As a schoolgirl, Nora Macken had a beautiful voice. In this extract she finally allows herself to confront the events of one fateful day which altered her life, and those of her four sisters, for decades.
The covers on the front seat of the car Father Whelan borrowed to drive me back to The Psalms [school] are old. Light green, fading to grey except at the edges. The ashtray, clogged with cigarette butts, is fully extended. Directly above is a St Christopher medallion, magnetically attached to the dashboard. There is a hurley on the back seat and a folded travelling rug, Foxford - similar to the one we have in the Ford.
Father Whelan is humming Dun an Oir, the song which got more encore calls than any of the others I sang that afternoon. He was standing at the back of the dining-room, listening in a melancholy sort of way, his eyes fixed on the floor, arms folded squarely. His freckled face and shock of wild, sandy, reddish hair made him conspicuous among the sallow faces and groomed grey heads around him.
He is driving fast, a carelessness about him which I have never seen in a priest before.
"I'll tell you . . ." his face pains with certainty, ". . . there was something in the way you sang that." I shrug my shoulders.
He looks directly at me, smiles fiercely.
"I suppose you wouldn't sing it again."
"Now? Here?"
He does not reply, says nothing at all for about five minutes.
I begin to wonder if my response was in some way wrong. Insolent, too curt maybe. By the time we get to Newmarket I have decided it was. Definitely. And I want to make amends, so when he says "We'll take the Sixmilebridge road," I say yes, straight away.
The yellow light softening everything in sight, trees, hedgerows, roof lines, gives way to a hard white light as the great breadth of the lough comes into view.
"It'll be a while before I see the likes of that again." He tips his head to the left, to the steely white water flicking through the black hedgerows.
I want to reply but I don't know what he means.
"Six weeks from tomorrow, I'm off," he volunteers, looking straight ahead, his face full of intent. "Liam Whelan is going on the missions," each word more charged with disbelief than the one before.
"The missions," I repeat after him, pleased to get a foothold. He seems startled. It strikes me he has forgotten I am in the car.
"What would you know about it?" He looks over at me, seems to be gauging the impact of his words. Laughs.
I feel responsible for whatever is going on, try to think of something to say. I even consider singing Dun an Oir, thinking that my reluctance to do so in the first place has made him angry. We are not far from The Psalms, no more than 15 minutes or so. I wonder if it is too soon to thank him for driving me back, decide it's not and am about to speak when I see his lips curl into a leer.
"What would you or any other woman know about it?"
Vaguely straddling my attempt to work out what he means is an urge to get out of the car.
"Thanks for taking the trouble to bring . . ." I begin, as we drive through Sixmilebridge, losing sight of what I am about to say when, instead of heading for Cratloe, we go straight on. "Thanks for . . ." I begin again, feeling the words pass dryly through my lips.
"No trouble at all. Not a bit of it. Why would it be?"
I haven't the courage to ask why we are no longer going in the direction of The Psalms.
The silence tightens, becomes more and more taut as we tear along the narrow road, suddenly snapping as we cross the high, humped bridge just before Clonlara.
"There's a place up here a bit." He is sitting forward, peering in such an intent way that his eyes, nose and mouth bunch together. "Not too far up this stretch. A view of the river. Take the sight out of your eyes. We'd often cycle out here. Young fellas, out to get the bulrushes." He glances over at me, then in a burst of dry laughter, adds, "Not as long ago as you'd think."
I'm wondering if I should say something about devotions, point out that I'll be late if I'm not back in The Psalms before half seven.
"We can't be far off now. Can we?" In a series of quick upward spiralling head movements, he surveys the road ahead, impatiently reiterating the question, "Can we?" I feel I ought to know the answer.
Minutes later we take a right on to a narrow lane. A line of moss and grass runs down the centre, gradually broadening until there is nothing of the lane except two deep furrows. I search for a source of my unease, look at Father Whelan, see only his priestly attire, then look back through the overhanging hedgerows, sapling ash, hawthorn and elder closing in as the lane recedes into thick vegetation.
He begins to hum Dun an Oir. I feel suddenly cold.
And here I come to a standstill, no longer able to keep events in sequence. Those few moments with the car chugging to a halt have already begun to break up, spliced through with all that is about to happen. I pause before beginning to pluck the cardinal details from the riot of thoughts in which they are embedded, proceeding as carefully as a surgeon picking shrapnel from flesh.
There is a clearing to the right. Father Whelan spreads the travelling rug on the ground in front of the car. I look on, feeling I ought to help but at the same time unable to lift a limb.
"Well, seeing as we have come this far we may as well sit down and enjoy it for a bit."
