The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Original Edition)

by Sixsmith, Martin

  On 1 December 1955 Patrick Lee and his son Jack pulled off the Templemore to Roscrea road and rang the bell on the abbey gate. They had driven from Newcastle West in Latchford’s bread van and were ready for a cup of tea. Patrick was fifty-three and still working as a butcher; Jack was twenty-four, unmarried, and delivering bread for the Newcastle baker. The nuns who ushered them inside were polite, but the unspoken implication that the visitors were tainted by the family’s collective shame hung heavy.

  Sister Hildegarde sat them down in the high-ceilinged Georgian parlour off the grand entrance hall (men were not permitted to penetrate any further) and returned ten minutes later with Philomena.

  ‘Here we are now.’ Hildegarde smiled sweetly. ‘Here’s your daughter, Mr Lee. Now I’d say you have a couple of weeks before the boy goes out of here, so I’ll be off and leave you to talk about your daughter’s future. I’m sure you have a lot to say to each other.’

  But after the nun had gone the three of them sat in awkward silence. Philomena wanted so much to hug her father, to hear that he loved her and forgave her, but something held her back. She sensed her da wanted to hug her too, but he was finding it hard. Constrained by the guilt the Church had inculcated in him and by the knowledge of his daughter’s suffering, he spoke about anything but the things that really mattered – about the weather, about the rival butcher who’d opened in town and about Jack’s plans to get a job as a projectionist in the cinema on Maiden Street. Jack nodded and looked uncomfortable. Philomena was close to tears, trying desperately not to cry in front of her father.

  It was Anthony’s arrival that changed things.

  Sister Hildegarde had agreed they could have him for half an hour. Within minutes the two men were bouncing him up and down on their knees and tickling him till he squealed with delight. Anthony had run straight to them as soon as he entered the room and handed them two bunches of wild flowers (which Margaret had provided). He let them kiss him on the cheek and showed them how brave he was by climbing up the ladder that leaned against the tall bookshelves. They laughed out loud at the little fellow’s antics and encouraged him to dance and sing for them. Jack couldn’t hide his admiration.

  ‘He’s a beauty, Phil, sure he is. He’s got the Lee black hair and all.’

  Her father smiled and nodded wordlessly, his eyes filling with tears.

  Philomena was overwhelmed with pride to see her child so loved by her family, pained by the thought that their joy could not last, and tormented by the wild, impossible idea that perhaps they could find a way to keep him.

  ‘So what do you think, Da?’ she said hesitantly. ‘The nuns want to send him off to America, you know . . .’

  Her father said nothing, but Jack was muttering about some woman he’d heard of out in the country who’d had a child with no father and still refused to give him up.

  ‘I’m right, amn’t I, Da? Kitty McLaughlin kept her baby. So why don’t we just pick this little fellow up right now and grab him and run off with him? You know, just run with him . . . and then, Phil, you can come home and look after him.’

  Philomena’s heart leapt – she pulled Anthony to her as if she were ready to leave at once – but no one picked the boy up and no one ran with him. The minute of euphoria collapsed into the sad, unassailable reality that Philomena would not be coming home and Anthony would not be coming with her. All three of them knew perfectly well it was impossible for a fallen woman to come back to Newcastle West, or any town in Ireland, without causing a desperate scandal. And anyway the council house on Connolly’s Terrace was small and Patrick Lee had not the space for her to sleep or the means for her to eat. He looked at his boots and said, ‘There’s no way around it, Phil. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go away.’

  Jack Lee cried as he left the abbey that day. He’d just been paid by Mr Latchford at the bakery and he had a week’s wages – three pounds – in his pocket. As he was going out the door he nudged his sister and pressed the three rolled-up notes into her hand. Then he turned away to wipe his eyes and ran down the drive to catch up with his dad.

  TWENTY

  December, 1955;

  St Louis, Dublin

  ‘No patellar reflexes and deep reflexes all diminished. That’s not good, Marge, not good. It could mean a damaged nervous system or even brain abnormality. The boy could be a defective, and we sure don’t want that kind of thing in the family.’

