Bad Girl Magdalene (12 page)

She racked her brains before the terrible thought struck. Had the lad learnt in some terrible secret stealthy manner that she had been stealing the tablets? She now had almost a handful, and with luck might get more tomorrow.

No. For hadn’t he asked if she nursed Mr Liam MacIlwam, and told her his name was MacIlwam too? Now, she never stole tablets from Mr MacIlwam – or had she? She became confused, and stopped herself thinking. The little radio was on, some comedy talking they were sending out from London or maybe Liverpool, far funnier than those from Dublin because they were more careless and had more laughing. She couldn’t say she understood much of what they were on about, and in any case some of them were foreign-sounding, like they came from India or maybe Africa or the West Indies. She knew there were plenty of them over there in wicked old England, though so few here they stood out plain as day.

She never slept much, to save Lucy from falling. Only when she found herself dozing and her head nodding enough to roll off and away did she see Lucy start to fall, her cardigan with the bad mending receding before her into the giant space that was the stairwell. Magda’s eyes would, even in her sleeping, start to fill and it would wake her, and in her dream she be running again back to the cold dormitory and staying huddled
there under her one blanket, praying and praying to God for forgiveness and saying, please, God, please Baby Jesus and Mary Mother of God, please don’t hurt Lucy any more from now on, and forgive me for what I did.

She never really slept at all, just went about in a daze of exhaustion from morning to night and beyond into the next day. Mrs Shaughnessy, who took rent from her every Friday, had given her a small television set that plugged in. It showed old fillums the livelong night through, and was a godsend. Old period pictures were Magda’s favourites, ladies in crinolines with fans, gentlemen on horses, and everybody so lovely and safe and polite. Magda liked those most because they kept her awake longest, and saved Lucy that fall to her death all over again.

Magda knew all about crying. The Garda man MacIlwam had been weeping all right. Magda knew all about that. She had begun it properly, true decent weeping for things done and never to be recalled and made right, over Lucy. Magda knew herself guilty for it. Until that flash of vision in Holy Mass when Father Doran had turned from the altar to give the blessing to the congregation, and she had finally known it was him. Father Doran, it was. And he started coming to the St Cosmo. The chance of rescuing Lucy herself from Hellfire had finally come, exactly as she had prayed for every night.

Yes, Magda knew all about weeping. What had the lad’s name been? Kevin MacIlwam. She’d better call him ‘Sergeant’, please him so he’d not blame her if he’d found out something terrible about her. Dear God, she thought, he surely couldn’t have found out about Lucy, could he? And was coming to arrest her like they did on the pictures, take her away in the Gardai car with its squares like a chessboard, to be hanged in some prison?

No. She would simply ask him when they met.

The old man was talking.

The lights were out, except for the one at the end of the ward that cost, the nuns said, only two pennies an hour, but even that had to be paid for or the light would go out. That’s why it was red, which cost less, instead of the usual yellow. This was after Mrs McCaddon complained there should be a brighter light so she could see if she tried to get up in the night.

‘My brother was Bonham, that’s what I always called him,’ the man said.

The other man across the alcove – two in each if you were stuck with being so old you couldn’t move or if you had tubes in – said, ‘You knew him, then?’

‘Sure I knew him.’

‘Bonham’s what we used to call the new-born piglets, in St Joseph’s.’

‘Which St Joseph’s?’

‘Nigl. Industrial School, St Joseph’s. I was Nine-Four. That was my name. I ate the swill. Some of it was grand. I was on
watch during the night to see if any of the bonhams got borned during the night.’

‘Your brother still alive, is he?’

‘No, God rest him.’

‘Amen to that.’

The first old man let out an almighty fart and relaxed with a sigh. ‘Pardon me, George.’

‘Better out than your eye, Ted.’

‘Did you all go by numbers?’

‘Sure we did.’

‘So did we.’ Another fart, then, ‘We’ve got to change the beer, this old place.’

