Father Brendan Devaney was coming out of the sacristy when he spotted the kneeling figure of Majella Doyle. The woman seemed to have aged about ten years in the past few months. She seemed engrossed in prayer, but then, spotting him, lifted her mantilla-covered head.
“Good-morning, Majella.”
Up close she looked bewildered, anxious. “I need to talk to you, Father,” she murmured.
The priest sighed. The poor mother had been to confession almost every week since the child had died, wretched and sobbing in the other side of the box, frantic for some kind of understanding as to why her child had been taken from her. Even the neighbours had begun to realize it was unwise to get caught behind her in the confessional queue.
“Is it about Nonie?”
“No!” she said vehemently. “It’s about Esther. I want you to come to the house, talk to her.”
Confusion filled his face. Perhaps the child was blaming herself again, like she did the time before when the father had died. “Tell her it’s not her fault! Tell her to come up to the house for a chat if she wants to.”
“No, Father Brendan, it’s not that. Esther’s in trouble.”
At first he didn’t understand, but then, seeing the livid blush on the middle-aged woman’s face and the cold anger in her eyes, he understood.
“I’m sorry for your trouble, Majella. Tell your daughter I’ll call up to the house later this evening.” He patted the worn hand, the fingers already beginning to twist ever so slightly. All the women of the parish had hands like that, worn out from work. He left her behind him, still praying, her fingers gripping the pale blue of the rosary beads as if they were a lifeline, in the silence of the small church.
“Will you have another cup of tea, Father?”
The priest nodded. He’d been sitting in the small cluttered parlour, trying to make small talk, for over an hour. He was missing his favourite radio programme, Opera Requests. This week they had mentioned that Puccini would feature. He nibbled at a slice of heavy Madeira cake. Esther sat across from him, uneasy. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she wore a shapeless green dress that did nothing but make the child look paler than usual. Majella was tense, and he wished she would leave him and the daughter to talk on their own.
Donal came in, nodding briefly. “Ma, Tom wants you in the kitchen,” he suggested tactfully.
“A drop of hot tea in the pot would be nice,” encouraged the priest, passing her the white china teapot.
“Excuse me, Father.”
Esther sat watching him, noticing the fine crumbs that clung to his heavy black suit. The priest could do nothing to help. There was no absolution for what she had done. She had loved too much and no priest could possibly understand that. She had to suffer the consequences.
“Your mother mentioned something of your predicament,” he suggested discreetly.
“Aye, Father, I’m going to have a baby. It’s due in March.”
The priest tried not to let any reaction show on his face. At least once a year he was faced with a similar admission from one of the female members of his congregation. The resolution was the important thing. Weddings out of the parish could be arranged. “Are you going to get married, Esther?”
She shook her head, miserable. “He doesn’t want to!”
“You have told him about the baby?”
“He knows, but it makes no difference. He says that he doesn’t love me anymore. He wants to marry someone else.”
“Makes no difference, indeed!” Father Devaney tried to hold his anger in check. If he had a pound for every blackguard who tried to take advantage of young innocent girls, he would be a wealthy man. “What is this fellow’s name? Do I know him?”
Esther felt afraid. She was reluctant to give him Conor’s name.
“Who is he?” By Christ, he’d track down the local boyo who thought he could ruin a young girl’s name in the parish and walk away from his responsibility. He’d have him begging to marry her.
“Conor … Conor O’Hagan.”
The priest sat back in the chair. The handsome rogue from West Cork, he should have guessed! The O’Hagan fellow and Nuala McGuinness had already called to see him, asking him to post the banns for their marriage next month. Nuala was smitten with him. She was like a young woman in love, delighted to have finally found a mate and someone to run her farm.
He shifted awkwardly, wondering if Esther had heard yet. “I know of him,” he said gently. “What do you want to do?”
She considered. “Since I can’t get married, I’ll go away. It’s what my mother and the rest of them want.”
