‘You will.’ So resigned, and Magda knew it was true because everybody was always so tired that they slept the instant they were told to. ‘Magda?’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry I tellt you off so much.’
‘You didn’t. You never tellt me off, Lucy.’
‘I did.’
‘No, Lucy, you didn’t, honest.’
‘Well, I’m sorry if I did.’
‘No, you put me straight. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.’
‘You’re my friend, Magda.’
‘You’re my friend, Lucy.’
The only one I’ll ever have, Magda realised in a sudden flash, and she wept some more. She held Lucy’s hand. It looked so pale, even in the dark dormitory, as if it had a colour she could see when all was almost darkness. She could make out Lucy’s eyes as dots of shinyness there within a yard of her own. This was how they knew sometimes each other was awake in the night, those shiny dots reflecting some minute fragment of light when it was all supposed to be black.
‘Goodnight, Magda.’
‘Goodnight, Lucy.’
Magda had a perverse wish to ask Lucy to give her a special mention to Jesus up there in the sky, but thought it would be presumption, and that was a sin, wanting to feather your own nest. Lucy had enough to do tonight getting on with her terrible illness, without worrying about how she’d beg Jesus, Oh, there’s a friend, would you like look after her until she gets died too and comes up here? No, that would be really awful.
She went to her own cot. It was a few feet away across the other side of the dormitory. The windows were all blacked out because of people maybe wanting to look in, though there was nowhere for anybody to even stand and peer, the dormitory being so high on floors above the main places in Sandyhills.
She had been asleep, with no notion of how long she had slept since saying goodnight, when she woke. She thought instantly of water, and almost sat up to ask if Lucy wanted a drink.
There was somebody opposite. For a moment Magda thought it was a nun, maybe Sister Natalia seeing if Magda was making sure Lucy had some water to drink. Then she heard the bed creak. She heard a whispering voice, and knew it was Father Doran.
She heard him say there was something Lucy could do, make her life a true realisation in the very Name of God and His only Son. Magda knew he had been there some time. The voice whispered on, kept saying how Lucy would not be any the worse for conceding, that good had to come from everyone’s life somehow. It was that final goodness that enabled a soul to leave earth and arrive pure and unsullied at the Gates of Heaven.
The voice was insistent. Magda had no idea how long it kept up its whispering. She saw the priest move, just one set of shadows shifting and merging and then moving some more and the truckle bed squeaking as if it was enjoying itself and the bed starting to creak with a regularity she thought strange, so strange, like some jumping exercises the nuns made the girls do in the yard when they had to sing some kind of song about counting. Magda only ever chanted numbers she knew nothing about and could not write on paper, just seeing colours flit by through her mind as she jumped and tried to keep time and failed and the other girls said she was rubbish and never picked her for their teams.
The sound went on and on and during it, she almost went across and asked if they both wanted a drink of water. It came to her that, if she tapped Father Doran on the shoulder while he was doing whatever she could then ask him if he too wanted a drink of water, though she only had Lucy’s tin mug to bring it in. Then Father Doran would be proof to Sister Natalia that Magda, the vigilant girl left to look after Lucy in the night, had faithfully done her dutiful obedient service, and Magda would not get whacked in the morning.
She was looking, doing all this wondering about mugs of water, when she saw Lucy’s dots of illumination reflecting back that fragment of light at her, and she knew Lucy was awake and looking across in the darkness and knew Magda was awake too and watching during the night for her. And Magda saw Lucy’s dots of eyes become blurred, and knew Lucy was crying.
And new sounds began then with a kind of grunting and then a choking sound and then it reached a spurt of sound and Magda covered her ears because it frightened her. Was this dying, was this what it was? She wanted to go over and ask if everything was all right but could not. And she saw both Lucy’s eye dots vanish and knew the priest was turning round. Maybe Magda had inadvertently made some sound that gave her awakened state away. But he was turning to look across at Magda’s bed and she closed her eyes in case she too made bright points of light for him to notice.
