by John Mayer
Pointing to the girl on Jean’s right, Ababuo asked: ‘And who’s that?’
‘Oh that’s Elsie Tanner. Nothin’ tae do wi the Elsie Tanner who was on the TV. Och, I’m forgettin’. You won’t know anythin’ about the auld TV shows years ago. Never mind. She kind of disappeared. I heard she’d come back to the Calton, but I never saw her when I got back. Now, where was I?’
Peering into the photo, Ababuo had to squint: ‘What’s that the priest has in his hand? The blue thing. Does it say TWA?’
‘Aye. It’s his ticket. Back then they gave ye’ a big ticket tae get on an aeroplane. He was goin’ tae America that night and was leaving Saint Clement’s House for Dublin right after the photo. The driver had packed all his luggage and was sittin’ waitin’ in the car.’
‘Saint Clement’s House? Do you mean that’s his house behind you?’
Letting out a little chuckle, Jean shook her head: ‘Och naw! Naw, naw naw. That’s Saint Clement’s House in County Cork. A massive auld place wi’ acres and acres of grassy fields around it. Farmers used to keep sheep on the fields. To keep the grass down, I suppose. Anyway, it’s been closed for years. I think it’s some kind of College now but I’m not sure.’
‘Saint Clement’s House. It sounds nice.’
Joanne had begun to raise her eyebrows and flashed more than one glance at McLane, who hadn’t moved a muscle since raising his hand to Big Joe. For her part, Molly was keeping her eyes on the floor and holding Jean’s hand tighter and tighter. Big Joe was the only one who’d crossed his legs and uncrossed them five or six times. Whatever his mother was about to reveal, it was obvious to McLane that his blood brother hadn’t heard it before.
Jean poured herself some more brandy. Lifting the crystal goblet to her lips, she closed her eyes and drained the glass. Licking her lips and letting out a big sigh, she nodded:
‘Saint Clement’s. Nice? Aye, I suppose it must’ve been: maybe the day they opened the doors. But it certainly wasn’t a nice place to live. Ye’ see my wee love, everybody called it The House because it was a place for girls to go who were … erm, goin’ to have a baby.’
Confused and trying to understand why girls would need to go all the way to Ireland to give birth, Ababuo screwed up her face. She knew all about Maternity Hospitals and there seemed to be plenty of them in Scotland. In her childhood, on the day, the women all went out to the soft grasslands and came back against the sunset with the mother carrying the child and walking with two of the women elders by her side. Going all the way to Ireland just to have a baby seemed wholly unnecessary. She had just opened her lips to offer her analysis when Jean stopped her:
‘The families, you see, of the mothers … weren’t always what you might call very keen to have these babies. Do you follow me, my wee darlin’?’
Biting her tongue, Ababuo nodded: ‘Is that because the girls weren’t married?’
‘Well aye. There was that. But the girls knew somethin’ that maybe other people might not have known. Somethin’ that you might call ‘special’ about these babies.’
‘Special? You mean they were all disabled? There’s a girl at school who’s disabled and the Head calls her ‘special’. Like that?’
Big Joe had raised his hands, dropped his head and was covering his eyes. Joanne was wondering how far to let Ababuo go with this, but McLane had shaken his head as a sign to leave her alone.
‘Erm no, wee one. You see, all these babies … the three in this picture and many, many more all had the same father. Dozens of them, there were. Dozens upon dozens, over the years.’
When Ababuo bit her bottom lip and started to tremble ever so slightly, Joanne was bursting to leap out of her seat and hold her. But Jean was being as kind as kind could be. Grandmotherly and warm, soft and gentle, she looked deep into those deep pools of African darkness and nodded her head so slightly that it was barely movement at all:
‘Oh my God. No way! Mrs Mul … You can’t mean … Why was he going to America? He’s all smiles and looks like the happiest man in the world. And yet … Oh my God. That’s awful. Dozens and dozens of girls?’
Turning to hold Ababuo’s hands, Jean clasped them together. Kissing the backs of her hands, Jean and Ababuo’s faces were only inches apart:
‘He called it his ‘Preparation’. You see, back then you had to have the blessing of the priest before you could get married in a Catholic Church: which is what every family in the Calton wanted for their girls. So once we got to a certain age, usually about 17 or 18 depending on the girl and what her mother thought best, we’d be taken to see the priest. He’d open his diary and give us a few dates for the ‘Preparation’. See, you must understand, that the Catholic Church didn’t just approve of these ‘Preparations’ they were … what’s the word? Oh aye, they were mandatory. You had to go. Now these visits should’ve been about how to support a husband. You know, emotionally, through good times and bad. All that kind of thing. But Old Father Flaherty had other ideas. He thought the girls should be prepared for other things in a marriage. Can you guess what I mean by ‘other things’?’
