‘Mr Manning,’ Harriet trilled breezily.
Just in the nick of time, she erased from her face the instinctive look of sympathy that threatened to appear as Ben struggled to rise from his chair to greet her.
Harriet was beset by feelings she had never known before, despite her age, and she had no idea how to deal with them.
She blushed again, her palms sweated, her eyes shone and her heart fluttered like a trapped bird.
He noticed.
‘Good morning,’ he replied, but his mouth was so dry that his response was barely audible. He held out his hand, which trembled like a leaf in the breeze.
She noticed.
It had begun.
15
MAGGIE AND ONE of the orphan girls were in the process of removing fifteen loaves of hot bread from the oven when Sister Theresa arrived, unannounced.
As was her way, she issued no greeting.
‘Are we managing to bottle enough gooseberries for the winter? Sister Perpetua thinks we have less in hand than last year, despite the good weather.’
‘Oh, aye, we are that,’ replied Maggie, barely hiding a hint of indignation. ‘I have plenty bottled in the cellar and if there’s any more late crop come through, Frank thinks we may be able to squeeze out another half-dozen jars or so from the plants in the glasshouse.’
Sister Theresa looked far from mollified.
‘Good. Sister Perpetua also tells me some of the apples have been stolen.’
‘Ah, well, I think one or two of the windfalls from the other side of the railings may have gone, but, sure, they would have been full of maggots and no good to us now,’ Maggie replied.
‘That’s not the point, Maggie. Any child who steals from us should be up before the magistrate. Thou shalt not steal is an important lesson to be learnt.’
‘But, sure, Sister Theresa, these children have walked a mile to steal a rotten apple, because they are hungry. Surely the good Lord wouldn’t mind a bit of that in their bellies? It would give them the cramps as it is. Is that not a fair punishment?’
‘There is no excuse for stealing, Maggie. It is wrong. If you see any child doing it, I want them caught and reported.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ said Maggie, with a heavy heart and no intention of doing any such thing.
The children hadn’t stolen any apples. She and Frank had picked the windfalls and kept them in a basket behind the lodge. They knew every child from the village and their parents. Frank and Maggie dished out the apples when the children came along, to save them from the sin of stealing or, worse, being caught.
‘We are using the salt fish today with tatties,’ said Maggie, in a desperate attempt to change the subject.
As Sister Theresa looked round the kitchen, her gaze alighted on the orphan girl helping Maggie.
There was a note of alarm in her voice as she asked, ‘Where’s the girl?’
Maggie didn’t need to ask, which girl? ‘She has the vomiting bug and, sure, I don’t want it, Sister, so I’ve confined her to her room. The last thing we need is vomiting to sweep through this place now and I don’t want to be laid up or none of us will eat.’
Sister Theresa looked at the door of the storeroom where Daisy was expected to sleep and which opened straight onto the kitchen. It was closed and Maggie had locked it. The key felt as though it were burning a hole through her apron pocket and scalding her thigh.
Her heart beat wildly as the Reverend Mother stared at the door for what seemed like a lifetime. Suddenly she turned back to Maggie.
‘Very well, but don’t let her shirk, though. Back to work as soon as she is well. The bishop is in Liverpool for a meeting about the new cathedral, but he told me he wants to see her when he returns.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ said Maggie.
Maggie kept her head bent as she turned the loaves out onto the long wooden table. She daren’t look up in case Sister Theresa detected the panic in her eyes.
Later that evening, when her work was done and she was back at the lodge, Maggie recounted the visit to Frank. They had settled in front of the fire, the way they did each night before bed. Rain was falling steadily, as it had done for most of the day. The fire struggled to catch and throw out a decent flame as smoke billowed back into the kitchen. In another of their familiar nightly rituals, each held an enamel mug of poteen, brewed by Frank himself in a still kept hidden, behind a false wall in the potting shed. He and Maggie often laughed at the thought of what the nuns would do, if they knew Frank brewed his own poteen in the convent grounds.
‘Jesus, they would choke and die, wouldn’t they just,’ said Maggie as she took her first sip.
