Walking Back to Happiness

by Anne Bennett

  But she wasn’t able to ask Hannah what she’d said to upset her so much, for Arthur was holding the floor. ‘Oh, there is a lot of expense, certainly enough,’ he was saying to Reg. ‘But I have money saved. I can assure you my child will lack nothing. Only the best will be good enough. I thought a Silver Cross pram and a rocking cradle. Later, there will be a cot to buy and a high-chair.’

  ‘My goodness!’ Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘Hannah, you have a husband in a thousand. Reg wouldn’t know one make of pram from another. Buying the nursery equipment was my job alone, he wouldn’t have been interested.’

  Hannah hadn’t known that Arthur would have been interested either. It wasn’t something they’d discussed together, but then when did they ever discuss things? Arthur made a declaration or issued a command and Hannah obeyed him and that was that. It would be the same with things for the baby. Arthur would decide.

  Maybe, she thought, she should feel pleased that he was so involved, but she wasn’t, not at all. She also didn’t like the way he’d referred to the baby as ‘his’ baby. She felt as if it was hers. She didn’t even want to share it with him because it meant remembering the horrid night it had been conceived, but she knew that if Arthur wanted to claim the child he would, and there would be nothing she could do about it.

  Despite Hannah’s misgivings, her pregnancy passed peacefully. Josie had been delighted to be able to help Hannah more and was very excited about the baby.

  Now, Josie couldn’t remember why she made such a fuss about coming to Birmingham. She remembered her sense of loss and sadness at her mother’s death and then having to leave Ireland, but it was becoming shadowy, almost as if it had happened to someone else. Her letters to Eileen had petered out. It was frustrating to write to someone who wrote terse notes in reply and eventually Josie stopped trying. Given the choice, she wouldn’t leave Hannah now, not for anything. Hannah had asked her when she’d been there about a year if she wanted to live elsewhere, as she’d promised she would, but Josie had said firmly that she didn’t and she knew that Hannah had been pleased at her decision. She felt Hannah needed and wanted her there and of course would do so even more when the baby was born.

  She neither liked nor disliked Arthur. She had disliked him intensely, hated him even, when he’d shouted horrible things at Hannah in the dead of night. But, since the night after her birthday, it had not happened anymore. Arthur had moved out of the bedroom then and into the small room beside the bathroom.

  She didn’t even mind moving in with Hannah so that the baby could have her bedroom, which Arthur wanted decorated as a nursery. She wouldn’t leave now if someone had offered her a hundred pounds and she couldn’t wait to hold Hannah’s baby in her arms.

  Hannah had never had such an easy life. She had little to do. She wandered up to Erdington High Street and placed her order for grocery, greengrocery or meat, which would be delivered later that day. Often, she went on to Gloria’s. She and Amy had begun to knit for the baby as soon as they’d been told the news and Hannah had taken to it as well.

  Many afternoons, the three women could be found sitting in Gloria’s sitting room, talking together, their needles clicking, turning out cardigans, matinée coats, bootees, mittens and bonnets for the baby soon to be born.

  Hannah often thought it was a far cry from her previous pregnancy three years before when she remembered waking up in the spare bedroom of the presbytery after a fitful, fear-filled sleep, despite the comfortable bed.

  She’d been apprehensive of the place the priest would take her to that day, even while she was relieved. She wanted no breakfast, but Father Benedict insisted she ate. ‘We’ll leave straight afterwards,’ he said. ‘But you must eat. You need to keep up your strength.’

  When she saw the grim, grey building looming before her later that same morning, she realised what he’d meant. It had taken a long time to reach it, a train journey, followed on by bus and even then a long walk for the home was stuck out in the back of beyond.

  The door was opened by a nun with a stiff, disapproving face, which widened into the grimace of a smile as she saw who was there. ‘Father Benedict,’ she said. ‘What a nice surprise.’ And then she cast a baleful look at Hannah, who blushed at her close scrutiny, and went on, ‘You’ll be wanting to see Mother Superior?’

  Father Benedict nodded. ‘If it is convenient, Sister Carmel?’

  ‘She’d always make time for you, Father,’ the nun told the priest and she led the two of them into the large house.

