by Anne Bennett
‘I know,’ Catherine said. ‘But it didn’t stop there.’
‘No.’
‘And you put up with it?’
‘What else could I do, Mammy?’ Lizzie cried. ‘Especially when in all other ways he was a model husband.’
‘How did he justify himself?’
‘He didn’t have to justify anything, for I never spoke of it.’
‘Why not? God, if ever your father had strayed, I’d have wanted to know why.’
‘You think that, but honest to God, Mammy, when it happens you don’t know how you feel. Your mind is like a yo-yo. You feel dirty, cast aside, and yet you ask yourself if it could be your fault, something you’ve done or not done. In many ways, I lost respect for myself, felt unworthy to be loved. When Steve made love to me after he’d been with another, part of me wanted to push him away and part of me was grateful he still wanted me, that he hadn’t shunned me totally by leaving me. How could I put any of this into words?’
‘I find all this incredible, that he should make you a laughing stock.’
‘He didn’t really. I mean, he never flaunted his women in front of me. I knew they weren’t people I’d meet shopping or anything. But before this business with Shirley, he’d never, to my knowledge, been violent or forced a woman, but after his experiences at Dunkirk he was a changed man and some of the things I’ve been hearing about him have shaken me to the core. I think the man was damaged in some way. He had a much shorter fuse, for example, and drank like a fish. I always forgave him, for though he never spoke about his experiences he had dreadful nightmares. He’d wake with a scream or shout and would often be drenched with sweat, shuddering with fear, and the words he spoke in his sleep told of the horrors of just some of the things he had witnessed.’
‘Are you trying to excuse him?’
‘No, of course not,’ Lizzie said. ‘There is no excuse for what he has done, but I’m trying to come to terms with that myself and trying to explain to you why I believe he acted the way he did. For example, I think one of the reasons he attacked and raped Shirley was because she was black.’
‘Why?’ Catherine asked.
‘I think Steve was curious,’ Lizzie said. ‘Got to wondering what a black woman was like. He’d have no idea of the chain of events he’d set in motion.’
‘I still hold him responsible.’
‘In the end I suppose I do too,’ Lizzie admitted.
It was as Lizzie walked with the children to the school at Ballintra the next morning that Niamh said, ‘When we go back with you, is it for good or just a wee holiday?’
‘Just a holiday,’ Lizzie said. ‘For aren’t you grand here with your grandparents?’
‘We’d be better with you,’ Tom put in quickly.
‘Aren’t you happy here? Don’t you like it?’
‘We like it fine,’ Niamh said. ‘But we want to come home with you.’
And why couldn’t they? Lizzie thought. But of course there was her job. ‘I work now, making new wings for aeroplanes, as I told you in my letters. I would have to give notice if you were to come home for good.’
‘Would you mind that?’ Tom asked.
Lizzie crouched on the road and looked into the children’s eyes. ‘I’d mind nothing if I get the chance to have you living at home again; if I can hold you in my arms and tuck you into bed at night.’
She held the children tight for a moment, and afterwards Tom scrubbed furiously at his damp eyes with one of his gloves. It would never do for one of the lads in the schoolyard to see him crying. They’d think him a sissy, but he was so excited he found it hard to stay still, for their mammy had promised that they were going home, back to Birmingham, and he could hardly wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
As soon as Lizzie left the children at the school gates she went to seek the priest, and moments later she was facing him across the church.
Father Brady knew about the black baby born to Lizzie Gillespie. Sister Jude had seen fit to inform him of that. She’d also said it was being taken to an orphanage in Dublin and so he’d never mentioned the matter to any of the Clooneys and was totally unaware of the latest turn of events.
And now here was the brazen hussy, the cause of shame and embarrassment to her entire family, facing him as bold as brass. ‘Hallo, Father.’
Even the tone of her voice had a challenging note to it, the priest observed. ‘Good morning, Elizabeth.’
‘Have you a few moments to spare for a chat?’
