Keep the Home Fires Burning. Anne Bennett
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As Marion drifted to sleep she wondered if she’d have been so generous that if the positions had been reversed.
Despite the war talk around them, Magda and Missie were very excited as June approached. Their seventh birthdays were in the first week and then just two weeks later they were going to make their First Holy Communion. The whole class at school had been preparing for it for months.
One of the things they had to know was their catechism, and Magda and Missie had tried really hard to learn it because sometimes the classroom door would open suddenly and Father McIntyre would be there to test everyone.
The whole class would be on edge – even the teacher looked all tense and stern, Magda noticed ? as Father McIntyre would point at the children at random and fire questions from the catechism at them. Magda would feel as if she was sitting on hot pins because she was pretty sure that if the priest pointed at her and barked out a question, her mind would go blank. So she avoided his eye at all costs and was mightily glad he never chose her. He seemed more interested in the boys, who often gave wrong answers and didn’t seem to care. She knew, though, they would get it in the neck from the teacher later.
There was another trial to go through first before Communion and that was confession. The twins were familiar with the little wooden box in the church where the priest went in one side and they would have to go in the other and tell the priest all the bold things they had done.
‘It won’t be so bad when we’re going every week or so,’ Missie said as they made their way to school the morning that they were going to confession for the first time. ‘I don’t know that I can remember what I have done wrong over the past seven years.’
‘Not a lot, I wouldn’t have said,’ Sarah told her. ‘You never seem to get into trouble.’
‘Not like me,’ Magda said gloomily. ‘Grandma Murray called me a limb of Satan last Sunday.’
Sarah laughed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t take that to heart, if I were you. But then,’ she went on with a wry smile, ‘she might be a help to you if you can’t remember what you’ve done wrong over the years. If you call and see her she could probably supply you with a list.’
‘And if you told the priest all that Grandma told you to say you would spend ages on your knees doing the penance he gave you,’ Missie said, smiling at the vision that conjured up.
‘I’m not going anywhere near Grandma Murray,’ Magda said with a slight shudder. ‘I will just tell the priest what I remember and that will be that.’
‘Are you nervous?’ Sarah asked.
‘A bit,’ Magda admitted.
‘It’s just strange, that’s all,’ Sarah said. ‘You get used to it and, remember, he can’t say anything you tell him to anyone else.’
‘I know that, but he’ll know, won’t he?’
‘Well, of course. But won’t it be worth all this nervousness to wear that beautiful white dress and veil?’
‘Ooh, yes,’ Magda said, and Missie nodded emphatically. Just to think about her Communion dress sent tingles of excitement all though Magda, which began in her toes and spread all over her body. Marion had taken the girls to the Bull Ring to buy them both snow-white dresses decorated with beautiful sparkling seed pearls and lace and pretty pale blue rosebuds. The veils were fastened to their hair with white satin bands also decorated with the pale blue rosebuds, and they had new white socks and sandals. When they got home they tried their outfits on for their father to see and he’d said they looked like a couple of princesses. When he kissed them both Magda was very surprised to see tears in his eyes.
‘I had a dress like that once,’ Sarah said, remembering her First Communion day.
‘I know,’ Magda said. ‘Mom told me. She said she gave it to Aunt Polly after.’
‘Yes,’ Sarah said. ‘Poor Mary Ellen had to have a dress loaned from the school, but my dress came in for Siobhan and Orla.’
‘I would have hated to have a First Communion dress loaned that way,’ Missie said. ‘Wouldn’t you, Magda?’
Magda nodded and Sarah said, ‘You thank your lucky stars that you didn’t have to, but there are far worst things about being poor than a secondhand Communion dress.’
‘I’d hate to be poor as well.’
‘Be glad that you’re not then,’ Sarah said. ‘There are a great many poor these days. We are luckier than a lot of families, and don’t you ever forget that.’
The twins knew all about the poor. Uncle Pat and Auntie Polly were poor, and their children wore boots and clothes donated by the Evening Mail Christmas Tree Fund. They knew that despite the help their mother gave Polly, without the Christmas Tree Fund their cousins would probably have had to go barefoot to school a lot of the time, and been without warm, adequate clothing through the winter. Sarah was right, they were luckier than many families. But the twins didn’t feel lucky when they filed into church that Friday afternoon for their confession.
When it was Magda’s turn she slid from her pew, aware her legs were all of a dither, and went into the little box. It was quite dim with the door shut, and when she kneeled down beside the grille she could just about see the outline of Father McIntyre on the other side and she whispered the words they had been practising at school: ‘Bless me, Father for I have sinned. This is my first confession.’
She stopped then, not sure what to say because whatever her grandmother said, Magda thought she hadn’t sinned much. She was never cheeky or disobedient to her parents, grandparents or teachers or any other grown-up, because she would have had the legs smacked off her if she had been, and the same thing would happen if she was found to be telling lies. She’d never dream of taking something that didn’t belong to her and had never even put half her collection money in her shoe as she had seen Tony do sometimes.
Then she remembered how lax she was about prayers and how she was often in bed before she thought of them, but she always told her mother that she had said them when she came to tuck the twins in, so that was adding lying to it as well and so she told the priest that. She didn’t mention the fact that she sometimes hated Tony, and her grandmother too, and she supposed that was a sin, though not, she thought, the sort of thing she could admit to a priest. She had to say three Hail Marys and a Glory Be as a penance. Missie and most of their classmates had been given the same.
‘We must make sure that we don’t do something really dreadful tomorrow,’ Missie warned as she and Magda walked home together afterwards. ‘The teacher said that our souls must be as white as snow to receive Holy Communion.’
‘We never get the chance to do something really dreadful,’ Magda said, but she made a mental note that she would make sure she didn’t forget her prayers that night, or Saturday either, to make sure she’d have no stain on her soul when she went to the rails.
That Sunday morning all the girls were to the left of the aisle and Magda sneaked a look at the boys on the other side. Many had smart new white shirts, and the richer amongst them also had black shiny shoes and new grey trousers, and socks that probably stayed up better than the ones many wore to school, which resided in concertina rolls around their ankles unless they were held up by garters. But all in all the boys’ clothes were very commonplace when compared to the girls’ finery. In fact, the only thing that marked this day as a special one for the boys was the satin sash they each had around their shoulders, which lay across the body and fastened at the hip.
The strains of the organ brought people to their feet. Marion watched all the children looking so angelic on this very special day. They were quieter than she had ever known them. The sense of occasion had got into even the most mischievous, and there was no fidgeting or whispering, and no one dropped their pennies for the collection. As they left their seats to go up to the rails a little later, she felt tears stinging her eyes as she wondered what was in store for these young children if their country went to war.