The Woman's Daughter

by Dermot Bolger

  And then, as though the very grass and the gnarled trunk were speaking to me, I knew that I could simply not give in. It was as if the swirling water and the clay there had a spirit of their own that was giving me back my strength. I realized that all those sins were not sins, that Christ hadn’t come forth from the wall, that the only sin was the sin of abandoning you dead or alive, in that old newspaper on the step of the church. And I knew that I loved you because you were the only thing left to me in the world. I knew that I would never abandon you as I had been abandoned, that you would never go through the ordeals that had been mine. You’re all I have, child. You’re all I’ve ever cared for.

  The blare of loudspeakers in the summer evening. The host is carried past by the priests in full dress. Young men of the FCA march behind with empty rifles in a guard of honour. And behind them the Scouts and the Cubs, the Guides and the Little Flowers of Mary in white dresses. And then the schoolchildren, class by class with the parents behind.

  Each house is decked with bunting and a tricolour hangs from a neighbour’s window. Pictures of the Sacred Heart watch from behind scrubbed panes as people stand at the gates to give back the responses to the prayers the priest intones into the loudspeaker.

  One house has no bunting, no picture. The curtains are pulled shut. The baby’s lips stop suckling and slowly the girl prises them from her nipple. Her blouse still open, she cuddles the child to her skin in the curtained twilight. The metallic voice from outside fills the room, like the voices of the German soldiers surrounding the castle in the film Johnny had once taken her to see in the Casino. She shivers and moves her fingers gently to cover the baby’s mouth.

  This was not the way I meant it to happen, you know, but who could I turn to? I dragged myself to work for the first week, feeling that every eye in the place was watching me, that every person knew. I would run up the street praying you were not crying and I could see the neighbours standing in their doorways. One evening Mrs Whelan said, ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Sandra, is anything the matter?’ I almost pushed her off the pavement and ran inside.

  I wrote to Johnny in England, care of the factory where somebody said their brother had seen him working. I told him the whole story. I kept thinking I don’t need to tell them, Johnny will be here soon and he’ll take us away. We’ll live somewhere in England as man and wife. Oh, I was so stupid. It was like thinking that Mammy would come back from the grave.

  At the end of the week, I stopped working for fear you would be found. I cancelled the milk and the bread and answered the door to nobody. I lived on white bread and tea to conserve money to buy the things you needed, and I’d walk to town to get them for fear of being seen purchasing them locally.

  I slept holding you in my arms, afraid to move in case I would crush you, and whenever I blacked out into sleep, I would have the same dream. Officials hammering on the door searching for you, with the neighbours watching from their gardens, saying ‘This is a respectable street, we don’t want her sort living here.’ And Sister Carmel coming up the stairs in her black hood to carry you away to the orphanage.

  You were a few weeks old now and I imagined the police coming, being taken away in a squad car for not reporting your birth. The endless questioning in the cold room and two English policemen calling one morning to Johnny’s digs to arrest him. My mother’s face seemed to hover sadly above the bed saying, ‘You’re holding me back with your pain. I will never get to Heaven unless you let go.’

  Then one night you cried for hours even though I almost smothered you with a pillow to try and drown it. I was starving with the hunger and felt suicidal. You had a fever and were shaking and finally I ran out through the streets to hammer on Mrs Whelan’s door. The trucks from Meath swept past, catching me in their headlights. She came down in her nightdress and opened the door a fraction to look at me standing on the path staring wildly at her. I wanted to tell her. I knew that I couldn’t carry on alone. But I didn’t know how to say the words. I was an outcast and knew that I would be held to blame.

  ‘What’s wrong, Sandra?’ she said, and I just turned around and ran away from her, ignoring her voice as she called after me. I kept circling the block, afraid to go back and see you dead. I finally stopped outside the house and listened. There was no sound from within and I was sure that you had died. I climbed up the stairs slowly, I don’t know what I expected to find. All I could think of was Daddy’s spade in the shed and would I be strong enough to use it?

  You were sleeping peacefully with all trace of your fever gone. I climbed in beside you and for the first time since you were born I allowed myself to cry, on and on silently till the pillowcase was saturated by the time dawn broke along the grey street outside.

  Sir,

  Further to our letter of last month, we wish to repeat to you that we believe Sandra O’Connor to have given birth to a child in her own home. We have heard the child crying from outside on a number of occasions and as neighbours, we have tried to approach Sandra several times. She doesn’t appear to work any more and refuses to open the door to anyone. The curtains in her house are closed at all times and as we have not heard the child crying now for several weeks, we are most anxious for its safety. As far as we can understand, you have taken no action in response to our two previous letters. Let us remind you that this is a Corporation house and that you do have responsibilities for what happens within it.

  Yours sincerely,

  Joseph & Maire Flaherty.

  Eventually I had to find a new job, of course. There was no money left and I used to walk into town and steal cans of baby food from the big stores, until one day I was caught by a guard in a uniform. I bit into his hand till the blood ran and when he let go, I dashed through the crowd of people and he lost me in the street.

