The Magdalen (3 page)

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Authors: Marita Conlon-McKenna

BOOK: The Magdalen
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Esther left the two women together as she knew her mam wanted to tell her friend about the doctor's visit.
It took her an age to persuade Paddy to go asleep. Her two-and-a-half-year-old brother suddenly seemed to realize that he was no longer the baby of the house. “Want to go Mammy's bed!” he howled and whined, all upset. Tom and Liam played a game of cowboys with him, trying to distract him, letting him have the sheriff-badge clipped to his pyjamas. “A baby can't be the sheriff!” said Tom firmly whenever he began to wail. Esther hadn't the energy to cope with him and was relieved when Donal scooped the tearful young cowboy up on his back and galloped off with him into the cramped boys' bedroom at the back of the house.
The midwife promised to look in again in the morning. “I can rely on you, Esther, to keep an eye on your mam and the baby during the night.”
Esther agreed, yawning, insisting that Gerard, her eldest brother, escort Maureen home.
All the boys had gone to bed, and despite Donal's pleas for her to get some sleep Esther decided to stay up, sitting in the big armchair near the fire, in case her mother or the baby needed her.
 
 
Dermot Doyle was surprised to find her waiting up when he eventually arrived back from the pub. She was disgusted at him and the stink of porter that clung to his breath. He
slumped down in a chair near her, staring morosely at the ashes.
“Mammy got the baby to feed.”
“That so!” he yawned disinterestedly.
“Mammy's asleep,” she added deliberately.
“I'm away off to bed myself. You should be in bed too!”
“I'll sleep out here tonight, Daddy. Do you want to sleep in my bedroom for tonight?” she offered.
Dermot considered her suggestion. “I'm so tired that I could sleep on a rock!” He stood up. “Anyways, it's better your mother gets a rest tonight, d'ye know.”
She watched as he made his now unsteady way to her small neat bedroom. She could hear the creak of her bed as he lowered himself into it. In no time she could hear the familiar rumble of his snores.
Majella woke twice during the night, Esther fetching a cooling glass of water for her as she seemed to be running a slight fever. The baby was fractious too and would only be comforted by Esther walking her back and forth. Eventually they all slept, and she managed to curl up on the couch with the warm rug for a few hours.
“You'd make a grand nurse, Esther, so you would!” praised Maureen the next morning. “‘Tis a vocation and that's a fact. Your mam and dad should be thinking of it for you in the future.”
Esther didn't believe that either of her parents had given any thought to her future at all. Her dad assumed that the boys would all go and work on the fishing-trawler with him once they were old enough, and heaven only knew what he'd planned for her.
She'd been getting dressed into her navy school uniform after breakfast when Dermot had told her, “Esther! You're to take off that uniform! You're needed here at home to look after your mammy and the baby.”
“Daddy, I don't mind helping, honest, but I don't want to miss school.”
“Well you'll just have to miss it, as your mammy needs you at the moment, and someone's got to stay at home to mind Paddy.”
“Daddy!” she'd pleaded.
“I'll explain it to the nuns and tell them that your place is here at home for the moment until your mother gets well,” he said firmly.
She was annoyed with her father, but realized that he was not going to budge an inch and change his mind about her.
The boys did give a hand, minding Paddy and Liam, fetching in turf and running errands for her as she tried to tend to her mother and the baby.
 
 
Dermot Doyle had gone drinking for three days and then, whether his money had run out or he was filled with remorse, he had returned home, swearing never to drink again. Esther was only glad that her mother was too sick to care or notice his lack of attention. As for the baby, her little sister had turned the corner and was losing that greytinged, shrunken look. Her lips now searched for the taste of milk.
“‘Tis a blessed miracle, the child surviving,” smiled
Maureen Murphy, hugging the young nurse. “Sure she's beginning to thrive!”
“Esther, pet, come in here please!” called Majella from the bedroom.
Leaving the pot that she was washing, the thirteen-year-old hurried in. The baby was fast asleep in her mother's arms.
“You know, Esther, I think it's about time I named your little sister. I've been thinking about it all day long, for the poor dote deserves a name. I was thinking of Nora Patricia, after my mother. What do you think?”
“That's a grand name,” grinned Esther, for her mother always spoke of their grandmother with great affection. “Isn't it, Nora Patricia!” she said, slipping her finger into the baby's hand to be grasped.
“I want you to be her godmother. You've taken such good care of her already that I know I can trust you always to look out for her and watch over her.”
