Authors: Nadine Dorries
More often than not, babies were delivered in the middle of the night and it was a short step to the labour room, without inconveniencing the nuns.
There was a midwife who lived in. Her room was on the other side of the dormitory, with a wooden hatch connecting the two. If one of the girls went into labour, they would lift up the hatch and shout through to let her know.
It was a fact that most would rather have given birth alone than in the presence of the dour and unfriendly resident midwife, who most of them doubted was even qualified at all.
Fortunately, today she had taken herself off on her bicycle into town. Rosie wondered whether that was deliberate. Maybe she didn’t relish the prospect of being questioned by a midwife tutor about her training or qualifications.
The nun, with Rosie’s smiling stare fixed on her, backed out slowly and quietly, hovering outside the door for what felt like an eternity. Rosie placed a finger on her lips, mouthed a ‘Sh’ and smiled at Kitty. After a few seconds, the nun’s footsteps could be heard gently descending the wooden staircase.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that was hard work,’ said Rosie, turning a warmer smile towards Kitty. ‘Now quick, take off your shoes, stockings and knickers, Kitty, and jump onto the bed. Shuffle down so that you are comfortable and while I am examining you, you can read these letters I have smuggled in my bag. I will have to take them away with me, so you do need to read them quick now.’
Kitty looked at Rosie with eyes wide in shock, wondering whether Rosie had already read the letters.
‘Don’t panic, Kitty. I will speak to no one. Your secret is safe with me. I will take it to my grave, so I will. I see lots of girls and ladies in a difficult position. I am only here to help you.’
Kitty relaxed, her fear at the prospect of an examination being replaced by the sheer joy of reading a letter from home.
‘Come on,’ said Rosie, in a fractionally louder and slightly urgent voice. ‘They won’t give us all day, you know.’
Kitty slipped off her stockings and shoes and then carefully slipped down her knickers, without revealing any of herself.
Raped and pregnant, she knew the meaning of shame.
Rosie smiled kindly and once again thought to herself: poor, desperate girl.
‘Jump up,’ she said, ‘and make sure your bottom is about here.’ She tapped the middle of the bed and helped Kitty up.
‘Pull your legs up like this,’ she said, as she lifted Kitty’s knee up, ‘and now we let it flop, down to the side just a little.’
It hurt Kitty. The muscle on the inside of her thigh, unused to being stretched in such a manner, twinged with pain.
‘I know this is hard, Kitty, but I need to examine you to see how far on you may be, so that I know when to expect this baby to arrive. I have to come from Roscommon if I am at home, so it will take me a little while. I could even be at the hospital in Dublin. Once I know when your due date is, I will spend some time at Julia’s and if your waters broke when I was there, well, wouldn’t that be a dream now, but in my experience, no baby ever arrived when it was wanted to.’
Rosie didn’t want to tell her that it was imperative she reached to the Abbey as quickly as she could. She had no intention of leaving Kitty to the mercy of the sisters, or the resident midwife.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Kitty?’
Kitty looked up at Rosie’s face, which blotted out the single bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The white lampshade appeared as a halo around Rosie’s head, shining in a perfect circle.
The word ‘angel’ flitted, unbidden, across Kitty’s mind as she stared at Rosie’s moving lips. She felt vulnerable and scared but she trusted Rosie and she had letters in her hand to read. She had to do what Rosie told her and repress her panic. Tears prickled the back of her eyes. Rosie’s kindness, fear of the impending birth, the mixed emotions that hounded her about the life growing in her belly and the letters: all overwhelmed her.
‘This is how we do this,’ said Rosie. ‘Breathe in and out, deeply, and let your muscles relax. Then read as fast as ye can. They won’t give us long before one of them is back.’
Kitty wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and, pulling herself together, began to read the first letter. It was from Maura and Tommy, but there were others, from Maeve, Kathleen and Nellie.
She pulled out Maura’s letter first.
Kitty felt Rosie’s hand slip inside her and, with a sudden, sharp intake of breath, she clenched the side of the bed. She dropped her precious letters, which slowly fluttered down onto the floor. Every muscle in her abdomen tensed. She was terrified.
