Esther swallowed hard. Laundry days back home had been bad enough, washing all her brothers’ clothes—sweat-stained, reeking of fish guts, covered in grease or mud—but this washing for strangers was an entirely different thing.
“Over here, girl!”
Esther turned towards the voice. A small red-faced nun, bundled into a white apron and with her sleeves rolled up, gestured to her.
“Sister Josepha wants you,” whispered Rita. “You’d better go over to her!”
“You’re the new girl?” quizzed the nun, peering at her from top to toe. “A country girl, like myself. I always find the country girls better workers than the city girls; why, I don’t know.” Esther wasn’t sure if she was meant to make any comment on this and just smiled, not wanting to antagonize her workmates.
“This laundry not only serves our own religious community and our orphanage,” Sister Josepha informed her, “but the local hospital, two boarding schools, a number of hotels and guest houses and four of the best restaurants in the city, along with a large number of loyal clients, so you see there’s plenty of jobs to be done.”
She began to explain all the intricacies of running a laundry, walking from one section to another, the noise of the heavy machines and running water almost drowning out her voice. “This is the sorting area, where the baskets come first, and we check off the wash list. There’s a card or a book for everyone, so we can manage the ins and outs and special orders. The baskets are stacked there. Through here is the main washroom. Those machines are for washing large quantities of soiled goods; that wall of sinks is for soaking, handwashing, rinsing, delicates. This is the drying room, there’s the machine, the racks, the mangles and of course if the weather’s good a door to go outside to the washing lines. Over there we’ve the steam room, the pressing-benches and the ironing room.” The small nun was all excited, pointing in every direction, presuming that Esther had understood everything.
“For today I’m going to start you over at the baskets with Sheila, she’ll show you the ropes.”
Pulling on a long white apron, Esther was glad to be working with the ginger-haired girl with the husky voice whom she already had met. Some of the women seemed sullen and uncommunicative; they had no interest in talking to anyone and avoided your eyes. Sheila squeezed her hand as they opened one heavy wicker basket after another. Each one had to be unpacked, the list checked and the clothes sorted and separated ready for washing, in the huge machines or by hand. They mostly worked in silence. It was such a strange feeling, rooting around, up to her elbows in other people’s clothing, sheets, pillow-cases and towels. Her back and arms ached from all the bending and stretching. Sister Josepha walked up and down past her a few times, obviously checking that she was working.
They broke mid-morning for a cup of tea that was served by Tina and another young girl. Sheila urged her to go outside and sit on a bench to get a bit of fresh air and cool down. She felt hot and tired. Here she was, years younger than some of the women, and she was exhausted already! She watched as the laundry vans arrived and the drivers dragged the baskets inside. She wondered what her mother was doing back home now. She used to love the sight of the clothes line full of washing, blowing in the breeze coming in off the ocean, and all their clothes smelling of sea. They could do with a bit of that here. Wiping the sweat off her face, she went back inside.
More baskets had arrived and Sheila was working away. At midday the angelus sounded and everyone stopped what they were doing, the nun leading them in prayer. This was also the signal for lunch and they all trooped back up to the dining room.
Sitting at the same table, she was almost too tired to talk to the others. They were served vivid-pink corned beef and pale watery cabbage. She pushed a jelly-like piece of fat to one side of her plate and cut up a potato instead.
“Bleedin’ eat your meat!” whispered Tina.
“I can’t! I’d be sick!”
Tina put her head down, concentrating on her own plate, devouring every mouthful. Sister Gabriel paraded up and down the room, her heavy skirt trailing along the floor, eyes intent, watching who was eating and who was not. She came down and stood between them. “Esther, you must remember that your child needs nourishment. You must eat for the sake of your baby, and it’s a sin to waste good food!”
“Yes, sister.”
