Forbidden Fruit (36 page)

Next day, who should come to see me but Eamonn. Did he have a private eye tailing me? This time he really was a mess: jaundiced
worse than Peter, two blood-spotted eggs for eyes, the fizz all gone.

He drew the curtain around the bed and took me in his arms. His fingers twitched as if he had Parkinson’s and he was crying
and begging, “Forgive me, Annie, forgive me. How could I have done this to you?”

Tears dribbled down his cheeks and met under a wobbly chin. I dried them for him. “My fault,” he murmured, “all my fault.”

“As soon as I take Peter home and —”

He instantly reverted to his demand for adoption. What a quick-change artist he was. Eamonn, the great survivor of every shipwreck,
still keeping afloat by treading blood. In one head-chopping instant he switched from loving to hating me. Always love and
hate, the two faces of the moon.

“When are you going to get it into your head,” I said hoarsely, “that I will not give him up?”

“You will,” he ground out, “oh, you
will
.” He left without one consoling word.

Sister Moore, the head nurse, came in. She said: “You want to go into hiding, don’t you, you selfish bitch? Then no one will
be able to adopt your baby and he’ll have to stay in Saint Patrick’s for good.” I was dumbfounded. The sorcerer had so many
people speaking on his behalf, starting with God.

My temperature had fallen to 101 but there was a big red streak down my left leg that burned like hell and I nearly couldn’t
walk. These were the very symptoms Daddy had before he lost his left leg. I had visions of gangrene setting in and surgeons
cutting my leg off above the knee.

Minutes after Sister Moore left, a doctor came in. He had a big red face and drink on his breath. As plain an alcoholic as
I ever saw, and I had seen some. I had to take the thermometer from him to get it into my mouth and stop him from breaking
my tooth. Afterward he couldn’t read the damn thing. No matter. He slapped me heartily on my bad leg. “Ready for discharge,”
and a nurse brought me my outdoor clothes.

I was hobbling along the corridor to call Barbara Devlin when I remembered the family was now on vacation abroad. It hit me
hard that I was no Pop Murphy, born and bred in Kerry. I was a foreigner. I had forgotten how deceptive this land was. When
I first drove to Inch I had noticed that it seemed so alive when only shadows moved. Nothing now was coming through the soles
of my feet but malice and distrust. I was alone. I did not belong.

I called St. Patrick’s and a dear little old man came and drove me in a small black car back to the home.

There, all hell broke loose. Annie Murphy target practice! I was verbally assaulted for staying out overnight without a pass,
for getting myself admitted to a hospital when I was perfectly all right. Not only would I not let a devoted couple have my
baby, I refused even to stay around and feed him.

To cap it all, Eamonn appeared once more. Had he nothing worse to do? Was I his whole flock, his entire diocese? Once more,
he waved the adoption papers in my face.

I told him, “Go shove them. I’m taking my baby with me back to America.”

“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Oh, no.
You
can go if you like, but that boy has to be put on your passport.”

“I’ll go to the American embassy as soon as I’m well.”

“You will not succeed,” he said, meaningfully.

He spoke to me for a long time after that but I heard scarcely a word. However, I do remember saying to him: “We’re like two
dogs in a ring, you know that? And let me tell you, I’m a Murphy and a damned good fighter. You’re the one who’s got everything
to lose.”

I looked him in the eyes, but there was no one there.

Eamonn’s attempts to wrest Peter from me were a worse violation of me than any I had suffered at the hands of men. Worse than
the attempted rape when I was sixteen. Worse than Jeff, my boyfriend, twice sodomizing me. Worse than my husband’s prodding
me with pointed objects because he did not wish to soil his hands. What made Eamonn’s violation of me so much more terrible
was that I still loved him and I felt that, deep down, he loved me. The force making him do such a wicked thing was alien
to his naturally kind self.

Afterward, it took me a long time to climb the stairs to my room. Once there, I looked out the window and, behold, my demon-angel
was in the courtyard about to climb—ah, this was an official visit—into his Mercedes. He looked up and crossed his arms
twice with his hands turned toward me as if to say, “You will
not
keep your baby.”

