The Liberation of Brigid Dunne Read online

  Imelda sighed. She’d felt so unlike most other women of her age, who seemed to adore their babies. She must be unnatural, she thought, because had she and Larry been childless, it wouldn’t have upset her in the slightest.

  Learning to drive had been a double-edged sword. Very few women in the townland had cars of their own and she was plagued to give lifts to all and sundry. She’d to bring her mother-in-law to a dental appointment tomorrow morning, and Peter to an eye clinic for a follow-up appointment after his surgery to correct his squint. She was practically living in hospitals these days. Imelda frowned, sitting back down beside her mother. And then she remembered she’d promised her mother she would help write her grandmother’s memorial cards today, as well.

  Granny Dunne had died in the autumn and Elizabeth wanted to have everything done properly so that people wouldn’t be talking about how long it took to get the headstone for the grave and send the memorial cards.

  Granny’s passing had freed her up a little, Imelda admitted. But it had been a hard year, with her mother’s bronchitis, Granny Dunne’s last illness, and Imelda’s father’s fall from the tractor and subsequent back surgery, which left him limping and crotchety.

  “We got a letter from Brigid. Your father read it to me. She’s spent six months in Nigeria setting up a clinic like the one she’s running out in the bush in Senegal. She wants us to hold a Bring and Buy Sale, for Christmas, to help her to raise funds. I’ve asked the new priest for the loan of the parish hall, and he kindly said yes. We can have it next Saturday. Will you ask Larry to give us a few contributions for the Wheel of Fortune? And will you sell some tickets in the shop, and bake a few fairy cakes? Yours are as light as a feather. And will you get a loan of the Burco boiler from the Tech and drop it down to the hall?” Elizabeth turned to her and issued her list of requirements, much to Imelda’s chagrin.

  Did her mother think that she’d nothing better to do than bake cakes and sell tickets and lug Burco boilers around Ardcloch? Didn’t Brigid have the life of Reilly, flitting around Africa between convents! Not for her sister the washing of their grandmother’s stinky, urine-sodden sheets, or ferrying ailing relatives around, morning, noon, and night.

  “I’ll do what I can, Mam,” Imelda said dourly. Her parents lived for Brigid’s airmail letters with all the news of their daughter’s exotic lifestyle in the wilds of Africa. She was now practically a saint in their eyes.

  “You’re in bad form,” her mother noted. “Is Aunt Flow in town?”

  I wish, thought Imelda, unwilling to tell her mother that it was precisely the fact that she hadn’t got her period that was causing her bad humour.

  “No. I’m tired, that’s all. Buying in the stock for Christmas is always a busy time in the shop and I didn’t sleep great last night,” she fibbed.

  “Are you going to Dublin for the eighth?” Elizabeth queried, taking out her knitting.

  “I am. You didn’t want to go, did you?” Imelda’s heart sank. The thought of the annual Christmas shopping trip to Dublin, on the eighth of December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception—or Culchie Christmas, as the Dubs called it—had been keeping her going. She was meeting up with Teresa in Clerys, and spending the night with her best friend at her home in Glasnevin.

  For years, she’d taken Elizabeth and her aunt Dervla up on the train to Heuston Station, where they’d caught the bus to the city centre. It had been a great day out. The atmosphere of gaiety and anticipation in the carriages as the train rattled along the tracks to Dublin was infectious, and half of Ardcloch and Glencarraig would be on the exodus of trains and buses leaving the West for the big day out. But Imelda had been looking forward to going on her own this year, and staying with Teresa, who had married a carpenter she’d met at a dance in Galway. He worked for Dublin Corporation and did plenty of nixers, and they’d bought a small bungalow in Glasnevin. Imelda envied her friend greatly, living in the city with buses and shops and interesting places to visit, all to hand.

  “No, I’ll stay put this year, Imelda. I don’t want to leave your father on his own all day. God knows what he’d get up to. He’s got no patience, that man,” her mother sighed.

  “I’ll bring you to Galway or Limerick some morning,” Imelda offered, relieved that she would be travelling solo and knowing how much her mother loved the lights and decorations in the cities at Christmastime.

