The Four Streets: The Ballymara Road Part 21

Tears ran silently down her cheeks.

'Please, please, I'm begging you, check your records for any information you may have. Anything will help.'

'Mrs Moynihan, we would love to do that, now, wouldn't we, Sister Celia, but I'm afraid it just isn't possible. You see, a few weeks ago we had the most desperate fire and all our records were destroyed, weren't they, Sister Celia. We have nothing, can ye imagine, nothing left. But let me check now as some of the paperwork survived. We may have the contract the girl signed when she handed the baby over for adoption.'

Sister a.s.sumpta walked over to the long, tall press at the end of her study and opened one of the lower drawers. A few moments later, she returned to her desk.

Alice was confused. The words 'fire' and 'where?' ran through her brain as she looked round the spotless room.

The convent smelt of incense, not smoke, and there was no sign of the desperate fire Sister a.s.sumpta had spoken of.

'Ah, here we have it now,' the Reverend Mother said with a flourish. Then her voice altered dramatically and took on a tone of disbelief. 'Sure, now, I think the girl may have signed the contract with a false name. Don't they often do that, Sister Celia?'

Sister Celia had just taken a bite of cake the size of a baby's head whilst Sister a.s.sumpta had been distracted, searching through the drawer. She was not about to be caught out again and nodded furiously in agreement.

'Now, I know for a fact that the girl's name was Cissy. She was brought here by her family, but she was sent here by the matron midwife from the hospital, Rosie O'Grady and she wouldn't get a name wrong. But see here, on the contract the girl has signed her name Kitty Doherty, and yet her name was very definitely Cissy. The girl must have been deluded when she signed this. All we know is that she was from Liverpool. My best suggestion to you would be to travel to Dublin and visit the midwife because the girl obviously lied when she signed this.'

Sister a.s.sumpta felt foolish. This was the first time she had bothered to check the signature.

The room grew dark as storm clouds gathered in the sky, resulting from the heat of the previous week.

As the light faded, the first drops of rain spattered the gla.s.s. The doves huddled together on the branch and Alice looked down at the baby on her lap.

Had she heard right?

The baby spat his dummy out onto the floor. He looked up and smiled seraphically at Alice. She stared back at him, dumbfounded.

She leant down to retrieve his brown rubber dummy from the rug and placed it in her hot tea to clean it, a trick she had learnt on the four streets. Her movements were studied and unhurried, concealing the pace of her thoughts, which were racing.

She spoke for the first time, slowly and deliberately.

'I'm sorry, what did you say the name was on the contract?'

Sister a.s.sumpta held the doc.u.ment out towards Mary as though ignoring Alice.

'Here, see for yourself. Kitty Doherty.'

Maura had taken Kitty to Ireland to have the baby. Alice had read the letter that Kathleen had sent Maura.

Alice felt dizzy as her two worlds collided and became one.

Just at that second, the door to the office swung open and closed again. A novice re-entered with a jug of hot water for the teapot.

Bang. Bang. The door slammed shut.

Alice flinched. This could not be possible. She held out her hand to take the contract Sister a.s.sumpta waved in front of Mary.

'Please, please, let me see,' she whispered.

A thousand reasons flew through her mind as to why it could not be Maura and Tommy's Kitty, but only one thought made any sense, drowning out all else and pounding in her brain.

The sickly baby sitting on her lap was Kitty's child and Maura's grandson. Alice struggled to breathe. This could not be. The reason for the night that no one would ever speak of was right here, on her knee. That awful night, when Alice had become an accomplice to murder. She looked back at the doves taking shelter from the rain, which now battered the windows, and felt the floor shift beneath her chair.

She looked round at the faces in the room, which were fixed upon her and the baby.

Oh good Lord, can the nuns see what I have done? Alice thought. Surely, this was a nightmare. This could not be really happening. The ghosts of her past life filled the room, laughing and taunting her.

Somewhere outside, in the rain, she heard Maura and Tommy crying. Alice rose slowly from her chair. She looked down at the baby in her arms and, as she did so, the eyes of a dead priest stared back at her.

19.

'ARE YOU SURE you witnessed this with your own eyes? 'Tis a grave accusation. G.o.d knows how we will manage without them if this is true. The kitchens run like clockwork and the garden is one of the most productive I have ever known.'

