‘Eat fast now, Jacko,’ she shouted. ‘It’ll be all wet soon.’
A rumble grew louder in the distance and Nellie took herself inside. She wanted to speak to Nana Kathleen. Something was occurring. She could sense that Maura was tense and a feeling she didn’t much like had slipped into her gut.
As Kitty lay in the bath, she guessed people were talking about her, because she heard her name mentioned more than once. Maura had told her to wash her hair, even though it had been washed only two days ago.
She looked down at the peaty-brown bathwater, which was the colour of weak tea. She still couldn’t get used to it and marvelled at the colour each time she filled the sink.
‘Is this water safe?’ she had asked Maeve on her first night.
‘Well, at least five generations have been drinking it here in this house and no one dies before their fourscore years and ten, so I reckon it must be so,’ Maeve had said.
Kitty looked down at her belly. The mound was now breaking the surface of the warm brown water. She hadn’t noticed that a few days ago. She slowly ran her hand over the firm swelling. She pressed gently to see if she could feel anything. It’s a baby in there, she thought to herself, a baby girl or a baby boy. In there.
It felt alien and unreal.
She sat up, rubbed herself down with soap, rinsed it away and then quickly stepped out of the bath. She did not want to look at the visible manifestation of that awful night.
When Kitty arrived back in the kitchen, Maeve and Maura had set the tea out on the table and Nellie was sitting in the big chair by the fire.
‘Now then,’ said Maura, in a breezy tone. ‘Come and sit down, we need to have a chat.’
‘Oh no,’ said Kitty, ‘not another chat, Mammy.’
Her heart sank. Last time Maura wanted a chat it was to tell her she was pregnant. She never wanted to chat again.
‘Is our holiday over now, is that it? Do we have to go home? Nellie, are you coming with us or are ye staying longer? Oh, Maeve, I will miss ye so much.’
Kitty had jumped to conclusions and also to her feet to hug Maeve, who, with her arms wrapped round Kitty, moved her back over to the fireplace and sat down with her on the wooden settle, winking above her head at Maura.
Nana Kathleen walked into the room, having just closed the front door.
She had met Liam outside and waved the truck down as he drove past to turn round at the McMahons’ farm.
‘Go back to the village and stay at Colleen and Brian’s for ye tea. Don’t come back now until as late as ye can. Give little Kitty a bit of space while we tell her what is happening, will ye now?’
Liam’s face was covered in grain dust from the thresher and, as he frowned, specks of it fell from his eyelashes. He lifted his cap and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes.
‘Jesus, the poor feckin’ girl,’ he said as he put the cap back on. ‘I’ll be off then.’ And he rammed the gearstick back into first, put his foot down on the accelerator and drove the truck as fast as it would speed back down the Ballymara road. As Kathleen reached the door she looked back and saw Liam had one hand lifted in a wave to her as he passed.
Just the way his father, Joe, had always done before him.
Kathleen smiled and, at the same time, she felt the familiar pain of loss somewhere deep in her heart.
‘Shift up now, missus,’ she said to Nellie as she tapped her knees with her hand, indicating that Nellie should move over. Nellie jumped out of her seat and then as Nana Kathleen sat, she plonked herself back down on Kathleen’s knee, a more cushioned resting place than the chair itself.
Nellie was quiet. Studying Kitty and Maura, she had placed her thumb in her mouth and, leaning her head back on Nana Kathleen, began to suck it for the first time in years. She was exhausted. The heat of the day and the glow from the fire were forcing sleep upon her. She adored the smell of the burning peat in the huge fireplace. The brown bricks, hewn from the earth and pulled on a cart by Jacko, were a novelty after the coal and coke back home.
Nellie had spent each evening she had been at the farmhouse on the same chair as her nana, lost in her thoughts as she watched the flames flicker. She blinked furiously and fought to keep her eyes open but she lasted only moments as, enveloped in the familiar smell of hearth and home, and on her nana’s bosom, she fell into a deep sleep.
