by Mark Seaman
My head spun over the next few days as I came to terms with my new set of duties and the daily routine at the Sisters of Mercy. I laughed to myself every time I saw or thought of the word mercy as it was certainly not an expression I would have used to describe the treatment any of us young girls received during our time at the home.
I quickly made two friends, Susan and Diane; they were both about my age and we slept close to each other in the dormitory. We would whisper shared secrets and stories about our past life and experiences long into the night before falling asleep exhausted only to be woken by the sound of a loud hand bell being wrung in our ears before dawn each morning by whichever nun had drawn the short straw in getting us up and ready for the first prayers of the day. The only good thing about attending that early service was that you knew as soon as it was over you could eat breakfast. Mind, the meal that is traditionally accepted as setting you up for the day usually consisted of little more than a bowl of watery porridge and a slice of rough cut bread. Sometimes this would be cremated and presented as toast; presumably to hide the fact the bread itself had gone stale. There were occasions when I felt like complaining but quickly reminded myself, whenever I was feeling hard done by and facing this meagre fair, of the times in Birkenau when I would have happily accepted a third as much and thought of it as a banquet compared to that on which we actually had to survive.
All of us girls looked forward to the days that Sister Rosemary had been roistered for breakfast supervision as she would allow us an extra half spoonful of sugar in our tea or an additional piece of burnt toast if there was any left once we had cleared away and washed the dishes. Susan, Diane and I would always volunteer for these duties, not only for the extra food and drink it might afford us but because Sister Rosemary, being in her early twenties, was someone we felt we could confide in and talk to about all sorts of things that appear important to young teenage girls. She was a diminutive figure and we used to joke at times that she appeared lost in her flowing habit as though it were too big for her. She had piercing blue eyes and a ready smile that we all warmed to and quickly learned to trust. Even when she had to tell us off about something we had done to upset the status quo in the Holy Order we knew that her overall sympathies lay with us. She never actually spoke out against some of the harsher rules or punishments exercised in the home but we could tell from her demeanour that she struggled at times with the reasoning behind them. We spoke to her once about her decision to become a nun.
“What made you want to join the order here at the Sisters of Mercy?”
“Did you have a boyfriend before you came here?”
“I knew I wanted to be a nun from the age of about eleven so never really had time to think about boys. I felt God calling me to his service and just knew it was the right thing for me to do.”
“I bet you’d have felt differently if it had been Sister Claire calling you, or shouting in your ear,” laughed Susan.
“You mustn’t say things like that, Susan. Sister Claire is a woman of great faith and has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders.”
“Maybe, but you must admit she can be a bit of a tyrant at times?” Sister Rosemary smiled and shook her head in mock disapproval. She understood our reasoning if not entirely agreeing with our motives for making such a comment. She also recognised we weren’t the devil incarnate as sometimes intimated by Sister Claire but were simply a group of teenage girls who had fallen prey to the promises or demands of a man who was probably now getting up to the same thing again with some other poor innocent, another young girl who would no doubt, at some point in the future, also find themselves knocking on the door of the Sisters of Mercy seeking help.
“Do you ever think what it might have been like if you had got married and had children, Sister?”
“I am married, only my vows of love and obedience were made to God and not to a man.” There was a genuine look of warmth and sincerity in her expression as she spoke.
“Well I hope he’s more faithful than my bloke,” Diane said. “Filthy bugger he was, has his evil way with me and then as soon as he puts me in the family way he’s off with one of my friends. Well, she used to be a friend, she ain’t anymore of course.”
Sister Rosemary looked at us and stroked Diane’s arm. “God is faithful, girls, and you can always trust him to keep his word. He’ll never lie to you or treat you in the way you have been by the men you have been with.”
It was my turn to speak. “I wish Sister Claire was more like you. When I hear you speak about God I feel like maybe he does listen and understand everything I’ve been through.”
“You may not always feel his presence, Ruth, but I promise you he is always by your side. When you smile he smiles with you and when you cry he weeps for you.”
“So even though I’m a Jew and you’re a Catholic it’s still the same God we talk to then is it, Sister?”
“Except that we Catholics believe it is through intercessional prayer to Mary the mother of Jesus that we connect with God. As a Jew your thoughts about Jesus as the Messiah are different. Ultimately though I do believe God knows each one of us individually and that he will never forsake us if we reach out to him with an open and contrite heart”
“If I’m honest, Sister, I’m not sure what I think about God anymore or that I want anything to do with him, not after everything that has happened to me over the past few years.”
Sister Rosemary smiled. “He’ll still be there when you’re ready to talk to him again, Ruth. As I say, he’ll never leave you or stop loving you.”
“Well I don’t believe in God and no amount of getting up early and going to bed late to pray will make me change my mind, especially with grumpy old Sister Claire in charge. I mean why would anyone want to wind up all bitter and twisted like her?”