  You were such a quiet child. It seemed as if you knew that your life had to be a secret between us. I put you down on the floor and you learnt to crawl and to laugh and clap your hands when I made funny faces. And then one day you said Mammy and were so delighted with yourself that you repeated the word over and over for hours. It was the only word you ever spoke and after a time you even stopped saying that. I would spend hours bending over you saying baby words and funny talk and you would only stare back at me with big bewildered eyes and then look past as if there was somebody else in the room. The smell was what I hated most in those days. The rows and rows of nappies I was unable to hang outside, always dripping from the rail in the kitchen, their scent filling up the house.

  A new factory opened and I was taken on. I stayed up with you the whole night before I began, playing and laughing so you would be asleep for the time I was away. And then I came home exhausted after the first day and sat up with you again till dawn that night and every other until I discovered that you didn’t mind being left on your own. You sat there on the floor ignoring the few toys I put around you and stared off into space as I put on my coat and warned you to stay quiet. And in the evening when I came home you’d be sitting there almost as though you hadn’t moved since the time I left. And you know, you’ve never changed, you’ve just grown.

  You’re a woman now and you still sit there day after day without speaking. I know you can speak! I know! I’ve heard noises when I’ve stood outside, Stony Bother, Scrubby Meadow, Shallon, names of nowhere, things I didn’t teach you. You cried and you once said Mammy, therefore you have a voice which you won’t use and you won’t use it so as just to torment me, just to keep me alone and out of your world. It’s spite! It’s your way of getting back at me. I know! Speak to me! Speak to me, you little bitch! I’ve given up my life for you! How could I let you out now, how could you live without me? Bitch! I’m going to shake you until you speak, I’m going to pinch you and beat you. Stop staring at me! I’m coming for you now! Don’t think you can get away. I’ll make you talk yet!

  johnny johnny sing for me, make the coat-hangers play: shake the plates around the house and make mammy go away. johnny johnny is my friend, he wi
ll come out to sing, when mammy goes off to work and thinks she has locked me in. johnny johnny can’t feel you, just this tearing, tearing pain: throw open the doors of the press, make the room glow again. can feel her hands crashing off my skull, come out johnny johnny and prove your love. slam that door which shouldn’t be ajar, i dread the light coming from the stairs. want to be alone with you in the dark, where johnny johnny we could talk and talk. she dragging my hair into a knot, don’t keep your place or i’ll be caught. knock over the wardrobe, shake the grate: save me johnny johnny before it is too late.

  My God, I never meant to hurt you. I often wonder how you’re still breathing at times. I’ll stop now, look I won’t touch you. I’ll never hit you again. Can’t you see you make me angry? Why don’t you reach out to me? Sometimes, we’re like strangers. Here, I’ll help you into bed and fix the blankets for you. No? Well stay there so.

  You know, it’s strange how those first days when I did nothing stretched into years. I always thought that something would happen. It couldn’t just go on, world without end, forever. But Johnny never returned for us, and we merely grew here, inward and stupid, watching each night turn into morning, like a string of hard beads I kept running blindly through my fingers.

  At night, after we’d sat up in this room and I’d played with you until you’d fallen asleep, I’d lie awake in my parents’ bed and juggle those three choices over and over in my mind. What could I do? You’re not normal, you’re not right in the head. I don’t know the word – autistic, retarded? But there’s something wrong. How could I bring you out of this house? I’d be sent to jail, Johnny would be in jail, and you would be locked away in some hospital.

  My Daddy always told me when I was a little girl never to go beyond the corner of the street. The last house had an ornate wooden porch with crazy paving and ivy growing on its walls. I knew so little then I thought a Chinaman lived there. Never talk to strangers, he would say, never venture out into the world. In this street we can hold our head up, no more tenements, no more poverty. No more Rutland Street. No more sharing a toilet with three families. Never let the world see grief or fear or emotion.

  He built a house for himself, of silence and frigidity, he encased it in these walls where we are living still. I often think he dwells here yet, imposing his will upon us. I never knew enough to look after you, child, I’ve never had any friends in this new factory. Every remark and joke of theirs I’ve told you has been made up in my own head. I’ve always been too frightened to talk to people, afraid that in any intimacy I’d let the mask slip. This house and you are all I possess, and when I walk out that front door my whole life stops.

  Over the back wall they came, across the littered waste ground. Their feet sunk noiselessly in the long wild grass of the garden when they dropped. One youth fell forward and his hands plunged into the savage nettles, stiff as bamboo. They moved with difficulty through the debris and reached the darkened house.

  ‘It looks fucking abandoned,’ one said, and tried the heavily bolted back door. He climbed on to the window-ledge and banged the small frame till the latch sprang up. Reaching his hand in, he pulled the stiff handle of the bigger window, where the paint had peeled away with age. The warped frame opened slowly with a loud creak and as he stepped on to the inner sill, the woman appeared.

  ‘This is my house!’ she screamed, ‘Get out! Get out!’ His boot caught her beneath the throat and she fell back. His friend jumped in behind him and grabbed her hair. He twisted it in his hand saying, ‘Where do you keep your money, you old wagon? Come on, you fucking battleaxe, or I’ll cut your gee out!’

