The Convent Page 2

  Sadie’s heart had begun to beat in her chest like a terrified bird trying to get out of a cage. She swallowed and swallowed but couldn’t seem to get the lump out of her throat. There was slipperiness under her arms, too, in spite of the cold, and at the back of her neck sweat had begun to trickle down like tears.

  They were moving towards her, crowding in close.

  ‘We have evidence, Mrs Reynolds.’ The copper was talking.

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘You have no male support.’

  ‘But I have a …’ She looked at Frank frantically.

  ‘That you are an unfit mother.’

  ‘An unfit— Show it to me!’

  ‘That you consort with unsavoury characters.’

  ‘Like who?’ She looked from one to the other, the panic bubbling through her now like poisonous gas.

  ‘You keep company with … fallen women.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Prostitutes,’ he said under his breath.

  Sadie stared at him, barely able to breathe. It was as if someone had punched her hard in the side of the head and she’d forgotten how to suck the air in again. They must mean Mona who stayed over sometimes, poor downtrodden little Mona, with three mites to feed, who gave her a couple of quid every now and again just to have somewhere to flop when she needed a rest. The johns never came anywhere near the house. That had been understood right from the start.

  Suddenly the three of them were pushing past her. They walked straight through into the narrow passageway of the little house and it took her a few moments to realise what was happening.

  ‘Get the hell out of there!’ she yelled after them. But the copper was opening the first door on the left and poking his head in. ‘You have no right!’

  ‘We have every right, Mrs Reynolds.’

  Sadie ran past them, down to the second door on the left where the child was asleep, and tried to bar the door with her body. ‘Don’t you touch her!’ she said in a low voice. She didn’t want to wake the child with angry voices outside her door.

  But in a couple of swift movements the young cop had grabbed both her wrists and pulled her away from the doorway. He pushed both her arms up behind her back and held her there while the other two went in to where the child was sleeping.

  ‘No, no! Don’t wake her!’ Sadie struggled to get free. ‘You mustn’t do this!’

  But the woman and Frank had already closed the door behind them.

  In a matter of a few moments the shrill cry of her daughter sounded from behind that door.

  The fat woman in grey reappeared, carrying the half-asleep Ellen, who was grizzling now, with one thumb stuck in her mouth, all soft and warm in her little nightdress and socks, her half-empty bottle of milk in the other hand. Her big blue eyes were staring around at the strangers. But when she saw Sadie being held by the policeman she let go of the bottle, held out both her plump little arms and began to yell.

  ‘Mumma!’

  The fat woman spoke soothingly and tried wrapping the little girl in the red blanket. But Ellen wasn’t having a bit of it. She was kicking and squirming like a sleek little seal, trying to free herself and shouting for all she was worth.

  Sadie caught a strong whiff of urine and somehow that set her desperation off down another tunnel. They were going to take her without even changing her, without putting clean clothes on her or brushing her lovely dark silky curls that were all mussed up at the back!

  ‘Mumma!’ she wailed. ‘I want my mumma!’

  Sadie gave up all pretence of trying to keep things civilised. She lashed out at the young copper with her feet, kicking him, bending to bite his hands where she could. When that proved ineffectual, she began to scream, and spat into his face.

  But the copper held on, puffing and grunting against her efforts, occasionally swearing under his breath.

  ‘Too gutless to go to the war? Rather fight women, would ya?’

  ‘Shut your mouth, whore!’ he growled under his breath.

  ‘Found your soft spot, have I?’

  ‘Shut your mouth.’

  ‘I’ll shut my mouth when you leave me and my child in peace.’

  ‘Mumma!’

  But Sadie couldn’t free herself from the young man’s strong grip and so she had to watch her baby daughter disappear out the front door in the arms of a strange woman, squirming, shouting and pleading for her mother the whole way.

  ‘Mumma!’ Ellen wailed. ‘I want my mumma!’

