They Never Gave Up

By Linda Penhall

Cathy and Pauline are leaving footprints—raised ones. Cathy is gorgeous, smart and quick-witted—her life looks promising to say the least. And to round it all off she has a devoted husband who thinks the world of her. Everyone assumes she's got it made. But has she? Pauline is the life and soul of every party—firmly believing the world to be some kind of giant playpen. Underneath this rebellious guise is a woman who desperately wants someone to love her for who she truly is. Set in an Irish backdrop, the story humorously explores the vibrant and multicolored lives of these two lifelong friends as they love, work and laugh in the midst of horses, rehab, aviation, a whiskey guzzling skinflint father and a deplorably meddlesome mother-in-law. They Never Gave Up will strike a chord with all women especially those who have ever been let down to the point of betrayal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IFWG Publishing International
• Release date: Nov 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9780992365479

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Chapter One

Mary and Jimmy

When my mother, Mary Sheehan, was growing up in Cilganín, situated in the pastoral midlands of Ireland (rolling green fields broken up by dry stone walls, cows lowing, sheep bleating, plenty of village tittle-tattle), a college education was then regarded as unnecessary for females. The archaic ideal at the time—young women should be married well before they were twenty, and subsequently start spitting out their own seven-a-side rugby team, or even better still, cough up a baker’s dozen. This attitude exasperated her to the point of distraction.

As she reached her teens she despaired as to why her three brothers would have access to a university education if they wanted it, and incredibly, she wouldn’t.

To further her chagrin when Padraic, her eldest brother, finished secondary school he took full advantage of all that was available to him by duly hotfooting it out of their hallowed little village, studied law, graduated with distinction and eventually moved to Canada. Whoosh, vanished, there one minute, gone the next. Then again, he’d been given a choice, whereas Mary was expected to settle into homemaker mode—joyously keeping her spousal lineage alive by churning out babies for Ireland.

Her second brother, Finbar, happy to farm alongside his father and keep the so-called family tradition going, married a local girl and settled down to what she truthfully regarded as a life of shoveling copious amounts of shit, with the weekly televised reruns of Emmerdale Farm being the highlight of his fodder-filled existence.

On the other hand, Thomas, her youngest brother, hated anything to do with farming, and not academically minded, he moved off to Dublin as soon as he possibly could. Once there he spent a few years in a disagreeable apprenticeship with a local builder, and then started up his own plumbing business.

In the early days, Padraic frequently tried to persuade Thomas to join him in Canada, but he constantly declined, sticking to the adage The Devil You Know. So Mary’s decision to move out of Cilganín and pursue a life of her own, without a husband, didn’t come as a total shock to her mother, but her father nearly blew a gasket.

Sensible to the bone, and not wanting to be stranded at an airport when her ship was due to sail, she moved in with her aged and slightly dotty aunt in Dublin, took a job in one of the larger theatres (in the ticket office), and settled down to a brand new life in the Big Smoke. Mundane, boring and soul destroying—yes, that job was. But it did leave her plenty of time to do what she wanted most, and that was study further. She was determined she wasn’t going to be yet another uneducated backwater culshee; she was going to make something of herself.

After securing her not so liberating position, she enrolled in the only night course that interested her—bookkeeping. The process of recording financial transactions received and spent by an individual business or organization appealed to her, as she always had a penchant for figures and liked the feel of control it instilled. Of course, full-blown accountancy would have been her first preference, but her income from the theatre wouldn’t allow that educational luxury. So she settled for the next best thing, night courses in the local high school—much to the open indignation of her father who told her she was wasting her time. All the same, his attitude didn’t put her off, far from it, it only made her more determined, despite the fact that doling out tickets to habitually staid theatergoers, nearly bored her rigid. Although, having said that, that very same ticket office changed her life in many ways, because it was there she met my father, Jimmy Corway.

As he stood in the queue, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. There was something about her, a magnetism of sorts, the kind often read about in classic novels.

When he reached the head of the line, he became so entranced by her astonishingly beautiful blue-green eyes, he was rendered just about speechless. Even though he desperately wanted to ask her out, he couldn’t muster up the courage. Not knowing what else to do he returned to the theatre, albeit somewhat awkwardly, the next day and the next.

After queuing for the third time to see the same production (ironically called Pygmalion), she looked him straight in the eye and said, Gosh, this play must fascinate you. How many times have you seen it now?