  She screamed, and they hit her hard across the face. She felt a tooth loosen in her mouth and bit into the hand as it swung towards her again. The youth screamed and tried to jerk it away but she clung on like a ferret, her body pulled up from the floor as he retreated from her. His friend kicked her hard in the rib cage and she lost her grip and fell backwards on to the floor again.

  ‘I’m going to screw the fucking arse off you,’ the youth said, smashing the knick-knacks that had littered the mantelpiece for two decades on to the floor with his blood-smeared hand. The woman said nothing and just pressed herself against the door of the room.

  ‘Jesus, this house gives me the creeps. I don’t think we’ll find much bread here,’ his friend said, and the youth held his injured hand to his lips and replied: ‘These oul biddies would die sooner than use a bank. They always have a hundred or two for masses for their shagging souls stashed away under the floorboards or the mattress. Don’t worry, we’ll get it out of her!’

  What struck her were their outside accents and the clothes, how they were the sort of people her father had always taught her to look up to. She pressed back harder against the door. They approached her carefully and one grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to him while the other reached down, ripping her skirt open as he tried to control the wildly kicking legs. He fell forward on to them and finally got them tightly together and against his chest. He lifted her up and his friend kept her in a headlock with her arm twisted behind her back as they carried her up the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs, the youth paused for a moment and then kicked open the door of the bedroom. He let the woman’s feet drop and his friend hit her again as she fell so that she lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor. The youth ripped the curtain open so that the streetlight caught the sweat trickling down his face. In the press behind him, the coat-hangers slowly began to swing and clash against each other. The window frame seemed to vibrate before his eyes and the bed beside him rattled back and forth. He turned and stared at the bed. Slowly, the girl rose on one elbow between the blankets, her lank hair falling away to reveal her face in the streetlight.

  Both youths stood and began to shiver as they watched her rise. Then his friend screamed and ran down the stairs where the pictures were shaking on the wall. Gradually, the long fingers of the girl reached out and touched his hand.

  ‘Johnny, Johnny,’ her thin, childlike voice said. He felt the urine, hot and sticky, trickling down his thigh as he backed away and stumbled over the woman’s body. Running down the stairs, it seemed to him that he was moving through mercury, so slowly did his limbs appear to function. He felt fingers, bony and small, pinch his back when he reached the hall, and swung his fist through the pane of glass in the door as though trying to waken himself from a nightmare. The glass shattered along the doorstep, moonlight latching on to it to ignite a thousand stars, as he raced, shivering, after his friend.

  Somebody was always bound to come in the end. That was all I was certain of. For eighteen years I’ve waited here, guarding you and me, always knowing it was going to happen. My ribs hurt, I think one of them is broken. That’s the first person since Johnny to touch my body. A conductor helping me on to a bus, a drunk stumbling against me in a crowd, the supermarket cashier pressing change into my hand – they’re the only human touches except that night you warmed my hand, which I’ve known these eighteen years.

  But it’s over now, I tell you, it’s over, daughter. How are we going to recognize our Saviour when he comes, how can we know what form he will take? Eighteen years I’ve waited for help, not knowing how to act. Every morning of it I’ve entered this room and paused for a moment with three choices before me as clear as dawn. Three rolls of a dice to decide our lives that I’ve always kept firmly clenched in my palm.

  To lock you in here for yet another day to lie for ten hours with your vacant stare, while I sit at the endless orange peel of a conveyor belt, and worry that somebody will find you. To finish it now like I’ve often dreamt of, gently with a pillow or in one of those fits where I can’t think straight, my hands shaking with my knuckles turning white clasped over the poker. And then hurry through the streets in terror of footsteps before somebody finds your body gummed to the mattress with blood. I would be free of responsibility at last, no matter what they did to me.

  Or else in the starkness of dawn realize that we
could walk down those stairs with your hand in mine. Can you hear the sound of the milkmen going to work, heading down to the dairy by the carriageway? It will be another hour before the people start rising for buses. Below our window there’s a rivulet. Johnny and I always wanted to follow it to the sea. It’s been years since I stood beside it. They’ve cleared away the brambles and trees and piped most of it underground. But it’s still running there and we could follow it yet, through the valley enclosed by the convent, through the gardens and down past the factories in Drumcondra.

  I don’t know where it leads to from there, I only know there must be a strand where sea birds would rise up like an explosion before us. We could be there before the people stirred, moving away from the nightmare of this room. Just the pair of us, standing with our backs to the land, fingers joined like schoolgirls taking some boy’s hand and swallowing their pride. No bogeyman guards those stairs, only our fear keeps us trapped in this house. If I had the courage to lead you down, would you hold back, my daughter, or would you take my hand?

  There is a city of the dead standing sentinel beyond her window. Through the gully, a rivulet frothing over rocks swirls down between them. Early light grains out the slabs of granite flecked with mud from tractor wheels. The living world seems to end beyond its walls and railings, yet even here life stirs invisibly downward. Beneath plastic wreaths and fonts it creaks forward incessantly. Death is only when growth stands still. To pass into light, to burn on in slow decay, to open to change is to be born again.