The Magdalen

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  Sundays were their only day off. She thanked God that the nuns kept it as a day of rest and prayer. There was the usual early-morning mass, and for the rest of the day the penitents were expected to pray and read the Bible and reflect on their errors and wrongdoings. Sister Margaretta held a prayer group in the afternoon which Detta and a few of the older women attended. Rita and Bernice and the rest of them were happy to just put their feet up and doze. Some of the Maggies were lucky enough to go outside for a monthly afternoon visit with friends or family.

  Since Esther knew nobody in the city she was content to be left to her own devices, taking the opportunity to get out of the harsh convent and laundry buildings and walk in the fresh air, in the sprawling grounds that enclosed the laundry, the mother-and-baby home, and the orphanage. Esther thought of the poor girls, like Helen, who had been born in the home and raised in the orphanage, and had never known a family, and then just when they were ready to grow up and leave were sent into the laundry to work. What chance did they ever have of a normal life?

  Walking along the gravel paths, passing the wide beds now bearing only a few dusky rose-hips and fading purple, orange and wine-coloured chrysanthemums, she could see the first tips of snowdrops pushing through the frost-hardened earth. Ignoring her, one of the nuns walked along the Rosary Walk, head bowed, lost in meditation. The penitents were not allowed to venture up the stone steps that led to the winding walkway that symbolized the decades of the rosary, though it ended at the stone grotto of Our Lady, where all were welcome to pray. Sister Vincent prayed silently, barely acknowledging Esther’s presence as they passed each other.

  Esther turned down by the nuns’ graveyard and out towards the side of the gardens where a bare, overgrown orchard gave way to the riverbank. The water ran fast and deep and wide after all the rain of the past few weeks. It fed the laundry, and the remains of an old watermill straddled it. The cold fresh air invigorated her, awakening her from the constant sluggishness she normally felt. In the distance she could see groups of people passing to mass, noticing how the children stared at her and the adults ignored her. At the far corner of the north wall stood the Holy Saints Orphans’ Home, almost a quarter-mile from the main convent. She was curious to see it, wondering if that was where her baby would end up. There was little contact between the institutions, except in the delivering of laundry. Perhaps some of the children being raised there were the offspring of the Magdalens. Rita’s baby Patrick was in the nursery there. Esther knew that if she were Rita it would break her heart to have her child so close and yet so distant. At times when the air was still you could hear the orphans singing or playing out in the yard, the boys kicking a football, the girls skipping or playing hopscotch. How did the mothers stand it? She hoped the nuns were kinder to the orphans than they were to the Maggies, though judging from stories she’d heard from Saranne and Helen, who’d been raised there, the children of sinners fared almost as badly as their mothers.

  She was glad to have grown up in the country, where the wide-open spaces of Connemara were filled with nothing but sea and sky. The Dublin air smelt of soot and smoke; some days it would near choke you! Oh, how she missed the tang of the salt air that blew in off the Atlantic Ocean! She didn’t know how the city people stuck it, living so close together. Imagine being able to hear your neighbour cough or swear or worse. The houses and flats drab and dreary and grey, all crowded together. The children playing in grey streets. Sometimes Esther found that the whole grimness of the place was driving her crazy. The constant laundry work was exhausting, even for a strong girl like herself, and she could see that it had taken its toll on some of the women, wearing them down, breaking their bodies and minds.

  Having grown up in a house full of boys and young men, she had begun to realize just how much she liked the company of the Maggies, laughing at their jokes, listening to their stories, often working in silence together or sitting at long masses and rosaries, sharing the rhythm and routine of the laundry and its work. Rita and Bernice entertained them, telling exaggerated tales of their romances and expressing their opinions of men. “Every girl in this place is here because of sex!” declared Rita. “We all love it, are mad for it, man-bloody-mad!”

  “Speak for yourself!” jeered Kathleen. “We don’t all have a filthy mind like you!”

  Esther never mentioned Conor. It pained her too much to think of him and Nuala McGuinness. It was a pain she reckoned would never leave her.

