Birdy Flynn

by Helen Donohoe

  I nodded.

  ‘Now go to your room.’

  As I walked out, Martin was still on the floor. A woman leant over him, saying, ‘Poor boy, poor boy’ as she rattled around in an empty first-aid box.

  I didn’t look back as I took the steps slowly, one by one. My skin tingled. When I got to the top, I held my arms up like Rocky.

  I didn’t want to open my eyes and see the room, but when the last girl had gone down for breakfast, I made myself sit up. The skin on the inside of my legs was burning and my sheets smelt like a toilet that hadn’t been cleaned for months. I washed in the basin, thanking Mum for packing me a flannel, and I put my cadet trousers and my lumberjack shirt on. I brushed my teeth extra clean for three whole minutes and checked my fingernails for dirt. I ripped the sheets off the bed, shoved them under the bunk and covered the wet mattress with an orange blanket that was on a wicker chair in the corner of the room.

  Liam was at the bottom of the stairs as I carried my case down. ‘Martin says he’s going to kill you. He said he’s going to break your bones like he did to Murphy.’

  I forced a smile.

  ‘You broke his nose, Birdy.’

  I walked around him.

  ‘And made him look an idiot.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Cos you’re a girl. And you broke his nose.’

  ‘So what?’ I stepped out the front door, and with my free hand I waved Liam goodbye.

  Like some sort of duchess, Mrs Cope was walking to the car ahead of me, her nose in the air and her long legs taking lengthy strides. She opened the back door, pointed to the seat and put her hand on my head as if she was the police. I flinched. She paused. Then, like Juliet Bravo with a villain, she did it again with more force.

  She got in the front. She fiddled and swore at the radio until music came on. I pressed my face against the cold glass. She raced the car down the long stony drive and braked sharply at the gates. In the rear-view mirror I saw her eyes, but I closed mine and let my mind drift away.

  ‘Well, now,’ Nan began saying to me. Behind my eyes I saw her pulling me through her front door, patting me on the head, giving me my hug. She was murmuring about her little soldier and shaking her head and telling me she’ll have Mrs Cope’s guts for garters, or Uncle Barry will.

  I said nothing, not a single thing in my warm awake dream. Nan’s house was the quietest it had ever been. I stood inside the door, my feet freezing. She turned the fire up. Murphy purred and stretched out in comfort.

  ‘God bless,’ Nan said, closing the door with a gentle shove.

  She was saying something to me, in the riddles that Nan talked. Riddles that became poems. Poems that became stories. Stories that turned to songs. Songs of all sorts: the milkman being late, power cuts at night, the joys of being poor and fried potato cakes. Nan’s fingers were dancing across her sideboard like it was a grand piano.

  ‘A right auld sing-song cures the troubles of the world,’ Nan said to me in my thoughts. ‘Even that Elton John.’

  She gave me warm milk for my crackly chest. The milk bubbled in the pan and my Winnie the Pooh cup sat waiting by the side. The kitchen smelt sweet and salty, which was how I loved it. Nan told me to watch the milk while she took my bag upstairs up to Uncle Barry’s room, where I stayed for special nights. She tiptoed and the floorboards squeaked; Uncle Barry always promised to fix them the next week. She put the Paddington Bear in the middle of the pillow. His hat was still ripped, his suitcase still missing. The old school chair was there in the corner with Uncle Barry’s best jacket across it. With slow, gentle hands, Nan took out my clothes, folded them neatly and placed them on the chair one by one.

  ‘Where’s Uncle Barry?’ I asked Nan as she poured the milk. I wanted to ask: ‘Where’s Mum and where’s Dad?’ and ‘Are they alive?’ and ‘When will they come and get me?’

  Nan shushed me with her hand. Too many questions. Too much noise.

  The little table in the back room had a new white sheet on it. A cross was made out of its creases. The pale blue milk jug was full. An egg cup covered in shamrocks sat on a plate in the space Nan set for me. There were wedges of chunky white bread sitting in a pyramid. Nan told me over and over that the butter was new and the bread fresh from the baker. On a silver spoon she balanced the egg as she walked across the rug. She landed it snugly and sliced away the top. The golden yolk was sunshine itself and Nan stood back and admired her work.

