Kate

by Siobhán Parkinson

  Mrs Maguire had picked her team for the feis by now, and I was one of the first to get a place on it. She said she relied on me to do well, chun glóire Dé agus onóra na hÉireann, which means to the glory of God and the honour of Ireland. That made me nervous and proud at the same time, the honour and glory bit, but I nodded and said I would do my best.

  Brigid was being entered in the feis too, but Mrs Maguire said she wasn’t sure that Tess and Annie were up to scratch. She’d give them a chance to prove themselves over the next few weeks, she said, she’d have to see. Tess and Annie muttered a lot about that. They said Mrs Maguire had it in for them. They said she only entered people she thought would win medals. They glared at me when they said that, as if something was my fault, but I have to say I thought that made perfect sense. What was the point of cluttering up the competitions with people who hadn’t a hope?

  Just as we were leaving on the day she announced the feis entrants, Mrs Maguire made an another announcement that sent my heart down into my boots.

  ‘Now, a chailíní,’ she said, ‘I want you all to make sure your mothers get you the finest Irish dancing costumes in Dublin for the feis. When Maguire girls get up on that stage, I want them all looking absolutely splendid. No ankle socks, please, they only get baggy and dirty. You are all young ladies now, and black lisle stockings is what I want to see, and nice costumes, green if possible, that’s the most appropriate colour for Irish girls, being the colour of Our Native Land. A dress, knee length or a little shorter, with Celtic decoration, and a brat, of course. I have special Maguire School of Irish Dancing brooches that I have had specially made in the style of the beautiful Tara Brooch, and I will lend every girl two of these to pin her brat to the shoulders of her dress, so that you will go out there wearing the insignia of your dancing school and a symbol of Old Ireland. But your costumes, of course, are your own responsibility. Ceist ag éinne?’

  Everyone else had been in feiseanna before and didn’t need to ask anything. I was the only one who was new to it, and I didn’t dare to ask a question.

  ‘Well,’ said Tess O’Hara with a smirk as we clattered down the stairs from Mrs Maguire’s room, ‘so now!’

  She didn’t say any more. She didn’t need to. She knew perfectly well that I didn’t have a hope in the wide world of getting hold of a dancing costume that would be good enough to wear representing Mrs Maguire, not to mention God and Ireland, at the feis.

  I stumbled home, going over and over in my mind what Mrs Maguire had said, trying to find some solution to this costume problem. By the time I got to our front door, I had made my decision. I would say nothing to my mother about the feis or the dancing costume. It would only annoy her and upset her, and I didn’t know which would be worse. I wouldn’t say anything to anyone just yet. But I had a plan. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but it was the best I could think of.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Conversíon of Russía

  Sister Eucharia was a great one for miracles. She had a special devotion to Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, who was only a new saint. She told us that we should all be great followers of Bernadette, because she was a girl, just like us. She meant a poor girl, but of course she couldn’t exactly put it like that. Brigid Mullane put up her hand and said she thought Saint Bernadette had been a nun, so how could she be a girl?

  Sister Eucharia got very angry, even though it was a fair question. We knew when Yuki, as we called her, was angry, because little bubbles appeared at either side of her mouth. That was always a sure sign with her. I think she thought Brigid was giving cheek, but I could tell from the way she asked that she only wanted to know. After all, everyone was a girl once, or a boy, so what was so special about Saint Bernadette having been a girl? Grown-ups just didn’t like it when children asked questions. I never understood that, because they were always asking us questions.

  ‘She became a nun in later life,’ Sister Eucharia said, in a very clipped voice, but that didn’t really answer Brigid’s question. Either she was a girl or she was a grown-up, she couldn’t be both. But sure enough, all the statues showed her as a young girl, a bit older than ourselves, maybe, though it’s hard to tell with statues, the faces are so dead. She was always kneeling down with a pile of brosna at her feet, as if she was about to make a fire.