Despite being knocked-for-six that she’d copped on, he heard himself saying, Eh, I think this will be the third, but I’m not counting, as long as you’re selling me the ticket.

The smile she gave him nearly melted his heart, and it spurred him on to ask her out to a local dance the following Saturday. To his great surprise, she agreed. That dance was the start of many, and it wasn’t long before they were all but inseparable.

When he proudly introduced her to his parents, his father took him aside and said, Son, she’s a keeper, don’t let her slip away. Your electrical business is doing well, you’re not short of a bob or two, put a ring on her finger before someone else beats you to it.

On Mary’s side, her mother felt the same about Jimmy, but her father’s opinion didn’t count and would never count, because he’d shattered everyone’s hearts by upping and leaving with the daughter of the local co-op owner within weeks of Mary leaving Cilganín for Dublin.

At the time, her outrage was so fierce she spent many a night tossing and turning while going over scores of ways to exact a fitting revenge on her absconded parent. She even contemplated going back to live in Cilganín, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. She told her she didn’t want her to end up as a bucolic married drudge with a gaggle of children sired by a terminally disinterested husband.

Her strongest advice was, "God gave us the gifts of love, health, beauty and intelligence. He gave us life and choice. Your choice was to go to Dublin and make a career for yourself. Just because your father chose to disappear overnight, doesn’t mean your aspirations have to as well. Stay in Dublin and get that degree!"

Apparently, she spoke those words with the daring of a Pomeranian straining at its leash, fully intent on giving a frothing Doberman a damn good piece of its mind. She saw her mother in a new light that day, and fortunately, for Jimmy, she stayed in Dublin.

Eighteen months into their relationship, they married quietly amid a small amount of family and friends. Not an advocate of the Something Borrowed Something Blue brigade, she wanted absolutely no fuss. The frantic wedding machine that roared into action when her brother announced he was getting married, turned her completely off the idea of gliding down the aisle decked out in an inverted mushroom type (one wear only) excuse for a dress, along with vast filaments of camouflage net masquerading as a veil.

Nonetheless, to satisfy her mother’s plea for a ‘respectable’ wedding, she agreed to marry in Cilganín chapel and celebrate afterwards with a small reception in the Spring Valley Hotel—but no voluminous wedding dress. Instead, she walked down the aisle wearing an elegant ivory colored suit (the skirt hanging modestly just below the knee), a jauntily positioned pillbox hat, along with a determined set to her shoulders.

When she stepped up to the altar, Jimmy nearly choked with chest-swelling pride.

The ceremony was unremarkable, however, moments before the priest said the words ‘husband and wife’ my great-aunt hauled herself to her feet and belted out at the top of her voice the opening verse to Auld Lang Syne. The ensuing shushing that followed sounded like several Quasimodos abseiling from their lofty parapets, all suffering chronic asthma attacks.

The reception also had a moment or two, one in particular when Dermot (Jimmy’s best man) drunkenly misquoted some sort of proverb.

When his turn for a speech arrived, he staggered to his feet, rummaged through his pockets for his notes, and not finding them, blurted out, Jimmy, if you want to be happy for an hour, make love. If you want to be happy for a day, read a book. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden, but before you do, don’t forget to plant a good one in your new wife, it might be the only… he didn’t say any more because Mary’s brother was on him like a heat-seeking-that’ll-be-enough-of-that missile.

Not to be outdone my great-aunt yelled in reprisal, Young man, we spend the first years of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk, and the next decade teaching them to shut up and behave themselves. I now know why some animals eat their young.

While a fresh wave of Quasimodos stormed into action, her last gush of words before her bottom dentures suddenly jumped forward (rendering her speechless), were something like, Holy Divinity, that man should be muzzled. Who owns him? Mary, love, he didn’t mean it…it must be the tablets he’s taking, they make him say strange things.

After that, she was rapidly muzzled, or to be more accurate, suppressed from any further vernacular, and was later found sleeping off the effects of plentiful amounts of champagne and God only knows what else in the hotel conservatory.

The remainder of the day passed without any unusual event, well, none similar to the speeches. And when the time came for the newlyweds to leave, they heaved a sigh of relief. On Jimmy’s part, he now fully understood why Mary had been dead set against a large wedding reception—droves of relatives, well meaning or not, were a pain in the proverbial ass.

