The Veil Thins
Fiona Ennis
That dull May evening, Sister Annunciata slipped off her thick fawn tights and black shoes and hid them behind one of the large rocks jutting out of the sand at the far end of the beach. Not that anyone would bother to steal them. The shoes were black lace-ups, leather with a thick rubber sole, and as comfortable as they looked. And really, if anyone was hard up enough to rob those tights; well, they had to be in a desperate state. Every time she handwashed them, they seemed to get even more dull in colour. Still though, they weren’t cheap, and her allowance didn’t stretch far. Back when she was a teenager, around ten years before, she’d gone to a market with Mam and had been repulsed by the sight of used, beige tights for sale, each one tucked into another, spilling out of a basket. Mam had told her they were used to stuff cushions and had joked that she’d used some to plump up Annunciata’s pillows.
She peeled off her veil and draped it on the rock, then removed her habit. She’d worn her togs underneath, and as she’d left the hospital that day, nodding goodbye to Sister Bernadette, she’d felt almost gleeful that no one knew where she was off to on her bike. Not that she wasn’t allowed to swim, but it was nice to have something just for herself. She folded the veil and habit carefully before placing them in a bag and putting them behind the rock. . She didn’t know why she was worried about someone running off with her shoes and tights. It would be far worse if someone made off with her habit. Years previously, not long before she’d joined the convent, she’d returned from a late evening swim to find her skirt and panties stolen. Her scratchy towel wrapped around her waist, she’d searched everywhere, even the caves, in case someone had hidden them there for a laugh. And the only person she’d seen on the beach had been a thin man. She’d had to cycle home without them, the edges of the towel barely held together by the elastic band she’d used to tie up her hair.
Her toes curled involuntarily on the damp sand. A chough flew overhead, sleek and glistening black, and alighted on the cliff behind her, something dangling from its orange beak. Perched near the edge of the cliff were the remains of a high stone wall. This was the quiet end of the beach, the Tower end, even though there wasn’t a tower there anymore. Some of the stones from the wall, the remains from the last landslide, were on the sand. This part of the beach was thought to be precarious and was usually avoided. There were even orange signs up. But she had experienced death before, at least this side of it, and knew she didn’t have anything to worry about.
Here, she could go for a swim and just feel still, away from the maternity hospital where she had just finished her shift as a midwife. And the convent was always so busy, with bodies bustling around. It wasn’t noisy at all, but there was a hum and a feeling of pent-up energy, not of serenity. She should be used to it by now, too many people, for so much of her day. She knew that. Sometimes at the convent, she retreated from the other sisters during communal time, saying she needed to say some extra prayers. And she wasn’t lying, she always did pray, but mostly she just lay on her bed, or sat staring out the window at the magnolias or azaleas or whatever was in flower. Other times though, some of the sisters offered to pray along with her, and that was precisely what she didn’t want, all that crowding around, the droning. Lately, she was finding it really hard to pray and to mean it. It felt like she was just rattling them off, and that wasn’t what she wanted, not at all.
Gingerly, she picked her way over the pebbles. The strand was strewn with them. Near the water, something silver, like a piece of jewelry, glinted on the sand. When she bent to pick it up, she stopped. It was a tiny gleaming fish head, no body. She felt like that, sometimes. Just a head. It was only in the water that she felt she was actually in her body. Most of the time, it was as if she was just a thinking thing, especially recently.
She stepped into the water. Shuddering with the chill, she waded out until she was chest deep and pushed out with a breaststroke. Swimming always helped her shed the day. She wondered was that right. That day had been particularly trying. One mother, Deirdre, had given birth to her eighth child in ten years. When the boy was born, she’d turned on her side and refused to look at him, muttered something about probably being back in for another within the year. And no doubt she would, considering the Church’s condemnation of contraception, and the fact her husband couldn’t just leave her be. Then there was what happened to Sarah Kelly. The sound of her broken wailing. Annunciata knew she’d have to help her later. No point in thinking about that now.
She gave her head a little shake, stared at the light speckling on the waves. The cold on her upper back had subsided. Now, softened by the warmth, she felt almost at one with the sea. Sometimes she wondered if it had to do with being in the womb, surrounded by fluid. Back in Leaving Cert English, her teacher Mrs. Carew had pointed out something in a poem by Yeats, about people always wanting to get back to the womb state. Annunciata often thought of it at night in her bed in the convent, when she lay furled foetus-like, cocooned under the sheets.