  Few of the women in the laundry went outside. Their skin had developed a pale white sheen, as if all the colour had been bleached from their flesh, which she supposed came from a lack of sunlight and fresh air. She would die without such things. She hated the sense of being closed in, locked away. It was as if she were in prison, and would not be released until after this child was born. How she longed for that day!

  Her baby was growing at such a rate. Her belly was getting huge and she had constant backache. She was tired too, sometimes almost falling asleep in the afternoon, the heat and steam making her drowsy. The baby was tired too, she could tell. It kicked forlornly on and off. Maura had shown her a book that Sister Gabriel had. There were drawings of a woman’s stomach and what happened as the baby grew inside. She loved the drawing of a baby, curled up, sucking its thumb, and wondered if her baby did such a thing. Poor wee tired baby, sucking its thumb!

  A doctor had come to the convent. He had volunteered to examine any expectant mothers, and they were given the time to go up and see him. He was a gruff-looking grey-haired man with nicotine-stained fingers which he spread across the mound of her vulva and stomach as he checked the position and size of the baby. He pulled down her eyelids and checked her legs and ankles. So much for that! “You are anaemic-looking and the baby is a bit small,” was all he said.

  Bernice pranced in after her, looking for all the world like a big pod ready to explode, and Esther wondered what the doctor would have to say about that.

  Liver! That’s what the stupid doctor had insisted she eat. The smell and very look of it revolted her. It reminded her of when she was a little girl and her daddy used to take herself and the boys into Galway of a market day. All the poor cattle would be herded up the street and down one of the narrow lanes to be butchered, the whole street smelling of the animals’ blood and dung and fear. Ina would bring it over to the table to her on a special plate, the smell alone making her want to vomit, Bernice and Sheila and Rita jeering her about it.

  “Lovely liver, Esther! Will we get Ina to cook you another slice or two of it!”

  “Don’t mind them, lovey,” consoled Detta. “Think of the good it will do you and your baby.”

  “I bet you all the new mothers up in that fancy private nursing home, Stella Maris, are eating the very same thing fried with onions and butter,” said Maura, being kind to her.

  The liver looked and tasted like old brown shoe leather, and she had to force herself to swallow it, as she knew Sister Gabriel was watching. Once, it had been served so undercooked that it felt like a mouthful of blood, and she’d made a run to the toilet before vomiting.

  Esther thought of refusing it, but Maura had told her that Carmel Dunne had tried that a few years ago and Sister Gabriel had made Ina serve her with nothing but dry bread until she got her appetite back. Since Esther was always starving, she wasn’t prepared to go hungry over it. The food was atrocious, the meat often tainted, the bread mouldy and even the breakfast porridge cold and lumpy by the time they got it. Esther often went hungry, tempted to join a few of the girls who rooted through the kitchen bins for scraps.

  “How that old rip Ina Brady is let run the kitchen is beyond me!” complained Rita.

  “Our food is like slops, only fit for pigs.”

  “Don’t be blaming poor Ina,” protested Detta. “She only cooks what they tell her and what is provided.”

  They all knew how hard they worked and the long hours they endured and how busy the laundry had become, yet so little of the money they earned seemed
to find its way back to provide comfort and care for them, the Magdalens.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Where’s that Rita one got to?” enquired Sister Josepha angrily. “Have you seen her, Esther?”

  “No, Sister.”

  “Well, will you go and have a look for her!” she ordered crossly. “I haven’t seen her for an hour. She’s up to no good, that one!”

  Esther set down the basket of wet sheets and walked across the centre part of the laundry. Rita was nowhere near the rows of white enamel sinks or the huge steel machines and heavy iron mangles. The Maggies were engrossed in work, and none had seen Rita. Perhaps she was out in the sorting room or the delivery area. A sixth sense guided Esther towards the laundry yard, where the vans were delivering their Tuesday load.

