Bad Girl Magdalene (30 page)

‘St Joseph’s at Sandyhills.’

‘I don’t remember, child.’

‘The Magdalenes. You remember.’

The name came at him like a physical blow and he gave a quiet grunt of distress.

‘I forgive you, Father,’ the girl said. ‘I wanted to say it to you because it wasn’t your fault. It was all my fault. I should not have behaved like I did. I was told to be on watch by Sister Natalia. I didn’t obey properly.’

‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘I have to confess everything now.’

‘Wait.’

He did not know why he was asking the girl to wait, or if she imagined he was someone else.

‘No, Father. I have to tell the Gardai everything.’

‘No.’ He strove to speak, articulating slowly. ‘What are you trying to tell me, child?’

‘I must confess to Mr Murragh and Miss Finty.’

‘No. Please.’

‘I should have stopped you and I didn’t.’

‘I remember now,’ he said, not needing any breath for this. He had never forgotten. Lucy was there within him, and always had been. She would stay for ever now, in clear thought.

The receiver fell from his hand on the bed. He did not hear the girl say, ‘Hello? Hello?’

The world slewed. He felt himself on some kind of vehicle starting to slide on black ice in the darkness lit by distant glims, some dots of light in chains and some in patches, one or two in flashes. The vehicle took hold of the surface, held firm a moment then started to glide, carouseling on.

‘Lucy,’ he said.

Lucy had been found dead in bed. This had been told to him the next day. A girl had been discovered dead in bed. She had suffered a long illness, tuberculosis. The night before, he had taken her in the dormitory where she was resting that final night. It was the preliminary to her death, her last night.

Hard to recall at this distance – what had it been now, four years, maybe five? – the words he had said, persuading her not to cry out or shriek for help. Some girl had been lying in the truckle bed opposite. He had seen her in the gloaming.

The stairs were steep, far too steep for a cohort of children, he had thought. He had reached the top floor where Lucy lay, given her the last sacrament that afternoon, and been struck by the extraordinary pallor of her skin. Her features were less stencilled and merged into one lovely form, with those luminous eyes so huge and profound with their awareness of the meaning of suffering. In that instant, giving the last anointing, desire had begun. His hunger to associate himself with that radiance, that profundity of understanding that was in the girl, almost blinded him all the rest of that day. She dazzled. He had to see her again. To unite, even, with that comprehension was surely what God had intended for all mystics to accept, acknowledge and somehow know. So must Blake have sensed his tragical visions. So must great artists discover when, released by their art from morality and its shackles, they soared into the bliss of an ecstasy unknown on earth to themselves and to anyone who was not God.

That instant of revelation became his. He knew it gave him an entitlement to use the girl, to return to the dormitory where she lay, and to have her, join in the most perfect union God designed for mankind. It would be the girl’s own release too, for she would confer that brilliance, and by her acceptance lift him to paradisical understanding of the nature of all religion. It would be perfection given by Lucy, to him alone, and he would see glory in its splendour.

She would benefit by being his saviour, for he would always be denied the experience until she offered herself willingly and openly to him.

He would prove it to her. When she heard his explanation she would realise his desperation and pacify him with visions of Heaven.

Across the dark dormitory, he had once glanced around as if sensing someone watching. He had glimpsed twin points of light, or thought he had. They had instantly dowsed. He had gone on. And that next morning she was found dead, from her TB disease, in bed. By then he had gone, to return later to conduct her funeral service.

There was no question about it. He had been truly and deeply affected, and his eyes had become moist, to the nuns’ evident satisfaction. They had said nothing specific about the sorrowful events. After all, a girl who had lived in a chronic state of poor health since being a child was going to succumb sooner or later. The local doctor had predicted her death, expected on every grounds. The funeral had all gone off quite as it should. Tragic, of course, but the girl had died after a long and steady decline in her condition despite all that the nuns could do. And there was no more caring body of sisters in Christ. They must have struggled to make the girl well, given her special treatment as good as they could afford.

