The Ballymara Road (6 page)

There was no compassion in the words of the Reverend Mother.

Rosie felt a sudden chill, which had nothing to do with the temperature of her office.

The Abbey’s delivery practices were barbaric. Pain was regarded as an atonement for sin. Stitching was not allowed. The perineal tears were looked on as a continuing physical reminder of the need to seek forgiveness.

‘Where is she now?’ Rosie had already forgotten about the tea and toast. She knew all was not as it should be.

Besmina, the kitchen maid, arrived at the hospital only a few months previously. It hadn’t taken long for the staff, over tea and brack, to discover that Besmina had detailed knowledge of the Abbey, where Kitty had been left to deliver her baby in secret. The moment Rosie discovered that Besmina was familiar with the Abbey, she pressed her for information.

It had been a difficult task. At first she was very nervous but, gradually, she had opened up to Rosie. The staff had no idea why Rosie was so interested and she wanted to keep it that way.

She wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. There was much Besmina hadn’t told Rosie, or anyone else. She would never confess that she had been an unmarried mother herself or to having birthed her child at the Abbey to save her mother and grandmother from the shame. Or that she had escaped with the help of a child from Liverpool by the name of Nellie.

‘Thank you, God, for sending Nellie to me,’ was the opening line of Besmina’s first and last prayer of every day.

Besmina had informed Rosie that, behind the Abbey, in the middle of a copse of trees, were graves, dozens of them, belonging to girls as young as thirteen. And babies. Lots of babies.

For this reason Rosie had been very glad that Kitty’s family, related to her own, had asked her to deliver the baby herself.

Rosie knew that Kitty came from a loving and caring family. God alone knew how that priest had been able to do what he did.

The Reverend Mother had ignored both Rosie’s question and the tone of her voice.

‘I have given orders for her to be left in the labour room until you arrive. I do not want her working in the laundry any longer. A baby conceived in sin, but born in the Abbey on Christmas morning, is not viewed as helpful, Mrs O’Grady. I don’t need to explain to you how unsettled this birth has made everyone. I would like her to be removed as soon as is possible.’

‘Right, how is she?’ Rosie asked. ‘Was the delivery straightforward and is she recovering well?’

‘You will be able to answer those questions when you collect her, which I hope will be today. Her baby was a boy. I had him removed to the nursery, immediately following his birth, and I am delighted to say that his new parents are making haste travelling from America to view him. They will take him back as soon as possible once a passport can be issued.’

‘View him? Well, goodness me, what an odd expression. That is very quick altogether, is it not?’

Rosie was no stranger to efficiency, but the Reverend Mother appeared to have moved with unseemly haste to have the baby adopted.

‘It is our normal practice to keep the children until they are three. Adoption takes such a time to arrange in America. A letter can take as long as six weeks. When a new baby is available, we have the very best Catholic families on standby who will drop everything once they receive a telegram from us. I hope there will be no complaint? The girl has already signed a contract, stating that she relinquishes all rights to the baby and that she will never attempt to make contact with the child or his family, at any time in the future. What time can we expect you?’ Her tone brightened as she added, ‘Sister Celia would love to bake you a cake.’

In her state of trauma following the delivery, Kitty had signed the contract using her real name. The Reverend Mother, in her haste to have the contract signed, had not noticed Kitty’s error.

Rosie was speechless. The journey to Dublin from Roscommon had been an ordeal. Now she would have to drive across country to Galway and then take the girl on to Ballymara.

‘I hope to arrive at the Abbey at around two o’clock, all being well, so long as I am able to drive down all the roads, please God. Thank Sister Celia, I am very much looking forward to her wonderful cake.’

Rosie frowned as she replaced the receiver. She felt intensely uncomfortable but she knew that she must make her way to Kitty, as fast as she possibly could.

Rosie whispered a prayer, ‘At least the girl is alive, thanks be to God,’ and blessed herself. She quickly telephoned Mrs Doyle at the post office in Bangornevin and asked her to send someone across the road to fetch her sister-in-law, Julia, to the phone.

Whilst she waited for Julia to call back, she just had time to drink her tea and eat her toast before making another call to her husband, who was less than pleased by her news.