Chapter Two

Mary and More

Initially, my parents lived in the small flat above Jimmy’s electrical shop in the busy suburb of Fairview. And the idea of Mary giving up her job never even entered the equation. But it soon made sense for her to do so, as Jimmy’s business was growing fast and he needed the additional help. Therefore, with a modicum of regret, she resigned from the theatre (she’d been promoted to administrator) and became a veritable Girl Friday within Corway’s Electrical.

Then, seven months into the marriage she discovered she was pregnant with me. She kept this revelation to herself for a while, as she was angry. She wasn’t ready to settle into the role of motherhood, it just had to be a mistake.

With her heart in her mouth, she went to see the local doctor who confirmed she was definitely eight, possibly ten weeks pregnant, no mistake on his part.

Successfully fixing her with hawk like eyes, he told her, "My dear Mrs. Corway, you simply must tell your husband immediately. It’s his absolute right to know. After all, marriages are not normally made to avoid having children."

"Right, did you say R-I-G-H-T?" she replied, with clear-cut menace in the pauses.

"Yes, I did. You are carrying your husband’s child, which by the way is your duty as his wife, and he has the right to know about it immediately."

Infuriated by his draconian attitude, she wasted no time telling him she was in charge of the destiny of her body and wasn’t going to be dictated to by a blinkered old trout stuck in the last century.

His response was something about the patter of tiny feet.

Hardly able to believe her ears she threw back at him, If I wanted to hear the patter of tiny feet, I can assure you I’m quite capable of putting shoes on the cat, if I owned one! She picked up her handbag and stomped towards the door, exclaiming, You and your kind are nothing more than members of the Stone Age crowd, still communicating in grunts and waiting to invent the wheel. Good day!

She kept her reproductive news to herself for a few more days, although she wasn’t sure as to why she did, because there was nothing she could do to reverse the situation. She was going to become a mother—Jimmy a father—her brothers would be uncles, the list went on. The tiny speck of embryonic progeny (me) planted in her uterus changed everyone’s lives, especially her own. Would Jimmy be upset? They never discussed the possibility of having a child so early in their marriage. They had so much left to do before the restraints of parenthood tied then down.

When eventually told the news, Jimmy was far from upset, he was ecstatic. With both parents now deceased, one unmarried sister and no brothers, he liked the idea of owning a large home bustling with laughing children and the aroma of home baked bread. Mary didn’t share the same vision, far from it. Well, maybe the large home and bread bit, not the bustling children part.

In spite of this, as soon as I was born her attitude changed dramatically. From the first moment I was placed in her arms, she became bewitched and exceedingly protective. Jimmy said she reminded him of a wild animal pacing up and down behind imaginary bars, lashing her tail and threatening to attack anyone who came near me.

If that wasn’t bad enough, a few days later he thought she was suffering from some kind of labor-induced amnesia, because she insisted on having at least two more children, and the sooner the better. The ward nurse assured him she would soon change her mind after a few months of sleepless nights and endless nappy changes. However, her hormone induced mood swings might take a little longer.

And the nurse was right about that bit because deciding on a name for me became a huge issue. All the time she was pregnant with me she endearingly called me Frogspawn—she could hardly put that down on my birth certificate, not now that I was present and correct (ten fingers, ten toes, none of them webbed) I needed a proper name, not just a moniker. Eventually they settled on Catherine—Cathy for short.

Of course, now they were parents they knew they would have to move out of the flat as it had no garden, only one small bedroom, a tiny kitchenette, no proper living room and situated on the main street, not an ideal place to rear a young child. Mary thought a house closer to the sea would be perfect, Jimmy agreed wholeheartedly.

Having made their decision and with building anticipation they checked out every conceivable property option presented to them. Eventually an older house came on the market in Bray, in the county of Wicklow.

Geographically Bray is just outside Dublin and universes away (culturally that is) from the city, it did have the added benefit of being a seaside resort, which kind of downgraded it at weekends into a busy hive of candy flossed beach goers. Although, most of the time it guaranteed a distinct quality of life not to be found in or around the multitudinous capital.

Eleven long weeks later, they moved in. It was a red brick, four-bedroom house, approximately sixty years old. The front garden was a shambles (Mary knew she would have it fixed up in no time). And to her delight, the large back garden had an abundance of apple trees, plus a small summerhouse all but covered in rambling roses. She planned to use that little nook as an office, having definitely lived up to the advice the ward nurse had given Jimmy, nothing was going to detract her from her hard-earned book-keeping skills, or newly acquired private clients. One child was quite enough, no discussions, thank you very much.