  “Morning, love!” chorused the men as she passed. Esther spotted Jim Murray and a lad of about fifteen carrying the huge baskets from the boys’ school in Blackrock. “Morning, Esther! That’s a cold one!” Jim Murray always made a point of saying hello to the Maggies, unlike most of the other delivery men, who ignored them or sneered at them. She supposed it was because he was older, about thirty-five or so, and had a family of his own.

  “Have you seen Rita? Sister Josepha wants her.”

  The van driver seemed to hesitate. “You could try over by that storeroom on the right, but you know you shouldn’t be out in the yard without a coat or something warm. You’ll get a chill.”

  She smiled at his kindness in worrying about her.

  The yard was icy as she crossed the cobbles, and she pulled her cardigan round her, moving awkwardly, silently cursing Rita. It would be her fault if she fell! “Rita! Rita!” she yelled as she approached the pebbledashed storeroom. The door was closed, the narrow window too grimy to see through. The wooden door pushed in easily, at least it was a bit warmer inside. Battered baskets with gaping holes, rotten and mildewed, were stockpiled in one corner. Rusting clothes mangles, broken ironing boards and leaking tin buckets covered the floor area. There was someone else inside, she could sense it. Down the very back of the room Rita was clutching Paul, one of the van drivers, to her. He was breathing heavily, his trouser belt loose, his buttons open. The two of them were at it. Rita’s overall skirt was hitched up around her hips, her knickers thrown on the ground, as Paul pulled her on to him, sliding himself easily into that dark-covered patch between her legs. Mortified, she watched as Paul, the handsomest and sexiest of the drivers, pushed into her friend, who was groaning aloud with pleasure, egging him on.

  Esther stumbled noisily back towards the door. Rita must be stark raving mad! What if one of the nuns had come along and caught her in the act? The lovers were finishing up. Deliberately she made some noise, kicking at one of the buckets.

  “Christ! There’s someone there!”

  Paul pushed past her, busy tucking in his shirt and fixing his trousers. Rita stayed inside, sitting on one of the baskets, lighting up a cigarette that Paul had left her. “I’m having a smoke, Esther, if it’s any concern of yours!”

  “Are you gone mad, Rita? Sister Jo-Jo could have been the one that walked in on the two of you! She sent me to look for you. What would you have done if she’d caught you?”

  Rita shrugged, inhaling the cigarette smoke deeply. “She’d have seen something that she ain’t seen before,” she chuckled, “wouldn’t she?”

  “I think you’re crazy! Do you love that fellah?”

  Rita spluttered with laughter. “Love! That’s nothing at all to do with it! He’s just a man who wanted a good fuck and I gave it to him. Once a week I come out here and we have a good time.”

  “But why?”

  “‘Cos I do, that’s why! He makes me feel good and he brings me packets of ciggies and sometimes a baby bottle of whiskey or gin. We have fun, a bit of a ride, and it’s nobody’s bloody business!”

  “What if you end up having another baby? Or if the nuns find out!”

  “Patrick’s my baby, Esther! You know how much I love him. Anyways Paul uses a rubber.”

  Esther couldn’t think what to say. Rita was so beautiful and sexy, men were bound to fall for her and want to have sex with her. She was embarrassed discussing such things, even with someone as brazen and outspoken as Rita.

  “Do you want a smoke? Though I suppose you’d better not, Esther, till after the baby. I tried to give them up when I was carrying Patrick, but I had to have one every now and then. The same goes for fucking, some days I just have to do it, d’ya know what I mean? You must have felt the same way about your fellah!”

  Esther blazed: “I loved Con! That was totally different!”

  “If you say so! Though your fellah obviously didn’t bother using a rubber,” giggled Rita, “or you wouldn’t be stuck in this kip with the rest of us.”

  “Conor loved me!” she tried convincing herself, realizing how little she knew about the boyfriend who had fathered her child. Sex and physical attraction had been the main ingredients of their relationship.

