Cath Staincliffe: Trio

Sister Giuseppe showed them where to sit. There were three wooden chairs along the wall in the entrance hall. There was a side table beyond with a holy-water dispenser above it. Our Lady. An old-fashioned one, the paint dull on the plaster. You could get them that glowed in the dark now, crucifixes and all, made of some new plastic stuff.

Megan settled the box case on her knee. The entrance hall had a parquet wood floor with tiles all around the edge in a zigzag pattern. The walls were very plain, green below the dado and cream above. Bit like a hospital. The place was enormous. There was a staircase down the hall, like something from Gone With The Wind, splitting into two on the landing, a huge picture hung up there in a thick gilt frame, a picture of St Joan of Arc, seated on a horse, with temples and hills behind her. The place smelt of beeswax and coal. Megan wondered where all the girls were, the fallen women. She didn’t feel like a fallen woman. She felt very small and scared and she wished they could just go now. Take the box and go back home and have the baby and marry Brendan and make everything right.

‘Mrs Driscoll?’ Another nun. Older this time, with grey curls peeping from the edge of her wimple. Thick glasses and a rough, red complexion. ‘Good afternoon. I’m Matron. Sister Monica.’

‘Yes, Sister. You wrote.’

‘That’s right. You’re up in Collyhurst?’

‘Just beyond.’

‘St Malachy’s?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘I knew Father Gilmartin from Salford, we were both at St Claire’s for a while.’

Connections established, they followed Sister Monica into a generous-sized room which held a desk and several upright chairs, a filing cabinet and some easy chairs around the fireplace. Above the mantelpiece was a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and behind Sister Monica’s desk one of the Sacred Heart. A tea tray with cups for three sat on the desk.

‘You’ll have some tea before your journey back?’ Sister addressed Mammy. Megan felt a rush of heat inside. She wasn’t going back, she had to stay. She could see pink wafers on the tray. Her favorite. Peak Freans.

‘We’ll do that then and have a little chat, and then I can show Megan around the place. Tea is at five thirty, so we’ve plenty of time. When's your bus?’

‘They’re every twenty minutes back to town, so I’ll be fine, thank you, Sister.’

Sister poured tea and Megan got a cup and a biscuit. Sister Monica established Mrs Driscoll’s home town in Eire and the two regaled each other with families they knew, priests and schools and seminaries and churches. Megan let the chat bubble round her. She felt tired and cranky. Oh, Brendan. She missed Brendan. He had been banned from the house and she from seeing him. She had sent him a couple of notes to work, getting her sister Kitty to take them on her way to the factory. She knew he still cared. She saw him at Mass, his family all stuck to him like sticky burrs and no chance to talk.

‘Now, Mrs Driscoll.’ The tone changed and Megan paid attention again. ‘Do you have any questions?’

‘No.’

‘And we think the baby is due in the middle of May?’

‘Think so.’

‘Father Quinlan does the purification ceremony here and then Megan will be able to make a clean start of it all. Yes?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ She didn’t want her mammy to go. She didn’t want to be left here. She felt herself getting hot, like a burn travelling up her back, along the sides of her arms and her neck.

‘The baby will be placed and Megan will need to give her consent for the formal hearing. It’s only a couple of minutes and the parties never meet. You won’t see the parents. Just a formality.’

She felt a flare of resentment. She and Brendan were the parents, the real parents. If they’d been a few years older they could have got married and no one could have stopped them.

‘I’ll be on my way.’ Her mammy rose and Megan took in the shabby green tweed coat, the ill-matched hat, the determined face her mother had put on.

She stood for a hug, suddenly panicky, no air in the place, fevered, her eyes hot. Mammy’s touch was swift, almost brusque, not giving either of them the chance for a show of emotion.

‘Ta-ta, now. Thank you, Sister.’

‘Mammy.’ Megan tried to slow her down, no idea what to say.

The door opened and Sister Giuseppe was there. Like Igor, Megan thought. There’d been no signal. ‘Mammy.’

‘Sister will see you out, Mrs Driscoll.’

Her mother practically ran from the room and the door closed on them.

Megan stood, her throat parched, her heart fluttering in her throat.

‘Sit down, Megan,’ Sister said quietly, but there was no warmth in the voice. ‘Let me check your notes.’

Joan

‘Father’s name?’

Joan shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know.’

‘You couldn’t tell him?’

‘He isn’t free.’

She could sense the disapproval from the other side of the desk like a fret of distaste settling about her. She hadn’t just been careless, she had led a married man astray. Home wrecker, scarlet woman.

‘Can you leave it blank?’ She fought to sound calm and contained. Inside, her heart was whipping about and her nerves singing like piano wires.

The nun blinked and gave a curt nod.

‘Your occupation?’

‘Secretary.’

‘Nearest relatives?’

‘Mr and Mrs Hawes.’

‘Parents?’

She nodded.

‘Any brothers and sisters?’

Joan told her about Tommy.

‘When’s the baby due?’

‘Early June, I think.’

The Nun unfolded a small slip of paper and glanced at it. ‘You’ve seen the doctor,’ she confirmed.

‘Yes.’

Duncan had gone white when he’d opened her letter giving notice. She’d worded it in the usual formal style.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you of my intention to leave my position of Secretary on February 25th, two weeks from today.

Yours faithfully,

Joan Hawes

No reason. No warning.

She had watched him open it from her own desk, her knees clenched together, toes pressing into the floor.

‘Joan?’

Betty looked up too at the unusual urgency in his tone.

‘Yes, Mr Harrison?’

‘Can you come through?’

He nodded for her to shut the door behind her.

‘What’s this?’ He flung the letter down, angry, a muscle by his mouth twitching.

‘I’m going to London.’

‘Why?’ Like it was the moon. ‘Why, Joan?’

She bit her lip, steadying herself. The less she said the better.

‘Reconsider.’

‘Mind’s made up.’

‘I thought, you and me…’

What you and me? ‘You have a wife.’

‘Oh, Joan.’ He looked at her pained, as if to say it wasn't his fault that he was married, as if she was being unfair.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said.

She didn't reply, wrapped her arms tighter round herself.

‘You could have told me. Not like this,’ he pushed at the letter with his fingers.

She waited.

‘So this is it? All you have to say?’

‘I’ll work my notice,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be able to stay late.’

He bristled then, his lips crimping together, his colour darkening. Would he spit at her? Curse her? She avoided his eyes. The shrill bell of the phone burst through the silence, making her start, the prickle of sweat everywhere.

‘Go,’ he nodded towards the door, leaning forward to pick up the letter with one hand and the phone with the other.

‘While you’re here,’ the nun was saying, ‘you’ll be expected to help in the running of the Home. Sister Vincent oversees the housekeeping and she’ll let you know what you have to do. Girls work in the laundry and the kitchens and the nursery. The Society has granted you a place here on the understanding that you are truly sorry for what you have done and wish to redeem yourself. You will observe the laws of the Home and God’s laws and act with proper modesty at all times. You understand?’