The sounds resumed and kept on and on and on.
And he gave Lucy a blessing and told her she had done a great and good thing, endured in the cause of the Lord and would be holy now and it would not matter at all, in any way, because she had served God in a way He would know was just, because God had made the world to be as it was. Lucy would find favour with God in Heaven.
He left quietly. Magda had not heard him enter the dormitory. Had she slept, not even bothered to watch an hour with Lucy like St Peter before that sword business?
She waited enough time until she was sure Sister Natalia wasn’t going to come shuffling along in her night slippers, or Father Doran come back to do it again. Then she went across to Lucy.
‘Lucy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Magda?’
‘What?’
They whispered and held hands. Lucy’s looked paler than death. It seemed to have become much smaller since they had said goodnight, and damp with sweat.
‘Would you help me?’
‘Help you?’ Magda said she would and eagerly relinquished Lucy’s hand to rush and get her the mug of water, but Lucy grabbed feebly in the air and Magda felt her hand meet hers again.
‘Would you shove me?’
‘Shove you?’
Magda was lost. So many things seemed to be happening. Did everybody else in the whole world know what dying was except Magda herself? She felt so inadequate. This was what came of not being able to read or write. Maybe once she got the letters in her mind, if that ever happened, she would know everything just like the others.
‘You saw, Magda.’
‘Yes.’ Magda didn’t know what she had seen, if she had seen anything.
‘Father Doran. He did it to me.’
‘Did what?’ For one moment she thought of Extreme Unction, that last sacrament, anointing with oils and prayers that made you sacred. Lucy already had had that, in the afternoon.
‘I’ll have a baby now.’
‘A baby? You can’t.’
‘I will. It’ll come.’
‘A baby?’ Magda felt dizzy. Was that what it was, all that creaking and groaning and gasping and then that sound of a flailing body? ‘Who?’
‘Me. He did it. Now I’ll really go to Hell. I’ll be pregnant and cast out into outer darkness for ever.’
Lucy started coughing and Magda whimpered about water some more and this time Lucy, to Magda’s gratitude, said she’d have a swig, and Magda tried to sit her up enough to take a swallow from the tin mug Magda had put ready under the truckle. She managed it and Magda breathed prayers of thanks to any saint who might be listening out in the mad night.
Not coughing, Lucy sank back on the bed. The plastic made a crackling sound. Magda remembered it having made the same sound but repeated over and faster and faster as the shadow of Father Doran had merged with Lucy’s and eclipsed the dots of Lucy’s eyes.
‘You’ll have to help me, Magda.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Can you get me to the stairs?’
‘What for?’
‘I’ll show you.’
‘You want to go to the lav?’
‘No. That’s all over.’
All over? The phrase sounded terrible. Lavs were like the weather, always there.
‘How?’
‘Any way you can, M
agda.’
‘What if they catch us?’
‘It won’t matter, Magda. I need you to do this.’
‘The stairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘What for?’
Magda could never make up her mind about anything, just usually did what everybody else told her. Now she was half-standing, thinking how to get Lucy up. You had to be strong to lift somebody, and Lucy had been too weak to walk herself these two days because of her coughing and the blood from it on her mouth and chin.
‘Get me up, Magda. Please.’
Magda managed to sit Lucy up. They waited a few moments, Lucy sitting with her legs over the side of the truckle bed just about touching the floor. The pity was there were no lights. Lights only came on in the morning. No lights upstairs except for some small red thing at one end to show where the door to the lavs was.
‘What do I have to do?’
‘Get me to the stairs.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll try to walk.’
‘What if you start coughing? They’ll hear.’
‘I’ll stuff something in my mouth.’
‘It might stop you breathing.’
‘It won’t matter.’
‘Won’t it?’
‘No. If I start coughing, Magda, you stuff something in my mouth.’
‘Me? I can’t do that.’
‘I’ll have a good cough before we start off, then I’ll get there without doing it.’
