About Matilda (31 page)

I look up. Not as far as those eyes. I wouldn't dare. He'd kill me. He'd say I was challenging him. My eyes stop at the beard. It's longer, scraggier, more grey than black.

Sorry, Daddy, I didn't see you.

You'll never get away from me. Remember that.

I didn't see you, honest.

He bends for me to kiss his cheek and my mind goes blank but I know I've kissed him because there's that bitter taste on my lips. He asks why I didn't write and I tell him I did and he nods like he remembers. It was only one stupid letter Gabriel made me write.

Have you written to your father lately, Matilda?

No, Mother.

Wouldn't it be nice now to tell him how well you're doing in the running and you won the gold medal and had your picture in the paper? I'm sure he'll want to hear all of it, Matilda.

He wouldn't want to hear any of it.

Be sure to say you love him and miss him terribly. I'll post it for you. Wouldn't now be a lovely time to do it, with summer coming.

It wasn't a question. What Gabriel meant by summer coming is, that crazy bastard is going to be here soon, in God's name, do something. I wrote, but I didn't tell him about the running. After what happened in Clew Bay I couldn't, and I hated Gabriel for making me write because I didn't miss him and I don't love him. Now I'm glad she did.

Where are you going now?

I'm off school.

Did I ask about school?

No, Daddy.

I'm caught. I can't tell him about my running. Something new for him to say I'm useless at, but I have my running togs on and the new runners that Sonny bought for my birthday and if he even thinks I'm lying he'll kill me here and now. I tell him about the running and how I got my picture in the paper and, as I'm telling him, I remember how good I felt and for some stupid reason I hope he'll be proud he has a daughter who has more gold medals than the whole Holy Shepherd put together, but it means nothing to him and for a little while it makes me feel nothing.

He sits on a chair with the straw sticking out of its arms and lights a cigarette. He pulls an empty fruit crate beside him and tells me to sit and there's nothing to do but sit here with the cheap clothes, the lousy fruit and the broken records. He asks about Pippa and Danny and I tell him they're in the convent.

Are you visiting your Nanny?

I lie that I called at Easter and he seems happy with that.

It's important to keep contact with the family, Matilda. Family is all you have at the end of the day.

I know, Daddy.

The chapel bells ring for ten o'clock mass and I tell him Gabriel will be waiting, even though he knows she won't and wouldn't give a shit if she was. He twirls the cigarette between his thumb and finger and watches the smoke spiral. Umbilical Bill tosses me an apple.

Thanks, Bill.

I like Bill. I get a kick out of watching him flog the bruised pears he swears he picked this morning, when I know the only
thing Bill ever picked any morning was his nose. My father asks how I'm doing with the music and I tell him I can play the accordion and the flute and wonder why is he interested and who told him I'm learning music in the Mad School.

The long thin lips smile to themselves and the eyebrows twitch.

You can go. Tell the others I'll be down. Make sure you're there.

At nearly fourteen you'd think there'd be some sign of a chest. Pippa has the biggest chest in the convent and I can't understand why I have almost none. I sit on my bed looking down the front of my jumper screaming, Come on, come on, for Christ's sake. I pull at my nipples but they only stick out like points and when I let go my skin slaps back flat to my chest and I end up with nipples raw and sore. If I had a bra, I could fill it with stockings and toilet paper, only I'm too nervous to ask Gabriel. She'll say bras cost money and she can't be handing out bras to someone with no chest.

I'm shaking walking down the stairs. I stop on the landing and chew the inside of my lip, wondering if now is a bad time to ask with my father around, but I'll never get one unless I ask.

Gabriel is in the kitchen, her hands white with flour, baking scones for Father Devlin. Hello, Matilda, she says.

Oh shit, she knows.

I run back out to the hallway and sit on the end of the stairs with my chin in my hands. Maybe she doesn't know, maybe she was just saying hello. I walk in and ask straight out.

Mother, can I have a bra?

A what?

A bra, Mother?

She looks at me like I'm demented and wonders, What would you do with a bra, Matilda?

What do you mean what would I do with it? What do you think I'd do with it?

