by S. C. Farrow
‘Step away from the door, Lee,’ Smith commands. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
Jean stops in her tracks and looks up. The look she shares with Smith is one of mutual contempt. Agnes can see they’re about the same age, but Jean looks old, worn, crinkled at the edges. Dressed in shapeless prison garb that’s been worn by umpteen women before her, she’s small, petite, and wretchedly thin. Her thick red hair, scruffy and unkempt, hangs about her shoulders in clumps, and she’s got a fresh pink scar across the bridge of her nose. However, as haggard as she is, Agnes detects remnants of a physical beauty, long since faded, in the sensual arch of her eyebrow, the curve of her chin, and the slight downturn of her pale green eyes.
Jean grips the bar as she crouches down and releases the insect. Agnes frowns as she watches, disturbed by the tremor in Jean’s slender hand. She’s seen that kind of shake before. Involuntary. Irrepressible. It’s the tell-tale sign of an addiction that lingers still. She watches the roach as it scuttles away beneath the barred door until Smith crushes it beneath the heel of her boot. The corner of Smith’s mouth curls into a smile as Jean gets up. Jean knows better than to start trouble. She drags on her cigarette as she backs away.
Smith’s keys rattle in the lock as she opens the gate. ‘This is Sister Agnes,’ she announces. ‘She’s from the Community of the Holy Name.’
Jean takes a seat at the small wooden table in the corner as Agnes steps inside the cell.
‘Call out if you need anything,’ Smith says, locks the door once more. ‘I won’t be far away.’
Agnes takes a deep breath and approaches the table. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she says, placing the bag on the table. ‘I brought you some fresh clothes.’
‘You came all the way from Cheltenham to bring me a nice dress to die in? You’re crazier than I am.’
Agnes ignores the comment. Jean moves the letter she’s writing, and the photograph tucked underneath it. Agnes places the bag on the table. As Jean rifles through the clothes, Agnes looks around the cell. Surprisingly large, it’s actually two rooms, one for the prisoner and one for the overseer. There’s a kapok mattress on the single bed frame, two blankets, and a lumpy pillow. There’s a lidless toilet in the opposite corner, and a hand basin on the wall. There’s no privacy at all.
With her cigarette dangling between her lips, Jean holds up the floral dress to the afternoon light.
‘It had a belt…’ Agnes begins to explain.
‘But the screws took it in case I got ideas about necking myself with it.’
Agnes doesn’t answer but the hypocrisy of taking a belt from a condemned woman who might use it to hang herself isn’t lost on either of them.
Jean tosses the dress on top of the bag. ‘It’s a little too highbrow for my taste. A little too ‘goody two-shoes’.
‘Clothes are an advertisement of yourself, of the way you value yourself. Your modesty. Or your availability. If you value yourself, your clothes will reflect that.’
‘When was the last time you wore a dress? A real dress? A pretty dress?’
Agnes lowers her eyes as she hesitates, as she thinks back.
‘Well?’ Jean demands.
Agnes looks her straight in the eye. ‘I was seventeen.’
Jean stubs out her cigarette, senses there’s a whole lot more to the story. ‘And…’
‘May I sit down?’
Jean gestures to her cot.
Agnes sits carefully on the edge of the bed. ‘I see you’re writing a letter.’
Jean snatches up her pack of cigarettes and lights another one. ‘You ain’t gonna push me for some kind of confession, are ya?’
‘I’m not here to judge you, Miss Lee. The law has already done that. As has the public. I think enough decisions have been made about your quality.’
Jean scoffs. ‘My quality? I don’t give a fuck what people think about my quality. It’s none of their fucking business.’
‘It is when you commit murder.’
Thwack! Jean slams a balled up fist on the table. ‘I ain’t a murderer, all right!’ she cries. ‘I ain’t!’
Agnes gasps, startled by the outburst.
Then as quickly as her fury flared, Jean calms down and sits back in her chair. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ she says. ‘I was there when it happened, I admit that. But I didn’t do it.’
