Marilyn’s Child

‘You, Kate O’Sullivan, should find plenty to be penitent about.’ When I’d first heard the word I’d asked what it meant. ‘To repent your sins,’ Mother Paul had said with the same look on her face as Father Steele is wearing now.

Throwing back my head I fix him with what I know is a probing stare. ‘So, Father, tell me: is it a sin to say what I think? Does it make me a good Catholic to be filled with guilt for doing the very things that come as naturally to me as sleeping and waking, eating and drinking? I laugh a lot, too loud for the sisters’ liking; I play practical jokes, but only to make others laugh. I’m rebellious, or so they tell me, strong-willed is another favourite term of theirs. I admit I tell lies but only sometimes, white ones usually – don’t we all? A couple of times I’ve pretended to be ill to miss Sunday Mass, but I’ve confessed. Are they such evil sins? I don’t feel bad or wicked inside. If there is a God, then surely he should be my judge?’

I suspect I’ve gone too far this time. I’ve never talked like this before to anyone, except Bridget, who warned me not to tell a soul of my doubts, unless of course I wanted a good hiding. Yet here I am spewing it all out to a priest, and a priest I’d just met. Bridget, I know, accepts things the way they are; sometimes I wish I were more like her, because, I suspect, life would be simpler. I’ve got a queer feeling deep in my belly like I want to go to the toilet. I squeeze my buttocks tight and say, with that look on my face, the one Mother Paul always wants to wipe off: ‘I’ve had religion rammed down my throat since I was old enough to say Our Father, and I do, I really do have a most desperate desire to believe.’

For what seems like a long time the curate fixes me with a steady gaze, then he takes a step closer to me. I can smell his breath: a sugary smell; I suspect he’s been eating a toffee or a chocolate bar. His expression has changed again; the ‘I know best, my child’ look has gone, and in its place I see genuine interest. Gotcha! I think as he begins to speak. ‘You and I should have a quiet talk, Kate O’Sullivan. Maybe I can give you some of the answers you’re seeking. Restore your faith. Come and see me soon. Early evening is a good time. But now I really must be off, I’ve got some house visits and I’m late. God be with you.’

If he could have heard my heart singing he’d have been deafened by the racket. ‘And you, Father,’ I manage to mutter, stepping to one side to allow him to pass.

The back of his hand touches mine; I want to hold it, if only for a brief moment. Rooted to the spot, my eyes glued to the back of his head, I watch him open the door. I look at my hands: they’re shaking, and now my heart instead of singing is beating very fast, hammering hard, like when big Frankie Donegal chases me.

I’m in a kind of trance. It’s the only way I know of describing this feeling. The only other time I’ve felt remotely like this – and really there’s no comparison – was three weeks ago, when I’d had the strongest urge for Gabriel Ryan to kiss me. Gabriel is sixteen and the most handsome boy in Friday Wells – in the whole county, according to Mary Shanley. Mind you, I’d not taken much notice of her since she’d never set foot outside the parish. All the girls want him and he wants me. His father is a bank manager, and the Ryans live in a posh house with a long black drive and a white car parked in front of the house. Like me, Gabriel is in the local secondary school, and everyone says (including him) that he’s going up to Trinity College in Dublin to study law when he’s eighteen.

Two weeks ago, behind the science lab, he kissed me. At first I tried to stop him, afraid one of the teachers would see us. He was strong though, too strong for me, and his body pinned mine against the wall. The whole thing was very uncomfortable: the corner of a brick digging into my right shoulder blade; his hardness pushing against my thigh; his mouth forcing mine open. Then he stuck his tongue down the back of my throat. I gagged, pushed him away, and ran back to the main yard. I couldn’t wait to tell Bridget and Mary about Gabriel. I told them his kiss had made me feel faint and I’d let him feel the top of my leg under my skirt, but only for a split second.

A few years before, Bridget and I had made a pact; we’d tell each other about the sex thing if and when it happened. As if I wouldn’t have told Bridget – she’s my best friend. I tell her everything. She was fifteen when she let Dermot McGuire touch her left breast.

Eagerly she’d demonstrated. ‘Round and round his hand circled, then he squeezed my nipple.’

‘Did it hurt?’ I’d asked.

‘A little,’ Bridget had admitted before continuing with enthusiasm: ‘Then he put his hand on my leg, it was hot – his hand, I mean – and shaking. I could feel it through my tights. I opened my legs a little, let him feel me on top of my panties. Then I shut my legs tight, clamping his hand inside my thighs.’