You don't need a bra. When you do I'll let you know.

I need one now, Mother.

Don't be silly. Be off out and play and let me get on with the work.

I feel like crying because she speaks to me like a child, a child with no chest. She wouldn't speak to me like that if I had a bra. Then I could go around holding them up with my arms folded and not have to keep my arms by my side, because you can't go around folding your arms under your chest when you don't have a bra.

Gabriel goes to clean Polly's cage and complains about the kids always sticking bits of weed and leftover corn flakes through the bars. I don't know how the poor little thing survives at all, Matilda. It must be a miracle.

It'd be a miracle if you bought the poor little thing a box of birdseed.

What?

Nothin'.

Gabriel looks through the window and asks if my father plays the guitar and I don't know what guitars have to do with anything.

A guitar?

I run to the window and there he is in the playground with a black leather guitar case in his hand. Pippa is skipping around him like she's delighted he's here. Part of her probably is. Part of her is terrified. That's what happens when you have nobody to love and nobody to love you. You'll look for it from the ones that hurt you most. Even from my father.

He hands Pippa something in a box like a tiny black coffin. It's probably a watch. It is a watch, with a gold strap and clasp.
Pippa kisses his cheek and runs to show the other kids what she's got.

Gabriel goes to the sink, tidying what's already tidied so she looks busy when he walks in all smiles saying, Hello, Sister, nice to see you again.

It's hard not to laugh at the way Gabriel tries to sound surprised when she says, Oh, Mister Kelly, how nice to see you again.

Gabriel smiles at me like I'm a great girl altogether and I still hate it when she does that.

My father leaves the guitar on the table and bends for me to kiss his cheek and there's that bitter taste again. He walks to the window and stands with his hands behind his back and asks where Danny is. Gabriel walks the other way, towards the sink. Have you seen Danny today, Matilda? And she knows he's out on the wall since breakfast and by now he's hiding on the other side of town.

No, Mother. Did you?

Well, I'm absolutely certain he was here earlier but I couldn't say where he is right now. Though I'll be certain he knows you're looking, Mister Kelly.

My father walks to the piano and opens the lid. Plays one or two notes and closes it again.

Did you know Matilda's mother played the piano, Sister?

Did she, indeed? Well, it must run in the family, because I'm receiving fabulous reports about Matilda and her music.

There's a cold sweat soaking through my blouse. He's up to something. By now he's usually roaring abuse at Gabriel about our education and how stupid I am and how it's all Gabriel's fault.

I'd like to see Matilda on her own, Sister. Is that all right with you?

I'm looking at Gabriel, waiting for her to turn around and say we were going somewhere, but she gives me her back.

Go, Matilda, go with your father.

I thought we were goin' somewhere, Mother?

Not that I'm aware of.

I thought you said…

You must be mistaken. Go with your father.

The sun is sinking above the chestnut trees and the playground glints orange. There's a crack of wings as the starlings lift from the telephone wires and make great sweeping circles overhead. My father walks ahead of me with the guitar in his hand, through the wooden gate to the nuns' garden full of shrubs and flowers and nuns on their knees with garden trowels digging in the clay.

He kneels beside Sister Rose, who's in charge of the gardens and spends her life on her knees one way or another, and tells her in his sweet, calm voice, the Lord is in her two hands and the garden is an offering to the Almighty and would you mind if we share it with you a while? Sister Rose is so delighted she's offering him slips and bulbs of every hedge, shrub, lily and rose in the garden and the way he's going he'll have her preaching on the side of the road with him if he doesn't stop.

A pleasure, Mister Kelly, why anytime at all. And how is Matilda this evening?

Fine, Sister Rose.

I'm sure you're only delighted to have your father home.

I am, Sister.

Don't let me delay you both any longer. Have a nice evening, won't you. It was a pleasure to meet you again, Mister Kelly.

And you, Sister Rose.

Near a small pond where a family of brown ducks live, my father sits cross-legged on the lawn fringed by shrubs and
roses. The ground is hard and the grass is burned in the centre of the lawn and I know the nuns are saying isn't it a wonderful sight to see a man and his daughter on such a splendid lawn on an evening such as this. I tremble when he tells me to sit closer, right here in front of him.