‘Rosie, if the baby has been born, why can ye not wait for the weather to clear? I’ve been looking at the sky and, sure, ’tis as heavy as a sinner’s heart. There will be snow tonight again, I am certain of it.’

‘I will be fine. You know me, always the lucky one. Stop fussing now and get back to work. There won’t be much light today.’

‘Aye, right, well there is no use me arguing now. I will make sure Julia knows to put the watch on from Castlefeale and have them ring me, as ye pass through. Drive with care, Rosie.’

As Rosie finished her last phone call, she once again reminded herself how blessed she had been to marry a man like JT. Never once had she known him to lose his temper, which could not be said for some of the men of rural Ireland. On countless farms, husbands and fathers ruled by the fist.

She set off into the snow once again, this time with her Gladstone bag full of dressings, sutures and useful things she might need for Kitty, as well as a little extra knowledge, which she had artfully gleaned from Besmina as she cleared away the tea tray.

When Rosie turned in through the Abbey gates at three o’clock, the light was already fading fast. At the best of times she thought the Abbey looked like the coldest and most miserable of institutions, but today in the frozen mist it appeared even more forbidding than usual as it loomed up, like a white effigy, against the dull grey sky.

To the right of the main building was a long glass corridor, which led to the laundry; on the opposite side lay the chapel and convent. Rosie knew the girls’ dormitories were up in the roof.

She wiped the misty windscreen with her leather glove. From the window on the top floor shone the single, dim yellow light of the labour room, which was where Kitty would be lying, probably alone.

‘Merciful God, the poor child,’ she said out loud as she pulled up in front of the convent.

As Rosie turned off the engine, she saw a huddled procession of girls shuffling in a straight line down the steps, from the Abbey nursery to the laundry. Rosie wondered if this was the end of the one hour per day they were allowed to spend with their babies and children, and were being herded back to commence another five hours of hard work. Two girls looked directly at Rosie and then began talking to each other. One smiled at her nervously, as though trying to attract her attention, before being sharply prodded in the back by the nun walking alongside.

Rosie had been told by Besmina that whenever a child was adopted, the mother was made to carry it down the long corridor to the door at the far end. There, she would have to hand the baby over to the person who would oversee the handover to the new parents, at Shannon airport.

‘’Tis the walk of shame,’ Besmina had said, ‘and the nuns, they all line up in a row on either side, praying for forgiveness, which, if you ask me, never seems to come. If the mother breaks down, or becomes upset, Jesus, she is punished so bad.’

‘How, Besmina, how?’

Rosie had asked this question before but it was not until today that Besmina had answered her, with uncharacteristic bitterness.

‘They are taken into the Reverend Mother’s office, where they have their heads shaved and painted with gentian violet. Then they are beaten with a cane, tied to a chair and left in a room, alone, for hours. The nuns can be witches, so they can.’

Rosie assumed purple gentian violet would be a physical warning to the other girls, should they dare to shed tears as they handed over their babies.

Besmina, who was a good girl, had told Rosie very little but what she did say had shocked her. Rosie was a good Catholic, but sometimes even she worried at the corruption of her religion, and wondered how there could be a justification for such places as the Abbey.

The Reverend Mother stood waiting, framed in the doorway, a vision in black. By the time Rosie had reached the top of the steps, a flustered, white-veiled novice was also hovering behind her, twittering.

‘At long last. I thought you would never arrive,’ Sister Assumpta exclaimed impatiently, as though Rosie had travelled from the local village on a dry and pleasant day. ‘I have tea ready for you in my office.’

At last, an acknowledgment of the dreadful conditions I have driven in, thought Rosie.

‘We saw the lights of your car and had it made immediately. Sister Virginia, show Mrs O’Grady to the bathroom and wait to bring her back. Then you can have your tea and cake, midwife, and Sister Virginia will escort you to the labour room, to collect the girl. Sister Celia has made you the most fabulous sandwich cake and covered the top in melted chocolate. Can you imagine that?’