‘I’ll fuckin’ kill him! Fuckin’ bastard! The fuckin’ …’
Turning on his feet and roaring like a wild animal under threat for its life, Big Joe Mularkey was grabbing the very air around him and crushing it in those huge meaty fists. Snarling and growling, he slammed his fist into the wall above the fireplace, causing the mirror to wobble. McLane leapt up and flung himself onto his blood brother, holding onto his neck for all he was worth. Molly too, had unceremoniously climbed over the back of the sofa and was screaming the house down for him to stop. Easily lifting both her and McLane off their feet, Big Joe stumbled into the fireplace like an alligator with a meal in its mouth that would last a week.
‘I’ll fuckin’ kill the bastard! I’ll rip his fuckin’ head off!’
Falling backwards so that McLane landed in the chair Big Joe had been in, the whole trio rolled onto the floor. Only when Jean flung herself onto him did her Joseph breathe again. Face to face with his mother on the floor, it was she who grabbed both sides of his massive face:
‘Ma darlin’ Joseph! Son! Son! It was all nearly fifty years ago! Breathe ma son! Breathe, for God’s sake.’
Rubbing the back of his bruised hand where it had hit the fireplace, McLane tried to put from his mind just how many times in his life he’d had to intervene like this. It hadn’t happened for some years now, but when Big Joe saw red, nothing - absolutely nothing - mattered but that he pounced on his prey, bit through their neck with one bear-trap bite and followed up by pounding them into a pulp on the street. For her part, Molly had nursed many an accidental bruise following her attempts to pull him off somebody or something. Holding Ababuo tightly, steely-faced, Joanne was far from forgiving; if he’d taken her child back to those fear-filled violent days where this sort of anger could erupt at any moment, then she’d not be responsible for her actions.
Panting now like a wounded bear in a dark cave, Big Joe Mularkey sat tight as a drum unable to look anyone in the face. While Molly went to make some tea, McLane thought he’d try to get matters back on track:
‘Jean. I’m interested to know how this newspaper article came to be written. Did you contact the Irish Times about what was going on in this House? And another thing; if this photo was taken right before Old Father Flaherty left to catch his flight in Dublin, how did you get hold of it?’
Thanking Molly for the tea with just a kindly look in the eye, Jean carefully laid her cup and saucer on her lap, took a long look at her Joseph and thought it safe to answer:
‘Oh dear God. Thinkin’ about this after all these years. It’s like it happened to somebody else. I do remember one day, after we’d had the bairns. I mean Elsie, Frances McCarney and me. We had them within a day of each other. When we went to see him, Old Father Flaherty I mean, and told him that we were … you know … expecting, he used to pick up that great big black phone that sat on his desk. Other girls told me what
he said and it was exactly what he said to me: ‘I’m just going to make an international telephone call and it’ll be all about you! Imagine that, can you? An international call about you! Now, you’ll be going on a holiday. To a beautiful place, over in the old country. Down in Cork, it is. It’s called St Clement’s House and you’ll love it. There’ll be lots of girls like you to make friends with. Oh, that’s it ringing now.’ Word for word, he must’ve made that wee speech dozens of times.
But when we got there it wasn’ie much of a holiday, I can tell ye’. I actually travelled on the bus and the boat with Elsie Tanner. We’d just happened to go and see him on the same day, so that’s why we were due within a day of each other. Actually, the way it turned out, it was me in the morning and her in the afternoon.’
Quietly but still with a note of venom in his voice, Big Joe interrupted:
‘Did my father know about that slimy bast…’
Fast as a bullet on fire, Jean spun her head and shot back: ‘This has got nuthin’ tae do wi’ yer faither. Nothin’! Just listen will ye? And ye’ll learn. Now take my tellin’ or leave the room Joseph. I won’t tell ye’ again.’
