To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Fold your napkin properly,’ said Grandmother to Cassie, pointing at it. ‘And you shouldn’t talk at table, young lady,’ she added looking at Gina.

  ‘We’re allowed to talk at table,’ Maria piped up. ‘Our grandma’s not sour like you.’

  ‘Who said I was sour?’ Grandmother demanded.

  Cassie looked across at Maria. Cassie had never said anything about Grandmother being sour, but she would never believe her now.

  ‘Did you say I was sour, Cassie?’ asked her grandmother. She bent down to Cassie, her horrid beady eyes staring hatefully into Cassie’s large ones. ‘I said,’ she repeated, ‘did you say I was sour?’

  Cassie shook her head, too frightened even to speak. At that moment Mrs Roebuck came out of the pantry, where she had heard everything, and smiled at everyone generally.

  ‘No, I said you were sour, Gloria, as a matter of fact. It was just kind of a joke. I said all old women like us were sour, and Maria picked it up – you know the way kids do? They’re always picking things up either from grownups or the wireless.’

  ‘Cassie is not allowed to listen to the wireless,’ said Grandmother pointedly. ‘And with good reason, it seems.’

  A minute later, her bag packed, and having been given barely enough time to be kissed by Mrs Roebuck, Cassie was marched from the house, back to Grandmother’s house with all speed. Grandmother, she was told on the way home, couldn’t wait to get her home, couldn’t wait to get her up to her room, couldn’t wait to punish her. She would be beaten, and then locked in, locked in until she learnt not to say bad things about her grandmother behind her back.

  Cassie lay curled up on her bed in the dark. She didn’t care about being punished now, and she never would again. Meanwhile she had her day with Mrs Roebuck to think about. It was the best day she had ever had in her life. It was a day that not even Grandmother could take away from her. Best of all, she knew now that life could be nice and kind, and full of warm things. One day, when she grew up, she would try and be like Mrs Roebuck, but until then she would just think about her. She had screamed hard when Grandmother had hit her, much harder than she had ever screamed before, because she had screamed so that Mrs Roebuck could hear. Of course Mrs Roebuck couldn’t hear, but Grandmother hadn’t liked it. She had stopped suddenly, sooner than she did normally, defeated by her own inability to administer pain and stifle Cassie’s cries. She wouldn’t be back for hours now. She never was when she locked the door. When Cassie was little she used to lock the door and leave her in her room until she got back from shopping, because taking Cassie shopping had been a bother. When she was tiny Cassie had used to knock on the windows and shout to her as she disappeared down the front garden to the road, but Grandmother would turn her back and never look at her. That also would have been too much of a brother.

  It had been Mrs Roebuck’s idea to send Cassie to the convent. Much better than being at home being a burden, Mrs Roebuck had said firmly. Grandmother had suddenly seemed uncertain about this.

  ‘I don’t know, Mirabelle Ann, I don’t know so much. I’m Cassie’s only relative on this earth. I wonder, should I send her away?’

  Grandmother’s eyes flickered from Cassie sitting in her Sunday-best clothes to Mrs Roebuck pouring Grandmother an iced coffee. Gina and Maria were already at the convent, but Gina and Maria were one and two years older than Cassie.

  ‘Of course you must send her to the convent, Gloria,’ Mrs Roebuck argued. ‘Why, it stands to reason – it’ll leave you more time for the things that you enjoy.’

  ‘There is that,’ Grandmother conceded, but her eyes flickered once more towards Cassie, who was sitting carefully not swinging her legs.

  Cassie stared at her stilled feet. If she said and did nothing perhaps Grandmother would be betrayed into thinking that she didn’t want to go to school with Gina and Maria.

  ‘It’s not as if it’s an ordinary school,’ Mrs Roebuck went on. ‘It’s such a small school. The nuns, who are mostly refugees from the war, started taking girls of all ages, even five-year olds, when they felt there was a need, just as a favour to the neighbourhood. And then only those that – only those that they think will benefit in some way. It’s a very special little school. I think it would suit Cassie.’

  Mrs Roebuck put another piece of fudge cake on Cassie’s plate.

  ‘There’s nothing special about Cassie,’ Grandmother replied, ‘except her wicked stubborn ways.’

