Winners of the Joe O'Sullivan Writers Prize 2008

Shared First Prize    

Lynn Gumb

'Jacket Women'

Maggie hitched her long skirt at the back, wrapped an arm around her swollen belly to lift the weight of the baby that kicked her insides. A waste of time, she knew, but it made her feel better to try and anyway it stopped her from tripping on the hem. The last thing she wanted was to be sprawled on the icy cobbles with a belly full of baby. She pulled her shawl tight around her head. Small, round pellets of snow stung her skin. The stones beneath her feet were uneven and she stumbled now and then, unable to see clearly. There was no time to stop and adjust her skirts properly, or to wrap herself more firmly against the cold. A body could die out here if left standing still too long.

When she'd waltzed out of the terrace house that afternoon Dock Street was freezing with the wind coming in off the Lagan. The river was all but frozen over and Princes Dock was quiet in the dull grey light that hung over the city. It made Maggie wish for a candle or an oil lamp just to put a bit of brightness about. It had been months since she'd seen any sunshine and she longed for summer days spent on the farm running over the dried bog and grass hairy as a highland bull, stumbling and laughing over stones so old her Da couldn't shift them to plant anything much.

Corporation Street was quiet, seeing as how people had more sense than to be out in weather like this. They'd be home beside warm peat fires getting their best clobber ready for church, baking extra bread (those that had the flour), making sweets for the children and looking forward to celebrating Christmas.

Maggie imagined the smell of stew thick with potatoes and gravy and hoped that she would soon have a belly full of hot stew instead of a belly full of baby. She turned down Chichester and prayed that she would find her way to the Lisburn Road, hoping that God would forgive her all her sins and let her have this baby in a safe place. She felt like she was climbing a mountain with a stone weighing down her insides and the wind pushing her back towards the river where many a poor wretch like her ended her days.

Great Victoria Street was no place for a pregnant woman to be on the eve of Christmas and no place for a woman at all. The markets were closed and the stench of the day's business hung low in the fog rolling across the city. She knew she had to pass the Crown Liquor Saloon, and hoped it was too cold for the drunks to come out and bother her on a night like this.

She could not see now where Great Victoria Street ended. She just had to get to the next turning. The workhouse was not far ahead, she was sure. Once there she would be warm and safe and her baby could be born and maybe the two of them wouldn't die like Lizzie O'Halloran across the way. Maggie had tended Lizzie, when Thomas would let her go long enough from the cleaning and scrubbing of his filthy house. But it was a roof, she told herself many a time, and more than what poor Lizzie had, too proud she was to go to the workhouse for help.

"It's where the Jacket Women go, Maggie," Lizzie told her.

"Oh, they don't do that no more, Lizzie."

"Ye'll still be punished for bein' a hussy, Maggie, even if ye aren't."

Lizzie and Maggie had spent hours together talking about the workhouse and the Poor Law Unions when Thomas was away at sea. They'd met a few hussies on the docks during their afternoon walks, all full of stories of the treatment unmarried mothers were given at the hands of the Guardians. When Lizzie heard that they were made to wear special jackets so that everyone knew they were unchaste, she talked about it for days until she finally told Maggie she was having a baby.

"They'll take my bebby and he'll die in there."

"They only take the third one, Lizzie. This be your first. And he'll thrive, I just know he will."

When Maggie pulled that dead little body from Lizzie's, she sat down in the middle of the mud and blood and told her, "Not so proud now, are ye?" She had cleaned, as best she could, the dirt floor, sat beside Lizzie and held her frozen hand until the last breathe came out of her like a faint puff of smoke from the end of Thomas's cigar. She'd taken Lizzie's baby, wrapped her in potato sacking, and hid her in Thomas's ash pit. What else could she do but say a silent prayer over her poor little body and thank the heavens that she didn't live to be a woman fully grown and living like a mangy dog on the streets of Belfast?

Thoughts of Lizzie kept Maggie moving one step in front of the other, one more stone behind. And it was all his fault she was like this, and all. She should never have left the farm, and wouldn't have except for that Johnnie Doyle offering her something better in the great city of Belfast , given how the farm was not prospering anymore and her folks being poor as a church mouse. Well, where the devil was he now? She thanked God for Thomas, the seaman, taking pity on a poor country girl and giving her a roof. But she was working her fingers to the bone for that lousy sailor, scrubbing his clobber, cooking his stews, keeping his bed warm.

Maggie hitched her skirt again, and again she tried to shift the weight of the baby gone quiet now in the frozen afternoon. A girlie has to be half mad to be walking in this weather, but she had to get away from Thomas while she could. She thought about him as she passed the Crown; the ballad was strong and wistful and had she not been worried about freezing to death she'd have stood still and cried just for the way that mournful sound reached into her chest and spread through her like whiskey.

