I Knew You'd Have Brown Eyes (3 page)

4

When I was in Year 9 my father was transferred to Papua New Guinea. My parents lived there for a year with my younger siblings who were in primary school and my older sister who attended technical college. There were no suitable high schools for me so I was sent to boarding school. When Bryan’s car drove into the Holy Cross Home I immediately recognised the building; it was an exact replica of that boarding school. The Holy Cross Home was in fact a convent. I had to fight back my tears. I was meant to be leaving all this behind and now here, once again, I was back with the nuns.

‘You can leave her bag there,’ Sister Mary Xavier said after she introduced herself. She indicated the floor by the stairs. Bryan dropped my bag.

‘No visitors allowed beyond the parlour,’ she pointed to a door to the right of the stairs. We took this as our cue to bid farewell. He gave me a hurried hug, and was gone. When I saw his car slide out of the driveway, I felt a wave of relief. In my mind, men and nuns didn’t mix.

I picked up my bag and followed Sister Xavier up the stairs.

A curtain separated my bed from those on either side. The other girls were working in the laundry and would be back at four.

‘Sister Ann Mary, our social worker, will make a time for you to meet with her tomorrow. The girls will point you in the direction of her office. Dinner at six.’ With that, she sailed down the passage between the curtains that hid the beds of ‘the other girls’.

I sat on the bed and cried. I felt utterly alone and furious with myself for getting into this situation. On the one hand I was relieved to be away from home and everyone who might find out what I was rapidly learning was to be secret. On the other, I wished with all my might that I had not got myself into this situation. I was afraid.

The sound of the girls coming up the stairs reached me and I mustered the energy to pull myself from the safety of the pulled curtains.

‘Hello,’ I said to the first girl who walked past my bed.

‘Hello. I’m Dorothy.’

As the girls filed by, they each introduced themselves. In the coming months I was to understand their thoughts in that first meeting, since I too would have them, upon the arrival of a new girl. How old is she? How many weeks? Do I know her or any of her family?

Dorothy was a little older than the other girls and was easier to talk to. It was to her side of the table that I gravitated for dinner. We ate in a large room filled with long communal tables, which again reminded me of boarding school. A nun paced the room fingering her rosary beads.

‘Have you met with Sister Ann Mary yet?’ Dorothy asked.

‘No, tomorrow. Can you show me where her office is?’

‘Sure. She’ll go over your options with you. Do you know about the laundry?’

‘No. All I know is I’m staying here till I have the baby.’

‘We’re all in the same boat with that!’

She waved her hand around the table, indicating the other girls sitting on our table.

‘How long have you been here,’ I dared ask.

‘One long month. Five to go.’

‘Me too, I’m sixteen weeks.’

She nodded.

‘Dorothy, who are those people sitting at the table over there?’

It was the table with handicapped girls, who appeared out of place to me.

‘Oh, those ladies have Down syndrome. They live here too, on the floor below us. They’ve been here since they were babies, abandoned by their parents.’

I knew how that felt.

That night, as I lay in my bed, I heard muffled crying. I couldn’t determine who the girl was. No one got up to comfort her.

I had met Sister Ann Mary when I was at school. In our final years all the girls in my class had been called to an office for an interview with her. It was called career guidance, but in fact they were recruiting us to join the nuns. There were no other careers on the table. It was simply, ‘Have you ever thought of joining the Sisters of Mercy?’ At the time she saw me as having high potential since my brother was a Christian Brother. But by then I was having nothing of it. In her office at Holy Cross she recognised me immediately. We exchanged small talk on how my brother was doing – not so well in Sister’s eyes since he was no longer a Christian Brother. I had added to the shame by being yet another Catholic girl in trouble.

She told me the procedure to apply for government benefits, informed me to pay half of the said benefits for my board and told me she would see me closer to when ‘my time came’ so that she could go through the papers with me.

‘Papers?’

‘The adoption papers. You’re adopting the baby, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew I could ask Dorothy. Right then, all I wanted was to get out of her office.

‘Ready?’ Dorothy was standing outside my curtain.

‘Yep, let’s go.’

