Kate

by Siobhán Parkinson

  At last, though, the adjudicator started to announce the medallists, beginning with the bronze, third place.

  Brigid Mullane.

  I clapped like mad. I was delighted for Brigid. She wasn’t my favourite person, but I liked her well enough. If she hadn’t been in Breda’s gang, we might even have been friends.

  Then came another girl that we didn’t know, from Mrs Mulherne’s dancing school. She got the silver medal. We clapped politely for her too.

  Polly gripped my elbow when the adjudicator rustled her papers and said, ‘And now, for the overall winner in this competition. The gold medal goes to …’ she stopped and looked over her glasses. ‘Ahem,’ she said, ‘sorry, I can’t find the name here.’

  I closed my eyes and whispered another prayer to my friend, Saint Bernadette. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t expect to win. I’m glad enough to have got through it. But if I do win, I won’t promise to be a nun, because I don’t think I’d make a very good nun, and I think God has been trying to let me know that these last few weeks, but I’ll light another candle in your grotto on Monday morning and say a decade of the rosary.’

  ‘Kathleen Delaney!’ said the adjudicator at last.

  ‘Delaney?’ I said. ‘Oh, that’s … me!’ I wasn’t used to being called Kathleen. Not even the nuns called me that.

  ‘It’s Kate!’ someone said. ‘It’s Kate.’ The news flew around the hall.

  The hall erupted. It was like after I’d danced – thunder, crashing and banging, stamping of feet, even a few whistles. Polly pinched my elbow in her excitement and screeched in my ear, ‘You did it, you did it, I knew you were a champ!’

  ‘Thanks, Saint Bernadette,’ I whispered. ‘I owe you one.’

  ‘Katie! Katie!’ I could hear Lily’s piping little voice in the middle of it all.

  ‘Go on,’ Polly said. ‘Get up there and take the medal off the poor woman and let her go home to her tea, sure can’t you see she’s dying to get out of here, she must be exhausted watching all those baby elephants clumping about the stage!’

  I stood up and made my way through the cheering crowd to the front. I gave Nell and Angela and my sisters a big grin as I passed them. Lily was waving the ragdoll in the saffron dress at me and practically bursting with pride. I winked at her and she waved the doll even harder. Madge had to hold on to the waistband of her skirt to keep her from jumping up and following me on to the stage.

  ‘Say something,’ said the adjudicator to me, when I was up beside her. ‘It looks as if your public wants to hear from you.’

  She made a sweeping gesture to the audience, who were still stamping and clapping and whistling.

  I wasn’t prepared for this. My public!

  ‘Thank you,’ I tried, but my voice came out really tiny. Then I swallowed and tried again. This time I managed to make myself heard.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you! I would just like to tell you all something.’

  The noise died down.

  ‘There is a rumour going around,’ I said, and now my voice was much louder. The hall became quieter still. Everyone was listening. ‘There is a rumour going around that my costume was made out of a pair of curtains.’

  A ripple of laughter went around the room, and people rustled in their seats, embarrassed and amused at the same time.

  I wasn’t embarrassed any more, though. Just very glad to have a costume at all.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I want to tell you that it’s true.’

  More laughter, and a few whistles.

  ‘Thank you, Polly. Thank you, Mam.’

  Then I took my medal and I ran down the steps and out into the afternoon air.

  ‘Well!’ said Polly, who had followed me out. ‘What possessed you to say that? It’s goodbye to any dignity for the Delaney family, now, that’s for sure! Or for the Murphys either.’ She was a Murphy, like Mam used to be. ‘We’ll all go down in history as the people who dress up their children in household drapery!’ She was grinning like mad, though.

  ‘Polly,’ I said, ‘I wish we were rich.’

  ‘So do I, pet, so do I.’

  ‘But, well, there’s nothing we can do about it, is there, so there’s no point in worrying about it.’

  ‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it,’ said Polly.

  ‘I’ve decided not to mind so much about being poor.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Polly.

  ‘Though I still do wish we were rich.’

  ‘You’re a bit mixed up,’ said Polly.