  “That would be lovely, Imelda. You’re a good daughter. We’ll have lunch. My treat,” her mother said gratefully, patting her arm. “I don’t know how I’d manage without you.”

  It was rare for her mother to praise her, and Imelda felt a softening of her impatience. She loved her parents, but she resented the time she’d to spend looking after them and their affairs. It seemed to her that she’d never, not once in her life, had time to spend on herself, doing what she wanted.

  * * *

  “But sure, what woman ever gets time to spend on herself, Imelda?” Teresa laughed, a week later, when they sat together sipping coffee in Bewley’s Oriental Café on Grafton Street, and Imelda was regaling her friend with all that was going on in “the sticks.”

  “True,” Imelda agreed, sitting back to allow the waitress to place a steaming mug of coffee and a scone and jam in front of her. They had been lucky to get a table in the famous restaurant. It seemed half the country was up in Dublin for the Holy Day, and the streets were thronged with Christmas shoppers, and excited children gazing awestruck at the Christmas lights.

  “Would you not have an éclair, Imelda? They’re delicious! You always have one when we come here.” Teresa licked some cream from the side of her mouth and poured herself a cup of tea.

  “I’d have liked to, but my tummy’s a bit off these days.” Imelda eyed the choux pastry and chocolate treat with envy.

  “A bug? I thought you were a bit down, all right.” Teresa raised an eyebrow before taking another mouthful of the sinful concoction.

  “A baby!” Imelda replied glumly.

  “Oh cripes, Imelda. So soon after Peter! How do you feel about it?” Teresa eyed her warily, not sure whether to congratulate or commiserate but, knowing her friend as she did, feeling commiserations would be more appropriate.

  “Fed up, if you want the truth. I haven’t told Larry yet. I’d say I’m about six weeks gone.” Imelda sighed deeply and cut her scone in half and spread butter and jam on it.

  “Were you not taking precautions?”

  “Ah sure, my cycle’s all over the place. Even bloody Mr. Billings couldn’t make head nor tail of it.” Imelda gave a wry grin.

  Teresa snorted derisively. “Don’t you mean the recently elevated Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great? The Pope rewarded him with that title last year—that’s when he’s not writing encyclicals on birth control. Humanae vitae, if you don’t mind. On the Regulation of Birth. How bloody dare he stick his long beak and his pointy hat in women’s matters—”

  Imelda tittered at this piece of irreverence. Pope Paul VI had indeed a rather prominent nose.

  “You may laugh. I bet you didn’t know that Master Billings and his missus had nine children. His natural family-planning method didn’t work for them, and we’re supposed to believe it will work for us. Huh!”

  “Nine! The randy little fecker. How do you know that?” Imelda was gobsmacked. When Humanae Vitae had been published, the parish priest had read parts of it from the altar and urged all his parishioners to follow the guidelines therein, and not be availing of unnatural contraceptives that were against the will of God and therefore a sin. The Billings Method was the only method of natural family planning approved by the Church, and it was universally loathed by most Irishwomen.

  “A woman I met at a meeting told me: nine kids. And he and the Pope have the cheek to expect us to let them tell us what to do about controlling our own fertility—”

  “That’s very progressive talk, Teresa. What kind of meeting were you at?” Imelda eyed her friend curiously, taking a sip of her delici
ous coffee, the likes of which she would never get to drink back home.

  “Wait until I tell you my news, Imelda,” Teresa said excitedly. “I joined the women’s lib movement.”

  “Go ’way! Did you?” Imelda was stunned. “The one they were talking about on the Late Late a while back? That was a mighty programme that night! There was ructions when the women got going and put Garrett FitzGerald in his place.”

  “The very one. And it was started here—the organizers had their very first meeting in Bewley’s. I must give you their manifesto: Chains or Change.” She took a gulp of tea and continued, “You want to know what infuriated me so much I had to get off my arse and join them? I went to sign up for a library card and they told me they couldn’t give me one without my husband’s signature on the form as a guarantor. Imagine!” She shook her head indignantly. “The number of women I’ve met who’ve had to give up their jobs because they got married. The differences in the salaries women are being paid, compared to men. Don’t get me going, Imelda.”

