My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind.

by Annette Sills

  “God!”

  “I thought she had a right to know, Carmel. I know what it feels like to lose a child and I’d want to know in her situation.” Julia put a hand to her face like she was about to cry. “But then she died so soon afterwards. If I’d known the effect it would have on her I’d never have done it.”

  “Don’t go there. You’re not to blame.” I leant over and put my hand on hers. “But there’s one thing I can’t get my head around. Why did Tess and Dad give the baby up? I just don’t get it. They were devoted parents. Why didn’t Tess just join Dad in Manchester, get married and keep the baby?”

  “Because it wasn’t his.”

  “What?”

  “Tess and your father split up then Tess met someone else. That’s when she fell pregnant. Seán wasn’t the baby’s father, Carmel.”

  Julia poured us both a brandy. The wind was whistling outside and the night sky was clear. I sat back in the Chesterfield and listened.

  “Mammy wrote to me in America saying Seán had suddenly upped and left for England. I was living in Cleveland at the time with your Aunt Nancy. No one knew why he’d gone. He returned for a couple of weeks in the summer when Nancy was home on holiday with her boys. He and Nancy were always close growing up and Seán told her everything. He was eighteen, your mother only fifteen when they met at a dance. He was stone mad for her. Tess was beautiful until the day she died but at fifteen she was like a film star. She was a natural blonde and she had this child-like way about her that made men want to protect her. She was ditzy, a little like Marilyn Monroe. Anyways, after his long shift in the bacon factory your dad would bike fifteen miles just to sit with her on the wall outside her house for an hour. He spent every penny he had buying her gifts and taking her to the dances. Mammy told him he’d lost his head. Then one day, completely out of the blue, Tess told him she’d met someone else. Seán was broken-hearted. He found out it was a friend of Tess’s brother. I forget the brother’s name now.”

  “Tadhg. Tess rarely spoke about him. She told me once he’d ended up on the streets in London.”

  “I didn’t know that. I just knew they were estranged. Anyway, the baby’s father was called James – she never told me his surname. He was a Protestant from a wealthy Anglo-Irish family who lived in the big house outside the village. Apparently he was older than Tess and very good-looking. He used to swan around the village in a fancy blue sports car with the roof down. Poor Seán knew he could never compete with that so he left for Manchester. Then the next thing Seán got word that it was all off with James. So he wrote to Tess saying he couldn’t forget her and asked her to join him in Manchester. She wrote back telling him she was pregnant and hiding it from her parents. She said she’d made the biggest mistake of her life choosing James over him but now she had to face the consequences. The next thing her mother noticed she was putting on weight and confronted her. All hell broke loose. James said he had no intention of marrying her. The local priest got involved and he and the brother took Tess off to the Mother and Baby home in Tuam.”

  “God. Her own brother?”

  “Tess told Seán he had notions. She said he was far more concerned about protecting the rich Protestant family than his own. Sure, you couldn’t blame her for not having anything to do with him after that.”

  I uncrossed my legs, accidently kicking Dev who yelped beneath my foot. I leant over and patted his silky coat then sat back and exhaled loudly.

  “Despite all that, Dad stuck by her. He really loved her, didn’t he?”

  “He was besotted. Mammy was livid when she found out they were getting married.”

  “And what happened to Tess’s parents? They didn’t die before we were born, like she told us, did they?”

  Julia shook her head slowly. “They both lived well into their seventies. Nancy Corley, a nurse who worked beside me at the hospital in Westport was a neighbour of theirs. She told me when they passed away and I rang Tess and told her. But Tess never came home to either funeral.”

  “She never forgave them.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  I got up and stood in front of the fireplace, my hands behind my back, the fire warming the back of my legs. Julia sat forward on her chair and put her head in her hands.

  “I know what it’s like to lose one child, Carmel. But your poor mother. To lose two sons. And to find out one of them had been neglected in that home and died and not had any kind of burial. It devastated her.”

