Little Girl Lost (24 page)

The afternoon wore on. Kitty tried to blend in, as Bridget had advised, but with very little success, for Sister Enda suddenly noticed that Kitty was holding her pencil in her left hand. This seemed to infuriate her even more. ‘What on earth are you doing? You’re using the devil’s hand and not the angel’s,’ she said accusingly. ‘Every Christian soul knows the right hand is the angel’s hand and is the one we use to hold a pencil. The left is the devil’s hand – why do you think I caned you on your left hand? It was to drive the devil out of you.’

When the bell rang to indicate that the children could go home, Kitty, Jane and Bridget tumbled out of the classroom and made for the door as fast as they could, bursting into the sunshine like prisoners released from gaol.

‘Well, if it ain’t little Goody-Two-Shoes! Can I walk you home?’ Without turning her head, Kitty aimed a swipe at Nick and was rewarded by an indignant shout. ‘Hey, who d’you t’ink you’re hittin’, eh? What’s wrong wit’ wantin’ to walk you home? Or is you goin’ to wait for your new pals and cast off the old ’uns?’

‘In case you’ve forgot, you haven’t took much notice of me for . . . oh, for a year or more,’ Kitty said. ‘I dunno why you’re bein’ so particular now, neither. I’ve not come into money, not as I know, anyhow.’

She had heard the twins say this, and was rewarded by seeing a faint flush steal into Nick’s dirty cheeks. ‘That’s a horrible t’ing to say, so it is,’ he said reproachfully. ‘You were a nice little kid afore you started school, but already it’s changed you. Aw, come on, Kit, lemme walk home wit’ you. Mebbe there’s something I could do for your Maeve – bring in water, or carry up a couple o’ buckets o’ turf. What d’you say?’

‘I say Maeve will have a cup o’ tea and a currant bun waitin’, and it’s that what you’re after,’ Kitty said, but she grinned at her companion. ‘Only I’ve got to talk to her, so you can’t stay. Just come in, grab a bun, and go. Pat’s fightin’ wit’ the army in France and the money ain’t so good, so Caitlin doesn’t like us bringin’ kids back wit’out we asks first.’

‘Oh. Right you are,’ Nick said, rather dolefully. Kitty felt mean, for her old friend, she remembered now, was always hungry. So she said she would ask whether he might come to tea the following day, and then changed the subject.

‘Why don’t you go to school, Nick?’ she asked curiously. ‘Oh, I know you sell newspapers, but you must have gone to school once. Can you read?’

‘A bit,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t hold wit’ school, though. Me brother Sean went and he came home wit’ his bum striped all red where one o’ them bleedin’ brothers what call themselves teachers had hit him wit’ his belt. The buckle end,’ he added morosely. ‘So I thought, that ain’t for you, Nick old feller, and I give school the go-by.’ He looked at her, a smile glimmering in his eyes. ‘Same as you’ve got it in mind to do,’ he finished.

Kitty stared, mouth opening. ‘How did you guess?’ she said at last. ‘Why, if that old nun had hit me bum . . . but she hit me hand. Look.’

She held out a tiny, and by now rather grubby, paw and saw Nick’s eyes widen. ‘Why, the wicked old bitch,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Fancy hittin’ a little kid like you so hard you bled! I’d like to punch her on her big old snout so I would.’

‘Well, I reckon Maeve will tell her off, even if she don’t punch her on the nose,’ Kitty said complacently. ‘And I’m sure she’ll tell me never to go to that wicked school again. Why, Caitlin taught Maeve to read and write, so I guess Maeve can teach me . . . if it is really important to learn, that is,’ she added. ‘And if it isn’t important for you why should it be for me?’

But Nick just shrugged; it was clear he did not intend to agree with her that reading and writing might not be as important as their elders claimed, and presently Kitty found a promising stone in the gutter and the two children played kick-ball the rest of the way back to Handkerchief Alley.

Once there, Kitty and Nick hurried up the long flights of stairs and were greeted by a bright-eyed Maeve. She hugged Kitty and began to ask how her day had gone, but Kitty said that Nick would be glad of a buttered scone, or a bun, if Maeve had such a thing by her, but then he would leave so that the two of them could enjoy a good crack about the day’s happenings.

‘You could ask him to stay . . .’ Maeve began, but was quickly shushed.

‘I’ve explained we want to talk, and I’ve asked him back to tea tomorrow, when he’s sold all his papers,’ Kitty explained. ‘I – I can’t talk about school wit’ Nick standin’ there, all ears.’

