“Yes. Well, if your Mam says so, you better do it.”
Da didn’t like the religion as much as Mam did. He didn’t have much use for priests and confession and penance, happy to leave the saving of our souls up to our mother. But if Mam said we were to go to Mass or confession, he’d make us do it. Da turned and picked up another crate. I watched his arm muscles strain as he hoisted it on top of the other box. Da wasn’t the tallest man around, but his shoulders were broad and his hands splayed wide could encircle Mam’s waist. Mam said our Da was the most handsome man in Halifax, or would be, but for the thinning ginger hair on top of his head. She always added that bit with a laugh and a gentle pat on his bald spot.
The fog vanished as quickly as it had come. A watery sun struggled weakly through high cloud, but held little warmth. I shielded my eyes and looked out over the harbour to where the Dartmouth Ferry was crossing. “There are a lot of ships in today,” I said.
Small vessels expertly wove their way between schooners, transports, freighters and merchant ships. The bright red cross painted on the side of a hospital ship reflected vividly against the steel-grey waters. Those ships arrived with grim regularity. I hated to think of all the young men who returned to Canada hurt, or worse, didn’t return at all. A blast of a ship’s horn made me wince.
“A convoy’s getting organized to go overseas,” Da said. He pulled out his tobacco pouch and rolled himself a cigarette. “That’s where the horses and these supplies are going. It’ll be a large one this time. We’re losing so many ships to German submarines, they thought they’d send a huge convoy protected by warships. Safety in numbers. But then, I guess I shouldn’t be discussing this with you. I don’t know if you’re really a German spy pretending to be my daughter.”
“Da!”
He laughed. “Give me Fred’s lunch. I’ll hold it back a bit before letting him have it. Make him think he’ll have to work all afternoon on an empty stomach.” His hazel eyes shone with mischief. “Think he’ll learn a lesson, then, Rose?”
I took one last look down the train to my brother. Fred had always been absent-minded. “I don’t think I’d count on it, Da.”
I continued looking out over the harbour, reluctant to leave for school. I wouldn’t want to be going to war, but I couldn’t help but wonder about those countries on the other side of the ocean. Did they have trees? Did the air smell different? The globe on Sister Frances’s desk had coloured lands broken by blue painted water. Ireland was pink, meaning it was a British possession, as was Canada.
Ireland was where Mam and Da’s family originally came from. My Mam’s grandmother Rose made the journey to Canada with her children, one of them Mam’s mother, in hopes of a better life. I watched a milk-white gull wheel in lazy circles overhead and wondered if it had ever flown to Ireland. Had it looked down on the green fields and hedges I’d heard about so many times in my grandma’s stories? Trouble was, I found it hard to believe Ireland was there on the other side of that vast expanse of heaving water. I was, I had long ago decided, one of those people who need to see things for themselves to believe. Still, I mused, I wouldn’t half mind being that gull high above the docks.
Da flicked his cigarette end away. “Off to school with you now, my Wild Irish Rose.”
I smiled slightly at my father’s nickname for me. Why he’d settled on that one I never understood. Ernest, Winnie or Mary—they could be wild, but me? Then again, there probably wasn’t a song about a Wild Irish Mary or Ernest or Winnie.
“And Rose . . .” Da’s voice stopped me. “I know you find the studying hard, but keep at it. You can do anything you want with a good education. Look at Mary. I always regretted that I left school early, but your grandpa being laid up with no money coming in meant I had to go to work to support the family. I don’t blame him, mind you. A body does what a body has to do. But I want you children to have the opportunities I didn’t.”
I nodded. I’d heard all this from Da before.
“You’re a smart girl. You remember that and work hard.”
My feet dragged as I left the rail yard and headed up the steep hill toward St. Joseph’s School. Da might think I was smart, but I knew better. I was slow—leastways, that’s what the Sisters called me. Patrick—he had other, more hurtful names for me.