Having established that she was in charge, Jean poured some brandy into her tea and went on:
‘Right, where was I? Oh aye. It was a lovely sunny day and all the windows were open. The three of us were out on the lawn. Now a girl we knew called Theresa Gilligan hadn’t been well at all. And she was deliverin’ up on the first floor. We could hear her moaning, at first; but it went on for ages. We heard the nuns shouting and screamin’ at her to shut up. But she just got louder. Screaming and yellin’ Father Flaherty’s name. It was like a cat fight more than a delivery. And then she sort of howled in agony for a wee bit and then it all went quiet. The whole thing didn’t take long. It wasn’t so much the loudness, it was the way she was screamin’ that was so horrible. And when it stopped quite suddenly we all kind of felt that her end had come. We all went quiet and we could definitely just feel it in the air. We knew that she’d gone. Anyway, when the nuns slammed down the windows, we knew for sure. We were all holdin’ each other and hopin’ for the best. But we all knew she’d died. I saw the young gardener guy crossin’ the lawn with his head bowed and crossin’ himself and I went over to him. He’d taken the picture with one of those Polaroid cameras. He’d taken a few because somebody had their eyes shut or a cloud came over us. He took about four, I think. Anyway, he was always whistlin’ at the girls an’ things like that. So I went over and asked him if he still had any of the pictures he took with me in them.’
Glancing at Joanne for permission to go into this chapter of her story in front of Ababuo, Jean got her nod:
‘We’d just had the bairns, so we couldn’t … ye’ know … go all the way. But he said he had quite a good one and for a feel of ma big … ye’ know, I could have it. So that was the deal. Anyway, I shoved the picture into my denim skirt pocket and was crossing the lawn when I saw all the nuns from the vegetable patches running back to the house. I don’t know what came over me, but the front gate was open and there was no-one to stop me, so I just ran like Hell. I had Sean in my arms, but I ran like Hell. I was a good few hundred yards down the road when I heard a lorry comin’. There wasn’t much traffic in that bit of the countryside, so it was quite loud. I shoved out my thumb and the driver stopped. I think he knew without askin’ what had happened. When he drove away, in the big door mirror I could see some nuns at the gate waving their fists, but they soon went so small that I knew they wouldn’t get me.
Now Joseph, have you guessed who that lorry driver was?’
Nodding his understanding, Big Joe felt more than a little proud that his father had done the right thing by this girl in distress.
‘We were miles away before he spoke. He lit me a cigarette and told me there was half a sandwich and a banana under the seat. He had cans of beer, too. He even put one hand on Sean to steady him on the seat while I got the sandwich and two cans out. At the Dublin Docks, all the guys knew him and just waved him through. Sean and I were hiding in the footwell, of course. There was no point in asking for trouble, but once we were on the boat, I felt free as a bird.
Well, back in Glasgow, the usual thing awaited me. The boy I’d always sort of hinted that I’d marry had gone to sea and I had Sean to feed. Well, Cloudy … Abby, that was what everybody called him because he was six feet six … had dropped me and Sean right at the stair. And lo and behold, about a week later, when I came down one mornin’ there was the lorry.’
Molly couldn’t hold back any longer and Ababuo was already in floods of tears in her mother’s arms. McLane couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard such an impressive witness; one who would sway any Jury in the land with her every word ringing the bell of truth, told in her own time and in her own tongue. Big Joe got out of his seat and stepped over to the sofa. Wrapping his mother into his enormous frame, he kissed her on the top of the head. Holding her tight as she sobbed, he tried not to let anyone see him wipe his own tears. Giving them just as much time as he would a witness on the stand, McLane eased the story along:
‘So Jean, you’re back in the Calton. How did the …?’
‘Och, sorry Brogan. I got carried away. It was Cloudy who said I should take the photo to somebody. He told me a dozen times not to go near the police, but if I could think of anybody else, I should show it to them. So I took it to Mr Thomson our old English Teacher. I caught him coming out of school one day. He was quite pleased to see me and listened; kind of sympathetic, like. He tried to tell the Scottish papers but when they weren’t interested, he suggested the Irish Times. Clever, huh? That’s how the story got to be written in Ireland and not Scotland.’
With a nightclub to run, Jean had suggested to her Joseph that he just go there and see to his business. Brogan and Joanne could take her home so that she could sleep in her own bed.
Parking the Range Rover and opening the door for Jean, McLane got out. In the evening chill, Ababuo had slipped her father’s suit jacket over her shoulders. Under the cover of darkness, glancing around, Joanne was hoping that no-one might spot this unusual grouping. Hand in hand with her daughter, they followed McLane and Jean up the stair.
Once settled in her own bed and with some hot tea on her bedside table, before Joanne could leave her in peace, Jean asked: ‘Could ye’ send in wee Abby? I want to know that she’s OK.’
Reaching up her hand to take Abby’s, in her nightgown and with her hair under a scarf, Jean looked ten years older than she had in the afternoon: ‘Sit down ma wee love.’
