The Ballymara Road

by Nadine Dorries

  When Mary had finished talking, Sister Assumpta ceased the constant rearrangement of her desk. She remained quiet for an unnaturally long time, as though in prayer, and then, slowly looking up, she gazed first at the baby and then at Mary. For a moment, far too long for comfort as far as Alice was concerned, she fixed her eyes upon Alice. The clock chimed, the fire hissed and an air of expectation built in the room.

  Mary felt as though something was wrong. Things were not quite as they should be. She had expected much greater concern. Sister Assumpta and Sister Celia appeared very different from how they had been when the baby was first offered for adoption.

  At the time, they had been kindness itself. Had they really altered so much in those few short months? Had her recollection been warped by her own emotional state when she had collected her son? Mary felt sick to her stomach as every nerve in her body told her, this is not right, and yet what could she say? There could be few circumstances in life more serious than the one she was trying to explain and this was the one place she had expected to find help and compassion. She had even expected Sister Celia to be overfussy, just as she had on the day they had collected her baby boy.

  The atmosphere in the room now was tainted and surreal. She wondered to herself, do they not understand? This is life and death.

  Mary was about to speak again, fearing that maybe she had not explained the gravity of the situation clearly enough, when Sister Assumpta broke the silence.

  ‘Well now, ’tis a dreadful problem you have there.’ Sister Assumpta broke her silence at last.

  She emphasized the word ‘you’. This was not her problem, nor that of the convent. There would be no return of a faulty baby.

  ‘We do, however, have the greatest sympathy for your situation, don’t we, Sister Celia.’

  Sister Celia had not taken a seat, but hovered near the door, waiting for the tea to arrive. ‘Oh yes, Reverend Mother, sure, ’tis a shocking state of affairs.’ She was saved from having to say anything more by a novice arriving with a tray of tea, which she gratefully took and placed on the table between the chairs occupied by Alice and Mary. Saved by the tray.

  ‘Tea, ladies?’

  Two words, which gave everyone a moment to think and Sister Assumpta, time to nuance her message.

  She knew very well what her answer had to be. There must be no room for ambiguity when she delivered her response. This was the last time she would ever want this mother and baby in her office.

  The ceremony of tea and cake commenced. Alice began to relax. No one had asked her a question and it didn’t look as if anyone was about to. She breathed a sigh of relief, as she adjusted the baby in her arms and reached for her teacup. She really wanted to look occupied, too busy to speak.

  Two doves had landed on a branch on the tree outside the window behind Sister Assumpta’s chair. Alice tried not to look but became fixated by them. She wanted to be anywhere other than in this room. Mentally joining the two noisy birds on the branch in their mating ritual, she thought it as good a distraction as any.

  ‘You see, the thing is, Mrs Moynihan, would ye believe, we have no idea at all who the mother is, do we, Sister Celia.’

  Sister Celia, not expecting to be involved in the conversation until she was required to show Mary and Alice out of the office, looked up and, with her mouth full of cake, answered, ‘Well now, no, Reverend Mother, I don’t believe we do.’

  Crumbs flew out and landed on her lap as she spoke. Sister Celia hurriedly stood and, waddling to the fireplace, held out the skirt of her habit to shake the contents into the hearth.

  Mary began to feel angry. This was a farce. She sensed acutely that the nuns were not telling the truth and that, in the midst of this roomful of women, the only person fighting for her baby’s life was herself.

  The pitch of her voice rose. ‘I’m sorry, Sister, but I cannot believe that to be the case and I’m afraid I cannot leave here, without some information. My son will die without help and I have to make contact with his mother and his family. I simply have to. This is not what I want to do. I do not want to meet his mother. I did not want to make the journey from America. But if this baby is to live, I have no choice.’

  Tears ran silently down her cheeks.

  ‘Please, please, I’m begging you, check your records for any information you may have. Anything will help.’

