The Penance Room

by Carol Coffey

  “The next day, we travelled back by bus and there was a terrible atmosphere. I could see Neil looking at me strangely and I began to panic that Peter had told him what I’d said. When we stopped for lunch, I saw Neil and Margaret talking and looking over at me. I began to imagine the parish priest sitting in my parents’ parlour telling them what I’d done. I think my face must have been red all the way home and I spent most of the journey looking out of the window trying to find a way out of the trouble I was sure I was in.

  “As soon as I got home I ran to my room and cried my eyes out. Finn, my eldest brother, came in and asked me what was wrong and in that moment, without thinking, I said . . . I said that Father Peter had taken advantage of me in his room . . . that I had gone there to ask him for some advice on one of the kids. I don’t know why I said that. I was so . . . humiliated. Finn went mad. He ran downstairs and I could hear my brothers and my father shouting. Above it all I could hear my mother’s tears. I had never heard her cry like that before.

  “My father phoned the police and it all suddenly got out of hand. They took a statement from me and . . . I heard later that Father Peter was taken down to the station for interview. They interviewed the other volunteers and as none of them actually saw anything, it was my word against his. I think they believed me because Margaret had told the police that I had returned to the dorm that night very upset. I knew then that Father Peter hadn’t told anyone about what I had done but it was too late, it was too late to tell the truth. He was released and the police asked my parents if they wanted to file charges. I begged them not to – I even – God forgive me – I asked them to be Christian about it and to forgive him. They relented even though my brothers were angry about this. They wanted to see him go to jail. Finn went up to the parish house and when Father Peter answered, he punched him in the face. He could have got a police record but Father Peter didn’t make a complaint. Finn saw this as a terrible sign of guilt while I remained quiet and drowned in shame.

  “Father Peter was sent to work in Columbia and I tried to get on with my life. But I couldn’t get it out of my head and knowing what I’d done gnawed away at me so much so that I actually asked my parents to send me to boarding school for that last year of my education. I said I had to get away from the town and they agreed. It cost them a fortune. Two of my brothers were at college then and it was money they couldn’t afford. I went straight from there to nursing training in Dublin. It was what my mother wanted and I felt I had no right to say no, not after what I had done. I went out with one or two men in Dublin but nothing ever lasted. It was as if I could not allow myself happiness. I could not allow myself a life because I had ruined Peter’s life.

  “When I was twenty-one, I graduated from nurse training. I realised I hated nursing but I felt I had no say in anything any more. It was like I was dead and only going through the motions of life. My parents and two of my brothers came to Dublin to celebrate. Finn was in New York at that stage so he couldn’t come. My mother was so proud and my father, who I know felt he had not protected me, hugged me throughout the entire ceremony. I could see the tears in his eyes.

  “We went to lunch and I spent the entire meal feeling like every bite I took was choking me. I had two glasses of wine and because I hadn’t been drinking in months, it went straight to my head or should I say, to my tongue. I felt that my sentence should be over. I had done everything my parents wanted me to do. I was now a qualified nurse and had a job in a Dublin hospital for life if I wanted it, but the memory of Peter sat on my chest and I needed to get it off. I needed to feel like I could breathe. I decided to tell them the truth about what happened, right there and then in a busy Dublin restaurant with my two brothers staring open-mouthed across the table. My father’s face went white as snow while my mother stood up and started to shout at me. It was over in a matter of minutes. Together they rose and left me sitting there alone. There was no penance given, no forgiveness. I spent the next few days calling them. Most of the time, the phone would ring out. Twice, I spoke to my second eldest brother, Darragh, who said my mother asked that I never contact them again. I started to write, one letter every day, trying to explain what a stupid thing I had done and how I was sorry, but I never received a reply. I spent the rest of that summer in Dublin trying to think of ways that I could make amends to my family. I called Finn in his office in New York and he ranted and raved at me about how he had assaulted a priest, an innocent man, for me. He told me that he never wanted to hear from me again, that I had broken Mammy and Daddy’s heart and that they would never be able to hold their heads high in the town again.