The old men cackled. One said, ‘That old feller-me-lad, Mr Gorragher. Has a tin plate in his head from getting shot. Know he was the best marksman with that old three-oh-three Lee Enfield as ever trod land?’

‘Him? Sings a lot in the night? That one?’

‘The same. They said he did it listening to the wind. You can get him talking about it, if you ever take a walk down that lane.’

They cackled and laughed, because both were now bedridden, no chance of taking a walk anywhere.

‘Wasn’t he a gunner? Royal Artillery or something, in the war?’

‘Got hisself transferred. Don’t know why. He never says anything about it.’

‘Never heard of a marksman getting hissel’ transferred to the Gunners before.’

‘Must have been good if he was champion marksman. I once saw one from the Buffs put a hole in a bell tower somewhere in the Ardennes. There was a sniper in the bell tower of this
church, see. Our marksman takes a shot after kneeling for six hours looking with some mirror thing he’d made, still as a heron hunting. All of one whole day, then he takes a shot and his sergeant sez, ‘Missed, you pillock,’ but the marksman just says nothing and picks up the spent casing to put in his BD pocket.’

‘Picked up a spent bullet casing? What for? I never heerd of anybody doing that.’

‘Well he did. Every time, every shot. Carried them about until the night came, then buried them like he was a poacher leaving no trace.’

‘What about the bell tower?’

‘Come morning, we wakes up and he’s still there in the rubble, wide awake and still. The lads all got muttering and complaining because he’d pissed himself just staying there, same position. Come ten o’clock of that morning he takes one shot. And gets the sniper. The sergeant sez, ‘Jesus, Paddy, you shot him through the hole you made yesterday!’ Nobody in the whole unit had ever seen anything like that. He just took up the casing, put it in his pocket, and went to have a crap and a piss.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Ever since then, the lads called him Holer. Know why? ’Cos he shot through the hole he’d already made, see? He didn’t mind. The English lads said he was the best in the world, and they had some shooters among them, a couple or three from Lincolnshire who’d been poachers, great shooters, they. Our company corporal wanted to put Holer in for some competition when we went on leave, but Holer wouldn’t have it. Know why?’

‘No. Why?’

‘He tellt his missus and them at home he was a truck driver. Would you imagine that?’

‘Why’d he say that?’

‘I reckon marksmen isn’t natural. Something in them, to wait that long to do it, pretend he drove a truck all through the fucking war. Know what else?’

‘No?’

‘He couldn’t drive, either. I often wonder how he got on after the war, coming home like having driven a three-tonner all the war then not being able to drive a pram, let alone a Dublin bus.’

‘Where was he from?’

‘He was schooled at Ranter.’

‘Jesus. Ranter, you say?’

‘I don’t remember him, but there were so many of us, d’you see?’

Somebody in an alcove further down complained about their talk. They simply responded by staying mute a while then resuming. When they did this, their voices started low then grew as the sentences came and their old ideas took shape again until finally they were talking as if it was broad daylight.

‘Ted?’

‘Aye?’

‘Some of that auld swill had bits of meat in it.’ A sigh. ‘I swear to God it tasted better than any meat I’ve had since.’

‘Spuds,’ Ted said. He waited a bit then said again, like he was disappointed at not having elicited a response, ‘Spuds.’

‘You had spuds?’

‘I thought they were from Heaven itself, spuds. Get one cooked just right, it’s still like Paradise. I could go on eating them all my life, and that’s a fact.’

‘Why did Holer do it, then?’

‘Holer? The marksman? Did you know him too?’

‘No. You just tellt me. The bell tower, the sergeant saying Jesus Christ because he’d shot the sniper through the hole he’d made the previous night.’

‘One of the poacher lads from Dorset, I think it was from Dorset, said he wasn’t shooting the enemies in the trees, the canals – Christ, but Holer loved shooting anywhere near water. I could tell you some tales. The canals was his favourite. Never smoked in the four years in our unit. Never let hisself get promoted.’