A now familiar voice shouts "Run." As loud as I have ever heard it any time down through the years. "Run, Nora." And away I race through the undergrowth, quick as a fleeing doe, over the rickety fence and down through the clearing. "Faster, faster." I cheer myself on, savouring the sense of triumph I feel before I look back at what is unfolding, vowing as I do that this is the last time I will allow myself the illusion of escape.
"What's up with you? Sit down." His hand grips my wrist, not tightly, at least not straight away. Not until I topple down beside him and am trying to get up, which I can't.
And I don't feel entitled to go on trying. He starts to stroke my arm, continuing to hold my wrist tightly. His grin, taut and questioning, is bordering on rage. And still, not until my head is firmly clamped between his hands do I sense serious danger, a danger that immediately turns to panic as he pushes his tongue against my teeth. I want to spit, rid myself of the stout sludge with which he is coating my mouth. But I do nothing, nothing at all, either then or at any other point in the course of what follows.
Pinned beneath him, I try to stay at the periphery of the frenzied thoughts coursing through my head, grasping at those which lead furthest away from what is happening. I search for the name of the knotty stitch on his pullover, a fleeting moment of escape to the sewing-room. But very quickly there is only the terror of suffocating, shot through with queasy despair as his hand ferrets through the tight space between us. All at once I'm in the grip of wild, searing pain as he saws his way into me. And I gulp breath, bracing myself against the blunt scalpel of his finger nail, holding out for a fraction of a second only to find the pain has intensified, doubled in that scant respite stolen from it. Then, violently pounded into the earth, I feel the fulcrum of pain shift to my head, tightening until I think my eyes are being pressed out through their sockets.
HALF dazed, I move through the aftermath of what I do not know how to name. I look about, feeling as if I have been abandoned by my former, familiar self, imagining that the person I was is lingering in the woodland nearby, observing me pick myself up.
I drift over. The rank smell of ragwort mingled with the whiff of woodland mushrooms is startlingly pungent. A small animal scurries through the undergrowth. I stare at the wafery bark peel of the silver birch directly in front of me, plagued by the need to go in search of the self I imagined I saw a minute or two before.
I wade into the undergrowth, lifting the dead weight of my foot to crush the tangling briars, suddenly overtaken by an all-compelling need to wash.
The car engine sounds out, a reveille in the wilderness followed by the quick, flapping wing beat of a roused pigeon.
Father Whelan, lurched over the steering wheel, looks straight ahead as I get into the car. He does not speak, not then or at any point on the way back to The Psalms. His movements are brusque and elaborate, every transaction, changing gear, lighting a cigarette, performed with aggressive exactitude. Now and then he steals a glance in my direction, each time routing the hope that we will crash, that he will be killed.
As I step out of the car back at The Psalms I begin to wish I had sung when he asked. Somewhere in my thoughts, roaming about like a bewildered child is an inclination to say sorry. But I cannot reach my voice.
He clears his throat, mutters something, drowning it out with a quick succession of engine revs.
Whatever power or will I might ever have had to say something then had been long since usurped. It was as though the greater part of my life had been spent in preparation for silence, not only through that ordeal, but for ever afterwards. And, all the way back I go now, blundering angrily through the world which guaranteed that silence, back through the small towns, Newmarket, Sixmilebridge, Clonlara, to the cathedral, to The Psalms, to Templeard. Places where everyone had their hands tightly clamped on their ears.
The church is dark and safe. Evening devotions are underway, clouds of incense smoke engulf the altar and waft down over the pews. When the final hymn ends the church empties. Most of the nuns and a few of the seniors remain behind to pray privately. I stay too, kneel down and cover my face with my hands, feeling its contours, unable to believe that it is not in some way mutilated.
In the course of the next hour or so the others gradually leave. Mother Rosario looks briefly in my direction as she sails down the dark nave, bows so slightly that I do not respond, fearing it might not be a bow at all. To my left is a large copperbrown radiator. I press the back of my hand against it, momentarily distracted from the thudding pain in the pit of my stomach by the tangy coldness of its ridges. And I follow the intricate, swirling lines scored into the metal, concentrating as though my life depended on keeping my mind fixed on those lines. Fixed on anything in the world except what had happened.
Last to leave, I go straight to the dormitory, timing my arrival as near as I can to lights out at nine-thirty.
Late that night, obsessed to near madness by a need to immerse myself in water, I steal over to the infirmary bathroom, the most remote in the school. I do not even consider the consequences of being caught. And there in the pitch darkness I run the bath, believing the self-revulsion I feel can somehow be washed away.
I soon come to see that it cannot, that it is destined to endure long after the bruising disappears, its deep roots feeding on the belief that what happened was of my own doing. Something to do with singing solo, with pride, with having a tip about myself. And whatever possibility there was of thinking otherwise in the years to follow was dealt a mortal blow by the arrival of Father Whelan at The Psalms some three weeks later.