  Hannah let her eyes slide around the large and draughty hall the nun had invited them into, while the priest talked quietly to Sister Carmel. It had once been a grand house, she thought, and big, wrought-iron gates had once led to the gravel path that approached the house. She’d known because the stumps of metal were still in the ground, the gates themselves carted off long ago, like every other bit of available metal for the Spitfire appeal.

  Now, though, the home was unloved, the front lawn unkempt and untended, though she was to learn the grounds at the back were well cultivated. Her begrimed nails and aching back would eventually bear evidence to that.

  The hall led to a short corridor with doors leading off each side and another door at the far end. Two girls were scrubbing the floor on hands and knees. They were both dressed in shapeless smocks, one in dark green, the other grey, their distended stomachs hanging down before them, evidence of their advanced pregnancy. Hannah was shocked and she knew she was seeing a foretaste of her life there and followed the priest reluctantly as they were ushered into a small room.

  The nun behind the desk was small and old and had thick brown spectacles on her small nose. ‘Father Benedict,’ she said, rising to her feet to shake his hand. ‘So nice to see you again.’

  So, I’m not the first girl he’s brought here, Hannah thought, but the priest was introducing her. ‘This is Hannah Delaney.’

  Hannah put out her hand, but the nun ignored it. Instead, she turned away and indicated they sit the other side of the desk with a wave of her hand. Then she faced them again, pulled a form for the file and looked at Hannah. ‘Age,’ she rapped out.

  ‘I’m … I’m twenty-four.’

  ‘Twenty-four? Not a young girl then. Old enough to know better. No father, I presume? No visible means of support?’

  ‘No!’ Hannah willed her voice not to tremble. ‘The baby’s father is dead, in France somewhere.’ And then, because she didn’t want the nun to think she was a bad girl, she burst out, ‘We were engaged. Due to be married.’

  It didn’t impress the nun one jot. She looked at her with scorn. ‘How far on are you?’

  ‘Five months.’

  ‘Right,’ the nun said, leaning forward. ‘Let’s put a few rules before you. Firstly, my name is Sister Theresa and I’m in charge of this home. You’re in luck; three of our girls left us last week, so we have space to take you. But it will not be a rest cure. In exchange for housing and clothing you, you will work for your keep. We employ no help. The cleaning of this house, preparation of meals, washing, ironing and tending the vegetable garden are done by the girls here. You will not wear your own clothes, but smocks, underclothes and shoes, which we will supply. Do you understand all this?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘In addition to your duties, you will attend chapel. You will rise at half-past four in the morning and must be in the chapel, washed and suitably attired by five-o’clock matins. Vespers are at five o’clock in the evening and prayers before bed at eight-thirty. Each Saturday a priest will come to hear confession and the same priest will say Mass every Sunday morning in the chapel. You will not leave here until your child is born, when it will be taken from you and given to one of the good Catholic families we have waiting.’

  That brought a response from Hannah. ‘Taken from me!’ she repeated.

  ‘Surely you knew that?’ Sister Theresa said, her face puckering in a frown. ‘Didn’t Father Benedict …?’

  ‘I told Hannah nothing a
bout that.’ Hannah turned to look at him and knew that the priest was embarrassed, that he hadn’t wanted to tell her. His face was brick-red and there was sweat glistening on his brow. But Hannah was too distraught to care about the priest’s discomfort. ‘You can’t take my baby from me,’ she cried. ‘Please don’t do that. It’s all I’ll have of Mike.’

  ‘Then how will you keep it?’

  Wild plans leapt into Hannah’s mind, all of them to be swiftly rejected. She realised she was totally alone. She hadn’t really thought of what she would do once she’d given birth to the baby. And the nun was right. There wasn’t one job she could think of which she could keep and look after her baby and anyway, there was her family in Ireland to consider.

  The nun watched her dispassionately. This same scene had been enacted many times in that room and the same decision always reached. When Hannah eventually looked from Father Benedict to the nun, the priest had to turn his head away from the look of resigned sadness on her face. Sister Theresa said, ‘You see, my dear, there is no other solution. We will give your child to a couple who are usually childless and are willing to adopt who will love your baby very much. They will give the child a better life than you could offer it.’

