A Girl Called Blue

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘Aye aye aye,’ sang the women in Teza’s ears. Blue felt the hot earth beneath her feet, the bead ankle bracelet moving as she swayed with the women of the tribe, making music as she walked.

  CHAPTER 10

  Trouble, Trouble

  The Maguires were still mad with her the next morning and they drove to mass and back in total silence. She could feel a lump like a hard rock in her throat. She kept saying sorry but nobody listened. Nobody spoke to her either.

  Mrs Maguire’s mother was sick and she was worried about her.

  ‘Ted and I are going over to see my poor mother,’ she announced when they got home. ‘You boys be good and take care of the place. We won’t be too long.’

  Paddy kicked up about having to stay home and ended up going with his parents.

  ‘The milking is done so there’s no need for anyone to disturb the animals,’ Mr Maguire said, glancing over at Blue.

  Blue wished she could disappear into the ground.

  ‘There’s soup and brown bread if ye’re hungry and I’ll put on the dinner when I get back,’ added Mrs Maguire as she pulled on her coat and fetched her black leather handbag.

  Blue watched the car pull out of the yard and disappear down the laneway. She felt strange and awkward. Frank ignored her and turned on the radio, tuning in to one of those boring programmes that announced the sports fixtures all over the country. There was no sign of Dermot. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t dare risk going for a walk, or looking around the farm. No, it was safer to stay inside. Maybe she should just clean her bedroom? Mrs Maguire would like that. She set to immediately, stripping the bed and getting a cloth to clean and dust the whole room before she washed the floor.

  By lunchtime she was starving. There was no sign of the boys doing anything about food so she turned on the cooker to heat the soup and set out the bread and some cheese. She called them when it was ready. They didn’t even thank her. She struggled to make conversation with them though she knew they were being deliberately unfriendly.

  ‘I made a right mess of things yesterday,’ she confessed. ‘I had to chase Bonnie all over the place.’

  ‘Bonnie?’ asked Frank.

  ‘Bonnie – the piglet,’ she sighed. ‘She’s so clever. If you saw the trouble I had to go to to catch her.’

  ‘We don’t go naming pigs,’ interrupted Dermot.

  ‘No, not when they’re going to be sold off for fattening and butchering,’ added Frank.

  Blue thought of poor Bonnie. She should have let the piglet escape to the freedom of the woods after all. She should never have brought her back to the pigsty, never.

  She washed up afterwards and put everything away. She had a headache and stood outside the door, gulping in the fresh air. Dermot was outside, sitting behind the outhouse wall. She wandered over, curious as to what he was doing, her eyes widening when she realised he was smoking.

  ‘Do you want one? ’ he offered, as he blew smoke in the air. She immediately recognised the red and white box – his mother’s favourite cigarettes.

  ‘No thanks,’ she declined, shaking her head. Smoking was something she had no interest in doing. The Maguire house reeked of stale smoke and tobacco. It clung to everything, carpets and curtains and even clothes. Her own jumper and skirt were tainted with the smell each time she visited.

  ‘Don’t be such a goody good!’ he jeered.

  A goody good was something she most definitely was not. ‘I just don’t want to,’ she said firmly. ‘It smells disgusting and I don’t like people who smoke.’

  He flushed with annoyance at her comment as she turned around and went back inside.

  It was late afternoon when the parents returned. Mrs Maguire immediately went upstairs to lie down.

  ‘Bernadette, I’ll take you back to Larch Hill now,’ offered her husband. ‘Josie’s tired and we’ll have our dinner later.’

  Blue felt relief wash over her. She ran upstairs to get her things. Mrs Maguire was standing at her bedroom door.

  ‘I cleaned and tidied it and washed the floor while you were out,’ Blue explained, glad that the woman had noticed.

  ‘I was checking the bed and I found this.’ Mrs Maguire was brandishing the packet of Carroll’s Number One cigarettes in her hand. ‘Now I know who’s been stealing my cigarettes. I couldn’t understand where they were disappearing to lately. ’

  ‘But I didn’t take them, I swear,’ said Blue

  ‘Then who put them under your pillow hidden in your nightdress?’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’ Blue wanted to shout out that it was Dermot, but she wasn’t a telltale. ‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged.

  Mr Maguire was silent as they drove back into town. Blue realised there was no point in trying to explain or deny things as the family had already their minds made up about her. They wouldn’t give her a second chance and somewhere deep in her heart she wasn’t sure if she would give them one either. She almost jumped out of the car when they reached Larch Hill.

  ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out,’ was all Mr Maguire said gruffly before he drove away.

  * * *

  Mary, Lil, Jess and Molly sat on the bed and listened as she told them about the disasters of the weekend. Tears of laughter ran down Jess’s cheeks as Blue described the trouble she had catching piglets and how they ran in all directions.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be going back to visit the Maguires,’ Blue said. A wave of disappointment washed over her.

  Mary gave her a big hug when she told them about Dermot Maguire and how he’d set her up with the cigarettes.

  ‘God, who’d want a brother like that?’ said Mary indignantly.

  Blue supposed she was right. The boys had never been kind to her and her friends didn’t know the half of all the housework she’d had to do for the family.

