Bad Girl Magdalene

by Jonathan Gash

‘Only about doing what your doctors say.’ Maria Finty smiled as they moved to the door and waved to the nurse outside.

  ‘Don’t let your blood pressure go wrong until we’re out of sight, Father.’ Joe Murragh did his innocent twinkle. ‘Or we’ll get blamed.’

  ‘I’ll take care.’

  ‘See you do that.’

  They said their goodbyes a second time, Father Doran waiting for a sudden parting question in the time-honoured routine of TV detectives, but they amiably passed from view. He noticed they did not head straight for the visitors’ lifts, which lay along the corridor to the right, but to the left. He had come to think the doctors’ offices and the nursing stations lay in that direction, but wasn’t sure.

  The nurse came in with complete unconcern, to check he was unruffled. She knew better than ask what they had come for. Church matters were confidential. He sank back, weary from the strain, and wondered about the sequence that he had tried to establish in his mind, the ones that kept intruding, not the ones forming the true pattern of memory. The possible interview between the bishop and the two Gardai was disturbing.

  Whatever information they demanded, damaging events in the past were within the seal of the confessional, so he could forget them.

  More relevant was the fleeting yet disturbing visual hint of someone’s face, in a vast room with only gloaming to see by, and then a suggestion of a voice, familiar though far too recent to be connected with that episode of sombre shade where he had experienced such rapture.

  ‘Still not going to go through all these letters and cards, Father Doran?’ a nurse asked.

  ‘Too tired,’ he said hazily. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s a labour of love tidying them every time another load comes in. Do you know you have thirty-six?’

  ‘Have you got nothing better to do than waste your time?’

  ‘I know what the trouble is. You’re trying to get out of answering them. Typical man, that’s you.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  He felt so sad, as if this oasis of peace was now ruined. He had never before felt such tranquillity. Except, he remembered now, there was always one episode of, what, a certain emotion that drew him over the dangerous reefs of passion and into the lagoon of sanctuary, but that was never to be spoken or thought of, just remembered as a period of paradisical calm in an ocean of turbulence.

  ‘Getting out of going through them yet again, eh?’ Nurse Gaffney’s voice said, amused and distant.

  ‘That’s it.’

  He dozed, but only after a time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sister Stephanie received the Gardai at the front door. It was just twenty-past ten, and the St Cosmo Care home was preparing the morning drinks.

  She was all restrained smiles, having been told the reason for their visit, and led them to her office without any casual good-morning talk. They declined a drink, which put her at a disadvantage. Providing authorities with some form of service always put them on the back foot. Some of the oldies in her care still used such phrases, derived from some competitive sport, she presumed, but not far from the actual truth.

  ‘What can we do for you?’ was the nearest she could come to disturbing their assertiveness.

  ‘I’m Joe Murragh, and this is Maria Finty,’ the man said, thanking her for inviting them to be seated.

  He appeared quite at ease, benign even. Sister Stephanie instantly did not trust the woman. What kind of a name was Finty? It had connotations, perhaps, of Flint, the Flintshire county of North Wales, and the Welsh were all shiftless, notably Protestant, and therefore shop-soiled to say the least as well as shifty. She had heard them called worse, believing as they all did that their Lutheran, or worse, singing was the only religious caterwauling to be allowed. Despite the nun’s misgivings, the woman seemed to have a genuine Irish accent and intonation when she finally deigned to utter.

  ‘We wish to ask for details of events leading up to Father Doran’s illness, Sister Stephanie,’ she began.

  Was it Kerry, perhaps? Sister Stephanie was a great believer in localities. A region conferred a character on the personality. It was an accurate guide as to how far a visitor would presume, always a source of knowledge about their willingness to compromise. Any form of give and take was, of course, out of the question where Holy Mother Church was concerned. The Church alone held truth. It was for others to adjust their own determinants, and even sacrifice them for the sake of progress. It was the same with punishment, physical and otherwise. Others had to learn, the Church to remain the same and impart guidance by whatever means thought fitting. People were presumptuous.

  ‘Certainly,’ Sister Stephanie cooed. ‘Anything I can do to help.’

  ‘Thank you,’ but said grudgingly. Kerry now without a doubt, and that name was unquestionably one of those North Walean inbreds. ‘Can I ask how Father Doran’s incapacity first came to your attention?’

  Official language was nothing like language, not truly. However, it had been perfectly correct for those English imbeciles who wrote the King James Version of the Bible to apologise for their imperfect use of ordinary speech of their times, considering they lacked the necessary flowery courtly speech their holy subject deserved. So far have we descended, she thought bitterly, that two scruffy clerks from the Gardai are sent to interrogate anyone they suppose might be able ‘to assist them with their inquiries’ as some illiterate whining woman had pleaded over the phone to herald the arrival of this pair. She noticed that the man’s shoes were shabby, and the woman’s hair looked unkempt. Was it fashion? Sister Stephanie concealed a sneer.

  ‘He was about to leave, after speaking to the inmates. They always enjoy his company.’

  ‘Is it a regular thing, to stop off, delay his departure, have a chat?’