‘Breathe,’ said Rosie, ‘in and out, just breathe, come on, sweetie. In and out, in and out.’ She pursed her lips and made a sucking and blowing noise. As Kitty copied her, she felt her abdominal muscles begin to relax.
Rosie picked up the letters from the floor and handed them to Kitty. ‘God, child, ye will have to read fast now, to be sure.’
Within seconds, Kitty was transported back to Liverpool, to her home and her siblings, to her life on Nelson Street. There were messages from her school friends and even a little note from Harry, written across the bottom in his perfectly formed, neat hand.
Maura’s letter was full of ordinariness. No mention of Molly Barrett, or the events that had shrouded the four streets in fear.
Kitty stopped for a second as once again she tensed and grabbed the side of the bed.
‘How do my mother and the other women on the four streets go through this so often?’ she gasped and then continued to puff and blow her way through the letters.
They heard footsteps ascending the stairs and the door gently opened, just as Kitty finished dressing.
Rosie was at the sink, washing her hands and arms.
‘I’m thinking the beginning of January,’ she sang out, pretending she hadn’t heard the nun enter the room.
The letters had been well and truly packed away, back into the Gladstone bag.
‘Were you around when your mammy had her babbies, Cissy?’ Rosie asked, briefly looking over her shoulder at Kitty, as she rinsed her hands under the tap. God help her if she hadn’t been, she thought.
Rosie didn’t know how this girl had become pregnant in the first place. She had been so shy, so nervous and tense, throughout the examination. Surely it was as obvious as the nose on anyone’s face: Kitty was no child of the world. Whoever had made her pregnant had done so with force.
Kitty nodded.
‘Well, I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies. So you will know then what happens and that you will bleed for a little while afterwards?’
Again, Kitty nodded.
‘I will bind your breasts until your milk dries up, so there will be no problem there. I imagine the sisters here are used to spotting the signs of labour, aren’t you, Sister?’
Rosie threw a professional smile at the nun, who nodded without any hint of a smile in return.
‘I think you will be calling me around the fourth of January, Sister, or thereabouts.’
Rosie had no intention of putting this shy girl through the embarrassment of asking when her last bleed had been. The examination told her early January and that was good enough for her.
Kitty looked at Rosie, who was now writing in a foolscap notebook. Kitty dare not ask her the question now burning inside her brain. She felt a sense of bitter disappointment that the nun was there and had returned so quickly. She knew if she did ask Rosie her question, it would get straight back to the Reverend Mother, who would not be happy.
Rosie, replacing her notebook and snapping the clasp of her bag shut, immediately understood the look.
‘We will have you on your way back to Maeve for a few days, to recover almost straight after the delivery. She is expecting you. Then you’ll be back on your way to Liverpool, a week or so later, just as soon as you finish bleeding and your stitches heal.’
They were both shocked when the nun’s timorous voice piped up, ‘We don’t stitch here, midwife.’
‘You don’t stitch?’ replied Rosie in a shocked voice. ‘Why ever not? What about bad cuts and tears?’
‘Reverend Mother thinks the tear is God’s just punishment…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Punishment?’ said Rosie.
‘The resident midwife is not allowed to stitch. Reverend Mother won’t entertain it. They all heal, eventually.’
For a short moment, Rosie was speechless and then she retorted, ‘Dear God, of course they heal eventually, but we don’t live in the bogs a hundred years ago, Sister. Sutures are a fine way to improve healing and to prevent the woman from suffering unnecessarily. Tears should be repaired hygienically and efficiently.’
Rosie pursed her lips. Kitty had turned a shade paler than she had been a moment ago.
‘Don’t worry, Cissy.’ Rosie put her hand reassuringly on Kitty’s arm and winked. ‘It will all be fine and well. You have seen Mammy deliver often enough.’
By God, she thought, this would be her delivery and she would manage it how she liked. She took a deep breath and decided she would not pick an argument now, but would wait until the moment came.
‘Reverend Mother has tea waiting for you in her office,’ the nun said to Rosie. To Kitty, she said, with slightly less grace, ‘Sister Celia is waiting for you in the laundry.’
Rosie smiled at Kitty and said, ‘Take it easy now and I will be back in a month to check up on you again.’