There were four bedrooms, one large and three other reasonably sized rooms all with high ceilings and picturesque sash windows. Those Jimmy immediately decided would definitely have to go, and go in the very near future as his hand had been nearly crushed by such a window when he was a boy.

The one and only bathroom, loosely described by the estate agent as having its own personality, consisted of an enormous claw footed bath, big enough for a small flock of manic geese to happily splash about in. An ancient overhead chain flushed toilet that made horrendous noises as soon as the chain was even touched. And no wash hand basin, just an old-fashioned washstand, nothing more. From the first moment Mary viewed the house she unequivocally decided the bathroom would be first on their list of renovations.

The kitchen was large and commanded a beautiful view of Bray Head and the sea beyond. It had plenty of cupboard space, a decent walk-in pantry, attractive flagstones and an AGA cooker, which was great, as she loved the constant warmth such cookers provided twenty-four hours a day (Ireland boasts an abundance of cold, slanting rain for, give or take a day or two, nine months of the year).

The dining room was plain and quite unremarkable, except for the stained glass French doors that opened out onto a large courtyard surrounded by a terribly neglected rockery—another horticultural challenge for Mary. The second reception room looked like it had hardly ever been used (unless some great moment in time was happening like the parish priest or equivalent was coming to visit), but it did have a set of beautiful oak sliding doors that led into the dining room and out onto the courtyard. And the third, roughly the same size, had a large bay window stretching almost to the ceiling, complete with a deeply upholstered and overly wide hinged window seat. Although its main feature was a stunning Adam’s fireplace, not a cracked tile in sight.

They knew they had their work cut out for them modernizing this somewhat neglected house. This wasn’t a problem as they were happy and grateful for what they already had. If the renovations took time, so what, there was no hurry. All the same, Mary was determined the bathroom would be foremost on her list of must-get-done-now.

Chapter Three

Four years later

While putting the finishing touches to her hair, Mary’s eyes turned to the bedroom window when she heard a loud rumble of thunder in the distance. She let out a deep sigh, clipped the last wayward lock into place and pulled open the bedroom curtains.

She stood watching the sun as it tried to slither above the horizon. Then her eyes moved to the garden below where the early morning half-light cast eerie shadows beneath the many apple trees, almost weighed down by their bounty. Once again, she made herself another promise—harvest as many as she could that very day.

Despite the fact that the heavy clouds looked ominously grey, she pushed open the window. The air that rushed in was damp and chill on her face, not fresh or invigorating, just unpleasantly cold.

The long-range weather forecaster must be correct for a change, winter is setting in early, she said to no one in particular, and hastily closed the window.

While she was straightening the net curtain, Jimmy ambled in from the bathroom saying, We have to make a decision you know…can’t leave it on the back burner.

Not wanting any more quarrels, she took a long deep breath and swung around to face him.

"Not St Patrick’s school again, haven’t we discussed this enough?"

Trying not to slam his wardrobe door, he growled, No, we have not. For the life of me, I can’t understand why you’re so dead set against it. It’s only down the road and the standard is quite high.

Rather truculently, she tossed back, That may be so, but I ask you again, what about the social aspects?

"For crying out loud, Cathy is four years old, not fourteen. Social aspects hardly enter the equation at her age," he retorted, his tone uncharacteristically belligerent.

Picking up his discarded socks, she replied, "You know as well as I do, the majority of kids attending St Patrick’s are nothing more than ruffians, and apart from the lack of social aspects, Cathy will receive a far better education at the convent than she ever will at that despicable state school."

Jimmy’s gasp of annoyance just about rattled his tonsils. Right, he said, I’ll tell you what, let’s compromise.

"Compromise, you want to compromise our daughter’s education!" she shot back, while balling the socks together and hurling them onto the bed as if they were diseased.

Don’t twist my words before you’ve even heard.

Twist your words, that’s a good one, she hissed as loud as an angry alley cat.

"Will you ALLOW me to finish what I was SAYING?"

The look on her face was incredulous as Jimmy hardly ever shouted at her. A contemplative silence encircled them. She felt as if she was observing him through a camera lens, a warped one at that.