Thomas's ship was due in anytime and she didn't want to be dealing with his filth and his drunkenness anymore. She hated having to throw his nightly waste into the ash pit every morning, balancing his great pot of piss so she didn't spill it on her skirt, not knowing what was worse, the rats that ran across her feet, or the smell that hit her like a stone wall when she stumbled into the back yard.

Well, she'd had enough of Thomas bloody Cosgrove, so she'd put on all the clothes she owned against the cold. In her small cloth bag, she had shoved a linen headscarf her Ma had given her, and one small stone from the farm.

She stopped suddenly, peering up at the workhouse doors and wept for the shame of it. For all her pride, she knew that good girls, Catholic or Protestant, did not have their babies in a workhouse while the snows of Christmas were gathering on the steps outside. Maggie joined the queue that led to the front door. Women with babies in their arms and small children clinging to their mother's skirts were wiping away the tears before they froze on their faces. Men standing close by hung their heads low, their caps covering their eyes, their hands shoved into pockets so thin they wouldn't keep a lamb warm. They shuffled along together, this great line of starving and freezing bog Irish, too cold to speak to each other, too ashamed to meet the other's eye.

Maggie hitched her skirt again, stamped her feet to keep the blood circulating, folded her hands in the cloth of her shawl and stood as close to the woman in front of her as she could get without smelling the rancid breath coming up from an empty stomach. The line moved steadily and soon Maggie was the other side of the great wooden doors, in the waiting hall. They huddled and shuffled each other into the receiving room and Maggie found herself looking down at a woman who called herself Matron McCauley.

"Name?"

"Maggie O'Doud."

"You're to call me Matron. Spell it."

"M A," Maggie began.

"Don't get smart with me, now, Maggie O'Doud. Spell your last name."

Maggie blushed and lowered her head. "Have yer no tongue, colleen. Spell it." Matron spat, her face reddening with each word. "Spell your name if yer know it, otherwise, I'll spell it for ye."

"ODOUD," Maggie stumble out, for once pleased that she had listened to her poor old Da when he was trying to teach her to read and write like the English.

"How old are ye, Maggie?"

"Nineteen. Matron."

"Where're ya from?"

"My Da has a farm up Keirney Hill way."

"Yes, girlie, but have ye been living in the city?"

"Oh, Molyneaux Street , twenty two Molyneaux. Down by the docks."

Matron did not look at Maggie once while she wrote the answers into a ledger. The book was as large as the table that Matron sat at, the pages filled with the names of Ireland 's poor. When she looked up the full length of Maggie's body, her eyes stopped at the swollen belly and she nodded. Maggie saw the look and blushed.

"So, you've a bebby on the way, girlie."

"Aye. It's comin' for Christmas. Maybe it's the baby Jesus come again."

"Aye, but it weren't God that put that bebby in your belly, I'm waging. Do you have religion, Maggie, or are ye just a heathen like the rest of ye?"

"Catholic, so me Da says."

"Right then. You'll need to go to Ivy Cottage down the Malone Road where the likes of ye go. Wait over there until the doctor examines ye."

Maggie stood in the corner pressed against the damp stonewall, holding the weight of her belly with her two arms hitched underside. She stamped the cold from her feet and moved away from the wall. She felt dirty and old, watching the others shuffle in through the door, answer the same questions and be herded through other doors. The children were separated from their parents, some of them wailing for their Ma’s, who protested but gave in quickly to the rules. Maggie knew that gnawing feeling in her belly when not even a potato could be found to stave it off. It's hard to rebel when you're wanting a feed and the person with the food is the one making the rules. Men with torn jackets and muddy boots went through different doors with long sad faces; no fight left in you when you have your cap off and are waiting for a hand out.

Maggie was tired now with the weight of the baby almost frozen inside her. She slipped to the floor and let her arse collapse onto the stone. She was a bloody fool and she knew it now. Babies don't live long in the workhouse. She'd heard the stories from Lizzie and the others who came and went in the lodging house across the way. Some babies were wet nursed by poor women riddled with diseases that they passed onto the babies, none of them lasting a season of potato cropping. And the dead were thrown into pits all together and not a cross to mark their ever having come into the world. Maggie ran a hand over her belly, spread her legs out in front of her, sprawled and useless, and said a silent good-bye to the little one. They were frozen and still and numb.

"Come," he said. "I've to get ye to the washin' room to take ye clothes off ye."

"Yer nought to take my clothes," Maggie argued.