I knew my ABC’s, but couldn’t get them to form proper words. I’d stare at them until my eyes watered, willing them to shape themselves into something sensible for me to read, but they never did. It was the same with numbers. I could recite the times tables flawlessly, add and subtract in my head, but when it came time to write them down, I’d mix them all up. I swear that the numbers and letters moved around right in front of my eyes, taunting me.
Sister Frances thought me lazy and inattentive, a daydreamer, she said. I had to admit that sometimes it was easier to gaze out the classroom window than wrestle with my letters. She often made me stay in at the mid-morning break to finish my work. It was embarrassing to be kept in, but worse was the fact that I was the oldest in my class, having been held back twice already. Thank goodness, I’d not grown much yet so I didn’t look too much bigger than my classmates, but if I got held back one more year it meant I’d be in Winnie’s class. I vow I would quit school before I’d go into Winnie’s class.
Breathless from the long climb, I stood and looked up at the two-storey school. I caught my reflection in the glass pane of the door. Sure enough, the wind and damp had flattened my curls and the cold had made my freckles stand out like a measles rash. Unable to put it off any longer, I pulled open the heavy door, walked past the marble statue of the Virgin Mary and climbed the stairs to my classroom.
Chapter 2
A soft murmur filled the school’s hallways. Morning prayers were in progress. I stole a look in my classroom door to catch Sister Frances frowning back at me. I shrugged off my coat and hung it in the cloakroom. Head bowed, I slipped into my seat. Already my knuckles stung from the anticipated punishment of her ruler. I clamped my hands together tightly, feeling them sticky with sweat, and mouthed words of devotions repeated so often they came to me without thought.
Immediately after prayers were completed, Sister Frances stomped up and down the row of desks, black habit swirling about her stout legs. “Feet on the floor. Hands palm down on the desk,” she ordered.
There was an anxious silence as she checked everyone’s fingernails for dirt. Didn’t nuns occasionally want to wear something other than the black? I wondered wildly, as Sister neared my desk.
She stopped in front of me. A ruler swung between her thumb and forefinger. My eyes followed its motion.
“You’re late,” she stated flatly.
I dragged my gaze from the ruler to her ruddy, broad face with its crooked nose and narrow lips. She looked, I decided, like a man from the docks dressed in nun’s clothes. I swallowed that thought with a nervous giggle. “I’m sorry, Sister. My—”
“Stand when you are speaking to me.”
I scrambled to my feet. “Sorry, Sister,” I apologized a second time. “My mother sent me on an errand. She said you may speak with her about it if you wish,” I added. Mam had said no such a thing, so I crossed my fingers behind my back to cancel out the lie. Fibbing is bad at any time, but with a nun standing in front of you, it was probably a terrible sin. I had trouble at times sorting out my sins as to which ones were worse than others. Nervousness prompted my tongue to wag. “My brother, Frederick, he forgot—”
“Never mind. Sit down,” Sister Frances ordered. “I would think your parents would have you attend early rather than late, a backward student such as yourself.”
My face flooded with colour as a few stifled snickers reached me from the back of the room. I stared down at the scarred desktop. They’d become worse since the boys used our school in the afternoon. The nuns checked the desks each morning before classes for naughty words carved in the wood, and gouged them out. A sort of contest, with the desks as losers.
“Let’s see if you
’ve done your homework, class. Get out your readers.”
I hastily pulled a book from my bag and opened it to the correct page.
“As you came in late, you may read first, Rose. Stop at the end of the third paragraph.”
I stood, took a deep breath and willed my knees to stop knocking. I held the book carefully in front of me and read the page without a single error.
“Stop,” Sister Frances ordered. “I said to the end of the third paragraph, but you went on to the fourth. You never listen. That was very good,” she added grudgingly. “Now, tell me why you can read well this time, yet yesterday you stumbled all over the words?”
The small relief I’d felt at having done my reading successfully faded rapidly under Sister’s questioning stare. I stood dumb, horrified. Truth was, I hadn’t read the page at all. Merely recited it. Mary had read it to me the night before, after many pleas on my part, never guessing I was committing it to memory. It was something I had stumbled on about a year ago—this ability to memorize easily. But only one thing at a time. Add more, and confusion set in again.