In all her midwifery training, there had been nothing about any of that, about the importance of that state, about wanting the comfort of the womb again. Considering the nature of the training, with its focus on palpations, examinations and manoeuvres, that was no surprise really. Anyway, what was the point of admitting any of that, if you couldn’t get back there? But maybe you could. She swam out a bit deeper, kicking her legs frog-like, staring at the sea-arch at the end of the beach. She always loved when the tide was a bit out, like it was today, and she could see the arch more clearly ‒ into the darkness it held.
Late the following night, she slipped out of the convent and cycled down the tree-flocked avenue onto the street. Even though the streetlamps were on, she had no choice but to put on her bike lamp, especially after what had happened before. She hoped no one would notice her, although it would have been hard to miss her, the veil perched on her head, the back of it flapping as she pedalled. At least there were no pubs on the way, so there was less danger of having to talk to someone who had drink taken and who was wondering what she was doing out at that hour. That was how rumours started. And if she met a garda who asked where she was going, she had her answer ready, that she was going to assist in a home birth. It was a little lie, but under the circumstances, she felt it could be justified. And if the garda asked who was having the baby, she’d just say that she’d better be on her way now, that it was an urgent case.
She needn’t have worried though. Down the streets, she passed no one at all, and by the time she reached the narrow country road that she’d have to cycle on for four miles, she almost wished she’d seen someone. She’d never cycled this late at night, enveloped by blackness apart from what her little lamp lit up. In the distance, she heard a rumble and soon saw headlights. A truck, almost as wide as the road, was thundering along. She jumped off her bike and pulled it as far as she could into the brambles, ignoring the thorns digging into her through her cardigan and tights, concentrating instead on nudging the light to make sure the bike was visible, that she was visible. Her heart was flapping as the truck approached, but it trundled past with feet to spare, and if he thought it odd to see a nun cowering in the ditch, clutching her bike, he didn’t let on, didn’t toot the horn or anything. Clambering down from the ditch, briars still tugging at her, her breath kept catching, but it was okay, she told herself; everything was okay. She was doing well, all things considered.
Shakily, she reached under the cloth that was covering the contents in the front basket of her bike. The holy water was there, along with the crucifix. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, but she had to try. She could still hear the howls from Sarah earlier in the day, the low blood-churning howls, as if the entrails of the earth itself were being eviscerated. She got back onto the bike and started pedalling, still a little wobbly, straining her ears to hear if anything else big was coming. She’d thought she was over this; she cycled her bike every day, for goodness’ sake, and even if the worst happened, there was nothing to be afraid of, quite the opposite. She knew this, but trying to reason her way out of what she was feeling wasn’t working. Maybe her body was trembling because that was where the memory really resided.
The evening it had happened, it had not been as dark, but it had been dusk, just at that point where silhouettes loom large and shapes meld into the landscape. Weeks afterwards, she had tried to comfort the farmer whose tractor had clipped her bike and thrown her onto the road. A stout man with hands as big as shovels, he’d started to cry when he saw the state of her recovering in the hospital bed. He’d said he knew he shouldn’t really have barged in during visiting hours, but he’d had to see for himself that she’d be okay, that he couldn’t quite believe it. And really, she was, or at least she was going to be. Probably better than him really. Even after she’d told him she was recovering well, he’d still looked haunted. She was haunted too. What she’d seen in the aftermath of the accident, she couldn’t unsee, and it was infiltrating everything. She was strangely soothed by it, and she didn’t want to unsee.
She remembered being pulled along, but not along the road or the floor of the operating room. She was being tugged somewhere unearthly, towards a radiant light source, the same colour as those long fluorescent white lights that buzzed in the kitchen in the convent. But this light was from no bulb; it radiated all around, then held her close in its energy, and she felt as if she was actually curled up on the outside of love.
She felt herself slipping away from it, and no matter how she grasped and clutched, she couldn’t hold fast. The light was melting away. And she knew this was not the first time this had happened. This had all happened before, before her birth. And she hadn’t wanted to leave that space, that light, that time either.
But here she was again, wrenched away, and this time, she wasn’t deposited into Mam’s arms. After a long stint in hospital, she hadn’t been allowed to convalesce at home with her family. She’d had to go back to the convent. No other choice was entertained.