  Marge looked distressed.

  ‘But, Doc, I saw him and he’s not defective. He’s a lovely little guy and completely normal. Let me see the doctor’s report . . . Look, he says here it’s probably just some kind of freak reading.’

  But Doc Hess did not like to be contradicted. Marge sensed he was in categorical mode, stuck on the idea that the Irish boy was damaged goods, but twenty years of marriage had taught her how to handle her husband.

  ‘OK, Doc. You’re right. We don’t want anything to upset our family. I just think maybe . . . Why don’t we get a second opinion before we make a decision? I’m sure you can get someone to take a second look at Anthony, can’t you?’

  Doc thought for a moment.

  ‘Well . . . I guess that’s logical. But, whatever this examination reveals, we follow its conclusion. If it says the boy’s a defective, we turn him down, OK?’

  John Malone was a little surprised at the tone of Dr Hess’s letter – he certainly hadn’t meant to suggest serious abnormalities in the patient – but he agreed to have the boy tested again. On 2 December 1955 Anthony Lee was taken one more time to Dublin, to St Laurence’s Hospital on North Brunswick Street. He followed with interest as the nurse swabbed down parts of his scalp and face and attached little sticky things (they were electrodes, but he didn’t know that), then wired them up to some sort of box. For twenty minutes a man in a white coat shone lights in Anthony’s eyes, made loud noises beside his head and asked him to close his eyes, look up, look down, look all around. Anthony frowned a little but didn’t cry. He was a trusting child and didn’t expect the world to play tricks on him. He didn’t understand the game the grown-ups were playing, but it didn’t hurt so he decided to play along. At the end of it all the nurse bent down and gave him a red lollipop. When she offered her cheek for a kiss, he gave her one and she laughed out loud.

  The report of the electro-encephalographic examination of Master Anthony Lee was written up by the hospital’s chief neurologist, Andrew MacDermott. It showed ‘no focal or specifically epileptic signs and is probably within normal limits’.

  The hospital sent the results to Dr Malone, who smiled at being proved right.

  Dear Dr Hess,

  I am sorry that my brief report caused you so much anxiety. Personally I was quite satisfied with the child’s mental state, general physical health, and Neurological examination.

  His muscle tone, power, co-ordination, gait and stance were all normal, as were his cranial nerves.

  Re-examination with a Neurological colleague (2/12/55) was satisfactory, and on this occasion the patellar reflexes were elicited. I enclose the Neurologist’s report and I give him 100% clearance certificate.

  With kind regards.

  Sincerely,

  John P Malone, MD

  Doc Hess quibbled over the neurologist’s wording – probably within normal limits was not the same as definitely within normal limits – but Marge was insistent. ‘I’ve seen the little fellow,’ she said, ‘and I give you my personal guarantee that he’s normal, Doc. Please let him come, won’t you?’

  Doc agreed, somewhat grudgingly, that if Marge guaranteed it, then the boy could come.

  Marge Hess phoned Mother Barbara and urged her to send the children over as quickly as she could. Mother Barbara was relieved – the folk at the Passport Office had made such a fuss over this case and she was eager to get them dispatched. Marge said there were seats available on the Pan Am flight out of Shannon the following Sunday and Mother Barbara told her to go ahead and make the booking.

  Marge was so exci
ted she almost forgot to mention the photographs, but she remembered just in time.

  ‘Reverend Mother, one last thing! Please take some photos of the children so we can have a record of them before they leave the abbey. You can put the cost of the film on the tab and we’ll settle everything together with the donation.’

  As Mother Barbara hung up the telephone, she was already shuffling through the pile of documents in her in tray. She found the ones she needed and put them ready to post, one for Mary and one for Anthony.

  I, Margaret Feeney, Known in Religion as Sister Barbara, Superioress of Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, County Tipperary, Ireland, make Oath and say:

  That the custody of Anthony Lee born out of wedlock to Philomena Lee has been surrendered to me as Superioress of Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, as evidenced by her Affidavit which is hereto attached relinquishing full claim forever to the said child.

