Authors: Nadine Dorries
Hide Her Name (46 page)
One of the girls sat on the edge of Kitty’s bed, smiling at her and gently rubbing John’s back. ‘A Christmas baby, can ye imagine? That will make him very special indeed.’
Kitty didn’t know what to say. He would be special, but she wouldn’t see it. Dawn was breaking and there was an atmosphere in the room. The Christmas baby and hot buttered toast were having an effect.
‘I’m not wasting having the key,’ whispered Ann. ‘I’m off to make more tea and toast. There was enough bread in that kitchen to feed a fuckin’ army.’
And she giggled as two of the other girls tripped down the steps with Ann to make a further raid on the kitchen. ‘It’s a blessing that ye are here, Kitty, ye have made Christmas for us with the toast.’
As Kitty sat up in the bed, with her baby laid on her chest and a cup of tea in her hand, she looked round at the other girls chattering. Letting no thoughts other than those needed for that moment come into her mind, she smiled the first smile of happiness since the day she had arrived at the Abbey.
I will remember this, she thought to herself. My days of imprisonment here are nearly over.
And then as though he could read her thoughts, her little bundle wriggled his tiny feet in objection and kicked her tender tummy of raw jelly and, once again, she bent down to kiss his head.
Breathing in deeply, she allowed her nostrils to fill with his smell and held on to it, not breathing out, willing her mind to remember. She rubbed his back slowly, aware of her every move. She bent to look at his face and his blue eyes locked onto her own. She burnt the image onto her memory and into her heart. This was all she would have to remember. These moments, bathed in snow and dawn light.
Aideen began to pour the second round of tea. There was no laundry work today; none of them would return to bed now. She looked at Kitty and worried. Kitty, just a girl and full of motherly love.
‘Maybe it’s better that we get three years with them,’ Aideen whispered to Ann. ‘That way we have more to hold onto and remember.’
‘Three years or three days, it’s all cruel,’ Ann replied harshly. ‘One day these witches will get their comeuppance and I for one cannot wait.’
They turned back to look at Kitty. The dawn had broken as the first robins perched on the snow-covered branches of the plum tree outside the window. The Abbey bells began to ring. Kitty’s son lay in the crook of her arm with his head tucked under her chin. Both were fast asleep.
Sister Assumpta was relieved that Kitty had given birth. The sooner she could get that child out of the convent, the better. The nuns, all of a fluster that a baby had been born on Christmas morning, had been almost beyond her control. She could hardly believe her ears when she had been informed that the girls had been handed the keys to the kitchen.
‘God in heaven, what next?’ she had screamed at Sister Celia. ‘He’s a baby born in sin and out of wedlock, he isn’t Jesus Christ and she is certainly no Holy Mother!’
As she silently climbed the stairs to the labour room, the Reverend Mother had already decided to send a message to Rosie to collect Kitty as soon as was physically possible. Although how she was going to do that in the snow, God alone knew.
The girls scattered when she opened the labour-room door and stepped into their midst. She noted that the electric fire had been switched on without permission and the detritus of breakfast lay scattered on the tray.
‘Get down to prayers, all of you, they started ten minutes ago,’ she spat at them in a voice that contained no hint of Christmas cheer.
The girls flew out of the room and down the stairs towards the chapel. Aideen kept her eyes lowered and cheekily snatched the last piece of toast from the tray as she hurried past.
The noise woke Kitty, who opened her eyes. Aware of the baby lying across her chest and the old rolled-up nappy Aideen had placed between her legs, she shuffled herself painfully up the bed, using just one elbow as she gripped the baby with her other hand. Sister Assumpta watched in stony silence and offered no assistance. The cramps sweeping across Kitty’s belly and her breasts, although nothing compared to the labour pains, were bad enough to make her wince as she attempted to move. Aideen said she had torn quite badly and she knew the warm feeling between her legs was blood oozing out onto the rags with the effort of moving.
Sister Assumpta showed not the slightest concern, only irritation, as she glanced at the baby. The more attractive the baby was, the happier the new parents in America would be when he was handed over. This one would be leaving soon and he definitely was very attractive. She would not keep a baby born on Christmas morning in her convent for a day longer than necessary.
‘The snow won’t be here for long,’ she said crisply as she walked to the window and cast her glance over the carpet of glistening white lawn. ‘It will be just a day or two before the midwife is here and I am sure we all agree it is for the best if she takes you back to your family as soon as possible. You can stay up here in this room. There are no other deliveries due and I will have food sent up to you. You have no further work to do. Just stay on this floor and don’t come down into the Abbey until the midwfe arrives.’
Despite her huge discomfort, the tiredness, the burning pain in her belly and the fact that her legs felt as though they wouldn’t work even if she tried to walk, Kitty felt a huge relief. It would be at least two days before Rosie would reach her. Two whole days with her baby. Two days of memories. Two days in which to smother him with a lifetime of love.
Regardless of her best effort not to, Kitty’s face broke into a loving smile as she shuffled her baby up into her arms.
Sister Assumpta turned away from the window and she saw the smile. She blinked. Within seconds, she had assessed the scene. Her face set, hard. In a voice devoid of emotion, she spoke.
