knew was that God would decide when it was the right time and take care of both of them.
She shifted onto her other side to try and get comfortable. The covers rippled as her baby wriggled happily inside her, oblivious to what lay in store. Ivy had watched the girls without bumps, who sat at a separate table at dinner. They carried a sadness she had yet to know. She had to get out of St Margaret’s before her baby came. She had to make him understand.
I miss you so much, my love. I miss our drives down to the seafront, I miss the feel of the grass on my skin as we lay looking up at the sky. We are not allowed outside. I feel so cut off, from nature, from home, from you, from myself. I dream about running away, but the only time the nuns aren’t watching is at night, and the dormitories are so high up you would break your neck trying to get down. Even if I did get out, where would I run to? Uncle Frank would bring me straight back; Mother wouldn’t be able to stop him. I would run to you, but I do not know if you want me, and I couldn’t bear it if you turned me away in the street. I have nothing left of who I am, who I used to be. Not even my name. At night I feel my bump in the darkness, our baby moving around inside me. I have let my child down. I have let everyone down. I cry myself to sleep every night.
I don’t know if you are reading these letters, but I cannot bear to let you go. Please, if you still love me, come and get me. Nobody needs to know that this baby is yours; perhaps you could pay for me to stay in a boarding house. I would be happy to work to pay you back as soon as the baby is old enough for me to leave it. I don’t care what I do or where I go, I would never be an embarrassment to you.
Please, I’m begging you, come quickly, or I shall go mad in this place before long.
With all my love for ever,
Your Ivy
A tear dripped onto the page and Ivy wiped it away, before folding the letter neatly, kissing it and placing it under her pillow. Then she turned onto her side, buried her face in the covers and began to cry.
Chapter Thirteen
Sunday 5 February 2017
Preston Lane was a narrow road full of twists and turns that Sam needed to take at a snail’s pace. According to the cutting that Fred had dug up for her, after driving past Preston church, George Cannon had made the fateful turning into the road that she couldn’t help noticing led to St Margaret’s. Then, according to the inquest written up in the Sussex Argus on 12 March 1961, he had skidded on black ice and landed in a ditch, dying instantly.
After pulling into a lay-by, Sam stood by the busy road taking in her surroundings. From the paper’s description of the crash site, nothing much had changed in fifty years. It was still a single-lane road with high hedges on either side and ditches lining it. It was a cold day, as it must have been in January 1961, and Sam could see black ice in the road ahead of where she stood. She reached into her bag and pulled out her notepad. Chief Superintendent of Sussex Police killed in horror crash, the Sussex Argus headline from 24 January had stated. The road curved dramatically just ahead of where the accident had happened, and Sam made her way towards the bend, noting a large Georgian house on the corner. There were no other houses as far as the eye could see, so she decided she might as well knock on the door and ask if they knew who’d been living there at the time of the accident. It would be her last stop of the morning. After that, she had to get to work.
She walked up to the front door, where a stone plaque read Preston Manor, and reached for the lion’s-head knocker. She could hear loud classical music coming from somewhere inside, but after a minute or so no one had answered. She tried again and finally heard someone coughing on the other side of the door. It was opened by a man in his fifties with a round face, red cheeks and thinning grey hair. His large belly was covered with an apron bearing Michelangelo’s David, and it was obvious from the amount of food on it that she’d interrupted a culinary session.
‘Hello. I was wondering if you could help me,’ she smiled. ‘I’m a student, and I’m trying to find out about a car accident that happened on the corner here.’
‘We get a lot of accidents happening here,’ said the man, cutting her off. ‘It’s a nasty bend. I wouldn’t be able to remember any individual cases.’
‘Okay,’ said Sam. ‘The one I’m interested in happened in 1961, so some time ago.’
‘No, I really wouldn’t have a clue, I’m afraid.’
‘Were you living here at the time?’ said Sam, trying to prolong the conversation.
‘Yes, my family has lived here for generations.’ The man wiped his hands on a tea towel.
‘It’s a beautiful house, I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry, but I must rescue my soufflés,’ he said, reaching out to close the door.
‘Of course. Would there be anyone else around who was living here at the time, your mother or father perhaps?’ The man sighed openly, then pointed to a gate across the driveway. ‘Try my mother, she’s in the granny flat next door. But be warned, she likes to talk,’ he added before slamming the door.
‘Thank you,’ said Sam to the door knocker, then walked down the cobbled path that led to a small bungalow adorned with hanging baskets and window boxes. She pressed the buzzer and waited until a short elderly woman with curly white hair and rosy cheeks appeared at the door.
‘Can I help you?’ The woman was clutching a pair of secateurs in one hand and a large bunch of calla lilies in the other.
‘Hello, I was just talking to your son. My name’s Sam. I’m doing some research on the area and was interested in a car accident that happened on the bend next to your house in January 1961.’
�
�I see. Nice of him to send a complete stranger to his elderly mother’s door.’ The woman winked.
‘Yes, he was mid-creation in the kitchen,’ smiled Sam.
‘He usually is. Why don’t you tell me what you want to know, and I’ll see if I can remember anything.’ She set her flowers down on the hall table.
‘That would be great, thank you so much, Mrs . . .?’
‘I’m Rosalind,’ said the woman, putting on her glasses and pulling the door to as she stepped outside.
‘Nice to meet you, Rosalind.’
‘So do you know who the accident involved?’ She placed a heavy woollen blanket on the bench by the back door and carefully lowered herself onto it. ‘It’s a terrible corner that; so many people come off the road, especially in this icy weather.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Sam, pulling her notebook from her bag. ‘The accident I’m interested in involved a local policeman, a Chief Superintendent George Cannon.’
‘And was it a bad accident?’
‘Yes, he was killed instantly, I believe. I don’t think anyone else was involved; he just took the corner too fast and lost control. Ended up in the ditch.’
The woman stared at the ground for a moment while Sam rubbed her gloved hands together.
‘Cannon, that name does ring a bell.’
‘He was the father of Kitty Cannon, I believe, the chat show host. She was a local girl; I don’t know if you’ve heard of her.’
‘Oh, right,’ said the woman, frowning.
Sam looked up at the stunning Georgian building with clematis creeping up the side towards the windows. ‘I just thought one of you might have seen something from the house.’
Rosalind shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t help you.’
‘Well, thank you for your time. If I leave you my number, would you call me if you think of anything?’