I started to worry about where my dress would come from and how I would explain why my mammy wasn’t in church when I took the holy bread for the first time, because I knew Mammy wouldn’t come, even to such a big event in my life. I wasn’t sure how I would get round those problems, but I was determined I would have my special day somehow.
To help us prepare for the big event, Mother Dorothy staged a mock confession in the class. She pretended to be the priest and asked us to confess our sins, telling us, ‘If you do not tell the truth, God will know and strike you dead!’
My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t know what to confess, but I knew I had to come up with something fast, as Mother Dorothy was waiting. I desperately tried to think. I didn’t want to be struck dead, and I started to quiver with nerves as my mind raced.
What had I done wrong? I didn’t want to mention my dirty clothes or my hair, but that was all I could think of because that’s what Mother Dorothy went on about all the time. Then I remembered. I’d pinched a pencil from the school office because Mammy wouldn’t buy me one and Mother Dorothy had given me steam for not having the right equipment.
Thank goodness I had a confession to make! I blurted out my sin, thinking it was saving me from being struck down dead, but Mother Dorothy’s face twisted with anger. I realized my mistake straight away and my blood ran cold. In that instant the thought of another of Mother Dorothy’s punishments seemed a fate worse than death, but that’s what I had to accept.
‘I won’t let her spoil my big day,’ I thought as she slapped my face, called me a wicked thief and an evil sinner and sent me outside, telling me I wasn’t fit to sit with the other children. ‘I don’t care,’ I thought. ‘She can’t hurt me! Nothing is going to spoil my Holy Communion.’
I was going to be special for the day. Although Mother Dorothy had me frightened, maybe God might listen to my prayers more now I was big enough to eat the holy bread? Maybe Mammy and Daddy would stop fighting and hitting me?
Chapter 4
A New Dress
‘Mammy, Daddy, can you believe I’m taking my First Holy Communion!’ I blurted out. I’d been thinking about it non-stop, and couldn’t help myself, even though I knew they would show no interest and might even punish me for mentioning it. They must know about it, because it was such a big event in every Catholic child’s life, but they had said nothing.
Normally, I kept out of Mammy and Daddy’s way, sensing they didn’t want me near them, but it was Friday night, and Daddy had come home to give Mammy some housekeeping money before he went to the pub. This was about as good as it ever got in 4 White’s Villas. Mammy was standing at the sink stirring a pot of thin stew, humming along to Jim Reeves on the radio. Getting money always made her happy.
‘Well, aren’t you the big grown-up girl?’ she replied. She sounded weird. I never trusted her moods. Sometimes she said one thing and then did another, or lost her temper without warning. Maybe she was being sarcastic, I wasn’t sure.
‘Here, take five shillings and your pocket money,’ she said, holding out a clenched fist to me and dropping the coins in my stretched-out palm. ‘Go and buy a bag of sweets to share, and fetch a bottle of lemonade while you’re at it.’
Daddy didn’t argue, so I grabbed the money quickly before either of them changed their mind. All us kids were meant to get a few shillings pocket money every week, but sometimes we had to trail round the pubs asking Daddy for it if he forgot to leave it for us, or if he didn’t come home after work. Having sweets and lemonade was a rare treat, and for Mammy and Daddy to be standing in the same room without arguing felt like an even bigger treat.
It was obvious I needed a dress for my Holy Communion dress. Was now a good time to talk about it? I’d never had a new dress in my life before, but my teacher Mother Clara had told us all to bring in our dresses for a rehearsal next week, so I had to have one, didn’t I? I wasn’t sure if I’d be forced to wear the one from Mammy’s side of the family, or if that would be too old and dirty. Should I ask them now, while they were calm? I wasn’t sure. The atmosphere in the house suddenly felt so alien it made me feel uneasy.
I didn’t want to push my luck, so I decided to get the sweets and the lemonade first, and risk mentioning my new dress later, just in case it made them mad and they took the money back off me. Then I’d be in trouble with my brothers and sisters, and if we started fighting Mammy and Daddy would get even madder. I didn’t want anybody to get hit, and I really didn’t want a beating myself, not when I was going to be dressing up and parading in front of the town.
