Sins of the Mother (9 page)

‘We have to get up now!’ Agatha whispered. I rubbed my eyes sleepily and looked around. Somewhere nearby I heard the unmistakable sound of a little girl crying, punctuated by the
urgent whispers of another girl trying to comfort her.

‘I’m sure she won’t do it this time,’ said the girl doing the comforting.

‘She will!’ the crying girl insisted. ‘She’ll put them up there and it’ll be awful.’

‘Ah now, crying won’t help, will it? Is it
all
wet? All the sheets? Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ and the sobbing started up again. I didn’t know what was going on and Agatha was now tugging at my sleeve so I just jumped out of bed and got dressed hurriedly.

We were ordered to say our prayers once we were dressed and then we had to go to the church for actual morning prayers. But just as I was walking down the stairs I heard the voice of one of the
nuns shouting across the dormitory, ‘You’re a dirty, dirty girl! Look at you! Dirty!’

The girl sobbed but I didn’t stop to hear any more. I carried on into church with the others. By the time we were done with all the kneeling and the praying, I was starving. We headed
towards the dining room for breakfast. This time Agatha and I got separated in the queue and I ended up sitting next to some girls I didn’t know. After a short while a bowl of porridge
arrived in front of me. At least I think it was porridge. It looked like lumps of raw oats in dirty water. I plunged my spoon in and took a big mouthful. Jesus – it was disgusting!

I tried to chew but most of it was raw so it tasted like a mouthful of chalk. I chewed and chewed and chewed and finally I managed to swallow it all down. I took another spoonful and then a
third. I felt ill but I carried on until I’d nearly finished it all.

A second later I felt a violent heaving in the pit of my stomach. I could taste acid in my throat. Then I buckled and the whole lot came back up again into my bowl. All of it. I panted hard for
a moment and then . . .
Owl
I felt a hard slap across the back of my head.

Sister Beatrice was behind me now, her cat-like green eyes narrowed into two mean slits.

‘Eat it!’ she ordered. ‘I’m not moving till you eat it.’

What? Does she want me to eat my own sick? No. I can’t do it. I just can’t. I would rather starve
. I shook my head silently and the tears started to fall. Fat, miserable
tears plopped silently onto my dress.

‘EAT IT!’ she barked. Now some of the children from the other tables stopped eating to look at me. Agatha was at the same table but much further down so I couldn’t see her from
where I was sitting. I felt so terrified and alone at that moment – I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted to go home. I wanted my mammy.

‘You’re going to eat that or else.’ Sister Beatrice leaned down now and spoke gently in my ear. It was scarier than the shouting. ‘Or else – there’ll be
consequences
.’

I didn’t know what she meant but I didn’t like the sound of it and I knew that I really didn’t have any choice. I picked up my spoon and dug it into the porridge I’d just
thrown up. When I brought it to my lips I could smell the sickliness of it and it made my stomach lurch all over again. So I held my nose, clamped my mouth round the spoon and swallowed. Urgh. It
was horrible; the worst thing in the world. Again and again I swallowed the porridge sick until there was none left. My salty tears mingled with the vile food.
Why are we here? What is this
place? Why are we being punished
? I hoped our mammy was coming to get us today because already I hated it in St Grace’s.

After breakfast I was ordered to follow a nun who would take me to the school that was in our orphanage. By now I was separated from my sister and brother. When we got outside to the courtyard I
saw it was a grey, cold October day and once again I had to run to keep pace with the nun who was taking great big strides. We went through the courtyard and over to another building and after
going down another long corridor, we turned into a classroom that was already full of children. At the front of the class stood an ordinary woman, not a nun, but she was the strangest-looking woman
I’d ever seen. She had a very long chin and purple hair. She looked like a witch.

‘Irene, this is your new teacher, Mrs Lawley,’ the nun mumbled and then immediately left the classroom. Mrs Lawley was very tall and her long thin form towered over me.

