by Emily Gunnis
She walked into the bedroom she shared with Emma and placed her in the little bed. As soon as she put her down, Emma started to cry again. ‘Shh,’ said Sam, feeling her forehead. ‘It’s okay, honey.’
She went back into the lounge. ‘I’m sorry, Nana, have we got any Calpol left? I think I need to try and get her temperature down.’
‘I’ll have a look,’ said Nana, easing herself out of her chair.
Sam watched her walk towards the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry about what I said about finding your mum,’ she said. ‘It’s up to you what you do. It’s just that I can’t get those letters out of my head. Something really bad happened in that place. I know it, I felt it.’
Nana paused in the doorway. ‘Then you have a responsibility to find out what it was.’
‘How?’ said Sam, sighing heavily.
‘By proving it. I didn’t spend all that money on your education for you to be a quitter.’ She disappeared into the kitchen, and Sam heard the clatter of cupboard doors.
‘Nana, I went to a state school,’ she laughed.
‘Well, I worked three jobs and paid my taxes! Remember what Grandad always said: “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room.” ’ Nana came back into the room with the Calpol, smiling as she passed it to Sam.
‘Thanks, Nana. I’ll just give her some of this and then we can talk.’
‘It’s okay, darling, you focus on Emma.’
‘It’s fine, it won’t take long to settle her. I want to know what’s upsetting you.’
‘I just wanted to talk to you about Grandad, but it can wait. I’m being silly.’ Nana turned towards her room. ‘I think I might go to bed, if you two will be okay. Come and wake me if you need me. There’s one final letter from Ivy, I’ll slot it in your notebook along with the others.’
‘Okay, thank you, Nana, I’ll look at it as soon as I can.’ As soon as Emma was dosed up with Calpol and asleep in her little bed, Sam quickly put her laptop and notebook in her handbag and snuck out into the dimly lit street. Her cold Nova took three goes to start before the engine eventually turned over and coughed into life, but it wasn’t until she finally pulled up in front of Gracewell Retirement Home that some warmth started dribbling out of the vents.
She looked at her watch: 10.45, fifteen minutes until Gemma started her shift. She turned her headlights off so as not to draw attention to herself, leaving the engine and the very ineffectual heater on. Of course, doorstepping was not new to her, but she felt very uneasy loitering outside a property without her boss’s consent. Her meeting with Murray had unnerved her at a time when her confidence was already at a low ebb from the constant fighting with Ben and her guilt over Emma. Despite all the yelling, she had always thought Murray had her back, that there was an understanding between them, a mutual respect. Clearly not. She wanted not to care, to rant and rave about his shortcomings, but it still hurt.
She was so lost in thought that it wasn’t until Gemma was actually passing the car that she looked up and spotted her. Her stomach lurched in panic. She needed to get hold of Gemma before she went inside, but if she pounced on her, she’d give the poor girl a heart attack. She frantically wound down the window and waved as if they were long-lost friends. ‘Gemma! Gemma, it’s me, Sam. From the other day.’
The girl stopped and turned in Sam’s direction, unable at first to make out who was hollering at her through the darkness. Sam stepped out of the car. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. How are you? I just wondered if I could have a quick word?’
‘Not really. My shift starts in ten minutes and I need to get changed.’ Gemma looked pale and tired, thought Sam, and lacking the cheery demeanour she’d had before. She kept pulling irritably at stray hairs from her ponytail and tucking them behind her ears.
‘I saw you at Father Benjamin’s funeral,’ Sam said gently. ‘You looked very upset. I didn’t realise you knew him.’
‘Please, you have to leave. I can’t be seen talking to you. I got in a lot of trouble because of you sneaking into Sister Mary Francis’s room. I nearly lost my job.’ Gemma glared at her, ‘My manager wanted to call the police but Sister Mary Francis convinced her not to.’
‘I’m sorry, really I am, but I had to talk to her.’ Sam was surprised at Gemma’s outburst.