We walked down the stairs from our dormitory, across a covered walkway into the laundry. The eight pregnant girls who lived at Holy Cross were assigned to different parts of the laundry. We weren’t allowed to use the industrial irons but could sort clothes as they came out of the dryers, or fold and pack them into bags for delivery. The smell of the large steam irons and freshly pressed starched linen pervaded the building. On the hot Brisbane summer afternoons it was stifling but by June, when the weather cooled, the laundry was warm and cosy. I soon fell into the work routine and liked the distraction from my otherwise unnatural confinement. We weren’t paid for the work, but that didn’t matter to me. It broke up my day and took me away from the convent. Here I could forget I was pregnant and pretend I was in the real world. Eileen, the woman in charge, was hard working and efficient.

‘You seem like a person who wants to do something with her life,’ she said to me one day.

‘I hope so. I’ve been accepted into nursing. I start in September.’

Eileen chatted as she worked. She told me about her husband and their children and the daily struggles she faced – they seemed simple compared with my own. She liked her work. What I loved about being with her was that she treated me like a normal human being, not a young pregnant girl in disgrace. She didn’t refer to my pregnancy unless I brought it up. There were a couple of occasions in the following months when I cried on her shoulder.

Dorothy and I had the same obstetrician at the nearby Royal Women’s Hospital. We had our appointments on the same day. These were once a month in the beginning, then twice a month and eventually every week. Our private obstetrician had a special clinic for unmarried mothers. I soon learned that this was a privilege, because the other girls had their appointments in the public section of the hospital. They told us of being stared at by the other pregnant women, and having rude comments said to them about being young and unmarried. I was grateful to Mum for having arranged private health cover for me. Dorothy wore a ring on her wedding finger, which I thought a sensible idea. It wouldn’t have worked for me, though, because I still looked like a child.

Another girl who also had private insurance came to the home not long after me. Her name was Madeline. We were not allowed to know each other’s surnames. This rule was in place to protect our privacy. Implicit to living at Holy Cross was keeping our pregnancies secret so that we could return to normal lives after the birth.

After our doctor’s appointment, the day that Madeline joined us for the first time, Dorothy suggested we go to the nearby Lutwyche shopping centre and have lunch in a cafe. It became our regular outing on doctor’s days and I looked forward to this simple act of normality. I felt like a grown-up ordering a sandwich and tea. Dorothy introduced us to toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches – they had to be on white bread with relish – and to this day that combination reminds me of her and that time in our lives. It was in the cafe that we told each other our stories.

‘What are you going to do after you have your baby?’

‘I’m going to be a nurse.’

‘Really? I’m a nurse.’

This came as a surprise to me. I knew Dorothy was older, but had not thought that she already had a career.

‘Why are you at Holy Cross then? Couldn’t you afford to go somewhere else?’

‘I come from a country town. The father of my baby is a doctor and, when I told him I was pregnant, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me.’

‘Oh, that’s awful! What did your parents say?’

‘They don’t know. I didn’t tell them. My parents are quite old and they’d be very embarrassed about it. Everyone knows everyone in the town I come from. I told them I got a job in Brisbane.’

‘So no one knows you’re here?’

‘No. When my boyfriend didn’t want to marry me, I just arranged to come here and left town.’

We sat in silence at this sad news. Our new friend had no one to confide in but us. I felt a little relieved that at least my boyfriend hadn’t disowned me. I told them my story and then it was Madeline’s turn.

‘I’m fourteen,’ she said. ‘My parents thought it was best for me to come here, since I couldn’t go to school – the nuns wouldn’t allow it. But I’ll go back after I have the baby.’

I don’t know how many times I heard that sentence from the girls at Holy Cross – after I have the baby. Our lives were on hold. After that day Dorothy, Madeline and I became firm friends, joined together by our common secret. Madeline’s parents were incredibly supportive and took her home on weekends. She had to remain indoors so she would not be seen but at least she got some respite from the home.

The women with Down syndrome roamed the convent and often came to sit with us at night in our little TV room. One in particular, Gina, was our favourite.

‘Whatcha doin’ Gina?’

‘Nothin’. Got any lollies?’

‘Sure, but not too many.’

‘You havin’ a boy or a girl?’

‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

‘Girl.’

‘Mmm, maybe.’