Esther understood the pleading in her mother's voice. Doctor Lawless had said that her little sister would not be like normal children. She might be slow, half-witted, a simpleton. It was too early yet to tell.
“Do you promise me, Esther?”
“I promise, Mammy!” she murmured, feeling the little pink fingers closing around her own. “So don't you be worrying yourself.”
F
ather Brendan Devaney belched softly. It was the greasy slices of bacon and fried egg that his housekeeper Josie insisted on feeding him for breakfast every morning. Already he could feel it congealing in his stomach, and probably blocking the veins to his heart and brain, like in that article he'd read in an American magazine. The woman was killing him with kindness. He coughed, bringing his attention back to the small congregation gathered in his church.
“Today we welcome another child into God's holy church,” he announced grandly. Down below, in the wooden bench nearest the altar, sat the Doyle family, the father sitting uncomfortable and inattentive in a shiny
brown suit, looking for all the world like a man recovering from a night on the batter. The two older boys were grand lads, one dark, one fair, both almost as tall as their father, both already ruddy-complexioned from the fishing and the sea-breezes. The girl—Father Brendan pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose—the daughter looked tired out; her wavy light brown hair was pulled back into a tight plait which only seemed to accentuate her drawn face and cast-down eyes. She held the small baby carefully, its puny face peeping out from the antique-lace christening-shawl. 'Twas a delicate-looking infant from what he could tell. Josie had told him the mother was still abed: problems after the birth. He would have to make a pastoral visit some day next week. Majella Doyle was a good woman, devout and always attentive to her religious duties. Once a month she helped with the church-cleaning, down on her knees with the polishing-cloths and dusters, but always with a smile. Yes, he would definitely make a point of calling to see her next week.
He rambled on, enjoying the rolling tones of his usual baptism sermon, which illustrated the sanctity of life and the joy of a new child born to the Christian faith, another Catholic to swell his small congregation. The father of the child was in a trance, staring at the carved font. The sister's eyes were now shining, she was taking in every word he was saying. She was a good child. A rose among the thorns, her brothers standing sturdily around her, the youngest boy busy picking his nose. The priest traced the holy sign of the cross across the infant's brow with his finger. The oil gleamed on the baby's pale, almost translucent skin; even to his untrained eye the child seemed a
bit delicate. He muttered some extra words of prayer, giving her some further protection.
“I baptize you Nora Patricia, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, we welcome you into God's holy church.”
A sigh of relief floated from the small family group as he gave the final blessing.
“Thank you so much, Father Devaney,” said Esther earnestly. “I'm right glad that our little Nora is properly baptized. My mammy will be very pleased too.”
The priest quickly shook hands with each and every one of them. He was anxious to escape the confines of the claustrophobic church and enjoy the rest of his day. Tonight he was due to say the Stations at O'Malley's place. They lived about a half an hour away, out on the headland road. They'd be forcing food and drink on him. He'd welcome an hour or two relaxing in his own front parlour with Caruso or Mario Lanza as company. A few more minutes here and he'd be on his way.
“How's the fishing going, Dermot?” he asked out of politeness as they stood outside the small church at the tail end of Carraig Beag. On one side lay the parish graveyard and on the other a heather-covered field that rambled down to the rocky shore. There wasn't a church in the west of Ireland with a better view.
“Passable, Father.” Dermot Doyle shrugged, not wanting to tell a barefaced lie to a priest. What would a priest know about a rusting engine that needed replacing, or a major overhaul and every young mechanic in the district gone to London or Birmingham to work for the war effort, and he left with a fishing-boat only capable of going a mile
or two offshore without sputtering and letting him down! Of course there were also now seven mouths to feed, with the birth of this new daughter.
As usual the talk turned to “the Emergency.”
“Hitler's bombing London again! God help them,” introduced Mick Casey. “There'll never be an end to it.”
“Them bloody V2 rockets. You can't even hear them! Blow the Brits to kingdom-come, so he will!” cursed Donie Donovan.
“Neutrality is our best weapon,” murmured Father Brendan. “Mr. De Valera did well to keep us out of it.”
“They all wanted to invade us! The English! The Germans! Jasus, we'd have had no chance, lads!” murmured old Donie Donovan, lighting the plug of tobacco in his pipe. “Begging your pardon, Father, no chance!”
The men stood around considering as the smell of tobacco mixed with iodine and seaweed drifted through the October air. Already the dark blue sea churned over and over, waves battering angrily against the small stone pier below where the fishermen tried to land the day's catch and tie up their boats safely.