  Still holding Sadie in a tight grip, the copper walked her outside. By the time she was on the footpath, Frank was closing the car door on the woman who’d settled into the back seat of a black Ford with the howling child on her knee.

  ‘Please don’t do this, Frank,’ Sadie gasped. ‘Anything but this, I beg you. I’ll tell the government that he’s deserted me and you can move in. Or I’ll come to you. We’ll live as man and wife! Anything!’

  ‘You had your chance,’ he said, walking carefully around to the other side.

  The copper let Sadie go, hurried around to the driver’s side, got in and started the motor.

  Sadie ran to the window where the child was looking out and pulled uselessly on the handle.

  ‘Give her back!’

  ‘Mumma!’ Ellen screamed.

  The car took off and Sadie, sobbing and cursing, ran after it as long as she could in her bare feet. When the car was gone and she couldn’t run any longer – her feet all cut about and bleeding – she stopped to lean against the bakery’s brick wall, gasping.

  ‘Help me,’ she mumbled. ‘Help me, someone. Please help me!’

  But there was no one to help her. The street was as empty of people as it had been half an hour before, and the grey light was as inadequate and miserable as a soldier’s blanket.

  She stumbled back along the footpath to the empty house, the door still hanging wide, and climbed the stairs up to the front door. She fell inside, crawled along the passageway to the child’s room and buried her face in the bedclothes. They might as well have ripped her arms off and thrown her to the dogs, or put her in a cage for people to come and jeer at. She was done for now.

  Even as she lay on the floor, all curled up like a stillborn calf, the child’s blanket stuffed in her mouth and her dressing-gown wet with tears and snot, she could feel the hinges that held her together loosening with each passing minute. Soon she would be just a rubbery shape on the floor. Some weird-looking thing that only vaguely resembled a woman, a sack of blood and bone, tissue, hair, muscle, barely human.

  My baby … Give me back my baby.

  On the fifth morning after Ellen had been taken, Sadie received a letter from Frank.

  Mrs Joseph Reynolds

  McPherson Street

  Carlton

  Dear Sadie,

  By now you will have had a chance to gather yourself, and I pray that you see the wisdom of my decision. For your information, I have placed the child with the nuns in St Joseph’s nursery at the Abbotsford Convent, but be warned you no longer have any legal rights regarding her. She is now a Ward of the State and you are not permitted to see her.

  I have agreed to pay all extra costs both now and into the future, and so the child will have education and not be put to menial work. The Reverend Mother has made me aware of the future tuition fees, all the extras such as music lessons, extra milk, special uniforms for this and that, and although it is a lot on my wage I am prepared to carry the costs.

  I’m sure you will be comforted to know that after the initial fretting, Ellen is already laughing and smiling and chattering again. The Sister in charge of the babies’ section at Abbotsford, Mother Mary Help of Christians, is a kindly soul and in my opinion well suited to looking after babies and toddlers.

  Try to put this behind you, Sadie. Before God, I am convinced I’ve done the right thing.

  Yours faithfully,

  Frank McIntosh

  Ellen 1926

  ‘You’re not happy to
be back with us, Ellen?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘Then why the long face?’

  ‘No reason, Mother.’

  ‘Come and see me after Benediction.’

  ‘But I’m all right, Mother. I am. Really.’

  ‘I’ll expect you in St Cecilia’s room at six.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ Ellen panicked as she watched the nun’s retreating back. It was the last place she wanted to go. She was fourteen years old and was desperate to keep the shame to herself. But how? Nuns were so good at prying everything out of you. They asked questions and you had to answer. Could she pretend to be ill to get out of it?

  She decided to wait for the Benediction bell under the old oak tree at the front of the convent. At least she’d be alone there. She took the shortest route past the Sacred Heart enclosure, which contained the Magdalen laundries – something she wasn’t meant to do because it was out of bounds.

  The Sacred Heart girls were enclosed behind a twelve-foot high wire fence topped with six strands of tight barbed wire. There was no way in or out except through a locked iron gate.