  I knelt down beside her and stroked her thinning hair.

  “None of it is your fault, Julia. The Church and State and Tess’s own family are to blame for what happened to her, not you.”

  I stood up and picked up a photo from the mantelpiece. Dad, Mikey and me were standing in front of the whitewashed wall of Grandma’s old house when I was six or seven. Dad was dapper in an orange floral wide collared shirt and bellbottom jeans. He was grinning down at Mikey in his arms and I was leaning into him, shyly, in a lemon summer dress.

  “Dad was a very good man, wasn’t he?” I said.

  “One of the finest that ever walked in shoe leather,” she replied, picking up the poker, leaning over and poking the fire again.

  Chapter 20

  Kathleen Slevin asked if we could sit outside so she could smoke, which she did heartily. The fine weather had held and it was a tepid afternoon with a pleasant breeze. The Breaffy House Hotel was just a few miles from Bohola, the village where Kathleen had lived alone since the death of her husband the previous year. Set in wooded grounds, the impressive Victorian grey-stone building boasted turrets and gargoyles. Once the ancestral home of an Anglo-Irish family, it was easy to imagine the tinkle of upper-class English accents, the flurry of a pheasant shoot and the yell of a hunt. Nowadays the place was known for its GAA training ground, its golf course and as a key wedding venue in Mayo.

  “I missed the vaping boat.” Kathleen lit her second cigarette in five minutes then smiled, revealing a jaundiced set of teeth. She was hobbity, barely five feet tall, with small green eyes and dressed in a pale-blue summer dress that hung off her bony shoulders. She shook two packets of sugar into a large coffee cup that was almost the size of her face.

  I had almost cancelled our meeting. There didn’t seem much point. My baby brother was long dead and buried. Why would I want to torture myself further by learning about Tess’s time in the home? It wasn’t going to be good. But I changed my mind for two reasons. The first was meeting Louisa Schulz. She’d made me stop and think about the courage of all the survivors who were telling their stories and reliving the painful episodes of their past. Tess was also a survivor. I felt I owed it to her to find out exactly what happened in the home and tell her story too. I also wanted to find out more about the baby’s father. Tess and Kathleen were friends in the home. I was hoping Tess had confided in her about James. Who was he? Was he still alive? Maybe she knew more about Tess’s brother, Tadgh, too. I had to grab my chance to find out these things when I had it. Kathleen wasn’t going to be around forever, especially if she carried on smoking at that rate.

  “It all happened such a long time ago,” I said to her. “I expect you don’t remember much.”

  “Oh, I remember it all very well. I’ve often thought about your mother over the years and wondered how she was going on. I tried to contact her a couple of times after she left the home.”

  I sat up. “You did?”

  “I wrote to your father’s lodging address in Manchester where he was staying when she was in the home. I knew he’d moved on but I hoped they might forward the letters on. I never heard anything back.”

  “I see.” I stirred my latte. “Do you mind if we start from the beginning, Kathleen?”

  “Sure we can,” she said.

  “So how come you were working in the home? I thought only nuns worked in those places.”

  “They were desperate for the extra help. I was sixteen when I was sent to work there. Our local priest, Father McGrath, knocked on the door
of our house and asked my parents if I’d like to train as a nursery nurse in a maternity home near Galway. I was told I’d be looking after sick babies. My parents saw it as a great opportunity and an honour to be asked. I jumped at the chance. The alternative was the boat to Holyhead or the plane to America and I was awful shy and didn’t want to emigrate.”

  I soon realised that Kathleen was a great talker and as sharp as a tack. I was so relieved I didn’t have to prise information from her and poke and prod her memory, but I did have to keep her focussed on Tess’s story. She had a tendency to digress.

  “When I arrived I was shocked to see so many sick babies, all lined up in cots in the nursery. It didn’t take me long to realise they weren’t sick at all. I soon discovered it was a home for unmarried mothers. I was scandalised.”