Father Brendan sighed to himself. Another winter stuck in this godforsaken outpost of the west of Ireland. He had never imagined when he was studying for the priesthood in Maynooth College, more than thirty years ago, that this was where he'd end up, ministering to the people of Connemara. At least he had his own parish and house and Josie to look after him. But two of his old classmates were now bishops, and he'd heard that another was in the Vatican, studying ecclesiastical law and its complexities. His own career had gone in a different direction.
His elderly mother had begged the bishop at his ordination not to send him away on the missions. By Jove, she'd got her wish. It could be worse, he supposed, he could be out on the missions, trying to preach the Gospel to illiterate natives, tortured and threatened for his Christian beliefs, instead of safe here in the west of Ireland with good people who respected the Church and all it stood for.
“We must all pray for the end of the war and a good harvest of the sea,” added the priest, “as well as on the land.”
The Doyle family and their neighbours nodded “Amen,” all the community in agreement.
Esther had no interest in listening to their old war chitchat. All she wanted was to get home to her mother and tell her what a good baby Nora had been. She would just have time to put on the kettle and lay out a few sandwiches and the big fat sponge cake her Aunt Patsy had brought before the neighbours dropped in. Today was Nora's day, and nothing was going to spoil it.
I
n summer, Connemara was the most beautiful and wild place on God's earth, the sea and sky melting together in a wave of shimmering blue, the ground covered in wildflowers and every shade of purple heather, water rippling through the bogs and the ocean's creamy soft waves rushing to the shore. There was no place like it! But come winter, everything had changed. Esther hated the Connemara winters, when the warm deep blue of the ocean became a dark raging enemy, battering the entire west-of-Ireland coastline, flooding the fields and ditches, tossing the small boats against the stone pier and trying to wreck them. The wind was so strong it would knock the breath from your body! In winter it became cruel and magnificent.
War raged through Europe. Stories filtering through told of horrendous loss of life as the Allies and the Germans fought to control mile after mile, the British and American troops pushing the Germans further and further back, and the Russians poised to attack them from the east. At least living in the wilds of the west of Ireland meant that they were far removed from it, almost untouched by the madness of man's destruction.
The winter itself was probably one of the worst that any of the people of Carraig Beag could remember. They were all well used to braving the elements, but nothing could have prepared them for the gales blowing in off the wild Atlantic Ocean, and the torrential rainstorms that clattered against the farmhouses and cottages that clung to the shore. The constant damp and wet seemed to soak in under every door and eaves, so that it clung to their clothing and bedding. The fields were sodden and muddy, flooded, the animals miserable too.
Every morning Esther escorted her two younger brothers the half-mile to the small schoolhouse, seeing them safely into the hands of the master before walking the next miserable mile and a bit to the local convent school. By the time she arrived she would be soaked through and chilled to the marrow, leaving her coat and boots to dry near the heater.
She liked the school: the nuns were nice to her and she was considered a good student. She loved the chance to sit at the back of the class and talk to the other girls. They combed and plaited each other's hair and read Hollywood movie magazines that Anna Mitchell's aunt sent from America. She would walk around the convent grounds or
the corridors, arms linked with her best friends Anna and Fidelma each lunchtime, whispering and confiding in each other. Walking home alone in the dark evenings, the mists would sweep down from the hillsides, the white dash of their cottage like a beacon guiding her over the muddy paths.
Behind the sturdy front door her small brothers fought like tigers over the smallest slights and misdemeanours, pounding each other as they wrestled on the red-flagstone floor. “Stop that you pups!” screamed Majella. “You're driving me crazy. Can you not ever try to be good!”
Any sign of the weather lifting and Majella shooed the youngsters outdoors, even if it meant they always appeared back dirty and dung-spattered. Esther would scarcely have her coat off before her mother would pass Nora to her. “I've jobs to be doing, pet! Will you mind the babby for a while?”
Nora Pat, the adored baby—or “Nonie,” as she had now become nicknamed by the whole family—had become fractious, often whingeing and crying for most of the day. It was as if she had some unseen pain or fear that no-one could ease. There had been two visits to see specialists in the big hospital in Galway, both confirming what Dr. Lawless had originally said. Her mammy had returned both times deeply depressed and angry, swearing that she would bring the child to Dublin and, if that failed, take her to Lourdes; prayers might do what the doctors couldn't!