Suddenly, I realized that this was one of those questions adults don’t expect to be answered, and sat down. I hunched my shoulders protectively about my ears and stuck my face inside the book. I pulled my head out once and glanced at the wooden cross hanging on the wall near the picture of the King and Queen. Please, God, don’t let Sister ask me to read again. Except—was I praying for help with a lie? If so, that would definitely be a sin. Sister said every sin left a black mark on your heart. In that case, I had the blackest heart of any girl in this room.
Somehow, I got through the morning without being called on again. I wasn’t sure if that was God’s work or not, but I liked to think it was. I was allowed out for mid-morning break, and pulled my coat over my pinafore and went into the yard.
A group of girls from my supposed-to-be-in class stood by the only tree left in the yard. One glanced over at me, caught me staring back and looked immediately away. Martha Schultz. She was my best friend. Or she had been. I wasn’t sure what she was these days. Neither she nor I had ever been very popular, but at least last year the other girls would let us stand on the fringes of the group. This year, no one let me stand near or talked to me, not even Martha. I wasn’t even popular with the most unpopular girl at school. I’ve asked God why that was, but He hasn’t answered yet. Mam tried to explain one day when I was feeling low. She said Martha was kindly, but had no gumption. Martha couldn’t stand up to anyone. I think it was all Catherine’s doing. Catherine with her war hero father, her beautiful dresses and glossy chestnut hair that never hung limp.
Mam said God gave every person a burden to carry, and I truly believe Catherine was mine. She had come to our school this past September. She lived with her grandmother and a live-in maid in a large house near St. Joseph’s. She wasn’t Catholic, but her grandmother placed her in our school as it was only a few blocks away from their house. Within a couple of days, Catherine had become queen of the playground. She told the girls who they could be friendly with and who not. Suddenly, I found myself a who not.
I pushed my back against the school wall and stared over the north end of Halifax, pretending I didn’t care that I was alone. Yet I did. So much so that my throat felt tight and sore. My legs shook, too, but I put that down to having read in front of the class.
The sky had cleared now, the last traces of mist and cloud burnt away by a sun so bright it made my head ache and my eyes water. I gazed at the houses and stores tossed together willy-nilly down the hill toward the harbour. Black smoke belched from the chimney of the sugar refinery into the cobalt-blue sky. I turned and made a show of studying the church’s arched windows. I loved St. Joseph’s Church. During Mass, Father McManus’s words soared to the uppermost reaches of the shadowy ceiling and our voices followed. God couldn’t help but hear us, and I hoped He noticed my voice louder than the others. I didn’t feel slow in church, as the service was always the same. I stood and kneeled and responded without fault, as I had done since a baby. The blue, yellow and red light from the stained-glass saints would wash over me, magically melting the ever-present knot of anxiety in my stomach. I shivered and realized how utterly miserable I felt.
“What are you mad at, Rose?” Winnie ran up, two friends in tow.
“I’m not mad at anything,” I told her.
“Well, your face looks mad. Rose tells the best stories,” she boasted to her friends. “Tell us one, Rose.”
“Not right now, Winnie,” I protested weakly. My head ached so much now, I couldn’t keep a single thought in my mind, let alone an entire story.
“Winnie,” I cried. I had just noticed that she only wore her pinafore and sweater. “Where’s your coat? Mam wouldn’t be very pleased to see you outside with nothing on.”
“Oh, Rose. Don’t be so fussy.”
I felt my back go up at that. I wasn’t fussy, was I?
“My coat’s too hot. I have two petticoats on, fleece-lined drawers . . .” Her friends giggled and Winnie flashed them a naughty grin. “Thick stockings and my sweater. How could I possibly be cold?”
I couldn’t argue with that because I was feeling very warm myself at the moment.
Without waiting for an answer, she ran away, and her friends followed. Winnie would always be the leader, with everyone else hurrying to keep up to her. She ran to the group of girls around Catherine and wormed her way into the centre. I tensed, waiting for Catherine to give her that scornful look of hers, but instead she laughed and patted Winnie’s head. I wanted to do that, too. Push right into the group and begin talking like I belonged, but I didn’t have Winnie’s courage.