It was still dark by the time she reached Tom Hogan’s farm. The directions had been spot on, the third house after the primary school, the one with the white painted wall. The outside light of the farmhouse was on, probably for her benefit. There hadn’t been any lights on in houses for miles. Twice, the lamp on her bike had flickered off, and she’d faltered, alone apart from the darkness pressing on her. But she’d rubbed the battery between her hands for a bit and managed to keep the lamp going as far as the farm. Maybe Tom could loan her a lamp for the trip back or even offer her a lift. She didn’t know what was worse though: being caught on her bike in the country at this hour or being seen in a car with a man. Sarah was not going to be in any state to drive her home afterwards‒that was certain. The Kellys were neighbors of Tom’s, so Sarah’d probably walked there, even though really she shouldn’t be doing too much, even walking.
Annunciata put the crucifix and holy water in a little net bag and knocked on the door. Tom gestured her in, and she was glad of the warmth of the house and the yellow light. By the door in the hall, shoes were lined up, some on top of each other. He brought her into the kitchen. On the dresser, on a shelf above the blue willow plates, photos of Tom’s twins were perched. Those boys were in their late twenties now, still living at home, not that much older than her.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Sister?’ Tom shifted from foot to foot on the brown lino. ‘Or would you rather get on with it? It won’t be long until it’s light.’
‘I think we’ll just press on, Tom. Sarah’s here?’
‘She’s in the bathroom.’
She could hear someone in the hall, and she looked out the kitchen door, thinking she’d see Sarah, but it was Tom’s wife, Rose, creeping across the grey flagstones. She glanced at Annunciata, fearful, then went into a bedroom and closed the door.
‘Rose doesn’t think what we’re doing is right, Sister. Doesn’t think you should be meddling with this kind of stuff. Especially not on our land.’
Annunciata looked at the statue of the Virgin Mary on the windowsill in front of the closed blind.
‘You know I don’t have the authority to do this, Tom.’
‘Does anyone though?’ he said. ‘I mean, really?’ His face searched hers, and she tried to keep her expression neutral, even though that was exactly the question she’d been grappling with.
‘Don’t mind me, Sister,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’ His brown eyes were still on hers. ‘If I did.’
‘You didn’t. Sarah pleaded with me to do this, and I’m hardly going to refuse her, not after what she’s been through.’
‘Usually people just go down there themselves,’ he said. ‘They don’t come to the house first. But seeing as it’s yourself, I couldn’t exactly ask you to go meeting Sarah down in that field.’ He looked at her black laceup shoes. ‘I don’t suppose you brought wellies with you?’
‘No. Didn’t think of them. I don’t have any, not anymore.’
‘We might have something to fit you.’ He glanced down the hallway, then said in a quieter voice. ‘Rose’s are just out here, by the back door.’
She unknotted her shoes and slipped them off. There was a ladder in her tights, from her big toe to her ankle, and she caught Tom looking at it. Then he turned away. The wellies were about two sizes too big, but it was better than destroying her shoes. She was on duty again in the morning.
She heard a toilet flush, and the clanging of some pipes.
‘Her husband didn’t come then?’ Annunciata asked.
‘That fella?’ Tom almost snorted. ‘No, and he didn’t the last time we went up there either.’
There were footsteps, then Sarah came in, trying not to wince as she walked. Her blue-black hair was scraped back into a ponytail. Her eyes were so swollen from crying, they looked sore.
‘How are you, Sarah?’ asked Annunciata. ‘After this, I want you to go straight to bed for yourself.’
‘Won’t sleep anyway.’ She put her hand on her stomach, then took it away. ‘I’m sorry for putting you in this position, Sister.’ She turned to Tom. ‘For putting you both in this position.’
‘Shouldn’t be like this anyway,’ Tom said. ‘Doesn’t matter what anyone says.’
‘I hope it doesn’t cause trouble between yourself and Rose,’ Sarah said quietly.
‘Don’t you worry about Rose. She’s got her ideas and I have mine, but we’ll get up in the morning, and there’ll be nothing said about it.’
Sarah’s face knitted in pain. She rested the back of her fist against the wall.
‘You sure you’re able to go down, Sarah?’ Tom asked.
‘I have to,’ she said.
‘Where is she?’ asked Annunciata.
‘I have her just outside the door in a little box,’ Tom said. ‘I sometimes make them from short bits of planks left over from making sheds and the odd bench.’
‘Really?’ asked Annunciata.
‘Ah, what else would I be doing with those pieces. Come on now. We’d better get going.’
Tom picked up a hefty torch and handed another one to Annunciata.