  Grandmother opened her purse, and took out her powder compact. As she powdered her nose, and then restlessly snapped the compact shut again, Mrs Roebuck winked at Cassie. Cassie quickly dropped her eyes. For one horrible second she imagined that her grandmother had caught sight of that wink, and that all would be lost.

  There was a short silence. Grandmother looked at Cassie. Cassie’s eyes were once more innocently focused on her white socks. Cassie tried to think of how much she would hate going to the convent with Gina and Maria. She tried to think that it was the last thing that she wanted, because she sensed that if she thought hard enough Grandmother would believe her thoughts and immediately want to send her there.

  ‘I suppose it might be a solution to some of my troubles,’ Grandmother reasoned. ‘And her wretched father did at least leave her some money to provide for her education.’

  Grandmother’s voice always assumed a false piety when referring to money, as if it held no interest for her at all.

  ‘Well, there we are then,’ Mrs Roebuck concluded. ‘That’s all there is to be said about it, wouldn’t you say?’

  Grandmother continued to stare at Cassie a little longer.

  ‘I’m not sure, Mirabelle Ann,’ said Grandmother. ‘After all there is Cassie herself. Will the good nuns accept someone like Cassie?’

  ‘The good nuns specialise in taking the boldness out of children, Gloria, you know that,’ Mrs Roebuck replied.

  But still Grandmother hung out. It was as if she was aware that something was wrong, that no matter how much Cassie hid her true feelings from her, she nevertheless suspected her of wanting to go.

  Day after day she would talk about the ‘good nuns’ to Delta, to visitors, sometimes even to Cassie, but it seemed that something always prevented her from going down to the convent and enrolling her irksome burden, until eventually, without telling Cassie she finally went.

  Cassie held her breath as the suitcases came out. She still suspected that somehow, something would come between her and escaping from Grandmother to the convent. Only when she heard that Grandmother had acquired a new bridge partner did she feel safe to examine the possibility that escape to school might bring.

  ‘Will you miss me?’ her grandmother asked her, as Cassie lay in her bed that night, looking up into Grandmother’s stern face. Cassie nodded slowly.

  ‘You won’t be tucked in by me at the convent you know,’ Grandmother added.

  Cassie nodded again. She knew that she must pretend to be sad at leaving Grandmother otherwise she would change her mind about sending her away.

  ‘You’ll probably enjoy yourself no matter, won’t you?’

  Cassie shook her head.

  ‘Of course you will. It’s your positive duty to enjoy yourself. And I don’t want any long faces on the first day, you hear? No nonsense and feeling sorry for yourself. You’re six years old now and you should know better. I don’t want any bad behaviour like that terrible evening when I went out to help with the sewing bee and you cried. I don’t want that, do you hear?’

  Cassie nodded. Grandmother leant forward and Cassie kissed her dutifully on her cheek which was always so surprisingly soft. She couldn’t let her imagination encompass the idea of not seeing Grandmother, of not being with her, of not having to peck her cheek goodnight. It was unimaginable. She closed her eyes as the lights went out and darkness fell around her bed; for once the blackness seemed to be lighter.

  Getting up and putting on her clothes for school made Cassie feel sick with excitement. The girls were encouraged to we
ar blue, Sister Joseph – Cassie’s future house-mother – had told Grandmother. Blue hair ribbons were encouraged on weekdays, and white ones on Sundays. Cassie stared at the silky blue ribbons in her hands, and then handed them up one by one to Grandmother. She mustn’t wriggle or show excitement, she mustn’t let Grandmother see how pleased she would be to be away from her. But deep down she must have suspected it, because Grandmother braided Cassie’s hair so tightly that her head ached for the rest of the day.

  ‘You be a good girl now,’ she reminded Cassie when they arrived at the convent. ‘And don’t forget to keep your socks clean.’

  Grandmother then bent towards Cassie.

  ‘You may kiss me goodbye,’ she said.

  Then she turned away, and Cassie followed the other girls through the convent door. She didn’t look back, and neither did her grandmother.

  ‘Cassie McGann, you will be sharing with Mary-Jo Christiansen. Mary-Jo’s already been with us one semester so she can show you the way we do things.’