I’d giggled at this and, curious, I’d asked, ‘Did you want to go all the way?’

Bridget’s face had turned bright red. She’d crossed herself and said, ‘Temptation is a terrible sin. No more, I swear, until I’m married.’

Unlike Bridget I hadn’t been tempted with Gabriel; well, not after the sour-tasting kiss. Anyway, I didn’t intend to get married and have babies, not for a long time – if at all.

All sorted, or so I thought, that was, until Father Declan Steele, this film-star curate who looks to me more like God than any other living creature I’ve ever seen, had come to Friday Wells. Instinctively I know, with all the certainty that my hair is the colour of silver sand, my eyes are grey-blue, and I have a tiny birthmark on my left hip, don’t ask me how, I just do, this man has been sent to this parish for me, Kate O’Sullivan. A rare gift of fate.

‘You’ve got to be telling all, Kate O’Sullivan. What’s he like?’

I’m enjoying myself, holding court amidst four girls hungry for every detail of the new film-star curate. We are in the dormitory; I’m standing, and the other girls are sitting facing each other on the edge of two cast-iron beds. The north-facing room is cold and dark, the walls a sour yellow, dull even on the brightest day. The orphanage was built of granite and grey stone in 1896 – so the plaque above the entrance says – as an industrial school. Enclosed by high granite walls and black wrought-iron gates, I often feel I’m living in a prison. The floors of planked wood are highly polished by the inmates, and God forbid that a speck of dust should be found by one of the nuns. There is a Sacred Heart of Jesus on the wall opposite my bed, a constant reminder of how Our Lord suffered on the cross for me, and on the opposite wall Mary Mother of Christ set in a 3-D gilt frame. Mary is clothed in a long, flowing midnight-blue dress and has the usual smile on her face, which looks to me like she’s a bit daft in the head. I’d mentioned this once and got thumped so hard it’s a wonder I’m still all right in my head. Under Our Mother is a candle that burns constantly night and day. There’s not much furniture, and what there is was not designed for comfort. Two chairs stand either side of the dormitory, like soldiers on guard, there is a basic wooden table next to the door holding a bible, two prayer books, and the catechism.

The nuns live in separate quarters, two to a room. They have sunlight and white glossy walls. When I go to the nuns’ domain, as we call it, I’m always dazzled by the brightness. Bridget says it’s because their long sash windows face south. Rosemary Connelly once suggested that the sun only shone on the righteous, which had made me mad and I’d listed some of the things the nuns did that were far from righteous, in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost.

‘What about suffer the little children?’ I’d said.

She’d backed down with, ‘Bejasus, Kate O’Sullivan, I was only joking. Keep yer hair on.’

I’d gone on to question why the nuns had masses of beautiful flowers in brass vases and bowls of fresh fruit everywhere, when we were lucky if we even saw a peach from a distance. At the back of the building there’s a walled garden, with a lawn so green my eyes hurt to look at it, narrow paths that wind through fruit trees and great clumps of flowering bushes of every colour, and several wooden benches placed in shady spots where the nuns often sit in contemplation. We, the girls, aren’t allowed in the garden and I’ve only seen it from the top of the wall of the school house attached to the side of the building. This is where we were taught until the age of sixteen, or fourteen if, like me and Bridget, we passed primary certificate and went on to the local secondary school. The house is spotless; it smells of disinfectant like a hospital, and damp. I learnt very young that Catholics are obsessed with washing – well, nuns most certainly are. How often had I heard the words: ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness, dirty people are pagan, clean ones divine.’

Four eager faces are looking into mine, eight wide eyes fixed on me. ‘He puts Robert Redford in the shade. His eyes are the deepest blue, like the sea. And not the Irish Sea, more like the Indian Ocean. His hair is so smooth it shines like polished glass, and when he smiled, sweet Jesus …’ I pretend to swoon. ‘I swear he made me feel faint just to be looking at him.’

‘Did he say much?’ It was Mary Flanagan. Then in the next breath: ‘How old is he?’

‘I’d say he’s in his late twenties, and yes we talked for more than an hour. He asked me millions of questions about myself. To be sure, he hung on my every word.’

‘How long?’ Bernadette Kennedy looks dubious.

‘Well, almost an hour,’ I say quickly. ‘He even told me where he was born.’

‘Where?’ Bridget pipes up.

