About Matilda

by Bill Walsh

  Our grandmother is as we left her. She’s sitting in her armchair in front of the television with her racing docket in one hand and her teacup in the other.

  It must be Saturday.

  When she sees us she leaves her teacup on the floor and her racing docket in her apron pocket and covers her face with her hands and, when she takes them away, you can see the panic in her eyes.

  She warns us, You’re to tell the nuns I went. Have you got that? I was there. Never say I didn’t go. She looks at each of us in turn and we have to promise before the panic goes from her eyes.

  Danny wonders where Grandad is. Nanny tells him asleep in bed. He hasn’t been well and she’s had the doctor up to see him. Danny can see him another day. She comes to give each of us a hug and I stand behind the others. She hugs Mona, Sheamie, Pippa and Danny and when she comes to me I leave her put her arms around me and when she pulls me close I lean against her belly until she’s happy I’m really hugging her, then I push her away. She stands back and stares with her old grey eyes but I turn my back to her and walk out the door.

  We kiss our father goodbye in the playground and there’s a bitter taste in my mouth. Sheamie says he’ll follow us, he’s going to check on his money. When we drag our suitcases into the kitchen Gabriel is at the cooker talking to Doyler. I look for Lucy Flynn but there’s no sign. Gabriel can’t look at us and turns her face to the wall and tells us to put our suitcases away. Doyler stands with her mouth open but from the hallway I hear her saying to Gabriel, Mother of the divine. Those children are like specimens from a concentration camp.

  Sheamie is sitting on the bottom of stairs with his head buried in his hands and whimpering. It doesn’t take long to figure out our money is missing. So is Lucy Flynn.

  16

  I’m thirteen. My father didn’t come home from London this summer. Not even for the funeral. I’m not complaining, and anyway I’ve other things to worry about. Mona is missing for the last two days. Gabriel says if she’s not here by tomorrow she’s calling Officer Flannery. I’d like to ask her, Where the fuck was Officer Flannery when we needed him in Clew Bay? Only I’d get a clatter on the jaw.

  Gabriel drags Pippa and me into her office, stands beside the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and wags that finger.

  Do you know where she is, Matilda?

  No, Mother.

  Pippa?

  No, Mother.

  We can’t tell her Mona’s been sneaking out the bathroom window for years to play kiss-and-chase in Trinity Park and was always getting caught. She’s been caught so often nobody wants to catch her anymore so now she has a boyfriend nobody wanted to be caught by, greasy Pat Murphy who works in a garage selling petrol and fixing tyres. I met my grandmother in town yesterday; she knows all about it because you can’t piss in this town without my grandmother knowing all about it.

  She gave out, What in the name of God is Mona doing, she’s bringing shame on the lot of us and isn’t it enough that father of yours and his preaching? The neighbours giving me queer looks, not to mention your poor grandfather above in the hospital after his stroke. And you don’t visit your Nanny anymore, alone in that big house with only the walls to talk to.

  The walls have ears.

  Oh, it’s like that, is it? You didn’t even come to your Uncle John’s funeral. At least Pippa was there, and young Danny.

  Uncle John got drunk and fell from the gangway going on to the ship to meet some of his old friends from the docks. They said it was his donkey jacket filling with water that dragged him under. I didn’t say anything to my grandmother. I didn’t care what she thought so I didn’t tell her Pippa only went to the chapel to be certain it really was Uncle John in that coffin, or that Danny only went because Pippa made him go, so she wouldn’t have to go on her own.

  Next day, a soaking wet Mona walks into the kitchen wondering what we’re all gawkin’ at when she declares she’s getting married. Her long-haired boyfriend is holding her hand and looking like he won’t take no nonsense offa no nun. He’s here to do the business.

  Poor bastard hasn’t a clue what’s coming.

  Gabriel runs at Mona with that finger wagging.

  That’s what you think, my girl, and you, she says to the boyfriend, turn right back the way you came as quick as you walked in here before I call the gardaí, and if I ever see or hear from you again… and the boyfriend who wasn’t taking no nonsense from no nuns is out the door and over the wall before Gabriel finishes saying what she’s going to have done with him.