The nun stood at the end of the table watching her, all conversation around ceasing. She knew by the uncomfortable expression on the other women’s faces that they were silently warning her not to have a showdown with the nun, as she would only be the loser. Totally nauseated, she swallowed her pride and ate the vile lump of jellied fat, disguising it in a layer of soapy potato, the other women watching her. Satisfied, the nun moved away, leaving her in peace.
“Good food, my arse!” muttered Bernice, who’d spent her break searching the stinking kitchen bins for something to eat. Like the rest of the penitents, she was often hungry.
The only good thing about being here was that at last she could talk about the baby, mention its existence; she didn’t have to pretend she was not pregnant. Here the women and nuns accepted her condition, it was not a secret like it had been at home. This was a relief in itself, for she could not have hidden her growing child much longer. At least a dozen of the women that she’d seen working in the laundry were in a similar condition to herself. All the women worked so hard, it was as if they were being punished. It was bloody awful work too, with arms and legs and backs aching, standing in suds and water, eyes stinging from the bleach; still none of them complained. “The sisters took us in when nobody, not even one of our own, would have us,” Sheila had confided. “Sure we can’t begrudge them making us work to earn our keep!”
That night Esther cried and cried, trying to muffle the sound so as not to disturb the others in the dormitory. She hated the laundry and the work and everything about the Holy Saints Magdalen Home for Wayward Girls and Fallen Women. She could hear the exhausted snores of the women and girls as they tossed and turned in their sleep, some muttering the odd disjointed word, others grinding their teeth as hour crawled into miserable hour.
“Here’s a hanky for you, child.”
Esther started. It was the old woman called Detta, from the bed beside her. She was standing at the right-hand side, her white hair loose and streaming around her shoulders, in a voluminous pink nightie, her scrawny chicken-like legs sticking out beneath.
“Have a good blow!”
“I’m sorry for waking you,” sniffed Esther.
“That don’t matter, I don’t need as much sleep as I used to, and the old bladder is weak so I’m up and down to the toilet all night.”
The old woman peered over at her.
“Funny, I hadn’t reckoned on you being one of them cry-baby types.”
“I’m not!” denied Esther.
“Well, it does no good to be upsetting yourself and your baby like this.”
Esther raised herself up on her elbows, moving the lumpy pillow behind her, leaning forward to see Detta better as she’d slipped back into her own bed.
“The first few nights are always the hardest; the new girls always weep on their first few nights here,” declared Detta matter-of-factly. “Leaving your home and family is enough to make anyone cry. I’m sure I cried when I came here first too.”
“How long ago was that, Detta?” she asked, curious.
“Too long, child! Far too long. Almost fifty years I suppose.”
“Nearly fifty years!”
“Aye, it must be that since my baby was given up and I’ve been doing my penance here ever since.”
“Why didn’t you ever go home, or get out of here?”
“You’re nearly as bad as Sister Margaretta, child. She was always on at me to go out and make a fresh start and put the past behind me, till in the end she gave up on me. I’d had my baby, given her up. She went to a good family. You’re not supposed to know, but Margaretta told me: he’s a doctor. They live in a big house no
t too far from here. My daughter was sent to the best schools, educated. I used to think about her a lot, wonder what she was doing. My daughter, just imagine it! I didn’t need to be out in the world. She was out there. Do ye understand, Esther?”
“Of course I do,” she said softly.
“My father was a strict man; he threw me out of the house, locked the doors and refused to let me in. He wouldn’t listen to my mother or my sister Eileen. He disowned me, said that I was no daughter of his anymore. Just imagine!”
Esther didn’t need to, as it reminded her of her own mother’s reaction to her pregnancy. “Were you in love, Detta?”
“I’m not sure now, looking back, that love came into it at all,” chuckled the old woman. “Charley was a handsome devil, home on leave from the Royal Navy. We lived down in Cobh. I used to love watching the big ships and liners coming in and out. Charley was very attractive, and all the girls were mad about him. He’d travelled the world and he made me feel very grown-up and clever. I was always a bit giddy and wild and one night we went to this big party that one of his friends was having. I got tipsy and Charley offered to walk me home. We made a detour at his lodgings. All I wanted to do was sleep, well, sleep my eye!”
