The Magdalen

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  “You all right, Esther? You look a bit pasty. I think we’ll have to be going soon. The nuns might be expecting you. We’ll try to find a taxi cab outside.”

  The grey city rain tasted of smoke and dirt. A woman pointed them to the part of the street where they could pick up a cab.

  “Where to, my ladies?” joked the driver.

  Fumbling in her coat pocket, Esther produced the address, showing it to him. She noticed how he glanced at her in the mirror.

  “Galway is it you’re from?” he remarked. “My wife is from down round those parts, I recognize the accents.”

  Passing up round College Green, her aunt pointed out Trinity College, where the Protestant young gentlemen and women were educated, and Grafton Street, with Brown Thomas and Switzer’s and Newell’s.

  “Plenty of shops for the fancy folk to spend their money in.”

  Esther glanced at the lush green parkland of St. Stephen’s Green, which was skirted by a square of tall Georgian houses. Driving on they passed road after road of tall, high-windowed houses and she wondered how people could live on top of each other like that. They crossed over the canal, the white swans staring at her.

  “Nearly there!” announced the driver.

  Suddenly Esther felt afraid. All her new-found bravado seemed to have disappeared.

  Her aunt reached for her hand, squeezing it.

  “It’s all right, Esther. It will be all right.”

  There was no turning back now, as they could see the high granite walls of the convent and glimpse its roof and windows. She was so glad that her aunt had insisted on accompanying her on her journey to the convent, instead of having Father Devaney drive her from Galway.

  The driver slowed the shiny black Ford. “Will I bring you up the driveway?”

  She nodded, as they swept in through the heavy black wrought-iron gates, the only gap in the convent’s protective stone surround. He pulled up just outside the heavy arched doorway, making a fuss about lifting out her case for her.

  “Take care, love,” he said kindly. She could see pity in his eyes, and knew he realized her reason for coming here. Aunt Patsy paid him, asking him would he mind waiting or otherwise coming back in half an hour. “Take your time, missus. I’ll switch off the meter and have a read of the paper and see what De Valera is telling us all to do now. You take your time.”

  Nervous, Esther got out and rang the bell. After what seemed an age an elderly nun ushered them inside.

  They followed the ancient nun, her back bent with arthritis, as she led them through the black-and-red-patterned tiled hallway to a cold and musty front parlour, instructing them to wait there. A polished circular table held a few old copies of Ireland’s Own and some missionary magazines, none of which they were interested in reading as they settled down to wait. Fifteen minutes later another nun appeared.

  “I’m Sister Gabriel,” she introduced herself, producing a notepad from the folds of her dark habit. She was taller than any nun Esther had ever seen before and had an unhealthy-looking pallor. Her eyes were cool and unwelcoming and she seemed slightly bored by their arrival.

  “Sister, I’m Patricia O’Malley and this is my niece Esther Doyle. My sister Majella wasn’t well enough for the journey so I decided to accompany her. She’s never been beyond Galway before now.”

  “I had a letter from Father Brendan telling me something of your circumstances, Esther. Now I want to hear from you yourself.”

  Esther blushed deeply, shame making her voice shake. She told the nun as little as possible, only that she had fallen in love with someone locally, made a fool of herself and been let down.

  The cold grey eyes seemed to see through her, searching for the truth. The nun wrote down details about her name, age, family, and education, her family background and when the baby was due. “Your father died a few years ago, I see, and recently there has been the death of a sister. No doubt this has been the latest tragedy your poor mother has had to endure! Tell me about the baby’s father.”

  Esther shut her mouth; the little she knew about Con’s family was none of this woman’s business.

  “You do know for certain who is the father of the child?”

  Esther nodded. This cold fish with her big hands and feet would have no understanding of what had happened between herself and Con, the sheer physical attraction that a man could have for a woman.

