Birdy Flynn

by Helen Donohoe

  ‘Stick together?’ I wanted to shout. ‘Who is sticking to who?’

  She had me looking like an altar boy in town. We toured her favourite shops and I stood by her side holding postcards. She stopped each time, to have the chat. ‘Thanks a mill, Mr Armstrong’ and ‘Sure you’re a saint, Gareth Jones.’ Mr Jones leant into his shop window, unpinned an advert for a three-piece suite and mahogany coffee table and nodded at Mum as he tore it up. Mum looked on proudly as our postcard took its place on the faded corkboard. Mr Jones waved us off and Mum walked on air, like he’d asked her to dance.

  We stuck posters to trees across our town. I Sellotaped over the corners, praying no one would see me, thinking they wouldn’t last the night.

  ‘You’re bodging that,’ Mum said. ‘You’ve taped it on wonky.’

  ‘I’m trying to make them perfect, Mum.’

  ‘To the left a little. Put it higher. Your writing’s too small.’

  My arms and neck ached from reaching up, my cheek muscles cramped from forcing a smile and my hands refused to work.

  ‘Is that you on strike?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, putting my hands in my pockets.

  Mum huffed and puffed and held her hands up to the sky. I looked up in that direction.

  ‘Are you looking to Heaven?’ I asked, and she brought them down to her sides.

  ‘B.O.M. Flynn,’ she drilled out my initials like an army sergeant.

  I gave a salute and stood to attention.

  ‘Don’t sod about.’ She gave me a pretend smack on my arm.

  ‘I’ve had enough of doing posters,’ I said, kicking a stone across the dusty yellow grass.

  Mum said nothing.

  I watched ants climbing over tree roots that looked like half-buried bones breaking through the earth.

  ‘Could be she’s dead anyway,’ Mum sighed.

  ‘Dead?’ I looked at her. ‘Don’t say that, Mum.’ Her expression didn’t change. ‘Mum, don’t say that. She might not be. Why are you saying that?’ She was thinking about something and I wanted to know what. ‘Mum.’ I pulled on her arm. ‘Mum, don’t.’ She turned her head. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ Mum said, but she was.

  ‘I’m going to find her, Mum. Keep hoping, you always say.’

  All the blood in my body fell to my feet. I held on to the tree, watching Mum’s face turn back to grey from her day of fake happy.

  ‘Maybe she’s decided to go roam the world.’ Mum rolled up the last two posters. ‘I have a sense for these things.’

  ‘A sense? Like a smell or a taste?’

  ‘No, love.’ Mum paused. ‘Just a sense that Murphy, the daft old moggie, was lonely as Hell.’

  ‘Lonely?’

  ‘Sure her heart was pure broken,’ Mum said, and I remembered Murphy lying there shaking. ‘Broken into pieces it was.’

  ‘Yes.’ I picked off some loose bark.

  ‘I miss her already.’

  ‘Me too.’ I studied the bark, the insects, the moss, the ends of my fingers where I’d chewed my nails off.

  ‘What am I saying?’ Mum said as if she had just woken up. ‘Of course she’ll be back.’ She smiled, suddenly full of hope. ‘This is where she belongs.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Come on.’ Mum turned and I followed.

  We strolled back to the noise and fumes of St George’s Road.

  ‘She’s probably sitting on the rug at Edna’s right now,’ Mum said, and I looked straight ahead and forced a smile.

  As we got close to St Mary’s, Mum’s church, she nudged me with her elbow. ‘Will we go in and see the man in the frock?’

  ‘Why?’ I turned to her. ‘What for? I’m not allowed in a church. You’d get banned and Dad would go berserk.’

  ‘We could say a prayer for Murphy, for her peace.’

  ‘Peace?’

  ‘Or take confession.’

  ‘Confess what? I can’t do confessions, Mum. You know I can’t.’

  ‘You could say, “Father, I have sinned.” ’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘ “I’ve teamed up with the Devil himself.” ’

  ‘What Devil?’

  ‘ “I never put my dirty socks and pants in the washing basket.” ’ Mum thought she was hysterical. ‘Or . . .’ She started giggling, but I walked off. ‘Slow down, love,’ she said, trying to catch me.

