The Magdalen by Marita Conlon-Mckenna Read Free Book Online Page A

mother.”

    â€œThank you, Father.” Esther smiled, relief coursing through her veins as she slipped from the near-dark of the confession box, and knelt down in one of the wooden pews to the front of the altar, the sunlight splattering through the leaded window, spilling on to her. She was forgiven.

Chapter Six
    T he war had ended only a month after her Dermot’s death. Peace at last! Adolf Hitler shooting himself in a bunker rather than being captured, and Winston Churchill and the British people ecstatic with their victory. Eamon De Valera had spoken to the Irish people, the whole Doyle family sitting listening to Radio Eireann as he thanked God for sparing Ireland from the conflagration that had left much of Europe in ruins, and praised the success of their neutrality and spoke of their small nation and how she had stood alone for hundreds of years, never accepting defeat or surrendering her soul. United around the radio, Majella had reached for her children’s hands, all of them knowing that they too must start again.

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    The last six years had been hard. Majella was lonesome without Dermot, watching her children grow up.
    The boat lost, Dermot had left them penniless, dependent on the generosity of others. She thanked God that at least they owned the roof over their heads. The boys were strong and healthy, prepared to work hard, and she did not know how she would have coped without Esther’s help. Her beautiful daughter almost running the house and caring for Nonie, when she was too low and depressed and unable to get out of bed. Prayer was her only consolation in these times of trouble.
    Not long after her fourteenth birthday Esther had left the whitewashed convent school, staying home to help with the house and minding Nonie and her small brothers. Mother Brigid had pleaded with Majella to let her stay on and do her exams, so that in time she could study to be a teacher or a nurse. Esther hoped that her mother would listen to the nun, but Majella and Gerard wouldn’t hear of it, and so she had given in to their wishes, though she missed seeing her friends and the stimulation of learning and studying.
    â€œYou lucky ducker!” joked Anna Mitchell, her very best friend. “No more books and exams and nuns telling you what to do and say! I wish my ma and da would let me leave school too.”
    Esther tried to put a brave face on it, but she missed the girls and the chat, and even the nuns. Being stuck at home wasn’t much fun, but she tried to get used to it, making a point of seeing the girls after school or at the
weekend. Gerard and Donal had followed their late father into the fishing business, and thanks to the generosity of the local people a fund had helped purchase a replacement boat, Gerard agreeing to pay off the balance of the cost with a loan from a big bank in Eyre Square in Galway. Her older brothers worked long and hard, putting to sea as often as possible. The fishing was good and they were both well prepared for hard work.
    Gerard himself had grown thick and muscular over the years, a stockier version of their father. He demanded that his meals be ready and served the minute he returned from fishing. At night he would sit at the table counting out the money they earned, passing only a fraction of it over to Mother for the housekeeping, making her plead for any little bit extra she might need. Esther hated him for that. Gerard planned to buy a small farm from one of the old bachelors or spinsters in the locality when the time was right. He had already purchased a small flock of sheep that rambled around their fields and the grassy headland. “Me or mine’ll never be beholden to the charity of others again,” he’d say, determined.
    Donal was the complete opposite, and would give you his last penny, if he had it. For the moment he seemed content to let Gerard boss him around and be rewarded with a small wage, and he would slip off and play