So Maeve buttered a bun and a scone and handed them to Nick. ‘I don’t like to turn you out,’ she said awkwardly, ‘but Kitty says you understand that she needs to be private, and you’re to come to tea tomorrow. Proper tea, not just a bun,’ she finished.

The boy grinned and hurried back down the stairs, thanking Maeve at the top of his voice as he careered down the flights, and the two females settled themselves comfortably at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and a buttered scone apiece. Maeve had four of the neighbours’ babies in a homemade playpen on the rag rug in front of the fire, though this was banked down as the day was warm, and she gave each of them a piece of hard rusk to chew on, then looked hopefully at Kitty. Her cheeks were very pink and her eyes very bright and Kitty thought she had never seen Maeve looking prettier.

‘Well? Start at the beginning and go on to the end,’ Maeve said, her voice husky with excitement. ‘You went to your classroom . . . and then what?’

Very slowly, very regretfully, Kitty lowered her left hand into her lap. She wanted to show her poor palm to Maeve, to get it kissed better, to hear Maeve’s wrath over the way she had been treated, but she had suddenly realised that she simply could not do it, could not shatter all Maeve’s dreams in such a cruel and final way. Maeve had never been to school, but she thought it was a marvellous place, where all the teachers were kind and good, and wanted their pupils to succeed. Kitty knew she had made big sacrifices so that she, Kitty, might learn to read and write, to do sums, to be taught such mysteries as history and geography. If she showed Maeve her hand, explained that she did not mean to go back, then Maeve’s heart would break. She looked wistfully down at her bruised and scarlet palm, then straightened her shoulders. She would put up with school – and the hateful Sister Enda – until she could read and write better than anyone else in her class, and then she would tell Maeve that they were all wicked and hateful, that they beat their pupils for no good reason, and Maeve would say . . .

But there was Miss Brogan; she was really nice. And another nun, a young and pretty one, had been friendly to the three little girls when they had taken their carry-out into the yard. And above all, there was Fluffy. Every Monday, if they were good, she and her pals could take him for a walk down to the Liffey! Perhaps school would not be too bad . . . perhaps she could find a way to get round Sister Enda so that the nun no longer itched to beat her. Or I might get Nick to come into school and punch her on the snout, and tell her that he’d do it again if she kept on being mean to me, Kitty dreamed . . . then saw Maeve’s anxious eyes on her and began to speak.

‘Well, the first thing the teacher did was to chalk up letters on the blackboard, only of course I’ve already learned me letters so I were a bit ahead of the rest of them . . .’

When Caitlin returned from work it was to find Kitty playing with her pals out in Handkerchief Alley whilst Maeve, pink-cheeked and smiling, was cooking a huge pot of pigs’ trotters, onions and potatoes over the fire. Maeve turned and beamed at her as Caitlin entered the kitchen and slung her coat on to its hook.

‘Kitty had a grand day, just grand,’ Maeve said contentedly. ‘I don’t mind admittin’ I were dreadfully worried, ’cos she’s a bright kid and sometimes teachers don’t like it when their pupils are a bit ahead of the class, and I don’t know anything about St Jo’s, though what wit’ Clodagh and Grainne both going to Our Lady’s I reckon I could answer an examination on how things are done there. But it were all right! She’s made two good friends, Jane and Bridget, who both live near here, and the school secretary, a Miss Brogan, let the children take her dog for a walk in their dinner hour. Imagine that, on their very first day! Oh, Cait, all me worries disappeared like mist in summer! You mark my words, she’ll be readin’ as well as I can meself by Christmas!’

Caitlin agreed that that was just grand, but inwardly she was less sure. One of the women with whom she worked had a child at St Joseph’s and Caitlin had heard a number of horror stories about the nun who took the intake class – Sister Enda, wasn’t it? But she knew Kitty to be a truthful child and could think of no reason why she should pretend to have had a good day if she had not. In any case, she did not mean to let Maeve see her doubts.

