Bad Girl Magdalene

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Shut up, you and your auld wars,’ Mrs Borru said, truly annoyed now with Mrs Duffanan for starting the old men off. Once they got reminiscing about killing there’d be no stopping them, and it wasn’t yet drinks time. Drinks were ten-to-eleven, and there was still the rest of the day to get through.

  ‘Jealous,’ Mrs Duffanan said, comfortable the day was decently begun. ‘All Dublin’s jealous of everything everybody else has. That’s why Dublin is hated all over Eire.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Ted felt he was asking for two, because George arrived already dozing. He’d had a bad night, talking from one in the morning. George would have wanted this thing about Dubliners being jealous explained, if he’d been awake. With any luck he’d not rouse until drinks time, and maybe the women’s row would be all over and done by then so it wouldn’t matter. Ted felt he’d get the blame from George if the silly old sod missed a good explanation. Nothing George liked more than some longwinded gripe that meant nothing.

  ‘Course it is. Hated. Hated from jealousy.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’m telling you. That’s why Mrs Borru here’s got it all wrong.’

  ‘I’ve not. It’s you that always starts things off by saying something daft.’

  ‘I got a plate in my head,’ Mr Gorragher said. ‘Did I tell you?’

  ‘Can I have this wheelchair moved, Magda?’

  ‘No, Mrs Borru. We’ve to bring one more yet.’

  ‘There isn’t room here for six!’

  ‘Sister Stephanie said bring out Mr Liam MacIlwam.’

  ‘There isn’t room!’

  ‘There is that.’

  ‘Bring Sister Stephanie and make her tell us where Mr Liam MacIlwam’s to go, then.’

  ‘No,’ Magda said reasonably as she could. ‘It’s what Sister Stephanie said.’

  ‘There’s no room. You’ll see.’

  ‘Look, Magda,’ Ted said, as usual trying for peace. ‘There’s never been more than five of us here.’

  ‘Never,’ George said, eyes closed, which astonished Ted who thought he’d been asleep all the time. That’s a comeuppance, he thought, worried how many explanations old George had missed and would now think he was entitled to ask for. ‘Ted’s right.’

  ‘There wus four once or twice,’ Mrs Borru said.

  ‘That’s never been the case,’ said Mrs Duffanan. ‘Down the St Simon and Jude’s Care Home at Wellington Quay there’s a rule, you can’t have more than three in one place. But they’re a cut above the rest of Dublin’s old dumps.’

  ‘Don’t go on about Dublin.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m just saying.’

  ‘Here he comes.’

  Magda and Mr Cronin wheeled in old Liam MacIlwam, and had difficulty manoeuvring him round to get him between Mrs Borru’s wheelchair and Ted’s spot.

  ‘There’s hardly room for six,’ Mr Cronin the gardener said.

  ‘There!’

  ‘There what?’ the gardener said, surprised.

  ‘Complain to that Sister Stephanie and tell her straight out.’

  ‘That’s not my place, missus.’

  Mrs Duffanan waited until Mr Cronin was through the gate of the walled yard then yelled, loud as she could, ‘Your chrysanthemums aren’t half as good as them they sell cheap at Barlow’s!’

  ‘Mrs Duffanan!’ cried Mrs Borru, scandalised. ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘It’s true. His don’t last.’

  ‘They do!’

  ‘He won a prize at the great flower show once.’

  ‘Yes,’ cried Mrs Duffanan, adding in a loud yell for Mr Cronin’s benefit, ‘And I’ll bet they wus bought from Jersey.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said, conversational. ‘You’ll be at each other’s throats.’

  ‘Aren’t you going?’ Mrs Borru asked Magda.

  ‘No. I’ve to stay.’

  ‘Why?’ Two oldies said it together, full of mistrust.

  ‘Sister Stephanie said so.’

  ‘What for, though?’ Ted asked quite amiably, smiling. ‘Think we’ll get up to no good?’

  ‘Stop that, Ted,’ George ordered. ‘It’s him and his wicked ways. He was stationed in France, see?’