  ‘Eat, child,’ she said. ‘There’s not a bit of meat on you. Those bones will snap in two.’ She sipped her tea. She tapped her finger on a place mat, a seaside picture of Tralee.

  The back door opened.

  ‘Here’s himself at long last. Boots off,’ Nan said to Uncle Barry.

  And in the car, while Mrs Cope was staring at me through the driver’s mirror, the sound of Nan’s voice made me laugh.

  ‘I could never be a taxi driver.’ Mrs Cope’s eyes went from the road to me to the road. She switched the radio off. ‘Isn’t that what your father does?’

  I looked away at the miles of green hedges speeding by.

  ‘Although,’ she sighed, ‘I don’t know how I became a teacher.’ We slowed down to traffic lights. ‘I don’t recall.’ She slammed the horn. ‘Come on, come on.’ She looked again in the mirror. ‘It wasn’t something that I ever dreamt of.’

  ‘All right, all right, woman,’ Uncle Barry was saying in my head, and he winked at me. As if he and Nan were not dead. He looked at the table. ‘Have you the Pope himself coming for breakfast?’

  Nan and me laughed.

  ‘Is there tea in the pot?’ he said in a husky voice, while he slowly and heavily rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He turned the sleeves with his fingers, grinding them around, like he was forcing a rusty nut and bolt.

  I carried my empty plate into the kitchen. Uncle Barry was over at the sink, turning the taps full on. His long back was arched. Pound notes were poking out of his back pocket. He filled his open hands with water and looked at it, like he’d never seen it before. The way Dad washed, tall and upright with a blast of water.

  He threw the water at himself, growling, splashing, spitting. When he turned around he was changed. His face was brighter and pink. His white hair held shiny drips. He wiped his face with Nan’s best tea towel and gave another spit in the sink.

  ‘Do you have any job in mind?’ Mrs Cope started again. ‘Bernice?’

  I didn’t know which voice in my head was real.

  ‘How is your brother Noel? Where did he get to?’

  ‘My dad is not a taxi driver,’ I said.

  She shook her head.

  Someone started knocking at Nan’s back door. A woman in a yellow pinafore. Hugging something in tinfoil. Trying to smile.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Walters,’ Nan said to her. Nan was standing upright. She held the door like she was about to slam it.

  ‘Call me Queeny, Mary. How are you?’ The woman spoke like she was sharing a secret.

  ‘We’re fine, Mrs Walters, just fine.’ Nan’s voice was daring the Queeny woman to carry on.

  Uncle Barry chewed raw black pudding.

  The woman said something about bombs.

  Uncle Barry landed me a play punch. An undercut. He pretended to polish his fist; he kissed it. In the flab of his belly, I gave him one back.

  ‘Are you listening, Bernice?’ Mrs Cope asked.

  Outside was turning from green to grey. Office blocks and car parks and army barracks.

  Nan was telling the Queeny woman off. I held that thought. I loved Nan’s fighting talk. She told her to never knock on her door again. The woman didn’t know what to say. She said to the woman to watch her mouth. Nan told her to check her facts and mind her manners and be careful who she is calling murderers.

  Nan dumped the foiled package in the bin. She moved close to me and cupped my face in her hands. They smelt of softness. She kissed me on the forehead and said, ‘My God, you’re mighty grand.’

  The car stopped. Mrs
Cope filled up with petrol. The clip-clop of her shoes rebounded around the forecourt. She got back in, rummaged in her purse and didn’t say a word. I closed my eyes again, but the music on the radio was louder and I couldn’t catch my thoughts. She started singing. I tried harder to be somewhere else. She turned the music up and started tapping the steering wheel. I wanted to hear Nan sing one of her love songs. I tried to picture Nan’s body swaying to the melody. But I couldn’t think of the lines over the noise of Fun Boy Three.

  I spotted Dad sat on the school step and I thought I should wave, but he didn’t look towards me. My skin tightened. He looked upset. Worried about me, maybe. His overalls were splattered in paint. His hair was dusty and sticking up in clumps.

  Mrs Cope parked, got out and went over to him. She stood back from him, not getting too close. Dad stood to attention.

