‘I can hardly believe men would say such things, and to a woman.’
‘We’re not women, Lizzie, we are all whores and hookers and sinners, the dregs of society and not worthy of respect or even common courtesy,’ Celia replied. ‘And they pay Sister Jude for the laundry done, but we never see a penny piece of it.’
‘Where does it go?’
‘To the black babies in Africa,’ Celia said. ‘I’ve heard Father Conroy say Sister Jude is a credit. He said she collects more in months than many convents twice the size. Of course she bloody does. Those black babies are kept by our red-raw, chapped hands, our aching backs and the sweat running from us.’
‘It’s incredible,’ Lizzie breathed.
‘What is?’
‘Everything.’
‘I don’t think for one minute that this is just one on its own. I think places like this are peppered all over the country,’ Celia said. ‘I think it’s out of sight, out of mind. You better believe it, Lizzie, we are the forgotten women of Ireland.’
Lizzie lay wide awake for a long time after Celia’s even breathing told her the other girl was asleep. She’d told her much that night, much that had shocked her to the core. ‘Forgotten women of Ireland’ sounded desperate altogether.
She’d make sure she wasn’t forgotten, she thought. She’d write to her mother, to Violet. She had no paper and no stamps, but if the nuns would loan her enough for one letter, her mother or Violet would surely send her the makings for any number of letters. Surely to God she couldn’t be just wiped from their lives like that?
And the first thing she must do tomorrow would be to send a wee card to her daughter for her First Communion Day. Even the nuns would countenance that, surely to God.
With the decision made she tried to sleep, but instead she tossed and turned on the hard, lumpy mattress and eventually slept as the sun was preparing to rise.
‘A card, Pansy?’ Sister Jude asked, as if she’d never heard of such a thing before. She was smiling but it was not a warm smile. It was as if she was laughing at her.
But Lizzie had no intention of giving in. She’d asked to see Sister Jude as soon as she rose, heavy-eyed and sluggishly tired after her disturbed night, and had asked again after Mass and yet again at breakfast, which was lumpy porridge and tea, and eventually she was given permission.
‘Yes, Sister, a card. Niamh is taking her First Communion on Sunday. And with me not being there and all, I just wondered…’
‘I know all about your daughter’s First Communion,’ Sister Jude snapped. ‘Pity you didn’t remember it when you opened your legs for some man. I understood it was the occasion of your daughter’s Communion that caused Father Brady to move you speedily from the home.’
‘It was, Sister, but…’
‘Lest you contaminate her day, displaying your sin for all to see, your parents bereft with shame.’
‘Just a card. Sister, that’s all,’ Lizzie cried desperately. ‘Please.’
‘And just where do people think you have vanished to all of a sudden?’
‘Back to England, to tend my sick mother-in-law.’
‘So wouldn’t it strike the postmistress as odd if your family get a letter from you with a Sligo postmark?’
Lizzie hadn’t thought of that and knew what the nun said was right. The postmistress knew everything about everybody. She knew Lizzie’s writing too, because she’d written weekly letters home to her mother since she’d first gone to England, and she’d be suspicious about letters from her coming from Sligo and would make it her business to tell everybody.
Sister Jude saw the slump of Lizzie’s shoulders and hid her smile of triumph. ‘I’m glad you see that it would be impossible, Pansy,’ she said. ‘While you are in here, it is far better that you forget all about your family. I’m sure they would prefer it that way.’
And Lizzie remembered her father’s hard eyes and stern face and her mother’s extreme nervousness and the anxiety of them both for her to be gone from the place, and how she went without the smallest gesture of affection, and knew the nun was right. ‘Return to your duties now, Pansy,’ Sister Jude said, and Lizzie turned and left the room because there was nothing else she could do.
But there were people who hadn’t forgotten Lizzie. Niamh had cried bitterly when she was told that evening after school that her Mammy had had to go back to England and wouldn’t be there for her Communion. ‘She promised,’ she said through her tears. ‘She came specially.’
‘She had to go back, I’ve told you. Her mother-in-law was ill.’