Father Brady owed no favours to Elizabeth Gillespie. ‘I am a busy man, Elizabeth.’
‘A few moments of your most precious time is all I ask.’
‘Don’t mock, Elizabeth, it doesn’t become you.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘And when you listen to the tale I have to tell you, you might whistle a different tune too.’
‘I really think…’
‘I really think that for once in your life you should shut up and listen to the grave injustice you did me.’
Father Brady wanted even less to listen to anything Lizzie had to say after that comment. He would have liked to order Lizzie from the church and tell her never to enter it again.
However, he couldn’t help but listen, though he wished sometimes as Lizzie told of her time in the convent that he could stop up his ears and not hear the vilifying words dripping off her tongue. He didn’t doubt a word she said, for the truth was in her haunted eyes and impassioned voice, and that made it worse.
Lizzie didn’t spare Father Brady, and when she began to talk of the convent priest’s abuse, he held up his hand. ‘Enough, please, Elizabeth.’
‘Upsets you, does it, Father?’ Lizzie said. ‘What do you think it does to the girls, preyed on by this perverted and pathetic excuse for a priest? And before you ask, Father, they are not harlots and whores in that place, who lead the priest on.’
‘You know,’ she went on, ‘I had months in there to think, and though we were told often how sinful we were, I don’t think getting pregnant is the greatest crime in the universe. To hurt another human being is worse in my book, but the most despicable thing of all is surely to assault and pour scorn and degradation on fellow human beings and to enjoy doing it and know the same thing will happen again and again. That, Father, is evil. Those nuns are evil and the priest who condones it, as they condone his debauchery, is evil.
‘Some of the girls incarcerated with me will never go beyond the convent walls. They will grow old and die in that corrupt and depraved place. They are the forgotten women of Ireland.’
The priest was shocked at last. ‘Surely not.’
‘Who will take them out, Father? My own family would have thrown me to the wolves if it hadn’t been for Johnnie. One girl died in childbirth and her family would not allow her to go home to be buried—they never even came to the funeral. My friend Celia wasn’t surprised. She was one of seven children and because of one mistake she was thrown aside by the whole family. Disowned. No longer to be considered a child of theirs. She had no family, no home, no future, and her baby son is being brought up by someone else.’
‘But surely that is to the good?’
‘Not all the girls in that place would agree with you, Father. Like the girl who threw herself off the laundry roof, for the pain of separating her from her baby was too great to take.’
‘Ah, God,’ Father Brady said. ‘I didn’t know. Please believe that. I’d heard rumours, but…’
‘I’d say they were based on fact,’ Lizzie retorted. ‘Think of your worst nightmare and it won’t come close to what we had to endure. And think too of the men involved—and there had to be a man involved—and they get away scot-free. Where in God’s name is the justice in that?’
‘But Sister Jude said your baby was black?’
‘She is not black. My baby has dusky skin and enormous brown eyes and a smile that lights up her whole face and gladdens your day,’ Lizzie said. ‘And she is that colour because the m
an who attacked me was black. His name was Matthew McFarland and he was part of the American Volunteer Air Force based in Castle Bromwich.’
‘I understood the man had never been found.’
‘Nor will he be,’ Lizzie replied. ‘He is dead, but he had the foresight to write everything down in a journal, which his brother had charge of after his death.’
‘And in it he admitted to having attacked you?’ the priest asked incredulously.
‘Aye, he did,’ Lizzie said. ‘You’ve got your disbelieving face on again, Father, but I assure you this is no figment of my imagination. The man’s brother came to see me.’
‘It does sound unbelievable, Elizabeth.’
‘I agree, Father,’ Lizzie said. ‘But it all hinges on the fact that my husband went to the house one day and raped the man’s wife. When she found she was pregnant she hanged herself and left a letter, saying why and naming her abuser. Her grief-stricken husband came for Steve and got me instead. He thought he’d killed me and very nearly did, and he wrote it down when he came to his senses and realised and was mortified by what he had done. Every word I told when I came home that time, each word that you ridiculed, was the truth.’