  ‘Mrs Moynihan, we would love to do that, now, wouldn’t we, Sister Celia, but I’m afraid it just isn’t possible. You see, a few weeks ago we had the most desperate fire and all our records were destroyed, weren’t they, Sister Celia. We have nothing, can ye imagine, nothing left. But let me check now as some of the paperwork survived. We may have the contract the girl signed when she handed the baby over for adoption.’

  Sister Assumpta walked over to the long, tall press at the end of her study and opened one of the lower drawers. A few moments later, she returned to her desk.

  Alice was confused. The words ‘fire’ and ‘where?’ ran through her brain as she looked round the spotless room.

  The convent smelt of incense, not smoke, and there was no sign of the desperate fire Sister Assumpta had spoken of.

  ‘Ah, here we have it now,’ the Reverend Mother said with a flourish. Then her voice altered dramatically and took on a tone of disbelief. ‘Sure, now, I think the girl may have signed the contract with a false name. Don’t they often do that, Sister Celia?’

  Sister Celia had just taken a bite of cake the size of a baby’s head whilst Sister Assumpta had been distracted, searching through the drawer. She was not about to be caught out again and nodded furiously in agreement.

  ‘Now, I know for a fact that the girl’s name was Cissy. She was brought here by her family, but she was sent here by the matron midwife from the hospital, Rosie O’Grady and she wouldn’t get a name wrong. But see here, on the contract the girl has signed her name Kitty Doherty, and yet her name was very definitely Cissy. The girl must have been deluded when she signed this. All we know is that she was from Liverpool. My best suggestion to you would be to travel to Dublin and visit the midwife because the girl obviously lied when she signed this.’

  Sister Assumpta felt foolish. This was the first time she had bothered to check the signature.

  The room grew dark as storm clouds gathered in the sky, resulting from the heat of the previous week.

  As the light faded, the first drops of rain spattered the glass. The doves huddled together on the branch and Alice looked down at the baby on her lap.

  Had she heard right?

  The baby spat his dummy out onto the floor. He looked up and smiled seraphically at Alice. She stared back at him, dumbfounded.

  She leant down to retrieve his brown rubber dummy from the rug and placed it in her hot tea to clean it, a trick she had learnt on the four streets. Her movements were studied and unhurried, concealing the pace of her thoughts, which were racing.

  She spoke for the first time, slowly and deliberately.

  ‘I’m sorry, what did you say the name was on the contract?’

  Sister Assumpta held the document out towards Mary as though ignoring Alice.

  ‘Here, see for yourself. Kitty Doherty.’

  Maura had taken Kitty to Ireland to have the baby. Alice had read the letter that Kathleen had sent Maura.

  Alice felt dizzy as her two worlds collided and became one.

  Just at that second, the door to the office swung open and closed again. A novice re-entered with a jug of hot water for the teapot.

  Bang. Bang. The door slammed shut.

  Alice flinched. This could not be possible. She held out her hand to take the contract Sister Assumpta waved in front of Mary.

  ‘Please, please, let me see,’ she whispered.

  A thousand reasons flew through her mind as to why it could not be Maura and Tommy’s Kitty, but only one thought made any sense, drowning out all else and pounding in her brain.

  The sickly baby sitting on her lap was Kitty’s child and Maura�
�s grandson. Alice struggled to breathe. This could not be. The reason for the night that no one would ever speak of was right here, on her knee. That awful night, when Alice had become an accomplice to murder. She looked back at the doves taking shelter from the rain, which now battered the windows, and felt the floor shift beneath her chair.

  She looked round at the faces in the room, which were fixed upon her and the baby.

  Oh good Lord, can the nuns see what I have done? Alice thought. Surely, this was a nightmare. This could not be really happening. The ghosts of her past life filled the room, laughing and taunting her.

  Somewhere outside, in the rain, she heard Maura and Tommy crying. Alice rose slowly from her chair. She looked down at the baby in her arms and, as she did so, the eyes of a dead priest stared back at her.

  19

  ‘ARE YOU SURE you witnessed this with your own eyes? ’Tis a grave accusation. God knows how we will manage without them if this is true. The kitchens run like clockwork and the garden is one of the most productive I have ever known.’

