Christmas Wish (33 page)

Once she’d tidied herself up, she headed to where Sister Conceptua waited for her, her body as wide as the door that opened into the visitors’ room. A bunch of keys hung from her chill white fingers.

‘Are you ready, Venetia?’

Venetia nodded, her mouth as dry as the rough bread she’d eaten at lunch time.

Listening to the key jarring in the lock was nail biting. What had their reaction been to her letter and the covering one from the Mother Superior telling them that she was expecting a baby? Not that Mother Superior had used such innocent words as that.

‘I know you have written to them, but it was also my duty to write to them, given the situation that only came to light once you arrived here. I have told them that you are bearing the consequences of sin. They will be shocked and hurt. No doubt it will take them some time to come to terms with what you
have done. You cannot expect them to respond straightaway.’

‘I thought they might want to visit,’ Venetia had responded hopefully.

A look of disbelief and outright accusation had peered back at her from within the stark white wimple.

‘In my experience that is the last thing relatives of shameless girls wish to do.’

You were wrong, she wanted to shout now she knew they were here. It had taken some months for them to come, but they were here at last.

Somehow she’d expected the whole family, but only a lone figure waited for her in the visitors’ room.

The room was painted a pale blue; a plaster Madonna stood in one corner, a ‘sacred heart’ picture hung from the wall in front of her above a black cross in a cheap brass base.

Her grandmother, seeming smaller than when Venetia had last seen her, arose from the chair in the corner of the room as she entered. She was wearing her best rust-coloured coat, the one set aside for mass on Sundays.

Venetia held out her arms to embrace her.

‘Don’t!’

Her grandmother held up both hands, palms outwards as though she would push her away.

Disappointed, Venetia let her arms fall and swallowed the hurt. The pleas for forgiveness and declarations that she missed her family died on her lips.

Her grandmother’s eyes were shaded by the brim of the hat she wore that went some way to hiding her face.

And her shame
, thought Venetia, remembering the Mother Superior’s words.

All the humility she had meant to display died.

I will be the way I was.

‘You came alone. Well, I suppose you had to. Busy at the
farm I suppose what with Christmas coming up. I’m surprised you bothered.’

The work-worn face stiffened as though she’d slapped it.

‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Always thinking of yourself regardless of the upset you might cause. And now this!’

Molly Brodie waved her wrinkled hand at Venetia’s growing bump.

‘I thought Granfer might have come with you – seeing as I’m carrying his first grandchild. I thought he’d be over the moon if I give birth to a boy.’

Her grandmother took a deep breath as though she were gathering in all the words she needed to say.

‘Dermot – your grandfather – doesn’t know about the baby. It was a hard decision, but I decided to keep it secret from the family. I think it’s best that way. I told him I was visiting you because it’s close to Christmas.’

There was something about the way her eyes shifted around, looking at anything rather than at her granddaughter.

‘So you’ve not told Patrick’s family.’

‘That I have not!’

The statement was delivered with an air of finalisation.

Venetia felt sick inside. So! Patrick did not know. His family did not know. There was only one other person her grandmother might have let in on the secret.

‘Does Anna Marie know?’ she asked slowly.

Her grandmother shook her head. ‘No. I’ve told nobody, and for good reason.’

Venetia waited for her to deliver the reason, but her grandmother was taking her time getting round to it.

‘The thing is, Venetia, that once you’ve had your child, there’s nothing to stop you going away to work in a big house as planned.’ She looked away as she spoke, the brim of the hat
hiding most of her face. ‘There are plenty of childless couples seeking adoption.’

Venetia looked at her in disbelief.

‘You’re telling me to give my baby away. But I won’t. What would Patrick think of me if I did that? Once he knows, he’ll marry me. I know he will.’

One look from her grandmother’s striking eyes and she knew that Patrick would not be marrying her.

There were many reasons why he couldn’t. The worst of all entered her mind. She’d heard that an epidemic of influenza had taken off a high number of young people. Or an accident? TB? A whole host of reasons.

‘Is he dead?’