Obviously satisfied he had her attention, he continued in a milder tone, Look, all I’m asking is that we give St Patrick’s a chance. Try it out. If it doesn’t work, if it’s not good enough, then we’ll send Cathy to the convent.

She fussed with the pillows on the bed before replying through gritted teeth, The term starts in two weeks and I’ve only put her name down with The Little Sisters on the Hill.

"Don’t worry about that, one of my regular customers is a member of the school board…there will be no problem there," he replied with clarity, hardly able to believe she might be backing down.

Without bothering to answer she turned and left the bedroom, fuming. She was determined I was going to have the education she’d been deprived of no matter what Jimmy said. In her mind, St Patrick’s didn’t measure up.

Two weeks later, she handed me over to Miss Spencer, the Junior Infants teacher within St Patrick’s.

My eyes were as big as hunting owls (there was a lot to take in). Books, jigsaw puzzles, building blocks with letters on them, small blackboards and boxes of chalk, paints, crayons and a huge table with many strange items on it—this I was told was the nature table. Large lettering depicting the ABCs adorned the walls, battling for space with equally large pictures of numbers, and behind Miss Spencer’s desk (which, at the time, I thought was incredibly untidy) there was an enormous blackboard with lots of unfamiliar writing on it. It was just too much to take in at once.

Even though I was a tad reluctant to let go of Mary’s hand when she turned to leave, I did, and to my surprise, I quickly settled in.

The morning passed in a flurry of excitement, meeting new children, remembering new names, distributing reading books, coloring books, and of course, the endless trips to the toilet, which always had a queue waiting. However, St Patrick’s was not to last long in my young life—a little over five hours to be exact.

With school finished for the day we were told to line up in single file, walk to the playground and wait by the main gates. When those gates were unlocked, a host of relieved mothers rushed through, thoroughly delighted no harm had come to any of us.

Mary thought I was bobbing around because I was happy (and I was), but I also needed to go to the loo. Smiling sympathetically down at me, she took me firmly by the hand, crossed the road and we arrived home in no time at all. Once there, I shot up the stairs, and contentedly sitting on the loo, shouted at the top of my voice, This is called a piss!

That was enough for her. She decided there and then I would never cross the threshold of St Patrick’s again. The Little Sisters on the Hill was the school I would attend from now on.

Upon hearing this, I became a little perturbed. Were nuns even real women? To me, their clothes looked extremely odd—floor length black dresses and waist length veils, along with giant wooden rosary beads wrapped around their middle bits. And they always looked sad (very different from Miss Spencer’s smiling face). Even though I desperately wanted to, I didn’t bother asking any questions about the convent, not just then. Something made me keep quiet.

Nonetheless, Mary made all the arrangements—I was to start the following Monday.

Beforehand I had to accompany her on a tedious bus trip into Dublin to buy my convent uniform, as no pupil could attend class without it. The whole affair involved the fitting of a woolen gymslip (several sizes too big) with the assistant muttering, Sure she’ll grow into it in no time at all, which I probably would do, if I stayed in school until I was about thirty.

There was a red sash for the waist of that deplorable gymslip, which troubled me, as I was concerned it might transform itself into a string of those bizarre wooden beads, if I wasn’t truly chaste enough. Also tossed into the growing pile were several crisp white cotton shirts and a school tie. Then there was a grey woolen blazer (far too big) with the school emblem heavily embroidered on the breast pocket. This seemed to have no other purpose but show off what looked like two large birds having a very unpleasant argument. To accompany that, was a heavy wool coat and a ridiculous saucer shaped thing called a beret, all sporting the same emblem of the combating birds on the front. Grey knee socks and the regulation black outdoor and indoor shoes, and to my horror, grey school knickers with more elastic in the waist and legs than my grandmother’s entire sewing circle used in a year.

Sport was mandatory for all. Even though very young pupils weren’t expected to participate in hockey and tennis, they were expected to take part in gymnastics and other not so intricate ball sports. And all because the nuns insisted sport was necessary to keep body, mind and soul healthy and intact. These sports had their own set of regulation garments.

For hockey, or in my case junior gymnastics, there was a grey wool knee-length skirt, complete with an odd dividing piece dangling in the middle (possibly to keep the appalling knickers firmly closeted within the folds). Along with a grey cotton shirt—and yes, more embroidered birds, this time on the front panel of that textile effrontery, loosely called a sports skirt.