  ‘No, I’m not, not really. Tess O’Hara thinks she can have one over on me by passing remarks about me and my family, but if I just say, Yes, that’s right, my dress is made out of a pair of curtains, we are poor, but we do our best … then it takes the harm out of it, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does,’ said Polly, ‘especially when you win the competition in those very same curtains! Tess O’Hara can put that in her pipe and smoke it, so she can. Come on, let’s go and get those little sisters of yours and head off home to tell your ma and da all about it and show them your medal. They’ll be delighted for you. And I have a special cake at your house for us all to share.’

  ‘A cake from Jacob’s?’ I asked.

  Everyone knew that Jacob’s made the best cakes in Dublin. People only had them on very special occasions, though, because they were very dear.

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Polly.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Cake from Jacob’s

  Mam was up and dressed when we got home. She was sitting in an armchair by the window, looking pale, but with a little smile on her lips. She had a blanket over her knees and a shawl around her shoulders.

  Da was reading the paper by the range as usual.

  ‘How did you do?’ Mam asked as soon as she saw me.

  ‘Yes, tell us how you did, alannah,’ said Da, lowering the paper.

  ‘Well,’ I said, helping Lily off with her coat, ‘we’re very tired. It’s a long walk from Church Street to Pimlico. The little ones are whacked.’

  ‘But did you dance well, Kate?’ asked Mam.

  ‘Did I dance well?’ I asked Madge and Patsy and Lily, and I gave them all a big wink.

  They stood around and stuffed their fists into their mouths to keep from laughing.

  Madge nodded. ‘Quite well,’ she said, and giggled.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Patsy.

  ‘She won!’ said Lily and jumped up and down. She couldn’t keep it in any longer. She grabbed Eddy by the hands and danced around with him. ‘Ring a ring a rosy,’ she sang, ‘Kate won a medal. Asha, asha, they all fell down!’ She was a great one for dancing around the place. Maybe she would be an Irish dancer one day too.

  ‘She didn’t!’ said Mam. ‘Did you, Kate?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and I pulled the medal out of my coat pocket to show her. It was lovely. It had a Celtic design on one side and it gleamed and shone in the light of the afternoon sun.

  ‘You’re a great girl,’ said Mam. ‘I always knew it. Mother Rosario was right when she said you were talented. We’ll have to sew that medal on to your costume right away!’

  ‘And there’ll soon be more to keep them company, I’m sure,’ said Da.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe this was the first of many medals I would win, but I didn’t think I’d ever feel as proud again as I did today, with my first ever medal.

  ‘We’ll have our tea first, though,’ said Polly. ‘I have a special treat.’

  She was grinning away. I didn’t know why.

  There was a large cardboard box standing on the table. I couldn’t work out how Polly had known I was going to win a medal. Suppose I hadn’t won, would she still have produced her celebration treat? And what was she grinning about? She was like a child who had got a special present for Christmas and was dying to show it off.

  Polly opened the box and drew out the biggest white cake we’d ever seen. It was covered in smooth white icing and all decorated with perfect little icing rosebuds and silv
ery balls. It had its own special round silvery tray with horseshoes embossed on it.

  We all stared. We’d never seen anything like it. It was beautiful, like some wonderful snow palace, far too gorgeous to eat.

  ‘Eh,’ said Madge at last. ‘That looks like a wedding cake!’

  ‘It is,’ said Polly, with a tiny, nervous grin.

  ‘A Jacob’s wedding cake!’ said Mam. ‘My goodness!’

  ‘Who’s getting married?’ Madge asked.

  ‘I am,’ said Polly. ‘I mean, I did. This morning, at six o’clock Mass in Adam and Eve’s.’

  ‘What!’ said Mam.

  ‘What?’ said everyone.

  ‘Mary! You never said …’ said Da.

  The whole family erupted in questions, crowding around Polly, pulling at her clothes, kissing her, hugging her, talking nineteen to the dozen.

  I stood back. I knew I should be happy for Polly, but I felt suddenly let down with a clunk, deflated, as if someone had told me that they were going to take my medal away from me and give it to someone else. What was Polly doing, going and getting married like that all of a sudden? And what about all our lovely plans? Would we not live in a garret and paint our toenails and have brandy flips for breakfast? Was it all my eye?