Presently, Maeve picked up the youngest of her charges, took the hand of another and bade the two oldest to hold on to each other firmly and follow her downstairs. Caitlin tutted, shaking her head reprovingly. ‘I’ll take two down and you bring the others,’ she said, ‘then you’ll be able to use your crutch without clouting anyone. It won’t take me but a minute, and then I’ll shout my lot in so they can lay the table, mash the tea and carry up water. By the time we’ve done that, you’ll be back and we can eat.’ So the two women and four children descended the wobbly, creaking flights of stairs. At the foot, they piled the children into Maeve’s trusty handcart – the twins had lost interest in it long ago – and Caitlin walked with her young friend as far as Francis Street. By the time she turned back, she was determined to have a word of her own with Kitty. As usual, boys and girls had separated into two groups, the boys playing kick the can with a tin which had once contained peaches whilst the girls lined up to play piggy beds on the squares which they had marked out in the dirt with a stick. Kitty was almost at the head of the queue, waiting to play, so Caitlin stood back and watched critically. She had been a dab hand at piggy beds as a youngster and thought she could probably do pretty well still, for the game had not changed one iota since her day. The girls were playing with a flattened-out piece of tin whereas Caitlin, a country child, had used the flattest piece of stone available, but otherwise it was exactly the same. There was a howl from the children as the piece of tin skidded through the dust and landed touching one of the lines. ‘You’re out, Dilly Morgan, you’re out, you’re out!’ they shouted. ‘You’re touchin’ the line. So you’re out.’

Dilly, a fat, untidy girl, wearing a man’s cut-down overcoat, seemed resigned to her lot. She picked up the piece of tin and handed it to Kitty, then scuffed, barefoot, across to where another group of girls were skipping with an orange box rope and chanting a rhyme which was as familiar to Caitlin as the piggy bed game had been. Kitty took her time, got the piece of tin into the square she wanted, hopped round it and beamed as she completed the course successfully. ‘I goes on to the next round,’ she shouted gleefully, then saw Caitlin and went across to her, her face anxious. ‘What’s the matter, Auntie Cait?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Maeve?’

‘She’s taken the kids home. There’s nothing the matter; everything’s fine. It’s just that I could do wit’ a bit of a hand. Where’s the others?’ She had already gathered, from a quick glance round, that neither her daughters nor her sons were present.

‘Clodagh’s gone to Mrs Maloney’s sewing circle, an’ so’s Grainne,’ Kitty said, ticking the children’s names off on her fingers. ‘They’re rolling bandages to send to the soldiers in France, but they’ll be home afore it gets dark. The twins went off wit’ Mr O’Sullivan to play a proper game of football against St Xavier’s boys, and Colm had a penny left from the money you gave him Sat’day, so he and his pal have gone to Thomas Street after an orange.’

Caitlin laughed. ‘What a mine of information you are,’ she said teasingly. ‘Well, if you’re the only one around, I’m afraid you’ll have to help me with all the chores.’ She looked hard at Kitty but could see nothing unusual. ‘Tell you what, your legs are younger than mine. If you come upstairs wit’ me now and take a bucket down to the tap can you half fill it, just enough for a kettleful, and bring it up again?’

‘Sure, I can manage half a bucket,’ Kitty said at once. ‘And I’ll come straight back up and give you a hand wit’ the tea. Did you see me win at piggy beds?’

‘Yes, I was watching,’ Caitlin admitted. ‘I’ve had a better idea, alanna: you go up and fetch the bucket and I’ll carry it back full. In fact, bring two buckets; that will balance me better and it’ll mean I shan’t have to come down again.’

‘Oh!’ Kitty said, rather blankly. ‘Are – are you sure, Auntie Cait? Only two buckets is pretty heavy, you know.’

Caitlin smiled at her. ‘And I won’t have a hand free to pull on the banister rail, except that there is no banister rail,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me, alanna – I’ve been running up an’ down them perishin’ stairs ever since Patrick and I moved to Handkerchief Alley, and that’s a good few years. Just you run up and fetch me those two buckets – unless you feel two empty buckets is more than you can manage, of course.’

Kitty gave her a very odd look, but before Caitlin could question her she had disappeared into the building. When she re-emerged, Caitlin saw that she was carrying both buckets in one hand; saw also that the buckets were banging painfully against Kitty’s thin little legs. However, she said nothing until she had taken the buckets from the child, carried them to the tap at the end of the alley, and begun to fill the first one. Only then did she turn to Kitty. ‘Show me your hand,’ she said quietly. Kitty hesitated, then held out her right hand. Caitlin shook her head. ‘The other one,’ she said.

Kitty, after a considerable hesitation, held out her left hand, breaking into speech as she did so. ‘Oh, Auntie Cait, you won’t tell Maeve, will you? I didn’t do anything wrong, honest to God I didn’t, but perishin’ old Sister Enda picked on me because I moved me feet out of a – a puddle. And I uses me left hand to hold me slate pencil and – and she says that’s the devil’s hand an’ I mustn’t use it or she’ll whup me again.’