I was dreading the moment Mother Clara would tell us to put our dresses on, but I made up my mind I wasn’t going to let it break me. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I told myself firmly. ‘Nothing is going to spoil my First Holy Communion. I have a veil and a handbag, and new gloves and socks and shoes! I’ll puff out the veil and make it hide the dress. Yes! That’s what I’ll do.’
I realized I had toughened up a lot since I started school. I had been humiliated and bullied so many times by Mother Dorothy that I couldn’t possibly let it get to me every day, or I would have just ended up as crumpled and ragged as my dress, and then she would have won.
I didn’t want her to win, so I put on a brave face. When the time came to put on my dress, I pushed back my shoulders and tried to hold my head high. I could hear other girls oohing and aahing over each others’ dresses while I shuffled along at the back, desperately trying to make myself look proud and decent when all I really wanted to do was disappear.
The rehearsal was an awful ordeal. ‘Focus on what you are actually doing, girls!’ Mother Clara instructed. ‘You are taking the body of Christ for the very first time. It is a momentous occasion in your life! You are receiving Christ!’
I thought about nothing but my terrible dress, and when we practised eating the holy bread it stuck to the roof of my mouth like cardboard because I was so parched with nerves and tension. When the posh girls gave me sideways glances, nudging each other and sniggering behind their hands, I looked them straight in the eye and bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t cry. ‘Don’t you dare cry,’ I warned myself. ‘Then they would win. Don’t cry. Be brave.’
Afterwards, Mother Clara took me to one side and whispered that she would like to make me a new dress. I guessed she must have felt sorry for me, but I was too relieved and delighted to feel embarrassed by her pity.
‘Yes please!’ I said gratefully. ‘Thank you so much, Mother Clara. That is so very kind of you!’
It was kind of her, but it gave me another problem.
I walked home full of trepidation as to what Mammy would say. I knew she would go mad. I decided the best way to break the news was to make it sound as unimportant as possible. I just had to come out with it.
‘Oh yeah - did I tell you, Mammy?’ I said casually. ‘Mother Clara is going to make me a new Holy Communion dress… that’s kind, isn’t it?’
Mammy immediately sat up. Her eyes were blank and her lips set in a mean snarl.
‘We do not accept charity, Cynthia. You cannot accept it. Do you hear me? Tell that nun to keep her nose out of our family business.’
I gasped, and then my lungs shrank in my chest so quickly I felt as if I’d been punched. ‘Yes, Mammy,’ I muttered, not meaning it. There was no way in the world I was going to wear that tatty dress when I was having one made especially for me. Mammy was wrong, and I was going to have to get her to change her mind. It wasn’t true that we didn’t accept charity. Most things I wore were left on the doorstep in bags. I wasn’t going to give in! It was even worth a beating, as long as I got to wear my new dress.
The following week, Mother Clara asked me to stay behind after class one day. ‘I’m sure you’ll love the dress,’ she said kindly, opening a cupboard. It was neatly wrapped in fine tissue paper, and when I peeled the paper back I jumped in the air and threw my hands over my mouth to stop myself squealing.
It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It had a huge puffed-out skirt and flowing, long sleeves, just like something out of a fairytale book. I knew exactly what I was going to do.
Wrapping it up again, I cradled the dress carefully in my arms and took it straight home to show Mammy. ‘When she sees this, surely she won’t be able to refuse?’ I prayed, knowing deep down she was never going to change her mind.
It probably wasn’t a great moment to talk to Mammy, but I had no time to spare. She looked very tired, lying in her bed. She was wearing smudged red lipstick, and I’d heard her argue for ages with Daddy last night. I thought back to how I had practised my Hail Mary and Our Father while they fought until late, asking God to make them stop, but it didn’t work.
I remembered Mammy called Daddy a ‘fuckin’ bastard’, and he called her a ‘fuckin’ stupid cow’. She screeched so loudly I could hear her voice vibrate through my huddled-up body, and she kept saying the same things over and over again, getting louder and louder.
When Daddy finally came to bed, I heard him use the toilet bucket and throw his clothes on the floor in a temper. I didn’t like it when he sounded so angry. He never spoke to me when I was in bed, and it wasn’t that I was afraid of him beating me, because he never beat me in bed.
I just didn’t feel comfortable when he was in a bad mood, huffing and puffing and cursing Mammy under his breath. It made me itch my skin nervously, and I lay awake for hours.
Now it was the next day, though, and my thoughts snapped back to the silken dress I had carried home from school like a precious baby clasped to my chest. I had to show Mammy. I had to get her to change her mind.
I asked Mammy if she would like
