Sins of the Mother (13 page)

‘Oh, you look so beautiful!’ Agatha breathed appreciatively as I spun round in the lovely cotton dress with lacy bits on the sleeves. I even had a pearly tiara for my hair. When I
put it on I felt like a real princess.

‘Smell that!’ I exclaimed, smiling at my sister. Today the nuns laid on a proper cooked breakfast for the children taking communion to share with their parents, and the air was thick
with the sweet, heady scent of frying bacon. My stomach groaned in anticipation but I wanted to be careful with my dress so I moved slowly as I went downstairs. My daddy was already in the dining
room, tucking into a large plate piled high with bacon, eggs, sausage and toast. I broke into a grin the moment I saw him and he nodded back.

‘Lovely dress!’ he said, pointing at the layers of lace at my hem with his fork. ‘Come on, get some grub down you. Big day today!’

I sat down next to him and he put some egg, sausage and bacon on my plate then carried on eating. For a moment I hesitated – my hands were shaking with nerves. What if I dropped something
on my dress and ruined it? I was desperate to eat something but I couldn’t trust myself.

‘I wouldn’t mind living here mesel’ if you get fed like this every day!’ Daddy smiled gratefully through a mouthful of sausage.

‘We don’t usually get a cooked breakfast,’ I said quietly. ‘Mainly, it’s just porridge.’

‘What?’ Daddy turned to me but I didn’t want to upset him so I just shook my head and sat there with my hands in my lap. After he’d finished everything on his plate,
Daddy looked around him, satisfied. Then he noticed the untouched food on my plate.

‘Well, I’m not going to let that go to waste,’ he said as he swapped our plates over, and in another minute my food was gone.

‘The body of Christ.’ I opened my mouth to receive the little wafer from the priest. I sucked on it carefully as I had seen all the others do until it was soft
enough to slip down my throat. We had gone straight from breakfast to the church in the orphanage and now I was at the altar making my first communion with half a dozen other girls.

‘The blood of Christ,’ the priest intoned solemnly and offered me the chalice. I took a little sip and the strange sweet liquid burned my throat. An hour later and I was back outside
in the open air, grinning from ear to ear.

All the other children crowded around us, admiring our white dresses and congratulating us. Once again, I felt so special, like a princess. I knew this wasn’t my dress and I would have to
give it back tomorrow but, just for today, I could pretend it was mine. And then my father said the words I’d been longing to hear.

‘Alright, Irene.’ He took my hand. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

I practically skipped by his side that day as we walked out of the gates of St Grace’s – it was a gorgeous, warm spring day and my heart swelled in my chest.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked him.

‘To see your mother,’ he replied. ‘She’d never forgive me if she didn’t get a look at you in your communion dress.’

We caught a bus from the main road that took us to a large building in the middle of town. Once inside, we were directed towards a stuffy sitting room where lots of old ladies sat in large
armchairs with rugs on their knees. In one corner I spotted my mother in a dressing gown with a rug across her lap and my sister Frances by her side.

‘Oh, look at you!’ Frances exclaimed the moment she laid eyes on me. Right then, I wanted to cry. I was so full of emotion. She jumped up and enveloped me in a big hug but Mammy
didn’t move.

‘You look gorgeous,’ Frances whispered and gave me a little wink. Mammy smiled and nodded and then she turned to Frances. ‘Will you get me a cup of tea, Fran love?’

I sat next to her for the next twenty minutes while she spoke to my father about her recovery. Nobody spoke to me – she didn’t even ask about the others in St Grace’s. Instead,
Daddy loudly announced to everyone in the room that I had just made my communion and a few old ladies offered coins to put in my communion bag.

Before I knew it we were outside again and I was running to keep up with my father.

‘Will my mother be well again soon?’ I asked him as we turned a corner.

‘Ah, who knows?’ he replied tetchily. ‘It’s up to her. Sometimes I reckon she prefers it in there anyways.’