Kitty almost laughed. Take it easy! The hours in the laundry were long and hard. So hard. Every day, Kitty saw heavily pregnant girls who had been on their feet for nine hours, crying in pain. But there was no reprieve. Not from the sisters of no mercy. There was only more work to be done.
They shoved and wheeled in heavy piles of dirty washing, and they washed, dried and pressed until it was placed in the large wicker baskets, mounted on wheels, and taken out to the vans that arrived from Dublin to collect them. For six days a week there was no let-up and no one finished work until the day’s laundry was done. On Sunday, the nuns made the girls clean out their own dorms, change their bedding and wash their own laundry, as well as feed the nuns and clean their rooms.
And all day long, the arduous toil was undertaken in silence.
It occurred to Kitty that the nuns must be earning a great deal of money for the laundry that the girls heaved in and out through the doors.
Even knowing what she did about the Abbey, Kitty didn’t imagine for one moment that the Reverend Mother would find reasons to refuse Rosie entry to the Abbey until she was due. Her biggest fear was that they wouldn’t tell Rosie when she went into labour. She knew that was a possibility.
Kitty was scared.
I
T WAS THE
night before Christmas Eve. Tommy and Maura made sure they arrived at the school over half an hour early. They wanted to be at the front of the hall and bag the best seats, those behind the reserved rows at the front, which were a constant source of irritation to Tommy, especially if they were behind the seat reserved for Mrs Skyes.
Mrs Sykes lived on Menlove Avenue in the posh houses and provided regular donations to the sisters. Her husband, a shipping merchant, had died many years ago, since when Mrs Sykes had discovered that loneliness was the preserve of the poor. She quickly learnt that the gentle and careful disbursement of funds bought respect, position and somewhere to go. In a hat. To a seat marked ‘reserved’.
Tommy never failed to grumble when he visited the school. He began the moment he walked in through the big double doors.
As he had spent his childhood in the shadow of his stablehand father, schools made Tommy feel uncomfortable and inadequate.
If it hadn’t been for their Kitty, he wouldn’t even be able to read. The school reminded Tommy of all he had failed to achieve. His neck burnt red and itched.
As they walked into the hall, which smelt of lavender wax, Maura heard Sheila call out to them both through the open hatch of the cavernous kitchen beyond. The two giant-sized Burco boilers were starting to steam and simmer. Huge dark-brown teapots stood waiting to be filled, just before the interval. Sheila was laying out cups and saucers at the hatch and pouring milk into the copper jugs.
A smell of stale mashed potato and gravy from lunchtime hung in the air.
‘Keep us a seat, Maura,’ Sheila called across, as Maura and Tommy walked down the hall between the rows of chairs that Harry and the other boys had taken down from the tall stacks and placed into position, ready for the nativity play.
‘I will, queen,’ Maura shouted back, as she and Tommy headed straight for the best seats at the front.
Under his breath Tommy muttered to Maura, ‘If Mrs bleedin’ Sykes has no kids at the school, why does she have a better view of our kids than we do?’
Maura was mortified.
Far too loudly, Tommy added, ‘Jaysus, the size of that woman’s hat. Is no one here going to ask her to take the feckin’ thing off, eh, eh?’
They trotted down the hall in their rush to reach the front.
‘Get behind the bishop, Maura,’ Tommy said, ‘at least he’s bald.’
All four twins had a part in the nativity play. As Joseph, Harry was one of the stars of the show. The other Doherty boys were two sheep and a goat.
Little Paddy was in charge of the lights. He skilfully manned the dimmer switch as parents and children began to filter into the hall. Having looked up at the ceiling to check all was in order, he proudly scuttled back to his seat. Tommy gave him a wink as he passed.
‘Good lad, Paddy, well done.’
Little Paddy grinned from ear to ear.
The lights on the Christmas tree at the side of the stage twinkled brightly, casting an iridescent glow across the hall. Watching them sparkle in the dark for the first time, the children gasped, their excitement beyond containment.
They were just hours from Christmas Eve and the hall was infused with an air of anticipation. Children who were used to behaving in an orderly manner, within the confines of the school, were now wriggling on their seats, whispering in loud voices, articulating their hopes and dreams for Christmas morning. Most of them were aware that an orange on the end of the bed would be their only luxury.