Читать книгу Secret Child - Andrew Crofts - Страница 10

By the time I was six I had spent five months in three different hospitals. I’m told that I nearly died due to a series of serious illnesses, but the thing I remember most was that it was very exciting just to be outside the walls of Regina Coeli for the first time. Mammy was my only visitor in hospital, as Bridie never left the hostel, having the other children to look after, and Mammy could only come when she could get time off work. I missed my friends but at the same time I was enthralled by the different kinds of people I saw coming and going on the wards where I was incarcerated, and all the different things they did and talked about.

There were doctors and nurses, and other patients and their visitors. Lying there, month after month, I was soaking up everything that went on around me. One of the things I noticed was that the men who wore white, the doctors and medical staff, were all much nicer to me than the men who wore black, the priests who haunted the hostel. The men in black never bothered to hide their low opinion of the women and children in Regina Coeli. As far as they were concerned the women were sinners and we were the products of that sin. The men in white, however, didn’t seem to look down on me at all and seemed to want to help me in any way they could.

Mammy was obviously very worried about me, because I had never seen so much of her before. I was basking in her attention, and she kept promising that once I was out of the hospital things would be better and that she would spend more time with me. She must have felt so guilty and at the same time must have been so worried about the work she was missing and the money she was losing. It must have been tough not to have a partner to share the worries with, although I’m sure she poured it all out to Bridie once she got back to the dormitory.

I have no idea what was wrong with me during those months, or how close to death I actually came, but I do know that I thought it was all worthwhile for the interesting new experiences I was having.

‘We have a surprise for you,’ Mammy said when she was finally able to take me home from hospital.

‘What is it?’

‘You wait and see,’ she said, refusing to respond to any of my excited questioning, just smiling mysteriously.

When we got back to Regina Coeli she took me upstairs, but not into the open dormitory where we lived. Instead, she opened a door into a smaller room. Inside, Bridie and Joseph were both waiting, unable to suppress their broad grins.

‘Surprise!’ they all shouted as I looked around the bedroom. It was no bigger than three metres by four and had four beds in it, two adult-sized ones and two child-sized ones.

‘What is this?’ I asked, unable to work out what was happening.

‘We have our own bedroom,’ Joseph said, jumping around the room with excitement, ‘just the four of us. It’s the only bedroom in the whole building.’

It was the best room I had ever been in, even though it was a bit cramped with so many beds and had no washing or toilet facilities in it. It was much better than the dormitories or even the hospital wards that I had experienced. Mammy, I discovered, was paying extra for us to have this room in the hope that I would catch fewer illnesses from the other children.

‘Your mammy has got you a present too,’ Joseph said, unable to contain himself.

‘What?’ I wanted to know, ‘what have you got me, Mammy?’

She smiled and reached under her bed, bringing out a cowboy hat and a pair of toy guns in a holster. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the start of a period during which I think it would be fair to say Mammy spoiled me. I guess nearly losing me had given her a terrible fright and she was just glad that she still had me.

Having our own room made Joseph and me feel really special, but I noticed that several people started to treat us differently, as if they thought we were putting on airs and graces – as if we thought we were better than the others. One or two of the women already resented Mammy because she was a bit older and took more care of her appearance. Most of those who called her ‘the Lady’ did so out of respect, but these ones meant it in a sneering, derogatory way. At the time, of course, all this went straight over the top of my head, because I thought she was wonderful and I knew Bridie did too. They were the only two adults whose opinions mattered to me at that stage.