The final touch to this uncomfortable ensemble was the uniform veil. It resembled a small section of net curtaining with thin elastic attached to it. To pass the head nuns scrutiny that meshed flimsy had to be fused to my head (every single morning), otherwise I wasn’t allowed so much as look at the portico of the chapel, let alone enter.

The fitting of that uniform was the first time I discovered adults didn’t always tell the truth, particularly about the diverse characteristics of school uniforms.

Chapter Four

The Little Sisters on the Hill

Classrooms 3B—behind this door, twenty-three little minds were listening to Miss Helen (my new teacher) telling them I was starting that very morning. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a frenzied question time erupted.

What’s the new girl’s name? Patricia Ferguson demanded.

Her name is Cathy Corway, she answered, patiently.

Miss Helen, why didn’t she start on the big orien…orientation day like we did? Belinda Connell asked in a befuddled voice.

Until now, Cathy has attended another school, however she decided she would prefer this one instead, she explained, even more patiently.

Fiona Murphy bellowed across the room, Miss Helen,  Miss Helen, I know Cathy Corway…I heard my Mammy talking about her last night, I heard her say she went to St Patrick’s and she did something profane. What does profane mean?

Miss Helen felt the stirrings of a tight knot fasten itself to the inside of her head.

Then the classroom door opened. Instantly there was a stunned silence as Mother Superior swept through in a flurry of black and white robes, clanking keys, wooden beads, and me (the so-called profaner), petulantly swathed in an ill-fitting mountain of grey woolen garments, otherwise known as a uniform.

In contrast to her swishing robes, the head nun stood ramrod straight and announced, Miss Helen, here is your latest charge, Cathy Corway. She looked down her nose at me as if seeing me for the first time, and then harrumphed, Cathy, this is Miss Helen, your teacher. Without saying anything else, she turned and briskly marched herself and her wooden beads back out again.

All eyes riveted on me. Miss Helen gently took me by hand and led me forward. Then everyone started speaking at once.

What’s your name?

How old are you?

Where do you live?

Do you want to sit with me?

The new girl should sit beside me. I’m the eldest in the class you know, a girl called Pauline Dutton earnestly informed the entire room.

Miss Helen smiled and asked her to tidy up some of her clutter so I could actually share the seat and table space beside her. She hastily scooped up her belongings and piled them haphazardly to one side.

Seeing my hesitation, she whispered, Would you like to sit beside Pauline?

Without answering, I cautiously moved across the small classroom, all the while taking in my surroundings.

3B was very different, Miss Helen’s desk was immaculately tidy. Immaculate, I’d learned that particular word that very morning, it was the way Mary told me to keep my school uniform; I was to keep it immaculately neat and tidy.

The walls had pretty pictures of the ABCs just as Miss Spencer’s had. The lowest shelves were home to storybooks and piles of picture Catechisms. Other shelves displayed many different cardboard boxes with writing on them, heaps of paper, big fat crayons and for some reason, a tray with little white candles all neatly packed.

In one corner, there was an altar to the Virgin Mary with a small red light, flickering gently. In the opposite corner there was a smaller altar, which I thought held a statue of St Francis. This one had no red light, but it did have a vase of roses positioned to one side.

The blackboard wasn’t black. It was green. Was I to call it the green board? All the tables and chairs looked like those in Miss Spencer classroom, but they were all the same color—green.

Green board, green tables, green chairs. I felt a little green myself.

The morning went by without any real excitement, although there had been some strange noises in the passageway outside. At the time, Pauline whispered to me, "That’s only old Mother Bernadette chasing her dog Scruffs outside. He isn’t a real dog; he’s only a pretend one. But she thinks he’s real and often tells him off for all sorts of things."

I didn’t think much of that little revelation, not right then.

Chapter Five

The Communion Class

Junior Infants first term went by as did the second and third, and throughout all, Pauline and I remained just about joined at the hip.

Senior Infants came and went, and the new school year was about to commence. This particular year we were in First Class, which was supposedly important—it was the First Communion Class.

I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, and to be quite honest, I thought it was all rather boring, as did Pauline. All the other girls passionately looked forward to wearing frothy white frocks and equally frothy white veils, with flowery wreaths attached to them not just plain elastic. And they talked endlessly about the different treats their parents planned for The Big Day, each one trying to outdo the other. Regardless of their enthusiasm, both of us remained uninterested.