Maura was much more confident than when she had told Kitty she was pregnant and she wasted no time in getting straight to the point.
‘We have found somewhere for you to have the baby, Kitty.’
Maura didn’t wait for a reaction. She wanted this to be over and done with as fast as possible.
‘Rosie, who is the sister-in-law of Nana Kathleen’s sister, Julia, she will be the midwife.’
Kitty didn’t speak but turned round on the settle to face Maura full on. She looked to Nellie for support but she was in what Tommy called ‘the land of nod’. As she relaxed into sleep, her thumb had slipped out of her mouth and rested on her chin in the midst of dribble. At any other time Kitty would have laughed, but she knew this was not the moment.
‘It is a home near Galway, run by the nuns, but there is a small problem. We will have to leave very soon as ye are beginning to show now. Only those of us who know have noticed, mind, but ye are. When ye have the baby, I will be straight back to get ye out, but we will leave the baby behind. It will be adopted by an American family and, please God, they will never know who its father was.’
Maura stopped talking and looked at her daughter who in the last few weeks had moved from childhood and transformed into a young woman. Her face had altered. She had definitely put weight on from being at the farm, apart from as a result of her condition, and it had filled out her features beautifully.
If I took her home today they would all see such a difference in her, Maura thought to herself.
She took a breath.
‘And there is another thing, they think your name is Cissy.’
‘Why do they think my name is Cissy?’ squealed Kitty in a high-pitched voice.
‘It’s the best way to protect you and make sure the whole thing is kept secret, and then when it is all over, you can move on with your life. Our life. There will never be a record of anyone called Kitty ever having been there.’
Kitty knew that there was no point arguing about the name. It had obviously been discussed and decided long before she was told. She studied Nellie and looked distracted as she spoke.
‘Can I come home to Liverpool first?’ she asked.
Maura took a deep breath. ‘Everyone in Ireland knows someone in Liverpool and the other way round too, Kitty, so if we really want to keep this secret, it would be best that you don’t. We cannot risk one person guessing. Once someone knows, there is no way of unknowing it.’
She saw no need to explain that, under normal circumstances, this would be a good enough reason, but for them it was imperative that no one ever found out and connected the extraordinary coincidence of a child pregnancy in the same parish as a dead priest with his langer chopped off.
‘Cissy is an obvious choice of name as it is so close to Kitty,’ Maura whispered to her gently as she took Kitty’s hand.
Kitty rewarded her with a faint if sad smile.
‘We have to leave tomorrow. I have already packed your bag whilst ye was in the bath. We will leave after breakfast. Liam is taking us there in the truck and then Kathleen, Nellie and I are travelling on to Dublin and returning to Liverpool. As soon as ye have had the baby, I will be back with the money to collect ye.’
Maura still hadn’t worked out how in God’s name they were going to raise that amount of money, but she had put her faith in God and expected him to deliver. He owed her, big time.
‘With the money?’ said Kitty. ‘Will ye have to buy me back?’
‘No, not at all. It’s just the money to cover ye board and lodgings and the adoption papers. I haven’t seen the home but Kathleen tells me it’s very grand. The thing is, Kit
ty, they have a laundry attached to the mother and baby home and ye may have to work to help out. They don’t normally take in women until much later than ye but this is an exception and so, early on, ye will have to do a bit of work to help towards your keep. I am going to ask tomorrow if ye can be excused from that. I don’t mind paying more for ye if that’s so.’
Kathleen remained quiet. She hadn’t told Maura that she had asked the Reverend Mother if Kitty could be excused from working in the laundry. The reply had been withering.
‘Mrs Deane, this is a working abbey, not an hotel.’ The conversation had ended there and then.
Like every child in Ballymara, then and now, Kathleen had been educated by the nuns and was still to this day too scared to answer back.
Once again, Kitty was in shock. She was out of control of everything. Where she lived. Who she lived with. And her name, she was no longer even allowed her name. She was hidden. Her name was hidden. She felt as though she were slipping over the edge of – what, she did not know.