‘You gonna give your baby away?’

She knew the answer to this. She must have seen dozens of girls like me come and go. We were a normal part of her life. She was about forty. Since that time I have always had a soft spot for people with Down Syndrome.

We had time to ourselves each morning and I took a rest. I liked being in my curtained-off bedroom and having a little time to myself. Before I had entered the convent, I had bought myself the nursing textbook and, by the time I left Holy Cross, I had read it twice.

One evening at dinner, I was carrying my plate to my table when I ran smack-bang into a nun who had taught me at school.

‘Hello, Sister Ignatius Mary!’

‘Hello.’ She looked up from her rosary beads and her eyes went straight to my belly. I was mortified; here was a nun who was friends with my mother. We had exchanged letters the year I had been a boarder, when Mum and Dad were in PNG. She knew my respectable family. And there I was in disgrace. I felt ashamed. Once again I had let people down, this time one of my favourite teachers.

‘How’s your mother?’

‘Fine.’

‘Give her my regards.’

But I didn’t know how my mother was. We hadn’t spoken to each other since I left home.

One day I decided to call her.

‘Hi Mum.’

‘Mary. How are you?’ By her tone of voice, I knew she was still angry.

‘I’m fine. How’s Dad?’

‘Good. We’re going on a trip to New Zealand.’

‘Oh, that’s nice. Is Alexis going with you?’

‘Yes. Uncle James and Aunty Cath were here last week. They asked after you.’

‘Oh, what did you tell them?’

‘That you were away on holiday.’

I felt a pang of loneliness and I told her I missed home.

‘Well if you hadn’t got yourself into this mess, you’d still be here, wouldn’t you?’

I hung up the phone. It was me the girls heard crying in my bed that night.

In the months that I lived at Holy Cross my thoughts roamed from the fear of giving birth to the unclear future ahead, and my unborn child. We girls had some happy moments tracking the movements of arms and legs across our abdomens as we sat watching television or working in the laundry. We often spoke about our future plans, but never about signing adoption papers. I talked to my baby as I stroked my expanding belly.

‘You’re only a baby and life can be tough, but you will be okay.’ It was all I had to hang on to.

As my pregnancy advanced I didn’t want to be seen outside the confines of the home. It was a sanctuary away from prying eyes and judgemental comments. Outside the convent we had a sign on our heads that read Sinner or, as a man in a bus shouted to us one day, ‘Whores!’

My elder siblings – Teresa and Charlie – and their partners came to visit one evening. We sat in the parlour.

‘How’s Alexis?’ I asked. My younger sister was twelve.

‘Toots?’ Teresa said – our nickname for Alexis. ‘She’s cute as ever. She misses you.’

‘Does she suspect anything?’

‘No, Mum told her you’d gone on a holiday.’

‘She and Ken ask after you,’ Charlie said.

To change the subject I asked Teresa about the hairdressing salon she owned.

‘Oh Mary, the funniest thing happened the other day. One of the blue-rinse set came in and after I coloured her hair I took off the cap – and it was green! You should have seen her face!’

‘Oh my god, what did you do?’

‘I told her the colour suited her dress and then her face went green, the same colour as her hair!’

We all burst out laughing. We were familiar with Teresa’s exaggerations and her jokes often had us in fits.

She hugged me as she was leaving and whispered in my ear.

‘It’s not fair Mary, that you got caught. I’ve been having sex with Frank for ages. It should have been me, but I went on the pill.’ I still didn’t know what the pill was, but I was so grateful for her words. They made me feel less guilty about having had sex and getting pregnant. Her kind words sustained me.

After they left, my homesickness worsened. They came once more to visit when my pregnancy was more advanced. I felt embarrassed at my size on that second visit.

Bryan visited regularly and always brought me a carton of milk. The convent food was adequate, but I knew I needed calcium. By this time he had come to terms with my decision and accepted that adoption was the best choice for our baby. I appreciated his concern for me and his regular visits. Towards the end of my pregnancy he took me home to his parents’ place. They were away for the weekend. It was a welcome break from the convent, though I didn’t like the smell of tobacco and stale food. I cleaned the house and he later told me that his mother was pleased when I came over because the place looked better afterwards.