The reds, blues and browns of the children’s coats blurred in front of my eyes.
“Rose, dear. Are you well?” Sister Therese looked down at me with concern.
I didn’t remember sliding down the wall and sitting, but I was on the ground. I scrambled to my feet and staggered slightly when my head swam.
“I do feel a bit strange,” I said. I’d never tell Sister Frances I was ill, but Sister Therese was different. She had been my teacher last year and had worked hard to help me with schoolwork. Sister Therese had the sweetest face I had ever seen. “. . . like the Madonna herself,” I whispered.
“I beg your pardon?” Sister Therese looked puzzled. She put a hand on my forehead. “You’re very hot. Come with me.”
I trailed after her into the school and to the teachers’ room. I kept my eyes fixed on my scuffed boots, finding the profusion of black habits somewhat overwhelming.
“Sit down here, dear.” Sister Therese pushed me into a chair.
Sister Frances cradled a cup of tea in her large hands as she sat at a table talking to the school principal, Sister Maria Cecilia. She half stood when she saw me, but sat down again as Sister Therese approached them.
“Rose is burning up,” Sister Therese said.
“Stuff and nonsense.” Sister Frances snorted. “She was fine this morning. She is just playing ill. She is a sly one. She will do anything to get out of her schoolwork.”
“I always found Rose to be quiet and biddable. She has some difficulty with her schoolwork, that is true, but she is a good girl and tries—if encouraged,” Sister Therese argued. “And it is very difficult to make one’s own forehead that hot. She has been outside and it is chilly out there.”
I really should polish my boots, I thought.
“Lower your voices.” Sister Maria Cecilia swept over and put the back of one hand to my cheek. “She is quite flushed. There is a great deal of influenza going around. She should go home.”
Sister Frances loomed behind her, wheezing and blowing annoyance like a steam engine. “Pack up your desk, then, and go home. Take your reader and remember that you have a composition to write. I will expect it to be completed by the time you return.”
I nodded quickly and made my escape to the schoolroom. Fearing Sister Frances might sweep in, I tidied my desk at record spe
ed, thrust the reader and a scribbler into my bag, and threw on my coat.
Halfway down the street toward home, I met Ernest and Patrick.
“Why are you out of school? Is it already lunch?” Ernest asked.
“They sent me home early because—” I began.
“Because she’s too dumb to learn anything,” Patrick finished. He reached into a paper bag he carried, pulled out a sweet and popped it into his mouth.
“Everyone knows she’s stupid,” Patrick went on. His jaws worked steadily as he chewed.
I felt a hot gush of tears, and caught Patrick’s smug smile. He’d seen. I dashed them away and tried to push past. His bulk blocked my way.
“Leave her alone, Patrick,” Ernest said suddenly.
“Ah, come on. She’s just your dumb sister.”
“Leave her alone, I said.” Ernest waved a fist under Patrick’s nose.
“Fine, then.” Patrick backed up a step. “I’m hungry, anyway. I’m going home for dinner. You can walk with your stupid sister.”
He lumbered off alone down the hill.
“I don’t know how he could be hungry,” Ernest said. “He’s been eating candy all morning.”
I sniffled.
“Aunt Helen gives him bushels of money,” he went on.
“Mam says she spoils Patrick something awful because he’s her only child. Does he ever share his candy with you?” I asked. I had an envy-green vision of Ernest stuffing his face with peppermint sweets, my particular favourites.
“Patrick? Are you kidding?”
The vision shattered.
“I think Mam and Da should spoil us a little more,” Ernest said. “Give us candy.”
I managed a weak grin at that.
“Why are you friends with him?” I asked.
“Oh, Patrick’s fine most of the time. He’s fun. He just teases you because you’re slow.”
I stared at him.
“Well, you are . . . sort of. I mean, you can’t learn anything or read properly.” He became defensive.
“I’m not slow,” I told him flatly. “It’s just . . .”
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