“Carraig Beag is a small place. They are good people. Nobody better when you are in trouble, and God knows they have been more than kind to your poor mother. Christian charity! But at times they could turn on you like a pack of dogs!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Father.”
“Well, we must prevent it then. You are agreed to go away?”
“Aye, Father Brendan. Normally I’d want to have my baby born here at home, but I know my mother and brothers would never stand it. I have no say in it, so you see I have to go away.”
“‘Tis for the best, that’s all we’re thinking of, child!”
“I suppose so.”
“And what about when the baby is born?”
“I haven’t really thought that far ahead yet, Father.”
Father Brendan shifted uncomfortably on the ancient couch, which was in sore need of respringing and padding. His back was at him. At least the girl hadn’t started crying and wailing like some he’d seen. Her face was pale and she looked tired, her eyes expressionless. Who could tell what girls that age were thinking? “Over the years I’ve helped girls like yourself. There’s the Magdalen home in Galway, run by Sister Dominica. You know the place?”
“I don’t want to go to Galway, Father, I want to go further away, someplace nobody knows me, like London or Dublin.”
“You might be lonely, so far away from home and your people.”
She laughed harshly. “That doesn’t matter!”
“There are two or three Magdalen homes in Dublin that I know of, but the Holy Saints nuns have a place over somewhere on the south side of the city. They provide board and lodgings and good care for girls like yourself, in trouble, and in return you work for no wages and help out about the place. It’s laundry work, same as the place in Galway. Another Magdalen laundry.”
“I’m used to washing and ironing for the family here, Father.”
“Well, it’s a bit different to that. You’ll be expected to rise early and help all day in the laundry, ‘tis a busy place by all accounts, with no chance of resting or pampering: the nuns work there themselves—but you’re young and strong. Then when your time comes and the child is born, the nuns will look after you and your baby.”
“What happens then?” Esther hesitantly enquired.
“Well …” He didn’t want to alarm her. “Then the usual is that the nuns take care of the child until hopefully a married couple are found that wish to foster or adopt the child, and raise it. The child becomes theirs.”
“So my baby would be given up?”
“Yes.”
She stifled a sob. Everything her aunt had told her was true.
“Esther, do you want to think about it, talk it over with the family?”
She sat miserable and silent. Her mother had slipped back into the room. “Could you arrange it, Father Brendan?” she interrupted. “Straight away, she’s showing already!”
Esther nodded wordlessly. She would go along with whatever they arranged for her. Her body and this growing child seemed almost distant and apart from her. She wanted rid of it all, this whole awful thing that was happening, she wanted to forget it, pretend that Con and herself had never happened, and that things could go back to the way they were.
“Mammy, I’ll go to Dublin if that’s what you want.”
Her mother sat on the red corner chair, pulling it up
close to the table beside the priest. “What’ll we tell people?” she asked him.
“It’s a private matter, confidential,” he suggested matter-of-factly. “All the neighbours need to know is that Esther’s gone to Dublin on a visit, doing a course maybe, staying with family. The confidence will not be broken, and Sister Gabriel and the Holy Saints nuns are the souls of discretion, I promise.”
Relief flooded her mother’s worried features. “She’s disgraced us, Father. I can’t believe that I raised a daughter that would get herself in this kind of trouble.” Her mother flushed angrily. “Dermot, Lord rest him, would turn in his grave if he knew!”
“Majella! Majella! There’s no point going back over what’s happened. It’s Esther you must be thinking of now!” he admonished her. “She needs your love and support.”
Annoyed, Majella Doyle pursed her lips.
Sensing the change in atmosphere, Father Devaney drained his teacup, declaring, “I must be going, but I’ll get in touch with the convent straight away and set it up. I’ll write to them tonight. Try not to worry, Esther’s not the only one that has faced such difficulties.”
The two women stood up, anger and pain dividing them.
“I’ll be in touch,” he murmured, making his goodbyes.