Nonie would only be satisfied with Esther walking her backwards and forwards across the floor. The luminous blue eyes seemed unable to follow the rattle or simple knitted dolly that Paddy and Liam wagged temptingly in
front of her; all she wanted was to be up and carried around the place. Her mother had become tense and tired and often tearful. Esther had great pity for her mammy and the hard life she had, doing her best to help her with the housework and minding the baby once she came home from school.
Dermot stayed out of it all. It was as if his home could no longer provide the peace and comfort a man deserved and needed. Gerard and Donal and himself had scraped and cleaned and revarnished the
Sally Anne.
Despite the bad weather they'd taken her out a few times, returning exhausted after a hard day's fishing. There was always something to blame for the run of bad luck that they were having. The only time Esther saw her father brighten up was when he talked of the trawler he would buy when the good times eventually came. “We'll have a fishing fleet, lads!” he'd confide, voicing his deep ambition, Ger and himself spreading pieces of paper on the oilcloth-covered table, scratching out figures and estimates in pencil. Donal would catch her eye, both of them knowing well that any sums of money their father did manage to put by would more likely than not find their way to McEvoy's Public House.
The long winter seemed endless, week running into week, all of them cramped together in the small cottage, listening to the wireless as the rain lashed against the window panes. Dermot had slaughtered the pig, and their few hens complained and squawked as they scratched at the frost-hard ground. Mixer, their old sheepdog, had managed to scrounge his way inside to a place near the range where he lay with his head resting on his black and white paws.
Esther would sit and watch, fascinated, as her mother knitted. No matter how often Majella showed her, she knew she would never knit as well: the intricate stitches were too hard to copy. Instead she was content to hold the hank of heavy wool as her mammy rolled it into a ball. The bainin wool was oily and smelt of the woolly creatures that grazed over the local mounds of heather and rocks, scrabbling for rich green grass. “The oil protects not just the sheep, but the wearer of the wool too!” Majella smiled, the huge knitting needles clicking as she made pictures and patterns from the wool, slipping it easily through her fingers as she knitted heavy jumpers for Dermot and the boys, and cardigans for themselves. Diamonds and honeycombs and blackberry shapes all appeared, telling stories of the fields and lands all about them. Fronts, backs, and sleeves. Later her mother would stitch them together, using the same wool threaded through the large darning needle, her eyes straining as she worked. Baby Nonie would howl for attention, her eyes and cheeks raw from crying, Esther always trying to hush and soothe the little one.
As the storms blew in off the ocean and the months passed, her father would sit staring at the embers of the dying fire, the close confinement getting to them all. Every night after tea her mammy would kneel down and, taking out her mother-of-pearl beads, begin to say a decade of the rosary, the rest of them joining her. She prayed for the soldiers at the front, the English, the Americans, the French, the Italians, even the Germans got a mention too. “Lord bring them back safe to their mothers and families! And let them all get a bit of sense and stop fighting, so there can be peace!” Then Majella would turn her attention to the
needs of her own family, with a whole load of special intentions for each and every one of them, and for some of her friends and neighbours too. The boys shuffled and rubbed their sore knees as the litany of prayers went on and on. Mammy had a good kind heart but was such a worrier, only her faith kept her going.
The very minute the prayers were over and there was a break in the rain, Daddy would grab his cap and coat and slope off down to McEvoy's, returning late in the night and falling into bed. Esther tried to block out the rhythmic thumping of the bedhead and the groans of her father before his heavy, exhausted snores eventually filled the house.
She prayed to the blue plaster statue of Our Lady on the shelf in her bedroom. “Please keep my daddy out of the house as much as possible, and try and stop his drinking, and protect my mammy from him.”
The strange thing was that Mammy would not hear a word against him. She said that it was both hard and humiliating for a man like Dermot not to be able to provide for his family. Esther remembered a time when she was small and her daddy used to call her his “darling girl,” tickle her ribs and take turns swinging herself and Tom high above his head, telling them, “Touch the sky!” He'd bring them to Galway, and to Spiddal and to the races. He'd show them around the markets and in summer bring them to see the currach races, or take them out in the boat to the islands. He'd help them search for baby crabs in the rockpools and taught them how to hold a fishing line still until you got a bite, and how to land a fish. That had been a long time ago. Her daddy was a different man nowadays,
difficult and argumentative, with little interest in his wife and children. Maybe her mammy remembered other, better times, and that was why she still loved and forgave him. In a million years Esther would never understand the strange bond of matrimony.
 
 
“Don't go, Dermot! Please don't go!” begged her mother. “Let it settle awhile!”
