by Sandy Taylor
‘Get your hands off her!’ I yelled, pulling Brenda away, then I kicked her as hard as I could in the shins, grabbed Brenda’s hand and ran out of the office, down the corridor and out of the school gates. We ran and we ran until we couldn’t run anymore then we sat on a garden wall to get our breath back. Brenda was crying.
‘She’s going to kill us, Maureen.’
‘No she’s not, because we’re not going back.’
‘What, never?’
‘Never.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise. Now, let me have a look at you.’
Brenda stood up so that I could see what Aquinas had done. There was an angry red mark across both her legs.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes,’ said Brenda tearfully.
‘She’s a mean, cruel cow,’ I said.
‘I don’t think you should say that about a Bride of Christ, Maureen.’
‘She’s no Bride of Christ, Brenda,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘If I was God, I’d divorce her,’ said Brenda.
‘If I was God, I’d bloody kill her!’
I put my arm around her and we started the long walk home.
‘Did you see her face when I kicked her?’ I said.
‘She didn’t look happy, Maureen.’
‘She wasn’t meant to, Brenda. Vicious old witch!’
‘Maureen!’ said Brenda.
‘Brenda!’ I said. Then we both started giggling and then I stopped because I shouldn’t be giggling, my daddy was dead.
* * *
When we eventually got home, Mum was nowhere to be seen, even though her coat was hanging on the hook and her old brown bag was on the back of the kitchen chair. We walked out into the garden. I was getting a pain in my tummy. Don’t tell me she’s topped herself as well, I thought. Then I looked at the shed.
I didn’t want to go in there because that was where Daddy had died. He hadn’t topped himself in the house at all, he’d done it in the shed. Those boys had lied about blood dripping down the walls. None of us had gone anywhere near the shed since it happened and I didn’t want to go in there now.
I put Brenda behind me and slowly opened the door. I was relieved to see Mum sitting there on the floor, just sitting there. She looked up at us and smiled, as if sitting on the shed floor was the most natural thing in the world.
‘What are you doing in here, Mum?’ I said gently. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’
She smiled at me sadly. ‘Your daddy’s here.’
My daddy wasn’t here, only sadness was here. ‘Please come into the house, Mum,’ I said. ‘You need to bathe Brenda’s leg.’
‘Brenda’s leg?’ she said, looking confused.
‘Sister Aquinas belted Brenda across her legs.’
Mum stared at me. ‘She did what?’
‘She whacked me across the legs, Mum, because Dada had topped himself and she said he was going to burn in Hell for the rest of eternity.’
‘She said what?’ said Mum.
‘That’s what she said, didn’t she, Maureen?’
I nodded.
‘And she said that Dada had driven a knife into our Divine Saviour’s heart but I don’t remember him doing that.’
‘Brenda, show Mum your legs.’
Brenda turned around and lifted up her skirt.
‘A nun did that?’ said Mum.
Brenda nodded.
‘Your daddy is up in Heaven,’ said Mum, ‘and he’s looking down on you right at this minute.’
‘He’s looking down on you too, Mum,’ I said gently. ‘And I don’t think he would like to see you sitting on the shed floor.’
Mum smiled. ‘You are so like your daddy, Maureen, so like your daddy.’
Me and Brenda sat down on the dirty shed floor next to Mum, she put her arms around us and held us tightly. Then we helped her to get up and the three of us walked back up the garden and into the kitchen.
‘Sit down, girls,’ said Mum. ‘I need to talk to you.’
Me and Brenda sat down at the kitchen table and waited for Mum to speak.
‘I know that I have let you down…’ she began.
‘No you haven’t,’ I said quickly.
‘Hush, Maureen, let me speak.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Not only have I let you down but I’ve let your daddy down as well. I’ve been so full of my own grief that I haven’t been able to help you with yours and I am so sorry. Your daddy had been ill for a very long time but he did his best and no daddy loved his family more than your daddy did. I believe that, in the end, the struggle to stay with us became too hard for him and he had to go. And so now we will keep him in our hearts and we will smile when we think of him, knowing that he is at peace and all his pain has gone away. We wouldn’t want him to come back and be sad again, would we?’
I could feel Brenda’s leg against mine and I held her hand under the table. ‘No, Mummy,’ she said, ‘we wouldn’t want him to be sad again.’
‘So now it’s just the three of us,’ said Mum, ‘and we are going to be OK, right?’
‘Right,’ said Brenda, smiling.
‘What about your job, Mum?’ I said.
‘I shall go round to see Mrs Feldman this very minute and tell her that I am ready to come back to work.’
‘Do you think she’ll take you back?’ I said.
‘She’d be a fool not to. I’m a good worker and she knows it.’
Mum picked up her old brown handbag and smiled at us. ‘Now, I want the pair of you to stop worrying because things are going to be different from now on, I promise you.’
That was the day me and Brenda got our mum back.