  “Really?”

  “We were very innocent about sex and that kind of thing in those days. I never knew such babies or places existed.” She sucked on her cigarette with thin puckered lips. “It was awful hard. You’d get attached to the babies and then the next thing you knew they were gone.”

  “And the women?” I asked tentatively, “Were they treated very badly?”

  “Do you want the truth, Carmel?”

  I nodded.

  “No better than cattle. Your mother and those other poor creatures were put to work doing laundry and cleaning the minute they arrived. No matter how far gone in their confinement. When the babies were born the mothers nursed them until they left but they were only allowed to spend a limited amount of time with them before the adoptive families came to take them away. The poorer mothers had to stay on to pay for their keep. But if the girls’ families had any money, they could pay money for an early release.”

  “And Tess?”

  “Your father paid up.”

  I sighed.

  “The nuns told me not to talk to any of the mothers. They said they were fallen women and I was to keep away from them. Like they were infectious or something. It was the silence I found hardest of all. We were all Irishwomen. We love to talk so it was a form of torture. I worked from seven in the morning until eight at night scrubbing floors and offices as well as looking after the babies. But at least I was paid. Those poor girls got nothing but beatings and abuse.”

  I pushed an ashtray towards her to catch the mountain of ash about to fall from the end of her cigarette.

  “They never did it in front of me, mind. I’d see the bruises the next morning when we arrived at work.”

  “So you didn’t live in?”

  She shook her head. “I lodged with an elderly couple in the village. Mr and Mrs Kennedy. Pair of auld bastards. They only let me out to go to work at the home and to Mass. It was only afterwards I copped on why. The nuns didn’t want me to mix with people in the village in case I told them what went on behind that big stone wall.”

  We both turned at the sound of laughter as two girls of about six or seven ran through the patio area in salmon-pink bridesmaids’ dresses. The bar inside was filling with wedding guests. I watched as the smaller girl tripped over and the older one helped her up and gave her a hug.

  I turned back to Kathleen.

  “And the older kids?” I asked. “Did you have anything to do with them at all?”

  She shook her head. “They were in a separate wing altogether. The nuns kept me well away. But I remember seeing them going to the school in the village in hobnailed boots.”

  “And the babies? How were they treated?”

  She erupted in a coughing fit. When she’d finished she cleared her throat. It sounded like the thrum of an old engine starting up.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, sipping her coffee. “Where was I? The babies. We were told to feed and bathe and clothe the babies but there was no time for anything else. If they cried or were sick it was reported but it might be a while until they were seen to because there were so many of them. It was like conveyor belt. There was no time to hold or play with them and if one of them didn’t take their bottle you were told to carry on feeding and bathing the next one. It all sounds so terrible now. But I just did as I was told. I was awful scared of making a mistake and harming one of them. The nuns would stand around watching. Not doing any work, mind, just watching. They weren’t all bad though. Some of the younger ones took pity on the mothers and let them sneak in and hold their babies once in a while. But I was terrified. You never questioned a nun those days. All I wanted was to please my parents so I went along with it.”

  “You were only a young girl too, Kathleen. I understand.” I leant forwards and lowered my voice. “And Tess? How was she was treated in there?”

  She swallowed.

  “There were good nuns. Sister Martha was the nicest. She was a gentle soul who was kind to the girls. But there was one, Sister Pauline, who had it in for your mother good and proper. Tess was such a beautiful girl. She giggled a lot and reached out and touched you when she was talking to you. She couldn’t help it, it was just the way she was, but the nuns saw her behaviour as indecent. They saw it as their duty to stamp it out. That was the way their twisted minds worked. Sister Pauline was a fat old sow from Cork. She tormented your mother. We used to call her She Devil.”

  Kathleen stared down into her coffee cup.

  “She beat your mother. One time she shaved all her lovely hair off.”

  I fought back tears then put my hand over hers. “It’s OK, Kathleen. I need to hear this.”