  “Well, whatever you call it, Esther, we’re all only human. That’s what landed most of us in here. It’s only the nuns and halfwits that don’t understand the whole man-woman thing. It’s just that I’m more honest than the rest of you.” Finishing her cigarette, Rita bent to retrieve her knickers, fixing her overall as if nothing had happened, Esther realizing just how coarse her friend could be.

  “Well, what does Jo-Jo want me for anyways?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Two or three of the drivers whistled as the girls appeared outside, Rita tossing back her mane of black hair and strutting like Marilyn Monroe. Esther was furious with her.

  “See ya, boys!” Rita called, crossing the yard. “Don’t look so shocked, Esther! They’re only a crowd of men.”

  Sister Josepha was waiting at the door. “Don’t give me any of your cheek, Rita. I’m not interested! Where were you? I’m waiting an age to get heavy pressing done and I’m fed up of you skiving off and leaving others to do your work. You’re lazy out!”

  Esther watched the nun. She was in bad humour and gave out sharply to Rita. “This afternoon I’m reporting you to the Mother Superior.” She turned to Esther. “There’s a pile of restaurant linen that needs starching, Esther, you can attend to that!”

  Esther watched as Rita followed the nun upstairs to the office. It was so strange that on her own Rita was the best in the world, but when men came into it she utterly changed.

  “Get off!” screamed Sheila. “Get her off me!”

  The two women rolled around in the narrow corridor outside the laundry.

  Rita had grabbed Sheila by her short ginger hair and was all but swinging out of her.

  “Mind your own shagging business in the future, Miss Know-it-all. You got me into trouble with Jo-Jo today and I ended up being hauled up in front of Gabriel too.”

  “I did nothing!” screamed Sheila. “I only asked Jo-Jo if someone could help me with some pressing.”

  “You sent a bleeding search party out for me!”

  “Why, where were you anyways?” The other girl smirked.

  Rita let go of her hair, shoving her towards the others as she turned to walk away.

  “She were with a fellah,” jeered Kathleen. “I saw them out in the yard.”

  “Up to her usual tricks.”

  “Take that back!”

  “Why? I bet it’s the truth! Everyone here knows what you are.”

  “Go on then!” screeched Rita, grabbing at Sheila again, almost tugging the hair from her scalp.

  “You’re on the game! You’re a bloody slut and everybody knows it!”

  “How dare you, you ginger-haired bitch!”

  “Men pay you to have sex with them! It’s filthy and disgusting!”

  “Listen to Miss High-and-mighty. She couldn’t get it quick enough herself, had to get a train up to Belfast after the American soldier boy, a right Yankee-doodle-dandy. He gave you that and all, your Yankee soldier, before he pissed off back to his
wife in Alabama or Texas or wherever he was from!”

  “You shagging tart! It wasn’t like that, it was a wartime romance. His unit was posted here during the Emergency. He was a good man, handsome, kind, ’twas nobody’s fault that he were posted overseas. He was a soldier, and he had to follow orders. We loved each other, but it was just the war, everything was different then.”

  “Leave her be, Rita!” cautioned Bernice.

  “At least I get paid when I drop my drawers,” jeered Rita. “I’m not stupid, like some—”

  “Ah, will ya stop that fighting the two of you!” pleaded Detta. “You’re getting on my nerves! Everyone in this place has got secrets and there’s no use going around calling each other bad names! It doesn’t do one darned bit of good! We are all doing our penance as it is.”

  Esther agreed with Detta, and tried hard not to be judgemental, no matter what she heard or saw. After all, she was in no position to look down on anyone or call them names. The Maggies were all here for the same reason. No one else gave a damn about them.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The dark green van drew up outside in the cobbled yard.

  Stretching her arms and shoulders and rising from the narrow window seat, Esther ran out to open the door for the driver. Damp clung to the windows as outside it was a freezing cold December morning. The man’s breath came in cloudy patches as he heaved the huge baskets inside, one after another, counting them. “‘Tis a full load today!” he called.

  “Aye, so I see.”

  “They’re all starting to get ready for Christmas; it’s almost as bad as spring cleaning!”