As soon as the priest had left, Majella Doyle spoke again. “Thank God your father’s dead, and is not here to witness his tramp of a daughter and the shame you’ve brought on us,” her mother spat out fiercely, turning and leaving her standing in the narrow hallway on her own.
Dublin, 1951
Chapter Fifteen
The Galway-to-Dublin train pulled slowly out of the station.
Gerard had driven Esther and her mother to Eyre Square, collecting Aunt Patsy on the way. They’d all arrived far too early and had a cup of tea in the station café. Majella had sat aloof across from her daughter, the crowded surroundings making them feel even more ill-at-ease, Gerard and her aunt making small talk, embarrassed, hoping they wouldn’t meet anyone that they knew. The half-hour passed and it was with relief that Esther had lifted her coat, her aunt insisting on carrying her suitcase, as they joined the throng crowding on to the platform, anxious to get a good seat on the Dublin train. Gerard gave her a clumsy hug; he’d surprised her the night before by pressing three ten-pound notes into her hand. Perhaps Brona was having a good influence on him after all, as Gerard was usually loath to part with money for any reason. Standing on the platform, her mother had barely said a word to her.
“Take care of yourself,” she’d murmured, passing a powdered cheek for Esther to kiss. They were like two strangers.
“I’ll write,” promised Esther, “and send word when the baby’s born.”
A pained look had filled her mother’s eyes, and Esther realized that her mother wanted no word of the birth of this first grandchild. Hurt, she had stepped away and boarded the train. She was relieved to sit in the seat that her aunt had held for her; already she felt tired, as there had been little chance to sleep for the past few nights. There had been nothing but rows and awkward silences at home—even Paddy and Liam were now involved. They didn’t know why she was going, only that she was being sent away to Dublin and that all the grown-ups were cross with her. Paddy had begged her to stay or else let him come with her. “Who’ll mind me and read me stories and play games with me if you’re not here?” he’d wailed. There was no answer to that.
“I’ll miss you too, pet, but promise I’ll come back home just as soon as I can.”
Saying those words, Esther wondered if she’d ever really be able to come back to this place; already too much had changed. She was hurt and angry and most of all disappointed by her mother’s reaction to her pregnancy. Any closeness there had been between them seemed to have disappeared. As a child she had always believed that her mammy would love her no matter what happened. Those had been childish thoughts—now she was old enough to realize that she no longer felt close to her mother either, the events of the past few months driving a wedge between them. She had taken a long walk around and about Carraig Beag, even up by the McGuinness farm, hoping to catch sight of Con, despairing that he hadn’t changed his mind.
The shopkeeper, Eilis ni Donnell, had told her that there was a rumour that “the stranger” had been set upon and was now sporting two black eyes and a broken wrist. Esther had kept her head down, as she could see the local nosy parker casting her eyes over her, searching for a reaction. She blushed, hoping that the other woman would not guess her condition as she paid for the milk and bread she had purchased, knowing that rumours of her pregnancy would then spread like gorsefire. “That so!” was all she said.
She’d walked along by the beach and round by the headland, furious at what her brothers had done to Con, yet glad that in some token way they had avenged her. The water was cold now, the waves pounding against the rocks, seaweed tossed in rotting clumps along the shoreline. Summer was long gone and it was time for her to go away.
She’d been sick on the train, the constant jolting making her stomach heave and her skin clammy. An old man had been kind to her, fetching her a drink of water, her aunt fussing and wiping her forehead with a handkerchief she’d doused in lavender water, and opening the window to let her get a bit of air. She had dozed as they passed through one country town after another, each forgotten in an instant blur. She’d forced herself to waken and sit up, curious and alert, as they approached Dublin city, narrow street after street of cottages and brick terraces, sooty grey smoke streaming from their chimneys, pale-faced children playing hopscotch on the road. It was her first time visiting the city. Her Aunt Patsy barely glanced up, she was so engrossed in a romantic novelette she was reading.