That did it. He would never change. Summoning all my energy, I went downstairs again, where I fed coins into the telephone
box in the hallway. I got through to Mary to tell her I was coming home after all. She was crying. I realized that if I returned
in my present state, it would break my father’s heart and send my mother straight back on the bottle.

I was unable to get to dinner. The pain in my leg was like a huge toothache with all the nerves exposed. And now the foot
was beginning to swell as, I remembered, my father’s had swelled before he underwent surgery. I could see myself being fitted
out like Daddy with a wooden leg and a special shoe on the end. Apart from anything else, if things did not improve, Peter
and I would starve.

That night, Gina, the fair-haired nurse on duty, took me into her confidence. She gave me a few more codeine tablets to dull
the pain in my leg and shared a cigarette with me. I didn’t smoke, but I liked the sacred communion of that cigarette. Exhaling,
she said, “The holy guy”—the inmates’ name for the Bishop—“blessed the nursery today.”

I found that funny. While I was staggering upstairs, he had blessed a room with a batch of babies in it, one of them his own
son. How long was this sham going to last? Weeks, months, years? When would he leave me be or say—with pride, regret, whatever
—“He is my son?”

“Annie,” Gina whispered, “the nuns, especially with that oily Bishop around, don’t care a shit about you, only about the baby.”

She was right. In a religion that spreads pictures of the Virgin around like confetti, women do not count. My misfortune was
that I, Annie Murphy, was a mere woman.

The next day, at feeding time, I managed to get to the nursery, but the head nurse took me firmly but kindly by the arm.

“Peter’s not there,” she said.

“Oh my God,” I screamed, “where is he?”

“Calm yourself, Annie. He’s in a room by himself.”

“Why’s he so special? Why is he so
special
?”

“His navel has an infection, and you might give him whatever you’ve picked up.”

After Peter was fed, a nun brought him, clad only in a diaper, to see me. I was not allowed to hold and fondle him. I had
to be satisfied with trying to communicate with him through a plate-glass window.

But instead of cradling him, this wooden-faced nun in a black habit, not the usual white, held him up to me from behind by
his shoulders. Maybe even she did not realize that she was holding him up in the attitude of one crucified. One more brutal
crucifix in St. Patrick’s, a living one. My boy, a miniature Christ.

Seeing his wide-open Calvaried mouth and silent tears, the fight went out of me. I was nothing but a scattering of dead leaves.
It took all my courage to return to the window. I pressed the palms of my hands against it and misted it up as I whispered
to Peter: “You don’t know me from Eve, my darling. Which, come to think of it, is who I am. Yes, Mother Eve, blamed for everything.
But you were our bite of the apple, oh my darling, and you tasted very sweet.”

Then I thought of Adam, the third terrified, guilt-ridden member of our trio, wearer of red socks, blesser of nurseries. “Oh,
Eamonn, you and I are now separated forever by soundproof worlds. We did love each other once, didn’t we? I promised I would
love you forever and forever. Please don’t make me break my word. Please don’t make me end up hating you. Please,
please
don’t crucify our son.”

S
EEING PETER CRY hurt me so much I simply had to leave. After every few paces I had to hop to give my bad leg a rest. For the
first time in my life, I was completely hopeless. I was about to lose my son.

I went down to the lounge and Shelagh met me there. The chief of the girls was tall, tough, but good-hearted. She fetched
me tea and cookies. “Call home, Annie,” she said. “What’re you waiting for, death?”

After I had finished my tea, Shelagh and Morag helped me up the stairs. I was shaking all over with fever, my leg was starting
to swell, and the walls were closing in on me. I was tempted to call Mary and say, “Get Daddy over here fast,” but I couldn’t
do that to him.

Then Mary called me. I managed to get down to the lobby with the help of two girls but I was shaking all over. “You sound
terrible, Annie.”

“Yeah. You’re wasting a fortune just waiting for me to get downstairs.”

“Peter’s paying and now Johnny knows about you, too. So tell us your plans.”

“I’m hoping to get back to the Rotunda but I’m scared I’ll pass out and they’ll have Peter adopted over my head.”

“I wish we could help.”

One day, Bridget paid me a visit. “Holy shit, Murphy,” she said. “You look awful. You’ve got to get out of this hellhole and
into a hospital.” She had no suggestions how to do it and she had her baby to tend to.