  “Sure, we’ve always been looked upon as second-class citizens.” Imelda shrugged.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough. I want equal rights, equal opportunities, the end of the marriage bar, the right to contraception. Guess what,” Teresa said gleefully, leaning conspiratorially across the table and lowering her voice. “We’re planning a trip up the North to buy contraceptives and import them back into the Republic. It will be breaking the law, and we could be arrested, and we’ll be on the news, but you know what? The Church and State can go stuff themselves, because Irishwomen are finally putting their foot down. Why don’t you come with us?” Teresa urged. “We’ll have a day out and a bit of craic.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Imelda demurred. This was radical stuff. “It’s all right for you. You live in Dublin; it’s far more liberal here. Could you imagine what they’d say in Ardcloch and Glencarraig if I was seen on the news buying French letters? The Church would organize a picket on the shop, Teresa. You know that. All them craw thumpers would be out. I’d probably be refused communion. I don’t think I’m brave enough to bring all that down on the family.”

  “I suppose you’re right. It is much easier to do this kind of thing here in Dublin, without every nosy Norah knowing your business. Pity, though,” Teresa agreed.

  “Not that there aren’t like-minded women of our age at home. Perhaps I could set up a little group and you could forward me the literature, and we could take the odd trip up to Dublin to go to the meetings,” Imelda said slowly.

  “Now you’re talking.” Teresa grinned. “That’s the Imelda I know.”

  “Dublin’s changed you. You were always so easygoing,” Imelda observed.

  “I still am. Wait until you see the state of the house when we get home.” Her friend laughed. “But when I saw those two library forms, a green one for Kevin because he’s the ‘householder’ and pink for me, the second-class citizen, with a space for his signature approving my application, it opened my eyes. And I’m ashamed to say that I’d been sleepwalking through my own inequality until that moment.”

  “Maybe you should have accepted Bernard Breen’s proposal all those years ago,” Imelda teased. “You’d be a landowner now that he’s shuffled off his mortal coil, the poor craythur.”

  “Oh, don’t remind me,” Teresa hooted. “What was it he said when he proposed?” She half-closed her eyes to think back. “Oh yeah.… ‘I have the place for ten cows and the waterin’ of twenty, if we schtick together, like. And we’ll live with de mudder.’ Poor oul’ Bernard. I wouldn’t have needed the Billings Method if I’d been married to him. He’d never have got near me.”

  They erupted into gales of laughter and Imelda felt a rare moment of carefree light-heartedness that the gift of her friendship with Teresa always brought.

  * * *

  “Did you enjoy yourself, Imelda?” Larry asked her the following evening, as they prepared for bed.

  “I had a great time, Larry. Teresa’s such fun. And you know me—I love shopping.”

  “I know you do.” Her husband smiled, buttoning his pyjama jacket.

  “And I got a pair of white wet-look boots for Keelin. She’ll be ecstatic! I’ve got all the Santa stuff stashed over at Mam’s.”

  “I hope you bought something for yourself.” Larry got into bed and yawned, running his hand over his stubbly jaw. Imelda felt a twinge of guilt. He had made sure there was a stew cooked when she got home and the house had been tidy. And he’d been up to his eyes at work.

  “I bought myself a quilted handbag, like the one Liz Taylor was wearing last year. They’re all the rage now. I’ll carry it to Mass on Christmas morning and be the envy of Glencarraig.” Imelda finished creaming her face, wiped her hands on a tissue, and got into bed beside her husband. He’d been so good to her, and, as always, so generous, she wanted to show her appreciation. At least having sex with him tonight wouldn’t result in pregnancy, she thought ruefully, feeling a tad horny. She always felt horny in early pregnancy, so a ride would do them both good.

  “You’re the best husband in the world,” she said, switching out the light and snuggling down beside him, running her hand over his chest.

  “And a man couldn’t have a better wife,” Larry assured her, squeezing her hand. But, to her disappointment, he turned over on his side and was snoring within minutes.