Twenty-Five
So that was the end of the Catholic school and, as it happened, it was also the end of the Catholic Church. A priest came round to the house and told Mum that Daddy couldn’t be buried in the Catholic churchyard because he’d topped himself. It wasn’t the priest’s fault and I think he hated giving Mum the news. He’d even written to the Bishop, telling him what a good Catholic Daddy had been, but the Church wouldn’t budge: Daddy had committed a mortal sin and couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground and that was that. The little church where me and Brenda lit our candles in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary had closed its doors on us. All I knew was that if Jesus could forgive the robber man on the cross next to him, then I’m sure he could forgive my daddy, who was a good man and hadn’t robbed anyone.
Aunty Marge said that she had a good mind to write to the Bishop and tell him where he could stick his consecrated ground and it wasn’t at the back of the church. So even though Daddy was a good Catholic, he was buried at St Johns, the Protestant church down the road.
There was a collection on the estate so that Daddy didn’t have to be buried in a pauper’s grave and he could have his own piece of ground and a proper wooden box. Mum cried when a neighbour came round with the money. ‘They have nothing, Maureen,’ she said to me, ‘yet they did this for us. In the end, people are good.’
Aunty Mary wrote to us from Ireland and said that they were all broken-hearted to hear that their little brother Pat had died. She said that they didn’t have the money to pay for the boat to England but they were going to have a Mass said for him in the church where he was baptised.
On the day of the funeral people gathered at the house; even Aunty Vera and Uncle Fred were there. Mum kissed her on the cheek and thanked her for coming. I didn’t even look at her – I would never be able to forgive her for what she said about my daddy.
Uncle John and Uncle Fred lifted the coffin onto Uncle Fred’s barrow and together they pulled it up the street to the graveyard. The rest of us walked slowly behind it, followed by a bunch of neighbours. It was a sad little procession.
I thought my heart would break as I watched my daddy being lowered into the ground. Mum, Brenda and I stood together at the edge of the grave holding hands. The sun was shining through the trees, softening the old gravestones that stood in lines, row after row
, just like Jack’s soldiers. The sound of children’s laughter drifted across the graveyard from the nearby school, the school that me and Brenda would be going to. Aunty Marge put a rose in each of our hands and we threw them into the hole. They landed on top of the wooden box that held my daddy. People were crying. Mum and Brenda were sobbing but I didn’t shed a tear, not one bloody tear.
What was wrong with me?
* * *
That night in bed I couldn’t stop thinking about my daddy, cold and alone in that dark place. I cuddled into Brenda’s warm little body and I wanted to die; I wanted to be with my daddy. But I didn’t die, I kept breathing and life went on. Mum got her job back and me and Brenda started at the new school. My teacher was lovely but I missed my good friend Monica.
‘It’s not the same without you,’ she moaned. ‘I’m having to sit next to Bernadette Riley and she’s always trying to copy my work and she spits when she talks.’
‘Wouldn’t your mum let you change schools?’
‘She thinks that Protestants are the Devil’s spawn.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I haven’t a bloody clue, Maureen, but she’s dead against me mixing with them.’
‘We’ll still be best friends though, won’t we?’
‘Of course we will, daft.’
I was grateful to have Monica as my friend and I knew that Jack and Nelson would always be there for me but nothing gave me any pleasure. I couldn’t be silly any more. I would sit by the stone wall and watch the others running around the beach, splashing in the water and balancing on the old wooden groyne but it all felt pretty childish. I couldn’t join in. It was as if on the day my daddy died, he took my childhood with him.
No one mentioned Daddy. Not Mum or Brenda or Aunty Marge, no one. It was as if he had never existed. I found it hard to be around people, so just like Daddy I walked and there were times when I felt Daddy walking beside me.
One day I found myself outside the big white house. I remembered that the lady had asked me to come back and see her so I opened the gate and walked up the path. She was in the front garden, digging the earth with a little spade; she was wearing a big floppy hat made of straw.
She stood up and rubbed her back. ‘Maureen,’ she said, smiling. ‘How lovely! Now tell me, how is your father?’
I stood there staring at her. She put the spade down and walked across to where I was standing. She touched my shoulder. ‘Is your daddy alright, darling?’
I couldn’t tell her; I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t find the words. And then I was crying – loud, noisy, wet tears, running down my face and into the collar of my blouse. Snot was coming out of my nose and dribbling into my mouth. I could taste the snot and the salt mixing together on my tongue. All the tears that I had been keeping inside me were bursting out of my body and I couldn’t control them. I was gulping for air, sucking it in but it was too thick to swallow. I couldn’t catch my breath; I was dying. I had to be dying because I couldn’t breathe. And then I was in her arms and the snot and the tears were soaking her dress. I clung to her as if my very life depended on it. We sank together onto the grass and she didn’t let me go, not for one second did she let me go. That was the day that the lady in the posh white house saved my life. That was the day when all the pain I’d been carrying around found its way out of my body.
That night, in bed, I let myself think about Daddy and all the wonderful times we’d had together and all the love we’d shared. Even though no one mentioned his name I knew that my daddy had lived and now he would live inside my heart. That’s where he would be, not in that dark hole in the ground but inside my heart. I closed my eyes and there was Daddy’s face – the whole of Daddy’s face, not just bits of it. I turned over and watched Brenda sleeping.