‘Well, she was very upset!’ Gemma snapped. ‘She has a bad heart. She finds it difficult talking about Mother Carlin; she still misses her.’ She shoved her hand into her bag for her phone, which had started to ring. ‘That’s my colleague wondering where I am. I’ve got to go.’
‘Do you know who that woman was who stood up in the middle of the service?’ said Sam.
‘No, I don’t. Who are you really? What the hell do you want?’ Gemma snapped.
‘I’m a reporter,’ admitted Sam. ‘Sister Mary Francis implied something might have happened to Mother Carlin and I’m trying to find out what.’
‘Oh God. Just leave me alone.’ Gemma turned and began walking up the path.
‘Gemma, I think there’s something you’re not telling me. It would be a shame to take my suspicions to the police.’
The girl stopped in her tracks. Sam’s heart hammered in her chest, as if everything in her life hinged on this moment.
‘If you tell me what’s upsetting you, I promise it will go no further,’ she said quietly, feeling awash with guilt and relief when Gemma turned back, tears in her eyes.
‘I can’t talk to you now, I’ll be late for my shift. My colleague is waiting for me to take over.’
‘Can’t you just give me five minutes?’ implored Sam, anxious that Gemma would change her mind if she let her out of her sight. ‘Text and say your bus was late or something. If you speak to me now, I will never bother you again.’
‘Do you promise?’ Gemma wiped away a tear.
‘Yes,’ smiled Sam. ‘Do you want to sit in my car? It’s freezing out here.’
As soon as Gemma slammed the door of the passenger seat, she started to cry in earnest. Sam waited patiently, watching precious seconds tick away as the girl sobbed into her mobile phone while she texted, wiping snot away with her sleeve when she’d finished.
‘Take your time,’ said Sam, handing her a tissue.
Gemma sniffed loudly. ‘I’ve been in so much trouble since your visit. I’ve had two meetings with the manager about it.’
‘I’m really sorry, Gemma. I would never have snuck in if it wasn’t important.’
‘Well, whatever you said upset Sister Mary Francis a great deal. She’s been talking about Mother Carlin non-stop ever since. There’s always been a lot of talk about Mother Carlin. I feel like I know the woman even though I never met her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I really shouldn’t be telling you this.’ Gemma crushed the tissue in her grip.
‘You won’t get into any trouble. I never reveal my sources – it’s more than my job’s worth.’
Gemma stared at Sam for a moment, then took a deep breath.
‘Mother Carlin was here before my time, but apparently she was a bit of a handful. Very underhand and manipulative. Got one member of staff fired and was generally a bit of a miserable bitch as far as I can gather.’
‘Go on,’ said Sam, turning up the heater.
‘My mum’s friend Amy, who got me the job here, told me that the staff were always taking the piss about doing something to cheer her up. One morning Amy went into Mother Carlin’s room and found she’d had a heart attack in the night and died. It’s not unusual for that to happen at Gracewell, but Amy also found half a hash cake on a plate by the bed. She recognised it immediately because she’d made them herself. The thing was, lots of people knew about them because the manager overheard Amy saying they were in her bag and confiscated them. Apparently there was this big staff meeting about having drugs at work and she almost lost her job. There was even a memo about it up in the staff room. The hash cakes would have been in the manager’s office a
nd someone must have taken one and given it to Mother Carlin. The problem was, apparently they had acid in them, so they were seriously strong.’
‘What?’ said Sam, open-mouthed.
‘Amy swears she didn’t give it to her, and I’m sure whoever did thought it was harmless fun, but Mother Carlin had a weak heart, which gave out. Luckily it was Amy who discovered her, so she was able to grab the other half of the hash cake before the ambulance arrived. She was waiting for this huge fallout, but nothing ever happened. I guess coroners don’t test seventy-five-year-old nuns for hash. Amy never told another soul except me. This was over ten years ago, and I think she just needed to get it off her chest.’ Gemma started crying again. ‘Sister Mary Francis told me she heard Mother Carlin crying out to Satan that night but that Mother Carlin suffered from nightmares so she didn’t call the night manager. She says she will never forgive herself. It had nothing to do with me, but even I feel guilty that this thing happened and no one knows. Why would anyone want to hurt Mother Carlin?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to work out,’ said Sam. ‘And you’re sure you don’t know anything about the woman at Father Benjamin’s funeral?’