I bought you this.

Bought? My father doesn't buy anything unless he's up to something.

He unzips the black leather case and takes out a shiny wooden guitar. I tell him I can't play the guitar and hope he'll think he made a mistake, but he insists I have the gift.

Huh?

He twists the knobs at the top and listens to the wiry sound of each string, tuning it, getting it perfect. When he's satisfied, he tells me to watch where he puts his fingers and, when he plays, the mother duck quacks. She flutters her stubby brown tail and her five chicks follow her through a patch of ivy to the other side of the garden, where they snuggle in the shade of the wall. He hands me the guitar.

You try, Matilda.

The guitar feels solid and makes a hollow sound when I take it. I sit up, cross-legged, and hold the guitar on my lap the way he did, but I don't know where to put my fingers.

Just let go, Matilda. Be one with the Lord and the Lord will be in your fingers.

What?

The Lord is in every living thing. You must let Him guide you. Close your eyes and breathe the scent of the flowers, hear the birds chirping and be as one with your Maker.

I close my eyes and pray like a lunatic. My father is the lunatic and I'm praying like one. Please, Lord, be in my fingers. I pluck the strings and he screams in my face.

What was that?

I told you I can't play. I don't want to play.

I get up to go but he barks at me to sit, so I sit and try again but this time he doesn't ask, What was that? This time it's, What the fuck was that? You're stupid.

He pulls the guitar from me. This is the G chord, listen to it.

Then he relaxes. His eyelids close and the beard ripples under his nostrils. I look to the other side of the garden to Sister Rose. She glances over her shoulder but, like Gabriel, she gives me her back. The nuns will never do anything. They're too scared of him.

He hands me the guitar again and tells me in that sweet voice to let it all go and be one with the Lord. The Lord has given each of us a gift and yours, Matilda, is music. He told me so. But the Lord expects you to praise him in return.

He sounds so sure, for a moment I can't help wondering if he's right. No, I need him to be right, but when I play the beard around his lips bristles with sweat. He spits in my face. You're stupid. You're a stupid bitch. You're just fucking thick.

I try to wipe the phlegm from my cheek but he forces my fingers on the strings one at a time and squeezes till they bleed. I try again but it's no use and I scream, I'll try, I'm sorry, I'll try again. That's no use either, and I know what's coming. Before I see the long straight fingers curling into that fist. Before I see it speeding over the burned grass, I know it's coming. My head spins and wobbles. Everything is wet and blurry. The roses are turning green and the shrubs are turning yellow and the next thing I see is the bathroom sink running red but it washes away and, when it does, it never happened.

In the morning, Gabriel doesn't ask what happened to my face, she knows.

Pippa is going to town to meet Mona, but I can't go anywhere with a face like a torn sack. Pippa doesn't say it but she's glad I'm not going. She'll be leaving the convent for
good next year. She knows the only thing that's going to bother our father for the summer is that guitar, and me. She wants to be well out of the way.

I couldn't go with her if I wanted to. I can't go anywhere until I learn something on that guitar. I'll go to my room and practice the G chord. The God Chord. That's what my father calls it. The God Chord.

Through the open window, I hear the others running out to the playground and I don't want to play this guitar. I don't want to stand next to that lunatic, playing some stupid song he made up himself so I can praise the Lord while he preaches his gospel to the sinners of Waterford or London or wherever he plans to take us. I just want him to leave me alone.

I take the guitar from under the bed and sit on the bed with the guitar on my lap. Maybe if I learn a few chords, that'll stop him hitting me. It probably won't. After the guitar there'll be something else, something new for him to say I'm useless at. There will always be something. I know that now. He'll pick on me until I skip and dance around him in the playground like Pippa, or run from him in terror like Mona and Sheamie and Danny. He'll torment me until he breaks me, until he controls me. I don't know when it was I understood that. I just woke one morning and the answer was beside me on my pillow. It was as if the Tooth Fairy finally found out where I lived.