"Happens to all as comes this way, girlie. I'm the porter and ye not the first I've seen naked as the day. Get up now, I've not got all night."

Maggie rolled onto her hands and knees like a dog on heat, pushed herself up from the floor and groaned as she straightened her back.

"Ye'll be seeing the doctor as comes here to make sure you don't have the typhus."

"I've no typhus," Maggie said, blushing instead at the thought of what Thomas might have given her. She followed the porter through the yard into a small washing room. It was filling now with naked women whose clothes lay in piles at their feet. The women washed quietly over tubs of cold water and lime. Some had bellies swollen with baby, some with hunger. Each kept their heads bent, their eyes staring at their frozen toes.

Maggie felt the push of something in the small of her back and she stumbled forward onto the mortar floor. She watched the other women as they shivered in the evening damp, standing so close she could see the goose bumps on their skin. They wrapped their arms over their bare breasts waiting for the workhouse lackeys to take their clothes away for fumigating.

"Get to it woman, I've not got all night, I told ye."

Maggie dropped her shawl to the floor when she realised that the porter was yelling at her.

"Ye have to hand over everyt'ing. Ye'll get it back when ye leave."

Maggie reached for her bag as she sat down to remove her boots. Her feet ached in the worn leather. She took the stone from the farm, glanced sideways to make sure no one was watching, and popped it into her mouth, pushing it into her cheek so she didn't swallow it.

After dressing she sat on the straw mattress in the women's quarters, legs sprawled before her, skin stinging from the lime wash, the coarse petticoat made of cheap wool prickling the softer places between her thighs. Lord almighty how had things come to this? Women without homes, without kitchens and hearths, without children and husbands lay about on the rafters in striped jerkins, not even caring to adjust the straw mattresses to their bodies. There was no comfort to be found in this dormitory of whitewashed stone, damp from the solstice snow, and the mortar floors that let the cold come through from the very core of the earth; no comfort from the women who were strangers, the only things in common being their poverty and there stubborn Irish pride. We're all eejits, Maggie thought, all too proud to put out a hand to each other while the bells of St Peter's are surely ringing in the evening matins. There was certainly little comfort in the meal they'd just eaten. The oatmeal and buttermilk were a far cry from the thick Irish stew she had been looking forward to. It was hot, at least, and warmed that hollow place not even her baby could fill.

And too proud she was to wear the jacket they'd given her despite the cold wrapping itself around her and making a home in her bones. She tongued the stone in the cheek of her mouth trying not to bite on it given how she was shivering. She took up the jacket, sighed, and put the damn thing on. She looked up to the heavens and seeing the bare roof with its exposed rafters, decided that at least there was little between her and God so maybe he would hear her prayers a little better. She was dog-tired now and wasn't sure she had the strength to move another muscle. The stone in her mouth was hard and dry and she was parched.

Maggie slept until she felt the baby stir within. The kick she got was low and strong. She stretched out on her back to give the wee mite some room to move about, pleased that it was still alive and not frozen to death. The baby moved with more vigour making waves of flesh and fabric across Maggie's belly. She pulled back the jacket and watched the baby turning, readying itself to face a life that most wanted to leave as soon as God would let them. It must be Christmas Day, Maggie thought, running her hand gently over that eager little body. She didn't want to be having her baby today. She wanted pie and potatoes and a merry laugh and a song and a whiskey and sweets and a peat fire and snow on the windows. She didn't want to die when the whole world was celebrating birth.

The waves stopped when Maggie heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She heard the straw of the women's beds rustle and wondered what was next. It was enough having the doctor poking and prodding and then standing in the freezing cold naked as the day she was born before a whole bunch of miserable strangers. Then she saw Matron standing at the entrance to the women's room, her large hands holding onto that big ledger resting against her fat belly, her feet apart and firm on the wooden floor.

"Listen up, the lot o' ye. The followin' are to go to the infirmary to have ye babies," Matron spoke out as though she was calling across the river and they were all hard of hearing.

"Maeve Aron, Aoife Balfour, Moya Cannon, Ellen Chambers."

As each name was called, young women rose and shuffled across the floor to stand behind Matron like a line of schoolchildren called to class.

"Annie Donoghue."

Maggie heard a whimper. She looked no more than a girl of thirteen or fourteen, Maggie decided, with her pointed chin and ears sticking out the side of her head. Her eyes were bright, and moist with tears that Maggie could see she was trying to hold onto, looking for all the world like a pixie caught by humans and heading off to be tortured.

"Get a move on now, girlie, no point in crying. God's not watchin' the likes o' ye no more."