  ‘I knew this woman in France,’ Ted said. ‘She had false hair on her head, great big wig.’

  ‘Why?’ Mrs Borru asked, interested. ‘Was she bald?’

  ‘You can go bald from being ill,’ Mrs Duffanan told them all. ‘I had a cousin like that. It only happens to the better class of persons.’

  ‘Why, Magda?’ Mr Liam MacIlwam asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We don’t need any extra tablets or medicines, do we?’

  ‘Not that I’ve been told, no. Anyhow, that’s the nurses say that, not me.’

  ‘Today isn’t a nurse’s day. It’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Magda,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said. ‘Can you see if Sister Stephanie or one of the other nuns is there?’

  Magda went to look. ‘What do you want her for, Mr MacIlwam?’

  ‘Nothing. Just wondering.’

  ‘No. You want me to give her a message?’

  ‘No. Just in case.’

  Magda did not know what they meant. They went silent, looking at each other.

  ‘In case of what?’

  ‘In case she hears something she shouldn’t.’

  ‘Like what?’

  They were worrying Magda. They seemed less sleepy now than before. Old George was definitely awake, and Mr Gorragher’s old tin plate in his head was having no effect at all.

  ‘Like what we might talk about.’

  ‘You want me to go?’ Magda asked, in doubt now because Sister Francesca had definitely said she was to stay.

  ‘Not if you’ll get in trouble.’

  ‘It’s the tablets, see? We want to know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘If anybody has worked out who took the tablets.’

  ‘Whose tablets?’ Magda said in a shocked whisper. Old Mrs Borru had asked her that once. Then Kev. And here it was again.

  ‘Well, mine for one.’ Mrs Duffanan said, ‘I laid a trap for whoever it was. I put one tablet near the glass of water on my bedside table, and it went.’

  ‘You took it yourself,’ Mrs Borru said with disgust. ‘I told you at the time. I said you’d woken up in the night and taken it.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You must have.’

  ‘Father Doran was took bad in the ambulance,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said. ‘That’s the point.’

  ‘What point?’

  Mr MacIlwam looked at Magda and answered, ‘Our question. We wonder if somebody was stealing the tablets for old Mr O’Mucherty.’

  ‘I did it once, for Mrs O’Dowd.’

  ‘Shhhh, Mrs Borru. You’re not to talk like that.’

  ‘Why not? It was a kindness.’

  ‘It was nothing of the sort. It was a misunderstanding. We decided.’

  ‘It was.’ Mrs Borru went into a sulk. Magda knew it would be half an hour before she came out of it now. That was her way, stubborn old crow.

  ‘What did Mrs O’Dowd want them for?’

  ‘Misunderstanding,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said sharply, altogether different from the way he normally spoke. It made Magda feel quite queasy, and she was tired enough without that.

  ‘It was kind. I did most of it anyway.’

  ‘Now stop it.’

  ‘I didn’t start it, Mr MacIlwam. She starts it, every time.’

  ‘What does Mr O’Mucherty want other people’s tablets for?’ Magda asked.

  ‘It’s medicine, not tablets.’

  ‘Tablets,’ Mrs Borru explained, ‘make him gag. He can’t get them down. If he manages to get one swallowed, up it comes after a retching.’

  ‘We don’t steal tablets or medicines at all,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said. ‘Nobody does, do they?’

  Silence fell at that. Their glances missed Magda out. She began to feel she was somewhere else.r />
  ‘Do you know, dear?’ Mrs Borru asked Magda sweetly.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘If anybody mislays any of the medicines, or tablets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Borru was triumphant. ‘See? I told you.’

  ‘Somebody does.’ Mrs Duffanan looked from one to the other. They were almost in a semicircle, so could see each other. ‘Did I tell you I left one by my glass of water that time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it was gone when I woke up in the morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then that proves it. Somebody is filching.’

  ‘Magda wouldn’t know what to do with them, would you dear?’

  ‘No, Mrs Borru.’

  ‘There! Told you.’

  ‘People who filch medicines and that don’t always tell up. They say they don’t when they do.’