Molly Brodie took hold of all her courage and said it quickly.

‘He can’t marry you. He’s already married.’

‘Married?’

Venetia sank down onto a hard wooden chair as though her legs had turned to jelly. He’d betrayed her! He’d betrayed her again!

‘Married? Are you sure?’

Her grandmother nodded and bent her head.

‘He’s married your sister. He’s married Anna Marie. That’s why you must never come home. That’s why neither of them must ever know about the baby. We have to give their marriage a chance. The nuns will see that things are done properly. You can count on it.’

Venetia sat silently, staring at the black cross without actually seeing it and feeling a great urge to smash the plaster Madonna into a hundred pieces.

‘I’ve brought you some new underwear for Christmas. I thought you could probably do with it, especially once the baby is born. I’ll leave it here.’

She placed a brown paper parcel on the table next to the black cross.

A black cross. New underwear.

Molly Brodie got to her feet.

‘I’ll be going now. Take care of yourself.’

A beam of light caught her grandmother’s gold wedding band as she raised her hand and rang the bell that would summon a sister to open the door that led into the outside world.

Neither attempted to approach the other; Molly Brodie out of remorse, Venetia out of shock.

A black-robed figure stood on the other side of the open door.

Molly Brodie paused before leaving.

‘Merry Christmas,’ she said, and was gone.

Venetia sat numbly as the Mother Superior confirmed what her grandmother had said; arrangements had been made for the baby to be adopted.

‘I don’t want that.’

She kept her eyes fixed on the floor as she said it, as though emblazoning her wish on the only carpet in the whole of St Bernadette’s.

‘I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter. You’re under twenty-one and your grandmother has expressly stated that she feels it’s for the best. As we do, Venetia, for both you and for your baby.’

The nun studied the young woman sitting in front of her and thought how forlorn she looked, yet what a firebrand she had been on arrival.

She prided herself on being a good judge of those characters that had passed through St Bernadette’s. Some ‘wayward and wild girls’ fell to pieces the moment they entered the double
iron gates at the end of the drive. Others hardened, but few bubbled with hope as Venetia had done – until she found out that she was having a baby that is.

‘Seeing as you’re in the last two months of your term, you’ll be moved from here into the maternity wing. It’s cosier, quieter and more suited to expectant mothers. Perhaps whilst you’re there, you’d like to help out with the other unwed mothers and their babies. I’m sure it will help occupy your mind until you give birth.’

The nun took Venetia’s silence as an affirmative and shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘So be it. It doesn’t much matter. Your family doesn’t want you so you have no choice.’

The rain diminished halfway through December to be replaced by a biting cold that froze the pipes and numbed the bones of the older nuns. They could be seen rolling from side to side, favouring one hip or knee over the other as they made their way to chapel.

Now sharing a room with four other unwed and expectant mothers, Venetia had changed too. In awe of the newborn babies, she found herself looking forward to giving birth.

Unlike some other establishments that catered for unmarried mothers, those that had given birth were not separated from those who had not. According to Sister Theresa, the sister in charge of the maternity wing, hearing of painful experiences would likely double the fear of giving birth, and didn’t the girls deserve it? According to her philosophy, doubling the fear would likely put them off fornicating out of wedlock in future. It hadn’t yet occurred to her that it might put them off even if and when they did marry.

‘I didn’t think they were so small,’ Venetia said to one new mother as the babe’s tiny fingers clung to just one of hers. ‘Like a little china doll.’

Rosa, the mother, a slightly plump girl with curly hair and pink cheeks, merely grunted in response.

Venetia ignored the girl’s negative reaction; she couldn’t take her eyes off the tiny human being.

‘Makes you wonder at the size they grow into doesn’t it?’ Venetia persisted. ‘You can’t help wondering if your baby boy will grow to six feet or more, or your little girl gets to be curvy or skinny.’

‘Who cares? I won’t be around to see it.’

Rosa continued turning the pages of the book she was reading and sounded as though she meant it.

‘Don’t you care?’ Venetia asked her.