  “By September I had given up on ever finding peace. I tried to find where Father Peter had been transferred to. I wrote letters to the bishop in Columbia, hoping they would get to him, but I never heard anything.

  “I decided to leave, to get away. I felt lost and alone in Dublin. I didn’t meet many people and I had not made any friends in the hospital. I could not sleep and began drinking heavily, spending my time off work in the local pub. Before I left I had . . . a brief affair with a married man. I know that doesn’t add up. I know that is not the action of a remorseful person but it happened. He didn’t tell me he was married at the time although, if I am to be truthful, deep down I knew. It seemed like I didn’t want to reach for anything permanent, anything that could make me happy. I think I wanted to punish myself, that I hated myself. I never went back to Donegal and I left Dublin for Australia where no one knew me, where I could start afresh.”

  “But you didn’t start afresh?”

  Aishling shakes her head. “No. As soon as I got this job I started writing letters home. I hoped my parents would see that I was trying to make a life for myself. I even told them that I had tried to track Father Peter down but still I received no reply. I started working nights here. My insomnia hadn’t improved. I could sleep during the day, no problem, but could only get a few hours at night if I was really tired. I’ve been here now for about fifteen years and it seems like nothing has changed. It seems like I am still sitting in that restaurant waiting for my family to sit down and tell me they forgive me, still waiting for their letter to say it’s okay, you can come home.”

  Aishling lowers her head and allows the tears that have been building to fall. Steve moves forward and wipes them with his tanned hands.

  “Can you forgive yourself?”

  Aishling shakes her head. “Part of me thinks it was all such a stupid, adolescent thing to happen, that it could have happened to any teenager but yet it ruined my life, Peter’s life and my family’s. I want to – I really want to put it behind me but I am stuck and I can’t see . . .”

  Aishling sobs again and puts her hand over her mouth. Steve holds her and I can see him patting her back as though she is a child.

  “Continue,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’m telling you this. W–without my parents’ forgiveness, I can’t see a way out.”

  “Aishling, you cannot control what other people do. You should understand that. Look at what happened to Mina, to Iren. People do things that hurt others. Can I ask you something?”

  Aishling nods.

  “Do you forgive your parents for turning their backs on you?”

  Aishling’s eyes open wide, spilling large tears. From my bedroom window I can see her struggling to answer a question she has never before considered.

  “Let them go,” Steve finally says. “Forgive them. There is nothing more you can do.”

  Aishling turns to him and wraps her arms around herself. She leans forward and I can see that she regrets opening herself up to him. Steve puts his arms out and draws her in and she relents. I watch for a few moments as she cries in his arms, my emotions torn between relief for her and jealousy towards Steve for the feelings I fear Aishling has for him. I pull my blind down roughly and lie down on my bed. Darkness is falling and even though I am fully dressed, I drift off to sleep. I know Martin will need me later and I want to be re
ady.

  Chapter 19

  At two o’clock I wake abruptly even though I have not felt any movement from Aishling’s chair outside my room. I rise quickly and make my way out of my room. Aishling is not at her desk but I decide not to check on her whereabouts. I open Martin’s door and find him awake, sitting up talking to someone. I glance at his locker and notice the empty bottle of whiskey which had been almost full the night before. I stand just inside the door and watch him speak with an imaginary visitor. He suddenly notices me and beckons for me to come in and sit on his bed. I don’t want to show any fear but he is looking at his window with such sincerity that I am afraid there really is a ghost, an angry ghost, the type I am afraid of.

  “I’m sorry, Liam,” he said. “I’m sorry you got killed in the war.”

  Martin waits for an answer and I can see him nodding. I prefer to believe the amount of whiskey he has consumed is causing him to hallucinate and conjure up the memory of the people he has offended. Like Dr Alder says, his conscience and not people, is haunting him.

  “This is my friend Christopher,” he says as if introducing me to a visitor in his room, a live visitor that is.