  Gabriel pulls down Mona’s blouse collar.

  Will you look at the state of you, Mona. How did you get those red marks?

  Mona’s neck has been chewed asunder and we’re whispering to each other, Will yeh look at the state of her. Jesus, she’ll be killed.

  Gabriel says, Get down to my office this minute.

  I’m sixteen and I can do what I want and there’s nothing you can do. I can leave if I want to.

  We’ll soon find out about that. You can leave when you’ve a place to go and not before.

  They’re down in Gabriel’s office and a gang of us gathers around Doyler. She leaves her broom by the door and presses her fingers to her lips and tells us all, Shush, as we inch down the corridor. We hear Mona screaming she’s in love and she wants to get married and Gabriel demanding to know is she pregnant and did she have intercourse? Then we hear the slap to the side of Mona’s face and nearly feel the sting all the way up the hall from behind the closed door.

  We’re all wondering what intercourse is, and I think Mona is too because for once she’s not answering, but we can’t ask because Doyler is here and, if intercourse is something you’re not supposed to do, it’s definitely something you’re not supposed to ask about. Instead, everyone will go around looking at each other’s neck to see if they’ve had intercourse so they can tell the rest of us what it is.

  Father Devlin arrives in half an hour, shaking the rain from his brolly as if he’s the only man who can deal with the crisis. The crisis is over, but any excuse for Gabriel to send for Father Devlin will do. Gabriel has her serious crisis face on but I can see the twinkle in her eyebrows now Father Devlin is here and you can be certain Sister Ellen in the group next door is raging she hasn’t a crisis of her own.

  Gabriel does her best to keep Mona inside until the nuns get her a cleaning job in a hospital, miles from here and miles from Greasy Pat.

  The day after Mona leaves, I come home from school and Gabriel is sitting at the kitchen table on her own, reading from her red pocket prayer book she must know by heart. She looks up at me from her pages, takes her glasses off and lays them on the table. She says, Matilda, Mona… using the same tone of voice as when she says, Matilda, your father… I know it means she wants to say more, but I know nuns take a vow of not saying anything bad about people, so when Gabriel says, Matilda, your father… I know what she means, so I just say, I know, Mother. And I know if ever a man comes between a nun and her vow of not saying anything bad about people, then it’s going to be my father. So when Gabriel says, Matilda, Mona… I just say, I know, Mother. Gabriel nods her head, smiles, and goes back to reading her prayer book and I think she’s happy someone other than God and Polly the budgie understands.

  Before Christmas, there’s another crisis. Father Devlin is sent for, again. Officer Flannery is sent for, my grandmother is sent for and she sends Uncle Philip to search every back lane, backyard, alleyway and dockyard in the city, but he can’t find Sheamie.

  When Officer Flannery calls, the younger kids go tearing up and down the corridor doing the Hawaii Five O music and shouting, Book ’em Danno, are yeh putting out an APB, Officer Flannery?

  Officer Flannery is a big man with enormous black boots. He pulls his notebook from his breast pocket and brings Pippa and me into Gabriel’s office. He sits forward at the edge of the desk with one foot on the ground and the other swaying back and forth like he’s telling me, One wrong word and you’ll feel this boot up in
your arse. He asks for Sheamie’s whereabouts and does a lot of staring to see if we’re lying. That’s what happens when you join the gardaí. You do a lot of staring because you don’t believe what anyone says.

  Pippa shrugs her shoulders. No, officer. I don’t know where Sheamie is.

  I don’t either, officer.

  You wouldn’t be telling me lies by any chance, Matilda?

  No, officer.

  Us gardaí are trained to spot lies.

  I know, officer.

  And how would you know that now?

  I saw it on Hawaii Five O.

  He throws his cap on the table.

  I think you know a little more than you’re telling me, Matilda. What would you think yourself?

  I put on my most innocent face and bawl like an idiot till Gabriel comes rushing in.

  What’s up? What’s the matter, Officer Flannery?

