A Girl Called Blue

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘Travel sickness,’ announced Sister Carmel, who was in charge of the expedition. She passed them a brown paper bag for Molly to be sick into.

  ‘Poor thing,’ murmured Jess.

  ‘We’ll be there soon, Molly, honest we will,’ Blue told her.

  An hour later the bus turned into Brittas Bay and the children began to scream and shout as some of them recognised in the distance the roof of the old convent where they would be staying.

  ‘Sit down, children! Sit down!’ ordered Sister Carmel.

  The minute the bus stopped there was a mad stampede into the big convent and up the stairs, Blue and Mary and Lil and Jess racing like lunatics to get a room together. There were no big dormitories in this convent, just large, four-bedded rooms.

  Blue made sure that Molly was in the room beside hers with Sarah’s little sister Roisín and two others her own age. Sarah and herself agreed to share the chore of minding the smaller ones if there were any problems.

  ‘Look out the window!’ shouted Lil.

  ‘It’s the sea,’ they chorused, taking in huge galps of salt air as they gazed at the deep blue of the Irish Sea.

  They all unpacked as quick as lightning, then pulled out their swimming togs and put them on before grabbing towels and running down to join the throng of children out on the front lawn. Sister Carmel had been joined by Sister Paul, a nun from this seaside convent, and they were organising everyone for a walk to the beach.

  ‘Stay in line, children! We don’t want to lose anyone,’ they ordered.

  Blue loved the feel of the sand between her toes as she carried her shoes and walked barefoot. The sand was warm and tickled her skin. She sat down happily in the sunshine, watching the nuns organise plastic buckets and spades for the smaller ones, who were fighting over the colours.

  Molly ran up to show off her red bucket and yellow spade.

  ‘I’m going to build a big castle,’ she said proudly, crouching down in the sand with a look of concentration on her face.

  ‘This is the life,’ sighed Lil. She flopped down beside Blue and they watched the waves roll in one after another along the shore, the sun warm on their bodies.

  ‘Anyone for a paddle or a swim?’ asked Sister Paul. ‘I’ll watch you.’

  The four friends jumped up and ran down to the sea, shrieking and jumping and splashing in the freezing water.

  ‘It’s so cold!’ shouted Jess, throwing herself into the waves, the others watching enviously as she swam parallel to the shore and out deeper than any of the others would dare. She was like a fish in the water.

  Mary could doggy-paddle and just about keep her head above water, but she didn’t like to go out of her depth; she’d had a scare in the Iveagh baths one time and was a bit nervous ever since. Blue loved the water and, once she got fully wet and used to the cold, she could float and do a few strokes. She longed to be able to swim like Jess. Lil waded out as far as her waist but refused to get down or put her head near the water.

  ‘Go on, Lil!’ they coaxed, but their friend would not budge.

  ‘The water gets warmer once you’re in, honest it does. You’ll feel a hundred times better if you just lie down and swim.’

  Lil just laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t swim and, unlike her friends, was nervous of the water, no matter how nice it looked.

  Afterwards they dried themselves in their hard towels, their arms and legs pink as they pulled on their skirts and blouses and headed back to the house for a sausage-and-mash tea.

  In the dining room everyone was laughing and chatting and telling what they did. It was very different from Larch Hill. No Sister Regina or Sister Agnes to glare at you or reprimand you for a whole week! Blue looked over to the table where Sister Carmel and Sister Paul were chatting away with the other nuns from the seaside convent. She had never seen nuns laugh and talk so much. She supposed nuns needed a holiday just as much as the rest of them.

  The sun shone brightly every day for the week and they went for long walks on the beach and for lots of swims. They clambered on the rocks and watched the occasional boat come in or go out. There were races on the lawn and dances at night, with Sister Paul showing them how to do the twist, her black veil almost falling off her head as she spun around. At Sunday mass all the local people complimented them on their singing and good behaviour as they filed into the small parish church.

  Blue felt lazy and relaxed, her extra bead-making and cleaning duties forgotten, as she stretched in the sun and yawned with all the fresh air. At night they slept with their curtains open so they could see the moon shine on the sea, the silvery glow beckoning them to sleep.

  Molly built castle after castle like some burrowing creature. She had taken to the sand in a big way.

  ‘My daddy is a builder,’ she announced.