Maeve picked up Kitty’s hand.
‘The thing to remember, Kitty, is that we aren’t far away and this may seem like a long time to ye at the moment but ye will soon be out and life will return to normal.’
Kitty looked from Maeve to Maura. ‘Mammy, can I not do my schoolwork while I’m there? Why do I have to work in a laundry? That sounds shocking.’
‘It’s not, my love. It’s just something that has to be done to take us to the other side of this mountain. I will tell everyone in Liverpool that my sister is having another baby and that she needs help and ye are staying with her until after her delivery to help out. Everyone at home will believe that because they all know what a grand little helper ye are to me.’
Kitty was in a daze. She knew she had a million questions to ask and yet she had none. Sleep, having claimed Nellie and now looking for a fresh conquest, had passed over to Kitty, threatening to own her too.
She wearily stood up. ‘Did ye pack my washbag?’ she asked with an element of panic in her voice.
‘Don’t worry.’ Maeve smiled at her. ‘I’ve left all ye lovely things next to the bag for the morning.’
Kitty wanted her bed and to be alone. What had been a lovely day was over. The sky had darkened and the first drops of rain began to fall.
There was nothing left to say.
In a state of growing numbness, she kissed Maeve and Nana Kathleen and took herself to bed. Nana Kathleen rose from the chair, letting Nellie flop into the big cushion and take it for herself. She pulled a knitted shawl down from the back of the chair and placed it over Nellie as she followed Maura and Kitty to the bedroom. Nellie remained oblivious.
The two women fussed over Kitty, chatting about how quickly the time would pass and how much they would miss her. They wittered on about writing and the children writing and making sure Angela didn’t claim the bedroom for their own. It all flew straight over Kitty’s head. She was too numb to respond.
Eventually, they stopped their fussing and left.
Maura, with anxious looks and damp eyes, a shadow of her former self, kissed her daughter goodnight. Distress was slowly creeping into her voice, at having to leave her daughter in a strange place with unknown people.
Kathleen led Maura away and the door clicked gently shut.
Kitty lay and listened to their footsteps fade away down the corridor, Maura’s light and gentle, her delicate weight barely making an impression upon the stone floor.
Unsure. Unhappy. Miserable, little steps, tripping alongside Kathleen’s, which were slow. Solid. Heavy. Assured.
Once alone, Kitty let her tears flow. She was more resigned than afraid. She had known that something had to be done. She hadn’t realized she would have to do it alone. Nor that for such a long time she wouldn’t see her brothers and sisters or be allowed back home to Liverpool. It felt like never. What she would give now to hear the moaning, complaining Angela kicking off and giving out. She swore to herself she would never again feel resentment towards her siblings.
Kitty placed her hands on her belly and let them softly travel over the mound, which, to her astonishment, was still there when she lay flat on her back. She could feel a firm ridge, just below her belly button. She cradled her tiny belly in both of her hands. A baby. Her very own baby. Her flesh. Adopted.
It was now dark with rain falling heavily. A streak of lightning rent the sky apart and flooded her room with a bright light.
She remembered Aengus’s face and his offer to walk with her at the Castlefeale fair.
She saw his blue eyes, his red hair and his cheeky smile, and just the memory of their meeting made her feel desperately alone.
She would never see him again and yet he had made her heart somersault and sing, all at the same time, just by the way he looked at her.
She rolled onto her side, pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them.
The thunder roared and gave cover to her sobs, which were so loud and strong that her body heaved and shook as they went on and on, barely allowing her time to draw breath.
She wanted to scream at her inescapable loneliness, at the pain of there being no comfort to be found anywhere, to scream and never stop, but she knew she couldn’t. It was hopeless. It didn’t matter how much she screamed, it would change nothing. No matter how much she wished or prayed or asked people for help, nothing would alter. No one could help her.