  I speeded up.

  ‘You’re limping, Birdy. Are you limping? What’s that for?’

  I waved her away.

  ‘I was joking, love. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  We both stopped to let a girl with a buggy go past.

  ‘Will you go back and join up with the lads?’

  ‘No, Mum.’ I walked in small, gentle steps. Mum had started coughing.

  ‘Make it up with your pals. I’ll give you money for chips.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘You’ve not fallen out before. What was the fight over?’ She nudged me. ‘Is that how you have bruising? From scrapping, is it, Birdy?’

  I tried to walk on.

  ‘Is that leg giving you gip?’

  ‘No,’ I said, then, ‘yes, a little.’ The pain was like getting stabbed with a knitting needle. ‘I want to go home and have a bath.’

  ‘At lunchtime? You don’t like baths at the best of times,’ Mum said, and I wanted her to disappear but also carry me home. ‘Is it the graze you got?’ Mum looked down at my feet. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Dancing,’ I said. It was a word that just came out.

  ‘Dancing?’ She looked thrilled but confused. ‘When were you dancing?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On my own,’ I said, and Mum leant in towards me like a doctor checking me out.

  ‘Right.’ She was trying not to laugh. ‘Well, I used to love the dancing.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Oh yes. The auld dances.’

  ‘With Dad?’

  ‘Sometimes. But not now. I think his dancing days are done.’

  ‘I’ll take you dancing,’ I said. ‘I know it’s a man’s job, but you could dance with me.’

  Mum looked baffled. I went to take her hand but she pulled it away.

  ‘Please, Mum, let me try.’

  ‘Will you leave off, Birdy.’ She shook her head and walked on, and I hobbled to keep up. ‘You’re a funny one.’ She turned to me. ‘Dancing? With your foot like that? What will you be saying next?’

  Chapter 4

  On Monday morning the heatwave was gone. It was still warm but the brightness was taken by dirty-dishcloth-coloured clouds, floating just over my head. Above them thunder rumbled, like God was groaning as he got out of bed.

  Mum loved Mondays. Every Monday started with a shout of ‘It’s a great day to be Irish’ and sometimes, if things were going well, she’d say it on other days as well. On Mondays it was like Mum had filled up her mind with gallons of hope. I don’t know where she got it from because, on this Monday, Murphy still wasn’t home.

  ‘Ah, don’t be worrying,’ Mum said, as she poured milk on my Shredded Wheat, handed me my breakfast and patted me on the head. ‘Isn’t no news always good news, eh?’

  The air outside was swampy with the sort of rain that Edna said skipped your clothes and went straight to your bones. Like vapour rain, all light and invisible but somehow leaving you soaked. But it’s a fresh start, I told myself. Try to forget what’s happened. It’s done. Mum always said, ‘What has gone, has gone.’ Edna said, ‘Throw it in the fire and move yourself on.’

  So, for the first time ever, I took a different route to school, avoiding Smokers’ Alley, where I knew the boys would meet, goggling at Bambi-legged girls and sharing one can of Pepsi. I went through the Camp Road allotment, one of four in our town that gave us some green between the streets of little box-shaped houses and the massive roundabouts. Camp
Road allotment was where Nan had her shed. It looked untouched when I walked up to it; its fat rusty padlock was still stuck to the door and the window was covered in cobwebs. Nan’s sweet, herby smell was still there and, as no one was looking, I stepped in close and gave the shed a hug.

  Mum would’ve clipped my ear had she seen me there. Because raking up the past was like digging up graves – that’s what she would say. Stop raking and digging – your mind is forever astray. ‘Why did Nan die?’ I used to ask her. ‘That’s life,’ she always said.

  Mr Fender looked up. He was in his usual place, leaning on his shovel, standing shorter than his triffids and looking over his vegetable flock. He took off his cap and bowed to me.

  ‘Good morning, tiddler,’ he said.

  I smiled and carried on. Dad said Mr Fender was an odd bloke, always looking happy, but no family to speak of.