I tried to make sense of this as Daddy led us down a wide, busy road. We crossed over and then turned down a small side street – halfway down we stopped at a pub.

‘Billy!’ Daddy greeted the barman jovially. ‘Get us a pint, would you? My little girl here just made her first communion.’

All day long we stayed in that pub. Every time someone new came in, Daddy called out to them about my communion and they held out a coin for my bag. Steadily, it filled up until it was heavy
with money. Daddy drank pint after pint while I sat on the bench next to him, fiddling with my bag and admiring the coins. Every now and then Daddy got me a glass of water but no food. Just as the
sun was casting long shadows outside and an orange glow settled on the buildings, Daddy looked up to the clock on the wall.

‘It’s six, Irene. S’teatime,’ he slurred, his head bobbing back and forward. ‘Better get back to your granny’s place.’

I hadn’t eaten all day so I was more than ready to leave – it had been a long day and my bum had gone numb from sitting on a hard bench for hours.

Daddy staggered and weaved us through the back streets until we reached my grandmother’s house. She met us at the front door with a sour expression and ushered us inside. She sat me down
at the table in the kitchen and put a boiled egg and a slice of toast in front of me, which I attacked with gusto. While I was eating, Daddy and Granny shared a pot of tea. As they talked, Daddy
took hold of the communion bag laid on the table next to me. He didn’t even look in my direction as he poured out the coins onto the table and then deftly divided them into two piles. He
pushed one pile towards my grandmother, who scooped up the coins and deposited them in the pocket of her apron. The other he put in his own pocket. Then he dropped two pennies back into my bag and
pushed it across the table towards me. By then, I was so tired I didn’t care. An hour later my grandmother led me upstairs to a small bedroom where she stripped off my dress and put me to bed
in my vest and knickers. Almost immediately I fell fast asleep.

Waking up the next day was strange. I lay there for a while listening to the unfamiliar sounds of my granny’s house: gurgling pipes, creaking floorboards, neighbours greeting each other in
the street and cars revving their engines. It was lovely to be out of the dorm and away from the nuns for a night.

After a while I got up and put my communion dress back on – I didn’t have anything else to wear. When I crept downstairs, Granny was at the stove, stirring a pan of porridge. I sat
at the table and, in a little while, she put a lovely, steaming bowl in front of me. It was exactly the way porridge should be – creamy and sweet, cooked all the way through, not like the
muck they gave us in St Grace’s. I plucked up the courage to ask her if she could keep me at her house, just until Mammy recovered.

‘You’re going back to the nuns and that’s final,’ she answered firmly.

‘Please, Granny, please don’t send me back there . . .’

‘That’s enough!’ she snapped. ‘Now finish your porridge, quickly now, and get your shoes on. Your father can’t wait around all day.’

No sooner had I finished than we said a hurried goodbye and I was ushered outside to her front porch. In another second, her door was shut.

Daddy and I got on the bus again, but he didn’t seem in a very cheerful mood. In fact, he was grumpy for most of the way and if I asked him a question he just grunted at me. We got off the
bus next to a parade of shops, and one was a sweet shop.

‘Stop, Daddy!’ I shouted. ‘I want to get some toffees!’

I had two pennies left in my communion bag and I knew I wouldn’t have another chance to buy something. So Daddy took me into the sweet shop and I chose a bag of toffees. Carefully, I hid
them inside my communion bag. I had to get them inside St Grace’s somehow so I could share them with Martin and Agatha. If the nuns found them they would take them off me for sure.

We approached the large gates of the orphanage. With every step up the driveway I felt more and more miserable but Daddy didn’t seem to notice. I wanted to stop next to the horse but he
urged me on, telling me not to dawdle. There, at the front of the main building, the Mother Superior waited for us.

Her mouth was smiling but her eyes were cold.

‘Irene. Mr Coogan.’ She nodded politely.

‘Sister.’ Daddy nodded in response then he patted me on the back. ‘Okay, in you go.’