  ‘It’s a brave thing to do, Hannah,’ Father Benedict put in gently. ‘And you’ll bring joy to a childless couple.’

  ‘But what about me?’

  ‘You,’ said Sister Theresa sternly, ‘will get over it eventually and get on with your life.’ Her tone implied that it was more than Hannah deserved and Hannah, looking from one to the other, knew she was powerless before these people.

  Over the next months, Hannah was to know true misery and tiredness such as she’d never felt before. There were times every bone in her body ached when the bell to rouse them was sounded in the morning, but no one was allowed to slack.

  Before matins, they had to wash, dress and make their beds and after matins, some cleaned the dormitories, while others made and served the breakfasts. After breakfast, the washing-up began and preparation of the midday meal, the whole house had to be cleaned and others were sent into the garden to work or to the laundry. After the midday meal, the whole process began again as the evening meal had to be prepared before vespers.

  But it wasn’t the work alone Hannah felt the most tiring, it was the way many of the nuns spoke to them. Some seemed to use every means possible to provoke and annoy them and remind them of their disgrace in bringing an illegitimate child into the world.

  Hannah found settling in difficult and though she wasn’t unfriendly, she tended to keep herself to herself, but after working in a bustling hotel and being a good friend of Tilly’s, she often felt immeasurably lonely. In the end, she decided to write to Tilly, who wouldn’t have a clue where she was, and ask her to visit if it was allowed. It was, but few of the girls had visitors. Most girls there had been disowned by their families, though from the talk around her, Hannah learnt that some would accept their daughters back home when the ‘problem’ had been resolved, when they could pretend it hadn’t happened.

  Tilly came, as Hannah knew she would, complaining of the place being out in the sticks as soon as Hannah was ushered into the visitors’ room to see her. ‘Bloody haul, this is. Took me all bloody morning to get here.’

  ‘Ssh,’ Hannah cautioned, checking the door had been shut properly. ‘They’ll have your tongue cut out for saying less than that.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Tilly said, then surveying Hannah’s swollen frame she said, ‘What the dickens have you got on?’

  ‘Oh, everyone wears these smock things,’ Hannah said dismissively. ‘You should see what I have underneath – convent issue underwear.’

  ‘Oh God! Let me guess, passion-killer bloomers and a chastity belt?’

  ‘More or less,’ Hannah agreed with a smile.

  ‘That’s better,’ Tilly said. ‘I thought you’d gone and had your smile amputated.’

  ‘There’s not been much to smile about here, Tilly, just lately.’

  ‘Listen, you,’ Tilly said, gripping Hannah’s hands tight. ‘Don’t lose your sense of humour. It helps you survive. Honest to God, it does.’

  ‘Tilly, you don’t understand,’ Hannah said. ‘Let me tell you all that’s happened to me since I was evicted from the hotel and see if you can find a joke in it at all.’ And Hannah told Tilly about finding Mike’s house locked up and about the double tragedy that had affected his mother.

  ‘I know, love,’ Tilly said when she’d finished. ‘I went looking for you when I heard nothing from you for a bit. I went on my first day off. God, I was worried. You’d disappeared into thin air and I was scared to death you’d done something daft, like throwing yourself in a river, or under a flipping train.’

  ‘It might have come to that if it hadn’t been for the priest,’ Hannah said seriously. ‘He was so kind, Tilly, and I know this place isn’t The Ritz, but it’s better than the streets.’

  Tilly looked at Hannah’s strained face, with the blue smudges underneath her eyes, her beautiful hair, now dull and lank and pulled back from her face in a band. She looked like a different person to the young vibrant girl she’d shared a bedroom with for some years. Mind, she thought, the clothes didn’t help, those terrible tent-like dresses and her feet thrust into Godawful, clod-hopping shoes she’d not be seen dead in. It was as if the nuns went out of their way to make the girls as unattractive as possible.

  ‘You might be right, but it’s only just,’ Tilly said. ‘It’s a bloody awful place, this. You know what’s the matter with them holy Joes, don’t you?’ she went on confidingly. ‘Bloody jealous. Every girl here has done something they’d like to have a go at themselves, given half a chance.’