  I unbuckled my seat belt.

  He did his serious look.

  I opened the car door.

  She was going on and on and not letting Dad talk.

  I stood by the car. He came over, looking like he was a schoolboy who’d just been told off.

  ‘Come on.’ He picked up my suitcase.

  Mrs Cope got back in the car.

  We walked in silence, out the school gate and alongside Owens Park.

  ‘We need bread,’ Dad said, and then nothing.

  I walked beside him. He held my suitcase under one arm. We went to the shop; he told me to wait outside. He walked on ahead. I walked behind.

  ‘Dad?’ I tried to catch up. ‘Dad?’ I said louder.

  He flicked his head to look around.

  ‘Can I get a proper rucksack, Dad?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘From the army surplus shop. A rucksack. And a real penknife and waterproof trousers and an army torch? One that flashes with Morse code and has’ – I rushed the words out as his walking speeded up, ‘a proper rubber cover on it, in case it gets dropped.’

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ He stopped and turned.

  ‘I need a rucksack, Dad,’ I said. ‘That suitcase is embarrassing.’

  ‘Ha!’ He looked disgusted with me and walked even faster.

  We were nearly home – I could see our front door across the triangular bit of grass that the council never mowed.

  ‘I didn’t want to go, Dad.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘Mum made me.’

  ‘How about boxing lessons as well? Eh?’

  I looked at his face. He wasn’t laughing. He was worse than angry – he was embarrassed of me.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  His arm pulled back and if he wasn’t carrying my suitcase and the bag of Sunblest he would have whacked me.

  ‘You go to your room when you get in. Keep your cheeper shut,’ he said and carried on walking. ‘I’ll talk to your mother. We’ll say you took ill. Do you hear?’

  I walked behind, nodding.

  ‘You’ll be the bleedin’ death of her, you will.’

  Chapter 8

  I was walking a criss-cross over the kitchen floor, from corner to corner, touching each wall in a one-person relay, wall to wall, then back again, like a cat caught in a cage. I was building up a speed when the key went in the door. It rattled and took for ever. The door creaked. Air came in. I stood waiting.

  ‘What are you doing home?’ Mum said. Her arms were stretched long by heavy bags, so she couldn’t give me a hug.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’ I stood locked to the spot and realised I was giving myself a hug.

  Mum held her bags out.

  ‘Oh, let me take your bags.’ One was full of apples and the other one potatoes. ‘Did you have a nice day?’ I said, and Mum looked at me as if she didn’t recognise who I was. ‘What houses have you been to? Or the factory, was it? Was it busy? Did you have a lot to do? Any sign of Murphy?’ The words kept spilling out.

  ‘No, dear.’ She dropped her handbag on the table.

  ‘How about a cup of tea, Mum? Or something to eat? A biscuit? If we have any. Shall I make our dinner? I’m quite hungry.’ My hands were dangling around me, prickling to do something.

  ‘What’s going on?’ She kicked off her shoes. ‘Why are you home?’ She took her jacket to one of the pegs in the hallway.

  ‘I came back early,’ I said as I bent down to place her slippers by her feet. ‘But it doesn’t matter – I wanted to be home. It wasn’t very nice – it was old and draughty and needed painting and new carpets.’

  ‘You came home early? What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just did.’ I helped Mum with her slippers.

  ‘You just did? What are you talking about?’ Her voice got sterner.

  ‘You need new tights, Mum.’

  ‘That trip cost ten pounds. Get off my feet.’

  ‘I chucked up,’ I said, and as I stood up I saw Mum’s face twisting with confusion. ‘It was the food, Mum. It was dis-gusting. The meat was off, all fatty and smelly, and the peas were hard and the potatoes weren’t fluffy.’

  ‘Jeepers, stop, Birdy.’ She halted me with her hand up and walked past to the sink. She clicked her lighter.

  ‘Mum, be careful,’ I said. ‘Please – look.’

  The flame was too big; her hair had fallen out of her scarf. I pulled back her arm.

  ‘I am being careful.’

  She lit her roll-up; I held her sleeve.

  ‘Bernice, stop it.’

  I let her go.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What really happened?’ she said after a long suck on her cigarette, as if she knew everything.