Father was busy pulling on his warm heavy jumper and pushing his feet into his large, awkward-looking fishing boots. “There's a good full tide, woman. I've been waiting all week for it, and now when it's nice and calm out there you want me to stay home!” He laughed, gesturing at the distant blue glimmer. “My nets are mended and ready, and sure the fish will be jumping out of the water at me! If this weather holds and the fishing is good, I'd be able to get that new engine I need for the
Sally Anne
in no time. Toddy and the rest of the men will be there ahead of me if you delay me any longer, Majella.”
“There's plenty of work to be done around the place here,” her mammy insisted stubbornly.
“Majella! Will you stop holding me back! Get the boys and Esther to give you a hand and let me be! Does Donal fancy coming?”
Donal coughed hoarsely in reply. He'd come down with a desperate cold a few days back and was fit for nothing. Gerard had got a few hours' work a day on Seamus Murphy's farm, helping with the milking while the old man was in hospital in Galway, and would not be back for hours.
“I'll come, Daddy,” offered Esther. She'd only been out in the
Sally Anne
a few times, and welcomed the idea of a break from the house and everyone in it.
A puzzled look crossed Dermot's face, and he glanced at his wife. “‘Tis all right, Esther pet. You stay here with your mammy and mind the house.”
“But I want to go!” she argued. “You bring the boys out in the boat, so why can't you bring me, Daddy?”
Dermot could give no proper reason. He ignored her as he packed up his sandwiches and some scones. “I'm sorry, Esther, but I can't take you out in the boat today, but in a few weeks' time when the summer comes in, and there's less squalls, I'll take you and your mother out for a sail around the bay, promise. I might have got my new engine by then!”
Annoyed, Esther glared at him. It wasn't fair that he wouldn't take her instead of the boys.
“I'm fed up being cooped up in this henhouse with all the clucking and talk that goes on. At least I'll get a bit of peace and quiet on the
Sally Anne!”
“Well go on then! Away off in the boat with you then!” agreed Majella, giving his cheek a rub as she sent him on his way.
Esther watched angrily as her father's strong figure walked down towards the grey pier and small slipway, Tom and Liam and little Paddy following along behind him, each carrying something down to the boat: his heavy oilskin jacket, his sandwiches, his leather pouch-bag of tobacco for his pipe. Soon the familiar
chugga-chugga
of his ancient engine echoed across the water, as she caught sight of his boat almost skimming through the waters of the bay.
Clouds rambled across the smoky blue of the sky as two or three more local boats appeared, almost forming a convoy as Toddy and a few neighbours set out fishing too. She sighed to herself, watching her brothers chase and yell back up the path; she was glad to be rid of him for the day.
 
 
They waited and waited as afternoon turned to evening and eventually to night. One by one the other boats returned. Toddy had arrived back only an hour before darkness.
“The fishing was grand! Dermot's a greedy devil, he's staying out to get another run before nightfall,” he chuckled. “I'm too old for it. Anyway, 'twas getting a bit rough, so I turned for home.”
By suppertime Esther began to feel afraid, as gusting gale-force winds screeched along the headland and grinding waves crashed and roared against the shore and there was still no sign of the
Sally Anne.
How far could Daddy have taken the boat? Would the engine have let him down!
Esther couldn't believe what was happening. Gerard was like a crazy man, scrabbling along the rocks, hoping for a glimpse of their boat; Donal and Tom racing up and down along the beach, frantic. Still there was no sign of her daddy at all. Her mammy was as white as a ghost, standing at the window watching out for him.
“Your daddy'll be back soon, Paddy! He'll be back soon, Nonie pet!”
The neighbours gathered at dusk down by the pier, whispering together, talking low, then, windblown and anxious, making their way up the shell-lined path to the
door and sitting themselves in the large open kitchen, keeping Majella company. Nonie was frightened by the strangers, who poked and prodded and kissed her. She threw a temper tantrum, pulling and lashing at Esther as she cried hysterically. Maureen Murphy made pot after pot of tea, all the time keeping an eye on Majella, worried for her. Through the window panes Esther could see the flicker of the paraffin-oil lamps that the men and boys were carrying as they formed a circle to light up the small harbour inlet. She watched as they lit a huge bonfire of driftwood and old fish boxes on the beach, hoping that Dermot would see the dazzle from afar. The wind scattered the flames hither and thither, tossing them out into the inky darkness. A chink of light, that's all her daddy would need to guide him.

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