  ‘Part of his duties, Mr Murragh.’

  ‘Course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?’

  Sister Stephanie now decided Joe Murragh was a deal too hearty for her liking. She coursed on, pausing frequently to show how intensely reflective she was on these details, getting everything right for them.

  ‘He sits a while with Mr Gorragher?’

  ‘I think so. I’m not exactly certain of the order in which he speaks to the old folk. Some of them have particular concerns they need advice on. You understand.’

  ‘Certainly.’ Maria Finty’s brisker manner announced that she was here to make sure they got a move on. She might as well have said Sister Stephanie should cut the cackle, or some other vile Americanism. ‘At the risk of seeming impatient, could I ask about this girl Magda?’

  ‘A trusted girl, one of the cleaners. She came to us on a recommendation. She has worked well since being here. She is popular, though not terribly bright.’ She brought the admission out like a dirty cloth, to be shown then quickly sent to the wash. ‘She has no family. Just a charity girl from the Magdalenes.’

  ‘Trusted, then.’

  Not even a question, but Sister Stephanie answered as if it were. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she ever stand in for any of the nurses?’

  ‘Stand in? For a qualified registered trained nurse? She did not. She sat with Father Doran so he wouldn’t be left alone. It could only have been a minute or two, and my office is a pace away across the corridor.’

  ‘Is that a usual practice?’

  ‘When a sister of the Order is sick, we usually have one of the sisters watch over her during the late hours. In the circumstances, Father Doran was watched for mere minutes by Magda.’

  ‘And he had his emergency device, I suppose?’

  ‘We were all within earshot. And Magda is trustworthy.’

  ‘No emergency system?’

  Inevitably from Maria Finty, the question was levelled, not simply asked. The thought passed through Sister Stephanie’s mind that here was a Protestant, even possibly some kind of Welsh Emmanuel Baptist. Her benignity shrank and hardened into anger.

  ‘Yes, we do, of course. It is a simple press-and-release button. It was
ready for Father Doran, should he need it.’

  ‘Was it ever used?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could we have a list of all available staff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Sister Stephanie.’ Joe Murragh sensed the growing animosity but was unequal to the problem of preventing it.

  ‘We shall need it immediately, please.’

  ‘I shall get one.’

  ‘That’s kind of you.’

  ‘Will there be anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maria Finty said without embellishment. ‘This Magda. Home address and availability, please.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘We will want to ask her a few questions.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Sister Stephanie left. Joe Murragh said quietly to his colleague, ‘Take it easy, Maria. No need to antagonise the sister. She’s just upset.’

  ‘She’ll sit like a crow while we speak to this Magda girl, just you see. Directing every syllable the girl speaks.’

  ‘Will you tackle the Father Kilfoyle business?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that all right. You just stand there with your two arms the one length.’

  Joe Murragh smiled. He was always amused by Maria’s localisms. Standing there with your foot tapping the hours was another zinger, one of his favourites. Best of all was a phrase he sometimes asked Maria to insert into some report when the issue was particularly silly, to lighten the pedantry: ‘So we proceeded in an orderly direction’. It had been used three times, undetected, and each time Maria got a free midday meal at Clancy’s Bar. Others he sometimes persuaded her to use was, ‘And we accordingly found the child lost…’ Plus another winner, ‘Arriving there, we asked if we were here.’ Joe Murragh thought them hilarious. Maria called him a big child.

  Magda heard the Gardai were in the Care Home just when she was about to leave duty.

  It was after five, and she had said her prayers for the priest who was suffering because of her. Lucy had still not stopped falling in the night. Magda was going to have Masses said for Lucy’s soul. It wasn’t the first time she had done this. Now, she was forced into asking the priest at St Michael’s to pray just for Lucy, whose soul was presumably fine there on the right hand, etc, and having meat every day except Friday, to stop her falling.

  There was no way out now. If she had to divulge the details of what happened that terrible night and it got her sent into the Kilmainham Gaol to be killed stone dead in Inchicore Road, well, that was the will of Almighty God, so she’d have to take the consequence.

  She stopped still when they told her.

  ‘You’ve to talk to the Gardai, Magda.’

  ‘Dear God.’

  That was Mrs O’Hagan, who had started doing the evening shift and whose two daughters were a tribulation because of their fecklessness. They stayed out (‘west of Grafton Street at their ages, can you imagine?’) and got into bad company. They got with boys, told lies and tales. So many options came from way back in Catholic training that you were spoilt for choice. Mrs O’Hagan’s two daughters had all these wicked foibles plus several more that couldn’t be mentioned in the presence of an unmarried girl like Magda. Straight out of the Magdalenes, Magda would be likely to get in trouble herself if she heard how things were done. The stout blowing lady, always in the same tabard, used every invocation to saints of any stripe, begging them to intercede and put a stop to her girls’ behaviour.

  ‘Don’t worry, Magda. It’ll just be them wanting to know how he started being poorly.’

  ‘That’s the trouble.’

  ‘What trouble?’ Mrs O’Hagan knew of only one kind of trouble, and that was whatever her daughters were doing west of Grafton Street.