  Cassie looked up into Mary-Jo’s blue eyes. She liked her straightaway. She knew she would always like her. She was tall and good-looking – not like Cassie who was small and had looks that Grandmother always described as ‘plain Jane’.

  ‘We wash our faces and hands like this,’ Mary-Jo explained, taking a jug and pouring water into a bowl. They each had a brightly painted washstand, holding clean white towels on either side of them. ‘And then we go to the bathroom, and we clean our teeth and do everything else there. OK?’

  Cassie nodded. It all seemed so wonderfully exciting. Jugs, bowls and towels, and other girls, some of whom she could hear quietly saying the same things as Mary-Jo. She soaped her face flannel vigorously in imitation of Mary-Jo.

  The convent smelled sweetly of flowers and wax polish. As soon as she’d arrived Cassie had noticed that if she pushed her shoes a little in front of her they slid beautifully on the shiny surface of the wooden floors. Now, as she followed Mary-Jo to the bathroom, she slid her new bedroom slippers a little, testing the surface. Obligingly her slippers carried her along. It was a little like pretending to skate.

  She waited for Mary-Jo to finish cleaning her teeth. Mary-Jo spat vaguely towards the general direction of the plug hole, ran some water briefly, and then stepped aside to let Cassie do the same. Cassie stared amazed into the huge marble basin. Mary-Jo had left a mark on one of the taps. She turned briefly to look at her. Didn’t she realise that she had committed a mortal sin by leaving not just a mark on the taps, but toothpaste on the basin too? But Mary-Jo seemed oblivious of her trespasses.

  Cassie followed her back to their room. If Mary-Jo had committed a sin, so had Cassie. What a wonderful feeling to be sinning with someone else for a change. Yet somehow she still couldn’t believe that Mary-Jo had committed a sin, for if she had, how could she possibly be so carefree?

  ‘Come on,’ Mary-Jo said. ‘It’s my turn to read out aloud tonight.’

  Cassie jumped into her bed. Her quilt was a deep maroon satin, very old-fashioned, from Grandmother’s attic. Mary-Jo’s was smart and new, with yellow checks and lace and ribbons. It looked as if it had just been newly bought from a department store, not thrown down from an attic. Cassie looked at her and it with admiration, and then lay back against her pillow. She had hoped that being at the convent would be good, but she hadn’t quite realised until that moment, just how good being with the ‘good’ nuns was going to be.

  ‘Come on,’ Mary-Jo urged, as she looked at Cassie still struggling with her hair ribbons. ‘We’ll be late. It doesn’t matter about your hair braids. Sister Joseph’ll do them again for you.’

  Cassie followed Mary-Jo to class. Everything was still new and lovely, despite her sports clothes being too big and everyone laughing at her on her first day. She started to half-run after Mary-Jo. Being taller she was always ahead of Cassie in seconds. But just so long as she never lost sight of her, Cassie knew she’d be all right.

  Chapter Two

  Cassie stared at her finished drawing. It was of her soul, big, and round, and coloured bright yellow. She bit her lip and frowned. There was a blemish on the drawing, where her pencil had overrun into the colour. Cassie wondered what to do, and then decided that if Sister Joseph asked her what the mark was she would say that it was a sin. Which indeed it was. It was the sin of carelessness, because she had allowed her pencil to slip.

  But Sister Joseph didn’t mention the smudge. Instead she just smiled down at Cassie.

  ‘Very good, Cassie,’ she said. ‘Excellent. I can see how hard you’ve tried.’

  Then she moved on down the line to Mary-Jo. Mary-Jo’s drawing of her soul was a perfect and unblemished circle coloured purple, and surrounded with green leaves.

  ‘How colourful, Mary-Jo,’ Sister Joseph said, nodding happily. ‘Very original.’

  The quiet in the classroom was intense, as the children all looked at Sister Joseph in silent adoration. She was a very pretty nun, with clear blue eyes, a perfect complexion and a smile that lit up every inch of her face. All the children loved her, and had struggled in silence to produce their very best artwork for her.

  ‘Now,’ Sister Joseph announced, turning to face the class, ‘several of you children are soon to be making your First Communion. Mary-Jo Christiansen, Rosella Savarese, Teresa Plunkett and Cassie McGann.’