  “Liam knows you,” he says and I gulp.

  “He says he has seen you walking the hallways, checking on people.”

  I am suddenly frozen with fear and feel the need to pee. I don’t like it when ghosts are walking around here without my knowledge. I want to run and suddenly I know how Wilfred feels, sitting in the Penance Room, listening to others tell terrible tales and being too afraid to leave.

  “Weren’t my fault, Liam,” he says but his face looks calm and he is nodding as if Liam is speaking to him.

  “She’s here?” he says, an expression of fear spreading across his lined face.

  I feel a sudden draught and the curtain in Martin’s room rises from the floor and blows towards us. He screams and I can see his mouth open wide, his few yellow teeth sticking out from his receding gums. His window is open wide and a sudden breeze has howled up from the side of the house.

  Aishling comes running in. Her hair is hanging loose and her make-up is smeared. It looks like she has not stopped crying since her confession to Steve hours earlier.

  “What is it, Martin?” she says. Her face looks panicked.

  “My mother! She’s just put her face in through my window. My brother – he brought her here to punish me. Jesus, they’re going to get me! I know it! She pulled that curtain up straight off the floor. She’s here. Please believe me. I’m not mad. The boy saw it. Ask him!”

  Aishling walks to the window and pulls it shut. “It’s the breeze, Martin. There’s a storm coming. We might even get some rain. Look, no one is here, love. Go to sleep.” She looks at the empty bottle of whiskey and sighs. “Martin, look, I can appreciate you liking a drop but it doesn’t go so well with your medication, okay? No wonder you’re seeing ghosts.”

  Martin looks at me and opens his mouth to argue but I don’t want him upsetting Aishling tonight. I raise my fingers to my lips and signal for him to say nothing.

  “Okay,” he says.

  Aishling sighs. “Look, I’m outside if you need me so don’t be afraid to call, okay?”

  Martin nods but his lips remain in their pursed, unhappy shape.

  I leave Martin and follow Aishling into the hallway. She hears something on the lower floor and makes her way downstairs. I notice that her bedroom door is open and her small reading light is on. I walk over her dressing-table and see a letter she has written to her parents. I pick it up and read it shamelessly.

  Dear Mam and Dad

  I have promised myself that this is the last letter you will ever receive from me. I hope that this is one promise I can keep. I know now that you will never forgive me for the awful mistake I made and I accept this. I am trying to forgive myself and, for that, I will need all my energy, energy that I have wasted trying to explain my actions to you. I forgive you for feeling the way you do. I let you down and I am truly sorry. I wish you both well and I will always love you.

  Goodbye

  Your daughter, Aishling

  Underneath I see another letter that she has written to Deirdre in New York. She knows that she cannot put her wrongs right but she is going to try to help Father Francis.

  I feel her thundering back up the stairs and return swiftly to the darkened corridor. Aishling goes into her room and fixes her hair into a bun. I watch as she gasps and grimaces as she smooths cream onto her sunburnt arms and legs. In the dim light her face looks lined and there is a harshness about her that I have not seen before. A familiar sadness overpowers me and I leave her and walk downstairs where I stand outside my parents’ room for a moment. It is five to three and I am tempted to climb in beside them until my night fear passes but I resist and try to tough it out on my own. I go into the Penance Room and notice how different it looks in the darkness. It seems lost without the tortured souls that sit here every day, as though the room needs them as much as I do. I sit on my window-seat and look out at the streetlight streaming over our garden and making strange shapes as our trees lash about in the wind that is still blowing. As my train passes, I dig my nails into the wooden pew and count numbers in my head. It will not last long. I have to be brave.

  When it is over I rub my foot which always throbs at this time of night and hobble back upstairs to my room. Aishling is not at her desk and I ease my door open and climb into bed, hoping that the morning will come soon. But I don’t sleep and spend what is left of the night thinking of Aishling and of Martin.

