Susanna went off to the county hospital to give birth, returned to us for three weeks, and then was sent to a Magdalene Laundry in Limerick. Her baby boy stayed on at the convent.
‘We can’t have a second offender staying on too long, contaminating the rest of you girls,’ said Sister Mary Declan, when they sent Susanna away. Sunday’s Corner and Pelletstown were twentieth-century inventions, specifically for mothers and babies. The Magdalene Laundries had originally been established to incarcerate prostitutes, but as the Irish State closed in on its independence, they increasingly became a repository for any girl suspected of sexual impropriety. This could include girls who were considered flirtatious, or too pretty. Girls who made the mistake of telling a priest or family member they’d been molested. Girls with nowhere to go after their debt was worked off. Girls like Susanna, who’d proven themselves beyond redemption by landing at Sunday’s Corner twice. Fallen away.
For all I know, Susanna spent her whole life at the Magdalene Laundry. She wouldn’t have been the first woman to do so, nor the last.
Meanwhile, Fiona’s little son was adopted, and the nuns refused to tell her where he’d gone. Her cheerful words persisted. When she said, ‘The nuns know best. He’ll have a better life than I could ever give him,’ her hands shook, and her fair skin looked whiter still. Sometimes she’d step forwards to bring the laundry to the rooftop, then freeze, remembering her little boy was no longer there for her to see and worry over.
‘Tell me,’ I’d say, in the moments she looked about to crumble. And she’d recite my parents’ London address, a soothing mantra, representing a time that might come after the convent.
Once a week in the nuns’ graveyard, autumn chill creeping into the air – I would check to make sure the rotted bar hadn’t been repaired. The winter before, I’d arrived with a young woman’s hands. Soon I’d leave with an old one’s, dried and cracked. But I was strong, and it was better to go in the cooling weeks of autumn before bitter cold set in. My hands were old but I was not. Beneath my shapeless dress the bulk of my pregnancy had diminished with hard work, nursing and scant meals.
Tomorrow, I said to myself, day after day. Tomorrow I’ll steal from the nursery, out into the graveyard. I’ll pass Genevieve through the bars of the gate, lay her on the grass, then squeeze myself through. Scoop her up and find my way to the boat that will carry us home to England. If I have to steal, or sell my body, I’ll do it. Anything to get us away free and clear.
Susanna’s son and Genevieve were the only babies under four months old. At night the older babies could be soothed if we rocked them, or let them suck our fingers. During the day the nuns fed Susanna’s baby milk-soaked bread, though he was barely six weeks old. At night when he cried, I would scoop him from his cot and nurse him myself.
One morning after Mass, Sister Mary Clare looked over my shoulder as I bathed Genevieve. ‘How fat and rosy she is,’ the nun exclaimed.
So many of the other babies were thin and pale from feedings spaced too far apart. But Genevieve looked as healthy as any babe under her own mother’s care. Her bright blue eyes blinked away water as I dabbed gently at her face. I lifted her from the soapy basin up into the air, then back down so I could nibble her cheek, and she giggled for the first time.
‘Oh,’ said the nun. ‘Is there a more glorious sound in the world than a baby’s first laugh?’
I did it again, lifted Genevieve, then rushed her down to nibble her cheek, and she laughed, a belly-shaking, chortling sound. My own laughter scratched my throat, the muscles shaky. I had a flash of remembrance, how much I had loved my mother when I was a small child. The overwhelming joy and safety of her presence. I longed for Mum’s green eyes and freckly face, and for her to see me now, with my own baby, loving me in just the same way.
Over and over, I lifted Genevieve up then down, the baby laughing, the nun laughing, me laughing, breathing in my baby’s spicy scent with each nibble, until the front of my apron was splashed through with water. I cast a look of smiling comradery at Sister Mary Clare. She was no substitute for my mother but it was nice to have someone laughing along with us, a witness.
Finally, Sister Mary Clare took Genevieve from me, wrapping her in a towel. ‘You go off to rest,’ she said. ‘I’ll find a special treat to bring you later.’
Sister Mary Declan arrived to escort the other night attendant and me upstairs to be locked in the dormitory for our few hours of sleep. I cast one last glance over my shoulder to see Sister Mary Clare cooing sweetly at my Genevieve as she carried her away.
That afternoon, I pushed a cart of wet linens to the flat roof above the conservatory, hanging out the sheets to dry in the sun. From up there I saw a man step out of an automobile, with a regal bearing and slicked-back hair. From three storeys above, the details I noted were ones of outline, the sheen of wealth that radiated even to where I watched from a distance. A certain kind of girl would have thought him dashing. But dashing didn’t interest me. It never would.
Still, there was something about the man, and he stayed in my mind, though I barely caught a glimpse of his upturned face. When I brought the next load of wet sheets up to the roof to dry, I saw his car had gone. On my way back to the laundry room, I slipped into the nursery. Ordinarily, I never went where I wasn’t meant to during the day, for fear of running into Father Joseph, or losing my nights with Genevieve. But something urgent drove me and I hurried under the high archways and over the multi-coloured tiles, stepping carefully so the wood-soled shoes wouldn’t clomp. It would be trouble if another nun were in the nursery, but if it were Sister Mary Clare, she wouldn’t mind my breaking rules. She was in on the joy of it, Genevieve’s laughter.
When I got there, my baby’s cot lay bare and empty. No sheets, just a tiny stained mattress where countless other babies had lain. Sister Mary Clare walked towards me with her arms outstretched, a look of consternated sympathy puckering her jolly young face. And something else: a twinkle in her eye. I saw it. Whatever she was about to tell me would account for the day’s excitement. A bolt of understanding landed in my heart with the first murderous twinge.
‘Where is my baby?’ I demanded.
In another cot a little boy old enough to stand pulled himself to his feet, bright copper hair in disarray. He held out his arms to be picked up and Sister Mary Clare swerved away from me as if to accommodate him. I grabbed her billowy sleeve.
‘Where’s Genevieve? Bring me to her right now, please.’