  I turned away and tucked my medal into a drawer of the dresser. It had lost its shine for me. While I was at it, I pulled out a clean napkin I found in the drawer, and gave my eyes a wipe. I should be glad for Polly, I knew I should. I mustn’t let my disappointment show.

  ‘Kate!’ Polly called, and I turned around. She raised her eyebrows at me, waiting for me to say something.

  I couldn’t say what I felt, but I had to say something.

  ‘I … hope you’ll be very happy, Polly,’ I said, ‘yourself and Bill.’

  Polly stared at me and said nothing. A silence fell on the room.

  Then Polly said, ‘I … I … I didn’t marry Bill, Kate – everyone. I married Shamy Macnamara. Sure, you all knew I would in the end, didn’t you?’

  She tried a little laugh, but nobody laughed with her. We knew no such thing. All we knew was that Shamy Macnamara drove Polly mad.

  ‘But you said …’ I began.

  ‘I said a lot, Kate, but the truth is, Shamy is a grand man and he’ll be good to me. We’re going to America! Imagine! I’ll be like Scarlett O’Hara in no time, you’ll see, all la-di-dah with a feather in my hat!’

  ‘America!’ Mam was shocked. I could hear it in her voice. America was an awful long way away. ‘God bless us and save us! America!’

  ‘Next month,’ Polly went on. There were two little red spots of excitement high up on her cheeks. She was gabbling at a great rate, as if she couldn’t get her story out fast enough. ‘Shamy has an uncle over there, and he’s sent for him, he can get him a job, he says. Me too, if I want one. We have our tickets bought and all. Shamy paid for them. In the names of Mr and Mrs Macnamara. We have a cabin, all to ourselves. Imagine, the style of it!’

  ‘But what possessed you to run away and get married at the crack of dawn, Mary?’ asked Mam.

  ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry,’ said Polly. ‘I didn’t mean it to work out like that, I’d like to have waited till you were well, Alice, and given yous all a day out, but we had to do it straight away, because it’s Ash Wednesday next week, Lent is starting, and if we weren’t married by Tuesday, we couldn’t be married for a whole six weeks, and that would be too late, the ship would have sailed without us. Six o’clock this morning was the only time the priest could fit us in. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who want to get married in the week before Lent. Every church for miles around is booked out.’

  ‘But you never said a thing!’ said Mam, still shocked.

  ‘How did you keep it a secret?’ asked Madge, her eyes wide with amazement.

  ‘I can keep a secret,’ said Lily.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Patsy. ‘You’d burst!’

  Polly looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well, this was Kate’s day. I knew how much she had been looking forward to it, and you couldn’t be there, Alice, that was disappointment enough for her. I couldn’t just suddenly announce, out of the blue, that I was getting married that very morning. It would have taken the wind out of her sails entirely.’

  I dabbed at my eyes quickly with the napkin I’d found in the drawer, and tried not to sniffle. I didn’t want them all staring at me, and I didn’t want to cry on Polly’s wedding day, but she’d taken the wind out of my sails all right, even if she’d tried not to.

  ‘Well!’ said Mam. ‘You’re a dark horse.’

  ‘But what about Bill?’ I said, when I could trust myself to talk. ‘The one with the smouldering eyes, the fellow who looks like Rhett Butler, what about him?’

  ‘He … he was no good, Kate,’ Polly said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean? I thought he was gorgeous.’ I was bewildered. I couldn’t take it all in.

  ‘Yeah, he is,’ said Polly with a sad little smile. ‘But Liz O’Brien thought he was gorgeous too. I found out he’d been two-timing me, Kate, the bowsie. Even after she went away, he was still writing secretly to Liz every day. I told him he should go after her and marry her if that was how he felt about her, and he said maybe he would. I couldn’t stay with him after I found that out, could I?’

  ‘But then, why get married at all?’ I practically shouted at her. ‘What about being an old maid in a garret with me? What about eating chocolates in bed and going to Bewley’s for afternoon tea?’

  ‘Ah, Kate,’ said Polly, her eyes clouding over, ‘I wish …’ but she didn’t say what she wished.

  Then she started suddenly fussing around, back to her old jolly self, giving orders, flying about.