  Ellen watched the girls pouring out of the laundry from their afternoon work, their shouts and bursts of laughter and chat ringing out in the unseasonably cold air. Most of them were older than Ellen by a few years, dressed in drab pleated skirts and bulky hand-knitted jumpers with pinnies over them. They formed small gossiping groups, slouching, their arms folded across their chests against the chill.

  Ellen started in surprise when a ball flew over the fence right in front of her.

  ‘Hey, chuck us the ball, will you?’

  Three of them were staring through the fence at her, their hands clutching the wire.

  Ellen ran for the ball and threw it back over the fence.

  ‘Thanks!’ A cheerful chorus went up.

  One of the girls motioned for her to come nearer to the fence.

  ‘Hey, over here, Ellen.’

  Ellen hesitated. How did this girl know her name? Interaction between the Sacred Heart girls and the St Joseph’s girls was totally outlawed. The ‘roughies’ were not to be trusted under any circumstances. But Ellen was feeling so confused, so low, she didn’t care. She didn’t even look around to see if anyone was watching as she walked over.

  ‘I thought you’d gone,’ the girl of about eighteen said. The twinkle in her bright eyes made Ellen think she might be on the point of telling a joke or bursting into laughter. There was something familiar about her.

  ‘I’m Margie,’ the girl explained.

  ‘Oh.’ Ellen flushed, remembering their encounter earlier that year. Margie worked in the bakery, and when Ellen had been sent down to get the soft loaves for the old nuns two mornings in a row they’d talked while Ellen waited for the bread. ‘You’ve cut your hair.’

  A dark look crossed the girl’s face and she lowered her lovely eyes. ‘Mother Mac,’ she said savagely, letting her eyes rest on Mother Mary Immaculate, who was standing with her back to them at the far end of the enclosure.

  ‘Why?’ Ellen remembered the girl’s hair. Coal black, thick and wavy it had been, tied back into a ponytail for work.

  ‘Swearing.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ellen nodded.

  ‘So what happened?’ The bright eyes were back. ‘Did they give you the bum’s rush out there?’

  Ellen flushed and backed away. ‘I should go … I can’t really talk … here.’

  ‘Don’t go.’ Margie’s low breathy voice was hurried, her eyes darting constantly over to the nun on duty. ‘Do something for me?’

  ‘No …’ Ellen looked around nervously. ‘It isn’t allowed, and I have to go.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ The girl fished under her jumper with one hand, and brought out a small fat envelope. She curled it up and poked it through the wire fence. It straightened out, and Ellen saw that there was a name and address and even a stamp on it. ‘Post this for me?’

  The nuns were always warning them against this kind of thing. Under no circumstances will you have anything to do with the Sacred Heart girls. Many of them were at the Magdalen laundry instead of in jail, others were soft in the head or, worse still, they had ‘pasts’ that could only be hinted at.

  ‘I got no other way of getting to him,’ the girl implored, holding the letter out with two fingers.

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ Ellen whispered, intrigued in spite of herself; she moved closer.

  ‘We’re planning a break-out.’

  Ellen’s mouth fell open. ‘Who?’

  ‘Three of us.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The girl looked her up and down dispassionately. ‘You’ll tell.’

  ‘No … I won’t!’

  ‘I can’t risk it. We’re going to swim the river at night. And we need the fellas waiting on the other side.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ellen breathed, ‘but you’re locked in at night.’

  ‘Look,’ Margie said impatiently, ‘I’ve got to get this to him. Are you going to help or not?’

  ‘How will you know if he gets the letter?’

  ‘He’ll get it if you send it.’

  ‘So who else is …?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. Just post it. We need them waiting with a car.’

  ‘A car!’

  She couldn’t not take it now. Just the idea of a boyfriend with a car was too enticing. She slipped the letter into the pocket of her pinny and ran off.

  The old oak tree was Ellen’s favourite place. She looked around to make sure she wasn’t being watched and lay down on her back to stare up into the swaying canopy and think about how it would be to have a boyfriend with a car.