When I got home with the goodies, breathless from running all the way to the corner shop, Daddy had gone to the pub. Mammy ordered me upstairs. I ran up quickly, hoping I wasn’t in trouble and not wanting to miss out on my share of the sweets and lemonade.
I pushed open the bedroom door and saw a tatty carrier bag on the end of my bed. I peeped inside nervously, and found a brand-new pair of shiny black shoes and some knee-length socks, as dazzling white as any the girls at school wore. Dumped in a pile next to them were a pretty little handbag, a pair of gloves and a long veil. Everything shimmered and looked snow-white against the dirty grey sheet on my bed. I stood there for what felt like ages, just staring at them and not daring to touch them, in case somehow they weren’t real and were going to disappear.
I had never had a new pair of shoes before. I’d never even had a new pair of socks. And as for the handbag, gloves and veil - well, I couldn’t believe my luck.
I pulled on the socks and giggled with glee when I felt the soft cotton kiss my toes. My feet were black with grime, but they felt clean and neat in the new socks. The shoes fitted perfectly too. I thought they looked as shiny as the black pebbles on the beach, after the sea had just washed over them.
‘Here’s your dress, Cynthia,’ Mammy announced. I hadn’t heard her come into the room, and her voice made me jump, because it suddenly sounded hard. I felt my spine stiffen as I turned round.
Mammy thrust a crumpled, faded, yellow bundle at me and in a stern voice that was not to be argued with said: ‘It has been handed down through all the girls in the family.’
The dress looked like an old rag, and I felt tears fizzing up behind my eyeballs. I wanted to blurt out: ‘How many girls? How many years?’ but I held my quivering tongue. Mammy would kill me and call me an ungrateful little bitch. I wanted to go downstairs and eat sweets with my brothers and sisters. I didn’t want to be hit or called names.
‘Thank you, Mammy,’ I said quietly, blinking rapidly to push the tears back inside my head. When she left the room I took off the socks and shoes and sobbed silently into my veil.
The following week, Mother Clara told us all to bring in our dresses for a rehearsal. I dawdled all the way to school, the faded dress shoved into a tatty old laundry bag. It felt like I was carrying around a shameful secret. As I arrived I caught glimpses of net underskirts fluttering in the breeze, escaping from the bottom of fancy suit-carriers being proudly paraded into school by the other girls.
I was dreading the moment Mother Clara would tell us to put our dresses on, but I made up my mind I wasn’t going to let it break me. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I told myself firmly. ‘Nothing is going to spoil my First Holy Communion. I have a veil and a handbag, and new gloves and socks and shoes! I’ll puff out the veil and make it hide the dress. Yes! That’s what I’ll do.’
I realized I had toughened up a lot since I started school. I had been humiliated and bullied so many times by Mother Dorothy that I couldn’t possibly let it get to me every day, or I would have just ended up as crumpled and ragged as my dress, and then she would have won.
I didn’t want her to win, so I put on a brave face. When the time came to put on my dress, I pushed back my shoulders and tried to hold my head high. I could hear other girls oohing and aahing over each others’ dresses while I shuffled along at the back, desperately trying to make myself look proud and decent when all I really wanted to do was disappear.
The rehearsal was an awful ordeal. ‘Focus on what you are actually doing, girls!’ Mother Clara instructed. ‘You are taking the body of Christ for the very first time. It is a momentous occasion in your life! You are receiving Christ!’
I thought about nothing but my terrible dress, and when we practised eating the holy bread it stuck to the roof of my mouth like cardboard because I was so parched with nerves and tension. When the posh girls gave me sideways glances, nudging each other and sniggering behind their hands, I looked them straight in the eye and bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t cry. ‘Don’t you dare cry,’ I warned myself. ‘Then they would win. Don’t cry. Be brave.’
Afterwards, Mother Clara took me to one side and whispered that she would like to make me a new dress. I guessed she must have felt sorry for me, but I was too relieved and delighted to feel embarrassed by her pity.