  ‘What would anybody take tablets for and give them to Mr O’Mucherty? He’s got his own.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ George said. ‘In the war we didn’t see a doctor from one campaign to the next.’

  ‘Unless you got shot or wounded in some way,’ Ted put in comfortably. ‘It depended on how badly you got hurt. If you wus really bad, then you got left behind. There wasn’t much else you could do.’

  ‘Were you in the Eighth?’ George asked him.

  ‘We had a bloke called Holer. I ever tellt you about Holer?’

  ‘You talk about nothing else, you daft auld sod.’

  ‘Really?’ Ted was astonished. ‘I thought I’d respected his confidence and said nothing. He was my oppo for a time. Taught me to be a marksman. I lay down on my back, the only good way I managed the Lee-Enfield Three-O-Three. Holer, though, he’d stay in one position hour after hour.’

  ‘Stop it, you two,’ Mrs Duffanan protested. ‘Tell them to shut up, Magda.’

  ‘If they want to, they can, can’t they?’ Magda felt embarrassed appealing to everybody. They took no notice.

  ‘That Mr Cronin’s chrysanthemums is rubbish,’ Mrs Duffanan told them. ‘I’ll say it to his face. Says he won a silver cup in some English garden championship, but where is it? Tell me that!’

  ‘Once I saw Holer – a furlong away he was, in a cess pit. Know what he did? Stays like a statue. Unless you knew he was there to start with, you wouldn’t know there was anybody alive there at all.’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ Mr MacIlwam said in a tired voice.

  ‘Know what I asked him when he shot the Jerry and came crawling back? I sez, “Here, Holer. What happens if you want a piss?” Know what he said?’

  ‘Mr Cronin orders them flowers from Jersey in the Channel Islands. It’s cheating.’

  ‘Holer said, “I piss in my pants.” So I sez, “And what if you want a shit?” Know what he said? He said, “I did.” And he had, shat right there in his keks.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Nothing stopped him.’

  ‘Listen,’ Magda said, desperate to stop all this. ‘If there’s anything I can get you, just say. Do you want the telly on? I can ask Sister Stephanie. There’s one in the lounge. I think I can move it.’

  ‘It won’t work out here.’

  ‘Won’t it?’

  ‘We want to decide,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said. ‘No more talk of shooting and flowers.’

  ‘Tablets.’

  ‘Did you go with Father Doran in the ambulance, Magda?’

  ‘Course not. I was here when he went.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Magda felt desperate. It was as if nobody believed her. She remembered one time when Faith, her friend at the paper packing and who told her all about men and women being so different, had said how she’d not stolen any clothes brush from any of the nuns when one went missing. And how Faith had said she’d actually prayed to God to let her die in the night so she’d not be blamed for stealing the brush. It was a silly old clothes brush for the nuns’ long habits. And, remember, she had been to a different convent and actually had a last name and everything. She was marvellous and knew everything.

  The end of that story was, the brush was found under the wardrobe in the vestry by one of the cleaning girls the second day after Faith had got the lock-in in the pail cupboard and she was taken out and was the subject of a stern telling-off by the nuns. They’d told her class that punishments had to be accepted by all because it was love made manifest. God wanted it that way. And, if accepted in the spirit in which punishment was administered, it was full of merit. That was God’s ineffable design, for us to be meek and bear His yoke.

  Faith said it was a load of old crap, because there she was praying for God to rescue her from getting whacked and stuck for two days in that dark old pail cupboard. And when she came out and couldn’t read her lessons, it was all because some nun had been fucking stupid.

  That was what Faith actually said, words right out while they were packing that old paper in the paper packing, ‘It was that nun’s fault, stupid old cunt. She should go to Hell for making me say bad words.’

  And Magda was amazed Faith wasn’t struck down where she stood for saying things like that. Well, these questions from these daft oldies were making Magda feel like that.

  ‘You saw him upstairs, didn’t you, Magda?’

  ‘In the sick room? The priest? Yes.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not a thing?’