‘What did the Dorset lad say?’

‘He was a poacher. He said Holer wasn’t shooting enemy at all. He was shooting people he knew.’

‘Who?’

‘I dunno, do I? How do I know?’

‘Didn’t you ask the Dorset lad?’

With amazement, ‘Did you know Jendy from Poole too? I thought you wus in the Dirty Dukes, the Wellingtons.’

‘No. You tellt me. You said the Dorset lad told you Holer was shooting people he knew.’

‘That’s right. Jendy said it was always the way, always like that. Snipers who got lurk-happy, had to keep stiller than in real life because they weren’t killing enemy soldiers they’d never met at all. No.’

‘Who, then?’

‘They were killing somebody else, over and over. The same folk they’d started out killing from anywhere before they took their bonds for a soldier.’

‘Who, then?’

They were silent at some distant complaint down the corridor before they resumed in a whisper.

‘Maybe from Ranter?’

They paused without being grumbled at from the lane of alcoves leading to the red pilot light. It was quite three or four minutes before they started their whispering again.

Sometimes, the nun thought, standing listening in the shadow by the alcove curtains, they could start their talking again quite as if their minds were young and vigorous and unhindered by old age. Other times, she listened to their mumbled chat as it became incoherent. Though of course, she knew they spoke of a life, and lives, worlds away in time and distance, in eras rather than mere moments.

‘Maybe from Ranter, and the same one over and over.’

‘Did the Dorset lad – Jendy, you called him? – ever tell you who it was that Holer kept on killing?’

‘No. Somebody else from Brummy, Birmingham, asked Jendy that, not wanting to ask Holer outright, because them sort of things is personal.’

‘There is that, sure, right. Personal.’

‘And Jendy just said, “Oh, that’d be something to do with being a little lad.”’

‘Ah, then sure it’s only the one he was a-killing over and over every time. Did the Brummy mate ask Jendy why Holer would keep on collecting up them auld cartridge cases like that?’

‘Once, Holer had twenty-three spent cartridge cases, just emptied them into a hole he’d dug in some floor of a church. Somewhere in North Germany. You remember how it was, you never knew where the fuck you were one minute to the next.’

‘Sure, I never did. Once, I asked our sergeant why everybody’d started talking French. Know what he said?’

‘No. What did he say?’

‘He said, “You stupid git. It’s Italian. We’re in fucking Italy,
you burke.” I didn’t get laughed at, because the rest of the lads was as surprised as me.’

‘Well, you would be. I never knew, either.’

‘It was the weather, see? One of the lads was a fell walker. That’s moorlands. He collected lost sheep for a living.’

‘That’s a grand job.’

‘Made a good living out of it. Couldn’t talk English proper even though he was English, but like he was from out of some olden times and suddenly found hissel’ here in this fucking war with shit flying and putting wounds in your old head. I hated grenades. The fucking plug always comes back at the thrower, no matter how you hold it. Did that happen to you?’

‘All the fucking time. I got so I wouldn’t chuck them. Gave them to my mate.’

‘They ever put you on a charge for not lobbing when you were ordered?’

‘No. They knew every squaddie had his foibles.’

‘This fellwalker. They called him Tarn, from like the lakes they have over there. Well, he come from an old fell-walking family. Whatever weather forecast the officers got, whatever country we were supposed to be in, when we got orders to push on or fall back, they’d send for Tarn.’

‘What for?’

‘He knew weather, see?’

‘The officers asked him about the weather? Jesus.’

‘Twice the staff officers talked to him. He’d stand outside, maybe half an hour just looking at the ground – this could be night or day, rain or snow, gale or sun – and then he’d come in and tell them.’

‘Was he right?’