  Sister Theresa peered over her glasses at Sister Perpetua who sat in front of her desk, still and calm, with her hands clasped loosely in her lap. A statue of poise, marbled with malice. Sister Theresa had read through the journal of evidence Sister Perpetua had placed before her and the facts were there, in black and white. The trouble was, she would so much rather they weren’t.

  ‘Yes, Reverend Mother. I have been keeping a watch for a month now and I have seen everything.’ Sister Perpetua didn’t even blink.

  From the opposite side of the desk, she glanced across at her own handiwork, perched lightly in Sister Theresa’s hands.

  The list of accusations against Maggie and Frank was damning.

  Feeding village children through the railings. Taking garden vegetables to their own kitchen. Giving food to the orphans and slipping bread up to the orphanage in the pockets of the kitchen helpers. The poteen still behind the secret wall in the potting shed.

  ‘I will have to phone the Gardai, you realize that, don’t you? This amounts to theft. We prefer to be private here, Sister Perpetua, and I have no notion of calling the Gardai every five minutes. Are you absolutely sure you have seen all this with your own eyes and there is no mistake?’

  ‘Aye, Sister, I saw it all from the orphanage windows.’

  ‘Holy Mother, I have two bishops arriving in an hour. We will leave this until our visitors have left. I cannot have visitors here and nothing to feed them and, besides, only Maggie knows how the kitchen runs, apart from, possibly, Maggie’s kitchen helper.

  ‘She was with us in the Dublin orphanage. We heard good reports about her from the bishop in Liverpool. When he arrives today, I shall ask him if he thinks she would be up to taking over the kitchen. She worked as a housekeeper for a priest in Liverpool and she will have had enough experience downstairs by now, I should think, wouldn’t you?’

  Sister Perpetua looked puzzled and frowned.

  ‘What is it, Sister Perpetua? For goodness’ sake, what is the problem now?’

  Sister Theresa had never really liked Sister Perpetua. Putting her to work in the orphanage had been the ideal way to keep her out of sight. Or so she had thought. Sister Perpetua was methodical, pedantic and downright humourless. Not that Sister Theresa was in need of a laughing nun, but she did like to see them smiling every now and then. God knew, with the nature of the work they had to undertake and the amount of death they had to deal with, the odd smile was like a tonic to them all. But not Sister Perpetua. It was three years since she had taken her vows and, with each year, she had soured a little bit more than the last. Sister Theresa had never witnessed Sister Perpetua smile. She had also never known her to be wrong, which was why all of this was so depressing.

  ‘Nothing, Sister, it just occurred to me that I haven’t seen the new kitchen girl at mass for a little while now.’

  Sister Theresa frowned. ‘She has been sick, but she surely must be improved. I’m about to check on the meal for tonight, so I shall see her for myself. I have known her since she was a baby. We reared her. She was never a shirker, just a bit simple.’

  Changing the subject quickly, she asked, ‘Did you burn all the papers from the orphanage as I ordered?’

  Sister Theresa closed the pages of the journal as she spoke and handed it across the desk to Sister Perpetua, who took it with her outstretched hand. Sister Theresa rose from her chair.

  This was Sister Perpetua’s cue to follow likewise.

  ‘I did. Sister Clare helped me. We kept only the contracts the girls have signed at the mother and baby home, agreeing to never make contact with their babies, and we burnt all the death certificates from the orphanage. We lit a bonfire by the compost heap at the end of the potato patch and the furthest away from the house.’

  Sister Theresa was now feeling better disposed towards Sister Perpetua. Her manner was tedious but her efficiency very useful.

  ‘Very good. Sister Assumpta has done likewise at the Abbey. There is a midwife in Dublin who will not stop giving out to the authorities, which is making life very difficult indeed for us all. If we have nothing for them to see, if we don’t keep any records, they can’t look for anything, can they? If we are asked, it will be no sin if we do not have to lie. A simple explanation that the papers were lost in a fire will be all that is needed. That will be no word of a lie. Well done, Sister Perpetua. We should have a little talk when the bishops have left tomorrow about whether it is time you moved back down into the convent. But not yet. Now we have to prepare for our visitors.’