‘Only that a couple of the nuns seemed very agitated about it. We had drinks at Gracewell after the service and I overheard them talking.’
‘What were they saying?’ said Sam, leaning forward.
‘I think I’ve said enough.’ Gemma opened the car door. ‘You said you’d leave me alone now; you promised.’
‘And I will. Please, Gemma, just tell me what they said. It’s really important.’
‘They said that it was good all the records had been destroyed, because it was time to move on.’ Gemma climbed out, then paused, looking back into the car, one hand on the roof. ‘And maybe you should take their advice.’
Sam watched Gemma walk off down the frozen path and into Gracewell. Then she pulled out her notebook and wrote Mother Carlin’s name under those of Father Benjamin and George Cannon.
Chapter Twenty
Saturday 12 August 2006
Mother Carlin sat at the end of her bed, her stiff, inflamed hands clasped together in prayer over her Bible. As was usual in her increasingly frail state, she felt physically exhausted despite the fact that it had been a long day of doing nothing at all. There was little good about getting old, she reflected, as she blessed herself and set her rosary beads and Bible on her bedside table. All you had to look forward to were chronic ailments and endless illnesses, accompanied by the upset of losing every one of your contemporaries. She couldn’t remember the last time she had woken up feeling free from discomfort and optimistic about the day ahead.
She reached for her walking frame and eased her frail body round to face it. She was still shaky from her trip to the hospital the previous day. The conclusion of the brusque young consultant poking and prodding had been that her heart was giving up and she needed a pacemaker fitted as soon as she’d recovered from her current bout of bronchitis. As her coughing fits were still so violent that she sometimes felt her ribs would burst out of her chest, she didn’t think that would be any time soon. Indeed, as she had been peeled out of her wheelchair and into her bed the previous evening, she had felt so tired she couldn’t imagine ever having the energy to wake again.
The heat from outside was stifling but a light breeze gave some momentary relief. The Bible lay open on the bedside table, its faded pages flapping like the wings of a trapped butterfly. They settled eventually on the front page, where the St Margaret’s stamp was still visible. Closing her eyes, she felt herself being pulled back in time.
Standing in her office, she could smell the varnish on the mahogany floor and hear rain tapping on the tiny window as she spoke to the new arrivals. They would stand in a line in their uniform of brown overalls, their stomachs protruding in front of them. ‘Mass is at six a.m.,’ she told them, ‘followed by breakfast, then you will work in the laundry until eight. Talking is not tolerated; the devil works on idle tongues.’ The girls always stood with their heads bowed as she ran her rosary beads through her fingers, pacing before them. ‘It is a grievous sin you have committed, but sinners can find their way back to the Lord Jesus Christ through the strength of prayer and hard work.’
She looked at the clock on her bedside table and sighed. The night manager was hard-working enough by modern standards, but she did tend to get distracted. Mother Carlin had asked for hot milk some time ago, and, due to not eating her supper, her stomach was rumbling painfully. She had called out twice to no avail, and the buzzer had brought no response either.
With a flutter of irritation, she lifted her walking frame and began making her way over to her slippers at the end of her bed. Living at Gracewell was comfortable, but the attention to detail in the running of the house wasn’t what it had been when she was at the helm of St Margaret’s. It would have been inconceivable for herself or Father Benjamin to be ignored, particularly at such a late hour. If it was something they required every night, it would have been brought to their door punctually, and if it was out of their ordinary routine, a ring of the bell through to the kitchen would have seen the arrival of the night-duty sister within minutes to attend to them.