‘She don’t even like Granny,’ Niamh complained. ‘She told me. No one likes her much. She’s horrid.’
‘That will do, Niamh!’ Catherine had snapped. ‘That’s a dreadful thing to say, and what’s liking a person or not got to do with it? If a person is ill, they’re ill and need to be seen to, and that’s that.’
Tom had been unnerved by his sister’s tears, for she seldom cried, and his own voice was wobbly when he said, ‘She never even said goodbye to me.’
‘You were away at Uncle Owen’s, sure. You said goodbye when you left.’
‘Not a proper goodbye,’ Tom said. ‘Couldn’t someone have come and got me?’
‘Everyone was busy,’ Catherine replied. ‘Anyway, it’s no good going on about it, it’s done. Your mammy’s gone and that’s that.’
‘She’ll probably send us a long letter explaining it, won’t she?’ Niamh asked her grandmother.
Catherine didn’t meet the child’s eyes. ‘I don’t know, child,’ she said. ‘Have you no homework to do, for I’ll want the table to dish up the food shortly?’
‘I’ve only got reading.’
‘Well, go through your catechism.’
‘I know it.’
‘You can’t be too sure of it. Read it through again and I’ll test you when we’ve eaten.’
Niamh had sighed. When her grandmother spoke with that snap in her voice it was best to say nothing. But she knew what she’d do as soon as she could: she’d write a letter to her mammy and ask her why she’d
left like that and she’d do it without her grandmother being aware of it. If she saved a little of her pocket money she could buy a stamp on her way to school and she’d use the page from her copy book to write it. She knew her grandmother kept envelopes in the drawer of the dresser.
She felt better when she’d made that decision because she loved her mammy. It had been grand to see her. She hadn’t realised how much she had missed her until she’d arrived. As for Tom, she knew he’d been fizzing with excitement for days, and that night when she’d gone to bed she heard him crying in the bed he shared with Uncle Johnnie in the far room.
Johnnie wouldn’t be in bed for hours yet, Niamh thought, and she plodded across the floor and, slipping in beside her brother, she put her arms tight around him. There was no need for words.
Later, Johnnie, who’d been upset by the children’s obvious distress, saw them fast asleep curled together in bed and hadn’t the heart to disturb them, so he slept in Niamh’s bed instead that night.
Tressa called around on Thursday morning as she hadn’t seen Lizzie since Sunday.
‘She’s away back to England,’ Catherine said in answer to her query. She didn’t know how much Tressa knew and had no intention of asking her, and anyway the story had to be stuck to for all outside the immediate family.
‘England!’ Tressa repeated.
‘Aye.’
‘Before the child’s Communion? Without saying goodbye?’
‘She hadn’t the time,’ Catherine said. ‘The call came through to the priest. Her mother-in-law was ill. She had to go home urgently and see to her.’
Tressa’s eyes narrowed. See to her mother-in-law my eyes, she thought. God, if the woman was on fire in the gutter Lizzie wouldn’t spit on her. If the woman was too sick to leave her bed to come around and berate Lizzie for each and every mortal thing, she’d be more likely to dance a jig in the yard.
Funny do altogether, to be whisked away only days before her own child’s big day. Maybe, Tressa thought, she’d send a letter of explanation later. She’d have to, because there was more to this than met the eye and yet she knew she would get no more out of her Aunt Catherine. She could be as close as a clam when she had the mind and so she left it there. When Lizzie wrote she was sure she’d hear the whole story.
Violet had no knowledge of life in a small Irish village. Lizzie had written to her when she’d been in Ireland a few days. She’d told her how good it was to be home and how excited the children were to see her and how they’d grown and blossomed. She spoke of the hills and the sea and the fine time she was having with Tressa and her family and visiting old friends. Just one line said she intended telling her mother after the weekend, when she’d been home a week, and Violet had waited for her to tell her the outcome and there had been silence.
It wasn’t like Lizzie. She must know Violet would
be concerned and interested. She’d wait a couple of days and write and see what was happening. Barry said she was probably having such a good time over there she’d not taken time to write, but he didn’t know the secret she carried. ‘I know you like her an’ all, ducks,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty fond of her myself, tell the truth, but if I was her and got the offer I would stay in Ireland. I mean, she misses them nippers shocking, don’t she?’