‘You’re new here – who are you?’ she asked, peering over the tops of the glasses that were perched right at the end of her nose.

‘I’m Irene Coogan, miss.’

‘Right, Irene, take a copybook and a pencil from my desk and go and sit down over there.’ She waved her hand towards the back of the class.

I sat down and tried to follow Mrs Lawley’s instructions. We were copying the letters of the alphabet that she had written on the blackboard at the front of the class. Normally, I was fine
with my letters but Mrs Lawley had a funny way of writing. The letters were all curly and strange. I tried hard but as Mrs Lawley came down the row of desks she peered at my copybook.

‘That’s not right,’ she snapped. ‘Do it again.’

So I tried harder this time, being very careful to make the letters curl in the same way hers did on the blackboard, but I couldn’t do it very well. Mrs Lawley was soon behind me
again.

‘No!’ she said in a stern voice. ‘No, Irene. That’s not good at all. No wonder you’re here. You’re stupid. Come up to the front.’

I was shaking as I eased myself out from behind my desk and followed her up to her desk at the front of the classroom. She sat down then behind her desk and pulled out a long wooden ruler.

‘Hold out your hands!’ she instructed. ‘Palms up!’

Trembling, I did as I was told and . . .
Thwack!
She brought the ruler down hard on both my palms. Oh God. The pain exploded over my hands in a white hot flash. Tears stung my eyes.
Thwack!
She did it again. And again. By the time she was finished I was sobbing really hard from the terrible, throbbing pain.

‘You’ll learn to do things my way in my class,’ she trilled. ‘Now go back to your desk! And stop your snivelling!’

I ran back to my desk and sat down, clasping my poor, hot palms in my lap.

‘Hey.’ I heard a little whisper from my left. Gently I turned my head to the side and I saw a little girl next to me with dark eyes, pale skin and freckled round cheeks looking at me
earnestly.

‘Don’t cry,’ she whispered.
What? Why is she telling me not to cry? I’m in agony!

‘It gets worse if you cry,’ she whispered. I looked at her again, confused. She just shook her head.

It was all so hard, so confusing. I still didn’t know what we’d done wrong to be sent to this place or how long we were going to be here before our mammy came to get us.

After school finished at 2.30 p.m. I returned to the main orphanage and was given a job for the rest of the afternoon. I was handed a bucket and a rag and told to scrub the hallway and the
corridors. I nodded obediently and immediately got down on my knees and started scrubbing. In some ways, it was a relief. For a while I could just concentrate on this small task and not worry about
all the other people in this place and the endless rules and praying. I worked hard, concentrating on just a little bit of the wooden floor at a time. It seemed like I disappeared into my own world
because the next thing I heard was Sister Beatrice’s voice.

‘That’s not right!’ she said crossly. I looked up, terrified she was talking to me, but then I saw she was addressing the girl who was working in front of me.

The girl had been scrubbing away at all the skirtings but now she stopped and just kept herself very still, her head lowered and her rag in her lap.

There was silence for a moment and then a massive clang as Sister Beatrice kicked over the girl’s bucket of dirty water. The grey water spread out everywhere, all over the floor we’d
both just cleaned.

‘Now do it again,’ she sneered and she turned and walked away.

That night, I lay awake thinking about home and whether our mammy was missing us all. I wondered where they’d taken Peter and Cecily and how long we would have to stay
here. I couldn’t understand why the nuns here were so mean to us. Before now, I always thought that nuns were nice people. They were God’s special people on earth so they were meant to
be good and kind, like God. That’s what I’d always been told, anyways. It just didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

‘Budge up.’ A little whisper came through the darkness and I felt the sheet lifting, letting in a chill breeze.

‘Agatha!’ I whispered. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I can’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Please. Just let me in.’

