About Matilda (23 page)

I tell Pippa to leave Sheamie alone. Pippa flicks her blonde ponytail and sits back against the wall with her arms folded and her don't-you-dare-talk-to-me-again face.

Still, says Sheamie, we have to do something.

What? says Mona. We can't do nothin'.

Of course we can, says Sheamie. Tell Gabriel we're just not going.

Pippa decides to talk again.

Just like that, she says to Sheamie, say we're not going. That's a brilliant fuckin' idea. I'd say you were awake all night.

I'll say it to Gabriel when she comes back.

Go on, then. I dare yeh.

We pack the suitcases and leave them on the floor with the lids open and sit back on the bed waiting for Gabriel, and here she is already bending down, locking the cases, telling us she never saw five such mournful gobs. We look at each other, nodding, nudging, pointing to Gabriel, but that's as far as it goes till Pippa kneels up on the bed and says, Ah, Mother.

Yes, Pippa?

Sheamie has something to tell you, and sticks her tongue out at Sheamie.

What is it, Sheamie?

It wasn't me, Mother. What are you pickin' on me for. I didn't say anything.

Oh yes you did, says Pippa.

Well one of you must want something. What's going on here?

Sheamie's face is as red as his hair and Gabriel doesn't have time to wait for an answer. She has things to do. I kneel up on the bed beside Pippa and ask Gabriel do we have to go on this holiday and Gabriel says it's been decided. Sheamie says, But we don't want to go, and Gabriel says, Well you are going, and that sets Mona off. She stomps her feet on the floor, I'm not going. I don't want to. I'm just not going and that's all there is to it. We'll be kilt. I'm nearly fifteen and you can't make me.

Gabriel snaps up straight and wags her finger at Mona.

I can and I will. And none of your tantrums here, Miss. You'll keep your gob well shut if you know what's good. I don't know what this nonsense is about. There isn't a child in here wouldn't give their eyelashes for even a weekend away, never mind a whole summer. It's on your knees thanking the good Lord for the privilege, you should be.

But she's not convincing us.

It's too long, Mother, says Sheamie. You can say we're only allowed for a week or something.

Gabriel sighs, she sits on the bed between us with her crucifix on her lap and it's the first time I've seen Gabriel sitting on a bed talking to anyone. We gather round her and tell her she knows what our father is like. Sheamie says he'll turn us all into Pentecostals again and for good this time. We'll be brainwashed.

Gabriel draws breath and stares at Sheamie over her glasses.

Do you think so, Sheamie?

Protestants, even. And you wouldn't want that, Mother.
You know how Reverend Mother feels about Protestants. He might even kidnap us away to England to live with him.

There's a lump in Gabriel's throat the size of a doorknob. She lifts her eyebrows and stares at each of us in turn, and we look back with worried faces and nod that Sheamie is right.

I'll ring your grandmother immediately. Don't stir.

We can't laugh. Pippa is sobbing her eyes out till Sheamie tells her she's at it again, wah, wah, wah, does she ever feckin' stop? At least wait till Gabriel gets back. The only one not bothered is Danny. He's lying on the bed with his round brown eyes staring up at the ceiling. Danny is only ten so, no matter what happens, Danny thinks that's just the way things are. I suppose that happens to you when you've been in and out of orphanages since you were two.

Gabriel is back but stays by the door. She says everything is arranged. Your grandmother is coming with you. She's assured me you'll attend mass and receive the Blessed Sacraments. She's mortified enough with your father preaching outside the Cathedral and wouldn't have the shame of a Protestant in the family. You're meeting your Uncle James and your Aunt Peg in Donegal. Get outside the lot of you. That's the end of it.

The end of it?

That can't be the end even though Nanny coming is better than Nanny not coming but no way do I want to be with that Aunt Peg and her dead fox. I'll ask Doyler. I catch her as she's pouring herself a cup of tea in the kitchen but she says it's out of her hands. She wouldn't have any say. Reverend Mother would have her out the door faster than she could bless herself if she attempted to interfere. You know the position I'm in but aren't I doing my best for all of you. Aren't I? Well, aren't I? How dare you walk away from me! Come back here this instant.