‘That’s the right job,’ she said, feeling its weight. She followed him and Sarah out the back door. Tom picked up the wooden box. It was only about a foot long. Sarah put her hand on it for a few moments, and Annunciata watched her mouth working, but Sarah made no sound. Tom carried the box and together they passed through the cobbled farmyard with its two concrete water troughs. As a child, Annunciata had hung over troughs like that, trying to catch water beetles using jam jars at the end of a piece of string. Once, she’d pulled a milking stool right up to a trough and leaned over, almost falling in, trying to catch a boatman skimming across the top. Her cardigan had been saturated, but she hadn’t let on to anyone what had happened, not even Mam.
At the end of the yard was a crusty metal gate. Tom slid the latch across and nudged it open, and Sarah went through. Annunciata pushed it open further with her sleeve, careful not to touch the rusty metal, in case any of Tom’s cattle had ringworm and had rubbed against it. They went through one field, then another, the grass brushing and winding against their legs, following each other’s steps in case they stood in cowpats. Finally, they approached a hawthorn tree sitting on its own in the far corner of the field.
‘There’s the cillín,’ Tom said, flashing the white beam of his torch. ‘Underneath the hawthorn.’
The hawthorn looked old and gnarled but was in bloom, and even in the torchlight, Annunciata could see it was covered in delicate white flowers. A spade was propped against the base of the tree. A few feet from it were three stubby rose bushes.
‘I’ve never seen a cillín before,’ Annunciata said.
‘Sure, why would you have?’ he said.
Sarah gave him a look, then he said, ‘Sorry, Sister. I didn’t mean anything by that. Not many people see them, and fewer than that let on if they have.’
Tom shone his torch to the left of the tree, and Annunciata could see a little mound of earth on the ground.
‘I dug it earlier, Sarah,’ Tom said. ‘I knew you’d want them to be buried together. I was careful not to disturb anything, don’t worry.’
Sarah nodded, then walked ahead to the mound and stood there. A stream trickled nearby.
‘Has it been here long? The cillín?’ Annunciata asked Tom quietly.
‘Generations and generations,’ he said. ‘My family have had the land since before the famine, and it goes back further than that.’
Sarah had left the mound and was resting her hand on the rough bark of the tree. From within her came a deep, guttural sound of anguish.
Annunciata was about to go to her, but Tom put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Leave her.’
After a couple of minutes, Sarah left the tree and then went further from them, close to the stream.
‘Cillíns are usually found near a stream,’ Tom said to Annunciata. ‘And often on the border between two townlands, probably something to do with the border between the two worlds.’ He coughed. ‘Well, at least that’s what my mother used to say anyway.’
Annunciata pointed her torch at the rose bushes. In that light, it was hard to tell whether they were orange or pink.
‘Did you plant them?’ she asked. ‘The roses?’
‘I did,’ Tom said. ‘Doesn’t seem right that the only ones who get flowers are the ones who are allowed to be buried in a graveyard. Bloody sheep broke into the field last year and chewed some of them, but they’re coming back.’
Annunciata could see where parts of the bushes looked a bit stunted.
‘Most people just come in the dead of night,’ he continued. ‘I’d notice the freshly dug earth when I’d walk the fields. Some try to bury them within the cemetery walls, or even in family plots, but with Father Lacey, you wouldn’t want to get caught.’
‘No, no, you would not.’
‘Mind you, I’ve heard that in a few cemeteries, the little ones can be buried,’ he said. ‘Strange that. That the limbo thing applies in some places and not others.’
‘Doesn’t make sense really.’
‘You think so too?’
In the torchlight, he met her eyes, then looked at the band of the veil on her head. Some of her hair was nudging out from under it, but she didn’t bother to fix it.
‘How could I not? Consigned to limbo, just because they died before baptism?’
A slight smile played on his lips. ‘You’re a strange one, Sister.’
She shook her head gently. ‘And you think I don’t know that, Tom?’
He gestured to the net bag Annunciata was holding. ‘Do you actually think sprinkling some holy water, saying a few prayers, is going to change where those babies go?’
Annunciata looked over at Sarah. She was still over by the stream, staring into it.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t, but Sarah does. And that’s all that matters here really.’
Sarah turned away from the stream and came towards them.
‘Can’t believe I’m back here again,’ Sarah said. Her voice sounded flat, almost hollow. ‘It was only last year I buried her sister, over there.’ She pointed in the direction of the mound. ‘This time, when I got past the five-month mark, I thought . . .’ She put her index finger to her lips, closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake.
‘I know, pet,’ Annunciata said. ‘I know.’