  Blue was dragged off to admire each new venture.

  ‘This is Cinderella’s castle,’ Molly boasted, showing Blue the stairs where the famous glass slipper had been lost. Overnight the tide would roll in and wash away her work, but, unperturbed, Molly would go down to the beach next morning and begin again.

  ***

  Sister Paul and Sister Carmel organised a huge treasure hunt along the beach and the surrounding area.

  ‘The clues are everywhere,’ Sister Paul told them. ‘And are spread over the beach, and the dunes behind us and over towards the grassy sandbanks. There are no clues on the roadway, so you don’t need to go there. Finding each clue will lead you on to the next. If you get badly stuck you may come to Sister Clare or myself for enlightenment.’ She smiled. ‘And the good news is that the first pair home will win a big prize. Now, all get into pairs!’

  Blue grabbed hold of Jess immediately, the two of them hopping up and down, determined they were going to win. Mary and Lil began plotting and planning too.

  ‘Are you all ready, girls?’ asked Sister Paul, her face looking serious. ‘Now, listen well! The first clue is: I might save your life.’

  Everyone stood totally still for a few seconds, then they took off, running along the beach in different directions.

  ‘It’s the life preserver, the ring!’ shouted Jess, racing ahead of everyone down the sand to where the white and red wooden pole held the ring and the rope, a few others following them. But they got there first.

  ‘Quick, Jess, see what the next clue is!’ said Blue.

  A big piece of paper had been stuck in behind the ring.

  ‘I carry my house on my back but be careful or I might pinch you.’

  Blue and Jess ran up the beach away from the others, considering the clue. It could be a crab or something like that.

  ‘What about the pool over there?’ suggested Jess.

  They ran towards it. There were small little crabs hiding in the seaweed and in the sand, but there was no sign of a clue. Disappointed, they looked around trying to think where else it could be.

  ‘What about over there!’ suggested Blue, pointing to the far side of the beach. ‘Remember, Sister Paul took Molly and the younger kids down there the other day with their nets.’

  Looking around to make sure no one was watching them, they set off. The pools were smaller, and surrounded by seaweed, but there were plenty of tiny crabs here too. Beside a piece of driftwood was a white card with another clue: ‘Sailors loved me.’

  What in heaven’s name could that be? The sea, the waves, a boat? Giddy with excitement, the two girls chased way down to the opposite end of the beach where the wreck of an old boat lay overturned, delighted there was no sign of any of the other treasure hunters catching them up.

  The new clue puzzled them totally: ‘A dunce without the sea.’

  They just couldn’t figure it out. They sat in the sand looking around at everything.

  ‘I’ve no idea what it is,’ admitted Jess.

  ‘Let’s go up into the dunes,’ suggested Blue. ‘From there we can see everything.’

  They trudged up over the warm golden sand, climbing the steep slope of the
dune, the sand shifting beneath their feet.

  ‘Hey!’ said Jess, doing two cartwheels in the sand. ‘You could get lost up here and no one would ever find you.’

  They stretched out in the sunlight, the sand forming a wind barrier as they rested. It was magic up there, hidden from the world, safe in the long grass. Blue scanned the horizon, trying to see if anything could help jog their minds.

  ‘I don’t know what it is!’ she said, annoyed. ‘Dunce – sea? Where’s the link? Maybe we’ll have to go ask them!’

  ‘No!’ Jess was adamant they would solve it themselves.

  ‘This hunt is going to take hours.’

  ‘D’ye think?’

  ‘Yeah, I can see Mary and Lil, and a whole gang of others way down the far side of the beach. They haven’t even found the clue for the boat yet.’

  ‘I’m queen of the dune,’ Jess announced, surveying all before her. ‘This is my dune,’ she yelled.

  Blue shrieked. ‘I’ve got it, Jess. Where are we? In a dune. A D.U.N.E.! A dunce without the C! Very clever, Sister Paul!’

  They scrambled over the dunes until they came across a wooden post with a card nailed onto it. The card said Winners in large letters. Grabbing the card, they raced back to Sister Paul.

  ‘Well done, girls!’ she congratulated them. ‘You’re first back.’

  They sat in the sand watching as the others came back in dribs and drabs after them. Mary and Lil were disgusted. They just couldn’t figure out the last clue. Sister Paul gave Blue and Jess a shell picture each and a big box of Lemons sweets, everyone clapping for the best treasure hunters.