Tonight, they talked about the Reverend Mother’s visit to the kitchen and Daisy’s whereabouts.
‘That’s three days she has been gone now. I reckon we have another week. Reverend Mother, she never visits the kitchen more than once a week. What will we say, Frank, when they discover she has disappeared?’
‘You will wail and cry, Maggie, about how that girl took advantage of you, letting her rest whilst she was sick, that’s what. No finger of suspicion must ever point at us. Let’s hope the police are listening to Daisy and her story.’
‘Aye, if she is following the instructions I gave her and there is a God, all should be well.’
Maggie looked again at the letter they had received from the foreman, Jack.
‘Carry on reading now, before the poteen knocks ye out for the night,’ said Frank.
Frank had worked in the fields since he was six years old and had never learnt to read. Maggie had attended the local school religiously and had excelled at English and maths, despite frequently receiving the cane across her palms whenever she made the slightest error.
The nuns had failed to beat an aptitude for learning out of Maggie, as they had with most children. Rather, they beat a resilience and determination into her, to get her own back one day.
Maggie resumed reading.
Because she told me on the way over that one of the men she needed to report was a policeman from Liverpool, I decided to take her to the police station in Holyhead.
They were very good and kept her in overnight. I agreed to keep an eye on her, as promised, and booked into the pub next door to the police station for the night. When I called back the next morning, they told me they had got a mighty statement from her and they were taking her to Liverpool where they were hopefully going to make an arrest before the day was out. I have no idea who he was, but a very senior man from the Welsh police came to the station. They let me go and told me that what Daisy had told them amounted to a kidnapping, which is a very serious offence.
I have to say, your comments in the letter about her brother being the state solicitor of Dublin made them jump and I know they telephoned him. I didn’t mention your names as promised.
It was a pleasure to get to know you both and, Frank, I look forward to welcoming you to the Shamrock pub in Liverpool, for a return Guinness one day soon, mate.
Your pal from Liverpool,
Jack
‘That makes me feel good, so it does, that such a bad man will get his due deserts because we have played our part.’
‘Aye, it does. Me too, Frank,’ said Maggie thoughtfully. ‘Watch out for Sister Perpetua. She wants to see kids from the village locked up for stealing apples. Telling tales to the Reverend Mother so she is. She’s a wicked one, that one. Watch yer back.’
‘Aye, I’ve noticed her snooping around the vegetable gardens a few times. I will, Maggie, don’t worry about me. I keep my wits about me at all times. No one can catch me out.’
Frank had no idea. Someone already had.
Sister Perpetua sat in her room, making yet another entry in the journal she had been keeping over the last month. She knew that when she approached the Reverend Mother, she would need to present a cast-iron case. Not of a single event that could be explained away, but a whole list, which would demonstrate a pattern of deceit, theft and bad behaviour.
> Only a few weeks earlier, Sister Perpetua had caught one of the girls returning to the orphanage from the kitchen with her pockets stuffed full of biscuits. When they were removed from her and she was beaten, she confessed to Sister Perpetua that the cook, Maggie, had given them to her.
This had not been an isolated incident. Only the previous week, Sister Perpetua had seen Frank passing vegetables through the railings to the village children. Last night, she had seen him taking a bottle of clear liquid from the potting shed and slipping it into his jacket pocket. Her suspicions now thoroughly aroused, she kept an eye on Frank from the orphanage, which overlooked the vegetable gardens, and with her own eyes she had seen him sneakily carry a basket of apples round the back of the orchard to the lodge.
Sister Perpetua was sure in her own mind that the Reverend Mother had employed a pair of thieves and it was her duty to point this out. When she did so, maybe then she would be relieved of the job that she hated so much. Dealing day after day with ungrateful children and digging graves.
The Reverend Mother knew she could trust Sister Perpetua. Only two nuns were allowed to dig graves and Sister Perpetua was one of them. She was also the only nun entrusted with the paperwork, when children died. It was she who decided whether or not to obtain a death certificate and at what point to report the death to the authorities.