  Outside my school was the usual shouting and screaming, swirling arms and jerky legs. The daily morning fight. Teachers diving into wild boys, gawping girls from the top years leaning against the sagging wire fence. I took a sharp right through the gates, towards the metal school buildings that my dad said took three days to put up in 1975.

  Across the playground a game of British Bulldog took up all the concrete. Children were sprinting up and down, zigzagging, chasing and grabbing. Other groups stood at the sides, watching and laughing. Baggy jumpers got stretched, bags flew in the air and fat ties were pulled off. A group of red faces came pelting towards me so I stood up high, on the concrete steps, and let them go galloping past.

  The steps led up to the outside toilets. The door at the top was a heavy, wooden, creaking thing. As I used both hands to heave it open, the words ‘Get out’ came at me like a punch. The detergent stench wafted out like nuclear poison.

  ‘You don’t belong in here,’ the voice said, like it was Buckingham Palace. She blew cigarette smoke at me, which made me cough. ‘It’s the girls’ toilets.’

  I knew her face but didn’t know her name.

  ‘What you waiting for?’ She stepped towards me.

  Her gang of girls laughed.

  ‘Get out, Birdy.’ Another girl got between us and steered me out. ‘Girls only,’ she said.

  I knew her. Everyone called her Gypsy Girl. She had jet-black hair that hid half her face and she only wore one earring. She was related to Martin, but I didn’t know how – and she knew my name, which I thought was amazing.

  I straightened myself, stepped away and remembered what Edna said about walking tall and tough.

  In the smaller playground, boys were doing Pac-Man moves and kung-fu kicks and screaming in made-up Japanese. Girls clucked about like chickens. Some children looked worried and I wondered what about. Some looked bored, chewing gum, picking their pants out of their bum; some angry; some confused, scratching their heads. I walked through until someone yanked at my arm.

  ‘Got any earrings?’ A small ginger girl looked hopeful. She twiddled her left earlobe, waiting for my answer. ‘Got any?’

  ‘Oh. No. Sorry.’

  ‘You not doing it no more?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I am. I just forgot my things.’ I shrugged.

  She looked hurt and kept her ten pence held out.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said again, although it was Mum’s ‘don’t worry’ talk that made me forget my tub.

  My earrings were part of my daily routine. On the wobbly wooden bench by the Home Economics block I sold hooped earrings made from fuse wire that I nicked from Dad’s toolbox. Ten pence a pair, or twenty pence for three. The boys stood back and watched me. Five or six customers at a time, stood in line. I made them at home and brought them to school in a Stork Margarine tub. Martin helped when things got busy. It was his idea to wrap the earrings in tissue, to make it like a proper shop. So I gave him some of my profits when he nicked our supplies from the toilet block.

  The ginger girl sulked off and two more came over. ‘You doing earrings today?’

  ‘No, sorry,’ I repeated, and for once I was happy when the school bell rang and the playground chaos stopped. Like zombies we all headed indoors.

  I spotted Joe and Martin up ahead, so I held back.

  ‘Out of your pockets,’ a coughy voice growled from behind me.

  A sharp whack against my shoulder blade knocked me over and for a second all I could see was brown tatty shoes, then, as I raised my head, brown corduroy jeans with faded knees. I pushed myself up. Mr Johnson’s pink shiny face looked down at me.

  ‘Stand up,’ he said, but I was standing. ‘Now,’ he barked.

  I stood as straight as I could.

  Other children gawped. He had a rolled-up magazine, like a truncheon, in his fist.

  ‘Where’s your Musketeers, Flynn?’

  ‘My what, sir?’

  ‘Your Musketeers? Oh, never mind.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Make yourself useful.’ He kicked an apple core and pointed to it. ‘Now.’

  My feet were stuck to the ground.

  ‘Pick that litter up, you lazy little –’

  ‘Everything OK?’ A lighter, soft voice came from behind me.

  Mr Johnson dropped his bulldog face.

  ‘A word, please,’ the gentle voice said to him.

  I didn’t turn.

  There was a pause. The voice walked slowly around me and Mr Johnson followed her.

  It was Mrs Cope, in her business suit. A dark grey skirt and matching jacket that fitted like cling film, black tights and glossy black shoes with heels as thin as pencils. A neatly folded newspaper was tucked under her arm.

