The Liberation of Brigid Dunne

by Patricia Scanlan

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  This book is dedicated to Mná na hÉireann, the Women of Ireland, and in particular to the many dedicated activists who challenged a patriarchal society, where Church and State conspired to treat Irish women as second-class citizens.

  We owe a debt to an illustrious list of women who challenged the status quo—and changed Irish society in the process. Too numerous to mention, they include: Anna Haslam, Constance Markievicz, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Hilda Tweedy, Nell McCafferty, Máirín Johnston, Margaret Gaj, June Levine, Mairin de Burca, Mary Maher, Moira Woods, Mary Anderson, Nuala Fennell, and May McGee.

  To Catherine Corless, for her unremitting efforts to bring justice for the Tuam Babies.

  And to many courageous women today, inspired by the women above, who are still fighting the Church and State for justice, ethical behaviour, and equality for all Irish women. We owe you all a huge debt of gratitude.

  If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

  George Orwell

  PROLOGUE Christmas Eve

  1953

  She pulls her shabby black woollen coat tighter around her and wraps her scarf snugly against her cheeks. It is bitterly cold, her breath forming an opaque mist in the frosty moonlight. The stony path that leads from her grandmother’s cottage down to the farmhouse is slippery with ice, and she skitters and slides, grabbing a furze bush with her woollen-mitted hands to save herself from a fall. She pauses to catch her breath.

  Venus, a radiant golden jewel, shines as brightly as the yellow slice of new moon against a black velvet sky speckled with glittering stars. Candlelit windows down in the valley and on the hillsides spill pools of light in the darkness. She’d lit the fat, red candle in her grandmother’s parlour window before she left, for the traditional welcome to the Christ child on Christmas Eve.

  Normally she would feel delight and anticipation on this blessed night, though she is no longer a child and doesn’t believe in Father Christmas, unlike her two excited youngest siblings at home, who have already hung their stockings at the end of their beds.

  Tonight she is bereft, her heart shattered into a thousand sharp-edged pieces. She looks down to her left beyond the stony fields that quilt the mountain, where weather-bowed, bare-branched trees and hedgerows define the boundaries to the Larkins’ farmland. Her heart feels as though a knife has stabbed and twisted it when she thinks of black-haired, brown-eyed Johnny Larkin, who had told her that he loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone. Who had pressed her up against the cold, hard wall of his father’s barn and kissed and caressed her in her most private places and done things to her that, even though she’d demurred and then protested, had shocked her, yet given her a fierce delight that Johnny loved and wanted her and not that skinny little rake, Peggy Fitzgerald, whose father owned the big farm next to the Larkins’.

  Two days after Johnny told her he loved her, his engagement to Peggy had been announced. Tomorrow at Christmas Mass, Peggy will simper and giggle on Johnny’s arm, flashing the diamond ring Pa Larkin has lent his son the money to buy.

  She can’t bear it. An anguished sob breaks the deep silence of the night. Her sorrow overwhelms her. A sudden, unexpected pain in her belly doubles her up, causing her to groan in agony. She feels dampness on her thighs, and pulling up her clothes sees the trickle of blood down her legs. Another spasm convulses her and, frightened, she takes deep breaths until it eases.

  In the distance, she hears the sound of the carol singers who go from house to house, singing the glorious story of the birth of a child who would bring peace to all mankind.

  As she loses her own child, in the shelter of the prickly furze bush, she hears the singing of “O Holy Night” floating across the fields from her parents’ house.

  Christmas Eve

  Mid-Eighties

  Although the heat of the day has died down, she is hot and bothered. She thinks of Christmases at home when her fingers were numb with cold, and wishes for a moment that she could transport herself to Ireland, to Ardcloch, and feel the icy chill of a moonlit night in December. But she’s half a world from home and she needs to focus on the task at hand.