  Anyway, Sister Eucharia told us that to become a saint you have to work miracles. People have to pray to you and then you work your miracle, and then the pope says you can be a saint. That’s how it works. My mam was a great believer in miracles too. She swore she’d got that job in the convent garden for my da by doing the First Fridays. I didn’t have time to do the First Fridays – that takes nine months – but I could do one of those quick novenas, the ones you do over nine days instead of over nine months or nine weeks.

  Sister Eucharia was very impressed to find me in the convent chapel every morning before school, lighting candles to Saint Bernadette. I’d picked on Bernadette because of the poor girl connection and I suppose Sister Eucharia had influenced me in that direction too, and anyway we had a little sort of indoor grotto to Our Lady of Lourdes built into an alcove in the chapel, which included Saint Bernadette, and it was a nice place to light candles. It smelt of cold stone and candle grease.

  Also, I had worked it out that if Saint Bernadette was only a new saint, she must have had practice recently at doing miracles, so she might be a better bet than one of the older saints, who might have forgotten how. So I put a penny in the box every morning for the candles at the grotto, and by the time I had my novena finished, I would have spent ninepence. That seemed a satisfactory sort of amount, because it was what a dancing lesson would have cost if I had to pay for it. It seemed like a sort of sign that I was doing the right thing.

  ‘What are you doing, child?’ Sister Eucharia asked me on the first morning.

  ‘I’m doing a novena to Saint Bernadette, Sister.’

  Sister Eucharia frowned. I thought she’d be pleased. But when she saw that I was sticking to it, and that I was in there morning after morning, she began to soften up.

  By day six there was still no sign of a dancing costume arriving at the foot of my bed, as I expected it would, like a present from Santy on Christmas morning, so I decided I’d up the ante. I told God, through Saint Bernadette, that if He sent me a dancing costume, I would be good for ever and ever.

  Day seven dawned, and there was still no sign of the dancing costume.

  On day eight, I made the supreme sacrifice, since that’s what God seemed to be holding out for. I promised God that if He sent me a dancing costume, I would be a nun when I grew up, just like Saint Bernadette. I felt sure that would clinch it. It wouldn’t be all that difficult, I thought, because I didn’t mean to get married anyway. I was going to be an old maid in a garret with Polly. I thought I could do that for a few years, and then I would enter the convent. That seemed a fair sort of arrangement.

  On day nine, I was very disappointed when the dancing costume didn’t appear. There was always the chance, of course, that God was waiting for me to do the last day of the novena before showing His hand, so I got up as usual and went to the chapel to light my daily candle to Saint Bernadette. Old Yuki came up to me again, and she asked me what I was praying for so hard. Was somebody in my family sick?

  ‘No, Sister,’ I whispered, because we were in the chapel. ‘I’m praying for a dancing costume to wear in the feis.’

  Sister Eucharia’s mouth started to bubble like a porridge saucepan on the hob. She stared at me, her unnaturally white face seeming to get even whiter. I couldn’t work out what I’d done. I hadn’t spoken aloud, had I? No, I felt sure I had whispered.

  At last she got a few words out, though she seemed to find it difficult to talk.

  ‘You, you, you… bold strap, you!’ she practically shouted at me.

  She caught me by the elbow, yanked me up from where I was kneeling in front of the grotto and steered me out of the chapel onto the corridor outside, where she could yell
at me. She shook me good and hard and she kept calling me a bold strap.

  ‘But … but, Sister,’ I managed to get out. ‘What’s wrong? You said Saint Bernadette was good for miracles.’

  ‘Miracles are a sacred gift from God, girl. If you ask for a miracle, it should be for some worthy purpose, such as healing a sick person or … or … or the Conversion of Russia.’

  ‘The Conversion of Russia, Sister?’ I’d never heard of this. ‘Why would I ask for a thing like that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ She shook me again. ‘Call yourself a Christian, do you? And you are happy to see Russia languishing in paganism and communism? I suppose maybe you’d like to see those revolutionaries winning out in Spain too, would you? It would suit you better to be praying for our lads going out there to help General Franco, so it would.’