  “Those girls have haunted my dreams for most of my life, your mother especially. This is the first time I’ve spoken about any of it. I buried it in the back of my mind, like a stain. When you rang, I knew I had to tell you what happened in there. I had to talk about it to someone after all these years.”

  I gestured to the passing waitress and ordered another coffee for us both and a slice of chocolate fudge cake for Kathleen.

  “Please, Kathleen, take your time,” I said, when the waitress had gone.

  “Your mother was six months pregnant when she arrived. She Devil would make her work in the evenings after the other girls had gone for tea. That’s how we became friends. She Devil would feck off and feed her face and leave us to polish the floors. I was awful relieved to break the silence. Despite her terrible situation your mother was great craic. The pair of us used to slag the nuns big-time. We laughed a lot. She told me all about your father in Manchester and asked me to write to him for her. She told me what to say and I’d memorise it. Then I’d write it down at my digs in the evening and post the letter on my way to Mass. Your father wrote to me at the Kennedys’ address. I let on I had a brother in England then I’d smuggle the letters in to your mother.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for that, Kathleen. You took a huge risk.”

  “I did it because I thought your mother might lose her mind in there. The day after she gave birth, She Devil had her on her hands and knees scrubbing floors even though she’d torn badly. I never forgot the sight of her, bent double, crying out in pain, blood soaking through the back of her grey dress.”

  I inhaled sharply at the memory of Tess on her hands and knees in the back garden of Brantingham Road, manically scrubbing the path.

  “She had mental health issues, for most of her life,” I said.

  “It doesn’t surprise me after what they did to her in there.”

  “Do you think she was singled out because the father of her baby was a Protestant?”

  “What?” Kathleen frowned. “But I thought the baby’s father was Seán, your da.”

  “No. It was someone from an Anglo-Irish family in her village.”

  “Are you serious? Your mother made out it was your father.” Kathleen turned her head and gazed over the sloping lawns and the golf course. “I suppose she was scared I’d turn against her too if she told me the truth.”

  The waitress arrived with our coffee and cake. Kathleen chewed on small mouthfuls and helped it down with sips of coffee. The sun was going in and the patio was getting busy wit
h wedding guests. I pulled on my jacket I asked her if she was cold and wanted to go inside but she said she was fine and that her daughter Margaret was coming soon.

  “Why did you leave the home?” I asked.

  “Ma Kennedy opened one of your da’s letters and I was done for.”

  “No way!”

  “Oh yes. It wasn’t long after your mother left. I was marched into Mother Superior’s office. She Devil was standing next to the big desk with your da’s loving words in her hands and Mother Superior sprang out from behind the desk and gave me a whack around the head. She was raging. She accused me of aiding and abetting a fallen woman and encouraging her to sin. I told her I’d leave there and then. But she said I was to stay on and work a month without pay as penance or she’d tell my parents. She Devil was going to accompany me to Kennedys’ to fetch my things then I was to live in the home for that last month.”

  “Good God!”

  “She also said I was to keep away from post boxes.” Kathleen laughed but her face clouded over quickly. “I’d seen older women working in the gardens. They’d been in there for decades. I was terrified and thought they were going to do that to me too. So when I was collecting my things from Kennedys’ I stuffed my savings inside my bra and gave She Devil the slip on the road back. I dropped my suitcase on the side of the road and made a run for it over the fields. Her fat old legs couldn’t catch me and I called her all the names under the sun. I walked for miles in the pitch black and hid in a cowshed for the night. I knew they’d be looking for me all over the town. So the next morning I stole a bike from the side of a house and cycled the thirty-five miles back to Castlebar.”

  I clasped my hands together and laughed. “What an amazing story, Kathleen.”

  “There’s more. By the time I got home Father McGrath had already got to Mammy and Daddy. The nuns told him I’d compromised myself with a boy in the village near the home and said it would be best for everyone if I went back to avoid bringing shame on my family.”