‘The law says that allowing it to happen makes you just as guilty.’
Jean drags on her cigarette as she sits back in her chair, her cold blue eyes scrutinising Agnes, analysing her, classifying and compartmentalising her. ‘Yeah, well, the way I see it, it was him or me.’
‘What do you mean, it was him or you?’
‘I didn’t give a shit about the old man’s money. I just wanted to get out of there, but Bobby… It was driving him crazy that he couldn’t find the wad of cash the old man bragged about.’
‘Bobby Clayton’s your boyfriend, isn’t he? You confessed in order to save him.’
Jean looks away, clearly uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation.
‘Why?’ Agnes continues. ‘Why help a man who beat you and sold you to others? A man who was happy to let you take the blame?’
Smoke curls from the corners of Jean’s downturned mouth.
‘Mr Kent didn’t have a wad of cash, did he?’
Jean shakes her head. ‘No, he didn’t.’ A moment later, she reaches for the photograph tucked behind the letter and hands it to Agnes.
Agnes takes it and turns it to the light. It’s a black and white image of a pretty little girl. ‘Who is this?’ she says.
‘My daughter,’ Jean replies. ‘She was seven when that was taken. I haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Jillian.’
‘She’s beautiful.’ Agnes holds onto the picture as she thinks back. ‘My son…’ she says. ‘He’d be twelve now.’
Jean huffs. ‘You… Have a son?’
Agnes nods. ‘Yes.’
Jean smiles. ‘Bit unusual for a nun, isn’t it?’
Agnes nods as her mind jolts back in time to that day, to the moment she threw caution to the wind and gave in to urges, primal and ill-considered, that damned her body and soul. She’d seen him around the neighbourhood. He’d seen her, too. The way he looked at her… It stirred things in her, secret, indecent things.
One evening after her shift at the dress factory, she climbed down off the bus and began the short walk towards home. As she approached the dairy on the corner of her street she saw him. Her heart fluttered in her chest. She quickly looked away, but she knew he was looking at her, that he was peering at her from beneath the thick black curls that hung loose and wild over his dark brown eyes. He wasn’t like the other boys she knew. The long sleeves of his shirt were rolled up past his elbows and he always had a cigarette dangling from his full lips. There was something mysterious about him, something dangerously attractive. She kept her eyes down and was determined to ignore him and walk right past him without so much as a smile. But, as the space between them grew ever shorter her curiosity betrayed her and she glanced up at him. He was looking at her too. She knew she should keep going, keep walking until she was safe behind the front door of her family’s brand new Housing Commission house. But she didn’t. She stopped and held her breath as she dared to snatch a look back over her shoulder. She was surprised to see that he had stopped too and that he was looking back at her. Her breath quickened as he took a step towards her. He took her hand and held it tight as he led her into the narrow lane at the side of the dairy. The stench of hay and horse shit crawled into her nostrils as she stood in the shadows of the overhanging branches and kissed him. She didn’t even know his name.
‘What happened to him?’
Jean’s question yanks Agnes back into the here and now. And she very much needs to change the subject. ‘Miss Lee…’
Jean’s voice hardens. ‘What happened to your boy?’
‘I gave him up for adoption.’
/>
Jean frowns as she stares at the holy woman.
‘I wouldn’t have been a very good mother,’ Agnes says. ‘It was for the best.’
Jean nods. ‘My parents adopted Jillian.’
‘Then you know she’s loved.’
‘Yeah,’ Jean says. ‘I guess I so. So, why are you a nun?’
‘I think I’ve said enough.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Agnes hesitates. She’s revealed more than enough to this woman. However, it feels good to talk. To share the truth. No matter how ugly it is. ‘I’m a nun because I was alone. Because I wanted someone to love me. Despite my mistakes.’
‘The nuns loved you?’
‘No, they didn’t. But God did. Or at least I thought He did.’
‘You don’t think that anymore?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘You took vows?’
‘Yes. Of obedience. Poverty. And chastity.’