Violet had to admit she did, and maybe she would stay now she’d gone home, and she could when she’d had that bastard’s baby and given it away. Violet would miss her, God knows, but she could see the point of it, and perhaps it was for the best.
‘You could be right, Barry,’ she told her husband. ‘But if she hasn’t written by, say, Monday or Tuesday of next week, I’ll write and ask her what’s what.’
‘Don’t blame you, old girl,’ Barry said. ‘You need to know one way or the other.’
Lizzie tossed and turned on Saturday night and when she did drop into a fitful sleep, she dreamt she saw St Bridget’s bedecked with flowers, her daughter in the white communion dress full of frills and lace, the veil held in place by a comb covered with white satin and decorated with rosebuds. She was in a row of girls, all similarly dressed. Across the aisle were the boys in their grey shorts and white shirts with a satin sash draped across their shoulders. They were scrubbed cleaner than they’d ever been and any stray curls or unruly locks of hair were subdued by Brylcreem.
The church was crammed full of relations belonging
to the children. There were mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents…but it was the hurt look on her daughter’s uncomprehending face that jerked Lizzie awake and caused her to run to the bathroom adjoining the dormitory and vomit into the bowl.
‘What is it?’ Celia said, standing in the doorway. ‘Bit late in the day for morning sickness?’
What was the point of telling her? There was no point in complaining in this place, so she shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Could be anything.’
‘You all right now?’
Lizzie was far from all right and the bad taste stayed in her mouth all day. Being Sunday, there was no cleaning and laundry work. Instead, the girls sat in two circles, with a nun and older woman or two in each circle to ensure there would be no inane chatter between them and who read passages out of the bible while the girls hemmed sheets and darned holes in clothes and stockings.
Lizzie would have preferred work where she wouldn’t have had time to think or brood, for the constant thoughts of her children, particularly Niamh that day, could bring tears to her eyes. She was careful not to let anyone see this for she’d have hated the nuns to have something to mock, and she knew that if she wanted to survive this, she had to get a grip on herself.
Every morning at five o’clock, the girls were roused. Sleepy-eyed, they dressed beneath their nightdresses and filed down to Mass in the chapel. After Mass there was breakfast and after breakfast there were prayers. They began work at seven.
Some girls were assigned to the kitchens and some for cleaning duties, but most went to the laundry where they worked until twelve o’clock when they had their dinner. The regime was harsh and the work hard, but if the nuns had ever spoken kindly, smiled, allowed the girls to talk a little, it would have been more bearable.
Here, if you saw a nun smile it was because someone was going to catch it or be made fun of. And if they were, you had to stay silent, for to try to support the person brought worse punishment down on your own head. You learnt to keep your head lowered and look out just for yourself, knowing that one day it would be your turn to be mocked, ridiculed or beaten, and no one would come to your aid either.
Saturday night was bath time and a time for Sister Maria and Sister Clement to have fun at the girls’ expense. They mocked their bodies and compared and laughed at them and often made them run on the spot, noting whose breasts bounced the more or whose bottom was more wobbly. For Millie and Cora, who looked as if they were ready to deliver any day, you could see this running and jumping up and down was causing them severe discomfort, but Lizzie didn’t say anything and neither did anyone else. Lizzie supposed the heavy work in the laundry didn’t help either, but no allowance was made here for pregnancy, and Lizzie knew her time would come when the baby would lie heavy on her and everything would be an effort and she would have to cope as these girls did.
The following Friday, two letters arrived at the farmhouse for Lizzie. ‘Put them in the fire,’ Seamus said gruffly. ‘Burn them.’
‘We can’t do that,’ Johnnie said.
‘Hush, we don’t want the weans to know,’ Catherine cautioned both men.
‘Well,’ Seamus challenged his son, but in a lower voice, ‘what would you have us do, send them along to her?’
‘Aye, maybe we should. We can’t just ignore them.’
‘Why not?’ Seamus growled.