Annie straightened her back, wiped the tears that had lost themselves on her cheeks with the back of her hand, stuck her belly out as far as it would go and walked past Matron with her head so high in the air Maggie thought she might trip over her own pride.

"Maggie O'Doud."

"I can't get up, Matron. My bebby's too heavy. I can't shift it."

"Ye'll get up now, Maggie O'Doud, or I'll call the porter and he'll get ye up."

"I think the bebby's turned, Matron, is all I'm sayin'."

"Ye'll get up now, Maggie O'Doud, is all I’m sayin'. And ye are to remember there's to be no talkin' in here until ye get my permission. If ye back chat me again yer might enjoy some time alone in a place where not even God can hear yer prayers."

Maggie rolled onto her side, pushed herself onto all fours, reached for a wooden bracket and stood up clinging to a post until she caught her breath. She smoothed down her dress, adjusted her jacket with a flick of her shoulder, rolled her hair into a tight bun against the back of her head and walked past Matron to stand with the others.

Maggie felt a body standing so close to her she could feel the breath from it on her neck. She turned her head sideways and caught the staring look of Annie Donohue. Maggie reached for Annie's hand and held it close between the fall of their skirts.

"Follow the nurse now and don't be givin' no trouble. Yer've enough of it without goin' and seekin' it out," Matron said, and with a nod to the nurse, she disappeared back into the snow.

"My name's Grace McLelland. You can call me Nurse. I'll take ye to the ward so you can settle."

"Nurse," Maggie said.

"There's to be no talking without permission, now. The rules are the same as the workhouse proper."

"But I need to piss, Nurse."

Nurse McLelland stopped. The small group behind almost collided with her. Four of them huddled close, but Maggie and Annie, gripping hands, stood apart.

Nurse turned around and looked at the women. Her round fat cheeks flushed and her eyes were hard, like little bits of black stone had got lodged in the sockets.

"Whose using such foul language, and on the Lord's birthday, and all?"

"I need a pot. It's this bebby pushin' down so low," Maggie whined. "I'll wet myself if I don't get no relief, soon."

"It's relief yer wanting now, is it? Yer to go to the privie when I say yer to go and not a moment before. Are yer understandin' me, girlie?"

"Aye," Maggie answered with a quiet voice. She felt faint and tired all of a
sudden and just wanted to lie down.

Nurse McLelland stuck her chest out, turned on her heel like a sailor at muster and walked on, the huddled group following behind in total silence. Maggie held her belly underside with her free hand and shuffled along beside Annie, whose eyes sparkled in the dull light with tears wanting to be shed.

They stopped behind Nurse at a room with bare boards and posts standing sentinel down the centre of the room. There were windows on one wall and through the hard white light Maggie saw the snow gathering on the women's yard outside. She took a bed next to Annie, seeing as how she was unable to shake the poor girl, even if she wanted to. It was good to have the comfort of another soul wanting to be warming yours. She missed Lizzie, but for once she was glad Lizzie hadn't come to this place to have her baby. It was as cold and joyless as she imagined the end of the world to be.

The pains started so suddenly the breath was pushed out of her. Maggie lay her body onto the cold wood and couldn't stop the urge to push. By the time the midwife arrived the baby was almost on the floor and Maggie felt the smooth skin, thin and long, slip from her. She lay back waiting for the pulse of blood in her head to stop and her breathing to quieten.

"Ye've a girl, Maggie O'Doud."

She sat up to take a last look at the poor little wretch she'd brought into the world, without a blessing from her own mother. It was shinning blue with slime and blood like a skinned rabbit ready for the stew, and not a sound out of its little body. She watched a nurse wrap the baby in a sheet and take it from the room.

Maggie lay back staring at the rafters, letting the tears fall from her eyes and gather in her ears. Her stomach contracted and she knew it was the afterbirth. She let it slip away, too, knowing that she wouldn't be allowed to keep it and bury it under a tree like her mother had done with hers. There was no room for pagan rituals no more, that helps soothe many a soul when the heart is breaking.

In a day or so, she would pull her old shawl close around her face, gagging on the smell of must and damp from the workhouse, hold the stone in her trembling hand and head for the Lagan. She had nowhere else to go and no one to go to. No home with soft peat light catching the sparkle of fairy wings in the corner of her mother's kitchen. No mother to fuss over her wee bebby as she suckled her to sleep. No friends now that Lizzie was dead and no Johnny Doyle to lay her body next to when the solstice snows come again. It was no life for a girl barely twenty and still wishing she were back at Keirney Hill running through the hairy grass and laughing at her Da with his dirty breeches and hands black from slipping in the bog.