‘Chastity?’ Jean scoffs. ‘How’s that working out for you?’
Agnes frowns, suddenly furious. Who is this woman to speak to her in such a way? And how is it that she knows her thoughts? And those feelings buried deep inside her heart?
Jean sits back and looks Agnes in the eye. ‘I did it ’cause I loved him. I thought he was going to love me. Forever and all that shit.’
Agnes nods. She knows what Jean means.
SATURDAY 17TH FEBRUARY 1951
Two days before the execution
Agnes rolls her neck as she stands beneath the shower of warm water soothing her aching muscles. The laundry was busy today and she worked extra hard. But now she has to hurry if she’s going to make it in time for Vespers. She doesn’t want to give Sister Margaret another reason to be upset with her.
She turns off the taps and steps out of the shower stall. As she reaches for her towel, she catches sight of herself in the small vanity mirror.
She wipes away the water that drips from her short dark hair onto her shoulders and breasts. Then she wipes it from her belly and the stretch marks that remain as a constant reminder of her wayward past.
Suddenly, thud thud thud, pounding on the bathroom door. ‘Sister Agnes,’ Margaret calls. ‘It’s time to go.’
Agnes’s shoulders slump. ‘I’ll be right out.’
SUNDAY 18TH FEBRUARY 1951
One day before the execution
Agnes is on her knees with head bowed, her eyes closed, and her fingers woven tightly together in prayer as dawn light seeps through the stained glass window. She whispers to God, prays and prays for Jean’s release from torment. She prays for her own.
MONDAY 19TH FEBRUARY 1951
The day of the execution
Swollen drops of rain splatter on the windscreen as the truck rumbles along Urquhart Street. It’s the first time it’s rained in days.
Albert Gordon flicks on the windscreen wipers. Agnes looks up as they scrape across the grimy glass, and gasps. Even though it’s seven a.m. Monday morning, a substantial crowd has gathered on the road outside the south gate. The crowd, mostly men, are divided into two separate groups, one on each side of the gate. The group on the right waves placards as they chant ‘Reprieve! Reprieve! Reprieve!’ The group on the right also waves placards but they chant ‘Eye for an eye! Eye for an eye! Eye for an eye!’ In between them, half a dozen men in suits and hats band together to talk amongst themselves. Two of them have large bags slung over their shoulders.
‘Who are they?’ Agnes says, as she watches them with concern.
‘They’re reporters,’ Gordon says. ‘From the newspapers.’
In a hurry to get inside, Agnes reaches for the door handle.
‘Wait,’ Gordon warns. ‘I’ll go in with you.’
Agnes sits back and looks at the fervid crowd.
***
Guard Smith guides Agnes along the upstairs walkway.
‘Miss Lee’s cell is downstairs,’ Agnes says.
‘She’s been moved to a cell by the gal… She’s been moved to a cell on this level.’
As they walk further along the walkway, Agnes glances down at the lower level and spots the prison’s governor glancing at his watch as he smiles and jokes with several men in suits and three D Division guards. Clenching her jaw and gritting her teeth, Agnes looks up again only to see the hanging beam stretching across the void right in front of her. Unlike her last visit, the beam now sports a noose that dangles freely above the trapdoor cut into the metal floor.
‘She’s in here,’ Smith says, pointing to cell 67A. ‘The doctor’s with her.’
Agnes stops, uncertain if she can do this, unsure if she can go inside. ‘What do I tell her?’ Agnes asks. ‘How do I find the words?’
Unusually sympathetic, Smith considers her reply. ‘I’m not a religious woman, but if I were, I’d think that God sent you because you’re the one she needs right now and that He’ll give you whatever words you need.’
Agnes nods, grateful for the woman’s reply. Then she rounds the corner into the cell.
Jean, wearing the floral dress, is sitting on her cot. Her head hangs forward as the doctor, who sits on a chair in front of her, unties the tourniquet from around her arm.
Agnes watches as he presses two fingers to Jean’s neck feeling her pulse. Satisfied he’s done all he can for her, he gives her hand a plaintive squeeze, then grabs his medical bag and heads for the door, nodding to Agnes as he leaves.