  Well now, Sister Gabriel, I think this one here might know a little more than…

  I don’t, I don’t, Mother. Honest, Mother. You know I don’t tell lies, don’t you, Mother?

  There’s no way I’m telling the gardaí anyone else where Sheamie is. He told me before he climbed the wall for the last time, he’s sick of walls and nuns and grandmothers who turn their back. He’s tired of running with gangs and getting in trouble. If he stays, he’ll end up in jail.

  Before he left we went robbing in Grace’s supermarket. Sheamie in an anorak with a torn shoulder and me in the blue poncho. We didn’t even run when we got outside. It wasn’t that sort of day. Damp and dull and smelling like rain, and I wasn’t in a rush to see Sheamie go. Sheamie said it was the last time he’d rob. That’s not what we are, Matilda. It’s just what they made us.

  It was one of those clever things Sheamie says, but for the first time I kind of knew what Sheamie meant.

  We went to the Quay and sat on a wooden bench beside the clock tower. It looks like Big Ben shrunk in the wash. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The Friday traffic made the Quay look like a car park. We kept our backs to it all and watched the big blue Bell Ferry crane on the other side of the River Suir load the ships with the huge metal containers. The tide was turning. We could hear the water gurgle against the wooden beams of the jetty as we fed the hungry seagulls that waddled up to us the dry bread Sheamie had packed for his trip. We talked about the seagulls that wrecked our escape boat and other things we’d done and things we’ll do when we’re older.

  Can’t you stay, Sheamie?

  I can’t take another summer of our father, Matilda.

  You can, Sheamie. Honest you can.

  I’m not like you, Matilda. You were always the strong one. I knew that the day you kept running around that field. You really pissed him off, Matilda. When you stopped knocking to be let in he sat up all night, waiting to see if you’d do it again. The longer he waited the more cigarettes he smoked.

  I catch his eye and the two of us smile at the thought of him prancing around the caravan.

  Really though, Sheamie, what if something happens to you?

  He laughed and threw a crust of bread on the ground for the seagulls to squab over.

  What else can happen? What more can they do, Matilda?

  What if you don’t find our Mother?

  I will.

  You mightn’t, and what if you do and she doesn’t want you? Maybe she has another family. Did you ever think about that? Or worse, what if she only pretends to want you? How do you know you won’t wake up some morning and she’ll be gone again?

  Why are you talking like that?

  I just don’t want to see you hurt, Sheamie.

  Sheamie put his arm around me and I leaned my head against his shoulder and put my arm around his waist. It was the first time I held Sheamie. The first time I felt I had a big brother. He felt so thin and damp. I felt my eyes well. I wanted to tell him I loved him but how do you tell someone you love them when you’ve never said it before or had it said to you. I whispered it after him when he was gone and it felt strange, but right. I looked around to see if anyone heard but there was only the wino asleep on the next bench. He was wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper and I wondered if someone loved him once. Was he born to be like this or is it just what the world made him?

  Sheamie would know the answer but Sheamie was already crossing the bridge over the River Suir. I realized how little I really knew him, and how much I wanted to know him and never might.

  I watched his red hair disappear through the doors of the railway station and I knew I’d never tell where he was gone. Not if Officer Flannery stares at me all night or handcuffs me and brings me away in the squad car.

  That’s right, Officer Flannery. Matilda wouldn’t lie to the gardaí, so you wouldn’t, Matilda?

  I sob back, No, Mother. I don’t tell lies.

  Officer Flannery puts his cap on and stares at me a long time.

  Well, if you’re certain, Sister Gabriel.

  I am, Officer Flannery. Oh, I am indeed.

  Gabriel shows Officer Flannery to the door and when she comes back tells me to stop your bawling. The officer is gone. Don’t forget Confession this Friday.

  I won’t, Mother.

  Gabriel dips her fingers in the little holy water font hanging on the doorframe and says that in all the confusion she forgot to say there was a phone call earlier and the caller seemed annoyed. I hope you haven’t done anything out of the way, Matilda?