  ‘Spain?’ I said in bewilderment. ‘General Who?’ The only thing I knew about Spain was that that’s where the oranges came from. But Sister Eucharia had lost interest in Spain.

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, wasting good prayers on Irish dancing costumes. What sort of a pagan ritual is that, anyway, Irish dancing?’

  ‘It’s not, Sister, it’s not!’ I insisted. ‘Mother Rosario loves it. She says its “very appropriate” for Irish girls.’

  Sister Eucharia dropped my elbow, which she had been gripping and squeezing all this time.

  ‘Get away with you to your classroom, and don’t let me catch you praying for … for … trivialities ever again. I wouldn’t be surprised if God is very angry with you, making light of holy religion like that.’

  I was glad it was the ninth day and I’d finished my novena. I certainly wouldn’t want to meet Sister Eucharia in the convent chapel again. I hoped that by the time I entered the convent, Sister Eucharia would be dead.

  Then I realised that was a dreadful thing to hope for, so I changed it to retired.

  CHAPTER 9

  Míracles

  The next morning I hardly dared to open my eyes. The full nine days were up, I’d made my enormous promise – surely God couldn’t fail to answer my prayers. I lay there and willed a costume to be on the bed.

  Eventually, Madge leaned over and prised one of my eyelids open.

  ‘I thought you had died in the night,’ she said when I pushed her hand away. ‘You’re usually up so early these days.’

  I didn’t tell her that the reason I wasn’t getting up early that morning was that I’d finished my novena. ‘No fear I’d die on you,’ I said, sitting up, and glancing casually around the room.

  No sign of the dancing costume. How could that be! Could Sister Eucharia be right? Could God be angry with me for asking for such a trivial thing? But surely God would understand how important it was to me. I counted on God being more broad-minded than Sister Eucharia.

  Maybe it was more serious than that. Maybe it was that God didn’t want me for a nun. Maybe I wasn’t worthy.

  Worse than that, though, the feis was in three weeks’ time, and I still had no costume and no sign of one. With a heavy heart, I swung my legs out of bed and started to get dressed. I didn’t think much of Saint Bernadette as a miracle-worker, and I decided to cut her out of my prayers altogether from now on. Anyway, I thought, any friend of old Yuki’s can’t be much of a saint.

  I dragged myself into the kitchen for breakfast, disappointment weighting my feet. Mam was ladling out the porridge.

  ‘Kate!’ she said. Not good morning, did you sleep well. Just ‘Kate!’

  I looked up at her. Was I in some sort of trouble? I didn’t much care, to tell the truth. I felt as if I already had so much to worry me, a bit of bother with my mother would wash over me and leave me unaffected.

  ‘Kate, I hear you were picked for the feis, and you never told me a thing about it. Aren’t you the great girl, all the same!’

  Mam was beaming away at me. I wasn’t sure how to react, but I chanced a little smile.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything, love?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Well …’

  ‘Now, you probably haven’t thought of this,’ said Mam, not waiting for my answer, ‘but you know, you will need a dancing costume for this feis. They get all dolled up in those Gaelic League clothes, these Irish dancers, with harps and shamrocks and goodness knows what. We’ll have to make sure you’re as well dressed as the rest of them.’

  My heart rose. My mam was all on for it. She didn’t seem worried about the expense. I should have told her in the first place and saved myself the novena and the row with old Yuki and all the worry, not to mention pledging myself to the convent.

  ‘Now, this is what we’ll do,’ said Mam, all business. ‘I’m going to go over to Frawley’s this morning and see have they any remnants that would do for your costume. Stand up there till I have a look at you and see how much I’d need.’

  I stood up and she turned me around and took the measure of me with her eye.

  ‘I wonder would three yards do it?’ she asked herself. ‘There’s the … what do you call the shawly thing?’

  ‘The brat,’ I said.