‘Every single fucking time. At first, the officers would ask him was he sure, how did he know and had he some machine or seaweed, how did he do it? He could hardly talk the King’s proper, so they gave up trying to understand what he said. He come from them Pennine moorlands, see? Talked Old English. Except one officer, a young chap who played cricket somewhere, lived up there and could tell what he was saying, this Tarn, and just said to our major, “Sir? He says he listens to the air that’s moving.” And one colonel says but there isn’t any wind. And the young snooks says, “Well, that’s what he says he does, sir.” And ever after nobody asked, just trusted what Tarn said.’

‘Things are different wherever you come from, and that’s the truth.’

‘That’s true as today.’

They remained silent while they both belched and grumbled, then Ted spoke in a low mutter the nun had to strive to hear.

‘Who would you kill, George?’

‘Kill? Me? Have to think about that, Ted, ’less you mean the bastards who run the hurling team from Leinster.’

They laughed so much at that they choked from wheezing and gasped quite a time before being able to talk again.

‘It’s them bastards from Dublin. They own the racehorse stables and want Manchester United.’

‘Jesus, what bastards. Don’t they own a shipping line somewhere?’

‘It’s airlines, silly bugger, airlines nowadays. They don’t have shipping lines any more.’

‘I’d kill them Christian Brothers.’

‘Here, mate.’ A pause for effect, then, full of meaning, ‘You could do worse!’

More laughter and folk calling down the lane of alcoves and somebody ringing the night bell, but the nun paid it no heed and stayed still where she was to listen.

‘My brother, the one they called Bonham. He couldn’t stop eating, him. Jayzuss, but he was a grand eater. I knew him later once I was out. He comes up to me, this feller, and says to me right there on Inns Quay, me being about to cross the auld Liffey, “I’m Bonham, your brother” and you could have knocked me down with a feather.’

‘You didn’t know him?’

‘No. He’d got himself wed, great fat feller that he was.’

‘Does he come here to see you?’

‘No. He died young, didn’t even reach fifty.’

‘God rest him.’

‘Amen.’

The silent nun mouthed the word, Amen.

‘Couldn’t stop eating, couldn’t Bonham. It was like once he had sight of his dinner he couldn’t stop. Went out to the kitchen. His wife said he was a terrible eater. She said he’d have anything that stood still long enough, eat it right down.’

‘I like gravy on thick bread.’

‘He’d have everybody else’s fat right off their plates.’

‘Poured right on. The bread needn’t be buttered or marged, just thick. Soda bread fritters in your hands, doesn’t it? I’d rather have it in one piece.’

‘He took ill and died. You know that place near Ha’Penny Bridge? Well, in there. He was supposed to be on his way to work, a clerk in the Pensions Office – he did well for himself did our Bonham – when he keeled over. The doctor said it was his heart.’

‘I like a fry-up. Best thing is them bacon things in fried bread.’

‘I cried over Bonham. See, if he’d had any decent things to eat when he was little, he’d have been all right with food. Put him in sight of it and he was like, there’s a word for it, when you’re driven to do something and you know it’s daft and you keep on all the same, a word. I heard it on telly.’

Compulsion? The nun did not say the word, just thought.

‘They used to call me Baldy,’ Ted’s voice said. ‘At the school.’

‘I got the head-shave the same. They did it to me as a routine.’

‘I only got it when I bled on my shirt after the Freezer gave me a right old whacking.’

‘Freezer? Did I know Freezer?’

‘No, you auld daftie. You were in a different school.’

‘I forget. Where were you, then?’

‘Freezer used to freeze his leather belt in some fridge. The boys called him that because he used to freeze his leather belt in some fridge, see? The Christian Brothers wore this…you’ll know that anyway. Did you have a Brother who did that to whack you?’

‘Freezed his belt? No. We had one used a hurley and the sliothar, stand you against the wall then fire it at you. If you dodged he got mad and would come right up and whack you with the hurley and make you promise to stay still, then back he’d go and fire his sliothar at you.’