‘I will send up a novice directly to collect the baby. He will live in the nursery now until his new parents land at Shannon airport.’
Before Kitty could utter a word in protest, she glided out of the room on the wave of her own destruction.
Kitty had only minutes with her baby as she heard the bells peal the end of prayers. There was no time to think or plan, no point in pleading. She knew the coldness, the evil, that resided in the heart of the Reverend Mother. Evil was no stranger to Kitty.
‘Wake up, little fella,’ she whispered urgently as her tears ran onto his downy hair. ‘Wake up.’
And he did. He woke and scrunched up his newborn red face. Lifting both of his tiny clenched-up fists to his cheeks, he scratched his own delicate skin with a papery fingernail and began to whimper in complaint.
Kitty held him out in front of her and shook him gently as she heard heavy footsteps ascend the stairs and knew this was it. Her last moments. Sister Assumpta had wasted no time.
‘I love you, do ye hear me?’ she whispered to him urgently. ‘Can ye hear me?’
He opened his deep-blue eyes, level with her own, and, once again, stared deeply into hers. His perfect lips, tinged white with milk, opening and closing. He knew her. Her smell. The sound of her voice. He ceased to whimper. She had all of his attention. He knew her as he knew himself. The physical cord cut, but the bond remained intact.
‘I will find you one day, I will. I will find you,’ she whispered desperately between her sobs. Her salty tears fell onto his newborn face and his eyes narrowed as if in concern.
Her lips were pressed against his soft and warm temple as she spoke, holding him tight. Repeating the words, ‘I will find you, I am Kitty. I am your mammy, only me, no one else,’ pressing them deep into his soul. Hiding them there. For ever.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
The next heart-rending book from Nadine Dorries,
The Ballymara Road
, will be released in Summer 2015.
For more information, click the links below:
An invitation from the publisher
I write this as I lay down the final words in book three of the trilogy,
The Ballymara Road
. If there is one thing I have learnt it is that writing a book is a team effort. I have many people to thank and should start at the beginning with Vicki Field and my agent, Piers Blofeld, as without their generous words of encouragement it is unlikely I would ever have written past the first chapter of the
The Four Streets
.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my family and my three daughters, Philippa, Jennifer and Cassandra and my mother who between them have kept me grounded and in touch with the things that matter in a way only the women in my family could, and my wonderful partner, Chris Hammond, who has fed and soothed me and taken charge of every practical obstacle in order that nothing prevented me from writing in the few hours I had spare each week.
To family in Ireland, with their wonderful ways and my aunty Jean and uncle Terry in Liverpool, I am prouder of all of you than you ever could be of me.
My editor, Rosie De Courcy has never failed to inspire me with wonderful ideas of her own and in addition to mentoring me she deserves huge thanks for having had to put up with an author who knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about writing a book, or as it turned out, three books and for that, I also have to thank the publishing legend, Anthony Cheetham, who believed in me. Thank you to the entire staff at Head of Zeus books who have never once raised their eyebrows or rolled their eyes at me, the novice.
My friends and their kind words were the balsam on the days things didn’t go so well. I couldn’t write this page without mentioning Alison and Alan, Lynn and Giles, Carol and Les and Anna, they are the people I drown my sorrows with and I know are always there for me, when and if I need them. And there are those who shared my joy as if it were their own and for that I would like to thank, Stewart Jackson MP, Douglas Carswell MP, Andrea Gordon, William Joce, Budge, Iain Dale and my late friend, Anne Rayment, who downloaded
The Four Streets
but couldn’t stay long enough to read it. Her husband, Andy has been a sage and wise mentor and I would especially like to mention my very close friend, the lovely Tim Montgomerie, for his endless love, support and kindness.
I would also like to thank Darina Molloy at Mayo Library for going the extra mile and the staff at the Museum of Country Life in Eire.
And last but definitely not least, the amazing characters who played a significant role in my extraordinary childhood.
This gripping follow on from
The Four Streets
finds the community alive with rumours and gossip after the murder which rocked it to the core.
No one knows – or is saying – who did it, least of all the police, but they are not giving up their search for the truth. Somewhere, in this tight-knit Irish Catholic community, someone must know something. Someone will surely talk one day.
Meanwhile, 14-year-old Kitty Doherty, pregnant with the dead man’s child, is a living danger to everyone who needs to keep the secret. Her mother, Maura and best friend Nellie’s grandmother, the redoutable Kathleen, decide the girls must be spirited away quietly to Ireland to await the birth of the baby.
But it isn’t easy to keep a secret that big.
T
HE
F
OUR
S
TREETS
‘Vigorous... vibrant... fast-paced. An addictive novel to be devoured at one sitting.’
Sunday Express
‘Powerful... engaging... cinematic.’
Ann Treneman,
The Times
‘I couldn’t put it down.’
Cristina Odone
N
ADINE
D
ORRIES
grew up in a working-class family in Liverpool. She trained as a nurse, then followed with a successful career in which she established and sold her own business. She has been the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire since 2005 and has three daughters.