  ‘Tilly!’

  ‘Tilly what? It’s right. Everyone knows it. Married to God! Huh! That would keep you warm in bed, I don’t think.’

  ‘Tilly, you’re dreadful,’ Hannah said, realising suddenly how much she’d missed her.

  ‘I know,’ Tilly said, unabashed. ‘Can’t do a blooming thing with me.’ She was very glad to see Hannah less despondent than when she’d arrived, for she had bad news for her. But first she said, ‘Have you thought what to do after? Are you keeping the baby or what?’

  ‘There’s no choice here,’ Hannah said. ‘The babies are taken and given to a couple who want to adopt. My baby’s parents might have already been chosen.’

  There was a catch in her voice and Tilly said, ‘Don’t get upset, Hannah. You can take up your life again. You can …’

  ‘Forget it ever happened,’ Hannah burst out. ‘Forget Mike who I loved with my heart and soul and the baby he would have adored. I’ll just rub him out of my life as if he didn’t exist.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that,’ Tilly said. ‘But if you kept the baby, what could you do? How would you manage?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been through that more times than enough,’ Hannah said. ‘And how could I keep a thing like that from my family, my sister?’

  ‘Maybe you should write and tell her anyway?’ Tilly suggested.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’

  ‘She’d get over it in time.’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘She might,’ she said, ‘because she loves me. But the shame of it, everyone would blame her and say she hadn’t brought me up properly. Some would even say she shouldn’t let me come back home at all. I’d be away from it over here, but she’d have to live with it every day.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to write something to her,’ Tilly said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Look, Hannah, I don’t want you to get scared or anything, but a telegram came for you the day before yesterday. I signed for it, because just two days before that I got your letter telling me where you were. I opened it, Hannah, because I didn’t know how urgent it was. It’s from your sister.’

  The roof of Hannah’s mouth was suddenly very dry. All through the war people dreaded the sight of the telegraph boy trundling up the ro
ad, the harbinger of death. Sometimes it wasn’t death, but the news was never good, and the one Tilly handed Hannah was no exception.

  PADDY VERY ILL STOP HASN’T GOT LONG STOP ASKING FOR YOU STOP LOVE FRANCES.

  ‘I can’t go to him,’ Hannah said, looking at Tilly with eyes full of anguish. ‘I’m letting down the man I love … far, far more than my own true father. Paddy was patient and kind. And when I wanted to go to England, it’s him I went to. He understood and in the end he talked Frances round.’ Her eyes spoke her misery. ‘He’s asking for me and I can’t go, even though he’s dying.’

  Hannah hid her face in her hands and Tilly watched her, knowing the terrible dilemma she was in. ‘I’ll write to Frances and say I’m ill,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s all I can do. Later, when it’s over and I’m out of this place, I’ll go and see them all. I’ll have to ask the Sisters if I can go out to get a card, or a sheet of writing paper. I must write straight away, the telegram came two days ago, she’ll be wondering why I haven’t written.’

  The nuns were surprisingly sympathetic to Hannah’s plight, but she found it the hardest letter in the world to write, the one to tell Frances that she would not be there to bid farewell to Paddy Mullen.

  Just a month later, Tilly, who now made the long journey to see Hannah once a week, brought another telegram. ‘Came this morning,’ she said. ‘I opened it like you said to and then I changed my day off so I could come straight round.’

  PADDY DIED 31 AUGUST STOP FUNERAL AT 11 O’CLOCK STOP MAMMY EXPECTS YOU STOP LOVE MARTIN.

  Hannah, the telegram crushed in her hand, put her hands to her heart and wept and Tilly, putting her arms around her in an attempt to comfort her, found herself crying too.

  Much later, Tilly sent a telegram in reply that Hannah had written out for her, in which she’d expressed her regret that she couldn’t be with the family at this tragic time.

  Most of the girls were aware of the bad news Hannah had received, but didn’t know her well enough to show her much support. The nuns assured Hannah that her brother-in-law, if he was the good, God-fearing man she said he was, would be in Heaven now.