Rosa shook her head and continued thumbing through the book as though she were reading the pages at breakneck speed.

‘I’ve done all I can for her. I’ve given birth to her, I’ve given the first milk that cleans out her innards, and from now on she’s somebody else’s responsibility, somebody else’s child.’

‘Seems a shame, her being given away so near Christmas. How about the father? Does he know?’

Rosa’s eyes slid sidelong from beneath her greasy curls.

Their eyes locked. Rosa’s expression said it all. She didn’t need to explain.

‘I take it he doesn’t care,’ said Venetia.

‘All he wanted was a bit of fun. That’s what he told me. A bit of fun. I didn’t even know what he was doing. Can you believe that?’

Venetia knew she was telling the truth. So many girls knew nothing about sex. Having grown up on a farm where sows were taken to boars and a domineering cockerel kept a flock of chickens laying eggs, she knew what was what.

‘So who was he?’

‘He was the master of the house I worked in. I was the
scullery maid. I was kept scrubbing pots late at night. He came down to enquire after my welfare and commiserate that there were so many to clean. That’s what he told me. Said I should be having some fun and he’d show me some fun and said I would like it. I did like it. Beat scrubbing pots that’s for sure. Next thing, I’m expecting a baby.’

Rosa’s baby was collected by a childless couple from Liverpool. Rosa left just after.

Two other babies were born in the cold weeks before Christmas. Venetia was fascinated by all of them, but saddened that they would be given away. It didn’t seem right at this time of year.

At night as she lay in bed, she patted her swollen belly and began talking to the baby growing inside her. Even if she only held her for a few days, she would give that baby lots and lots of love. Ideally she desperately wanted to find some way of keeping the child. But how? She had no husband, no money.

What if I married the first man to have me, she thought to herself. Old, crippled, young or mad, I don’t care. Just so long as I can keep my baby.

If she did find someone to marry her, it certainly wouldn’t be for love, but just to give the baby a father and respectability. One of the other mothers had told her that one of the girls had done exactly that; married a total stranger for the sake of her child.

The more she thought about it, the more she loved her baby and wanted to keep her. She kept thinking of the baby as ‘her’. She’d convinced herself she was expecting a girl.

The pain she’d felt at hearing that Patrick had married her sister was still hard to bear, but getting better. It was the baby that mattered and somehow she would contrive to keep it.

Despite being heavily pregnant, she was still expected to help out around St Bernadette’s.

When the snow came she was handed a broom and with two others told to sweep the snow from around the front door.

Muffled up to the nose in scarves, hat pulled tightly down over her ears, she heaved the brush into the snow, sweeping great swathes of it to either side.

‘Not so fast. We don’t want to go back in just yet,’ hissed one of her colleagues, a girl more heavily pregnant than she was.

The girl’s name was Phyllis and she’d been sent over by her parents in Liverpool to escape gossip.

Venetia had to admit that she was right about not rushing to go back into the sprawling building. The snow was blindingly white and the sky sharply blue. Despite the cold, the sun made everything seem warmer and melting ice dripped from the overhead guttering.

The milkman’s cart was coming out from round the side of the house, his pony’s hooves struggling to get a grip on the icy surface.

As it followed the curve of the drive, the pony’s front legs slid. The milk ladles rattled against the churns as the cart slewed to one side.

The milkman yelled at the animal, raised his whip and fetched it a nip across the back.

Venetia saw what he did and was livid. ‘Hey! There’s no need to do that.’

He shouted out to her that the likes of her sort should mind their own business.

‘Sluts the lot of ya,’ he added.

Venetia and Phyllis looked at each other, both seeing the twinkle in the other’s eyes, and both slinging down their brooms to scoop up handfuls of snow.

The milkman covered his head as snowball after snowball rained down on him.

Where Venetia and Phyllis led, the other girls followed. The milkman was pelted unmercifully.

‘And one more for luck,’ Venetia shouted.

This snowball was the biggest yet. She put all her effort behind it, stepped forward and let go.