It was mid-morning. All the nuns, except Sister Alphonse, the cleaning nun, were teaching. She called me from class, told me I had a visitor, pleased in a simple sort of way to be the bearer of the news. I assumed it was Daddo, dropping in something, apples from Templeard, a brack from Cassie, as he occasionally did on his way to the mart in Limerick. I began to panic at the thought of meeting him, terrified that he would somehow see what I dared not look at myself.
Sister Alphonse leads the way to the parlour, her heaving limp slowing the pace at which we move. She wants to talk about Bishop Mulhall's consecration ceremony, about my singing, already a legend in The Psalms.
But I do not join in. I cannot. Every last ounce of my concentration is focused on shutting out the events of that day.
She opens the parlour door and shifting her weight on to one leg, moves to the side, bidding me walk in. Father Whelan is standing directly in front of me, his voice booming out like that of a music-hall impresario.
"The girl with the golden voice."
No trace of anything except goodwill in his wide, fulsome smile. He holds out a book, encourages me to walk forward and take it.
I look back at Sister Alphonse, she is smiling too, a shy, self-effacing smile. I approach, inexplicably released from the paralysing fear which struck me when I first saw him.
"Songs of our Forefathers," he hands me the book. "And who better to sing them, than yourself."
I willingly enter the charade, each step leading further away from what happened. Further and further until it is fully out of sight.
"Thanks," I say, wide-eyed with interest in the book. Sister Alphonse sidles up and, in admiration, brushes the cloth-textured cover with the tips of her fingers.
"You'll have time for a cup of tea," she announces, turning to leave before he has an opportunity to reply.
The instant the door closes, he strides to the far end of the room, then swings around mechanically, all the bonhomie disappeared from his expression.
"Nora, what you and me did was wrong. And no question about it." He begins to move forward.
My head bows.
"You know that, don't you?" He adds in a kindly voice.
I nod.
He begins to say something about God's love, which almost immediately trickles into incoherence. Stands there, poised, an actor who has forgotten his lines, "Anyway, I want to tell you I've confessed and got forgiveness." He turns, goes back to the other end of the room.
In the pause that follows I grasp the first line of thought which offers escape; the car on the way back to The Psalms. Crossing the bridge at Clonlara. I lean over, grab the steering wheel, twist it until we are heading for certain death, straight into the river.
"The way it is now, what I've come for is to give you the chance."
I am unable to lift my head, let alone speak.
"To confess. The chance to confess, in case you wouldn't want to . . . I mean, confess it to someone else."
I will Sister Alphonse to return, keep imagining I hear her shuffling towards the door. "Unless, of course you have already . . ." His voice is light with delicacy, inflected until it seems to evaporate.
I shake my head. Violently.
"In that case, if you . . ." He takes a confessional stole from his pocket, drapes it around his neck. "No need for . . . just to say that you repent."
The car, tumbling towards the water, hits the glazed surface with a ferocious splash. He is slumped over the steering wheel, blood dripping from his downturned face. We glide through the muddy water, come to rest gently among the wafting reed roots. I watch the water-level rise in the car, wishing it would happen faster, wishing it would all end.
"Sorry will do." He hesitates. "Do fine."
I nod, and when he does not speak, I nod again, several times.
He begins to recite the familiar Latin chant of forgiveness, "Te absolvo . . ." reaching Amen in a hurried, slapdash sort of way.
I do not feel forgiven. I feel accused.
His face pains in a way that has remained all too memorable.
"I'm sorry. Sorry for the way it went." He pauses. "I'll have you know a vocation isn't all plain sailing, Nora. Not a bit of it."
I hear the clatter of crockery, anticipate Sister's Alphonse's arrival with deep, physical relief.
"Now and then a fellow gets doubts. Goes through a spell of doubt. But God is good."
He searches my face for agreement. I want to agree, but I'm unable to speak. I fix on the word doubt in an effort to work out what he has just said, sensing that it was offered as an explanation which I was obliged to accept.
Just then Sister Alphonse backs into the room, turns and puts the tray down on the sideboard.
I watch him drink tea and eat biscuits, bewildered by how at ease he is, how friendly.
Sister Alphonse holds a plate of pink wafer biscuits in front of me. She seems to be standing there for an eternity, a moment which will not move forward. And here things begin to fragment, resisting all attempts I make to piece them together. I do not recall hearing Mother Rosario approach or seeing her enter. She is just in the room, cool and detached. Father Whelan is talking about going to the missions, about the great task ahead of him. Sister Alphonse is standing demurely by the door, overly intent on showing she knows her place.
