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Authors: Jonathan Gash
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knew, while still in the Magdalenes nobody else ever mentioned it. It was as if it was some secret they had all agreed never to reveal in case the wrong people got hold of it and it might do damage to the entire system of life on earth and the Church in particular.
Magda never could get the hang of thoughts, because they sometimes proved wayward. It was only when she recognised Father Doran and knew instantly what she must do, that she felt a kind of release, like seeing a pathway she knew would, whatever the hardships and obstacles that might lie along the route, eventually resolve her state of mind. This was a self-indulgence, of course, something that no doubt would prove costly when she’d have to explain it in confession. Or, worse,when finally she was summoned to stand before the Throne of God for the terrible Last Judgement when all would be revealed and she would be made to explain – dear God !– every evil thing she had done and all her wrongs would be exposed before the Company of Saints and Mother Mary would stare accusingly down. It was selfish to want peace of mind. Was she not fit to carry the Cross of Christ by staying mute and attentive, in a state of obedient duty, as Sister St Paul had so often made her swear on the Holy Book? Not really, not after Lucy’s death. Killing Father Doran, however, would straighten it all out, she hoped.
She went to work at the Cosmo Care Home, run by a compassionate Order of nuns, and there she developed and worked hard and for wages she actually kept herself. It was to be her life, she told herself. It might get her off part of the penances she was doubtless accumulating, to be paid back for the Final Judgement. She would need a deal of holy indulgences to expiate those sins, for she started a kind of regularity of sin that proved so hard to stop.
Poor Lucy, of course, kept falling in Magda’s nightmares, but eventually there might be a way of helping the poor mite, and give her peace. It was a worthy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they might be loosed from their sins, Magda knew, because that’s what the prayer said. That being so, wasn’t it also a worthy and wholesome thought to think of doing something about Lucy to stop her from falling night after night in order to not only loose her from her sins, poor thing, but also give her eternal rest?
And let Magda sleep. But that was selfish.
Chapter Six
Magda set her mind on confession. The big question, in her mind ever since she recognised Father Doran at Mass, was what to confess.
‘See,’ she told Grace who worked in the sluice at the St Cosmo and was forever saying her Rosary, ‘it’s what you say to them, isn’t it?’
‘You’ve to tell them everything.’
‘Every single thing?’
In Magda’s mind, besides Lucy, there was the problem of the lad whose rough busy fingers made her bleed that time and set her worrying she was going to get pregnant so she’d be shunted back into the Magdalenes and the baby, her baby as never was, would never even set eyes on her, its very own mother. Glory be, what a way to live, all because of some lad gasping like a landed trout, though Magda had never seen a landed trout. She imagined having all kinds of telltale evidence about her from Damien trying it on, like maybe evidence on her one tubby-shape cut-down skirt that a simple girl called Margaret had given her – that is, given, truly a real gift, becauseMargaret was going to live in a house where a proper family of real people lived, and they would buy – that is, buy, pay for in a shop – clothes for her. And Magda felt like a queen when she wore it, though it was too long but that was all right because long meant concealment, there being lads who looked and whistled and did things with their fingers in the air and grinned when they went past.
Grace was definitely holy, and could tell you things about the lives of the saints that would curl your hair. Like St Jerome, who was always
Magda never could get the hang of thoughts, because they sometimes proved wayward. It was only when she recognised Father Doran and knew instantly what she must do, that she felt a kind of release, like seeing a pathway she knew would, whatever the hardships and obstacles that might lie along the route, eventually resolve her state of mind. This was a self-indulgence, of course, something that no doubt would prove costly when she’d have to explain it in confession. Or, worse,when finally she was summoned to stand before the Throne of God for the terrible Last Judgement when all would be revealed and she would be made to explain – dear God !– every evil thing she had done and all her wrongs would be exposed before the Company of Saints and Mother Mary would stare accusingly down. It was selfish to want peace of mind. Was she not fit to carry the Cross of Christ by staying mute and attentive, in a state of obedient duty, as Sister St Paul had so often made her swear on the Holy Book? Not really, not after Lucy’s death. Killing Father Doran, however, would straighten it all out, she hoped.
She went to work at the Cosmo Care Home, run by a compassionate Order of nuns, and there she developed and worked hard and for wages she actually kept herself. It was to be her life, she told herself. It might get her off part of the penances she was doubtless accumulating, to be paid back for the Final Judgement. She would need a deal of holy indulgences to expiate those sins, for she started a kind of regularity of sin that proved so hard to stop.
Poor Lucy, of course, kept falling in Magda’s nightmares, but eventually there might be a way of helping the poor mite, and give her peace. It was a worthy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they might be loosed from their sins, Magda knew, because that’s what the prayer said. That being so, wasn’t it also a worthy and wholesome thought to think of doing something about Lucy to stop her from falling night after night in order to not only loose her from her sins, poor thing, but also give her eternal rest?
And let Magda sleep. But that was selfish.
Chapter Six
Magda set her mind on confession. The big question, in her mind ever since she recognised Father Doran at Mass, was what to confess.
‘See,’ she told Grace who worked in the sluice at the St Cosmo and was forever saying her Rosary, ‘it’s what you say to them, isn’t it?’
‘You’ve to tell them everything.’
‘Every single thing?’
In Magda’s mind, besides Lucy, there was the problem of the lad whose rough busy fingers made her bleed that time and set her worrying she was going to get pregnant so she’d be shunted back into the Magdalenes and the baby, her baby as never was, would never even set eyes on her, its very own mother. Glory be, what a way to live, all because of some lad gasping like a landed trout, though Magda had never seen a landed trout. She imagined having all kinds of telltale evidence about her from Damien trying it on, like maybe evidence on her one tubby-shape cut-down skirt that a simple girl called Margaret had given her – that is, given, truly a real gift, becauseMargaret was going to live in a house where a proper family of real people lived, and they would buy – that is, buy, pay for in a shop – clothes for her. And Magda felt like a queen when she wore it, though it was too long but that was all right because long meant concealment, there being lads who looked and whistled and did things with their fingers in the air and grinned when they went past.
Grace was definitely holy, and could tell you things about the lives of the saints that would curl your hair. Like St Jerome, who was always
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