‘I wake up at night,’ Sarah said, ‘thinking of her buried here, her soul stuck in some awful place.’ Her hand fluttered to her throat. ‘And I know I shouldn’t have asked you, Sister. But you were so kind in the hospital, and surely you blessing their graves has to make a difference? Doesn’t it?’
‘It’s not technically a blessing.’ Then Annunciata said hurriedly, ‘But it will make a difference. It really will. And they’re not in some awful place, Sarah. Believe me.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so. When I had my accident, I left this world for a little. And it was beautiful. Full of love.’ She could feel them both staring at her, hard. ‘Not the kind of place that would refuse babies.’
Sarah looked at her, unsure, then said in a desperate voice, ‘But you’ll still pray over their graves, won’t you? Sprinkle holy water on them, ask God to save their souls?’
‘Of course I will.’ Annunciata knew not to push anymore. She showed her the little net bag. ‘I have my bottle of holy water right here. And I brought a crucifix too, so we can bury that with them, keep them safe.’
‘Thank you, Sister. I know Father Lacey wouldn’t like this, but I have to do it. Even when they die, you’d do anything to save them, wouldn’t you?’
Annunciata couldn’t say anything for a minute, then dug into her cardigan pocket. ‘You know what I also have? Rosary beads that were blessed in Rome. In the Vatican.’ She handed the red beads to Sarah. ‘They’re scented with roses.’
‘From the Vatican? Are you sure you’re happy for them to go in the grave?’ But Sarah was clutching them as if she never wanted to give them back.
‘Of course.’
Sarah went to take the box from Tom, but he said, ‘You don’t need to be carrying it, not in your physical state.’
‘If she’d lived, I’d have been carrying her around now anyway,’ Sarah said. ‘It will be the last time I get to hold her.’
They walked together towards the little mound. Beside it was a hole, just over a foot in length, wide enough for two boxes. Inside it was an older box, still intact.
Sarah gently placed the box in the ground, alongside the other one. She blessed herself with the beads, kissed them, then arranged them over both boxes, making sure the beads were spread evenly. Annunciata handed her the crucifix, and Sarah balanced it across both boxes, the arms of the cross resting on the older box. Then Annunciata sprinkled holy water over them.
‘Would you mind pouring some more on?’ asked Sarah.
Annunciata doused both boxes, then noticed Sarah looking around her, at the rest of the ground under the hawthorn tree. Annunciata walked around the base, drizzling the rest of the water. Then she led Sarah and Tom in the five decades of the rosary.
After, Tom went over to the tree and picked up the spade.
‘I leave it here, just in case,’ he said. ‘Some people might be in such a flap that they forget to bring something to dig with.’
He put the earth back into the grave, taking care to smooth over the top. Then he put a large flat stone on it. It was the only stone on the ground.
‘I hope no one moves the stone, or tries to bury another baby in there,’ Sarah said.
‘Don’t you worry, Sarah,’ Tom said. ‘I have a grand heavy rock in another field, so heavy I’ll have to get one of my sons to move it in the wheelbarrow. I’ll have it put over that spot, so you know where your girls are.’ He baulked, must have realised what he’d said, but Sarah didn’t seem to notice.
Instead, she said, ‘I hope I don’t have to come this way again with another box in my hands.’
‘You won’t,’ Annunciata said, but she didn’t know if she sounded convincing.
Tom propped the spade against the hawthorn tree.
‘Do you mind if I just have a little longer here?’ Sarah asked.
‘Of course,’ Tom said. ‘Take as long as you need, Sarah.’ He and Annunciata moved back about twenty feet.
‘I’ll give you two a lift back,’ Tom said to Annunciata. ‘Maybe put your bike in the boot? We can take the long way around and drop you off first. Can’t have people talking.’
‘Thanks, Tom. I’d appreciate that.’
A while later, almost a mile from the convent, her bike sticking out of the boot of the Opel Kadett, Annunciata looked up at the sky, at the speckles of stars sprinkled across it, the vastness of it all. There was time enough for people to be talking about her, and she knew it wasn’t going to be anything to do with a lift from Tom Hogan. She’d made her decision, but she’d still have to wait a good six months at least before leaving the convent. She couldn’t have Sarah thinking that what they’d done hadn’t worked, her dreams plagued by the sounds of her daughters languishing in limbo. Nothing was worth that.
Her left heel was chafing, and she looked down at her feet. She was still wearing the wellies, had forgotten her shoes at the farm. No matter. She had an old pair back in the convent. They would do fine, and she wouldn’t be needing them for much longer anyway.