With one leg on the side of the bed, Ababuo was still under the shadow of fear Jean had earlier seen in her eyes: ‘Are ye’ all right? My Joseph wouldn’t have hurt you, ye’ know.’
Holding Jean’s hand, Ababuo nodded several times: ‘I know. I know he wouldn’t. It wasn’t him. It was … Oh, I’m supposed to be over this.’
‘Over what, my wee love?’
Heaving a deep breath, Ababuo thought it best to keep to what Professor Byres had said and not to get into something that would only get deeper and deeper until it did some real damage:
‘Oh, it’s OK. It was just that his growling reminded me of something a long time ago. That’s all. I’m OK now. Really, I am. Thanks for asking.’
Patting the back of her hand, Jean could tell there was something else on the child’s mind: ‘But there is somethin’ else, isn’t there?’
‘Well, I was wondering. What happened to the girl who disappeared? What was her name? Elsie something? Didn’t anybody try to find her?’
Reaching out and lifting her tea, Jean took a sip and leaned back into her pillows: ‘Elsie Tanner. Oh, I don’t know. She could be dead by now. It was all so long ago. Old Father Flaherty’s dead. Young Father Flaherty said Mass for him when he died and asked us all to pray for his soul. So I don’t know if Young Father Flaherty knew anything about the old priest. I doubt it. But anyway, he’s dead. I do know that much.’
Ab
abuo’s expression had changed from curious to sympathetic, and she was now stumbling over her words: ‘It’s alright. You can ask me. I think I know what you really want to ask. Eh?’
Beautiful as Ababuo was, Jean thought she’d never make it as an actress. Her young face gave too much away: ‘Well, I was wondering too, what happened to your baby. Sean.’
Taking a deep breath, Jean perked right up: ‘Well, a lot of the babies were sent to America, for money. Big money. Others went to London, again for big money. The Catholic Church must’ve made millions out of us girls. But some of the girls took their babies home. Usually they were met by a married cousin or an aunty who’d take the baby right then: as soon as the girl got off the boat. That’s what happened to my Sean. My cousin raised him, around the Calton; and she did it well. He’s a priest himself now. In Ireland. Isn’t that ironic?’
‘Would you like to have him closer?’
‘Oh aye. But he’s awfi’ busy savin’ folk and being good. Not like ma Joseph was as a boy. Chalk and cheese they were.’
Ababuo rose to her feet and leaned in to kiss Jean goodnight. It was just as their fingertips were parting that Jean gently shook her head: ‘You know, now that all this is coming out, I think I would like to know about wee Elsie Tanner. But I don’t know how I’d go about that.’
Just then, her father’s knock on the bedroom door was Ababuo’s signal that it was time to leave. Ababuo was waving and blowing a kiss when Jean raised a finger and said softly: ‘I know, I’ll ask old mother Sorkin. Tommy’s mother. The women used to chit chat all the time in the bakery. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll ask old mother Sorkin what happened to Elsie. She’ll know.’
~~~o~~~
Chapter 55
Waking to the sound of his pigeons scratching and cooing in the loft and streaming sunlight coming through the skylight window, though still a little drunk from the night before, Tucker Queen nevertheless had his duty to do. Despite the racket coming through the hole he’d made in his ceiling to get easy access to the tenement loft, Tucker had to have tea. Without tea in the morning, his whole day would go adrift. It had been a good night. McLane had brought Joanne, Big Joe and Molly were there and he thought, Jean Mularkey was in good form. In all about two hundred had come and gone throughout the night. Several of the old ones had mentioned that Jean was looking well. A little lighter in her eyes and a wee bit cheerier in the cheeks, as though the Calton’s troubles had temporarily lifted like the morning fog over the river Clyde: but would of course, as night follows day, be back tomorrow. Tucker was old enough to remember the smallpox when it came to the Calton and the damage it did to those who hadn’t contracted it before. He himself went down badly in ’89 with what they called the Hong Kong Flu. Then of course, there was the first time when the shipyard laid off more than a thousand men, claiming that the yards in South Korea were taking more and more orders. Over there, the men worked twelve hours for a handful of rice, or so was the word among the men walking out of the Govan shipyard gates for the last time. Through all of those times and many others, he reflected that at some point during trouble that lasts for weeks, months or even years, there was something about the human mind that just seemed to close down: as a way of coping, a way of saying ‘Forget it all. You’ve got three quid in your pocket. Go and have a drink. Everyone else will be in the Calton Bar. Why are you alone?’