Lucy Flynn is waiting for me in the playground with another idea. She's sitting on the swing with her arms wrapped around the chains. Her hair in plaits and her skin blackened from the sun. Lucy says, Me mother is going the live in England, Matilda. We can run away with her and live wi'me relations. Yee haves money, I seen Sheamie hidin't it under the chestnut trees.

I couldn't do that, Lucy.

But you're me friend, Matilda.

I have to stay with my brothers and sisters, Lucy. I can't go. It's not worth running away for.

Suit yerself, don't say I didn't ask yeh.

I won't, Lucy.

Saturday morning, the five of us are sitting on our suitcases out in the playground. We hear it before we see its blue bonnet coming around the corner by the fire escape. It sounds as rusty as it looks and my father's behind the steering wheel with his elbow out the window and the cigarette between his lips. He steps out wearing the brown Moses sandals and the same clothes he wore at the wedding, and fires a fistful of silver coins in the air like thirty pieces of silver dazzling in the sunshine. They tinkle when they land and roll over the ground and set off a stampede of the kids screaming, pulling and pushing each other around the playground. Gabriel comes to the door, all smiles for my father, and it's easy to see she'll be glad to see the back of him and he won't be in here tormenting her.

My father bends for us to kiss his cheek and he tells us to put our cases in the boot and sit in the car. He goes inside to talk to Gabriel and I climb in the back next to Pippa and Danny and Sheamie. Sheamie is sitting behind my father's seat. I'm sitting behind the other seat with Pippa and Danny in the middle. Mona is in the front.

Where's my grandmother going to sit?

Gabriel comes to the door with my father to wave goodbye. Have a nice time and I'll see you when you get back.

There's a dirty yellow caravan with rusty wheels parked outside our grandmother's house. My father hitches it to the back of the car and brings us inside where our grandmother is sitting in the armchair watching the horse racing on television. She has a cup of tea in one hand and her betting docket in the other. My father says, We called to say goodbye, and now we know our grandmother lied. She betrayed us.

She keeps her old grey eyes on the television when she tells us to behave for our Daddy and she'll see us when we get back, if we get back at all with this petrol shortage going on. Cars backed up for miles at every petrol station in the country.

We'll be all right, says my father.

I'm sure you'll manage, right enough. Have a nice time, that's the main thing. She goes to the kitchen to make tea for herself. She doesn't even come to the door to wave goodbye.

No one wants to sit in the front seat. The one in the front seat has to do the spellings. We've all squashed in the back and we're whispering, You get in, piss off, you get in.

Oh, shut the fuck up all of you, says Mona.

Then my father roars, One of you sit in the front!

Sheamie leaps. Everyone else clutches the seat in front of them and when Sheamie lands again he's in the front seat and there are grunts of relief in the back. Soon we're crossing the bridge over the River Suir and I wonder how long before I see it again.

At every garage along the way there's a queue of cars. Each garage will only give five pounds worth of petrol and we have to stop at four garages before the car is filled. We've been driving and stopping and driving on again and it's been hours since our last stop. Mona is sitting in the front seat now. I'm
hot and stiff and I'm bursting to piss. I know the others are too, the way they clutch themselves. My father tells Mona to reach under the seat and get the schoolbooks out. We're to do our spellings. Mona can be a bitch with spellings the way she asks the ones she learns in the big girls' school, but today Mona asks the simple ones and, even when we get one wrong, Mona pretends we got it right.

My father winds the window down full and turns on the radio and sings along with the music, ‘Seasons in the Sun'. He's in great form. He lets his hand out the window tapping his fingers off the car door and tells us to put the schoolbooks away. We're sweaty in the back so we wind the windows down for the cool wind and if it stays like this things mightn't be too bad.

We stop at a field with hedges all round. Across the road a horse has his head out over a gate. He has a long nose and a toothy grin and I wonder, does he know something I don't? My father tells us to do what yee have to do but hurry. I want to be there tonight.

The field is covered in nettles and great blobs of cow shit. Mona and me run behind a hedge but Pippa won't follow. We hear her through the briars telling Sheamie she has a red blouse on and a bull would attack. Sheamie says bulls don't bother over red, they'd chase anything that moves. They're a bit like Mona.