  “Well, Esther, since you have decided to have this baby on your own, myself and the rest of the good sisters here will endeavour to provide a place for you to stay and three meals a day. In return you are expected to work, for as long as your condition allows, in the laundry we run, or the kitchens. You are a strong-looking girl, and Father Brendan tells me that you are used to hard work.”

  “Aye, that she is, she’s been all but running the house for my sister the past few years,” interrupted her aunt.

  “Very well then, we are agreed that you will obey our convent rules, and our ways, and in time when your baby is born it will be given into the care of our sisters who run the orphanage. They will try to place your baby with a fine hard-working Catholic family. The child will have a proper upbringing.”

  Her heart breaking, but conscious of a strange sense of relief, Esther could only agree.

  Her Aunt Patsy was in danger of becoming overemotional, and was searching for her hankie in her handbag.

  “Mrs. O’Malley, I think it’s better if you say goodbye to Esther now. I’ll leave the two of you on your own for a minute.”

  The nun stepped out of the parlour and Esther embraced her aunt frantically, not wanting her to go and leave her, wanting to run back outside too.

  “It’s not too bad a place as convents go, Esther. Better than the home in Galway anyways, and it’s not for ever.”

  How could her aunt say that? Esther thought: the place was awful, cold and damp and dreary, with its high walls and barred windows. It was like a prison, and the nuns like gaolers.

  “Don’t go, Patsy! Don’t leave me here!” pleaded Esther, weeping now, clasping at her aunt, not wanting to let her go. Why had she ever agreed to come to this awful convent? “I want to go back home with you! I’ll not stay in this place, don’t make me!”

  “Hush, Esther, don’t take on so! ‘Tis bad for the baby when you get upset. It’s only for a few months, you know that, and I promise I’ll be down to take you out of here and bring you back home as soon as—”

  “The baby’s born.” Esther finished.

  “Aye!” Steeling herself, her aunt hugged her one last time before taking her leave as Sister Gabriel opened the parlour door. Esther pushed past the nun and like a small child clung on to her aunt, sobbing and begging her not to go.

  “That’s enough of this nonsense and carry-on,” said the nun. “Your aunt has a taxi waiting at the door and will miss her train if you delay her any longer.”

  Esther felt scared and foolish. She didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with the Holy Saints nuns, so, trying to regain her composure, she said a final goodbye to her aunt, watching her leave from the parlour window.

  “You will join the rest of the penitents in the laundry tomorrow, but for now I will show you to the dormitory where you’ll sleep,” announced Sister Gabriel, leading her up a flight of steep cold stone stairs to a long hallway bordered with wood-panelled doors. Esther was to share the dormitory-type bedroom with nineteen other women. The room smelt of stale sweat and damp. Her bed was in the middle of the room with a small wooden locker beside it.

  “The girls were good enough to make up your bed for you. The wardrobe over there will have some hanging-space for your clothes, and there is a bathroom across the landing.”

  Esther tried to smile and look grateful.

  “I suggest you have a rest now after your long journey. You know I was expecting you much earlier, but I suppose the train was delayed. Tomorrow you will start work in earnest. You will join the rest of the penitents for early-morning mass, then breakfast in the ref
ectory, and be in the laundry by half-past seven. The deliveries start from about six-thirty. One of the girls will give you a call at teatime. You missed lunch!”

  Esther watched as the tall ungainly figure of the nun left the room. She made a half-hearted attempt to put away her few bits of clothing, hoping that the woodworm that were eating their way through the peeling cream-coloured locker would leave her underwear and blouses alone. Through the long narrow window she watched two nuns parading along a gravel path, their heads bent as they said the rosary. She was jaded, tired, stretching herself out on top of the bed. Ignoring its hardness she pulled the quilted pink sateen over herself and slipped off her shoes; she needed to sleep.

  “Wake up! Wake up, missus!”

  For a second Esther forgot where she was, gaping at the young girl standing at the end of the bed.

  “Get up, missus! Else I’ll be murdered and we’ll miss our tea!”