‘Look,’ Johnnie said. ‘If you want to pretend Lizzie doesn’t exist that’s fine. I personally think you’re wrong, but I’ll live with your decision. But other people won’t know this and maybe it will be suspicious to them if they receive no reply to the letters they send. We should at least open them and see who they’re from.’
Seamus looked across at Catherine and she shrugged. ‘Johnnie has a point, but not now. We’ll open them when the weans are out the way, especially Niamh, she’s too knowing altogether.’
Niamh was too knowing, and needed to find out why her mother hadn’t been there at her First Communion as she had promised she would be. Wasn’t there someone else who could have looked after her other granny for a few days? It wasn’t much to ask. But she knew she’d get no answer to these questions if she were to ask her granny, and not even her Uncle Johnnie seemed to want to talk and speculate about her mammy like he used to before.
So, unknown to any of them, she had written to their house at home. She didn’t know if her mother was there or at her grandmother’s house, but she worked out that her mother would have to go home sometimes, and so she said as she came into the room dressed for school, ‘Any letters?’
Catherine thanked God she’d thought to put the letters behind the clock on the mantelpiece. She knew what Niamh meant. She wanted a letter from her mother, for previously Lizzie had written every week. How would she explain an absence of letters? She didn’t know. Having a woman disappear for a few months was a hard thing to do when that woman had a family and friends who cared about her.
But Niamh deserved an answer. She’d been upset at her mother’s absence on Sunday but had bravely held back the tears, and this would be another blow to her. ‘No,’ she said, but gently. ‘No letters.’
‘She’s had time to write by now.’
‘Maybe she’s busy.’
‘Huh.’
‘Don’t sulk, Niamh, it’s a bad habit.’
But Niamh wasn’t really sulking, she was hurt. She’d
begged her mammy to write quickly. She’d told her all about her First Communion. You’d think she’d find time to write a few lines.
Catherine watched her grandchildren surreptitiously, the outspoken Niamh and the more introverted Tom, and knew both children were suffering in their own way. Whether or not Lizzie had sinned was a matter of opinion, but what wasn’t in doubt was the children’s innocence. They were affected too, and she knew that whatever she did, it wouldn’t make it any better for them.
Later that morning, with Niamh on her way to school and Tom in the fields with his uncle, Catherine opened the envelopes.
One of the letters was from Violet. She told her of the happenings in the street and said her description of Ireland sounded lovely and that maybe she’d make the trip herself someday and urged Lizzie to tell her all the news.
Catherine knew what Violet meant by ‘all the news’. The woman had been a good friend of Lizzie’s for years, and if she’d confided in anyone it would be Violet. Lizzie herself had said it was Violet who found her collapsed in the yard after the attack. She could take a bet Violet knew everything.
The other letter was from Lizzie’s mother-in-law.
Lizzie,
Just what are you playing at? All I’ve had from you is a note to say you’d arrived in Ireland safely. I never doubted it, and since then there has been
nothing. No letter and no indication of how long you’ll stay. Steve hasn’t had a letter either and I think it’s very remiss of you not to write to him when you think of what he faces daily. Of course, you always did think of yourself first, so I shouldn’t be surprised.We can’t hold this house for you forever. How would it be if Steve came home from the war to find no home at all to welcome him? You were happy enough to run when the going got tough and leave the rest of us to cope with the rationing and blackout and the constant threat of bombs, while you live the life of Riley over there. And I know that at first Steve was fine about you going home for a while, that just shows you the type of man he is, but he thought of you going over for a wee rest, not languishing there for weeks on end. After all, you have been there over two weeks, long enough to get over anything that ails you I would think. Surely you will be thinking of coming back any day now.
Steve will be writing to you about this I’m sure, when I point it out about the house and everything…
The censuring letter went on in a similar vein, talking about people and places Catherine didn’t know and taking every opportunity to complain about or denigrate Lizzie. Lizzie hadn’t complained much about her mother-in-law and Catherine had to admit she generally complained about little. This woman was a cow of the first order and she detested Catherline’s
daughter, that much was obvious. But, that being so, she would grasp any opportunity to shame Lizzie, and if her family were caught in the fallout she’d lose no sleep over it.