Esther burst out laughing.
“I know, I was such an eejit, but he was that gorgeous I couldn’t resist him. I saw him every day and night for the next three weeks before his leave was up. Then he went back to his ship in Southampton and I ended up here. He came back to Cobh about two years later; my sister thought he might have been looking for me. He never knew about the baby, there was no point telling him. Went to live in South Africa then. I wouldn’t have fancied living out foreign. Never set eyes on him again!”
“That’s awful!” Esther sighed.
“‘Twas my own fault, Esther. Funny, but when I came here I felt safe. Sister Margaretta had just joined the order and she was always kind to me. I didn’t mind the work and I liked being with the other women. I’d be no good on my own. Where would I have gone if I went back outside? My father, Lord rest him, never changed his mind and I’d no place to go. Things were harder for women in those days, so I decided to stay here. My sister Eileen always brought me news from outside. I was a sinner but the good Lord forgave me, and I know I have done my penance.”
Appalled, Esther couldn’t believe how anyone would stay so long in this prison-like home of shame and sorrow, hidden away from the world. It didn’t bear thinking about—and yet Detta seemed contented and at peace with herself. Listening to the old woman eventually falling asleep and snoring lightly, Esther vowed that nothing like that was ever going to happen to her. She was not prepared to give up on life and stay locked away.
Chapter Seventeen
“The Maggies” worked long and hard, toiling like slaves of old, washing load after load of soiled laundry. “We’re washing away our sins!” jeered Rita, twirling a sudsy pair of men’s underpants in the air.
Esther’s ears grew used to the sound of gushing, rushing water, pumped up from the river that ran close to the convent grounds, filling the huge heavy machines and stone sinks. Her eyes became accustomed to soap, bleach, and steam, her hands to scalding water and itching and peeling, her body to perspiration. Her heart became used to the disparaging remarks and stares of the customers who sometimes called to deliver their own laundry baskets.
“They’re all little sluts, locked away for their own good!” she’d heard a beautiful girl of about her own age sneer. The others had long since stopped complaining, and she knew that she must harden her heart and follow their example and accept working in the laundry.
The nuns called them “the penitents.” Esther could see how the nuns considered those that had babies out of wedlock to be fallen women, but what about the two or three retarded girls who never did harm to anyone, or the women who were slightly simple or troublesome and had been abandoned by their families, or the orphaned girls raised in the convent’s orphanage next door, what did they all do to deserve being called “Magdalens”?
“If you read the Bible, I tell you, girls, Jesus loved Mary “the Magdalen.” He forgave her all her past sins and she was the only woman in the Bible other than his beloved mother that was close to him,” insisted Detta, who read the thick brown leather-covered Bible every morning and night. They all took comfort in that.
Esther was glad of Tina. The younger girl, with her huge eyes and mouthful of rabbit teeth, made her laugh, and had a constant stream of jokes, some of them filthy. She never stopped talking in her broad Dublin accent, the words tumbling out in a rush, Esther straining to understand her.
“My Mammy did this … My Mammy said that …” Tina had confided in her that her mother had died a few years earlier, and that much like Esther she’d been helping to raise her small sisters and brother. It was funny, but when Esther asked her about her baby’s father, she would only say, “That’s my secret, Esther!”
Esther knew that Tina was nervous about the impending birth of the baby. “I just want it over with, Esther. The nuns can take this poor little beggar and look after him. The poor sod deserves better than me!”
Two of the other girls, with their hair shorn close to their scalps, had been transferred to the laundry from the orphanage which lay at the far end of the Holy Saints Sisters’ grounds. Saranne and Helen reminded Esther of two scared mice who hadn’t a clue what to do. “Don’t trust them!” warned Tina. “They’re bleeding spies for the nuns.”
