Olga - A Daughter's Tale by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell) Page B
Tags: Religión, Biographical fiction, London, Biography, Family Saga, Memoirs, Nursing, Single mothers, Jamaica, ww2, prejudice, a memoir, illigitimacy, obeah
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worth, Mammie says.
Going to church is a social occasion and after mass, standing around outside the Church, you can catch up on all the gossip. Unfortunately, quite a lot of it has been about the Browneys lately so we haven’t hung around for too long.
******
Whit Sunday : My sisters Dolly, Ruby, Pearl and I had decided to go to an early mass so that afterwards we could catch a boat to Port Royal and spend the day on the beach and swim and have a picnic. We had just returned to our pew after receiving Holy Communion when I was aware of a click-clacking sound coming from behind me and turned round to see what it was. It was coming from Vivie and her silver dance shoes. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There she was, still wearing the tight, low cut red dress she had bought to go to Freddie Howell’s birthday party the previous night. On her head was a small scarf which didn’t quite cover her newly bleached blonde hair.
“ Is it a wig” Dolly whispered to me?
Vivie must have been aware of the stir she was causing in the Church, but, her faith is as important to her as it is to the rest of us and she knew that even if the congregation and God judged her to be a sinner, God, at least, would forgive her.
All eyes were on her and at the same time varying commotions erupted around the Church. There were plenty of gasps from onlookers as she click clacked down the aisle towards the altar rail. Some people were whispering, quite a few were muttering loudly and some distinct words could be heard…… “common, trash, looks like a whore”...... and some whose mouths were opened in astonishment.
Vivie and her shoes click clacked their way down the aisle heading straight for the altar rail. She knelt down and waited to receive Communion from Father Butler. He had seen Vivie approaching and was aware of the stir she was causing in the Church.
Father Butler told Mammie later that before he reached Vivie he had decided what he was going to do. And he did it. In front of hundreds of people he walked straight past her without giving her Holy Communion.
It was a slight of monumental proportions, and by now you could have heard a pin drop because there was total silence in the cathedral and for what seemed like forever Vivie remained on her own kneeling at the altar rail.
Then she stood up and turned to face the congregation. She looked around at the faces in front of her, lifted her hand and slowly removed the scarf. That one defiant gesture, or it may have been the sight of the blonde hair, caused the entire congregation to act together and they gasped.
Vivie then calmly walked out of the Church.
Father Frank Butler was a newly ordained priest when he came to Kingston from Ireland shortly after the Great Exhibition in 1891 which, apparently, was Jamaica’s way of telling the rest of the world what a lot of opportunities there were here.
Although Father Butler’s very old now, he’s still a big man and fat. He says he’s not fat but “well nourished” and he’s got white hair and a very weather beaten complexion from too much sun.
He’s taken part in most of the important religious occasions to do with the Browneys - when we were baptised, our first Holy Communion, our confirmation and our confessions. He probably knows more about all of us than either Mammie or Sydney.
I was never very happy when he heard my confession on a Friday evening because he and Sydney are good friends and every Sunday night Father Butler comes to Mission House to see Sydney and the pair of them would sit for hours talking and smoking smelly cigars in the upstairs drawing room every Sunday night.
For a long time I was frightened that Father Butler would tell Sydney about the sins I’d confessed to and I’d get a whipping, but Mammie told me that a priest has to take an oath of silence and can never repeat anything to anyone else that he hears in the confessional box even if he was asked to by a judge in a court of law.
In the
Going to church is a social occasion and after mass, standing around outside the Church, you can catch up on all the gossip. Unfortunately, quite a lot of it has been about the Browneys lately so we haven’t hung around for too long.
******
Whit Sunday : My sisters Dolly, Ruby, Pearl and I had decided to go to an early mass so that afterwards we could catch a boat to Port Royal and spend the day on the beach and swim and have a picnic. We had just returned to our pew after receiving Holy Communion when I was aware of a click-clacking sound coming from behind me and turned round to see what it was. It was coming from Vivie and her silver dance shoes. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There she was, still wearing the tight, low cut red dress she had bought to go to Freddie Howell’s birthday party the previous night. On her head was a small scarf which didn’t quite cover her newly bleached blonde hair.
“ Is it a wig” Dolly whispered to me?
Vivie must have been aware of the stir she was causing in the Church, but, her faith is as important to her as it is to the rest of us and she knew that even if the congregation and God judged her to be a sinner, God, at least, would forgive her.
All eyes were on her and at the same time varying commotions erupted around the Church. There were plenty of gasps from onlookers as she click clacked down the aisle towards the altar rail. Some people were whispering, quite a few were muttering loudly and some distinct words could be heard…… “common, trash, looks like a whore”...... and some whose mouths were opened in astonishment.
Vivie and her shoes click clacked their way down the aisle heading straight for the altar rail. She knelt down and waited to receive Communion from Father Butler. He had seen Vivie approaching and was aware of the stir she was causing in the Church.
Father Butler told Mammie later that before he reached Vivie he had decided what he was going to do. And he did it. In front of hundreds of people he walked straight past her without giving her Holy Communion.
It was a slight of monumental proportions, and by now you could have heard a pin drop because there was total silence in the cathedral and for what seemed like forever Vivie remained on her own kneeling at the altar rail.
Then she stood up and turned to face the congregation. She looked around at the faces in front of her, lifted her hand and slowly removed the scarf. That one defiant gesture, or it may have been the sight of the blonde hair, caused the entire congregation to act together and they gasped.
Vivie then calmly walked out of the Church.
Father Frank Butler was a newly ordained priest when he came to Kingston from Ireland shortly after the Great Exhibition in 1891 which, apparently, was Jamaica’s way of telling the rest of the world what a lot of opportunities there were here.
Although Father Butler’s very old now, he’s still a big man and fat. He says he’s not fat but “well nourished” and he’s got white hair and a very weather beaten complexion from too much sun.
He’s taken part in most of the important religious occasions to do with the Browneys - when we were baptised, our first Holy Communion, our confirmation and our confessions. He probably knows more about all of us than either Mammie or Sydney.
I was never very happy when he heard my confession on a Friday evening because he and Sydney are good friends and every Sunday night Father Butler comes to Mission House to see Sydney and the pair of them would sit for hours talking and smoking smelly cigars in the upstairs drawing room every Sunday night.
For a long time I was frightened that Father Butler would tell Sydney about the sins I’d confessed to and I’d get a whipping, but Mammie told me that a priest has to take an oath of silence and can never repeat anything to anyone else that he hears in the confessional box even if he was asked to by a judge in a court of law.
In the
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