I was too tired to argue. So, reluctantly, I scooted over to the side of the bed. Agatha climbed in and curled up next to me. For a fleeting moment, as I closed my eyes and settled down to
sleep, I forgot about St Grace’s and imagined we were back at home, cuddled up under the coats on our big bed. Mammy was in the other room, and soon our brothers and sisters would join us. As
I succumbed to sleep, I told myself that tomorrow I would go and play out in the fields again. This was home, everything was fine and I was safe again . . .

7

IRENE

Ripped in Two

‘Oh no. Oh no. No no no,’ Agatha wailed, her hands over her face, her whole body shivering with fear. Agatha was four years older than me but for some reason I
always felt protective towards her. She was soft and seemed so scared of everything. She looked at me then with her big eyes and I knew that this was something I had to help her with. On the floor
in front of us lay the sopping wet knickers she had thrown off the night before. When I’d awoken that morning and seen them lying there I suddenly understood why she had climbed into my bed
in the middle of the night.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said quickly. ‘Just go and get ready. I’ll sort it out.’

As she ran off to the bathroom I ripped the damp sheets off Agatha’s bed and replaced them with the dry ones from my bed. Then, as fast as I could, I put her sheets on my bed. Just in
time.

At that moment one of the nuns patrolling the dorm strode past our row of beds – she caught my eye and I swallowed hard. I must have looked like I was doing something wrong because she
stopped in her tracks. Slowly, she walked towards me and as she did, her eyes darted from the floor to my bed. She knew!

‘Irene Coogan!’ she addressed me sharply.

‘Yes, sister!’ I snapped to attention.

‘Irene – tell me, whose knickers are those on the floor?’

‘They’re mine, sister.’

‘And are they wet?’

‘Yes, they are, sister.’

And if I put my hands on your sheets, would they be wet too?’

‘Yes, they would, sister. I’m very sorry, sister. I wet the bed last night. I’m sorry.’

‘Get to the window!’ she bellowed.

For a second I didn’t know what she meant but then she spun me round and pushed me towards the large window that looked out over the courtyard.

‘Face the window!’

I did as I was told – my cheeks burned hot with embarrassment as I realized that all the chatter and noise from the other children in the dorm had died down. The place was silent. The next
thing I knew, sister had pulled up the window in front of us and she was edging a long wooden pole out of the window next to me. On the end of the pole were Agatha’s wet knickers. By now the
courtyard below was full of children running towards church for morning prayers but when the sister’s voice rang out, everyone stopped and turned to look at us.

‘Look at this girl!’ she called to them. ‘Look at Irene Coogan here. Look at this dirty girl. She’s wet her knickers. Look at her dirty, filthy knickers! Look at
them!’

The sister waggled the pole in front of me and the knickers bobbed up and down accusingly. I could hardly breathe. This was all my worst fears come true – I shook with shame as the whole
orphanage, every single child, looked up at me. I wanted to disappear at that moment.
Please make it stop, please make it stop. Oh God, please make it stop . . .

For the rest of the day, I could barely bring myself to look at anybody. I felt so humiliated, so utterly destroyed. I just wanted to disappear into a corner and hide myself away until it was
time to go home, until Mammy came to collect me.
When is that? When is she coming to get us all?

‘Thank you,’ Agatha whispered in the queue for breakfast that morning. I just nodded. I didn’t want to talk about it. All I knew was that from now on we had to make sure that
Agatha went to the toilet every night before bed.

At school I tried to keep my head down so that I didn’t get the ruler again. My hands were still blistered from the day before and this morning’s experience with
the knickers had been a horrifying ordeal. If anything more happened to me at school I felt I would just snap like a twig. Fortunately, Mrs Lawley found another victim to harass in the morning and
I managed to sit at the back without attracting any further attention. After another lunch of pigswill we were sent out into the yard for some fresh air. It was even colder today and my bare legs
stung from the biting wind, but I tried to put it out of my mind as I stood against a wall, trying to make myself as small as possible. I wrapped both arms round myself against the cold. I just
wanted to stay out of harm’s way today, try to keep myself safe. There were so many rules in this place, it was hard to avoid a slap or a beating for five minutes at a time.