  CHAPTER 15

  On the Beach

  The days passed far too quickly. Lying on the sand on the beach, staring at the cloudless sky, Blue sometimes wished that she was a seagull and could spread her wide wings and fly. Her skin turned golden, her nose was covered in light brown freckles and deep inside her the tight coil that held her together loosened bit by bit.

  Sometimes she watched the families on the beach, mothers and fathers who paddled and swam and built sandcastles and pretended to eat sand pies and wrapped big towels around their children and hugged them tight as they stood dripping wet; and brothers and sisters who looked alike and fought and screamed and ran and chased and tickled each other and played along the shore together. She swallowed her jealousy and envy and the constant question of her own parenthood and her hunger to know if she too had a brother or a sister who looked just like her, turning instead to Jess and Mary and Lil and Molly, a ragbag of friends who were the closest to family she would ever know.

  On the last morning Sister Carmel told them to pack up their bags, as the bus would collect them in a few hours.

  ‘Can we have one last swim, Sister?’ they all begged.

  Sister Carmel, her nose and cheeks sunburned, looked at the sun-drenched beach and agreed. ‘But no delaying, and everyone is to clean the sand off them before they set foot on the bus or they’ll be in big trouble. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ they shouted as they ran with togs and towels and buckets for one last swim.

  The tide was in, the waves slightly choppy. A strong breeze caught their voices and blew their underwear along the sand.

  ‘Race you!’ shouted Jess, first undressed as usual and into the water ahead of them all. Blue ran after her, diving in and letting the cold water take her breath away.

  Lil made a huge effort to conquer her fear and actually lay down flat in the water as Blue and Mary supported her.

  ‘See, you can float, nearly,’ cheered Mary.

  Blue swam back and forth trying to savour every minute of this last precious swim, pretending she was a mermaid with a tail.

  Jess had gone out further than the rest of them as usual and was diving and waving at Blue to come out and join her. Blue took a few strokes out, laughing as the waves broke over her. Suddenly she realised how far out of her depth she was. Nervous, as the tide and current caught her, she tried to keep her head out of the water as she turned and began to swim back towards the safety of the shore.

  Sister Paul was blowing the whistle, calling them out of the water. Molly and the smaller kids were out, racing up and down the beach in their wet togs trying to dry off.

  ‘Come on, Jess’, Blue shouted. ‘It’s time to get out.’ She watched as the dark head dived in under the water, and spurted out a plume of water from her mouth when she surfaced.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Come on, Jess!’

  Blue shivered. She’d stayed in the water too long and it was time to dry off and get warm again.

  ‘You go. I’ll be along in a minute,’ Jess called. ‘I wish I could stay here forever.’

  Blue sighed. Everybody felt the same. Nobody wanted to go back to Dublin. She ran out of the water and wrapped her towel around herself, drying off her skin, then pulled on her clothes. The others drifted by her and up on to the road.

  ‘Hurry on!’ called Sister Paul. ‘Get that girl in!’ She pointed towards Jess.

  Blue sat on the towel, drying her feet and legs, watching Jess cavort in the waves like a seal. She shook her towel in the wind to get all the sand off, then wrapped her wet togs in it. Blue was ready to go. But Jess still had not come in. Blue looked for the dark head, but it was nowhere to be seen. Where was Jess? Blue blinked and ran back down to the water’s edge, calling her.

  ‘Jess! Jess!’

  But there was no sign of her. Perhaps she was diving under the waves? Blue watched to see where she would re-surface.

  ‘Jess!’ she yelled, her voice catching in the breeze.

  The beach was almost empty. Sister Carmel had come to help Sister Paul assemble the children along the grass verge above the beach. Maybe Jess was already out of the water and was wrapped in a towel standing with the other kids waiting for her? But her clothes were still there. Blue raced up the beach, calling for her friend.

  Sister Paul was gathering the last children together. Sister Carmel had gone on ahead, walking the first group back up to the convent grounds where the bus had arrived.

  ‘Sister, did Jess come up here?’

  The nun looked around quickly. ‘She’s not with me. Would she have gone with Sister Carmel and the others?’

  Blue shook her head. ‘Her clothes are still on the beach. I think she’s still in the water.’