Only later, maybe one or two years later, had he heard of some rumours originating in a case at Sandyhills. At the time, he had been puzzled as to how something so remote in the past had surfaced. He remembered speculating that maybe some disaffected girl – wasn’t there always one? – perhaps motivating herself by imagined wrong, exercised her liberty after leaving the Magdalenes by writing, probably, malicious letters of accusation against the nuns who had cared for her and brought her up and given her a decent education and background in the Faith. The malicious libel was of a girl who had been sexually abused by a visiting priest. She was dying of the White Spit, and immediately after the abuse had killed herself by throwing herself down a stairwell. Desperate
to conceal such an event, the nuns had returned the dead girl to her bed, where she was discovered when nuns, dutiful as always, came to check on her, and found her dead. They removed her body to the Sandyhills chapel before the girls awoke to begin the day.

Inevitably, the Church acted to show quite clearly how groundless such falsehoods always were. The Church, always oppressed, always came through by the grace of Almighty God. ‘When wicked men blaspheme Thee, we love and bless Thy Name,’ the good old hymn sang. How true that was.

Some time after hearing about it, in a kindly well-intended telephone call from a monsignor in the local diocesan office, Father Doran now remembered how he was quite fairly called to a discussion – certainly no investigation or interrogation – with two prelates, on the first occasion. Later, after another month of deliberation in the higher levels of the office of Bishop MacGrath, a second appraising discussion took place. No opprobrium attached itself to his name, and he continued on in the Church, after a move to different localities.

One question remained, and burnt in his throat with the bile taste that wouldn’t go. Who was this Lucy? For a girl had died. He had said Mass. She had the same voice he could clearly call to mind, as clearly as if she had…as if she had offered him a tea tray at the St Cosmo Care Home, when he had tea with Sister Stephanie.

And who had been there, evidently waiting, when he had left old Mr Gorragher after they shared an illicit tipple.

And who immediately started clearing up the alcove of the ward where Mr Gorragher’s bed was positioned.

And who doubtless could have changed the content of the whisky.

And who had given him that half-caught glance as she served that tray at tea-time.

And who had…

And…whose face he’d seen in the gloaming of the dormitory as he had taken the dying girl in Sandyhills.

And whose face, those same features, he had seen at holy communion when serving her with the Host weeks ago. Whose eyes had flicked open and stared into him, instead of modestly remaining closed, as he had blessed her with
Corpus
Domine
Nostre
Jesu…

And who was out there making malicious telephone calls, pretending she was Lucy who’d somehow survived that terrible fall.

And who must have seen Lucy tumble to her death in a suicidal act.

And who would now allege he had driven Lucy to suicide.

Who clearly would not give up in her poisonous campaign of vengeance.

Who had told him frankly that she would not give up. That she was going to confess everything in a deposition to the Gardai, leading to his prosecution.

The pain was hard now, firm and unyielding. It was nothing quite like as bad or as evil as the first time, or as disorientating, but it would not leave. Like the memories of the blessed Lucy, or the presence of the hateful pretending one.

Her revelations, in the confession she was on her way to make, would damage the Church. It would spell his own ruin, as it had spelt the ruin of so many priests and nuns before him. As it had led to the bankruptcy of mighty dioceses in the USA and elsewhere. As it had besmirched the holy name of the Church in Australia, in Canada, throughout Eire and elsewhere. Wasn’t
there even that scandalous series of accusations in Scotland, even? Could the Church take any more?

It called for sacrifice, of the sort martyrs made.

He felt the gripping chest pain turn slowly to a stifling ache, and knew that God was making him an offer. It was an option, to endure, survive and brave the accusations out, when clearly the onslaught would simply go on and on with blame hounding him and the whole Church establishment. He felt aggrieved. The whole thing was unjust, an insult to a man who had dedicated his whole life to the Church. It was so unfair.

Or he could proceed to a quiet act that would leave his place in the Church unsullied.

He lay back, knowing what had to be done.

That night, Magda dreamt a dream. It was how she murdered her friend Lucy. All she had said and done on the night Lucy began falling lived through her mind exactly as it was.