Sister Theresa peered over her gla.s.ses at Sister Perpetua who sat in front of her desk, still and calm, with her hands clasped loosely in her lap. A statue of poise, marbled with malice. Sister Theresa had read through the journal of evidence Sister Perpetua had placed before her and the facts were there, in black and white. The trouble was, she would so much rather they weren't.

'Yes, Reverend Mother. I have been keeping a watch for a month now and I have seen everything.' Sister Perpetua didn't even blink.

From the opposite side of the desk, she glanced across at her own handiwork, perched lightly in Sister Theresa's hands.

The list of accusations against Maggie and Frank was d.a.m.ning.

Feeding village children through the railings. Taking garden vegetables to their own kitchen. Giving food to the orphans and slipping bread up to the orphanage in the pockets of the kitchen helpers. The poteen still behind the secret wall in the potting shed.

'I will have to phone the Gardai, you realize that, don't you? This amounts to theft. We prefer to be private here, Sister Perpetua, and I have no notion of calling the Gardai every five minutes. Are you absolutely sure you have seen all this with your own eyes and there is no mistake?'

'Aye, Sister, I saw it all from the orphanage windows.'

'Holy Mother, I have two bishops arriving in an hour. We will leave this until our visitors have left. I cannot have visitors here and nothing to feed them and, besides, only Maggie knows how the kitchen runs, apart from, possibly, Maggie's kitchen helper.

'She was with us in the Dublin orphanage. We heard good reports about her from the bishop in Liverpool. When he arrives today, I shall ask him if he thinks she would be up to taking over the kitchen. She worked as a housekeeper for a priest in Liverpool and she will have had enough experience downstairs by now, I should think, wouldn't you?'

Sister Perpetua looked puzzled and frowned.

'What is it, Sister Perpetua? For goodness' sake, what is the problem now?'

Sister Theresa had never really liked Sister Perpetua. Putting her to work in the orphanage had been the ideal way to keep her out of sight. Or so she had thought. Sister Perpetua was methodical, pedantic and downright humourless. Not that Sister Theresa was in need of a laughing nun, but she did like to see them smiling every now and then. G.o.d knew, with the nature of the work they had to undertake and the amount of death they had to deal with, the odd smile was like a tonic to them all. But not Sister Perpetua. It was three years since she had taken her vows and, with each year, she had soured a little bit more than the last. Sister Theresa had never witnessed Sister Perpetua smile. She had also never known her to be wrong, which was why all of this was so depressing.

'Nothing, Sister, it just occurred to me that I haven't seen the new kitchen girl at ma.s.s for a little while now.'

Sister Theresa frowned. 'She has been sick, but she surely must be improved. I'm about to check on the meal for tonight, so I shall see her for myself. I have known her since she was a baby. We reared her. She was never a shirker, just a bit simple.'

Changing the subject quickly, she asked, 'Did you burn all the papers from the orphanage as I ordered?'

Sister Theresa closed the pages of the journal as she spoke and handed it across the desk to Sister Perpetua, who took it with her outstretched hand. Sister Theresa rose from her chair.

This was Sister Perpetua's cue to follow likewise.

'I did. Sister Clare helped me. We kept only the contracts the girls have signed at the mother and baby home, agreeing to never make contact with their babies, and we burnt all the death certificates from the orphanage. We lit a bonfire by the compost heap at the end of the potato patch and the furthest away from the house.'

Sister Theresa was now feeling better disposed towards Sister Perpetua. Her manner was tedious but her efficiency very useful.

'Very good. Sister a.s.sumpta has done likewise at the Abbey. There is a midwife in Dublin who will not stop giving out to the authorities, which is making life very difficult indeed for us all. If we have nothing for them to see, if we don't keep any records, they can't look for anything, can they? If we are asked, it will be no sin if we do not have to lie. A simple explanation that the papers were lost in a fire will be all that is needed. That will be no word of a lie. Well done, Sister Perpetua. We should have a little talk when the bishops have left tomorrow about whether it is time you moved back down into the convent. But not yet. Now we have to prepare for our visitors.'