On top of all that, specific times were organized in the school and town church, to enable us to become more familiar with the finer details required within those sanctified walls. For the duration of those sessions, we learnt many new behavioral aspects such as how to genuflect correctly (without showing any knickers).

We studied the contents of the Catechism along with many prayers like the Hail Mary and the Our Father, to such a degree we knew all of them backwards as well as forwards. The Commandments became irrevocably stamped in our young minds, and we spent what seemed like hours practicing confessing our sins in a dark and dreary confessional booth.

Of course, there was never a priest in the confessional on the practice runs; he wouldn’t sit in Divine Penitent Forgiveness until our real Confession, scheduled for the day before the Communion Day. A good job too, because Sheila Keating shouted a lot. During one of those practice sessions the complete church and surrounding areas heard her wrongdoings for over five minutes, including a tearful admission of how she accidentally flushed the family budgie down the toilet while attempting to give it a shower.

~~~~

The day was bright and sunny. Along with parents and relatives alike, twenty-four frothily clad little girls (including Pauline and me) arrived at St Luke’s for the ceremony. A long Mass commenced and our shrieking but ever so enthusiastic voices gloriously sang out hymn after hymn. Nearly an hour later we lined up in pairs in the aisle—each of us carrying a string of commemoration rosary beads and a small white candle, quite a lot to ask our little hands to manage.

While Ave Maria thundered out from the organ, we advanced two by two towards the altar where Father Muldoon was waiting for us. Each of us genuflected correctly (without a pair of knickers in sight) and took our places at the altar rail, and then the whole congregation knelt down again.

Just as the priest was about to give Jacinta Murray her Blessed Sacrament, he was interrupted by a woman’s loud voice, exclaiming, "Jesus, Mary and Holy Saint Joseph. Bridie, my Bridie, she’s on fire!"

Sniff, sniff, yes, there was a smoldering whiff combined with a lot of unscheduled commotion coming from further down the railing. All of a sudden, the commotion grew louder as Mrs. Clark (a very large woman) thrust herself forward, grabbed a huge vase of flowers and emptied the lot over her daughter’s head.

In exasperation, Mother Superior rushed forward to find Mrs. Clark bent over Bridie, now curled up in a heap on the floor, gibbering incoherently. Why she was like that I don’t know. And the tears Mrs. Clark was shedding, could have contributed admirably to a third world drought. Then Dr Blake was summoned from somewhere at the back of the church to attend to the bewildered Bridie. While this was going on, Father Muldoon upped and disappeared. He was eventually found (knocking back a pint) in Flemming’s pub, along with a few wayward relatives and a couple of early morning tipplers.

In due course, Mother Superior decided we should go back to the convent until the unfortunate situation was sorted out. What she really meant to say but didn’t (not then), she was itching to find out who the hell set Bridie’s veil on fire. And without consulting anyone, she marched all of us off leaving our families standing around dumbfounded.

As soon as we were back at the convent, she deposited us in the school chapel, barked strict instructions we were to pray quietly, and then (looking noticeably disturbed), as if her tongue had suddenly swelled, she left.

We weren’t a happy bunch of girls at all. We should have been enjoying our Communion Breakfast in the nun’s dining room, followed closely afterwards by countless other treats (mainly cash accruing visits to relations). We shouldn’t be back in the school chapel praying.

As we were both starving, given we hadn’t eaten since the night before, and could just about smell the Communion Breakfast in the nun’s dining room, we simultaneously came to the only logical conclusion—why waste it?

Hunger took over from better sense and the two of us left the chapel (not bothering to ask any of the other’s along) and slipped quietly into the dining room.

As we entered the refectory, Mother Bernadette looked up from her prayer book, and considering she’d been waiting for quite some time for the Communion Class to arrive, she smiled warmly, obviously relieved to see us. Truthfully, she was delighted only two of us turned up, because she wasn’t able to cope with a large bunch of girls any longer, but she would never admit it to any of the other nuns. Nonetheless, for the last four decades she’d presided over the official Breakfast, and still looked forward to it, albeit cautiously.

Full of genuine joviality she told the wonder-struck kitchen staff, Breakfast will be for three, but do keep the burners lighting under the bain-marie. Not one of them asked why the Communion Class had diminished to only two girls.

We wasted no time filling her in on what happened during our abandoned ceremony. Upon hearing our gabbled description of the veil on fire, she laughed