  That as legal guardian I hereby relinquish all claim to Anthony Lee and surrender him to Dr Michael and Mrs Marjorie Hess, 810 Moundale Drive, Ferguson, Missouri, U.S.A. for legal adoption.

  Subscribed and sworn to by the said Margaret Feeney.

  TWENTY-ONE

  December 1955;

  Roscrea

  When Sister Annunciata had left for England, Anthony’s supply of presents had come to an abrupt end and for the past year he had had nothing to play with other than the few battered communal toys that lay forlornly in the corner of the day room. But thanks to her brother Jack, Philomena now had some money of her own and she was desperate to spend it on her son. As the girls were not allowed out of the abbey she had no access to the shops in Roscrea, but one evening after the children had gone to bed she waylaid a member of the convent’s lay staff who was about to go home for the night.

  Philomena offered to pay her five shillings if she would go to the general store on Castle Street and see what Mrs Frawley had in the way of toys. The woman demanded ten and Philomena handed them over.

  The next morning was better than any Christmas. When the woman came back for the morning shift she had a large brown-paper parcel with her, which she unwrapped to reveal a tin bus painted in the colours of the Irish state bus company and a plane painted red and yellow with the inscription ‘GE 270’ on its wings. The toys were cheap and shoddy, but Philomena could scarcely wait until the evening hour to give them to her son. When he saw them, Anthony’s eyes opened wide. Without a word, he took the bus and rolled it across the floor. Then he did the same with the plane and burst into peals of laughter: the toy had a friction drive that made it whirr and gather speed when he pushed it, and sparks flew from its nose and wings.

  Philomena sat and watched as Anthony launched the thing from one corner of the play room to the other, chasing after it with shrieks of pleasure, repeating the operation time after time with mounting excitement. But then he suddenly seemed to remember himself. He placed the two toys by the wall, ran to his mammy and without a word gave her a tender hug and nuzzled his face into her lap.

  18 December 1955

  Nobody actually told Philomena and Margaret their children were leaving that weekend; it just filtered down through the convent grapevine. A few people had spotted Sister Hildegarde taking photographs of Mary and Anthony on the steps of the old house – a lovely one of them holding hands together and a shot of Anthony on his own, clasping his beloved plane to his chest – and the girls had put two and two together.

  They had eaten their lunch on the Sunday afternoon and were clearing the refectory table when an older sister who had spoken kindly to them in the past came running through.

  ‘Girls, quickly! Come over to the window, will you?’ The nun was panting from running up the stairs. ‘It’s your babbies, girls. Quick. Sister Hildegarde’s taking them . . .’ Philomena and Margaret ran to the casement window overlooking the drive in front of the house. Below, a large black car was sitting with its engine running and rear doors open. In the back seat were two little figures and, on either side of them, Mother Barbara and Sister Hildegarde were squeezing themselves in, beaming and chatting as they always did on their days out.

  Philomena yelled, ‘Anthony! Look up here!’ and Margaret banged on the window. But the noise of the engine seemed to blot out their voices and neither child responded. As the car pulled away, Philomena wailed, ‘No! No! Not my babby. Don’t let them take my babby!’ and at that precise moment Anthony twisted in his seat and climbed up to peer through the rear windscreen. He was wearing the brown shorts and blue knitted sweater Philomena had made for him and in his hand he was clutching his tin plane.

  LONDON

  Present Day

  The table in front of me is covered with photographs and documents: letters and diaries, interviews, old hotel bills, postcards and scribbled notes in fading handwriting; the poignant fragments of an unravelling mystery that has been with me since that first meeting in the New Year of 2004.