‘Dublin. He misses city life a lot, so he says. It’s going to be mighty quiet here in Friday Wells, I say. Very boring after Dublin. Nothing much goes on here apart from John Connor throwing up his wages every Friday night outside the pub, Paul Flatley giving his missus a black eye once a month, or me causing havoc in the orphanage. Jimmy Conlon sometimes has an epileptic fit, and John Joyce coughed up his insides last year.’

‘Mother of God, Kate O’Sullivan, did you really say all of that?’ That was Rosemary Connelly, her black eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t believe you. Tell the truth, or let the good Lord strike you down dead this very minute.’

I point my forefinger in Rosemary’s direction. ‘Rosemary, will you stop it with the good Lord Almighty stuff? You know as well as I do I don’t believe God will be my judge. I think I can be my own best judge. To be sure, don’t you think I get enough of that from the sisters without you preaching? I’m telling the truth when I say that Father Declan Steele is a god amongst men, and I for one would like to kiss him full on the lips. I’m in love, I tell you. In love with Father Steele.’

Bridget screams, ‘Mary, Mother of Christ, he’s a priest!’

I’m enjoying myself. ‘He’s a man, the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my whole life.’

‘And who, pray, is the most handsome man you’ve ever seen in your life, Kate O’Sullivan?’

I swivel my head in search of the voice, and spot the stooped figure of Mother Thomas, her black habit shining like sealskin in the overhead light. Her eyes are button bright and piercing behind the rimless spectacles, and her cheeks are puffed out and red, bright red, like she’s been daubed with scarlet ink, or has applied too much rouge. Since she doesn’t wear make-up I assumed she’s been running. She always gets red-faced when she exerts herself.

I’m shaking inside but, determined not to cower or show fear, I look her straight in the eye. What can she do to me that she hasn’t already done, I ask myself. And the knowledge that I am leaving soon, in a matter of weeks, gives me added strength. ‘The new curate, Mother Thomas, Father Declan Steele.’

‘That’s enough.’ The nun raises her voice. ‘It’s himself, a Catholic priest.’

I shrug. ‘That doesn’t stop him being handsome. Surely God made him so?’

I can see the tip of the cane she keeps hidden inside the wide detachable sleeves of her habit. With a look that would, less than six months ago, have filled me with terror, Mother Thomas takes three long strides, her rosary beads making a clanking sound as she comes to a halt a few inches from where I’m standing.

We face each other, adversaries as always, only now I’m not afraid. For the first time since Mother Thomas had come to the orphanage in the summer of 1967 when I was five she didn’t scare me. The five-foot-three eleven-stone battleship of a woman has in the past year shrunk, and now seems to shrink even more before my very eyes. Ha! Perhaps there is a God. The thought makes me smile. She knows I’m no longer afraid, the knowledge makes her more aggressive, yet strangely less terrifying. When we’d first met I was small for my age, and Mother Thomas had seemed huge. Now it was I who towered above the diminutive nun; it felt good.

Within weeks of her arrival she’d singled me out for her own particular brand of discipline. ‘Evil rebellious child, it’s a hard lesson you need to be taught, someone has got to do it if we are to save your soul.’

Often I was to wonder, Why me? What had I done to make her hate me so much? We were all afraid of her, and most of the girls still are; I suspect even Mother Virgilus, the Mother Superior, is. The bead-eyed monster nun from hell I call her – behind her back, of course, and always in hushed whispers.

I’ll never forget an incident that happened about four months after her arrival. The memory, I’m convinced, is one that will remain with me until I’m very old, maybe until I die. I hate liver. Is that so bad? I know it’s good for me, or so everyone says, but I can’t stand the taste and gag at the smell. One evening, with a loud disgusted grunt, I’d refused to eat a plate of liver and onions. Mother Thomas had rapped my knuckles hard with my knife and fork before forcing my head into the plate of rapidly congealing food. Yet still I’d refused to eat, even under threat of house arrest (all free time spent in the bedroom for at least a week). Four hours later the liver and I met again; still I refused to eat. Two days later, weak with hunger, my hands raw from the repeated beatings, I began to eat. With each bite I cursed Mother Thomas, and almost choked on the last morsel.

A few minutes later, the entire meal mixed with a glob of phlegm had flown out of my mouth to land on the hem of Mother Thomas’s habit. I don’t think she ever forgave me for that, and even now, after all this time, I can’t bring myself to think about the look on her face as she’d carefully spooned my vomit from her habit on to my plate. She did it slowly and methodically, and as I watched the realization of what she intended to do had dawned, and I remember wishing with all my heart that I’d eaten the liver when it had first been served.

