“Come back where? Come back here to the Dáil? Oh no, that wouldn’t be possible. Sure who’d look after the baby for one thing?”
My mother glanced out the window and took a deep breath. This would be the first time she had spoken aloud of her Great Plan. “His mother will look after him,” she said. “Or her. Whichever it is.”
“His mother?” asked Mrs. Hennessy, baffled. “But—”
“I won’t be keeping the baby, Mrs. Hennessy,” said my mother. “It’s all arranged. After I give birth, there’s a little hunchbacked Redemptorist nun who’s going to come to the hospital to take the child away. A couple on Dartmouth Square are going to adopt it.”
“Heavens above!” said Mrs. Hennessy. “And when was all this decided, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I decided on the day I found out that I was pregnant. I’m too young, I have no money and there’s no chance that I can provide for the child. I’m not heartless, I promise you that, but the baby will be better off if I give it up to a family who can actually give it a good home.”
“Well,” replied Mrs. Hennessy, considering this. “I suppose these things do happen. But are you sure you’ll be able to live with your decision?”
“No, but I think it’s for the best nevertheless. The child stands a better chance with them than it would with me. They have money, Mrs. Hennessy. And I haven’t a bean.”
“And your husband? Is it what he would have wanted?”
My mother couldn’t bring herself to lie anymore to this good woman and perhaps the shame showed in her face.
“Would I be right in thinking that there was no Mr. Goggin?” Mrs. Hennessy asked finally.
“You would,” said my mother quietly.
“And the wedding ring?”
“I bought it myself. In a shop on Coppinger Row.”
“I thought as much. No man would ever have the sense to choose something so elegant.”
My mother looked up and smiled a little and was surprised to see that Mrs. Hennessy was starting to cry, and she reached into her pocket for a handkerchief to pass across to her.
“Are you all right?” she asked, surprised by this unexpected surge of emotion.
“I’m fine,” said Mrs. Hennessy. “Not a bother on me.”
“But you’re crying.”
“Only a little bit.”
“Is it something I said?”
Mrs. Hennessy looked up and swallowed hard. “Can we think of this room as akin to the confessional?” she asked. “And that what we say between each other stays in here?”
“Of course,” said my mother. “You’ve been very kind to me. I hope you know that I have great affection and respect for you.”
“That’s sweet of you to say. But I always guessed that the story you gave me wasn’t quite true and I wanted to show you the compassion that was never shown to me when I was in your position. Maybe you won’t be surprised if I say that there was never a Mr. Hennessy either.” She extended her left hand and they both looked at her wedding ring. “I bought that for four shillings in a shop on Henry Street in 1913,” she said. “I haven’t taken it off my finger since.”
“Did you have a child too?” asked my mother. “Did you have to bring it up alone?”
“Not quite,” said Mrs. Hennessy hesitantly. “I’m from Westmeath, did you know that, Catherine?”
“I did, yes. You told me once.”
“I haven’t set foot in the place since I left. But I didn’t come to Dublin to have my baby. I had it at home. In the bedroom I’d slept in every night of my life until then, the same room where the poor child was conceived.”
“And what happened to him?” asked my mother. “Was it a him?”
“No, it was a her. A little girl. A beautiful little thing. She didn’t last long. Mammy cut the cord once she was out of me and Daddy took her out the back where a bucket of water was waiting and he held her under for a minute or two, long enough to drown her. Then he threw her in a grave that he’d dug a few days earlier and covered her over and that was the end of that. No one ever knew. Not the neighbors, not the priest, not the Gardaí.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” said my mother, sitting back in horror.
“I never even got a chance to hold her,” said Mrs. Hennessy. “Mammy cleaned me up and I was put onto the road later that same day. They said I was never to return.”
“I was denounced from the pulpit,” said my mother. “The parish priest called me a whore.”
“Those fellas have no more sense than a wooden spoon,” said Mrs. Hennessy. “I’ve never known cruelty like the cruelty of the priests. This country…” She closed her eyes and shook her head, and my mother said that it looked like she wanted to scream.
“That’s a terrible story,” said my mother eventually. “I suppose the baby’s daddy didn’t offer to marry you?”
Mrs. Hennessy gave a bitter laugh. “He wouldn’t have been able anyway,” she said. “He was already married.”
“Did his wife find out?”
Mrs. Hennessy stared at her and when she spoke her voice was low and mixed with shame and loathing. “She knew well enough,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you that she cut the cord?”
My mother said nothing for a moment and when she finally realized what Mrs. Hennessy meant she put a hand to her mouth and felt that she might be sick.
“As I said, these things happen,” said Mrs. Hennessy. “Your decision is made, Catherine? You’re going to give the child up?”
My mother couldn’t find her voice but nodded.
“Then give yourself a couple of weeks afterward to get better and then come back to me. We’ll tell people that the baby died and soon enough they’ll forget all about it.”
“Will that work?” asked my mother.
“It will work for them,” she replied, reaching over and taking my mother’s hand in hers. “But I’m sorry to say, Catherine, it will never work for you.”
Violence
It was growing dark as my mother made her way home that evening. Turning the corner onto Chatham Street, she was annoyed to notice a figure emerging unsteadily from Clarendon’s pub, the same man whose presence outside her door that morning had made her late for work. He was wildly overweight with a wrinkled face gone red with the drink and two or three days’ growth of beard that gave him the appearance of a vagrant.
“There you are now,” he said as she walked toward her front door, the stench of whiskey on his breath so strong that she was forced to pull back from him. “Large as life and twice as ugly.”
She said nothing but took the key from her pocket and in her anxiety she struggled to insert it correctly.
“There’s rooms up above, isn’t there?” asked the man, glancing up toward the window. “A rake of them or just the one?”
“Just the one,” she said. “So if you’re looking for lodgings, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“The accent on you. You sound Cork-born to me. Where are you from? Bantry? Drimoleague? I knew a lass once from Drimoleague. A worthless creature who went with any man who asked her.”
My mother looked away and tried the key again, cursing beneath her breath as it jammed in the lock, causing her to twist the metal violently to release it.