The Whipping Club (11 page)

He asked if we had had relations. I felt an eejit. Your stonewalling priest of an uncle was involved. By then, I knew that much, that he sent you to a Mother Baby Home.”

             
Thompson, Ben’s confidante at the
Times
and the only witness at their wedding, told him County Wicklow was a good start, so he went there first and found two Mother Baby Homes, but neither of them had a clue who Marian McKeever might be. He drove south to Waterford and Cork and on to Kerry, and saw more than a few Mother Baby Homes littered t
hroughout southern and western
Ireland before he found Castleboro Mother Baby Home, and he was damn sorry that he lost so much time.

             
Am I hearing right?
Marian straightened in her chair but to no avail. She entered that place of disbelief she’d entered when her da died. The world altered forever.

             
“I had to tell Mr. Darby I’d be back in a few weeks. He was livid,

especially that I missed the Soviet satellite Sputnik over Dublin for the second time in a month.”

             
He missed seeing the Sputnik over Dublin? Oh poor, dear Ben. Poor Mr. Darby and the newspaper. “What are you saying, Ben?”

             
“I’m saying I was there at Castleboro.”

             
Marian felt shock, complete disbelief.

             
Two nuns, not getting any younger, were having tea.”

             
Am I hearing jokes now?

             
“They peered at me. I slammed the car door, grabbed my Kodak camera,” (a perk for his promotion to features reporter at the
Irish Times,
one that he bragged about, even now).

             
She pictured a pencil tucked behind his ear. Disrespectful. Wonder if he took off his hat.

             
“I explained that I was here to get you. The nuns gave a queer look before the Reverend Mother ushered a Sister P-something and me into a room off the parlor. ‘What is your relation to this person?’ they asked. I knew I’d found you.” He took a sip of his drink. “I told them your name, that you were sent by Father Brennan to deliver a baby, and that I would take you home when you’re ready. Very calm. I had them.”

             
She got up and got a glass of water from the tap. Ben waited.

             
“They spent a good deal of time questioning me.” He looked around the dining room, scrunching up his nose, as if sniffing a memory of musty incense in the air.
“Look, Your Eminence, I said.
I’m not leaving until I see her.”

             
“Your Eminence?” Marian couldn’t contain a burst of shocking laughter, which both she and Ben (from his distressed look) found odd. It
was
odd, but then Marian might also be near hysterics.

             
“Sister-something whispered something to the Reverend Mother and then went on a diatribe about men not permitted to see their girls. They’re to be hidden from society until they have their babies and resume their normal lives. They said even if ‘Miss McKeever’

were there, they wouldn’t allow a visit, for reasons of confidentiality. But regardless, they all of a sudden didn’t know any Miss McKeever. Sometimes they said the girls protect themselves, by not using their real names, so they couldn’t be absolutely certain.”

             
Ben reached for his hat and stood to make his point. “‘I’m a journalist, Sisters, and if you don’t gi
ve me what I need—a visit with
Marian and more definitive information—I promise you I will be back with the press. Tomorrow,’” Ben continued, and Marian began

to feel numb. She moved in her chair. “They left for a while. I grabbed my camera when they came back, too quickly in my opinion, to have done a proper search for you.”

             
He really was there.

             
“Again, Sister P said that there was no one here by that name, but she thought she knew who you were. Bizarre. She said you didn’t have the proper ‘headage’ fee to leave, that without that fee, you’d be staying there for as long as it takes to find him a foster home.”

             
Hadn’t that bitch ever contacted Father Brennan about me?

             
“‘Did you just say
him
?’ I said. Marian, I was devastated.” Ben glared at her. “You’re from a respectable Irish
Catholic
family is all they would tell me. Is she a red-head with freckles? I asked. ‘There are some freckles to this one,’ Sister P said. I’ll never forget that line. Like she was talking about a cow.” Ben shook his head. “She said the boy has taken on your genes so I should leave. They had work to do.”

             
Ben shook his head again. “A health
y baby boy and I should leave!
I was ready to pop one of them. I demanded to see you. There was no way I was leaving either of you there,” he said. “Sisters, I’ll take them both with me today. I pushed out my chair, stood, held my camera to my eye. You should have seen the alarmed faces.”

             
He wants to see an alarmed face? Does he see mine?

             
“The nun took out a letter, waved it like a surrender flag. Written by you. ‘It is Miss McKeever's wishes that this child be protected from the disgrace attached to her present circumstances. These girls are like tin cans rattling down the street, Mr. Ellis. They’re weak,’ she added. ‘If you mention the baby, well, her mental state will deteriorate further. She just wouldn’t be able to live with others knowing.’”

             
He stopped, sipped his drink. “You could leave as soon as they found a proper Catholic family. There was one hundred
pounds
involved. The letter confirmed you didn’t want your baby, she told me. They’re a bit like spoofers, aren’t they?” Ben concluded.

             
“Are you making light?”

             
“Of course not! I was shouting at this point, asking for real confirmation that these weren’t more lies, confirmation that you didn’t want your baby.”

             
Marian felt something engulfing her, something hot and raging pounding her temples.

             
“Go on,” Marian said with deliberate calm.