  Esther tried to disguise her reaction to the huge swollen belly of the girl in front of her, who looked only about fourteen.

  “Tina’s my name and in case you haven’t noticed my baby’s due in about three weeks. When’s yours?”

  Esther couldn’t believe how matter-of-factly the girl had assumed her condition. It felt so strange not having to hide or disguise it any longer. Tina waited while she used the bathroom, fixed her hair and pulled on her shoes.

  “Hurry on!” she called, “they’ll all be waiting on us.”

  The dining room rang with the clatter of cups and saucers and plates, the low hum of women chattering coming to a standstill the minute she entered the room, all heads turning to see who she was, the noise then resuming. Tina led her to a table off in the far corner where a group of about six women sat, and pulled out a chair for her to sit on. They were all clad in the same dreary faded blue-grey overalls with a collection of different-coloured cardigans over them. Two of the women kept on eating, ignoring her.

  “Would you like a cup of tea, love?” enquired a motherly-looking middle-aged woman, pouring her out a cup of dark strong tea. It was so hot it nearly burnt her lip, but pretending to sip it gave her the opportunity to have a good look around her and get her bearings.

  The women and girls that sat in the refectory were all different ages, young, old, and many middle-aged. Downcast and broken, defiant, dispirited. How had so many women and girls ended up here? She couldn’t understand it. What sin had they committed to be sent here?

  “What would you like us to call you?” asked the woman.

  She must have looked puzzled, because the woman explained.

  “You don’t have to give us your real name if you don’t want to, we’re all entitled to our privacy. You may not want us to know your business, and naturally we’d respect that.”

  Esther hesitated. Nobody in Dublin knew her, sure there was no chance of any of them knowing her people. “It’s Esther,” she murmured, “really,” but she refrained from telling them her second name or where she was from.

  “Maura’s my name,” introduced the kindly grey-haired stranger, “Maura Morrissey.”

  Esther shook her hand, glad to know that she had at least one friend.

  “This is Rita, Sheila, Bernice, and Detta, and those two are Kathleen and Joan.”

  Rita was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, voluptuous beauty with full pouting lips, and Esther had no doubt that she had called herself after the film star Rita Hayworth. Who could tell what the other’s names were or were not?

  “Did you have much of a journey?” enquired Sheila.

  “Is it your first time in Dublin?” added Bernice.

  They were all curious about her, everyone listening to her, wondering why a country girl like herself had ended up coming to the city. She hedged her reply, telling them about the train journey but not saying where she had got on the train. They knew she was a country girl, that was something she couldn’t disguise no matter what she said. A slice of cooked tongue and white-streaked fatty ham lay on her plate. Helping herself to two slices of brown bread, she tried to eat, listening as they chatted among themselves. Copying Tina, she began to stack her plate and cup when she finished.

  “Prayers are at eight o’clock,” the old woman, Detta, reminded her.

  Tina joined her after tea, walking her along the long corridors, pointing out the nuns’ refectory, the kitchens, the parlour, the recreation room, the visitors’ parlour, the laundry corridor and the chapel. “You’ll get used to it, Esther, honest to God you will. I cried for the first few days I were brought in here, bawling like a baby, and now I feel like I’ve been here for years.”

  Esther sighed. She had no intention of getting used to the place, ever!

  Tina was very inquisitive about her condition and wanted to know every little detail, about how she’d met the baby’s father, and what he’d looked like, and how much she loved him. “Ah, go on and tell me, Esther! Cross my heart and hope to die I’ll never tell anyone else.”

  Esther doubted it.

  “Was he gorgeous, Esther?”

  Despite herself Esther blushed, thinking of Conor.

  “I knew it!” said Tina triumphantly.

  “Tina, will you leave the poor girl alone and not be bothering her?” warned Maura. “You should be saying your prayers and not gossiping!”

  Esther followed Tina and the rest of the women and girls into the candle-lit chapel for evening prayers. The brass candlesticks were golden in the gloom as the candles sent a warming glow around the room, highlighting the faces of the women as they knelt to pray.