Rosie followed the novice down the highly polished corridor laid with a green Persian carpet, and lined with heavy, dark wood furniture, with ruby brocade curtains hanging at the windows. Against the wall stood an overpowering statue of St Anthony that had obviously been recently carved. She wondered exactly how much money the nuns were bringing in on an annual basis from their laundry work and baby selling, in order to fill the Abbey with such finery.

The ceremonial tea and cake in the Reverend Mother’s room were consumed in minutes. Rosie was keen to see Kitty as quickly as possible, so she stood and picked up her heavy bag. She had to admit, to herself, it was the best slice of chocolate cake she had ever eaten. An unexpected sweetness.

‘Er, before you take the girl, I am afraid we have a small problem.’ Sister Assumpta’s voice, behind her, had now dropped an octave to sound almost menacing.

As Rosie turned back to face her, Sister Assumpta averted her gaze and shuffled pieces of paper across her desk.

‘And that would be what, Reverend Mother?’ enquired Rosie.

The atmosphere in the room had taken a decidedly frosty turn.

‘Do you have the money with you? There is a further eighty pounds outstanding, before the girl can leave.’

Rosie felt her blood boil. She had had a very long day and the last thing on her mind when she had received the Reverend Mother’s call was driving to Bangornevin to collect what amounted to bail money. There had been only one idea in her head as she had replaced the receiver and that was to make haste to Kitty’s bedside as soon as God and the weather would allow.

Rosie looked the Reverend Mother straight in the eye and spoke with more authority than she actually felt, especially as a painting of the Holy Mother seemed to be staring down at her with a touch of disappointment in the eyes that she had not noticed until now.

‘No, I do not, as it happens, because you have given me no time to organize the payment. You appeared very keen indeed to have Kitty removed from the Abbey when you called me this morning, and so I am afraid you will have to wait until I can send someone over. You will have to take my word, unless you would like to hold me for a ransom?’

Both women laughed. A dry slightly shrill laugh, although not one even remotely funny word had been spoken.

Turning on her heel, Rosie crossed the acreage of plush carpet to the office door and almost had to edge the novice aside, to place her hand on the brass doorknob.

‘I know my own way, thank you very much,’ Rosie hissed as she opened the door with a flourish, almost flattening the simpering novice.

She could feel Sister Assumpta’s eyes burning into her back as she made her way down the corridor to the main staircase. Rosie, who held a powerful position and moved in elevated medical and religious circles, knew that, in a direct challenge of authority, Sister Assumpta would not want to cross her. Rosie felt sure that the Reverend Mother would avoid at all costs any situation that encouraged more questions about the running of the mother and baby business.

Rosie’s heart began to beat slightly faster, as she waited for a voice to ring out behind her and order her to stop. There was nothing but silence. She let out a deep breath. She had won.

Not for the first time, she detected something malevolent and sinister, cowering in dark corners. Now, it followed her, down the long corridor. Rosie gave an involuntary shiver as she approached the stairs, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and goose pimples break out on her arms.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she whispered to herself as she hurried up the stairs. ‘They can’t hold us prisoner.’

Rosie opened the door to the labour room, and was immediately assailed by the smell of stale blood.

‘Holy Mary,’ she gasped, covering her mouth against the stench.

Across the other side of the room, Kitty lay on her back on the hard delivery bed, looking small and frail. One arm flopped down over the side, almost reaching the floor, like the broken wing of a bird. It was quickly apparent to Rosie that Kitty was in a great deal of pain.

As Kitty’s head turned towards Rosie, instant tears of relief ran down her cheeks. She reached out and grabbed Rosie’s hand.

‘Oh God, it hurts so much,’ she cried. ‘I feel so sick, the pain is so bad.’

Rosie dropped her bag on the floor and dragged over to the bed a white enamel trolley that stood against the wall. Hurriedly she retrieved equipment and dressings from her bag, placing them on the top of the trolley.

‘What hurts, Kitty, where? Is it down below?’ Rosie said as she prepared her trolley.

Kitty nodded and put both hands on her abdomen. ‘God, it is so bad, and here,’ she cried, placing a hand on her chest. Rosie could see that someone had attempted to bind Kitty’s breasts, one of the other girls, she supposed, but had not made a very good job of it.