             
“‘Ah, okay,’ I said, bluffing. ‘Ah, well,
I’m
sure Marian would want to see me, and I must see her immediately,’ and I ran. They yelled some crap after me about your need for privacy.”

             
Marian could picture Sister Penis in a tizzy.

             
“I kept snapping photos as I ran across the drive. ‘Call the guards!’ They ran, screaming, ‘Get him and that camera.’ Officers pushed my face into the dirt, handcuffed me, confiscated my camera. I swore at Sister P, and she huffed off to the maternity ward.” Ben looked straight at her now. “Didn’t you ever wonder where that state-of-the-art camera went?”

             
Marian didn’t answer.

             
“There was some crazy, scary-looking nurse helper in a state herself who slammed the maternity door. I took a good look around on the way out. All doors and windows were clamped shut; a
No Entry
sign was posted in the fields. My only thought was you, and I told the guards I’d pay whatever it cost to bring you out of that terrible place. Marian, they took the money. I waited days. They told me to go home or they’d lock me up in Mountjoy. My biggest question to this day, Marian. Why didn’t you tell me?”

             
He was angry? “I couldn’t tell you,” she said. She gazed into the bowl of nuts on the table before managing to look at him. “It was

Father Brennan’s idea. But after that night–”

             
“Enough, Marian,” he began, “I’m not buying blaming my parents.”

             
“That day I found out I was pregnant, I was going to tell you.

I wanted to. Instead, I went down to Wexford and I had our son.

The nuns gave him to an American family who could properly take care of him. That’s what I thought. I thought it was the right thing to do,” she said.

             
Ben looked intently into her drained face. “I thought it was the right thing to do, too,” he said. He hesitated, took a deep breath. “I’m the one who paid the money to get you out, remember.” His face turned pale, even more so than it already was. His lower lip was

trembling. “They said without the fee, you’d be stuck in there and

he’d go to a foster family. It was the only way he’d find a decent home.”

             
Marian whirled her hand out of
his, stood up unsteadily, and
staggered across the room.

             
“Listen, you have to understand,” Ben said, rising from his chair.

             
“No, I don’t.”

             
“Understand that I was only doing–”

             
“Understand that you’ve been lying? All these years, you kept that from me? Did you know even more about him all along, you bastard? Did you know where he ended up?” She yelled.

             
“Listen, you. Don’t you dare raise
your voice at me! I kept it a
secret, just like you. I was trying to fecking protect you. They told me you wanted to pretend it never happened. The nuns said if I mentioned anything about it, you might go mad and I believed them. Why wouldn’t I have? You didn’t tell me, ever, which is the real shocker.”

             
Marian felt enraged, hated him.

             
“Ben, I would have stayed in there the rest of my life. A nightmare, yes, but once I had my baby I didn’t want to leave. I could have had two years with him there.” She began to sob in short bursts.

             
He looked stunned and hurt. “And then what? Tell me, where would those nuns place him? The guards told me the lucky ones go to America, but it costs. I wanted the best for him, too. I wanted what you wanted. It was ours, Marian. Not just yours.”

             
“
It
has a name.” He could see her body was quivering and tried to wrap his arms around her, massage her shoulders, but she refused his help. “I named him Adrian. I was going to name him after you, but I remembered Jews don’t do that.”

             
“Why
did
you disappear like that, Marian?”

             
“Your budding career would have been over before it–”

             
“That’s not what I asked,” Ben said.

             
“What about you?” She screamed. “You’re the one who let me down. There, I’ve finally said it, loud and clear.” She tightened the wide lavender belt of her flare skirt.

             
He almost coughed up his drink with that. “Me?”

             
“I was worrying more about ruining your career at the
Irish Times
than the future of my own son, imagine that. And your goddamn mother that night was killing you. I didn’t want to overtax you,” she said, incredulous. She wouldn’t recognize that girl now.

             
She got up abruptly and walked upstairs to check on Johanna.

She seemed asleep and she was glad about that. She looked down at her slight face, remembered the day Jo was born in Rotunda Hospital. A private room with a young nurse attending to their every need. Ben had spent most of that first week painting the nursery pink and outfitting her white crib with pink tea rose sheets, a pink blanket and a clockwork bear, some plastic dolls. He’d bought a rocking chair and a porcelain doll as well. How happy they had been. But maybe that wasn’t the truth. Maybe she hadn’t really been happy. Just lying. Maybe he had been doing the same. She headed back downstairs, holding the mahogany handrail to lighten the clatter of her shoes.

             
“You should have told me,” he said, back in the dining room. “You knew. I didn’t.”

             
“You should learn to make faster decisions, Mr. Journalist,” she said, snapping her fingers.  

             
He sat back down, poured both of them another whiskey. She kept standing, drumming the table.

             
“Marian, I never stopped thinking about you the whole time you were away.”

             
There was silence.

             
“I needed you, right then,” she said quietly.

             
“I ran to the maternity ward and met that half-wit, too. I ran about the ward, trying to locate an authority. She scuttled right up to me, ran out a door, brought in that patrolling officer who handcuffed me and took me down to the Garda station, all the while I was calling your name.”