The youth of today were chaotic and irresponsible because there were no consequences for their actions. She came from a different world, Mother Carlin reflected, where punishment – and the threat of it – was part of everyday life. At home, disobedience was met with a beating and you prayed every night for the Lord to forgive you for your sins. Even if your parents didn’t know you’d been bad, God was always watching; indeed, the very hairs on your head were all numbered. It made her seethe that the Church, once revered above all else, was no more now than a picturesque venue for Christmas carol services, christenings and weddings. She’d read the articles in the paper about the mother-and-baby homes, heard the carers here whispering when the visitors came trying to trace their relatives. She knew what people thought of her and she paid them no attention.
The Lord had chosen her to cleanse lost souls so they could present themselves to the all-merciful Father at the gates of heaven and be allowed in. She’d had a job to do, and when she met the Lord at the hour of her death, she knew he would show mercy on her soul.
‘Amy?’ she called as she opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the corridor. The strain caused her to cough repeatedly and she stood for a minute or two, so short of breath that she thought her legs might give way. But hunger drove her on, and when she peered down the corridor, she saw that there was a light on in the kitchen. Her slippers stubbed against the carpet underfoot as she struggled to raise them high enough to move forward.
‘Can I get you anything, Mother?’ a gentle female voice enquired, and Mother Carlin looked up to see the silhouette of a woman standing over a hoover at the end of the hall.
‘I wanted some hot milk, but as usual Amy has vanished.’ The lights were dim and she couldn’t make out the woman’s face.
‘Of course. You go back to your room. I’ll heat your milk and bring it straight to you,’ said the woman as she squatted down, winding up the hoover cord.
‘Thank you. Do you know which room is mine?’
‘Yes, Mother, I know.’
She was in the bathroom five minutes later when her door opened and a tray set with hot milk and a home-made biscuit was placed on the table across her bed. She called out to thank the woman, but got no reply – a refreshing change from all the chatter and empty promises she had become accustomed to. She pulled her aching limbs into bed, where she drank the milk and ate half the biscuit hungrily, saving the rest for later. It was nice to want to eat something for once; her belly often rumbled and groaned but the desire for food was always absent.
Her eyes soon felt heavy, stinging from the inside as her head began to jerk in and out of sleep. She clicked off her bedside light and began to doze. Before long, the ticking of the clock stirred her, like a fly in the room buzzing too close to her ear. It grew
so noisy that it soon became unbearable. Before long, the ticks stretched out until eventually they morphed into one long, deep drone. She tried to turn away from it, but her torso felt heavy and her arms like lead. She couldn’t even lift them to scratch an itch on the end of her nose.
Worry began to rise in her as she slowly moved her head to check the time. She felt as if hours had gone by, but it had only been minutes. As she stared at the clock, its hands began to melt before her, turning to thick clots of blood dripping slowly into a small tube, which she followed down to her arm. She blinked repeatedly as she looked at it. The tube led into a thick needle, which had been inserted in her forearm and stuck down with tape.
‘That should get things going,’ said Sister Mary Francis, who was now standing over her bed.
‘Sister, what on earth are you doing?’ said Mother Carlin.
‘I beg your pardon?’ snapped Sister Mary Francis.
‘Get this thing out of my arm, now,’ said Mother Carlin.
‘That baby needs to come out, child, and it’s clearly not going to do it on its own. This will get the contractions going.’
‘What baby?’ said Mother Carlin.
‘Oh dear, we are in denial, aren’t we? Did you not flirt with the boy and let him put his hands all over you? Did you not commit sins of the flesh?’ said Sister Mary Francis.
Mother Carlin looked from Sister Mary Francis down to her own stomach, which was now so large that she couldn’t see her feet. She was dressed in brown overalls, and when she tried to pull herself off the bed, she was paralysed from the neck down.
‘Sister, it’s me, Mother Carlin. I can’t move. Help me!’ A wave of pain shot through her stomach, and she clutched it, screaming out in agony.
‘Good, it’s working. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to see how you’re getting on.’
‘Don’t leave me on my own, Sister.’
Another wave of intense pain shot through her as she watched Sister Mary Francis leave the room. She looked over to the drip. Tiny black snake-like insects were thrashing around in the liquid, and she cried out as she watched them travel down towards her arm.