This woman’s suspicions had to be allayed at all costs. And yet Catherine didn’t know what could be done. She put the letters back behind the clock. She’d ask Seamus and Johnnie if they had any ideas, although she knew this would probably have to wait until evening when the children were in bed and the chores done.
She knew Seamus wouldn’t want to discuss it at all at any time. He was so embarrassed by the whole episode anyway that he even found it hard to say Lizzie’s name. Whatever she’d claimed had happened, the outcome was she was having a bastard child, the thing a father dreads his daughter saying, and he wanted nothing to do with her till the child was born and sent away somewhere. Then he might feel differently about it, but for now…
‘But, Seamus, what are we to do?’ she asked that night, as he sat smoking his pipe before the fire as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘Do what you want. Just don’t concern me over it.’
‘Come on, Daddy,’ Johnnie said. ‘We can’t pretend this isn’t happening.’
‘I can do as I please in my own house,’ Seamus said, his voice rising in anger.
‘Hush,’ Catherine said, glancing at the bedroom door. ‘You’ll have the weans awake.’
‘Aye, well, for a man to be told what to do by a mere lad.’
‘I’m not a lad, Daddy,’ Johnnie said, enraged. ‘My
opinion is as valid as yours, and I say this attitude will not help.’
‘Let’s not argue about it now,’ Catherine pleaded. ‘Let’s leave it a few days and think it over. A decision has not got to be made tonight.’
Johnnie shook his head. He knew his parents ran the risk of the whole thing blowing up in their faces. But what could he do? Very little, and he took himself off to bed where he found Tom curled up in a defensive ball in the middle of it. He stroked the little lad’s hair gently and he stirred in his sleep. Johnnie slid in beside him and lay wide awake for hours, though his eyes smarted with tiredness, and worried over the letters and what to do about them.
In the convent, where the only hint that you were still a member of the human race was a glimpse of sky, or occasionally, when pegging the laundry out in the garden, smelling the fresh air while carefully guarded by one of the nuns, days had no meaning. One slid into the other effortlessly, punctuated only by Sundays.
When Celia told Lizzie some girls stayed for years and some never got out at all, she began to score her hobnailed boots on the underside of the wooden palette she slept on: six notches for the days of the week and a long line through them for Sunday. So she knew she was in her third week when Millie had her first pains. ‘Is it the baby?’ Lizzie asked, going over to the girl’s bed when she heard the groans. ‘The bedroom door is locked until morning.’
‘That’s all right,’ Millie panted, breathless with pain. ‘I’ll not want the nuns to know yet awhile.’
‘You’re right,’ another agreed. ‘Hang on as long as you can,’ and in explanation went on to Lizzie, ‘They just use it as an excuse to point out what a sinner you are. There is no attempt to make it easier for you. Pain’s good for the soul, they say.’
‘Pity they don’t suffer a lorry-load of it then,’ put in a girl called Freda. ‘For their souls must be as black as pitch keeping us cooped up like this.’
‘Ah,’ said a girl named Dot, ‘but they’d have to do the monkey business first.’
‘D’you think they don’t want to?’
‘Aye, that’s what’s the matter with them.’
‘Maybe the priest would do the necessary.’
‘He’d be delighted, the dirty old bastard,’ a girl said with feeling. ‘He’d like to do it with the lot of us, if he had the bottle.’
Lizzie was shocked at such talk about a priest. She resented Father Brady for whisking her away from her home the way he had, but this was dirty talk, and about a man of God.
The lights were turned on so that they could see Millie properly and Celia caught sight of Lizzie’s face. ‘Oh, our little Pansy is disgusted with us, so she is. She thinks we’re making all this up. She pressed her face close to Lizzie’s and said, ‘I tell you, you might get your eyes opened yet. Wait till he asks you to wait behind sometime in the sacristy.’
‘What does he do?’
‘You’ll find out, and I wouldn’t spoil it for you by telling you.’
Some of the girls laughed nervously, while others wore a mask of misery, and Lizzie wondered what
other horrors were in store for her in that place.