Truly beautiful, but gorgeous in the evil way you saw in some paintings, with eyes looking and faces that shouldn’t have the right to even seem like real faces changed into something that might not be a face at all. She had heard the word ‘features’ several times. It was one of those words you longed to look into books to find out about, and eliminate problems like, when was a feature them Rocky Mountains in New York, wherever those things might be, and not a feature in some story like in
Star
Wars,
or features of a baby you had to smile and say
Awww
at?

She was back in the dormitory in Sandyhills.

Lucy had coughed bad all that day, and been sent to lie in bed with nobody to see to her because she was shrinking all over her face, her body, and coughed blood and was damp of hair and hot.

The other eleven – was it eleven? Some number anyway that sounded like a cerise colour; Magda had lately grown
to like numbers because of the colours they imparted, like seven was always a dark umber; eight was, of course, yellow; thirteen, a terrible magenta. No number existed that ever shaded or faded at the edges, no. They were complete and total, all the way across. Well, the other maybe eleven girls in the dormitory were sent somewhere else. That night, the Dormitory Sister, a stout nun called Sister Natalia who wheezed and was said to eat non-stop, a feat the girls in St Joseph’s Sandyhills envied, made all eleven move into another dormitory where there had once been a fire and, rumour said, several girls died worse even than Cavan. But none of the girls in Sandyhills knew Cavan, so the rumour stayed where it was.

‘You will remain in your bed,’ Sister Natalia said sternly, smacking Magda’s face with flips of her backhand. That was what she did, backhand your face between things she told you. ‘What?’

‘I will stay in my bed, Sister Natalia.’

‘And pray if anything happens to Lucy in the night.’ Flip, flip.

‘And pray, Sister Natalia.’

‘Lucy is very sick.’ Flip, flip.

‘Lucy is very sick, Sister Natalia.’

‘And Jesus may take her into His bosom.’ Flip, flip.

‘And Jesus may take her into His bosom, Sister Natalia.’

‘If she calls out, you give her a drink of water.’ Flip, flip.

‘I must give her a drink of water, Sister Natalia.’

‘Now resume your duties.’ Flip, and a serious smack that almost knocked Magda over.

She straightened, thanked Sister Natalia, the necessary phrase to obtain clearance to leave, and fled.

That night it happened, exactly as it had ever since. Magda found herself watching, hearing, every event in sequence, leading to the terrible final separation when Lucy and she went apart in that slow fall in the gloaming of the stairwell, and Magda knew herself to be a murderess and Lucy the resigned victim of a murder.

They went to bed after praying, Lucy coughing terrible and the pillow covered with a plastic bag that Magda had managed to get over it to save it from getting all bloody when Lucy coughed. They said the words in English because neither had the Latin off.

It was a very special prayer this time, though it was commonly said by everyone at Sandyhills after the supper at five-thirty. This night, when Magda would murder Lucy, the prayer really did seem holy, not just things coughed up as Lucy said all the prayers in Sandyhills were, just pushed out like old spit or grolly. Kneeling at Lucy’s bedside, Magda wondered if prayers were any different if they were said elsewhere, like in them big churches that were supposed to be everywhere in Eire because St Patrick made sure of it. She supposed not, because otherwise Lucy, who knew almost everything, would have told her.

‘
Deliver us, Lord, while we wake, and guard us while we sleep, that we may watch with Christ, and rest in peace.

Amen
.’           

They both dutifully said
Ayyyy-
men, as good Roman Catholics should, not the less abrupt
Ahhhh-
men of Protestants, who would go to Hell, serve them right.

‘Do you want a drink of water, Lucy?’ Magda asked.

‘No, ta.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. It’ll only set me choking.’

‘You might feel better.’

Magda desperately wanted Lucy to say yes she’d have a drink of water because then nobody could flip her face, which still stung where Sister Natalia had flipped her when repeating her instructions about watching over Lucy as she died in the night. But if Lucy wouldn’t have a drink of water what could she do? There was a tin mug just for the purpose on the floor by Lucy’s truckle bed. Magda put water in it, making sure.

‘Goodnight, Magda.’