  Tina whispered as the nuns filed in and sat in the carved seats that lined either side of the chapel walls: “That’s Sister Gabriel. She’s the boss; keep out of her way, Esther. She’s got the eyes of a hawk, never misses a thing.”

  Esther didn’t need telling; the nun had made a similar impression on her already. “There’s Sister Jo-Jo. She’s grand! Kind-hearted, she follows the Bible, love thy neighbour as you love thyself and all that, and there’s Sister Margaretta, Detta’s friend.”

  One of the middle-aged nuns glared over at Tina, who finally stopped talking as the recital of prayers began. Esther joined in the familiar litany as the sing-song rhythm of the women’s voices combined and filled the church. She tried to concentrate on the words, not wanting to cry in front of all these strangers. She should never have agreed to coming here, or let her mother force her into this. Carraig Beag and the wild shores of Connemara and everything she cared about suddenly seemed a million miles away from the cold grey walls of this bleak institution and these penitent women. She didn’t belong here!

  Chapter Sixteen

  Esther yawned her way through the early-morning mass, mumbling the Latin prayers mechanically, only managing a slice of brown bread and a cup of strong tea for breakfast, Tina shoving in beside her and eating the rest of the bread off her plate. “Sister Vincent will want you when you’re finished,” she warned. “She always does the hair!”

  Sister Vincent, a hatchet-faced nun, had called her into a small upstairs room, requesting her to sit on a chair. A large silver pair of scissors glinted as it hung from the belt around her waist.

  “You’ve lovely hair,” she murmured, fingering it.

  “Then don’t cut it, sister, please!” Esther pleaded. “I’ll tie it up, promise.”

  “Long hair can get stuck in the machinery here! Of course, for cleanliness and hygiene reasons, everyone has to get it cut, that’s the rule.” Ignoring her protests, the bloody old bitch of a nun dosed her hair in a foul-smelling liquid. Esther recognized it: her mother had used it when her brothers had come home from school with their heads crawling with lice. It stung her scalp, the fumes making her eyes water. “You’ve no scabies or worms have you?” demanded the nun as she combed the lotion through her hair.

  Insulted and angry, she didn’t trust herself to reply. What kind of girl did these nuns think she was? What kind of family did they imagine she came from! They were making assumptions and judgements about
her that were totally unfair, she thought bitterly.

  Taking her scissors, the nun began to clip away at her light brown curls till her hair barely reached beyond her ears. Esther watched as her hair feathered on to the linoleum below, wondering at the likelihood of her barber being bald under her nun’s headdress. Moving the comb through her hair, Sister Vincent parted it to the side before passing her three clips to pin it in place. The nun then reached into a cupboard, handing her out a clean overall and a rather limp-looking green cardigan. “You can run upstairs and change, then I’ll bring you down to the laundry, Esther.”

  Esther tried to mask her shame and anger until she reached the upstairs dormitory. Tears welled in her eyes when she caught a glimpse of herself in the cracked mirror in the corner near the wardrobe. She looked awful, almost as bad as she felt. Her dampened hair hung straight and limp; her eyes were huge and lost in her pasty face; the unflattering overall shift dress was geared to accommodate expanding waistlines and bulges, the dirty blue colour making her look even paler. Already she looked just the same as the rest of them.

  Heat and steam enveloped her the minute she stepped inside the laundry doors.

  “Leave your shoes out in the corridor,” Rita had advised her. “They’ll be soaked otherwise.”

  The laundry floor was soaking wet, water swirling across the tiles, running in lines down into the silver drain-holes that studded the floor. You had to walk extra slow and careful if you didn’t want to lose your footing.

  “Mind you don’t slip!” hissed Rita, who had tightened her dress with a narrow green belt so that it clung to her full breasts and curving stomach. She had given birth to a baby boy about six months before. She had called him Patrick.