Agnes takes a seat on the chair. Tears well in her eyes at the sight of Jean in the pretty floral dress. It’s too big for her rail-thin frame, but a hint of her former beauty, unbearably faint, shines through despite the despair. Jean looks at the items on the bed beside her, an empty packet of cigarettes, the photograph of her daughter, and a hairbrush.
Spittle dribbles from Jean’s lips as she looks up. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’
Agnes smiles. ‘You look beautiful.’
Jean smiles too. ‘I do, don’t I?’ Then the smile slips from her lips as she points to a rubber undergarment lying on the bed beside her. ‘They want me to wear that. But I don’t think it’ll go with the dress.’
Agnes frowns as she closes her eyes and hangs her head. Please God, let me find the words.
Jean lists sideways as she reaches under her pillow. She pulls out the letter to her daughter and hands it to Agnes. ‘I didn’t trust the screws to send it.’
Agnes takes it. ‘Would you like me to brush your hair?’
Jean closes her eyes and whispers, ‘Yes.’
Agnes picks up the hairbrush and gently untangles the knots from Jean’s thick red hair. With each stroke of the brush, Jean slips into a world that is far beyond the here and now.
A moment later, Guard Smith enters and breaks the carefree silence. ‘Sister...’
Agnes ignores her and keeps brushing.
‘Sister, I’m sorry but it’s time.’
The sound of clanking against the cell door’s bars forces Agnes to look up. She gasps when she sees the hangman standing in the doorway in a knee-length white coat, a white felt hat pulled down over his forehead, and massive steel-rimmed goggles covering his eyes.
Suddenly, Jean’s head flops forward, her body goes limp and she slumps, unconscious, into Agnes’s lap.
Outside the prison, the protestors’ chanting reaches fever pitch. Gordon stands on the street, leaning against the body of his truck when he checks his watch. It’s 7.55 a.m.
Inside, Jean sits in a chair, the floral dress draping neatly over her knees. Her eyes are closed, her mouth is slack, and her hands are tied behind her back as the hangman’s assistant slips a hood over her freshly-brushed hair. The chair sits on the gallows trapdoor.
An unnatural silence has fallen over the world inside these walls. It’s as though the ghastly reality of the situation has only just dawned on those who stand present. Now on the ground floor, Agnes stands amongst them, the guards, the men in suits, and the newspaper men who have come to bear witness to Jean’s demise. Her fing
ers are woven tightly together in prayer, so tightly they are white from lack of blood flow. Have mercy on her, Lord. Take her into your arms and have mercy on her soul. The hangman slips the noose over Jean’s head and tightens the knot at the side of her neck just below her jaw. The hangman’s assistant pulls down the flap to cover her face. The hangman stands ready, his hand on the lever, watching the clock above him. The minute hand ticks around to eight a.m. and without a hint of hesitation, he triggers the trapdoor.
Outside the south gate, Gordon looks up to see startled pigeons take flight.
Agnes stands still, frozen to the spot, unable to move, afraid to look.
Dear God…
Dear God, take care of her.
THURSDAY 1ST MARCH 1951
Ten days after the execution
A tangerine sun arcs across the southern New South Wales sky. Classic music plays on the wireless as Charles Wright sits on the porch reading the morning newspaper. Florence Wright rocks in her chair as she watches her granddaughter playing in the water spraying from the lawn sprinkler. No one pays any attention to the cab that passes the house until it stops and backs up.
The driver waits patiently as Agnes, wearing a white dress with a pink floral pattern, snaps open her purse and glances at the two letters placed carefully inside. One is from the Children’s Welfare Department which contains information about her son. The other is Jean’s letter to Jillian.
‘Who is it, Charlie?’ Florence wonders.
Charles peers over the top of his paper. “I’ve never seen her before.”
Agnes pays the cab driver and shuts her purse. Then she takes a deep breath, climbs out of the back seat, and crosses the street.