‘Night, Lucy.’

‘Magda? I might die tonight.’

‘No, you won’t, Lucy.’ Magda was frightened Lucy would die because she might get blamed for letting her, and then what?

‘I will. I know I will.’

‘Don’t say things like that, Lucy. I’ll bring you some water.’ Magda meant if she took Lucy the water and she drank it, she might not have to die.

‘I know I will. I can feel it sort of coming in my chest.’

Magda was drawn to the notion of her one friend feeling something coming so serious and ending everything for her on earth.

‘What’s it like, Lucy?’

‘It’s just there. You know it’s going to happen.’

Magda began to weep. ‘Don’t Lucy, please. You’ll get better.’

‘I’ll be better in Heaven. I’ll pray for you when I get there, Magda.’

‘Lucy, maybe they’ll discover something, like some special tablet that will stop the coughing and then you’ll be grown up and get out of Sandyhills in the nick of time.’

Magda was a right one for phrases like ‘nick of time’ and ‘with one bound’ and ‘spur of the moment’. Not having the letters had somehow made her able to remember every passing phrase, whatever it was supposed to mean.

‘I’ll see inside Heaven, Magda.’

‘I’ll stop it happening, Lucy. I’ll pray all night to stop it.’

‘No. You’ll go to sleep.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You will.’ So resigned, and Magda knew it was true because everybody was always so tired that they slept the instant they were told to. ‘Magda?’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry I tellt you off so much.’

‘You didn’t. You never tellt me off, Lucy.’

‘I did.’

‘No, Lucy, you didn’t, honest.’

‘Well, I’m sorry if I did.’

‘No, you put me straight. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.’

‘You’re my friend, Magda.’

‘You’re my friend, Lucy.’

The only one I’ll ever have, Magda realised in a sudden flash, and she wept some more. She held Lucy’s hand. It looked so pale, even in the dark dormitory, as if it had a colour she could see when all was almost darkness. She could make out Lucy’s eyes as dots of shinyness there within a yard of her own. This was how they knew sometimes each other was awake in the night, those shiny dots reflecting some minute fragment of light when it was all supposed to be black.

‘Goodnight, Magda.’

‘Goodnight, Lucy.’

Magda had a perverse wish to ask Lucy to give her a special mention to Jesus up there in the sky, but thought it would be presumption, and that was a sin, wanting to feather your own nest. Lucy had enough to do tonight getting on with her terrible illness, without worrying about how she’d beg Jesus, Oh, there’s a friend, would you like look after her until she gets died too and comes up here? No, that would be really awful.

She went to her own cot. It was a few feet away across the other side of the dormitory. The windows were all blacked out because of people maybe wanting to look in, though there was nowhere for anybody to even stand and peer, the dormitory being so high on floors above the main places in Sandyhills.

She had been asleep, with no notion of how long she had slept since saying goodnight, when she woke. She thought instantly of water, and almost sat up to ask if Lucy wanted a drink.

There was somebody opposite. For a moment Magda thought it was a nun, maybe Sister Natalia seeing if Magda was making sure Lucy had some water to drink. Then she heard the bed creak. She heard a whispering voice, and knew it was Father Doran.

She heard him say there was something Lucy could do, make her life a true realisation in the very Name of God and His only Son. Magda knew he had been there some time. The voice whispered on, kept saying how Lucy would not be any the worse for conceding, that good had to come from everyone’s life somehow. It was that final goodness that enabled a soul to leave earth and arrive pure and unsullied at the Gates of Heaven.

The voice was insistent. Magda had no idea how long it kept up its whispering. She saw the priest move, just one set
of shadows shifting and merging and then moving some more and the truckle bed squeaking as if it was enjoying itself and the bed starting to creak with a regularity she thought strange, so strange, like some jumping exercises the nuns made the girls do in the yard when they had to sing some kind of song about counting. Magda only ever chanted numbers she knew nothing about and could not write on paper, just seeing colours flit by through her mind as she jumped and tried to keep time and failed and the other girls said she was rubbish and never picked her for their teams.