Maggie well knew the determined footsteps of Sister Theresa as they thumped down the stairs into the kitchen. Her inbuilt antennae were programmed to pick up the first step as soon as the top door was opened. By the sound of their tread alone, Maggie could tell even before she had reached the second step which sister was paying the kitchen a visit.

'As dainty as a bleeding elephant,' she muttered under her breath as the familiar black shoes and skirt came into view. She quickly slipped her smouldering pipe back into her ap.r.o.n pocket.

'Maggie.' Sister Theresa was already speaking while still on the stairs. 'Is all in order for our visitors tonight? Did we have a good side of beef delivered from the village? The bishop's teeth aren't that good, so we don't want tough meat now.'

'Have I ever served ye tough meat, Reverend Mother, visitors or not?' Maggie asked her question without impertinence, but her meaning was implicit.

She could feel the heat of her pipe burning in her pocket. It was rare for Sister Theresa to visit the kitchen in the middle of the morning, which was when Maggie always had a cuppa and a 'pull of me pipe'. It was also when she gave the girls from the orphanage or the mother and baby home a cuppa and a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter, telling them to rest their legs for a minute or two.

Maggie had learnt how to make the flour stretch by making slightly smaller loaves for the nuns, so that she could keep an extra one back for the helpers.

The girls had shoved their mugs and bread under the bench and were scrubbing the pots, just as they had been moments before.

Sister Theresa studied them. Maggie sweated.

'Where's the girl? Is she still sick?'

Daisy had supposedly been sick for the best part of a week. Maggie had known this moment would arrive.

Maggie was many things kind, hurt, wise and damaged but she was not stupid.

'She is off to the village to collect me baccy, Reverend Mother. She is the only one I can trust. Frank is busy digging up cabbage and I have run out. Did ye want me to send her to ye when she gets back?'

'Maggie, you don't send the girls to the village on your errands. For goodness' sake, not today of all days, and not on any day.'

'No, Sister, well, I can only say that with me baccy, you will likely have a better-tasting dinner and more tender beef, as it is a fact that if I am in a bad mood when I cook, the food never tastes as good and the milk often curdles.'

Sister Theresa stared at Maggie. She played an important role in the convent. Supplying three meals a day to the sisters and any visitors. This left the nuns free to run the mother and baby home, the nursery, the laundry, the orphanage and the retreat. Making money was the order of the day.

Using nuns to run the gardens and the kitchen would have been a waste of resources. The sisters had to be self-sufficient and, in the last few years, they had been successful in that. They were almost as successful as the Abbey, Sister Theresa guessed.

The bishops were visiting tonight and had asked to look over the bank books.

'They can do that gladly,' Sister Theresa had said to Sister Celia. 'We can hand them the books with pleasure. What we do not do is tell them about the biscuit tins with the money in the press. We have upwards of nineteen thousand pounds in there now, so we have, and it will be gone in a flash if the bishop knew we had it. If we ran into trouble, sure, we would have to beg on our knees for a handout. The money in the tins is ours and it stays that way.'

Her nuns were working long hours, for the benefit of the community, and she dreaded the disruption that losing Maggie and Frank would bring. As she stood in the kitchen, she knew she would have to be reconciled to that loss if Sister Perpetua's record-keeping was correct.

Right now, she was too busy to tackle the problem of Maggie or, for that matter, the errand-running kitchen girl. She needed to visit the orphanage to let them know the bishops were arriving and to ensure the sick children were in the isolation rooms. Every one of them would need a bath today and that would be a ma.s.sive effort in itself.

Frank returned to the lodge, knowing that Maggie would be late back.

The nuns had been all of a flutter all day, preparing for the simultaneous visit of two bishops. Nothing but wailing and crying had been heard through the orphanage windows and, as Frank well knew, the rumpus was being caused by much more than the mere fact that all the children were being bathed in cold water. Tempers were flying.

It made his heart crunch when he saw a nun dragging a child by her hair from the washroom back to the orphanage and it was all he could manage not to say or do something.

'Heavenly Father, my blood boils, so it does, I have to calm me temper. Jaysus, I want to grab the nun by her f.e.c.king habit and drag her into a cold bath and then across the yard.'