Now I can feel her breath, hot and moist; it smells rank like bad meat. I want to spit in her face, and think of the pleasure it would give me. I watch her tongue dart out to lick her thin and curly lips, the top one puckered like ragged scar tissue. It’s a face better suited to a witch than an angel of the Lord. She’s from the north; Belfast, I think Bridget said. ‘That’s why she’s cruel, been taught by the English.’ Her accent, unlike mine, sounds almost English, her voice high-pitched and squeaky like a child.

‘A Catholic priest is not an object of desire. I won’t have you talking about the good father in that way. Blasphemous it is, you know so, Kate O’Sullivan. If you dare utter one more word about Father Declan Steele, I’ll see to it that you –’

I interrupt. ‘You’ll see to what, Sister Thomas? See me burn in hell? See me get my comeuppance?’ I can see her anger rising and feel a familiar panic. I’ve got what I call jelly belly and I take a deep breath.

‘What did you call me?’

‘Sister Thom—’

I glimpse the cane, like a rigid snake sliding down her sleeve. Now the jelly belly has gone to my legs and I’ve got to summon up every ounce of strength to say, ‘I called you Sister.’

‘It’s Mother to you, Mother, Mother, Mother! Say it, you evil girl. Say it, or I’ll see to it that you –’ The banshee shrieks have a familiar ring and I know she’s lost it, her mind that is, and as of now anything can happen. With all my strength I fight my fear. At the very worst she’s going to cane me, and I can survive that.

In a calm voice I say, ‘I suppose you’re going to do what you always do, give me a good beating, and not just a thump round the head, a really good hiding. How can anyone be taught a lesson unless they’re black and blue and bleeding like our Lord on the cross with nails in his hands, suffering so that we might suffer? When I was a little girl I really believed grown-ups when they told me I had to suffer for my sins. I don’t believe that any more, and I’m not afraid.’

I can’t believe I’ve just spoken to Mother Thomas like that and I’m not surprised when I feel her hand swipe the side of my face. It stings. I want to lash back but daren’t.

‘Hell is where you belong, Kate O’Sullivan. You’re a lying, evil child. Like I always said, the devil’s own, that’s what you are and that’s where you’ll end your days. With him, the devil in hell and damnation.’ With her cane she points at the other girls, screaming, ‘Get out of here, all of you, I need to teach this evil pup a lesson.’

The girls scatter. Before she leaves I catch a glimpse of Bridget. Her face reveals what I know she feels: concern and hatred. Now I have the nausea deep in my stomach, and it takes all my will power to keep from crying out. I take a long step back, away from the nun. My head hits the wall and for a moment the urge to throttle her overwhelms me. What joy to stanch the stream of abuse spilling out of her ugly mouth. Or, better still, I long to stick a knife in her fat belly, twisting it round again and again while she begs for mercy. For a few seconds I revel in the pleasure killing her would give me, then in a voice that doesn’t sound remotely like my own I hiss, ‘Don’t touch me. I’m warning you, don’t come near me.’

With her right hand she grabs me by the throat, cutting off my air supply. I try to resist but she’s too strong and a moment later I hit the bed face-down. With vice-like strength she pins me to the bed. I can feel her nails digging into my spine. Suddenly my head feels hot, my temples and forehead are burning, and I have this terrible image of the first time she did this to me, when I was six. As she drags my dress up and pulls my knickers down, I’m talking into the horse-hair mattress, repeating mantra-like: ‘I hate you, Mother Thomas, with all my heart, I hate you, hate you, hate you.’

The anticipation, those few suspended moments before cane meets flesh, is always the worst. I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking of how soon I’ll be leaving this place, of my own bedroom with sun streaming through big windows, and a pink rosebud bedspread. The monster nun from hell takes a deep breath before bringing the cane down. My entire body freezes in spasm and I bite my tongue. It hurts like hell and I want to scream but don’t. I won’t give her that satisfaction. In fact, it’s a long time since I’ve cried. I can hear her panting, and know she’s lifting the cane for the next blow. ‘You’ll burn in hell, Kate O’Sullivan, that’s where you’re going. The devil’s own, that’s what you are.’

Suddenly there’s a strange noise inside my head, like a light switch clicking on then off, and before she can hit me again I roll over and scramble to the other side of the bed.