  The children are beside themselves, their excited chatter and awestruck expressions bringing smiles to the adults’ faces. She casts a peek at the tall, lean man with the lopsided smile who is surrounded by them. How they love it when he is here. How she loves it when he is here. She has to be careful. Not by so much as a glance can she betray herself. She is well aware that Mother has been watching her like a hawk since her arrival this morning.

  Reverend Mother’s presence brings a tension, an edge, to the gathering. Everyone is on their best behaviour. Even laid-back Margaret is looking unnaturally spruce, her unruly red locks that usually escape in every direction imprisoned in hairpins.

  Mother claps her hands for silence. “We will sing ‘Silent Night,’ ” she instructs as the room quietens down.

  The old familiar carol brings a loneliness that catches her unawares. It is worse than loneliness. At home they have a name for it: uaigneas. That aching aloneness and loneliness that words cannot describe. She is apprehensive. What will become of her? With superhuman force of will she gathers herself and, by some grace, manages to join in the next verse.

  Later, when all the guests are feasting on the eagerly awaited Christmas Eve supper, the children trying but failing to be polite as they cram food into their mouths, he comes to stand beside her at the buffet.

  “Bonne nuit,” he says casually, trying to ignore Mother’s gimlet eye.

  She keeps her head down, placing a slice of mango on her plate although her throat is so constricted she can hardly eat. “Oíche maith,” she says. She has been teaching him Irish. At that moment one of the children trips over and a plate smashes. There are squawks of dismay and flurries of activity as the broken pieces are swept off the floor, and while Mother’s and everyone else’s attention is elsewhere, she whispers urgently, “I’m pregnant.”

  “Mon Dieu!” he utters, his face turning ashen.

  For one awful moment she thinks he is going to abandon her and leave her to endure the future alone, and then she hears him say, “I am with you. We will face this together,” before someone comes to claim his attention.

  Relief washes over her. Just as Joseph had stayed with Mary and helped her bring her child into the world on this Holy Night over two thousand years ago, her Saint Joseph will be with her on this new, unplanned journey that lies ahead. Joy fills her. There will be uproar when the news breaks. She knows a hard road lies ahead, but every fibre of her body rejoices at the new life she is carrying.

  Christmas Eve

  2017

  She was a little girl again, back in the Four Winds. The easterly gale howling, keening like a banshee as it swirled around the chimney pots, almost drowning out the angry roar of the sea as it hurled itself against the rocks standing sentinel beside the half-moon bay at the foot of the bockety wooden steps at the end of the vegetable garden.

  It was Christmas Eve. The old house creaked and groaned in the wind, and she wondered anxiously whether Santa’s reindeer would be able to land on the roof. And then she heard it: the unmistakable sound of bells ringing, faint at first but getting l
ouder. Her heart pounding with excitement and terror, she slid lower under her soft quilt, until only her peridot-green eyes were peeping above it, round and shining with anticipation. Santa was coming.…

  What was that noise? Marie-Claire woke reluctantly from her delightful dream, half-expecting to see the glow of the fire in the darkness that surrounded her. Her mouth was dry, her arm stiff where she’d laid her head on it. A mobile phone was tinkling somewhere—not reindeer’s sleigh bells—and it took a few moments to realise that she was on the small sofa in the recording studio, which was now in complete darkness. She’d come into the studio to listen, as twilight was falling, to a particular inflection that the actress who had been recording an advert earlier had got just right in one recording. Marie-Claire wanted to isolate that perfect tone and splice it into the voice-over, and the quiet of late afternoon was her favourite time to shut her eyes and listen to the recordings.

  She could see it was snowing outside. Soft white flakes drifting and dancing down.

  What time was it? How long had she been sleeping? She’d to go home and doll herself up. She and her partner, Marc, were having dinner in Edulis. He’d booked a table in November when he had taken her there to celebrate White Truffle season. Marc liked the good things in life. There’d be caviar and champagne on the table tonight, knowing him.