The priest was obviously shaken, Lizzie could see. ‘How do you think it felt, Father, incarcerated in that bloody place for something I had no control over and was not my fault at all?’
‘Lizzie, I just…I don’t know what to say.’
‘Sorry would be a good place to start,’ Lizzie said sarcastically.
‘I am sorry,’ the priest said. ‘Sorry for doubting you…but for such a thing to happen. It’s incredible, and a tragedy for that young woman driven to take her own life. I met your husband only the once at the wedding, but your mother always gave a good account of him. For him to do such a thing,’ the priest shook his head in consternation. ‘And this terrible attack on you…But one thing puzzles me, Elizabeth. Why did you go on to keep the child? I understood she was going to be sent to an orphanage.’
‘Do you think I would leave my wee, vulnerable baby in the care of nuns, in danger of being hurt and bullied and raised in fear? Anyway,’ Lizzie said with her head held high, ‘I love her, Father. Her name is Georgia Marie and I love the very bones of her.’
‘Your courage and determination leaves me astounded,’ Father Brady said. And he was astounded. This self-assured young woman before him was nothing like the panic-riddled one he’d delivered to the convent over a year before. There was no resemblance either to the young girl who used to be at the beck and call of her family, and especially her cousin. He had the distinct impression that this Elizabeth Gillespie would be at the beck and call of no one.
‘All I can say—and from the bottom of my heart—is that I’m sorry for any part I played in this,’ thepriest said sincerely. ‘And I will certainly make some enquiries about how the convents are managed.’
Lizzie wondered if it was enough to just make enquiries, if he would be fobbed off. But for him to even listen, believe her and agree to take action, however limited, was more than she could have hoped for.
‘Thank you, Father.’
‘I couldn’t do nothing,’ Lizzie said later to Tressa as she recounted her talk with the priest. ‘Outside of it now, I can’t credit I allowed myself to be treated like that. If we’d have banded together we’d have been a match for any nun, but you are stripped of everything and ruled by fear and intimidation. I was a different person then. I hope I’ve done enough for the others left behind.’
‘I think you’ve done all you could,’ Tressa said. ‘These people are powerful, remember.’
‘Aye, and the arm of the Catholic church stretches miles. Really, I can’t wait to get back now, and I’m missing Georgia like mad.’
‘Mike says she is gorgeous.’
‘She is, Tressa. I wish you could see her,’ Lizzie told her.
‘I just might,’ Tressa said. ‘I’m thinking of coming back in the New Year. I need to be on the spot now. Mike and I are going to look for a place of our own after the war. Anyway, sometimes Mike only has a forty-eight-hour pass, and really he’s not here five minutes before it’s time to turn round again. I worry about him going back to army life, and maybe active service, worn out by all the travelling.’
‘You’ll have to get on with producing the football team as well, won’t you,’ Lizzie said with a smile. ‘For isn’t Nuala three in February?’
‘She is, thank God,’ Tressa replied. ‘That’s one thing. With all the travelling, Mike is too tired to want to do much. I mean, he still gets the urge sometimes, but he’s just too exhausted.’
‘I’d stay on a good few years yet then,’ Lizzie teased.
‘Aye,’ Tressa laughed, and added, ‘you know I wouldn’t be without any of them for the world, but it’s marvellous to have them all out of nappies and sleeping through the night. God Almighty, some nights it wasn’t worth going to bed at all. And Mike was never any help. Spoilt by his parents and sisters, see—he could barely make a cup of tea, and he’s absolutely no idea with the children.’
Lizzie too thought Mike pretty useless and that was way before the war when he marched away to kill Germans, and was always glad Tressa had had Doreen to give her a hand, and now had her mother. And, she thought, six children were enough for anyone to rear—more than enough, in her opinion, no matter whatthe Church said.
It would be lovely to see Tressa back in Longbridge, Lizzie thought, and she told Tressa this before heading for home.