Magda knew it wouldn’t work because sometimes Lucy had been punished by nuns for coughing and had tried, really tried, so much it broke your heart just seeing her struggling not to cough and failing so she got punished anyway. Lucy coughed, dark patches staining her front and mouth and all down from her chin. Lucy whispered it wouldn’t matter when Magda, obsessed with water tonight after how Sister Natalia had warned her, kept on about bringing some water to try to wash it clean.
Lifting Lucy upright was the hard part, because strangely, once she was standing, a mere bag of bones in the gloaming, it became almost easy to move her forward pace by single pace, Magda clutching Lucy to keep her straight up. Standing seemed suddenly good against the cough returning, and they shuffled towards the red dot of the pilot light. As they went, Lucy started to whisper what she wanted Magda to do.
‘Shhh,’ Magda kept saying, hardly listening, anxious only not to make a noise so the nuns wouldn’t come and beat them both.
‘It’s important, Magda.’
‘What is? Shhh.’
‘If I jumped and died from it, that would be a sin,’ Lucy said.
It was spoken in gasps, one word then a pause then another word then a long pause and the rasping breath as of a door creaking open slowly. Magda felt her friend’s chest barely moving, just a skeleton hardly covered at all.
‘But if I didn’t do it myself, I would go to Heaven, see?’
‘Yes,’ Magda said, desperate now because they’d reached and were about to pass the red pilot light on the wall by the door showing the way to the lavs at the end of the dormitory.
‘Then it will be all right.’
‘What will? Shhh.’
‘Everything.’
‘Shhh.’
The top of the stairs began outside the main dormitory door. The nearby lavs always smelt cold, as if wafting cool air onto the landing. No carpet, nothing to stop you slipping, so it was difficult to get Lucy leaning against the bannister without sliding and falling. The nuns slept further along the corridor, where two other dormitories lay.
They were here now.
‘What, Lucy?’
‘Magda.’ Lucy had her mouth close to Magda’s ear, no sound escaping as she whispered, ‘Promise you’ll do what I ask. It’s all right, I promise.’
‘Yes, Lucy.’
‘Promise? The holiest promise you have.’
‘I promise.’
‘Promise. On your mother and father.’
Magda had no mother and father, except some nebulous shapes out there who had long since gone never to return. ‘I have none.’
‘You must have.’
‘Must I?’
‘Yes. They’re somewhere. And you must honour your mother and father.’
‘Go on, then. On my mother and father. I promise.’
Magda had never said that before and it felt truly weird. For the first time she wondered if there were such people, perhaps real and talking to each other and maybe with a family by the fireside.
‘Really promise?’
‘Promise, yes, Lucy.’
‘Get me on the bannister.’
‘On? But you might fall, Lucy.’
And how to lift her friend to the wooden railing? If you slid down it your bottom would hurt, and if you fell it could be terrible. And the nuns would hear, and that would be the end of everything.
‘It’s all right. Don’t worry, Magda.’
‘I can’t, Lucy.’
‘You promised.’
That was the most truly horrid accusation, to renege on a promise. Magda struggled to lift Lucy up. Lucy started coughing a bit and that set somebody else in the dormitories further along coughing too for a moment. They froze until it subsided then resumed the lifting. Lucy got one leg across the bannister and Magda, holding her friend round the chest to steady her on the rail, managed to raise the other leg over so both Lucy’s legs dangled over the void.
‘Lucy,’ Magda said, now almost paralysed with fear, ‘I think we should go back now.’
Lucy had her cardigan on. This was forbidden in bed, but maybe Lucy thought it would not matter any more. Magda remembered Lucy told her she had once had a visit from somebody who was a relative of hers, from before she came into the Magdalenes, and that cardigan was her one special thing. It was mended all over the place, but Lucy tried to do bargains with other girls for extra special bits of cotton or wool even and used them to keep it mended. It was her true special thing. That Lucy had it on now was more of a warning than anything Magda had ever felt, including threats from the nuns.
‘Magda?’
‘What?’ Magda whispered.
‘Say a prayer.’