  She was about to get up when the heavy, soundproofed door inched open, a slice of light from the hallway spilling in. A young woman was speaking excitedly in a low voice. The ON-AIR light was off and staff often stepped into empty studios to take private calls. She was about to sit up and announce herself when she heard a vaguely familiar voice say, “Girl, you should see the gift he gave me: Tiffany love hearts on a silver chain! Not just the one—two! Which, obviously, is more expensive. What does that say? And when Marie-Claire goes to New York next week, we’re spending a night in Niagara at the Embassy Suites. The Embassy Suites!” she repeated, her whispery voice rising in pitch. “I swear Marc’s falling in love with me. He keeps telling me I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him!” There was the muffled sound of a reply, rapid bursts of speech, and then, “No, I won’t see him today. He has to take her to dinner. In Edulis, would you believe. That’s what she wanted. She’s so bossy. It’s the Irish in her, he says. Listen, I have to go, catch ya later.”

  Marie-Claire lay as still as a frozen mummy as the green light from the cell phone was extinguished and the hefty studio door opened once more and then closed silently.

  So Marc was shagging butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth Amelia.

  Struggling into a sitting position, she sat in the darkness, stunned. Marc, with his glinting amber eyes, six-pack abs, and unruly black curls, was a catch. But they’d been together for two years and were even planning on setting up a New York office to expand his recording business.

  Aunt Brigid’s oft-voiced refrain came into her head: “Love many, trust few. Always paddle your own canoe.” Well, paddle alone I will, Marie-Claire resolved grimly, trying hard not to cry as a sickly tight knot settled in her stomach and the beginnings of a headache throbbed in her temple.

  “Get up and get the hell out of here,” she muttered, trying to motivate herself. Because once she walked out of this building she knew with certainty that she’d never be back.

  Tonight, in that posh restaurant, she would put on the performance of her life. Her Irish pride would see to that, she thought bitterly. This Christmas Eve would be one that Marc Bouchard would never forget.

  PART ONE

  The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.

  Mary Pickford

  Chapter One

  Marie-Claire

  The taxi cruised slowly along Niagara Street, the lights of Christmas trees in the red-bricked apartments twinkling into the snow-swirled night. Marie-Claire felt the tug of longing for Ireland, and home. Three hours ago she’d been a woman with plans and an idea where her future lay. Happy. Secure. Ambitious. One short, clandestine phone call had changed all that. Now she was in a maelstrom, shock, sadness, bitterness, and rage tossing her on their churning seas. It was that roiling rage that would get her through dinner with Marc tonight.

  She paid the taxi driver and wrapped her heavy green faux-fur-trimmed cape around her. Marc had made a fool of her. Her anger was as much directed at herself as him, but he would never know what lay behind her decision to split, she decided with steely resolve. Let him think she was leaving him because she’d decided it was time to move on. Let him be the one questioning her decision. Let him be the one asking why. Whether Amelia was a mere distraction, fling, whatever, she didn’t care. There would never be trust in their relationship if she stayed. And anyway, now she didn’t want to.

  Something unexpected solidified within Marie-Claire as she took a deep breath and walked towards the inviting lamp-lit entrance. What had happened today was life-changing. A kick in the ass! A wake-up call, her mother would say.

  Was she to give up her life in Toronto and the career in sound engineering that she’d worked so hard to build? Running the Radio & TV Voice-overs department in a busy audio post facilities company that was going places. Marc’s company, unfortunately. She’d have to go looking for another job. But where?

  Right there, on that freezing night on a dark Toronto sidewalk, Marie-Claire knew exactly what she wanted and where she wanted to be. She wanted to go home. Back to the Four Winds and her snug little room in the eaves to take time to think and evaluate.

  She’d even be able to go to Great-Aunt Brigid’s surprise eightieth birthday party. An invite she’d reluctantly had to say no to because she’d originally been scheduled to be in New York.

