Anne Bennett - To Have and To Hold

‘We vowed to keep in touch and compare the different paths our lives had taken, but the training was intensive and in the end it dwindled to a Christmas card with a scribbled note inside. However, I know that she is a matron at a place called the General Hospital in Birmingham, and from what she says, I understand the hospital runs a training school for nurses. It would be marvellous if she would consider you, because our order has its own hospital in Birmingham called St Chad’s, and the sisters from there would be at hand to keep an eye on you.’

She smiled at the face that Carmel pulled. Sister Frances knew full well what that expression said: that she neither wanted nor needed anyone to keep an eye on her. However, Birmingham was a large city and she would be miles from home. Sister Frances imagined that the hospital was much larger and possibly more impersonal than the small county hospital she had trained at and the only one she had any experience of. She said, ‘And you can pull a face, my girl, but it is a big thing to go so far at such a young age. I will write to Catherine tonight and see what’s what. I’m going to talk no more about it now, for we have a heap of work to get through.’

From the day Carmel had started at the hospital and Sister Frances had a glimpse of the life she led, she had advised her not to tell her parents of the wage rises she had been given. Her conscience had smote her about this, for surely it was a sin to deceive parents? But then Dennis Duffy didn’t act like a good and concerned parent. Both she and Carmel knew that however much she took home it would not benefit any but Dennis Duffy. Carmel also understood that she would not stay under the roof of a drunken bully for one minute longer than necessary, and that to escape from him she needed money. So every week Sister Frances took the money Carmel gave her and put it in the Post Office. Soon there was more need than ever to save, for the reply came from Catherine Turner. Sister Frances handed Carmel the letter to read.

Normally, I would not entertain taking a girl on until I had interviewed her, but I trust your judgement and so I will bend my own rules and take her on provisionally. I will arrange to see her as soon as she arrives. She will initially enter the preliminary training school for a period of six weeks, receiving basic instruction in Anatomy, Hygiene, Physiology and the Theory and Practice of Nursing. At the end of this period, there will be exams, which the candidates must pass in order to be admitted to the hospital as probationary nurses for an initial period of six weeks. There is no payment for the first three months and after that, the salary is £20 for the first year, £25 for the second, £30 for the third and £40 for the fourth year. A list of requirements Miss Duffy will need to bring will be sent at a later date.

‘What sort of requirements? I haven’t much money, Sister Frances,’ Carmel said in dismay.

‘Haven’t you been saving for the last two years, and will have two more years before there is anything much to buy?’ Sister Frances said. ‘Don’t fall at the first hurdle.’

‘I don’t intend to fall at any hurdle,’ Carmel said almost fiercely.

‘So you’re still as keen as ever?’

‘Keener, if anything, now I know it might actually happen.’

Nearly two years later, in June, Carmel stood before her father and told him of the exam that she had taken behind his back. She also told him that she had passed it with flying colours and that meant she could start her training to be a nurse in a hospital in Birmingham, England.

She had known that, at first, anyway, her father would protest, for didn’t he protest against every mortal thing as a matter of course? She knew too her father’s protests were usually expressed in a physical way. He wasn’t the sort of man anyone could have a reasoned discussion with. His fists or his belt usually settled any argument to his advantage.

But Carmel was more determined than she had ever been about anything. She had borne the thrust of his anger more than enough and she’d had as much as she was prepared to take.

‘He’ll never agree to it,’ Eve warned her daughter that first evening when her father was out of the house. ‘Sure you must put it out of your head.’

‘I will not!’ Carmel shouted defiantly. ‘He’s not thinking of anyone but himself as usual. He’s not objecting to me going because he is going to miss me at all. Huh, not a bit of it. All he’ll miss is the beer money I have to tip up every Friday night.’

‘Hush, Carmel, for pity’s sake,’ Eve said, in an effort to soothe her daughter’s temper before Dennis came back, for she was worried what he would do if Carmel stayed in this frame of mind and spoke out, as she was wont to.

Eve’s words, though, just stiffened Carmel’s resolve and she refused to let the matter drop, though she knew she was sailing nearer and nearer to the wind. Her mother begged her to stop, to give in, and her younger brothers and sisters looked at her in trepidation, mixed with a little awe, especially her brother Michael. At sixteen, he was nearest to her in age and he told her he would rather tangle with a sabre-toothed tiger than his father.

Eventually, Dennis snapped. Carmel had known he would and though she was scared, she knew it probably had to come to this for her to get her freedom from his tyranny. She groaned as her father’s fists powered into her face, almost blinded by the blood falling into her eyes and so dazed from the blows raining down on her, she fell to her knees. She screamed as her father grasped a handful of her curls and dragged her to the bedroom. Holding her fast with one hand, he loosened his belt with the other. The belt whistled through the air and when it made contact with her skin, ripping easily through the thin fabric of the dress she wore, she thought she would die with the pain of it. He hit her again and again, until the agonising pain was relentless and all-con-suming, and she thought he would kill her.

It was the combined efforts of Michael and her mother that saved her, although she hadn’t been aware of it at the time, hadn’t been aware of much. She languished on the mattress that did as a bed for three days while Eve settled Carmel’s sisters—twelve-year-old Siobhan, seven-year-old Kathy and the baby, Pauline, who usually shared the mattress—on the floor on a heap of rags lest they hurt her further. Eve then sent eleven-year-old Damien to the hospital with a note saying Carmel had a cold. Carmel didn’t protest. She felt truly ill and in tremendous pain, and was glad she hadn’t got to try to move. At least she was semi-protected from her father.

The fourth morning, though, she heaved her painful body out of the bed and began to dress.

‘Where d’you think you are going?’ Eve asked, but quietly, lest she wake Dennis.

‘To see Father O’Malley.’

‘Ah, no,’ Eve protested. ‘Surely not. Not with your face the way it is.’

‘Aye, Mammy,’ Carmel said. ‘He needs to see it. Know what sort of a madman I have for a father.’

Eve bit her lip in consternation, but Carmel was right. The priest was horrified at the extent of her injuries. He left her in the capable hands of his unmarried sister, who acted as housekeeper to him, and went down to the Duffy house to have strong words with Dennis.

According to Eve, who heard the whole exchange and reported it back to her daughter, Dennis said the girl was disobedient and had been deliberately provoking him. ‘And,’ he went on, ‘did you know of the exam that that bloody nun Sister Frances was after encouraging Carmel to take, and this without any knowledge, let alone permission being given? Surely to God such secrecy and deceit is not to be borne if a man is to be master in his own house and can not be blamed for chastising his own flesh and blood.’