The Convent (2 page)

Sometimes we'd wander through the gate and up along the gravel path through the garden that had been laid out in the French style. The renovations were only partly completed, and large parts of it still weren't open to the public. But it was easy enough to peer into the big industrial spaces where the girls had worked the laundry, eaten meals and gone to church.

The gate through which the trucks had driven every day to collect the laundry from the St Heliers Street entrance was still there, battered and rusty. You could see where they'd stored the coal and wood, and the huge iron boiler that had heated water for the whole place.

One evening we snuck past the developer's wire fence, through a door and upstairs to wander through the Magdalen dormitories. The few rows of abandoned iron beds, the sinks along one wall, the battered cupboards and dusty shower cubicles made the huge rooms eerie, as though everyone had left in a hurry. Apart from thin shafts of late-afternoon light coming through the cracks in the boarded-up windows it was more or less dark inside.

It got a whole lot more eerie when Stella swore she could
smell
the girls who'd slept there, that she could feel their spirits, too, hovering with the dust mites in the corners of the empty rooms. I told her she was crazy, that the place had been closed for almost thirty years, and yet … I believed her. Stella couldn't tell a lie if she tried.

I had no idea then of my own connection to the convent. I'd only just turned nineteen and, to tell you the truth, I didn't
want
to know. There was enough on my plate already. Mum and Dad were overseas. I had my studies, a summer job, a best friend in the middle of a huge drama of her own making, and a sister I was meant to be caring for, who, for reasons of her own, seemed intent on doubling her size.

And there was Luke, too, of course. Luke ‘the Fluke' Robinson, my former boyfriend with the smoky grey eyes, who had been saved from drowning when he was three years old by his mum who couldn't swim until she found out she had to.

He used to tell me that there was no getting away from the past; that wanting to know your own history is as basic as the need to take your shoes off at the beach. That first touch of icy water, the million sand granules squishing between your toes, the vast expanse of sky above, and you know …
you just know
you have a right to be there.

Well, he was right in a way. The past does come after you whether you like it or not. It blusters in like a noisy drunk off the street, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding to tell his story. You resist at first because you have better things to think about, then you make an excuse to slip away, and when that doesn't work you listen out of politeness, impatient for the end because the story doesn't make much sense. There is none of
this
followed by
that
, the way a story is meant to go. People and events drift in and out as they please, running together like drops of water on a grimy windscreen, reforming, breaking apart, and flying off in different directions.

But you get hooked anyway, and when the story is over you see it makes its own kind of sense.

It is then you understand that all you've ever known about yourself and your particular place in the world has shifted position. You're left wondering how you're meant to deal with it.

But you do. That's the good part. You do.

Sadie, Ellen, Cecilia and now …
me
.

Sadie
1915

It began at daybreak with three hard knocks on the door, and light sneaking like a thief through the holes in the blind. Sadie woke on the third knock and reached for her dressing-gown. She was two weeks behind with her rent and the old skinflint who owned most of the street made it his business to call early if someone needed a warning.

Not to worry. There was three pounds ten in the pocket of her gown, and a little more in the drawer near her bed. With a bit of luck she'd have enough to pay the milkman as well. She could hear the faint clip-clop of his horse in a nearby street.
Whoa there, girl …

She smiled through a thick head and dry mouth and felt for the extra money in the side drawer. Bill the milko had cut her plenty of slack over the years; she'd see him right.

By the time she had opened the door of her tiny Carlton terrace her feet were freezing. She was met with thick white fog and two people, neither of them the landlord. A heavy, red-faced woman dressed in some kind of grey uniform was closest. She had short, steel-grey hair and narrow eyes, hard as splinters, and she was carrying a blanket over one arm. Next to her stood a fresh-faced copper, all done out in brass buttons, a cap and shiny black boots. He had a long baton in a holster by his side.

Sadie held firm. It didn't do for a woman living alone to show fear. Her first thought was for the boy, William, living with his father now, cutting stone in some godforsaken place up near Echuca. She clutched tightly at her dressing-gown and snarled a quiet prayer to the God she had no time for these days.
Let the kid live.

It was only then that she saw the third person. Lurking behind the other two, his hat pulled down over his eyes, pretending he wasn't there, was
Frank
! What the hell was that sanctimonious little bastard doing knocking on her door at six in the morning? Sadie caught his eye and he edged further back. She had to stifle the jeer that rose like bile from her guts. Under the thumb of a hypochondriac wife for twenty years and run off his feet with two carping sisters, it was a wonder he'd managed to get himself off the chain for the early-morning outing.

‘Yes?' Sadie said.

The copper shoved some kind of document under her nose.

Sadie waved it away. ‘I can see you're a copper,' she said. ‘What you here for?' Reading wasn't her strong point, but that wasn't for him to know. Let that slimy little bastard Frank tell them if he must.

The copper didn't say anything at all, and neither did the other two, but they looked at each other, shifty and sly-eyed, as if they were unsure how to proceed seeing as she'd refused their bit of paper.

She folded her arms and waited, apprehensive but righteous. It was freezing, she had over a month of rent in her pocket and this was
her
front door.

‘You should read it,' the copper said uncertainly, trying to sound as if he knew what was what, when everything about his silly young face told her he was out of his depth.

‘Why?'

‘It's the law.'

‘Is that a fact?'

‘Yes.'

‘What law says I've got to read it?'

‘Otherwise you won't know what we're here for.'

‘Can't you
tell
me, Officer?' she mocked. He would have joined the police as a face-saver when all his mates were volunteering. Not that she blamed him, of course. Why get your head blown off if you didn't have to? Even so she wanted to jeer,
Decided to keep
your skin on, did ya, shirker?