They whispered the goodnight prayer just as they had when about to go to sleep that night.
‘Can we go back now, Lucy?’
‘Magda. You promised, remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘When I tell you, push me.’
Magda realised then. Holding her friend upright, balanced on the bannister rail in the dark, she knew what was in Lucy’s mind, and it was the most terrible thing she had ever heard.
‘Push you? But you’ll fall, Lucy.’
‘I know.’
‘How will you…’
How will you get back so we can both be safe in bed, without any of the nuns hearing and coming up to punish us for doing this bad thing? How can you not go to Hell, for committing suicide? How can…?
‘You’ve got to, Magda. You’re my friend.’
And then Lucy coughed, so long and gravelly Magda was afraid she’d waken the dead.
‘Shhh, Lucy. They’ll hear us.’
‘You promised, Magda. It’ll save me.’
‘Save you?’
‘Please, Magda.’ And in the faint shaded darkness Magda saw her friend’s face turn towards her, those glints of dots that were Lucy’s eyes. In them was emotion, a begging for help. ‘You promised me, Magda. You’re my only friend. You’ve got to.’
‘I can’t.’
Magda struggled to keep her there, though Lucy was not trying to jump or do anything at all, just there freezing cold yet damp with sweat, sitting on the wooden rail with her legs hanging over the huge drop into the stairwell. Even if Magda let go, Lucy would stay there and not move, not even fall off. She’d just be found still sitting there the next morning and they’d come and punish her, and Magda too for not having taken her a drink of water and kept her in bed so she could stay there and…and become pregnant and get…what? Get a baby who would be in the Ma
gdalenes to get its little self punished for being a bastard too and them other things. Whatever Lucy told them, and whatever Magda corroborated, they would say Lucy egged Father Doran on because they always warned all the girls that bad things were always looking out for girls, and this must be one of them.
‘Magda. I’m dying anyway. You’ll see.’
‘I’ll see what?’ Magda whispered, so afraid now she was weeping worse than ever. Strangely, Lucy was dry of eye, exhausted and drooping.
‘You can’t leave me here like this. I’m dying.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Magda.’ Lucy spoke in a strangely powerful, assured voice. ‘You promised. You know what we say about promises.’
‘No.’ Because Magda didn’t. If she had known, she had forgotten.
‘So you must. Just give me a push when I say. I’m praying now.’
‘I can’t, Lucy.’
‘Please, Magda. I’m praying a minute.’
‘Then what have I to do?’
‘Then you go back to bed and pretend that nothing’s happened.’
‘Must I?’
‘Yes. Thank you, Magda. You were always my very best friend. I shall tell God that, and ask him to lay off you.’
‘Will you?’
‘I promise.’
‘Can I say it with you?’
‘Yes. It’ll be our prayer.’
Together, in a whisper, they said,
Deliver us, Lord, while we wake, and guard us while we sleep, that we may watch with Christ, and rest in peace,
Amen. Amen. Amen.
‘There,’ Lucy said, and Magda ever after knew she saw her friend smile, just as though it was bright sunshine and not night, as she closed her eyes and turned to look away.
‘When, Lucy?’
‘Goodnight, Magda.’
‘Goodnight, Lucy.’
A pause, then, ‘Now, please.’
Magda pushed.
She saw the material of the jumper, as clear as if it were day, recede. The gloaming seemed almost lit from Lucy falling. Magda stared aghast, saw her friend turn and her arms come from her sides as if to prevent a further fall, but Magda knew that wasn’t her intention. It wasn’t a wave either. They had done with that.
The twin points of light showed in the dark of the stairwell, then came a thump and simultaneously the two dots vanished. Magda shook, standing there, unable to think. Lucy’s instruction came back to her because that too was part of the promise. She stole silently back to bed, hoping the tin mug of water wasn’t spilt by Lucy’s truckle so that Sister Natalia would know it wasn’t for lack of a drink of water that Lucy had wandered off on her own and fallen accidentally.
Bad Girl Magdalene Page 33