“That was quite a mouthful, Susan, but you really shouldn’t be so hard on Sister Claire, she doesn’t have it easy you know. She is responsible for all that goes on here at the home including the welfare of you young girls and your babies when they arrive.” Susan shrugged her shoulders. “It’ll take more than that to convince me I should be like her I can tell you. You’re alright though, you know, for a nun.” Sister Rosemary smiled and glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Now come along or we’ll all be in trouble if we don’t make a start on our tasks for the day.”
I think if it hadn’t been for Sister Rosemary some of us girls would have found ourselves in a lot more trouble than we actually did at times. She would often talk us out of rebelling against Sister Claire’s unreasonable requests and non negotiable demands.
Although we knew from experience that babies born in the home would eventually be adopted by families traditionally unable to have children of their own we never chose to think about this being the case with our own babies. This was soon to change though with Diane being almost three months ahead of Susan and I in her pregnancy.
It was a few weeks later that Diane had her baby: a little boy she named Kenneth after her father who had been killed during the war. Following his death her mother had a break down and began drinking heavily, leaving Diane on her own and pretty much having to care for herself. Like so many of the girls at the Sisters of Mercy, she had met a boy who had shown her the attention and affection she craved and that was sadly missing at home. He had made her feel special and she thought was someone who would care for her following the trauma of losing her father and the effects of her mother’s breakdown. Sadly the truth, as with so many of the boys and men who promised so much early on, was that when Diane declared herself pregnant the so called answer to her prayers proved to be the exact opposite. He ran a mile denying all involvement in her pregnancy or that he had any responsibility, financial or otherwise, towards her and the baby when it arrived.
The three of us talked together just a few days before she was due to give birth.
“Dad was the only man who ever really ca
red about me, so if it is a boy I’m going to name him Kenneth after him.”
Sister Claire had proved her usual caring self when she heard of Diane’s decision.
“You can call the child whatever you like for the short period you are nursing it, but be assured that those who adopt it will be free to name it as they wish once the papers are finalised through the courts.”
Diane said that had made her so angry she had answered back without any thought of the consequences. “Well he’ll always be Kenneth to me if my baby is a boy. They might be able to change his name, but they can never change the fact that I gave birth to him, and that’s something you’ll never experience, you spiteful old witch.”
She told us Sister Claire’s face had changed to a deep shade of red after being spoken to in such a way and had put Diane firmly back in her place.
“You will miss supper tonight for that remark, but still wash everyone else’s plates and cutlery after they have eaten. Might I add, that whilst you may be right about my never experiencing the privilege of bringing a new life into this world, I would also never betray myself nor my relationship with God by allowing my body to be used merely for the act of sinful lust that you so clearly have. I suggest whilst you are clearing away the supper things this evening you think about that and ask God to forgive you at the same time, not only for your part in such an immoral act but also for your ungrateful spirit in speaking against one of his chosen servants in such a way. Who else could you wicked young girls turn to for refuge if it wasn’t for the Sisters here at the Holy Order opening our doors to you and your bastard children? Perhaps on reflection you will accept it is you that has sinned, yet again, by speaking so spitefully towards me, when I have only spoken the truth.”
Life under Sister Claire was never easy and the three of us would try and make every effort to keep out of her way wherever possible, but never quite hard enough. The problem was that we also enjoyed goading her, even though the resultant punishment metered out for our verbal taunts or acts of mischief were often out of all proportion in comparison to our alleged sinful ways and failings.
“You are wicked, wicked girls,” she would shout at us. “It’s just as well for you that the good Lord loves all his children, even you, providing they confess and repent of all of their misdemeanours and sins. Although in your three cases I think even his patience, like mine, is sorely tested at times. If the truth be told, I’m not sure any of you are genuinely sorry for the things you do even when you declare them at confession. You would do well to remember that our Father God knows the intentions of all of our hearts better than we do ourselves, so you can be sure he can see through the veneer of your pretence at sorrow and your empty promises not to do the same things again.”
We would lie in bed at night giggling to ourselves dreaming up new ideas of how we might tease and torment her next. It wasn’t necessarily that we didn’t believe in God or in his ability to give us that fresh start we all craved so badly, it was just the thought of attaining it through our acquiescing to the demands of Sister Claire’s cynicism and vitriol was a step too far, even for us three desperate young girls. We had all experienced far harsher words and beatings in our lives than she could ever hand out, so why should we believe that hers were being administered as part of God’s corrective love for us when those we had received similar treatment from in the past were most certainly not?
Once during evening prayers Susan whispered a joke to me which I attempted to pass on to Diane but collapsed in fits of laughter halfway through which in turn made the other two burst into hysterics as well. We knew we were in trouble when even Sister Rosemary looked towards us in obvious disapproval.