My knickers are hanging around my ankles, my backside feels like it’s been torched, but the shaking has stopped and I no longer feel physically sick. We face each other on opposing sides of the bed. My eyes are harnessed to hers, and I detect to my glee a little uncertainty in those glassy beads. ‘Mother Thomas has eyes just like a raven,’ Bridget always says, and until now I’d agreed, but today they, like her, have diminished to those of a common sparrow. In the same strange detached voice I say, ‘You’ll never hit me again because if you do I’ve got orders from the devil to kill you. And if it’s hell I’m going to, you won’t be far behind.’ She’s staring directly into my eyes; hers don’t waver or blink, but she says nothing as I go on: ‘When I’m rich and famous, and I will be, you’ll be sorry, very sorry – that is, if you’re still alive.’

I know, as soon as I enter and kneel, that it isn’t Father O’Neill in the confessional box. Whiskey breath and sweaty feet do not smell of freshly squeezed lemons mixed with a trace of lavender. The smell is different from any I’ve ever encountered. I inhale, exhale, then say, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s two weeks since my last confession.’

I know it’s him. Holding my breath, I wait for confirmation.

‘Tell me about it, my child.’ Father Steele’s melodic voice washes over me. I close my eyes and imagine bathing in spring water on a warm summer day. It isn’t something I do regularly, but I had, a couple of times last summer, been allowed to go on a picnic with a girlfriend from school. We’d gone in her father’s car to Kinsale, where we’d eaten tons of egg sandwiches and drunk gallons of lemonade. Then afterwards we’d swum in the river. It had felt like Father Steele’s voice: warm and soothing.

I sigh. ‘I’ve had a terrible row with Mother Thomas. I said some awful things to her. She beat me, not for the first time, and I’ve been punished by Mother Virgilus.’

I look down: my hands are red and sore, the skin peeling. Work-worn hands, like those I’d seen a thousand times in the village, attached to pink arms scrubbing front steps or polishing brass door-knockers. Ashamed, I try to cover them up. The sight of them makes me angry, and sad that I should have such hands at fifteen. My hands were intended to paint, not scrub floors and polish brass, or be submerged elbow-deep in boggy water in the laundry where I’d been since my tussle with Mother Thomas.

‘Sure, I said things I shouldn’t have, but she made me say them. She made me very angry, Father.’

‘Are you sorry, my child?’

I know the simple way to get off the hook is to say, Yes, Father, I’m very sorry; I won’t do it again. But today, with only a panel of wood and a foot-square grille separating me from the man of my dreams, I’ve no desire to get off lightly. And instead of feeling penitent, I’m busily inventing more sins to confess. The rate they’re popping into my head I reckon I could be in the confessional box all day.

‘Mother Thomas is mean and cruel, and if God were all he claims to be, he wouldn’t let her live. I told her to go to hell, and that I wished her dead. In truth, Father, to be sure, I meant every word.’

‘May the Lord bless and forgive you, my child.’

Exasperated, I raise my voice. ‘I don’t want forgiveness, Father. I want Mother Thomas to suffer for what she’s done to me.’

I hear him sigh. ‘Do you have anything else to confess?’

Before I can reply, a shuffling noise outside distracts me. I look towards the sound. I can see a pair of feet outside the confessional box. One black-booted foot is tapping impatiently. Another sinner waiting to be cleansed. Probably one of the men from the village, one of the many who get drunk every Friday night. I’ve watched them spew up their earnings in the alley behind the pub; heard the shouts – hasn’t everyone? – and the screams from their women. The lucky ones, the wives that is, get off with a black eye. Most of the people I know sin regularly, confess at the same rate, are absolved and go on to do it all over again. Religion – what a waste of time; stupid, to be sure. The more I think about it the less it makes sense. Suddenly I’m seized with a strong urge to get out of the confessional box, and out of church. My knees hurt and I feel very tired. With a deep sigh I say, ‘No, Father, I’ve nothing more to confess.’

‘For absolution, say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. God be with you, my child. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

I rise and step out of the confession box muttering under my breath, ‘I hate Mother Thomas and I hope she goes to hell.’

For the first time in years I’m looking forward to Sunday Mass. Since confession on Wednesday I’ve been counting the days, hours and minutes for my next sighting of the curate. Bridget and I chatter while dressing in our Sunday best. Our church uniform consists of black stockings, dark blue skirt, white blouse and navy blue sweater. As I force my feet into my black brogues I long for a dainty pair of peep-toe sandals in red or white with a heel, like Lizzy Molloy wore to church last week.