  She imagined the three girls swimming the river and shivered. What if there were strange creatures in there? Ellen had never learnt to swim. The river down at the edge of the convent grounds was out of bounds. She’d never even seen the sea.

  The convent had been her only home for as long as she could remember. Her father had come every Sunday without fail to take her out for a few hours, but until recently she had never been to his house, or met his sisters, and had always been back at the convent by five p.m. for Benediction. In fact, she had never spent even a night away from the convent until …

  Ellen shuddered and tried to concentrate on the blue patches of sky.

  She’d passed her merit with flying colours. She’d won first prizes for elocution and piano, third prize in history, second in French. Her father wanted her to do at least two more years of schooling before she went for a job, and because St Joseph’s at the Abbotsford Convent stopped at Grade Eight, he’d booked her into the Academy of Mary Immaculate in Nicholson Street, Carlton.

  The plan had been that she would live with him and his two sisters in their terrace house in Grattan Street. She would walk to school every day from there. And oh how she’d looked forward to it. For six months she had marked the days off, one by one, praying for the time to pass. To live in a proper house in a street with other ordinary houses, like a normal girl in a family would be … wonderful.

  Ellen waited outside St Cecilia’s music room listening through the heavy oak door to the last few bars of a simple piece being played over and over again. The succession of chords right at the end was proving difficult for the student, whoever she was. Again and again she almost got there, only to be cut off with that sharp tap of Mother Seraphina’s ruler followed by the admonishment, ‘No, child! That is a C-sharp followed by A and then another C-sharp!’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘From the beginning of the bar, if you please.’

  Ellen shuddered. How many times had she been in there doing that?

  At last, the scraping of chairs and the heavy door swung open to reveal the music teacher and a thin little girl of perhaps ten.

  ‘Nothing magical about it, my dear,’ the old nun was saying sternly. ‘You have the ability. You must practise. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘
Yes, Mother.’ The girl’s eyes were darting about as she waited for her chance to escape.

  ‘Off you go then, and God bless you.’

  ‘God bless you, Mother, and thank you.’ And the little uniformed girl was away.

  ‘Come in, dear. Come in.’

  Just the smell of the room made Ellen want to cry. Polish and wax and the soft soapy smell of the nun, with her dry, ageing fingers and starched veil. It was a small room with just the upright piano, a stool, a wooden chest where the music was kept and a straight-backed chair for Sister Seraphina. On top of the piano was the same old blue vase that had been there forever, along with the metronome. There was a picture of the Christ kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane on one wall, and a crucifix above the piano, but these two were overshadowed by a large plaster statue of the patron saint of music, St Cecilia, standing on a long wooden pedestal in the corner. Her hands were joined in prayer, a small harp propped at her feet along with a few sheets of rolled-up music. A bunch of fresh flowers from the convent garden were in a little glass jar at her feet. St Cecilia pray for us.

  All the heavy wood gleamed in the late afternoon light coming in through the long window, which was open as always. Mother Seraphina believed that fresh air, even in autumn and winter, was important for keeping her students’ minds on the job.

  She was a plump woman of medium height; her soft Irish skin was virtually unlined although she was well into her sixties. She adjusted the piano stool to face her own chair and then motioned for Ellen to sit down.

  Ellen did as she was told and took a deep breath. The hours she’d spent in this room seemed to rush at her, to surround her in a mass of sticky tangled feelings she didn’t have a hope of unravelling. It wasn’t just floor wax and polish and soap she could smell, but the deeper smells of effort and pain, exhilaration and humiliation, frayed nerves and blind terror. Hundreds of girls had been taught here over the years. Learning new pieces, practising for exams and concerts, all the scales and arpeggios and exercises, the prodding and the carping. So much of Ellen’s own life had been lived here in this room with this old woman. The long pieces, the short, the light-hearted and the sad; the fury and frustration when her fingers refused to do what they were meant to.