‘We have no idea who will come asking questions or when,’ Sister Theresa had said. ‘We must keep everything as obscure as possible and, sure, if no one wanted these children in life, I am quite sure there will be no interest when they are dead, but you never know. Better to be safe than sorry. We must protect ourselves from any charge that could be brought to our door. There are people who indulge children and fail to discipline them. Sentimental, they are, and just the type to think they could do a better job than we have. No traces, Sister Perpetua. Always be vigilant. Nothing recorded that anyone at any time in the future could behold.’
Sister Perpetua had done her work well. There was at least one death a week at the orphanage. She knew this was high.
‘We could blame a disease, Reverend Mother,’ Sister Perpetua had commented. Sister Theresa was always anxious about the children sent to the orphanage by the authorities.
‘Really, Sister Perpetua?’ the Reverend Mother snapped. ‘Then they would all have died in the same week, not at the rate of four or five a month. Just do as I say.
‘There must be nothing that can be traced. No mass at the graveside. Most of those children were born out of wedlock. They are steeped in a sin that no mass could erase. No headstones. We don’t ever want to encourage mourners.’
Sister Perpetua had created an environment of obedience and orderliness in which penitents could seek forgiveness, exactly as she had been asked. However, after four years of disciplining children and burying them, she was heartily sick of the orphanage. She knew it was difficult to ask for a transfer to the retreat. That was solely in the gift of the Reverend Mother. A reward for loyalty and discretion.
She bent over the journal in the orphanage office and continued with her record-keeping.
The cook and the gardener deserved to be in prison, and Sister Perpetua knew that she was the only nun in the convent sharp enough to make sure it happened. Her reward would be guaranteed and soon, God willing, she might have thrown the last lice-ridden, sin-soaked child into the pit.
16
‘THAT HARRIET HAS ants in her pants, she cannot keep flamin’ still,’ said Kathleen as she dried her hands on her apron and took the leaflet out of Nellie’s hands to read it for herself.
‘But, Nana, it sounds so exciting, a Rose Queen of the docks and eight people in her retinue, and we can all enter the competition. There is going to be a big fair with a street party on the green and afternoon tea. I’ve never known the like. It is too exciting for words. I’m off to tell Angela.’
Nellie jumped up from the kitchen table and already had her hand on the back doorknob when Kathleen stopped her.
‘Nellie, stop. Come here a minute while I tell ye something.’
Nellie knew what that meant. It was a summons to sit down and wait for a lecture. She knew from experience that she wouldn’t be going anywhere until it was over. With a sigh, she walked back to the table and sat down.
‘Now, child, listen to me. The Rose Queen, that’s a fantastic idea and I’m not surprised that Harriet has dreamt it up, an’ all. She has transformed these streets in the months she has been here. Jesus, she’s even trying to make me run the Mothers’ Union and the committee for the new nursery because she reckons that, if I do, it will be easier to get Maura to help. And she’s right, it will be good for Maura. I won’t have to do nothing, so I won’t, I will just act stupid. We have to pray to God that Maura’s famous spirit for organizing and bossing everyone will return, but that’s not what’s worrying me.’
Nellie could tell this was going to be a long one so she helped herself to a biscuit from the tin on the press. Nana Kathleen had made syrup oaties that morning, using a nice deposit from a load en route from the docks to the Lyons factory.
‘I’m listening, Nana Kathleen,’ she said, munching. ‘Go on, don’t stop, keep talking.’
‘Cheeky madam,’ said Kathleen, whacking Nellie’s bottom with the tea towel. ‘Look, Nellie, I’m just saying, have ye seen the date on that leaflet, the date of the Rose Queen competition?’
Nellie looked down at the leaflet. She hadn’t noticed the date at all, so caught up had she been with the long list of events Harriet planned: a fancy-dress competition, a tombola, a beat-the-rat stall, a best-cake competition, a cake stall and a jumble sale too. There was so much, how did Harriet think they could fit it all in on one day?
Nellie picked up the leaflet and read it again.
‘Oh God,’ she said, placing her hand over her mouth. ‘I feel terrible. Oh God, I am so stupid and she was like my sister too.’