Maura was returning home without her, tomorrow. Kitty would leave the warmth and welcome she had felt in the farmhouse.
She would be left at an abbey to live with nuns and strangers and to work in a laundry. She would have no family or friends around her and would have no one who loved or cared for her anywhere near throughout the pregnancy or the birth.
This was it.
Her new life.
This was the awful it.
Aengus had taken supper at the McMahon farm before he returned home.
He had arrived to help his Uncle John with the harvest as he had every year since he could remember.
John jumped into his van and offered Aengus a lift back to Bangornevin, stopping on the way at the Deane farm to drop a basket off for Maeve that his wife had made him take with him.
‘Are ye bloody mad? It’s pouring down, woman,’ he had said to his wife.
‘Do stop complaining now. Maeve gave all her eggs away today and she needs more for the morning. Do as I say. Go on, away with ye.’
And with that and brooking no nonsense, she had closed the door.
As John ran through the rain towards the Deanes’ front door, Aengus left the van and walked down the path with the oilskin to cover John who was already almost soaked through.
When his aunt had asked John to take the eggs, Aengus’s heart had skipped a beat. He was glad of the rain and an excuse to leave the van. He stood a few steps behind his uncle in the remains of the firelight radiating out through the front door.
To his disappointment, his uncle refused the invitation from Maeve to step inside as he handed over the basket. The thunder eased and, in the silence that followed, Aengus heard an unfamiliar noise. He looked towards the bedroom window just feet away from where he stood.
His ears pricked as he heard the sound of a wounded animal, which pulled on his heart as if dragging it down deep into his chest. He stared at the window, looking for a light or a flicker of the curtains, anything to show him where the noise had sprung from.
It stopped suddenly, but Aengus was glued to the spot. While Maeve and his uncle were chatting about the success of the day, he strained to hear the sound again.
But there was nothing.
Kitty’s heart had already broken.
There was no sound left to be made.
The Abbey and the laundry lay at the bottom of a shallow valley and were approached via a long gravel driveway.
The drive would have been easy to miss if it hadn’t been for the two red-brick pillars, standing proud like two lone effigies, supporting the high wood
en dark-green fence that surrounded the Abbey. A thick belt of tall fruit trees grew directly behind as though providing an additional barrier to entry. Torpid branches reclined along the fence top, slipping down exhausted from carrying their weight of green apples.
‘The kids from the village will have them apples before they are ripe,’ said Liam as they drove through the black wrought-iron gates, which were opened wide.
Nellie was sat on Kathleen’s knee, Kitty on Maura’s, crammed into the front of the truck. They had left the last village ten minutes since and Nellie was now desperate for the toilet and had been for over half an hour.
‘They would have to be brave kids,’ answered Kathleen.
Liam nodded. The unspoken truth, suspended in the air of the small cab.
The truth everyone knew.
The nuns were the sisters of no mercy. If you stole from a convent, no matter how poor or how hungry your family, the Gardai would be summoned. Forgiveness was a valuable commodity, the currency of redemption. Not to be wasted on poor, hungry children.
Kitty hadn’t spoken a word since they passed through Castlefeale.
She had clung to Maeve when they left her, early in the morning.
Maeve had slowly unhooked Kitty’s hands that were clasped round her back. Holding both of them in her own, she looked into her eyes and said, ‘Kitty, promise me this, that ye will come back very, very soon. Promise me now. I want ye to know that if you need somewhere or someone, I am here with no need of warning.’
Kitty found it hard to reply. Her throat was tight and the effort required to answer had all but deserted her. She had been morose over breakfast and lost in her own thoughts, her hand never far from Maura’s.
She felt herself drag the words up from somewhere deep inside as she answered, ‘I will, Maeve, I promise I will.’
Maeve had wanted to give her something to take with her and to hold onto: the knowledge that she was welcome, indeed, wanted, back.
Maeve put her hand into her apron pocket and brought out something gold and glistening. She slipped it over Kitty’s wrist.
The Four Streets Saga Page 50