Mona doesn't hear.

Pippa says, Of course they do, Sheamie. Everyone knows that. Sheamie says, Suit yourself, and turns to the hedge to piss.

When Mona and me come back, Pippa asks, Is there a bull?

No.

Are yee sure?

We are.

We watch Pippa till she gets to the corner of the hedge.

There's two, Pippa.

Pippa puts her hands to her head and screams.

Sheamie is laughing so hard he catches his willy in his zipper. He's bent over and there's water coming from his eyes and I don't know if it's the laughing or if he's in pain. He looks in pain. Oh Jesus, Sheamie, are you in pain? The poor youngfella. Is he in pain, Danny? Stop laughing, Danny, it's not funny. Can we do anything, Sheamie? Are you bleeding? Is he bleeding, Danny? Pippa, are you ready yet? Danny, would you stop laughing.

Mona and me run to the car for our father and tell him what's happened to Sheamie. He jumps out and runs into the field. Mona and me wait by the car.

It's a penis, says Mona.

What is?

A willy.

That's disgustin'.

Why?

Just is.

There's nothing to be embarrassed over, Matilda.

Do you know somethin', Mona. I'd say if you met a boy called Penis you wouldn't think twice about it.

I know plenty of boys called Dick and I don't think twice about them.

Would you say it to Gabriel? Sheamie caught his penis in his zipper.

She wouldn't know what it was, Matilda.

A zipper?

No, yeh fool. A penis.

I was joking, Mona.

You weren't.

I was, Mona.

Mona scrunches her freckles at me. You weren't.

Oh, suit yourself.

I move away to the other side of the car. There are times I'm certain Mona is as crazy as my father there, coming through the gap in the hedge with Sheamie in his arms, Danny still laughing and Pippa pulling up her jeans. Then I remember the day Mona gave my godfather a nut in the balls and I know Mona has a heart as big as the ocean. That Mona is only Mona because of everything that happened. Chasing boys, doing whatever they want her to do, is the only way she knows how to feel loved.

My father puts Sheamie in the front seat and tells him to breathe slowly. That's it now, not too deep. The rest of us are sitting in the back seat trying our best not to laugh. We don't even look at each other because looking at someone who's trying not to laugh is the worst thing you can do when you're trying not to laugh yourself. I can't help it. I have to look. Pippa is sitting beside me, her jaws are blown and there're bubbles blowing from her nose. Mona's face is so straight you'd think it was stitched on but every so often there's a quick turn up at the corner of her mouth. I lean out a little further and try to catch Danny's eye but he turns his head and looks out the side window. Now Sheamie lets out a moan and that sets us off. Even my father laughs and has to pull the car over to the side of the road to calm himself. The thought comes to me that if things stay like this the holiday mightn't be as bad as I thought. Even Sheamie is laughing, only the laughing makes the pain worse and my father says he'll have to find him a doctor. Just in case.

We turn off the main roads on to quiet country roads and search. We're in the middle of nowhere and by now it's getting late. We keep driving till we come to a place called Westport, where Daddy knocks on doors till someone eventually tells him where to find a doctor at this hour.

The doctor lives at the top of a long narrow laneway in a house covered with ivy. He's a small man with grey hair and a stick that he taps on the side of his leg when he talks. He gives us pills for Sheamie and says he'll be right in a day or two. My father says we're going to Donegal and we need petrol. We've gone out of our way and he'll be lucky to get back to the main road. Is there a garage?

Oh, we've a garage right enough for all the good it'll do. Not a drop. Nor won't be a drop for another week. Damn bloody Arabs. If you're stuck, there's a bit of a caravan site over on the island. You're doing a bit of touring anyhow, by the looks of it.

Daddy thanks the doctor who waves us off with his stick as we drive back down the lane. We drive on till we cross over a bridge that creaks beneath us. I can feel the weight of the caravan being towed behind. We're at the top of a hill and in the distance the ocean glints above the treetops. The sun has set but lemon light streaks the water and the sky has turned to gold.