Nellie began to cry. The shock of Kitty’s death had numbed her, crushing her free spirit for what had seemed like a very long time. Not until recently had she started to seem like her old self. Kathleen and Jerry were only just beginning to notice the true signs of their old Nellie returning.
‘Hush now, ye were so caught up with the news, I’m sure ye didn’t even notice that the date was Kitty’s birthday. I just wanted to point it out because when ye go over to Maura and Tommy’s, they will notice it straight away, and Angela too, I’ve no doubt, so just be a little bit careful, eh?’
‘Shall I not go over then?’ said Nellie.
‘Tell ye what, give me five minutes to finish these dishes and we will go together, shall we?’
Nellie dried her eyes and took the tea towel from Nana Kathleen. As she did so, Kathleen drew Nellie to her, burying the child’s head in her chest for a brief moment, and then kissed the top of it, noting that in no time at all she would have to reach up, not bend down, to give their Nellie a kiss.
Meanwhile, Declan Doherty had taken the leaflet into the kitchen and read out the list of events with a similar degree of enthusiasm. Harry lay on the mat in front of the fire, reading his book.
He looked up on hearing the events that interested him the most: races for the children on the green, a street party and a kestrel-flying display.
‘Well,’ said Maura, in the subdued voice that had become the norm of late, ‘that all sounds fantastic now. Angela, I think we should enter the cake competition and start practising with some recipes. What do you think?’
‘When is it?’ asked Harry after Declan finished.
As Declan read out the date, only Harry and Maura exchanged glances. Harry had realized immediately what day it was. None of the others had. Harry knew he couldn’t say anything. Kitty’s name had barely been mentioned since the day of the funeral. It was as if by pretending she had never existed, it would become easier for everyone to bear her absence.
It didn’t work like that for Harry. Right now he wanted to yell out loud, ‘That’s our Kitty’s birthday!’
But he knew that if he did, his mother would cry and the others would cast their eyes downwards and behave as if he had never spoken.
Through the kitchen window Maura spotted Nellie and Kathleen, walking up the back path towards her door.
‘Well now, there’s a bit of news we have,’ said Kathleen as she let herself into the kitchen.
‘Cuppa tea, Kathleen?’ said Maura.
Kathleen didn’t stop to draw breath or to answer, saying, ‘Would ye credit that Harriet and Miss Alison?’ So Maura poured her one anyway, on the basis that never once had she known her to refuse. Kathleen even had her own cup and saucer in the Doherty kitchen.
‘She’s Mrs Davies now,’ said Maura. ‘Seems funny calling her Alison, as if it’s disrespectful for someone in her position, her being a teacher.’
‘Well, I’ll never get used to that in a month of Sundays,’ said Kathleen. ‘It’s not even an Irish name, so it’s not. Maura, those women are on a mission to exhaust us, what with the nursery an’ all. I hope Mrs Davies gets caught quick now that she’s married and has her hands too full with a baby to be finding things for the rest of us to do.’
Kathleen sat herself down on the chair beside the fire and ruffled Harry’s hair by way of a greeting. He looked up at Kathleen and smiled.
‘You all right, lad?’ she asked him with a wink. Her words went unnoticed by anyone else, below the noise of Nellie and Angela re-reading aloud to Maura from Harriet’s proposed list of events.
‘Yeah, ta, Nana Kathleen,’ said Harry. He turned to look at Nellie and Angela and then back to Kathleen. ‘It’s on our Kitty’s birthday,’ he whispered earnestly, so that no one would hear him mention Kitty’s name.
‘I know, lad,’ said Kathleen quietly, smoothing down errant wisps on the crown of his head. ‘No one will forget such an important day, Harry. We will all go to the church and put our mass cards in and light a penny candle for her. She won’t be forgotten, Harry. Kitty was like you, lad, very special. No one will ever forget her.’ Whilst she spoke she continued to stroke Harry’s hair, licking her fingertips and then pushing his fringe to the side, over and over. Harry pulled his head away.
The Ballymara Road Page 20