  ‘He was asleep most of the time. I was only there for a few minutes.’

  ‘You usually do the top corridor?’ Mrs Borru asked, sly old thing.

  ‘Yes. The polish.’

  ‘Why did they ask you?’

  ‘I was there. Sister Francesca had to go to the phone. Or, no, this was it – Dr Strathan whispered with her about the priest in the office.’

  ‘Did you give him his tea, then?’

  ‘No. You weren’t allowed. Only the sisters and the nurses were allowed to give him anything.’

  ‘That was the day a last lot of tablets went missing. I lost three. I’m sure it was three more than I’d taken. I counted them.’

  ‘Did you?’ Magda couldn’t count, let alone read, so that seemed a strange beauty, this old lady who wasn’t long for this world, counting away and able to read.

  ‘Yes, after you went with my tea. It couldn’t have been long after four.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  This denial seemed the most brilliant thing Magda had ever thought of, a true deception, but Mrs Borru wasn’t convinced. She simply snorted and said, ‘You nicked them, Magda.’

  ‘Did you?’ from Mr Liam MacIlwam.

  ‘No!’

  Magda was frightened of Mr Liam MacIlwam, because she associated him in her mind with Kevin MacIlwam, his grandson the Garda, and Kev could come any time and arrest her.

  Like the seventeen prisoners who were marched in to that old prison and seventeen thousand heroes marched out, which is what they all said these days, but Magda knew it was more a sarcasm than a truth. Like Christ’s tale of the Good Samaritan who had found that old soul battered on the highway, and who got taken for his last penny. Magda reckoned – though was this Emily’s version, one of her old slants on the Gospels – it was simply Christ saying don’t you lot be so daft as to get taken in. It would be a lot better all round if they used Emily’s version than the Church’s, though you went to Hell for saying things like that.

  ‘The thing is, Magda,’ Mr Liam MacIlwam said, ‘did you give Father Doran anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No tablets that went missing?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t know how to.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Mrs Duffanan said. ‘She’s an orphan, and they’re all degenerate runts.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Mrs Borru said.

  ‘The sins of the mothers and fathers shall be visited on the infants,’ Mrs Duffanan intoned.

  ‘
You made that up.’

  ‘I didn’t. It’s in the Good Book.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘It is. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘Where does it say that?’

  ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘Ignore her, Magda. Daft auld cow.’

  ‘I’m going to tell Sister Stephanie. Magda, ring for Sister Stephanie. I want to make a complaint.’

  ‘Don’t, Magda.’

  ‘She’ll have forgotten what she wanted Sister Stephanie for by the time she comes anyways.’

  ‘Listen,’ Ted said. ‘Who has them if Magda hasn’t?’

  ‘They say Father Doran is going under the knife today.’

  ‘They’ll give him a new heart, will they?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They’ll give him new blood vessels. They get them from people’s legs.’

  ‘God help him.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Magda said nothing. She had caused the most terrible things to happen, and sat stricken. How did these old folk know so many things? She’d thought she was so clever, all unnoticed. The question was, if these old people saw so much, did the nuns notice?

  ‘Do you talk like this when you’re here on your own?’ She was amazed at herself for asking it outright.

  ‘When?’

  ‘About getting tablets and medicines for Mrs O’Dowd and Mr O’Mucherty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does anybody hear?’

  They fell silent, and one or two cleared their throats as if to start talking, but deferred to Mr Liam MacIlwam.

  ‘We actually thought in the night that somebody was listening when we spoke. We thought it was you. It must have been one of the nuns.’

  ‘That’s why we wanted you to make sure nobody was there.’

  ‘Just now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Magda thought, and went to see if anyone was inside the door to the lounge. Nobody. She returned and told the oldies.

  ‘The door at the end is open, but nobody could be out of there before I saw them, no.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  ‘You’re a load of old dafties,’ Magda chided, wanting things to be back where they should be, these old folk daft in the mind and herself in charge. ‘I can get the radio?’

  ‘No, thank you, Magda.’

  ‘You didn’t give him anything, then, Magda?’