  Maggie well knew the determined footsteps of Sister Theresa as they thumped down the stairs into the kitchen. Her inbuilt antennae were programmed to pick up the first step as soon as the top door was opened. By the sound of their tread alone, Maggie could tell even before she had reached the second step which sister was paying the kitchen a visit.

  ‘As dainty as a bleeding elephant,’ she muttered under her breath as the familiar black shoes and skirt came into view. She quickly slipped her smouldering pipe back into her apron pocket.

  ‘Maggie.’ Sister Theresa was already speaking while still on the stairs. ‘Is all in order for our visitors tonight? Did we have a good side of beef delivered from the village? The bishop’s teeth aren’t that good, so we don’t want tough meat now.’

  ‘Have I ever served ye tough meat, Reverend Mother, visitors or not?’ Maggie asked her question without impertinence, but her meaning was implicit.

  She could feel the heat of her pipe burning in her pocket. It was rare for Sister Theresa to visit the kitchen in the middle of the morning, which was when Maggie always had a cuppa and a ‘pull of me pipe’. It was also when she gave the girls from the orphanage or the mother and baby home a cuppa and a slice of bread and butter, telling them to rest their legs for a minute or two.

  Maggie had learnt how to make the flour stretch by making slightly smaller loaves for the nuns, so that she could keep an extra one back for the helpers.

  The girls had shoved their mugs and bread under the bench and were scrubbing the pots, just as they had been moments before.

  Sister Theresa studied them. Maggie sweated.

  ‘Where’s the girl? Is she still sick?’

  Daisy had supposedly been sick for the best part of a week. Maggie had known this moment would arrive.

  Maggie was many things – kind, hurt, wise and damaged – but she was not stupid.

  ‘She is off to the village to collect me baccy, Reverend Mother. She is the only one I can trust. Frank is busy digging up cabbage and I have run out. Did ye want me to send her to ye when she gets back?’

  ‘Maggie, you don’t send the girls to the village on your errands. For goodness’ sake, not today of all days, and not on any day.’

  ‘No, Sister, well, I can only say that with me baccy, you will likely have a better-tasting dinner and more tender beef, as it is a fact that if I am in a bad mood when I cook, the food never tastes as good and th
e milk often curdles.’

  Sister Theresa stared at Maggie. She played an important role in the convent. Supplying three meals a day to the sisters and any visitors. This left the nuns free to run the mother and baby home, the nursery, the laundry, the orphanage and the retreat. Making money was the order of the day.

  Using nuns to run the gardens and the kitchen would have been a waste of resources. The sisters had to be self-sufficient and, in the last few years, they had been successful in that. They were almost as successful as the Abbey, Sister Theresa guessed.

  The bishops were visiting tonight and had asked to look over the bank books.

  ‘They can do that gladly,’ Sister Theresa had said to Sister Celia. ‘We can hand them the books with pleasure. What we do not do is tell them about the biscuit tins with the money in the press. We have upwards of nineteen thousand pounds in there now, so we have, and it will be gone in a flash if the bishop knew we had it. If we ran into trouble, sure, we would have to beg on our knees for a handout. The money in the tins is ours and it stays that way.’

  Her nuns were working long hours, for the benefit of the community, and she dreaded the disruption that losing Maggie and Frank would bring. As she stood in the kitchen, she knew she would have to be reconciled to that loss if Sister Perpetua’s record-keeping was correct.

  Right now, she was too busy to tackle the problem of Maggie or, for that matter, the errand-running kitchen girl. She needed to visit the orphanage to let them know the bishops were arriving and to ensure the sick children were in the isolation rooms. Every one of them would need a bath today and that would be a massive effort in itself.

  Frank returned to the lodge, knowing that Maggie would be late back.

  The nuns had been all of a flutter all day, preparing for the simultaneous visit of two bishops. Nothing but wailing and crying had been heard through the orphanage windows and, as Frank well knew, the rumpus was being caused by much more than the mere fact that all the children were being bathed in cold water. Tempers were flying.