The sound went on and on and during it, she almost went across and asked if they both wanted a drink of water. It came to her that, if she tapped Father Doran on the shoulder while he was doing whatever she could then ask him if he too wanted a drink of water, though she only had Lucy’s tin mug to bring it in. Then Father Doran would be proof to Sister Natalia that Magda, the vigilant girl left to look after Lucy in the night, had faithfully done her dutiful obedient service, and Magda would not get whacked in the morning.

She was looking, doing all this wondering about mugs of water, when she saw Lucy’s dots of illumination reflecting back that fragment of light at her, and she knew Lucy was awake and looking across in the darkness and knew Magda was awake too and watching during the night for her. And Magda saw Lucy’s dots of eyes become blurred, and knew Lucy was crying.

And new sounds began then with a kind of grunting and then a choking sound and then it reached a spurt of sound and Magda covered her ears because it frightened her. Was this dying, was this what it was? She wanted to go over and ask if everything was all right but could not. And she saw both Lucy’s eye dots vanish and knew the priest was turning round.
Maybe Magda had inadvertently made some sound that gave her awakened state away. But he was turning to look across at Magda’s bed and she closed her eyes in case she too made bright points of light for him to notice.

The sounds resumed and kept on and on and on.

And he gave Lucy a blessing and told her she had done a great and good thing, endured in the cause of the Lord and would be holy now and it would not matter at all, in any way, because she had served God in a way He would know was just, because God had made the world to be as it was. Lucy would find favour with God in Heaven.

He left quietly. Magda had not heard him enter the dormitory. Had she slept, not even bothered to watch an hour with Lucy like St Peter before that sword business?

She waited enough time until she was sure Sister Natalia wasn’t going to come shuffling along in her night slippers, or Father Doran come back to do it again. Then she went across to Lucy.

‘Lucy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Magda?’

‘What?’

They whispered and held hands. Lucy’s looked paler than death. It seemed to have become much smaller since they had said goodnight, and damp with sweat.

‘Would you help me?’

‘Help you?’ Magda said she would and eagerly relinquished Lucy’s hand to rush and get her the mug of water, but Lucy grabbed feebly in the air and Magda felt her hand meet hers again.

‘Would you shove me?’

‘Shove you?’

Magda was lost. So many things seemed to be happening. Did everybody else in the whole world know what dying was except Magda herself? She felt so inadequate. This was what came of not being able to read or write. Maybe once she got the letters in her mind, if that ever happened, she would know everything just like the others.

‘You saw, Magda.’

‘Yes.’ Magda didn’t know what she had seen, if she had seen anything.

‘Father Doran. He did it to me.’

‘Did what?’ For one moment she thought of Extreme Unction, that last sacrament, anointing with oils and prayers that made you sacred. Lucy already had had that, in the afternoon.

‘I’ll have a baby now.’

‘A baby? You can’t.’

‘I will. It’ll come.’

‘A baby?’ Magda felt dizzy. Was that what it was, all that creaking and groaning and gasping and then that sound of a flailing body? ‘Who?’

‘Me. He did it. Now I’ll really go to Hell. I’ll be pregnant and cast out into outer darkness for ever.’

Lucy started coughing and Magda whimpered about water some more and this time Lucy, to Magda’s gratitude, said she’d have a swig, and Magda tried to sit her up enough to take a swallow from the tin mug Magda had put ready under the truckle. She managed it and Magda breathed prayers of thanks to any saint who might be listening out in the mad night.

Not coughing, Lucy sank back on the bed. The plastic made a crackling sound. Magda remembered it having made the same sound but repeated over and faster and faster as the shadow of Father Doran had merged with Lucy’s and eclipsed the dots of Lucy’s eyes.

‘You’ll have to help me, Magda.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Can you get me to the stairs?’

‘What for?’

‘I’ll show you.’

‘You want to go to the lav?’

‘No. That’s all over.’

All over? The phrase sounded terrible. Lavs were like the weather, always there.

‘How?’

‘Any way you can, Magda.’

‘What if they catch us?’

‘It won’t matter, Magda. I need you to do this.’