  ‘I was ill, Mum. Honest.’

  ‘And nobody thought to call me? With you ill?’ She looked out at the garden and up to the sky. ‘I’m not paying for a school trip that’s made you ill, so I’m not.’

  ‘Mum, you have to pay.’

  ‘I’ll speak to that teacher. The snotty one.’

  ‘Oh no, Mum, don’t,’ I said and I stopped myself panicking too much. ‘I mean, don’t worry. I’ll pay for it.’

  ‘How will you? Which reminds me, where is your father?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was here a few hours ago. He came to collect me and he wasn’t happy because he’d got a day’s work and Uncle Tommy went and found him and the foreman told Dad off.’

  ‘A few hours ago?’

  ‘Can I have something to eat?’

  ‘So he had work?’

  ‘Yes. I think so. I don’t know. Is there tea? Shall I peel some potatoes? Can we have mashed carrots and swede?’

  ‘You’ll have to go and get him.’ She flicked her ash down the plughole. ‘I’m on nights. I have an extra shift to pay for the trip that you abandoned.’ Mum stared out the window and I watched the back of her head. ‘So go get himself home.’

  ‘But I’m starving, Mum.’

  ‘Starving?’ She spun on her foot to face me. ‘My child, you don’t know the meaning.’

  ‘Do you know what waterproof trousers are?’

  ‘Waterproof what?’ she laughed.

  ‘The teachers said we had to have them. They were so bossy. They kept telling us off.’

  ‘For waterproof trousers? What in God’s name are they for?’

  ‘It was in the letter that I gave you,’ I said, and Mum closed her eyes, which always meant that she needed to think. ‘And everyone had a torch and flask, and –’

  ‘OK, love.’ She put her hand out for me to stop; her voice was instantly softer. ‘Go on and fetch His Majesty from the pub.’

  ‘Didn’t you read the letter?’

  ‘Of course.’ She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Off you go now, love.’ She guided me towards the door. ‘I need to get changed, and what’s done is done.’

  I didn’t know the Fox and Hounds pub very well. I’d never fetched him from there before. I stood on tiptoe and tapped on the window, but nobody budged. I knocked harder and waved and one man twisted his head in my direction,
but Dad didn’t look up.

  On the door a scrap of paper said: No Irish. No gypsies. No blacks. No squaddies. I wondered who was left, then I opened the door and carried on.

  The handle was sticky and the door was heavy and a thick wave of smoke and the smell of old beer hit me. Behind the bar, a tall, thin man in a grey-white shirt looked down while he rubbed a grubby tea towel around a pint glass.

  The place was full of the mumbling, slurry, deep voices of men and sudden hard bursts of laughter. They sat round in groups at little tables the size of dartboards. Some men stood behind, resting hands on shoulders, watching over the chatters.

  Dad sat in the corner, jabbing his finger at some bloke, making him pull back like a boxer, lifting his arms for pretend protection. When I got closer, I saw how dirty the men were. They had a look of rot. Brown teeth showed through their smiles and hairs grew from the cracks in their faces like weeds. Cigarettes dangled from every mouth. Those that weren’t talking were bent over, thinking. A few men were talking to themselves. Dad, deep in his speech, didn’t notice me. I watched him and how happy he looked. He was with his mates, his gang, and he seemed relaxed and free, like he used to be with Noely and me.

  I took small steps to get closer to him. The floorboards creaked. I felt like I was walking the plank and waiting for the wood to snap under my feet.

  A man leaning in towards the group noticed me and sat up straight. Every head lifted towards me. Dad looked troubled about what expression to put on his face and he slapped the table and made the lagers shake.

  ‘Well,’ he said in a fake Irish accent, ‘look who it is.’

  The scraggly men went quiet and nodded.

  ‘My own Mohammad Ali.’

  His mates laughed, showing more rotten teeth.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said, after he downed what was left of his pint.

  Nobody else said anything. The toughness in their skin got softer and some smiled. Like they were little boys in front of their headmaster.

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘You’ve been sent to get me,’ Dad said.

  I nodded.

  ‘Can a man have no peace, Birdy?’ His accent went back to Liverpudlian.