  When the sun finally rises, I welcome it and make my way downstairs where I sit alone until the crowd shuffle in from the dining room. There is a teenage Chinese boy standing awkwardly in the hallway outside my mother’s office. She opens her office door and brings him in. Tired as I am I follow and sit on the side of her armchair. The boy is seated facing her and I remember that he is Li’s son and that she wants Mina to teach him to bake. He is a tall, thin boy of about sixteen or seventeen with coarse black roughly cut hair and dark brown eyes. He is lightly tanned and is wearing worn runners and faded jeans. I notice how nervous he looks as his eyes shoot around the small room.

  “So, Kai, you want to learn to bake?” my mother asks.

  Kai nods and looks at his feet. “Yes, Ma’am,” he says.

  “I suppose your mother has told you about Mina. She might be a little hard to get along with.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. My mother said that Mina has suffered a lot.”

  I follow Kai’s words and notice that he speaks perfect English because he was born here and didn’t have to learn a new language like his parents did. He is polite and respectful and I can see my mother warming to him.

  “It won’t be a proper job but you are free to come in a couple of times a week to learn from Mina.”

  Kai thanks my mother for the opportunity. I can see by her face that she doesn’t think this will work.

  “Kai, if Mina gives you a hard time, you let me know and I’ll speak to her, okay?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he says again and my mother leads him to the door. My mother brings Kai down to the kitchen where she explains to Mina that she would like her to teach him the confectionary trade. Kora is standing by the sink with Li and all four of us take a deep breath, waiting for her reaction. She peers closely at Kai and looks back at my mother. It seems like an eternity before she answers.

  “Why?” she asks, gripping onto the worktop and steadying herself from the sight in front of her.

  I know she thinks Kai is a Japanese boy standing in her kitchen, near her precious food.

  “Mina, Kai is Li’s son and he would like to learn to bake. You know Li’s not much of a baker so I thought you’d like an apprentice,” my mother explains quickly.

  “Li is not Japanese. She’s Chinese,” she says firmly and my mother nods.

  “That’s right,” she says, “and Kai is an Australian boy.”

  Mina looks around her and for some rea
son darts a sharp glance at Kora who almost spits out her water. I think she feels defeated with so many people around and agrees to take on her apprentice.

  “Okay, Emma. I will try but he better not be a stupid pupil.”

  Kai doesn’t react to the insult but stands still in the kitchen waiting for his orders.

  “Come back tomorrow,” she finally says. “You know how to make cheesecake?”

  Kai shakes his head. “No, Ma’am.”

  I am starting to think that this is all he will ever say – yes Ma’am, no Ma’am.

  “Well, we’ll start with this.”

  Kai leaves and everyone shoots quick glances at each other.

  Li thanks Mina and she shrugs it off.

  “I hope he doesn’t eat much,” she responds gruffly. “There’s not enough to go around.”

  Everyone goes into the Penance Room where we wait to hear Penelope and Victoria’s story. The sisters are already there and are seated side by side at the far end of the room. Victoria is wearing the red dress that Greta took her shopping for and it looks like she has been crying. Kora walks over to her and asks her what is wrong and she says, “This is a nice dress” through sobs. I watch Penelope stiffen and know that she has given her younger sister a telling-off about her choice of clothing. I suddenly wish that Greta was here because Kora doesn’t understand what has happened. She doesn’t know the ladies as well as Greta has got to know them in the short time she has been here.

  “Yes, it’s a lovely dress, Victoria. There’s no need to cry, mate,” Kora says as she walks away and takes a seat beside Iren. She has brought a packet of crackers to feed to Iren. Apart from medication, food is the only thing that will keep her quiet.

  Greta arrives unexpectedly. It is her day off but she wants to hear the ladies’ story. I feel relieved and watch as she walks over to Victoria and speaks quietly to her. She has her back to me so I don’t know what she has said but when she walks away Victoria is smiling and sitting upright in her chair. I see Greta slipping Penelope another envelope which the elder sister opens quickly before hiding it under the cushion beneath her.