  Imelda lay wide-eyed in the dark, listening to his steady, rhythmic breathing. Sometimes she wondered if Larry wasn’t interested in her anymore. He hadn’t come near her for a few months after Peter was born, eighteen months ago, telling her to “let things settle.” She heard the baby whimpering in his cot and got out of bed and went over to tuck him in where he’d kicked off his blankets. She looked at his downy head of dark hair, illuminated in the moonlight. He was a sturdy wee chap who got on with things. Keelin, her ten-year-old, was a stubborn little madam, like she’d been, Imelda acknowledged, smiling in the dark. Cormac, the elder of her two sons, was placid and loving, like his father. She knew she shouldn’t have favourites, but he was hers. By this time next year there’d be another baby in the cot, and that would be the end of it, Imelda vowed. She wasn’t going to wait for the women’s movement to liberate her from the rulings of the Church. She was going to bloody well liberate herself.

  * * *

  Imelda had crested the top of the big hill between Ardcloch and Glencarraig when nausea overtook her. She pulled in to the side of the road and got out of the car, afraid she might be sick. Twilight had fallen softly on the countryside; only the sound of a dog barking and the crackling of the hoarfrost underfoot broke the still silence.

  Imelda took some deep breaths, the inhaled air burning her lungs with the cold, the exhaled forming a white mist in the dark night. Only the starlight, and the twinkling of window lights in the houses scattered across the fields, broke the velvet darkness in the valley to her left. To her right, the dim orange hue from the street lamps of Glencarraig, two miles away, called her home.

  She’d no sooner climbed back into the car when the first excruciating cramp struck, followed swiftly by another. She felt the blood flow through her, unstoppable, like another miscarriage she’d suffered.

  “Oh Jesus,” she whispered. “Help me get home.” She started the car, taking deep shallow breaths. This was her punishment for wanting to use contraception. For not welcoming the child she was bearing. She knew of two women in Glencarraig who were in the depths of despair because they could not conceive. Women who would have danced with joy to be expecting, unlike herself, who had seen her pregnancy as an act of oppression. Now she was paying for her sinful ingratitude.

  She was being smote by the hand of God.

  Later the following morning, lying in a hard, narrow hospital bed after having a D&C, drowsy from the anaesthetic, Imelda thought back to the guilt she’d felt when the child in her womb had ceased to be. Yes, she’d felt guilty, she acknowledged, but mostly, right now, she felt relief. And if that
made her a bad person, so be it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  May 1971

  The buzz of anticipation when the train from Belfast appeared on the horizon, chugging slowly into Connolly Station—where supporters of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement were waiting to greet their sisters—grew to an excited clamour as the train clickety-clacked its way to the barrier before coming to a stop. A sea of placards waved in the air and the cheers grew higher, reaching a crescendo when the women poured out of the carriages, waving their contraceptives in the air, much to the bemusement of the customs officials. The TV cameras whirred, and Imelda waved her banner while making sure to keep her face partially hidden, unwilling to be seen on the news later, and envious of the women around her who had no such qualms.

  “Let them through! Let them through!” The chant grew louder and louder as the women surged forward to encourage the lawbreakers on the other side of the platform. Imelda swallowed hard, overcome with emotion, and felt tears slide down her cheeks. The women beside her were crying, too, tears of joy and relief, knowing that they were at long last beginning the journey to reclaim control of their own sexuality and fertility from the hands of men, and the Church.

  Teresa had said that at one of her Women’s Liberation meetings they’d been told that in many family units there were often as many as ten or twelve children, if not more. She’d already been pregnant five times, and she could still have fifteen years left of fertility. The sooner contraception was made legal the better, Imelda had decided, offering to be at the homecoming of the “Contraceptive Train” to support her friend.

  * * *

  Imelda felt fiercely proud waving to Teresa, who was walking along the platform on the other side of the barrier, triumphantly holding up her haul of condoms and spermicidal jelly, and grinning from ear to ear. In one fluid movement, the crowd of women surged past the customs officials and out onto the concourse, singing “We Shall Overcome,” and Imelda knew she was seeing history in the making.