  17

  Rita phoned Gabriel to say she’ll collect me at six o’clock Friday evening. I don’t want to go. The older I get, the more ashamed I am of the things Uncle Philip makes me do, and I can’t understand why it’s Rita that rang and not Philip himself. She never rang before. It worries me she’s found out, but surely if she had she’d be down here yelling at me? I don’t know. I’m scared but I can’t think of a reason not to go and if I don’t go she’ll be down here asking me why. Is there a problem, Matilda? Is there something you’d like to tell me? There’s a pain in the pit of my stomach telling me, run, just run anywhere and it’ll go away but I can’t run when there’s nobody to run to.

  Uncle Philip lives in one of the big houses on Ballybricken where the cattle mart used to be. Nowadays, there’s a wide green with benches for people to sit after the trudge up from town. It’s a strange house. The furniture is new. The porch door is new and made with small squares of glass and every square of glass a different colour. The kitchen door is old and has a metal latch instead of a handle. There’s a smell of fresh paint from the skirting boards but the wallpaper is faded and the walls are covered in holy pictures and every flat surface has a holy statue on it. Even the mantelpiece has a bottle of holy water in the shape of Our Lady of Lourdes wearing a blue cap for her veil. It’s as if they’re changing the house bit by bit, only you can’t tell which bit they’re changing.

  Philip is gone for the night and there’s only Rita and me. Her Christmas tree twinkles in the front window and her Christmas cards hang from tinsel above the mantelpiece and along the walls.

  Rita puts me sitting in the armchair in front of the blazing coal fire and hands me a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and a can of orange, and when she turns on the table lamp the whole room glows warm and pink. She sits on the sofa against the wall. She crosses her legs and lays her hands on her knees and smiles over at me. Rita has huge teeth when she smiles and you can see her top gum. She looks like she wants to say something, but she just sits there smiling and staring.

  Is she waiting for me to say something? The longer she stares the more certain I am she knows everything. I can’t keep still in the seat. The harder I try the more I shake. My arse is tight and my face is on fire and I look away. I hold the cool can of orange to my cheeks and hope she doesn’t notice. Why doesn’t she talk? Why the fuck doesn’t she say what she wants to say and get it over with? I know what she’s doing. She wants to sit here and watch me sweat until I can’t stand it anymore and admit everything. That’s why the fire is so hot. She’s eve
n got the coal scuttle full. Ready to heap it on the moment the heat begins to fade. Why doesn’t she say something? Even the holy pictures on the walls are staring. I want to get up but I wouldn’t even get my poncho on before she’d accuse me. Scream at me like my grandmother did because there’s no use telling someone who was almost a nun, He made me do it. That he said nobody would believe me if I told because I’m a Shep. Nobody would care. I’d be fired out of the Holy Shepherd and on to the streets where all the men in the world could do what they liked to me.

  She wouldn’t believe me if I told her how sweet he could be when I did what he wanted. How he told me I was special and how good that made me feel because I was never special to anyone. Would Rita understand if I told her about the morning I woke up drenched with sweat and understood what I was doing was wrong? Would she understand the times I sat in steaming baths trying to scrub him away with soap and water but couldn’t because the dirt was on the inside like a mortal sin? She’d never believe that about Uncle Philip. Not her Philip who sits at the front of the chapel every Sunday and receives the Body of Christ. My Philip isn’t like that. My Philip is decent, respectful. And what could I say to her? That she’s right, he is decent. That he has a good job and nice house and you don’t see him hanging around the toilets in the park. How would I make her understand that they done what they done because they could, because we were nothing to them? Because we had no one to mind us, no one to care what happened to us. We’re Peter’s children, God love them.

  Now Rita talks.

  It’s terrible how things turned out for all of you, Matilda. Philip’s heart is broken, but God is good and with his help and the power of prayer everything will turn out right in the end. Tell me, Matilda. Did you see your father lately? He loves you all very much, you know.

  I know, Rita. That’s all I can say and I feel my voice shudder when I say it.

  Have you a boyfriend yet, Matilda?