  ‘The brat, and then the skirt has to be full, pleats, I suppose, or half pleats, that’s very sore on material. But if I cut it very carefully, I’d say I’d get away with three yards.’

  I was beaming away by this stage, delighted with the way things were turning out. It was like a miracle.

  Suddenly, it struck me. It was a miracle. This was God’s way of answering my prayers. I should have realised He wasn’t going to send me a beautiful costume out of nowhere, by magic. That sort of thing only happened in stories. It was a very childish idea to think that He would work like that. This was His way of getting me a costume.

  The only problem now was that I was going to have to go through with my side of the bargain and be a nun when I grew up. Maybe I should have held my fire. Maybe if I’d just told Mam about my problem in the first place, I wouldn’t have needed a miracle; I’d probably signed away my life for nothing.

  Well, this was no time to be worrying about that. It was time to be planning my costume. I was going to be only gorgeous. Mam would see to that. I was in safe hands.

  CHAPTER 10

  Bad News

  I rushed home from school that day, to see if Mam had got the material for the costume.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not yet. But I found just the thing. It’s a lovely soft light wool, it’ll be perfect, sky-blue, blue as your eyes.’

  ‘Blue!’ I said. ‘Mam, dancing costumes are supposed to be green.’

  ‘Green? Do they have to be green?’

  ‘No, they don’t have to be, I suppose, but everyone else will be in green. Or yellow, they are yellow sometimes.’

  ‘Well, then, you’ll be different. Oh, it really is a lovely shade of blue, you’ll see.’

  ‘Why didn’t you buy it so?’ I asked. ‘Were you waiting for me to see it?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not the only reason. The thing is, it’s not a remnant. There is nothing suitable in the remnant bin. I looked in a few places, but I kept coming back to this lovely material in Frawley’s. It’s too dear, though, at full price.’

  My heart dropped. What was the point in building me up like this if there wasn’t going to be a costume after all?

  ‘But the thing is,’ Mam went on, ‘the bolt of fabric is nearly finished. If just one more person buys the makings of a dress, the remainder will be too short to sell off the bolt, and they’ll have to put it in the remnant bin. The trick is to be quick off the mark and snaffle it as soon as it appears.’

  ‘How will we manage that, Mam?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll have to keep an eye out,’ Mam said. ‘You’ll have to come home the long way from school every day and check on it. As soon as it appears in the remnant bin, I want you to race home to me and I’ll be up with the money to buy it.’

  ‘But Mam, suppose there isn’t three yards in it?’

  ‘Ah, there will be,’ said Mam. ‘God is good.’r />
  God is very good at keeping a person in suspense, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say a word. I thought maybe I should start praying that there’d be enough material left in the remnant, but then I decided I’d got myself into enough trouble with prayers and novenas, and this time, maybe I’d just wait and see.

  I did as my mam said, and I came around by Thomas Street every day on the way home, but still the bolt of sky-blue material – Mam was right, it was really lovely, I didn’t even mind that it wasn’t green – stayed on the shelf. Nobody seemed to want to buy any of it. Maybe it was too dear for everyone, not just for us.

  One evening, Mam went to bed early. She thought she had a cold coming on. I was going to have to get up early and do the breakfast, she said. She didn’t think she’d be able for it.

  I promised faithfully that this time I wouldn’t burn the porridge. Mam showed me how to pull out the damper more gently and then edge it back a bit, once the fire got going, so I was more in control of the heat.

  I managed the porridge fine, and I brought a bowl of it in to Mam, where she lay in bed. She shook her head and pushed my hand away.

  ‘No, love,’ she said. ‘Thanks, but I couldn’t touch it.’

  ‘Feed a cold, Mam,’ I said. ‘That’s what you always say.’

  ‘And starve a fever,’ she said. ‘I think it’s more than a cold, love. I think I have a touch of the ’flu.’

  ‘Poor Mam,’ I said. ‘Will you have a cup of tea?’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘You’re a great girl, Kate.’

  I loved it when she said I was a great girl, even if I didn’t always think it was true.