  ‘Get out the best china, Madge, it’s a celebration. A double celebration. Shamy will be here any minute to help me cut the cake. Have we a breadknife? Patsy, you get it, will you? Lily, you can put out the cups, but don’t break them now, carry them one at a time. Tommy Delaney, make yourself useful and wet the tea!’

  ‘We haven’t got any best china,’ said Madge, ‘only one plate that belonged to Granny Murphy with roses on it and goldy paint around the rim.’

  ‘That’s it then, that’s the best china, bring it here and mind you don’t drop it or I’ll drop your head!’

  Polly was back to her normal self, all laughs and nonsense, but I noticed she didn’t ask me to join in the tea preparations.

  She was a great one for proverbs, but what about ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’? I thought bitterly to myself.

  ‘Why?’ I mouthed at her, when I caught her eye.

  She pulled me into a corner and she spoke softly.

  ‘Because that’s what people do, Kate, grown-up people. They get married, they make a life together. You don’t want me to spend the rest of my days making biscuits for Jacob’s, do you? Things have been bad in America too, these past few years, but it’s getting better and Shamy’s uncle says he can get work for both of us. I don’t want to be poor all my life, Kate. You know how much I hate it. This is a new start for me.’

  ‘But Shamy Macnamara!’ I hissed.

  ‘Shamy’s a good man,’ Polly said firmly and quite loudly.

  Mam overheard her. ‘He is,’ she agreed. ‘I never understood why you didn’t marry him ages ago, Mary.’

  ‘And he loves me, Kate,’ added Polly. ‘He’ll be good to me.

  I wasn’t a bit happy, but Mam was a wise one; maybe it would turn out for the best after all. So I gave Polly a little hug, and I tried to forgive her about the garret. After all, I’d nearly ended up becoming a nun myself, and that would be abandoning Polly as much as she was abandoning me now. Maybe she was right. You couldn’t live on fantasy and afternoon tea in Bewley’s. I could see that much.

  The top step of the stairs creaked.

  ‘That’ll be Shamy!’ said Polly, and she flew out to meet him, the two little red spots on her cheeks flaming up again.

  Seconds later, she cam
e in again, dragging Shamy by the hand.

  ‘Delaneys!’ she announced, giving a little flounce. ‘Meet my husband, Mr James Aloysius Macnamara!’

  ‘I thought his name was Shamy,’ said Lily, looking up at the couple.

  ‘It is,’ said Polly. ‘That’s just his posh name.’

  ‘Is he our uncle?’ asked Patsy.

  Polly went off in a ripple of laughter, as if Patsy had cracked some great joke. ‘I suppose he must be,’ she said.

  It was a bit funny all right, to be suddenly presented with an uncle you hadn’t had the day before.

  Shamy looked at the floor all the time. He was all dressed up in a brown suit and a stiff collar and he didn’t look very comfortable.

  ‘You’re very welcome to the family, Shamy,’ said Mam, and put out her hand to Shamy.

  Shamy got red and looked even more pointedly at the floor, even while he was shaking Mam’s hand.

  ‘Mrs Macnamara,’ said Da, ‘will you pour the tea or will I?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Polly, with a start, ‘that’s me! The cake, the cake! We’ll have to cut the cake! Shamy, come here!’

  Shamy turned from Mam, and Polly handed him the breadknife.

  ‘We have to do it together,’ said Polly. ‘It’s part of the whole thing. Working together, you see, that’s what marriage is.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shamy, the first word he had uttered since coming into the room, and he picked up the breadknife.

  Polly put her hand over his, and together they cut the cake. It made a groaning sound as the knife sliced through it. It was bursting with fruit, we could see as soon as it was opened.

  We all shouted Hip-hip-hurray, and Da picked up a teacup and said in a loud voice, ‘Ladies!’ That was us, me and Mam and the girls. Eddy was too small to count. ‘Ladies, I give you the bride and groom!’

  We all picked up our cups then and we waved them in the air and we repeated Da’s words, ‘The bride and groom. The bride and groom. The bride and groom.’ We chinked our cups and drank a solemn little toast and tried to look as pleased as we could, for Polly’s sake.

  Madge started handing around slices of cake.