‘Yes please!’ I said gratefully. ‘Thank you so much, Mother Clara. That is so very kind of you!’
It was kind of her, but it gave me another problem.
I walked home full of trepidation as to what Mammy would say. I knew she would go mad. I decided the best way to break the news was to make it sound as unimportant as possible. I just had to come out with it.
‘Oh yeah - did I tell you, Mammy?’ I said casually. ‘Mother Clara is going to make me a new Holy Communion dress… that’s kind, isn’t it?’
Mammy immediately sat up. Her eyes were blank and her lips set in a mean snarl.
‘We do not accept charity, Cynthia. You cannot accept it. Do you hear me? Tell that nun to keep her nose out of our family business.’
I gasped, and then my lungs shrank in my chest so quickly I felt as if I’d been punched. ‘Yes, Mammy,’ I muttered, not meaning it. There was no way in the world I was going to wear that tatty dress when I was having one made especially for me. Mammy was wrong, and I was going to have to get her to change her mind. It wasn’t true that we didn’t accept charity. Most things I wore were left on the doorstep in bags. I wasn’t going to give in! It was even worth a beating, as long as I got to wear my new dress.
The following week, Mother Clara asked me to stay behind after class one day. ‘I’m sure you’ll love the dress,’ she said kindly, opening a cupboard. It was neatly wrapped in fine tissue paper, and when I peeled the paper back I jumped in the air and threw my hands over my mouth to stop myself squealing.
It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It had a huge puffed-out skirt and flowing, long sleeves, just like something out of a fairytale book. I knew exactly what I was going to do.
Wrapping it up again, I cradled the dress carefully in my arms and took it straight home to show Mammy. ‘When she sees this, surely she won’t be able to refuse?’ I prayed, knowing deep down she was never going to change her mind.
It probably wasn’t a great moment to talk to Mammy, but I had no time to spare. She looked very tired, lying in her bed. She was wearing smudged red lipstick, and I’d heard her argue for ages with Daddy last night. I thought back to how I had practised my Hail Mary and Our Father while they fought until late, asking God to make them stop, but it didn’t work.
I remembered Mammy called Daddy a ‘fuckin’ bastard’, and he called her a ‘fuckin’ stupid cow’. She screeched so loudly I could hear her voice vibrate through my huddled-up body, and she kept saying the same things over and over again, getting louder and louder.
When Daddy finally came to bed, I heard him use the toilet bucket and throw his clothes on the floor in a temper. I didn’t like it when he sounded so angry. He never spoke to me when I was in bed, and it wasn’t that I was afraid of him beating me, because he never beat me in bed.
I just didn’t feel comfortable when he was in a bad mood, huffing and puffing and cursing Mammy under his breath. It made me itch my skin nervously, and I lay awake for hours.
Now it was the next day, though, and my thoughts snapped back to the silken dress I had carried home from school like a precious baby clasped to my chest. I had to show Mammy. I had to get her to change her mind.
I asked Mammy if she would like a cup of tea, thinking that might cheer her up after the row with Daddy last night. I put in two extra big sugars and carried the mug upstairs carefully. I gave her a smile when she pushed herself up in bed, took a deep breath and told her I had some great news.
‘Look, Mammy! Look at the dress Mother Clara made for me! I know you said we don’t accept charity but… isn’t it just the most gorgeous dress you’ve ever seen?’
‘It’s no different to the one I gave you,’ was her dead-eyed reaction. ‘You’re not to wear that new dress, Cynthia. I forbid it. You can take it back and tell that nun you already have a perfectly good dress, worn by all the Murphy girls.’
‘But, but…yes, Mammy,’ I said politely, but my mind was already ticking over, hatching another plot.
I rehearsed my plan a hundred times in my head, and when my Communion day came I dutifully put on the old yellow dress.
Daddy and Esther were already waiting in the hallway for me when I ran upstairs at the very last moment to show Mammy how I looked.
She was staying in bed, even though it was a very special occasion celebrated across the whole town, but I didn’t care. It gave me just the excuse I needed to put my plan into action.