The other two were looking at her with curled lips and it angered her. Maybe her dressing-gown was grubby and she had no slippers, but it was six o'clock in the morning
and …
Sadie pushed her shoulders back, pulled her belt tighter and reminded herself that she'd never pretended to be anything she wasn't. She fed her little girl well, kept her clean and kept a decent roof over their heads. Sometimes only just … but still. What right did they have to look down their noses?

‘And what brings you here, Frank?' She was already imagining telling Dottie about this later.
Too gutless to come on his own! He
brings the jacks and some fat bitch from the government to my door at
daybreak and expects me to stand there trying to guess what he's about.

The words were spilling around in her head, but her mouth stayed tight. Dot was going to love this. Snatch a laugh or two when you could else you'd go barmy was her theory, and as far as Sadie was concerned it wasn't a bad one. Stories that stuck it to the jacks sent them both off like tops.

Frank was behind this, whatever it was. If the copper hadn't been there she would have given him a piece of her mind, told him to keep the few measly quid he gave her every month if that meant she never had to look at him again.

He still couldn't meet her eye.

‘You are Mrs Sadie Reynolds?' the copper asked stiffly, as if he had the baton up his rear end.

‘Yes.'

‘Where is your husband?'

‘That's my business.'

‘Where is your husband, Mrs Reynolds?'

Sadie knew she'd better start toeing the line or there'd be more trouble. ‘If you must know, he is up north, working.'

‘You keep in contact with him?'

‘Yes,' she spat. ‘Of course I do.'

It was a lie but so what? Joe turned up for a feed every now and again, and for whatever else took his fancy. Last time it had been the boy, and they'd fought cat and dog over that one but … what use dwelling on it? She didn't have the money to feed a growing boy and they both knew it. Joe would let her starve without blinking an eye, but that shouldn't mean the kid had to. To all intents and purposes her husband was
gone,
and he'd taken their son with him.

‘Well, Mrs Reynolds, we don't want any trouble now,' the copper said uncomfortably.

‘Nor do I.'

‘So where is Ellen?'

‘
What?
' A shaft of ice went straight to her guts, and her bowels began to churn.

‘Ellen,' the young man said again, triumphant now he could see her fear. He looked down at his bit of paper. ‘Ellen McIntosh Reynolds. Three years old. Where is she?'

‘Where do you think?' Sadie said loudly, trying to still the panic, but her voice sounded hollow as if she was in some kind of cave. ‘In her bed asleep.'

The three of them looked at her impassively. She almost told them to go and take a look for themselves if they didn't believe her, except that would be inviting them in and that was the last thing she wanted.

‘May we see her please?'

‘No.'

‘Mr McIntosh wants to see the child, Mrs Reynolds.'

‘Well, he can't!'

‘He is the child's father, Mrs Reynolds.'

‘So?' For the millionth time she cursed her own stupidity. In a crazy fit of honesty she'd put his name on the birth certificate. The child had her husband Joe's surname, of course – that was the law – but seeing as she'd hardly seen Joe over these last few years she decided to stick Frank's surname in the middle.
The poor little
mite needs to know who her real dad is
. Oh why had she done that? It gave him ideas above his station, made him think he had rights far and beyond what was the case.

She turned to Frank. ‘What do you mean bringing people here?' she hissed, trying frantically to grab the doorknob without taking her eyes from his face. Her father had been a tough Scot, and he'd taught her that the chances of winning are always better if you stand your ground. But the door had swung wide open behind her and she was unable to catch the knob.

Sadie's heart had begun to beat in her chest like a terrified bird trying to get out of a cage. She swallowed and swallowed but couldn't seem to get the lump out of her throat. There was slipperiness under her arms, too, in spite of the cold, and at the back of her neck sweat had begun to trickle down like tears.

They were moving towards her, crowding in close.

‘We have evidence, Mrs Reynolds.' The copper was talking.

‘Evidence?'

‘You have no male support.'

‘But I have a …' She looked at Frank frantically.

‘That you are an unfit mother.'

‘An unfit— Show it to me!'

‘That you consort with unsavoury characters.'

‘Like who?' She looked from one to the other, the panic bubbling through her now like poisonous gas.

‘You keep company with … fallen women.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Prostitutes,' he said under his breath.

Sadie stared at him, barely able to breathe. It was as if someone had punched her hard in the side of the head and she'd forgotten how to suck the air in again. They must mean Mona who stayed over sometimes, poor downtrodden little Mona, with three mites to feed, who gave her a couple of quid every now and again just to have somewhere to flop when she needed a rest. The johns never came anywhere near the house. That had been understood right from the start.

Suddenly the three of them were pushing past her. They walked straight through into the narrow passageway of the little house and it took her a few moments to realise what was happening.

‘Get the hell out of there!' she yelled after them. But the copper was opening the first door on the left and poking his head in. ‘You have no right!'

‘We have every right, Mrs Reynolds.'

Sadie ran past them, down to the second door on the left where the child was asleep, and tried to bar the door with her body. ‘Don't you touch her!' she said in a low voice. She didn't want to wake the child with angry voices outside her door.

But in a couple of swift movements the young cop had grabbed both her wrists and pulled her away from the doorway. He pushed both her arms up behind her back and held her there while the other two went in to where the child was sleeping.

‘No, no! Don't wake her!' Sadie struggled to get free. ‘You mustn't do this!'

But the woman and Frank had already closed the door behind them.

In a matter of a few moments the shrill cry of her daughter sounded from behind that door.

The fat woman in grey reappeared, carrying the half-asleep Ellen, who was grizzling now, with one thumb stuck in her mouth, all soft and warm in her little nightdress and socks, her half-empty bottle of milk in the other hand. Her big blue eyes were staring around at the strangers. But when she saw Sadie being held by the policeman she let go of the bottle, held out both her plump little arms and began to yell.