Catherine never asked her daughter how it had gone with the priest and so Lizzie never mentioned it either. She spent the day sorting out the children’s clothes, for the next day, 19th December, was the last day at school and she intended to leave on the 20th . Both Susan and Eileen called in to see her, and she’d arranged to call up to see Peter and Owen the following day. She couldn’t help but regard the welcoming home of the prodigal daughter wryly. She wondered what their attitude would have been like if Matt hadn’t written down what he’d done or Scott hadn’t acted on the information. She imagined the reception from them all would have been quite different.
But she had no reason now to fall out with any of them, and, all in all, the visit, though short, was pleasant enough.
‘You’ll come back in the summer, sure you will?’ Catherine said, drawing Lizzie into her arms as she prepared to leave.
‘I don’t know, Mammy,’ Lizzie said. ‘There’s Georgia.’
‘Can’t your friend look after her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie repeated. ‘I’d hesitate to leave her for longer than a few days. Anyway, one day I’ll have to bring her with me. I’m not going to hide her away all the days of her life.’
To Catherine, who, despite Scott’s letter, had not come to terms with her daughter giving birth to and raising a mixed-race child, the thought of hiding her away seemed a very good idea.
She knew better than to give voice to this and instead said, ‘Well, maybe it’s best left this summer. Get the children properly settled and all. Anyway,’ Catherine whispered, ‘Eileen thinks she’s expecting. Early days yet, but if she’s right it will be due in July. I’d like to be on hand really. She’s a bit long in the tooth to be having her first.’
‘Mammy, she’s not old,’ Lizzie protested. ‘And I hope she’s right, it would be good news, so it would.’
And it would be grand news, for poor Eileen and Murray, married since 1932, had no children. Maybe it would take the sour look from Eileen’s face if she held a child of her own, and stop her glaring at Niamh and Tom with such resentment and longing.
Her mother was right about Eileen’s age, for she was four years older than Lizzie. She was already thirty-four and would be thirty-five when she gave birth, her birthday being in March, and though Lizzie knew her mother was using Eileen’s possible confinement as an excuse against seeing and welcoming Georgia, Lizzie couldn’t really expect less. It would take time.
They left very early in the morning because Li
zzie wanted to sail in the daylight. Catherine got up to see them off and Lizzie kissed her and hugged her tight before making her way to the cart where the horse pranced on the cobbles and tossed his head in impatience to be off, his breath rising like smoke in the wintry air.
Johnnie was coming with them. Lizzie couldn’t have managed without him, because as the children were leaving for good they were bringing everything home with them. Most of it was packed in a trunk, except for Niamh’s doll Maisie, which she insisted on holding in her arms, and Tom had three of his favourite cars in his pocket. Then there was the small case Lizzie had brought and the larger one for Johnnie, for he was staying until the New Year—plus another full of food her mother had insisted she take.
It was all stowed away in the cart and Seamus was driving it to the station. As Johnnie helped his sister up into the cart beside the two excited children wrapped up in blankets, she caught sight of his face and knew he was looking forward to seeing Celia again.
Remembering Celia’s shock, all the way home Lizzie tried to explain what Birmingham was like to Johnnie and the house she lived in and the destruction the war had brought everywhere. In a way, she was also reminding the children, for she knew a lot of the bomb damage would be new to them too.
Johnnie was the only one sick on the boat and so he stayed on deck most of the crossing. Though the day turned to night eventually, as the boat ploughed its way through the turbulent waters, the sky had been so grey and overcast it made little difference.
Lizzie knew even such little light would be gone by the time they reached Birmingham, the winter days being so short, and she was glad Johnnie had not only brought a flashlight but lots of batteries too. He wasn’t sure the muslin Lizzie had tied around the flashlight was necessary, until she told him of the two-hundred-pound fine for breaking the blackout, whereupon he conceded she probably knew best.
As the train rattled its way to Birmingham they all tucked into the picnic that Lizzie had helped her mother prepare. She was glad to be going home and longing to see Georgia. ‘I have a secret waiting for you at home,’ she told the children.