  Mr Johnson walked beside her like a puppy. He scratched his bald spot. She seemed ten feet tall as she took him away for their talk. It was like I wasn’t there. Or I was in a balloon, a thousand feet up, floating through the air.

  Registration was quick. There was no Martin at his desk, and Mrs Walsh made no mention of dead animals.

  Then we were up again and herded to the main hall. Deeper noises rebounded off the walls. Liam was ahead of me. He turned and gave me a nervous, frightened smile. My skin prickled, but I told myself, He’s your cousin. Smile back and be nice and try hard and give him a chance and try to be happy and things will be normal and we can come to a deal and all be fine.

  ‘Be seated,’ a teacher bellowed.

  Liam pushed through to my line.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  I made myself look pleased to see him as the whole hall collapsed to sit down.

  ‘Hi.’

  We said nothing then, but I could tell his insides were churning by the thick creases in his frown.

  Our main hall was where everything happened: assembly, school plays, parents’ evening, indoor PE, detention, lunch, exams and school discos. I hated it. I wished Alistair Ferness had done a better job when he tried to burn it down. Dad said my school was as flimsy as Meccano – you could see the nuts and bolts. The paint flaked like lepers’ skin. Dad said it was poison, full of asbestos or lead or worse.

  The subject of assembly was The Importance of Listening. Mr Williams, our headmaster, paraded across the stage, booming out words that made the teachers yawn. Then he started talking about the Falklands. About the importance of national pride and sticking together and how the soldiers from our town were fighting for what belonged to the British and would for ever.

  Some people cheered.

  ‘Spazzes,’ Liam muttered.

  I laughed.

  Mrs Cope stood to the right of the hall and, every time I looked, her eyes were on us.

  ‘The Falklands is five million miles away.’ Liam elbowed me. ‘Birdy . . .’ He kept talking and Mrs Cope kept watching.

  ‘Be quiet,’ I said as soft as I could.

  ‘I can’t,’ Liam said. He waited for me to look at him.

  ‘Try,’ I whispered.

  Mrs Cope kept watching.

  Liam went quiet for a moment.

  ‘I can’t keep a secret,’ he said down to his shoes. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘W
hat’s that supposed to mean?’ I turned to him, but he twisted his face away. ‘Liam, what you on about?’

  ‘It’s too tiring. It’s like going fast on your bike down a hill and you have to think so hard your brain starts to ache cos any minute you might fall off.’

  ‘Liam. You can’t tell anyone,’ I said, but he didn’t look up. ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘Yes you did.’

  ‘I didn’t. I had no choice,’ I said too loud, and Mrs Cope put her finger to her lips to tell us to button it up.

  The prefect choir started singing ‘God Save the Queen’, so everyone got to their feet.

  ‘You didn’t do much,’ I said as quiet as I could. ‘You let Martin kill Murphy.’

  Liam shook his head. I wanted to shake the whole of him. I wanted to ask him why, when boys were supposed to be tough, he was such a wimp.

  ‘Oh God.’ He scratched his face, his hair and his right knee. ‘Lying is wrong,’ he said, as the choir finished singing. ‘How could you go looking for Murphy with your mum?’

  As bodies began to shuffle towards the door, I grabbed Liam’s blazer and pulled him in close. ‘Lying is OK if it makes your family happy.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘It’s not actual lying, is it? It’s pretending. Like Father Christmas. Or the tooth fairy.’

  ‘For ever? Pretending for ever?’

  ‘Or like keeping the peace. Like wives do to stop their husbands running off.’

  ‘It’s all right for you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re good at lying.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I said, but he shook my grip off. ‘Please, Liam.’ My voice turned soft. ‘My mum and Edna will hate me and I’ll have to leave home and I’m too young and I don’t know where to go.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said, shaking his head to stop my words going in.

  ‘I had no choice, Liam,’ I said again as he walked off.

  At the door to the science block, Martin was standing with his arms folded across his chest. Joe and Liam and the Gypsy Girl were there too.

  Martin saw me. ‘Clucking chicken,’ he shouted out and made a chicken noise.