“The Three Marys,” that’s what the other women called them.
Maura had calculated that between them Mary Donovan, Mary Byrne, and Margaret Mary Hennessy had spent more than a hundred years in the Holy Saints Convent and Laundry. They came from three provinces, Munster, Connacht, and Leinster, and yet despite different circumstances and various backgrounds had all ended up together in the dismal drudgery of this Dublin laundry. Over many years the constant companions seemed to have lost the rhythms of speech and developed an unusual slurred dialect of their own. Esther found them strange and eccentric, hardly understanding a word they said, yet in some
way they reminded her of her sister Nonie and what might have happened to her if she had grown to full adulthood. Mary Byrne was the fittest and brightest of them, and seemed to be the leader. The other two were big strong lumps of women, generally biddable, always doing what the nuns told them, eyes downcast as they constantly washed the convent corridors and laundry floor with their mops and buckets.
Mary Hennessy was the only one of them ever to have a visitor, her brother Peadar coming twice a year from his farm in the midlands to see her. In summer he’d bring her a colourful blouse in an accommodating outsize, and in winter a warm, chunky cardigan. He had come to make his usual pre-Christmas visit, a huge red-faced farmer, not unlike his sister, who was one of the few men that Sister Gabriel made in any way welcome in the convent. “The brother’s good to me,” Mary would mumble.
As it was Christmas, he produced the usual cardigan and three big bags of sweets and a huge home-made sponge sandwich for his sister, remembering her sweet tooth. Mary Hennessy, clutching the spoils to her huge chest, reappeared in the recreation room following his visit. The other two Marys were on top of her in a flash. Luckily Sheila managed to grab a hold of the cake and put it up on the sideboard before it went the way of the sweets, which were being flung around the room.
“Give it here!”
“They’re mine!” squealed Mary Byrne.
“No! Peadar give them me!” insisted Mary Hennessy.
“He wants us to share them sweeties!” declared Mary Donovan, grabbing for the bags. Esther, sitting knitting in
the corner, watched as the three women clawed and pulled and fought like aged wildcats, trying to get hold of the lemon drops and bull’s-eyes and sherbet dips and humbugs, each of them screaming and shouting, “They’s mine!” Somehow or other the two Marys had convinced themselves over the years that Peadar was their brother too.
“Will ya shut up, the three of ya! Stop it!” ordered Maura, trying to come between them. “I’ll take those sweets off you if you don’t stop the fighting!”
They paid no heed, Mary Byrne landing Maura a shove in the chest and a kick in the shins for her trouble.
Sister Gabriel, hearing all the commotion, suddenly sailed into the room, looking furious. “What is the meaning of this? Mary Hennessy, are you to blame for this disturbance?”
“She won’t give us our sweeties, Sister!” caterwauled Mary Donovan.
“You three stop this fighting immediately! Behaving in this fashion, fighting on the Lord’s day, I’ll not tolerate it!” The tall nun pushed her way in amongst the women. They would not budge an inch. “Give me those bags of sweets at once!” she ordered disdainfully.
Mary Hennessy hesitated, unsure and unwilling to loosen her grip.
“This minute!”
The other two looked at each other warily as Mary Hennessy wavered, trying to raise her fat arms over their heads to pass the nun the sweets. Mary Donovan gave Sister Gabriel a push. The nun swung around, one hand stretching to receive the now tattered and torn brown-paper bags of sweets, the other taking hold of Mary
Donovan. The linoleum was covered with lemon drops.
“Outside immediately, Mary Donovan!” she ordered, the lumbering Cork woman obeying her, terrified. The other two women scrabbled on the ground for the sweets. “How dare you attack and raise your hand to me!”
Mary Donovan had begun to cry, tears running down her moon-face, Sister Gabriel leading her to her office to discipline her. Mary Hennessy collapsed in a heap, bawling her eyes out like a small child would for her missing sweets and friend. Esther watched as the two forgotten women wrapped their arms around each other, trying to ease the unfairness of it all.
“Don’t mind that crowd of imbeciles!” warned Maura, lowering herself on to an old orange-coloured raffia stool. “Will you look at the bruise that one’s after landing me with!”
Esther couldn’t help laughing.
“Gabriel always has to take the sweets off her; she’ll dole them out to them over a few weeks, and Ina will share out slices of the cake. Honest to God, they’re like children.”
“Aye. That’s the sad part of it.”
“What are you knitting for the baby?”
“It’s a blanket, well, meant to be anyways.” The strange-looking square lay spread out on her lap. “I was going to try a cardigan; maybe I’ll do one next, but I thought a big cosy blanket would keep my baby warm. This place is full of draughts.”
“Are you putting a picture on it?”
“No, that’s just the pattern. These are the stitches my mother uses. This zigzag one is like the waves on the sea.
These symbolize the blackberries that grow on the briars all around the fields where we live. These are the stone walls—”
“It’s lovely, Esther, your mother must be a great knitter, and has passed it down to you.”
“‘Twas something she always did. Knitting for the boys, knitting for my father, knitting for myself and my sister Nonie. The winter’s evenings she’d have to sit right up close to the lamp. Her eyes would be strained with it.”
“You must miss her a lot. Have you any word of her?”
Esther shook her head. She was fed up of it! She still wrote a letter once a week to her mother, paying Ina to post it for her, and hadn’t had even so much as one reply. “She’s a proud woman. She’s fierce angry with me!”
“She’ll come around. Things will be all right once you’ve had the baby. For heaven’s sake, you’re her daughter.”
“It’s not just about the baby, Maura, though that’s bad enough! She blames me for my little sister Nonie dying. She’ll never forgive me for that, not ever.”
“Your sister died? I’m sorry, Esther. The death of a child changes everything.” Maura took hold of her hand.
Slowly the story of Nonie and Conor and home all seeped out. It was strange, but she felt she could trust Maura, that she would keep her confidences and not go whispering and gossiping about the place. “It wasn’t your fault, Esther, what happened to your sister. You did her no harm. ’Twas God decided to take her, and your mammy will realize that in time.”
The bell for bedtime rang, and folding up her knitting, Esther prepared to go upstairs, many of the others going
ahead of her as she completed two rows of cable and zigzag.
At night the convent’s corridors were silent and ghostly. The lifesize plaster and marble statues of the grim-faced saints stared down at the penitents as they made their way to bed. Whipped and shot with arrows and tortured for their Christian beliefs, they were a reminder of what the church expected from its followers. Above a flickering red night lamp, burning in constant adoration, a painting of Jesus watching over them, his bleeding heart exposed.
Esther was just turning on the landing when she spotted Mary Donovan, standing arms outstretched in front of a large statue of Our Lady, a small crowd around her.
“Janey Mac, will you look at your woman!” said Bernice. “She thinks she’s Saint Bernadette or something.”
“Mary, what are you doing?” asked Maura, concerned.
“I’m saying my prayers like Sister Gabriel told me,” she mumbled. “She said I was to do my penance here all night.”
Esther could see the poor simple woman was weak after hours of punishment. She was almost in a trance. At about two o’clock in the morning four of them went out to check on her. She was still standing praying, becoming more disorientated and confused the longer she was left there.
“Mary, I think you should say a last prayer and then go to bed,” suggested Maura.
“But the nun’ll kill me.”
“She won’t know! The old bitch is asleep in bed. You
can hear her snoring from outside her door!” promised Rita, yawning.
Reluctantly Mary was persuaded to return to the dormitory, where she fell into a deep, innocent sleep. Esther lay half awake for hours, wondering what kind of warped mind would force a simple-minded woman to pray all night.