But there was little time to worry about it now, for Millie’s contractions had become stronger and closer together and she clasped the hands of the girls closest to her, her nails scoring into them when the peak of the contraction was reached, and she writhed in the bed and moaned. Cora watched her, knowing in a few days, maybe a week, it would be her turn.
Lizzie remembered the old midwife she had helping her when Niamh was born who’d told her the pain of childbirth was forgotten when the child is in your arms. She’d been in agony and hadn’t believed a word of it. However, she’d found it to be true. It had faded from her mind as she looked at the perfect little person she’d helped create, and when the baby’s rooting mouth found Lizzie’s nipple she’d felt utter contentment.
But none at the convent would have that consolation, including her, but she’d had two children already so maybe she’d find it a little easier. For these girls it would be hard and painful and the last thing any woman in labour wants is being berated when they are at their most vulnerable.
All through the long night, the girls took turns to stay with Millie, holding her hand, soothing her, one using the flannel from the bathroom to wipe her gleaming face, and when the bell eventually shrilled out and the girls reluctantly left Millie and began to dress by their beds, Celia said to Lizzie, ‘That’s the last kind word or kind act she will know.’
And it seemed she was right. Certainly, Sister Mary, who was in charge of the dormitory, was totally lacking in any compassion. ‘Get up,’ she said to the pain
ravaged girl. ‘Stop making such a fuss and go down to the infirmary.’
Too scared to disobey, Millie swung her legs over the bed and tried to stand on them. She’d gone two paces when a pain doubled her over and she felt the whoosh as her waters gushed from her.
The nun was outraged. ‘Look at the mess, and all over the floor,’ she railed at the girl who’d collapsed in a heap onto the wet floor. ‘Two of you stay behind and clean this up and two more might as well help the girl down to the infirmary.’
Lizzie and Celia were the two chosen to clean the bedroom, and as they collected mops and buckets from the store cupboard, Lizzie whispered, ‘Is it right what you said about Father Conroy last night?’
‘Aye.’
‘But what does he do?’
‘I told you, you’ll find out,’ Celia said. ‘But whatever he does, never say a word about it and don’t complain.’
‘Why not?’ Lizzie said. ‘If he should behave improperly…’
‘Listen to me,’ Celia hissed. ‘This isn’t the real world here and normal rules don’t apply. This is a world of priests and nuns and filth and depravity. It’s a world where power over others is the most important thing. The minute you walk in here, you lose any basic rights you might have had or thought you had. We had a girl in here once who complained and she was taken away one night and we never heard of her again.’ Celia gave a sudden shiver and said, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget her screams.’
‘But where did she go?’
Celia shrugged. ‘People said to the asylum. Wherever she went, I imagine it was worse than this place. By Christ, just think of that and don’t let the same thing happen to you.’
There was no doubting Celia’s words, no doubting the passion or sincerity, and it chilled Lizzie to the marrow. She still believed in God, though. What these people did was not in the name of Jesus. He was a God of Love, surely, and didn’t he forgive sinners—even Mary Magdalene—and what of the prostitute the town people had wanted to stone.
Did they ever think of that, she wondered, or were they so puffed up with the idea of their own importance that they thought all their actions justified? They were more malicious and vicious than anyone she’d ever had dealings with, and that included her mother-in-law By God, she was just an apprentice troublemaker when you measured her up against these nuns.
‘Help me, Father,’ Lizzie prayed earnestly in her bed that night. ‘You are the only one who can, for here we have no rights at all, as Celia pointed out. Protect me, Jesus, from this priest.’ But she didn’t feel comforted and wondered for the first time if there was a God, and if he was prepared to listen to her if he did exist, and her dreams when she eventually dropped off were punctuated with terrifying nightmares.
The next day, they found out Millie had had a baby boy. There was no joyful announcement, no congratulations, just the bold statement that Millie was well and would be joining them in the dormitory in a few days. ‘Bully for Millie,’ Celia whispered in Lizzie’s
ear as they sat in the refectory having breakfast. ‘I bet she can hardly wait.’