  The four girls all turned to each other. They were to be friends for life. That’s what making your First Communion together meant. It was the closest you could be, besides actually being married.

  ‘When Rosella, Mary-Jo, Teresa and Cassie ask those of you who have already made your First Communion what it’s like, you can only answer wait and see. Because there are no words to describe it. But there is one thing you can do for them. And that is prepare your souls for your communion that day. And you can say that your communion is their communion.’

  There was a silence as Sister Joseph looked down at her young class.

  ‘Furthermore,’ she continued, ‘in the next few weeks we are all going to make sacrifices for the First Communicants. Which is why I want you all to rule a margin by the side of the pictures you have just drawn, to make a column for the stars you are going to win for all the sacrifices you are going to make for your four friends who are about to make their Holy Communion.’

  In the playground after class, Cassie, Mary-Jo, Rosella and Teresa all linked arms. They were a band, friends for life, and Cassie was one of them. For the first time in her life she felt a sense of belonging, as she looked at the three shining faces looking back at her. Then quite spontaneously they all ran to the trees on the edge of the field and choosing the biggest they could get their arms around, encircled it, their fingers just hooking up, and their faces pressed hard against its bark. When they released their hands and stood back, they found the wood had made indentations on their faces. They pointed this out to each other and laughed. Then Rosella drew a hopscotch square in the earth with the heel of her shoe and they all started to play.

  But despite their goodwill in the ensuing days it became very difficult not to cheat about the sacrifices they were all meant to be making. Cassie, like everyone else, desperately wanted to be able to claim as many stars as she could for her column. But she wanted to please Sister Joseph even more desperately and she knew she could not do that by cheating. Cassie knew she would be quite unable to look straight into Sister Joseph’s clear blue eyes ever again in the knowledge that she had tricked the nun into awarding her one of the precious silver stars. But sacrifices were so hard to find when you were a new girl, and had to spend most of your time doing what everyone told you to do. Was it a sacrifice deliberately to lose a game when by so doing you disappointed Mary-Jo? Was it a sacrifice to push your chair in quietly when Grandmother had never allowed you to do otherwise? Was it a sacrifice not to think nice things about Sister Joseph?

  Such was Cassie’s indecision, and as a consequence her column was still bare of stars, while everyone else’s were fillin
g up rapidly. Sister Joseph was well aware of this, although naturally enough she made no comment, when at the end of the second week the time came to award the stars.

  ‘And how have you done this week, darling?’ she asked Cassie, bending down to hear her reply. ‘What sacrifices have you made for your fellow communicants?’

  Cassie looked at the floor long and hard before replying.

  ‘None I don’t think, Sister,’ she said in a voice barely more than a whisper. ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that happens to be true, Cassie,’ Sister Joseph replied. ‘I see you making all sorts of sacrifices. But because they’re things you usually do normally, you’re too honest to claim them. So for that, for your honesty, I’m going to give you two silver stars.’

  Sister Joseph picked the stars out of the box Rosella was holding and carefully stuck them in the margin on Cassie’s drawing. Cassie stared at them silently, and swallowed hard to try and get rid of the lump in her throat.

  Life was very full for the four First Communicants. Not a day passed without there being something special for them to do, and something special to think about.

  ‘When Jesus comes down to us from the altar in the form of bread, children,’ Sister Joseph explained one day during their instruction, ‘He will give us special strength. The strength to become more like Him, and like His Holy Mother; the strength to love our friends more, and to love and respect our parents more.’

  Cassie wrestled with this one, but without much success. She tried to imagine loving her grandmother more, but it was not only difficult, it was practically impossible. How could you love someone ‘more’ if they didn’t love you at all? And Cassie knew perfectly well that her grandmother didn’t love her. She knew it not from her grandmother, but from her neighbours. From Mr O’Reilly, and Mrs Roebuck, and from Gina and Maria. She knew from the look of pity in people’s eyes when they looked at her, and from the way they were always so kind to her. Too kind, almost. Gina and Maria were not in the same class as Cassie, but they went out of their way to come over and talk to her in the playground whenever they saw her. Mr O’Reilly had given her special permission to take his book to school and Mrs Roebuck had sent her some candy in the mail.