I turned round to give him a hug but there was nobody there. He had already started back down the drive. I stood there for a while, watching his disappearing figure, hoping he would turn to
wave. No. Nothing.

Now the Mother Superior dropped the fake smile and she looked me over distastefully. Finally she lost her patience.

‘Do stop mooning around, Irene!’ she exploded. ‘He’s gone. Now get inside!’

10

IRENE

A Failed Fostering

Ah, Irene!’ The Mother Superior welcomed me into her office with that special smile she put on for outsiders. Until this moment I had been nervous about being sent to the
Mother Superior’s office.
What have I done?
I thought as I scuttled up the corridor towards her room. I hadn’t been told off for doing anything bad today so maybe it was
something I hadn’t noticed. My mind ran through the possibilities – was it something to do with my clothes? Or talking in church? Maybe I hadn’t made my bed properly? I
couldn’t think of anything specific so I was full of dread as I approached her office and knocked on the door. But as soon as the Mother Superior flung the door open with that over-bearing,
fake grin, I knew I wasn’t there for a punishment.

There, in the room in front of me, sat a very well-dressed man and woman. The lady wore a fawn-coloured stole around her neck and lots of make-up. The gentleman was in a smart dark suit and held
a charcoal trilby at his knees. They weren’t like anyone I’d met before – they were so well-to-do it made me feel uncomfortable. They both smiled at me anxiously.

‘Irene, please.’ The Mother Superior directed me to stand next to her desk while she sat down. ‘Now, this is Mr and Mrs Donavan.’ She indicated the woman and the man and
they smiled at me again, even bigger smiles this time. I shifted nervously from one foot to another.

She went on, ‘Mr and Mrs Donavan are going to take you home to live with them for a while.’

‘What?’ I exclaimed. I was too shocked for manners. ‘What do you mean, Mother Superior?’

‘I mean, Irene, they are going to give you a good home while we wait for your mother to get better, which may or may not happen.’ She nodded at the couple again. They looked at me
hopefully – the woman really was very lovely. She had beautiful blonde curls around her face and a string of pearls at her neck.

‘We live in a nice house, Irene, with a garden and a dog,’ the woman said to me now. She had a very posh voice, very polished. On her lap was a pair of neatly folded cream leather
gloves.

‘Do you like dogs, Irene?’ she asked sweetly. I only remembered one dog in my life – a big black dog we once had called Jenny who barked whenever she saw a priest or a nun.
Jenny didn’t like the clergy – I didn’t understand it at the time, in fact we all found it funny the way she went berserk whenever she saw a nun’s habit. It drove Mammy mad
because she loved nuns and it made her so embarrassed. The dog disappeared shortly after I turned four.

‘Would you like a sweet, Irene?’ The man’s voice snapped me back to the present. He held out a striped paper bag of toffees towards me.

I froze. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
Who are these people? What do they want?
The seconds stretched out between us and silence filled the room.

‘Well?’ the Mother Superior sighed, exasperated. ‘Aren’t you going to take a toffee?’

‘NO!’ I shouted. Now the words came tumbling out of me: ‘I don’t want a sweetie and I don’t want to go home with yous. I’ve got a mammy and a daddy.
They’re going to come and get me soon and I’ll go home with them.’

None of this felt right. I just didn’t understand why they wanted to take me home with them and I was frightened of this couple, especially the man, but I didn’t know why.

‘Irene, don’t be such an ungrateful child,’ the Mother Superior fumed. ‘These good, kind people are offering to give you a home. You do want a nice home, don’t
you?’

‘But I’ve got a home!’ I wailed, tears springing to my eyes. ‘I don’t want to go with them. I don’t know them. My brother and my sisters are here – I
want to stay here with Agatha and Martin and Cecily.’

I was scared – even though I barely spoke to my sisters and brother these days, they were my family the only family I had around me, and I loved them. This couple were strange, they were
formal and frightening to me. The whole thing was too much. If these people took me away today I’d never get back to Mammy!