Sometimes Tina and herself and the rest of the Maggies sang, their voices in harmony: well-loved tunes, old ballads and even hymns. Before her time the women had begged Sister Gabriel for a wireless, so that music could fill their heads. “Let me remind you, ladies, that you are not here to listen to the wireless!” she’d stated sternly. “That is not your purpose here!”
“Old cow!” complained Rita.
“Not for one bloody minute will she ever let us forget why we are here,” murmured Sheila.
“She wants us to be treated like we are in hell for our sins,” added Bernice angrily, “well, purgatory anyways!”
Sister Josepha was more accommodating, and turned a deaf ear when Rita or Bernice or any of the women started singing and the rest joined in. “The Lord gave humans a voice, so singing must be good for the spirit.” She’d smile.
The soul and spirit were well looked after, Esther could vouch for that. Her knees were worn with kneeling in a cramped pew in the chapel for the early-morning mass, her stomach rumbling with hunger and almost weak with the want of a cup of tea; then there were prayers at the angelus, more prayers after tea and some nights the evening vigil. She didn’t know how the nuns managed to say so many prayers. Esther often sat silent, watching them, wondering how they could believe. Some days she felt God had deserted her, abandoned her, used her the way that Con had, and now cast her aside.
Sister Jo-Jo said that God loved each and every one of them; to be honest Esther could see little sign of it. Mary Magdalen herself would have had a hard time in a place like this. At night, lying in her strange bed, dropping with exhaustion, her muscles aching, she still found it hard to sleep. The child was growing inside her, kicking against the shell of her stomach, stretching it, pushing on her bladder, making her want to wee. The baby was leeching energy from her, hungrily using her blood and bone to grow. At night when the others slept and the sound of snores and farting filled the room, she talked to her baby, whispering to it, trying not to think of what lay ahead for both of them.
“Wake up! Tina’s having her baby!”
Esther stirred in her bed, lost in the dim world of a dream where Nonie still lived and laughed.
“Someone put on the light, for heaven’s sake!”
Within minutes it seemed that the whole dormitory was awake, involved in the young girl’s labour.
“Are you all right, lovey?” fussed Maura Morrissey, going over to her.
“It hurts, Maura! Jesus, it hurts! Me bed is all wet too!”
“Th
at’s just your waters, lovey, just a sign that the baby’s coming.”
“I’m scared, Maura!”
Tina grabbed at Maura’s hand as if she was never going to let it go. Maura was the kind of woman all the others instinctively turned to for help and assurance. She was always sensible and even-tempered, and calmed the young girl down, reminding her to save her energy for when she needed it to birth her baby. Esther lowered herself out of bed and felt around for the fifteen-year-old’s slippers, pushing them under her narrow feet. Tina’s eyes were jumping out of her head, and through her thin winceyette nightdress they could see her belly tighten with each contraction.
“I’ll go and get Sister Gabriel,” offered Rita, throwing back her blankets.
“Come on, Tina lovey! Out of bed and try to walk a bit, it’ll help your labour along,” urged Maura. They all watched as the teenage girl walked painfully up and down the room. Every few minutes she had to stop and lean against one of the beds as a fresh contraction grabbed her.
“I’m scared, Maura,” she wailed. “The baby’s not due for another few days.”
“Babies come when they’re ready, lovey. Your baby has decided now’s the time, that’s all!”
Tina was finding the pain almost unbearable, and they all took it in turns to encourage and praise her.
“Good girl!”
“You’re doing great, Tina, honest!”
“The baby’ll be born soon!”
Detta had produced a small bottle of holy water from inside her locker and sprinkled it liberally over the young mother-to-be. “God bless and protect you and your child.”
Rita, hair flying and face gleaming from the cold cream she smothered it in, returned with Sister Gabriel in tow. The nun must have pulled her habit on over her nightdress in her rush to come up to them. Annoyance filled her face as soon as she saw Tina and the state she had got herself into. “You strip that bed of hers, Maura. I’ll take charge of Tina now.”
The Magdalen Page 14
