How I wish she had told me but it was kindness that prevented her. She wanted me to hold on to whatever comforts I’d managed to find. Instead, she said, ‘And what can Sister Mary Clare do? She’s only another woman. None of them can do anything. I should’ve been brave enough to throw my body off a cliff before they could ever bring me here.’
‘Don’t say that.’ I told her, in a few quiet sentences, about Colleen.
‘She was a smart girl, your sister.’
‘Please. I mean it. Don’t say that.’
‘I’m sorry, Nan. I am. I have five brothers and a sister back in Doolin. Every day I think about my little sister Kitty. For all she knows I did throw myself off a cliff. Whatever Da told her, it wasn’t that he brought me here.’ Bess lay back down on her side. She placed her hands in a ‘V’ and lay them between her pillow and cheek. ‘Kitty wants to be in pictures,’ she said. ‘She’s pretty enough, too. Only twelve years old. I hate not being there with her. I wish I could write to her and say, if you ever get in trouble, don’t tell the priest, don’t tell Da. Don’t tell anyone. Just get yourself away.’
Away to where? I thought, but didn’t say. If there was a place in this world that welcomed pregnant, unmarried girls, I hadn’t heard of it.
‘I hate to think of Father Joseph touching Kitty,’ Bess said fiercely. ‘I’d have to kill him. I would.’
She started to cry again. I hated myself for feeling terrified that Father Joseph’s attentions would turn towards me if he ever lost interest in Bess. A few days earlier I had hid from him, ducking into the kitchens when I saw him walking down the hall with Sister Mary Clare. ‘All girls are the same,’ I heard him say to her. He sounded as if it made him angry.
‘Father, you can’t say that,’ the young nun replied, with her light and cheerful trill, I would have thought it flirtatious, if I hadn’t known that’s how she always spoke. ‘Why, we nuns are nothing like these girls, are we?’
Father Joseph stopped and touched her arm. ‘Surely no,’ he said. ‘You’re the purest angels, tending to the most wretched devils. Snow-white lilies alongside ragwort. A wondrous thing to behold.’
We girls, identical devils. And the nuns, identical angels, each with the same grave awaiting. Here Lies Sister Mary. I had seen Sister Mary Frances strap the palms of girls not much older than Bess’s little sister Kitty. In the months I’d been here, nobody had touched my palms. I hadn’t received a single lash. I kept my head down and did what I was told. Obedience seemed the safest plan. I hadn’t learned yet. In this world it’s the obedient girls who are most in danger.
Bess moved a hand from under her cheek and I held it. If we were all the same, and if Father Joseph could choose Bess, when indeed she did grow too large, he might choose me. I persisted in that way of thinking, even though it amounted, in my mind, to turning her over to him for the sake of myself. One of the worst aspects of this prison life was the way it could make us ruthless mercenaries, fighting in an army of one.
‘I’m sorry,’ I told Bess. ‘I wish I could help.’
‘It’s all right.’ She moved over and I lay down beside her, facing the opposite direction, both of us squeezed onto the narrow cot, close enough so that, through her belly, pressed into my back, I could feel a great bold kick. We drew in our breaths, hearts lifting at least for a moment.
‘Oh, this baby’s a strong one,’ Bess whispered.
‘Could be a boy,’ I said. ‘Could be, when he’s grown, he’ll take care of Father Joseph for you.’
‘No. I’d never let him. It’s my job to protect him. He’ll never know a priest and he’ll never go to war. I swear it.’
‘Have you chosen a name?’ Any name we chose wouldn’t last. We could see them, the couples who arrived to adopt our babies. In those days women seldom delivered their babies in hospital; they delivered them at home. They stayed in confinement during their last months rather than roam about visibly pregnant. So it was easy not only to steal our children but also to pass them off as their own.