  ‘They’re not good enough for you, Blue. Not good enough at all,’ insisted Jess.

  Blue tried to put it behind her, but later that week Sister Regina called her up to her office.

  ‘I’ve had a complaint, Bernadette, about your behaviour while staying at the Maguires. I believe you were careless around their farm and let valuable animals escape, that you were cheeky to the other children, but worst of all stole from the lady of the house. What have you got to say for yourself?’

  ‘I never stole anything, Sister, honest I didn’t.’ Blue was furious.

  ‘How much money did you take?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t take anything. Her son was stealing her cigarettes but she blamed me.’

  ‘Cigarettes?’

  ‘Yes, Sister. Dermot Maguire was stealing his mother’s cigarettes and he tried to put the blame on me. I would never smoke.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What about the animals?’

  ‘Four piglets got out of the pen while I was playing with them, but I managed to get each and every one back in the pen. Pigs are real clever, Sister, so they need a bit of catching.’

  The head nun gave a big sigh. ‘I take it there’ll be no more visits to the Maguires?’

  Blues eyes filled with tears and she shook her head.

  ‘Very well. I don’t know what we will do with you, Bernadette.

  Always causing trouble. Go and join the others.’

  Blue felt ashamed that she had ruined her chance of a family. That would be her last chance, surely. She was surprised when Sister Gabriel asked to see her after school that same day.

  ‘Things often don’t work out, Bernadette. You and this family were not a proper fit. I suppose with three sons there was bound to be resentment and jealousy, especially of a girl.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Anyway, I will go through all my files and see if I can find somebody more suited to you –’

  Blue interrupted. ‘Please, Sister, I don’t want to be involved with another family. I just want to stay here with my friends in Larch Hill.’

  ‘Are you sure, Bernadette? That’s a big decision, you know. You
never know, the next time –’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  Sister Gabriel stared in amazement. The O’Malley child had finally given up on finding a family – that was something she had never expected.

  Although she was surrounded by all the other kids in the children’s home, Blue felt more alone than ever. Sometimes she even longed to be back in Maguires’ cold, poky bedroom just so she could belong.

  ‘Blue, snap out of it!’ begged Jess, doing three cartwheels in a row. ‘The fancy dress party is in a couple of weeks, remember.’

  ‘Come on, Blue! Forget that stupid family. We’re your family,’ Mary insisted.

  They were right. There was no use moping around and feeling sorry for herself. It wasn’t going to change a single thing.

  ‘Did someone say party?’

  ‘Yes, stupid,’ jeered Jess. ‘The big fancy dress party – we’ve all got to decide what we’re dressing up as.’

  CHAPTER 11

  The Beads

  Four days a week after school Blue and Lil and Mary and Jess, and all the rest of the girls their age, filed into the big workroom with the high windows and wooden floors. This was Sister Rita’s domain. Row after row of heavy, wooden workbenches were laid out and the girls, under the watchful eye of Sister Rita, took their places. Each was given a basket of beads, a wire-cutter and a scissors. Then they sat down and began the task of making rosary beads.

  Blue had been making rosary beads since she was nine years of age. The criterion for making the rosaries was that you had to be able to count. Maggie Donovan had told Blue that one time the nuns had tried to get the six- and seven-year-olds to do it, but they had kept making mistakes about how many beads to wire on and had strung all kinds of odd numbers together. The beads represented the events of the life of Jesus: the joyful, the sorrowful and the glorious mysteries. Five groups of ten beads, divided by one for the ‘Glory be to the Father.’ And then, finally, the cross on the end. People counting the rosary on their beads were bound to get confused if there was a bead too many, or not enough beads. So, reluctantly, the nuns had stopped the smaller girls working.

  Blue hated making rosary beads. It was boring and humdrum and, worst of all, the wire cut her fingers. She found it twice as hard to use the wire-cutters when her fingers were already covered in nicks and cuts. One bright spark had once suggested they should wear thick, protective gloves, but Sister Rita had told them that gloves would only slow the work down and make handling the finicky little beads impossible. It was all right for the nun to say that when her hands were lily-white and uncut, thought Blue. Sometimes they made rosary sets from just plain old string or rope, which was a lot easier on the fingers and thumbs, but for the moment it was wire and beads.

  Old-lady rosaries, that’s what they were making this week. These blue and grey and pearl and glass beads were for old ladies who sat in churches and chapels all over Ireland saying the rosary and praying for their husbands and sons and daughters. Blue wondered if it ever crossed their minds to think of the children who made their fine rosary beads. She supposed it didn’t. Larch Hill supplied beads to churches and shops all over the country and even further afield.

  ‘You are doing God’s work.’ That’s what Sister Rita preached to them as they slaved, mostly in silence, fitting the links together and threading on bead after bead. Blue longed to be out in the fresh air in the yard, running around, or even sitting at her desk studying or doing homework. By the time you had spent almost three hours threading beads and shaping the rosaries, your head and neck and back and wrists and fingers ached.

  ‘Offer your discomfort to the Lord,’ advised the nun, her fat face and double chins wobbling. She was sitting, as usual, in the big chair at the top of the room, reading a book, but glancing up every few minutes to check that they were working.