That night, on the way to the restroom, I fell and injured my elbow. I crawled to the toilet down one long hallway and halfway
down another. Morag and the rest were scared that if they picked me up it would bring on their own labor.

I got back into bed and gave up. My whole body hurt and I was twice as heavy as usual. Lying in bed was the only relief from
pain and the sense of the mountainous weight of my own self. For five hours I lay there, soaked in urine, unable to open my
eyes. When I did look around, everything seemed cobwebby. All I could do was pray to the God of my childhood. “Please help
me.”

That night, around eleven o’clock, Shelagh came in, very excited. “A doctor’s come to see you.”

A doctor? I shot up in bed. I could still do something for my baby. My body became lighter, power reentered my legs. Somehow
I made it downstairs to the Superior’s study. There was Dr. Harry Burke, the family friend whom I had last seen when Daddy
was in Dublin.

“Annie,” he said, “why didn’t you call me? I was always here for you.”

Harry was short and stocky, with a shock of gray hair, blue eyes, red face, and a nose definitely made in Ireland. He sat
me down on a couch with a stool for my foot. “Now what seems to be the trouble?”

“She’s the trouble,” I said. “Mother Superior here and Bishop Casey.”

“I do assure you, Doctor,” the Superior said, “she has received the best possible treatment.”

“Mother,” I said, “you have done a lot of things, but you have given me no medical treatment whatsoever.”

Dr. Burke turned severe. “Listen, Annie, I can’t have two women cackling around me.” He looked up. There was only a small
table lamp on. “I need to examine this young lady. I want some more light here. Thank you, Mother. Now, if you’d care to leave
us.”

While he took my blood pressure, he explained how he came to be there. Mary had told her ex-husband about me. Bobby, being
a lawyer who specialized in medical cases, realized how ill I was. Since Daddy knew nothing about the baby, Bobby made Mary
creep into Daddy’s study and get Harry’s number from his address book.

“Good job she did, Annie; your blood pressure is up.”

Then he pulled down my jeans. “Oh my God. Bend your foot.”

“I can’t.”

He tried to find the pulse in my leg and failed. “Your right leg’s fine, but there must be blood clots in the left.”

“What?” I cried. I wanted to call Daddy instantly and tell him not to let them cut my leg off.

“Don’t get excited. It’s curable, but your leg’s very inflamed. If it had gone on much longer”—he waved his hand—“I don’t
know.”

He called in the Superior. “I’ve got to use your phone.” Dialing: “We’ve got to get Annie to a hospital immediately. This
is an absolute disgrace. I intend to write a report about this.”

He called the Rotunda and asked them to send an ambulance, emergency.

“We did —”

“Shut up, Mother,” I said. “You should be put in jail.”

“Annie —”

“Okay, Harry, okay.”

He asked the Superior to leave us again.

“Now,” I said, “please, what is a blood clot?”

“Your deep veins are blocked. It doesn’t mean you’re going to die, but it has to be treated right away.”

Gina came in and whispered something. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Thank you, nurse.”

With a wink in my direction, she left. She had confirmed my story of being abused.

I remember nothing of what happened next until I came to in the Rotunda with half-a-dozen white-coated doctors around me.
My temperature was 103.5. They took several blood samples, made me swallow tablets to thin my blood out, and put me on a drip.
This went on for a couple of days. Harry Burke came in a few times to assure me I was doing well. He said: “You probably think
you are shooting blood clots all over. But it’s only in your leg.”

“Have you told my parents?”

“I rang Mary. She thinks it’s better not to tell them.”

“Good.”

“But, Harry, while I’m in here, what’ll happen to Peter?”

“I’ll make sure he’s well cared for,” he said.

I felt more assured, especially as I was put in charge of a Sister Steele who, Harry told me, was the best nurse in the place.
Short, with black hair and a lovely figure, she seemed utterly trustworthy. What I enjoyed most about her was the way she
touched the tip of my nose and laughed as if to say, “You’re in my hands now, Annie Murphy, don’t you worry about a thing.”
And I didn’t.

One day, Harry came in.

“How’s Peter?” I asked.

He smiled consolingly. “Fine, take my word for it.”

I smiled back. “Sure.”

“I just met Eamonn in the hallway. You know what I think, Annie. Children born out of wedlock are better off adopted.”