I scrutinise the scene, searching for evidence to explain why I think Mother Rosario has the measure of Father Whelan, why I feel so certain that, at the very least, she suspects some sort of impropriety in his visiting me mid-morning. But I cannot find anything, except perhaps her austere silence as he talks animatedly, almost euphorically about what he is going to do in Africa.
"Nora. It's time you returned to class." These are the first words I remember her speaking, words I dally with awhile, still puzzled by the part she played, catching a glimpse - and not for the first time - of the wiliness of memory, its independence, the liberties it takes, the devious way it hangs on to truths too disturbing to confront head on. A performance I might easily applaud, except that memory is an incompetent judge, too ready to obey the often thwarted dictates of the world at large, destroying the very life it purports to protect.
Somewhere buried in the debris of it all is the birth of a child. I try to move closer, to say the words I gave birth, take full possession of the facts, but I cannot. I never saw the baby. I know nothing about it, not even its gender. It has appeared in countless different guises down through the years, a grasping, tiny-handed girl battling her way into my consciousness in the early hours, an infant trailing unseen behind me on the High Street, a dark-eyed young girl staring accusingly at me from the pages of a magazine. It can be a boy scaling the walls I have built to exclude him, a child who has never grown, curious about me in a ghostly sort of way. But mostly it takes no form at all. It's just an absence, not an absent child, more a chasm stretching between me and other people, a great gulf created by the habit of secrecy and silence.
IT seems peculiar now that the birth itself, the delivery of that faceless child, should be so small a part of my story, an event reduced almost to insignificance by what went before and came after. I cannot remember being afraid, which in itself leads me to question my recollection of it. Nor can I remember any monitoring of the labour which, however short, must have preceded it. But then maybe giving birth is, as is sometimes claimed, self-obliviating, leaving only the vaguest traces of what is involved. I fix on that notion awhile, sure that I had begun to drift into such a state of mind when the two nuns, who subsequently delivered the baby, arrived. I catch a glimpse of one of them, a moment that has spun out beyond the orbit of oblivion, a nun I have never seen before, small, dressed in white, wheeling two tall cylinders into the infirmary, each with a mouth mask dangling from the brass dispensing tap at the top. The cylinders are a dull, copper colour, just like the radiators in the church and, for some unfathomable reason, I am pleased with the similarity. In what seems to be part of the same thread of memory, she enters the room again, this time holding a black scarf. She looks about, locates the only chair in the room and pulls it over to the statue of the Virgin. From what feels like a great distance away I watch her get up on the chair to blindfold the Virgin.
I recall few actual facts beyond that. There is just a burning, yellow confluence of light towards which I strain, craning forward for the mask one of them is holding inches from my face. The quasi-hallucinatory world I enter is both familiar and unfamiliar. At its very centre, like a seam of gold running through rock, is the kindness of those two nuns. Illusory or otherwise, the way they abandoned their piety stays with me. Powerful figures, strangely physical, forcibly absorbing the birth until I cannot distinguish the strains of my own voice from theirs. Then they are gone. Suddenly. Gone without trace, disappeared into the nether world as mysteriously as they had emerged from it.
In a new light, a tinselly June morning, sunshine spangling the edges of the infirmary curtains, I wake to the sound of Mother Rosario approaching with a tray. Tea, floury brown bread. A silence about the place that seems like a prelude to an important announcement.
But not a word. She leaves quietly, straightening the bedspread beside me on her way out. Thoughts of death and dying, of tumbling towards the water, fill all the vacant moments. And, in between, a sense of having being plundered, disgorged. The birth, only hours past, already receding into the dimly lit world of partly remembered nightmares.
I tiptoe away from the scene, follow the others into that arid world of silence, Mother Rosario, Daddo, Aunt Cassie, Ammie, the archdeacon, every bit as certain as they were that it is the only way forward.
It was years before I began to see that it was not a way forward at all. Nothing seeps into the past from that arid world of silence. It is a sealed tomb where everything remains intact. But now, with that seal broken, the events of those dark days crumble like artefacts in such a tomb, taking their proper place in the distant past. And so in the course of a single summer, I have become a spectator, a tourist - 40 years on - at the site of a great battle. A quiet landscape now, but one which, in the blink of an eye can become a vast, muck-sodden tract strewn with wasted lives.
Biography
James Ryan is a native of Rathdowney, Co Laois. He graduated from TCD with a BA in 1975 and an M Ed in 1984. His first novel, Home from England, was published by Phoenix House in 1995. Dismantling Mr Doyle followed in 1997 and his third novel, Seeds of Doubt (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £12.99 in UK), from which this extract is taken, is published this month. His work has appeared in a number of anthologies both in Ireland and abroad. He and his family are based in Dublin where he teaches History in Newpark Comprehensive.