  Marie-Claire opened the restaurant door and walked in, preparing to put on the act of her life.

  Chapter Two

  Keelin

  Keelin Durand stood at her bedroom window looking at snow-adorned Mount Canigou in the distance. The mountain seemed to shimmer in the early morning sun, a paler blue than the azure December sky that almost overwhelmed the vast plains of Roussillon and the lavender fields below. Canigou, the sacred mountain so beloved of the Catalans.

  Keelin turned from the window. She and her husband, Armand, were closing up the house for two weeks to fly to Ireland to spend New Year with family. Her aunt, Reverend Mother Brigid, would be turning eighty and the family would be celebrating.

  How nice it would be to stay in the Four Winds again. What a haven it had been, back when she needed it most, Keelin reflected. She loved the place so much that when she and Armand had inherited his grandfather’s farm in the shadow of the Pyrenees, she’d named the house they had built Les Quatre Vents. It was very apt, too, because the winds there came from every direction, each with its own distinctive energy. The Mistral. The Sirocco. The Tramontane. The eerie continuous howling of the Tramontane, that blew in from the north-west, set most people’s teeth on edge, but it reminded Keelin of home.

  She sighed as she expertly folded one of Armand’s jumpers and placed it in the suitcase. She’d been dismayed when Marie-Claire had told her that she wouldn’t make it home for the party. These days it seemed to be all work with her. There had to be balance, Keelin counselled—as she did to her many clients who came to stay and renew themselves in the Healing, Spiritual, and Relaxation Retreat Centre she and Armand ran in Les Quatre Vents.

  But her advice fell on deaf ears with her daughter, to whom career was everything. Despite having been raised with a deep awareness of nature and the esoteric, both in Ireland and in France, Marie-Claire had turned her back on all that could nurture her spirit, preferring the bright city lights of Toronto, and soon, possibly, New York. Still, she had to get it out of her system, and far be it for Keelin to dissuade her from her chosen path.

  She and her daughter were so alike, Keelin reflected, rolling a pair of PJs to make them fit better. She’d been a young woman once, with fire in her belly and a passion to make changes, to live life to the full—and look where it had go
t her. Far from where she’d imagined she’d ever be in this lifetime.

  The catalysts for some of the great changes that had occurred in Keelin’s life had been her mother, Imelda, and her aunt Brigid—two strong, determined, and stubborn women. Who would be the catalyst for her daughter? When upheavals came—and they would—Keelin couldn’t help but hope that Marie-Claire would be spared the torment and heartbreak that had once been visited on her, that she had kept so secret from her daughter. Keelin too had had to be strong, determined, and stubborn when Marie-Claire was born; she hoped her daughter would be as resilient as the rest of the Dunne women, when she needed to be, although Brigid would be a more inspiring role model than Imelda, Keelin thought ruefully.

  Yes, Brigid’s eightieth would be interesting, that was for sure. She wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  Chapter Three

  Reverend Mother Brigid

  Reverend Mother Brigid wrapped her cloak around her as she walked around the perimeter stone wall of the cloister. She was spending Christmas in the Order’s Mother House on the outskirts of Paris. Dusk was falling, the sky turning deep indigo as the tangerine glow of sunset faded and was doused mercilessly by triumphant night. A Holy Night.

  Brigid did not like Christmas Eve, never had since… Oh well, that was a long time ago, she chided herself, dismissing the memory. She wasn’t alone in disliking this particular eve. She remembered as a young nun, on her first posting out on the Missions in Africa, one of the older Sisters, crying, after imbibing some of the local brew—following midnight Mass—when the villagers had gone home.

  “I wish I was at home, with a man’s arms around me, and a baby to hold. And none of your Virgin birth nonsense. I want it all, the rub of the relic, everything, and now it’s too late. I’m nearly a dried-up old crone!” Sister Pius had exclaimed, distraught, taking another swig of her drink before bursting into tears.