The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [54]
Agnes crouched and twisted with the force of Sister Delia’s grasp and found herself kneeling on one knee in front of the nun. The stench from her habit made Agnes’s throat contract. “Yes, Sister,” she sobbed, only too aware that hacking off her hair with a bread knife in front of the whole laundry was a trifle compared to what Sister Delia was capable of.
“Good! Get back to work!” Sister Delia released her roughly and strode on. In the lye room she stood silently against the wall and watched the scene in front of her. Sheila Barry, the new girl, coughed and spluttered in the cloud of fine ash that rose up to envelop her. She could just about keep hold of the huge kettle of water she was pouring into the lye dropper. As the water saturated the applewood ashes that filled the large box, the ash died down and the kettle grew lighter. Sheila set the kettle next to her feet and wiped her face with the sleeve of her coarse black dress.
“Eighty-two! Fill the other box with ashes and then collect the lye out of the bottom of this one!”
Sheila had not seen Sister Delia standing there but was exhausted beyond the point of fright. She nodded heavily and picked up the kettle. “I have to go out to the pump for more water,” she said heavily.
“Well be quick about it! And make sure that fire doesn’t die down. Get some wood while you’re at it!” Sister Delia was feeling very pleased with herself. It had taken some work convincing Father Higgins to return to the lye. He had voiced concern at the antiquated nature of the process and pointed out the easy availability of commercial soaps. Sister Delia recalled the thrill that had run through her as she made her case. It was the angels speaking through her. She had explained that what these fallen sinful girls needed most was hard work and discipline. Of course the nuns could buy the soap, but what would the girls learn from that? Where was the mortification of the flesh in unwrapping a bar of soap?
“And don’t let me catch you idling or I’ll be taking a knife to that fine hair of yours too!” she called after the figure of Sheila Barry as it disappeared through the door to the courtyard.
Sister Delia left the lye room and moved along the corridor past the scapular-making room. She made a mental note to herself that they needed to order more leather thongs from the boys’ reformatory in Dromlane.
“Ah, go ask me arse, ye twisted old bitch,” muttered Sheila as the door closed behind her. For a few brief seconds the cold of the courtyard came as a relief after the heat of the lye room. Sheila stood and relished the fleeting sensation of being neither too cold nor too hot. But the moment quickly passed and she felt the wind biting into her wet chapped hands. She held the kettle close, her arms barely meeting around its huge belly, and hurried to the pump in the opposite corner of the courtyard.
Sheila dropped the kettle at the foot of the pump and lined it up under the spigot, then blew on her hands and rubbed them together. She grabbed the cold handle of the pump, pulled it up, pushed it down, and it spat reluctantly into the kettle. Again she cranked the stiff handle and coaxed another paltry splutter.
“What you need, little Miss 82, is a nice ice bath to chill the cravings of your weak, corrupted flesh!” she whispered, mimicking Sister Delia for her own amusement.
The pump spat and sprayed her feet with icy water. “Fuck it!” she hissed. The water soaked through the thin canvas shoes the nuns had given her. “Probably sold me boots too, the fucking dried-up bitches.”
Sheila cranked the pump viciously as she remembered how Sister Delia had set on her from the very first day. She had been crying all the way from Cork in the bus after they had taken her little girl from her and told her to pack her things and leave the Sisters of Forbearance Fallen Mother and Child Home. No explanation. No news of her family and not a word from Declan. The nuns told her Declan had been sent away