  ‘I hate these stupid beads,’ Blue whispered, her hands and fingers stiff and sore. The line of cracks on her thumb and forefinger from previous work had dried out and filled with yellow pus. Her fingers were never free of sores and cuts.

  ‘Ssshh,’ cautioned Lil, who was sitting beside her, and didn’t believe in attracting trouble.

  ‘Ow!’ Blue jerked out of the way as a bit of metal flew up and almost caught her in the eye.

  Lil was flying through her pile of beads, and had three silver crosses already positioned on the end of each.

  ‘Hurry up, Blue, she’s looking down at you!’ she warned.

  The last thing Blue wanted was the nun to waddle down and stand over her, watching. The last time it happened she had been made to stay behind to finish and had missed her tea; she would have gone to bed hungry except for the bits of crust Lil had managed to save for her.

  ‘Is there a problem, Bernadette?’ Sister Rita called.

  ‘No, Sister, no. I’m flying. Thanks,’ she mumbled, wishing she had the courage to go up and fling the basket of beads all over the nun’s smug face. She sighed and tried to concentrate on what she was doing. Sometimes she would make up a story in her head about the person who was getting the beads. A few weeks ago they had been handed boxes of large brown and black beads. Blue had loved the smooth feel of them and imagined the priests on the missions out in Africa in the hot sun, far from home, using the rosary beads that she was making to help them work with people who worshipped different gods. Those crosses had been made of wood and silver, and were plain and simple as could be. The crosses for these rosaries were fiddly and ornate and every time she attached the cross it seemed to turn in the wrong direction, a bit like the wayward tail of a kite she once saw flying up over the high orphanage walls. She jerked and pulled at it, twisting the tiny loop of silver wire that held the cross and forcing it into a straighter position. Lil smiled over at her.

  Blue sneaked a look at the others. Mary had wrinkles across her brow with concentration, and had spread the sets of beads she’d finished in a neat row. Jess was day-dreaming, but she was such a natural with her hands that she could have made a set of beads with her eyes closed. Sinead, who had only just started working on the rosaries, looked like she was about to cry; the bits of wire kept snapping in her hands and she had dropped a few beads on the floor under her bench. Maggie Roche, a big girl of fifteen, was slowly and patiently trying to show her how do it. Blue smiled over, trying to encourage her. They all knew that there was no point in crying over working with the beads because the nuns had no time for those who snivelled and were cry-babies. If anything, the nuns made things worse for them.

  Blue turned her attention to her own work. One set, two sets – ignoring the stiffness and pain in her fingers she worked on. Then, quickly, she let two smooth, grey beads slip into her pocket. She was collecting beads, saving them up for a special purpose. The nuns regularly checked the beads, counting them carefully, but there were always a few that fell on the workroom floor and disappeared between the gaps in the floorboards, or that cracked or chipped and were unusable, so Blue didn’t consider it stealing to take a few for herself.

  Sinead gave a sudden cry and, out of the corner of her eye, Blue saw the almost-full basket of beads wobble and spill out all over the bench, beads running madly in all directions. Sinead was frantically trying to catch them as they tumbled on to the floor. Sister Rita was on her feet immediately, barking the order to them all:

  ‘Help her, and be careful where you step!’

  They all stopped working and rushed over to help. Blue managed to scoop a few into her pocket as the girls crowded around Sinead, who was bent down on the floor, her skinny arms and hands scrabbling for the tiny beads. At last they had rescued as many as they could.

  Blue slipped back to her own part of the bench, a big grin on her face. She had almost enough beads now to put her plan into action.

  ‘Girls, back to your work!’ called Sister Rita. ‘Sinead, you will have to stay on to finish off the set you’re working on.’

  ‘But what about my tea?’ wailed Sinead.

  Blue looked up. She had total sy
mpathy for the girl. The meals in Larch Hill were hardly appetising, and they were certainly not filling, but if you missed one it meant a rumbling stomach and hunger pains till the next day.

  ‘That will depend on your work being finished.’

  Sinead’s lip wobbled. Blue and the other girls stared over and gave her the thumbs-up, hoping she wouldn’t give the nun the satisfaction of crying.

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ Sinead said, ramming a bead on to the wire and twisting it firmly into place, determined not to cry over the two slices of bread or the curdled scrambled egg that passed for tea.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Fancy Dress Party

  Everyone in Larch Hill was bursting with excitement in anticipation of the annual summer fancy dress party arranged by the visiting committee every July. Blue loved dressing up and pretending to be somebody else. It was like being part of some strange game. Everyone planned their costume in secret. All through the previous week Blue hid scraps of material with her secret stash of beads. She collected bird feathers from the unlikeliest of places around the yard and garden, even tearing a little piece of her pillow to get the final few she needed, taking care to re-stitch it before Sister Carmel saw it.

  On the day of the fancy dress the dormitory was crazy, everyone rushing around gathering their stuff and trying to pin or sew their outfits together.

  ‘Blue, help me get this witch’s hat to stay on my head,’ begged Lil, the black-painted cardboard cone toppling over again and again, refusing to stay on her thick curls.