‘I’ve found Daddy,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve found our daddy.’
Twenty-Six
Since Daddy died Jack and I spent a lot more time together, just him and me. Every evening after he’d done his homework we’d go for a walk on the Downs.
One evening we were sitting on the top of the Devil’s Dyke looking out over the hills.
‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for ages,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘How come your mum doesn’t mind you being friends with Nelson?’
‘She does mind but there’s not much she can do about it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Nelson’s dad and my dad were best friends. They went through the war together.’
‘Nelson had a dad?’
‘He might still have one for all anybody knows.’
‘He’s not dead, then?’
‘He walked out on Nelson and his mum when Nelson was just a baby.’
‘Blimey! So Nelson could still have a dad out there somewhere.’
Jack nodded his head. ‘He could have.’
‘If we could find him, then Nelson could leave the orphanage and have a proper home with his dad. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’
‘Yes, it would,’ said Jack. ‘But no one’s heard a word from him since the day he walked out.’
‘Does Nelson know that he’s got a dad?’
‘I’m sure he knows, he must do, but I’ve never heard him mention him and I’ve never asked.’
‘So that’s why you’re allowed to be his friend, because of your dad?’
‘That’s about it. My mum hated that brown jumper with a vengeance,’ said Jack, grinning. ‘She even knitted him a new one once but he never wore it. You know how Nelson feels about that jumper.’
‘I didn’t realise just how much until he asked me to look after it for him.’
Jack smiled and put his arm around my shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’ve got Nelson’s old brown jumper,’ he said.
We sat quietly together looking out over the hills. It was OK not saying anything; it was like that with me and Jack. I loved being with him. I was only young but I knew that he was the only boy for me. I knew girls of my age who had kissed boys – Julie Baxter was always kissing boys. I wondered how it would feel to kiss Jack. I wondered if Jack ever thought about kissing me.
Every Saturday Jack’s dad went to the orphanage and got Nelson out for the day. It was nice for all of us to be together again. Brenda had made a friend at the new school. Her name was Molly and she talked about her all the time. She didn’t seem to need me so much these days but I didn’t mind, I was happy that she had found a special friend.
And so the four of us spent every weekend together, just like we used to. One day we were on the Palace Pier. It was a beautiful afternoon and it had brought out the crowds. Mums and dads strolled along the old wooden planks and children ran ahead of them, clutching pink and white candyfloss on little sticks. The sea glittered in the sunshine and a soft breeze ruffled my skirt and cooled my face. A group of men were fishing off the side and Jack and Nelson were leaning on the railings watching them. Monica and I didn’t like seeing the crabs desperately trying to climb out of the buckets.
‘Poor little things,’ she said, screwing up her face. ‘I bet when they were happily swimming round this morning they didn’t know they’d end up in someone’s smelly bucket this afternoon.’
I thought of my dad. When I had woken up that morning, I didn’t know that by the evening he would be dead.
‘We never know when we’re going to end up in someone’s smelly bucket, Monica.’
‘Very wise, Maureen,’ she said solemnly.
We could hear music in the distance.
‘Where’s that coming from?’ I said.
‘Let’s find out,’ said Monica, catching hold of my hand.
As we neared the end of the pier the music got louder.
‘It’s coming from the ballroom,’ said Monica excitedly. ‘There must be a dance on.’
We walked towards the dance hall, through the beautiful ornate arches. There was a sign saying ‘Tea Dance’ on one of the railings.
‘Let’s have a no
se,’ said Monica.
We walked round the back of the building and peered through the windows.
The room was full of light and movement and colour. Dancers were gliding around the floor, circling around each other, coming together and moving apart, advancing and retreating like Jack’s toy soldiers in a never-ending river of reds and yellows and greens and golds as the music urged them onward.
‘Don’t they look lovely?’ said Monica.
I sighed. ‘Don’t you wish it was us?’
‘Perhaps it will be one day.’
‘Today, I wish it was us today.’
Monica looked me up and down. ‘I don’t think they’d let you in, Maureen.’
I was wearing a dress that had seen better days.
‘You’re probably right,’ I said.
I stared back at the dancers. Jewels glittered from around the women’s throats and ears, reflecting in the beautiful mirrors that adorned the walls and catching the light from the huge chandelier that shone down on them from the ceiling above. I thought they looked beautiful. I wanted to be there amongst them; I wanted to be part of the music and the lights. My feet itched to join them and my heart yearned to be one of them. I closed my eyes so that I could only hear the music and in my head I was in Jack’s arms and I was wearing a beautiful dress. I could almost feel the softness of the silk brushing against my legs. That is where I wanted to be, in Jack’s arms, in a beautiful dress, and I wondered if it would only ever be a dream.
‘Funny sort of thing to do in the middle of the afternoon,’ said Monica, breaking into my dream.
‘You have no soul, Monica,’ I said.
‘Guilty as charged,’ she said, laughing.
The boys came up behind us.
‘We wondered where you were,’ said Jack, smiling.
‘We were looking at the dancers,’ I said. ‘I wish I could go to a dance.’
‘Funny sort of thing to be doing on a sunny afternoon,’ said Jack.