  The words hung in the sunlit air. Then the nun took charge and despatched Mary to inform Sister Carmel that Jess was missing, while Lil was told to walk the other children to the convent.

  Blue ran back down the beach and showed the nun where she had been sitting, her footprints still in the sand. Jess’s blouse and skirt and knickers and socks and shoes were a messy, sand-covered, abandoned pile nearby. Blue pointed to where her friend had ducked and dived only minutes before, the white-topped waves rushing to the shore.

  They searched and searched for Jess, but she had disappeared. She was gone. A crowd gathered, men swimming out to sea, diving down under the water, shaking their heads as they emerged. The nuns, the police, the coastguard, even some of the holidaymakers from the caravans and beach homes nearby offered to help. Some of the men put out to sea in two small dinghies, rowing back and forth, scanning the waves and shoreline for the missing child.

  Blue repeated the story over and over again, telling all the people around her where she had been swimming and what a good swimmer Jess was. Despite the hot sun blazing down on her, Blue felt cold at the dawning realisation that Jess had actually vanished, drowned, and she might never see her again. Silent, she stared up at the sand dunes, wondering if Jess was playing one last great trick on them, hiding up there, laughing. She could not believe Jess was never coming back! Jess, her best friend in the whole world …

  As it began to get dark the beach emptied. The search was finally called off until the morning. Sister Paul put her arms around Blue and took her back to the empty convent, the bus now gone.

  ‘We must pray for her,’ she said. She b
egan to say the familiar words, Blue automatically joining in: ‘Our Father, Who art in Heaven …’

  CHAPTER 16

  The Secret

  They never found Jess. They said she must have drowned in the currents and the high tide. That her body was probably washed out to sea. Joan and her friends wondered had the fish got her by now and eaten her bones clean, Blue wanting to punch them and break some of their own bones and teeth! No one ever saw sight or sign of Jacinta O’Reilly again. She had totally disappeared.

  At night Blue cried and cried, lonesome for her best friend. She knew Jess had wanted to get away from here, but not like this. Jess wanted to go places, see things, be happy and have fun. Jess had been so full of life, always.

  Mary and Lil were kind to Blue and even Sister Carmel would make a point of talking to her. At mass they all prayed for Jess.

  Every time she stared at Jess’s bed Blue felt the lump in her throat. Sister Carmel finally emptied the painted locker, putting Jess’s few bits and pieces into a plastic bag. There was a Bunty comic, a half-eaten stick of rock and a few barley-sugar sweets.

  ‘Would you like these?’ the nun asked Blue.

  But Blue shook her head. Mary took them instead, as Sister Carmel went off to get fresh bed-linen for whatever new girl would sleep beside Blue.

  ‘I could move into Jess’s bed,’ offered Mary, ‘then I’d be between you and Lil.’

  Blue agreed. She didn’t really care who slept beside her now that Jess was gone. Imagine, she thought, all that was left of her friend could fit into a small plastic bag. Suddenly she remembered Jess’s money sock. It was where Jess stored the bits of money she managed to save over the years. But where was it?

  She rooted in the locker but there was no sign of it. She lifted up the mattress – nothing there. Where would Jess have put it? She knew Jess hadn’t taken it on the holiday because she remembered her taking out a ten-shilling note to bring with her.

  She racked her brains. The few bits of clothes Jess owned were still folded messily in the large cupboard where all their clothes were kept – her winter skirt and jacket and uniform hanging in the wardrobe along with all the other clothes. But there was nothing in any of the pockets. Then Blue saw the shoes. Jess had the biggest feet ever, and how she had hated them! Her long skinny toes and narrow feet were crammed every day during the winter into big, heavy, lace-up black shoes. She could see them now behind all the other rows of shoes, standing side by side, the laces loosely tied together. Blue reached her hands in and pushed her fingers inside. There was something very intimate about her friend’s shoes – her shape was still there, imprinted forever on them. Then Blue felt the bulge in the right shoe, in under the toe-cap. She pulled at it and eventually it came out – it was Jess’s darned old money sock. Saying nothing to anybody, she slipped it into her own pocket. A few minutes later she emptied it out on her lap in the toilet, counting out the three red ten-shilling notes and a half-crown coin. Jess’s safety money. Her escape money. Blue was sure Jess would want her to have it now. She said a silent thank you to Jess and wondered where she should hide it.