Sister Claire took the three of us to the wash room and forced us to rinse out our mouths with soap and water.
“Evensong is a time to use your voices to lift up praises to God not to tell stupid and inane jokes to each other, so you can each clean the filth from your mouths with a good dose of soapy water.” She also made us stand under an icy cold shower for a full five minutes.
“Let us see if the cold water can wash away the heat of the devil in you and teach you to take the Lord’s name seriously in future when offering worship to him.”
The water froze our bodies and took our breath away as we stood there wondering if the effects of such an icy deluge might cause us to miscarry. Eventually Sister Rosemary came to our rescue, arguing that we had probably learned our lesson by now and was sure we wouldn’t let ourselves or the good Lord down in such a sorry way again. Sister Claire grunted, presumably not entirely convinced as to our contrition for our actions.
“I’m sure they’ll never do anything like it ever again, Sister.”
Sister Claire turned her attention to our young saviour. “I think you underestimate the devil in these three girls Sister Rosemary. However, and, thankfully for them I do have business elsewhere to attend to.” With her desire for revenge against us satiated she turned to leave satisfied she had inflicted as much discomfort as possible on us in the time we had spent spitting out soapy water and shivering under the freezing waters of the showers. She also took great pleasure in watching the three of us tremble naked on the cold wash room tiles before turning on her heels and striding out of the room. Sister Rosemary handed each of us a towel.
“You three girls will be the death of me. I like to laugh just as much as you do, but evensong is not the place to be telling jokes between you; Sister Claire is certainly right about that. When we come before God we must remember that we are in a holy place and that he deserves respect as well as our words of praise when we offer up petitions to him, surely you can see that?”
“We know, Sister, and we are genuinely sorry.” Even I felt on this particular occasion we had perhaps overstepped the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable between the three of us when it came to winding up Sister Claire and the other nuns.
“We will try harder not to misbehave like that again, won’t we, girls?” I looked at the other two who were rubbing themselves hard with their towels in an effort to get their blood circulating again. They nodded in agreement but each of us knew this would probably be a pledge, no matter how well intentioned, we would struggle to keep.
Once Kenneth was born Susan and I would often watch Diane feed him, envying her that intimacy with her baby.
“I can’t wait to hold my little one like you, Diane, and feed him, or her, just like a real mother,” Susan said one day as we were making our beds.
“You will be a real mother when it arrives, stupid, who else do you think will be giving birth to the wee thing if not you?
“I know that. I just meant I want to meet the little one and hold it in my arms same as you and love it. After all it’s not the baby’s fault I made the mistake of believing its father when he said he cared about me and that he didn’t just want to get inside my pants. In the end he turned out to be like all the other dirty bastards though. Once they’ve had what they want they soon change their tune and bugger off.”
I reflected briefly about my own circumstances, and whilst they might not have been exactly the same as Susan and Diane’s the scenarios were very similar. Mr Taylor had also turned against me and denied any responsibility for his actions once I fell pregnant following his earlier pretence that I would be doing both his wife and family a great, if undeclared, service by sleeping with him. Perhaps Diane was right about all men being dirty bastards. But somewhere deep inside I still preferred to believe there may be someone out there who might some day want me simply for myself, rather than for what took place between us in the bedroom.
“I’m going to get a job when I leave here and provide for Kenneth, just you wait and see. He won’t want for anything.” Diane’s eyes filled with emotion. “No-one is going to take him away from me I won’t let them.”
I pulled Diane towards me and gave her a hug. “That’s a lovely thought, but we know that’s not wh
at happens to our babies unless of course you find a pot of money or the father changes his mind and decides to do the right thing and stand by you, and we both know that’s hardly likely.”
“I don’t care, I’m not letting anyone take him from me; he’s my son. Maybe he didn’t come into the world under the best of circumstances but he still deserves all the love and affection his Mum can give him, and not from some stranger who wasn’t even there when he was born.” She looked directly at me. “I mean it, Ruth, Kenneth’s mine and he ain’t going anywhere without me and that’s that.”
Susan and I glanced at each other, recognising between us that same desire to keep our as yet unborn babies but also acknowledging the mostly likely scenario would be they would be taken from us at a few weeks old and given to a family who, if we were honest, would be able to provide for them much better than we were ever likely to be able to do. They may not be able to love them in the same way as we might, as their birth mothers, but they would still care for them and meet all of their needs as the years passed by and as they grew together as a family.
A few weeks later the three of us were working together in the laundry room when Sister Margaret approached us. “Diane, Sister Claire wants to speak with you.”
“What about?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, she just asked me to come and take you to her.”
We looked at each other wondering what could be wrong. The three of us had been fairly well behaved over the past few days and couldn’t immediately think of anything we might have done that had initiated this call from on high.