It broke his heart to see the cruelty inflicted upon the children and every day he brought Maggie a different story.

Frank was often quiet when he arrived back at the lodge after work, and Maggie knew it was because he had seen things that upset him. Frank wasn't a great talker. Maggie would have to leave him be to eat his food, smoke his pipe and drink his poteen. Only then would he occasionally make a comment and, when he did, it was frequently shocking.

'Ye know the little one, the lad I told ye about who was only just walking, and so thin I could see the bones of his a.r.s.e through his f.e.c.king trousers? Well, today I saw them putting him in the ground, so I did. They didn't even lay him down with a prayer or a blessing. They just rolled him off the edge, into that pit. Not a coffin in sight.'

Frank would finish speaking with a long drink from his mug of poteen and Maggie would not comment, merely sit in silence, knowing that Frank and she were both doing exactly the same thing: thinking of their own little lad. Frank threw a stick onto the range and then blew on the peat to make it glow red. The oven was still hot from earlier in the afternoon, when Maggie had run back to the lodge from the kitchen to set his dinner over a pan of hot water, with a lid on top to keep it warm.

Today he sat on the rocking chair by the fire with his dinner on his lap, his pot and pipe lying by his side, and he began to eat.

The food was delicious but the sights of the day made it stick in his gullet. He sc.r.a.ped most of it into the grate so that she wouldn't see. It was not to be. Maggie opened the door to the smell of burning beef.

'For f.e.c.k's sake, ye eat as good as a nun and then throw it on the fire. Are ye crazy, Frank?'

Frank noticed that she looked exhausted.

Throwing her shawl over the back of one of the pair of chairs at the kitchen table, she made her tea, chatting away to Frank who remained sitting by the fire, still, staring into the flames.

'I suppose ye let the bishops and the band of followers in through the gates, did ye? Holy Mary, what a commotion today has been, but I tell ye what, Frank, Sister Theresa came into the kitchen, looking for Daisy, she did. She made a pretence at first, but I know that is what she was after. I know that woman like the back of my hand, I can see right though her, I can. Wanting to know if the beef was tough, my f.e.c.king a.r.s.e. She was checking up. If I didn't know better, I would say someone was on to us.

'Daisy has been gone nearly a week now and do you know what else, Frank? I was shocked to see that bishop tonight. He's the same one, ye know, the one Daisy was on about, the dirty f.e.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d. That has worried me because if Daisy did what we told her, surely to G.o.d he would not be a free man by now.'

'Don't believe it, Maggie, the bishops are as powerful as the Lord G.o.d himself. No man would dare arrest a bishop. They look after one another and poor girls like Daisy, they are just left to suffer.'

Maggie looked at Frank with disbelieving eyes. 'I cannot believe that. Not everyone in Liverpool is a Catholic. She would have no luck here in Ireland and, G.o.d knows, she would be put in the asylum for the rest of her days if she ever claimed such a thing. But in Liverpool, surely to G.o.d, they are more civilized altogether? Surely someone there will believe her?'

'What do you think about this then?' said Frank, as he removed what appeared to be bits of charred paper from his pocket. Smoothing the larger pieces out carefully, he said, 'Well, go on then, you are the reader, what do they say?'

'What are they?' asked Maggie, peering at the blackened, burnt papers.

'I don't know, but Sister Perpetua and Sister Clare spent three hours burning them at the back of the tatties. 'Tis something they was desperate to be rid of. They ran up and down from the orphanage and the mother and baby home with boxes flying everywhere, so they was, and Sister Perpetua, she was shouting to Sister Clare to get a move on before the rain came and, sure, I have never seen Sister Perpetua so much as speak above a whisper, never mind shout. 'Twas all very odd indeed.'

Maggie sat down in the chair, pulling towards her the largest and most complete doc.u.ment.

'It's a letter signed by a priest,' she said. 'Her family can no longer manage to contain the girl's nature for flirtation. No man is safe from her advances. She must seek penance and be punished for forcing her neighbour to commit a shameful sin. She is pregnant. Her father never wants to see her face again and they have committed her to your care.

'Here ye go, some of the letters have gone, but there's enough to make it out.'

'Jesus, who would that be?' asked Frank.