  Most of the data was furnished willingly – Marge Hess’s diary and her copious correspondence about the adoption of Anthony and Mary; interviews with the surviving participants in the drama and friends and relatives of those who are dead; all the source material on which the narrative of the preceding pages, and those to come, has been based. But getting to other documents has involved a battle against concealment, against the reticence of people and organizations with things to hide. The Church’s love affair with secrecy, for instance, and its belief in the unabsolvable guilt of the Magdalenes meant house names stripped the girls of their identity and true lives were hidden behind obfuscation. The girls rarely knew who shared their Calvary with them; they knew only that Marcella was not Marcella, Augustine was not Augustine and Nancy was not Nancy.

  As a foretaste of their preordained separation, the Church banned mothers at Roscrea from having photographs of their children. But brave Sister Annunciata smuggled in a Box Brownie. The snaps Annunciata took for Philomena to keep are lying on my desk today, the record of a time and place that might have stayed obscure – a lost toddler in a convent garden, a puzzled-looking boy staring at us through the grainy mist of years, trying to mount a tricycle, climbing on a step, cradling a toy plane as wide as his shoulders, always looking at the photographer with trust in his eyes. This last photo in particular has stayed with me. It is in black and white, of course, but I know that the plane is a red-and-yellow lithographed tin GE 270 Sparkling Space Rocket with friction drive and a ten-inch wing -span, and that it was made in Germany between 1955 and 1965 by a toy manufacturer called Technofix.

  As she passes by my desk, my daughter looks over and asks who the child is.

  ‘Just a boy, ’ I tell her, ‘who grew up a long time ago and a long way from here.’

  Another photograph, this time in a yellowing newspaper cutting from somewhere in the United States, shows the same toy plane clutched to the chest of a young boy in a duffel coat, flanked by a bewildered-looking little girl and a tall elegant woman.

  My daughter glances at the two photos and spots it is the same boy in each.

  ‘He looks nice,’ she says.

  How strange that a tin plane in two photographs from different sides of the ocean provides such an important clue, a link to bring us closer to Anthony after years of seeking, years of absence.

  His first child’s passport is on my desk. The little photo under the Irish state seal shows a serious three-year-old in a hand-knitted sweater decorated with large shamrocks, and on the opposite page, this information in English and Gaelic:

  Anthony Lee

  Passport issued: Dublin, 22 November 1955

  Nationality: Citizen of Ireland

  Profession: None

  Place of Birth: Co. Tipperary

  Date of Birth: 5-7-1952

  Residence: Ireland

  Height: 3’2”

  Colour of Eyes: Blue

  Colour of Hair: Black

  Face: Oval

  Special Peculiarities: None

  Signature: Bearer is unable to write.

 
; Saddest of all are the renunciation papers, the documents under which mothers were forced to give away their children. Never to attempt to see or make any claim to their own flesh – what a betrayal that must have seemed in the years they had ahead of them to dwell on the oath they had sworn. The decorative seals and dry formulae mask a human tragedy that was repeated all over Ireland hundreds, thousands of times.

  The task I had been handed by the stranger in the British Library would involve challenging this vow of acquiescence. It would mean seeking to know what happened to Anthony Lee. And it would bring startling discoveries.

  PART TWO

  ONE

  18–19 December 1955

  The novelty of the expedition soon wore off. Curious and excited, Anthony and Mary had begun the trip in high spirits, but their chatter quickly dwindled to uneasy silence. Mother Barbara and Sister Hildegarde were in good humour, gossiping and laughing, occasionally dabbing the children’s faces with a moist handkerchief or telling Anthony to sit up straight.

  They found Niall O’Hanlon waiting where they’d told him to be, by the airport taxi rank, a tattered suitcase on the ground between his feet. He was Sister Teresa’s nephew, twenty-four years old and delighted to get his airfare paid. His da’s pub in County Mayo was losing money and the few pounds he’d earned delivering the post hadn’t covered his keep. Niall had never seen a plane before, let alone flown in one, but he told himself he was fine: Uncle Patrick would meet him in Chicago and looking after a couple of youngsters would be no trouble at all. Sure he must be doing a good deed – if the nuns were sending them to America, then it was God’s work.