  ‘I might not know,’ Magda said feebly, trying for a lie that didn’t quite make it.

  ‘Then tell them that.’

  Mrs O’Hagan was loading the washing machines and having a hard time. Magda delayed her questions by stopping to help, making sure the washing was all unfolded in the correct way before each item was put into the machines. They had two machines only, not enough for so many inmates, all with problems that had to be catered for. When two or more soiled their bed linen, things got delayed and the machines were on the go all day long. The difficulty was that each machine simply stopped once it overheated, and when stopped could not be made to work for quite an hour at least. Magda knew it was an hour because it was when the tops became cold and you could feel the machines going chilled round the back. They would then start up if you pressed the right knobs.

  ‘What will they do to me?’

  ‘Don’t take on, darling.’

  Mrs O’Hagan was not without sympathy. She had a special feel for Magda, seeing the girl as somebody without anybody to worry over her in the same way she worried herself sick over her two daughters. It wasn’t as if Magda had a mother who was driven to distraction and who lived in terror of going home one evening to find her daughters white from pregnancy and her husband Pat from the DART tracks waiting with blood on his eye going to kill you stone dead because your two feckless daughters had got themselves pregnant against the walls back of Grafton Street or, worse, against the walls of St Audben’s Church, a place of well known harlotry of a night. St Audben’s was not of the true Faith, of course, bring Proddy.

  ‘Will you come with me, Mrs O’Hagan?’

  ‘Bless you, child, I’d come like a shot if they let me.’

  ‘No.’ Sister Francesca appeared suddenly, something she was prone to do and in silence. Mrs O’Hagan didn’t like Sister Francesca for this sinister habit. ‘On your own, Magda.’

  ‘Yes, Sister Francesca.’

  ‘Shall I get on with this, then?’ Mrs O’Hagan tried bravely.

  ‘Please do. Come with me, Magda.’

  ‘Yes, Sister Francesca.’

  ‘Sister Stephanie will be present throughout, so you’ve no reason to worry, Magda.’

  ‘Yes, Sister Francesca.’

  ‘I’ll be here, Magda,’ Mrs O’Hagan called after them, for comfort.

  The nun rounded on the washerwoman. ‘Magda is going to have a talk with the Gardai over small matters of detail, to help Father Doran in his illness, not to be punished, Mrs O’Hagan. Please do not imply that she is going to be sanctioned.’

  ‘Yes, Sister Francesca.’

  They entered the room, only Joe Murragh rising. Maria Finty gave Magda a smile, not even glancing towards the nun.

  ‘We are from the Gardai, but don’t take any notice of that, Magda.’

  ‘Please sit down. We’ll be hardly any time at all.’

  ‘Magda,’ Maria Finty started even before Sister Stephanie had seated herself. ‘You helped when Father Doran was taken ill, didn’t you?’

  Magda glanced at Sister Stephanie, who started to speak but was interrupted by the Finty woman.

  ‘You remember when he was taken ill, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where were you when you heard?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’d just been to take the old folks’ drinks, cups and things, away. Father Doran talked to them.’

  ‘Did you stay and hear what they said?’

  ‘No!’ She looked at Sister Stephanie. ‘I didn’t, Sister.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Maria Finty said. ‘I’m glad you can remember. And when Father Doran was in the sick room upstairs, you sat with him while Sister Francesca went to wait for the doctor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And any other time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do, Magda?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘You stayed in the sick room while the sister went downstairs?’

  ‘Yes. I just sat there. I hadn’t been told to do anything.’

  ‘Nothing? You didn’t give him anything?’

  ‘No. I hadn’t been told. Father Doran was just lying there.’

  ‘Was he asleep?’

  ‘No. He talked.’r />
  ‘What about?’

  ‘He asked me things.’

  ‘Can you remember what things he asked about?’

  ‘He asked where I was from, the school, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you tell him about?’

  ‘Where I lived, at school.’

  ‘Where was that, Magda?’

  ‘Sandyhills. The Magdalenes.’

  ‘Father Doran was there once, some time ago. Do you remember him from there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I remember he asked if I was one of the girls who fainted in the Credo. Or who fell asleep during the sermon. I think it was that.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said I sometimes did. He just smiled and said never mind.’

  ‘Anything else, Magda?’

  ‘He told me we should all be obedient and not do bad things.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘The sister came back in. I was sent out.’

  ‘And Father Doran was all right when you left?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Joe Murragh stirred. ‘Magda, there was a sad thing happened some time ago here in the St Cosmo. It was a priest, Father Kilfoyle. Have you heard anything about that?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Were you working here then?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The two Gardai paused, carefully avoiding exchanging a glance. Sister Stephanie too had caught Magda’s error.

  ‘It seems somebody might have accidentally – I do mean accidentally, Magda – have caused Father Kilfoyle to die on account of something going wrong with his breathing tube, or maybe something to do with his medicines. We don’t know. Have you heard anything of that?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Have you heard of anything similar?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Nothing that might have been a difficulty in what the old people take?’

  ‘The old folk sometimes lose their tablets. And one time a medicine bottle was lost under a bed, and had leaked.’