The metal carriage began shuddering and shaking as the heavy brakes were applied and they came into Kingsbridge Station, whistles blowing as they reached their journey’s end. The sky looked dull and grey, as if it was sullenly trying to hold the rain back. They had no umbrella with them, and ran for cover among the crowd of people milling around the front of the station.
“Taxi!”
“Excuse me!”
People shoved and pushed past her, her Aunt Patsy standing tall and trying to manage her luggage. Outside a large bus idled its engine as passengers thronged up on to the step, asking directions. “City centre! O’Connell Street!” shouted the red-faced conductor. The rain making up their minds, they shoved on too, paying their fares.
Esther wrinkled her nose at the smell of sweat and wet that came from the crowd of passengers. Despite the dull day she wiped the steamed-up windows as they drove, wanting to get a glimpse of the streets and the river and all the places she’d heard about.
The air smelt funny, sour and burning. “It’s the hops from the Guinness brewery up the road,” chuckled a stout Dublin woman, who was obviously pleased to be home.
Along the quayside they passed the courts and some small hotels, all perched overlooking the River Liffey. Hundreds of people seemed to be walking in the same direction, crossing the bridges that linked one side of the river to the other. The bus came to a shuddering halt, its passengers spilling out on to one of the widest streets in the world, Esther following her aunt and getting off near Nelson’s Pillar, the GPO, Clery’s. Imagine, she was standing right in the middle of the city, able to see them all, all those places that she had learnt about in school, read about in the newspapers! There in the distance was the Gresham Hotel: all the film stars stayed there when they visited Dublin. The GPO, where the Republicans had fought the might of the British Empire in 1916. Sister O’Higgins’ eyes used to fill with tears when she spoke of Padraig Pearse, James Connolly, Sean McDermott, and the brave young men who fought with them.
“I could murder a cup of tea, Esther! How about you? That stuff on the train isn’t drinkable. Will we have a look in Clery’s quickly and then get a bite to eat?” Her aunt insisted on wandering back and forth through all the display counters and cases, admiring hats and gloves, head-scarves and shoes. Walk
ing through the fashion floors, Esther didn’t dare to linger at any of the fine displays of clothes, pulling her coat around her to hide her shape.
Her aunt surprised her by heading upstairs in the direction of the children’s department; perhaps she wanted to purchase something for her grandchildren. “Esther, I’d like to buy something for the baby, your baby. You’ll need some things.”
The baby layettes were laid out inside a glass cabinet. Standing there considering them, looking at the different colours and weights and designs, the reality of her pregnancy hit her. She wondered if she would have a girl or a boy. Everything seemed to come in either blue or pink or stark white. The assistant showed her a soft white knitted suit. Her baby would be born in late winter or early spring, perhaps there might even be snow on the ground. She fingered the matching hat. It was beautiful. “That’s lovely!” Aunt Patsy smiled impulsively. “Would you like me to buy it for you?”
“Oh, yes please!” agreed Esther.
“We’ll take it!”
“Do you want it delivered, or gift-wrapped, madam?” queried the assistant.
“No, that’s fine, thanks. We’ll take it with us now.”
Back out in the street, they made their way to a busy teashop. There was an empty booth in front of the window. Esther felt exhausted, and flopped into the seat.
Aunt Patsy called the waitress and ordered them a pot of tea and some scones. Esther watched all the people passing by outside in the drizzling rain. A sharp-faced, grey-haired man dressed in a camel-coloured raincoat moved among them, a heavy black camera strapped to his shoulders; she watched the way he stood in front of them, blocking their path, taking their photographs. It was only couples, handsome men and pretty girls with platinum blonde hair, prosperous couples, laughing students holding hands. He had no regard for the women lifting heavy carrier bags or dragging children by the hand. The photographer was only interested in those who were distracted, intent on their lovers’ words, barely noticing him. He would capture them together. Esther wished she had a photo of Con, a photo of the two of them—perhaps then she might believe what had happened. She couldn’t bear never to see him again.
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