by J.A. Skinner
Chapter 16
Wednesday 21st May
Huntingtons does not skip generations.
Kate and Phillip come for coffee after seven o’clock May devotions, quite a pretty and cheery part of the liturgical calendar ritual with lots of children in white shoes and socks, flowers and happy hymns. Phillip sits down to watch telly and Kate and I as usual, settle in the kitchen with coffee. The kids are occupied out in the back garden with Jamie and Scott and a new game of ten pin bowling, which John pointedly told me, was a present from the new dad.
‘Didn’t see you at devotions Mags, are you rebelling again?’
‘Don’t you start. I had it all from Mam earlier. She came to pick up the kids for the children’s service at six, and said I was showing them a bad example, and committing all kinds of mortal and venial sins and some kind of vague sins of omission, by not attending May devotions and the Sunday Mass. I feel such a hypocrite if I go, and I’m condemned by her if I don’t go.’
‘Can’t you just go to keep the peace?’
‘I’ve tried, you know I have, but I think that’s a worse example to the kids if I pretend to go along with it, it’s like lying. That’s whats all wrong with religion, lots of people just go through the motions without any real beliefs. I don’t mind the kids going till they finish primary school, but after that… Oh, I don’t know.’
‘What’s the worst part? How can one hour a week be that difficult?’ asked Kate.
‘It’s not only an hour a week, you know that, its condoning the Churches teaching and criticism and all the rubbish the priests preach, you must admit it’s affected your life. We were systematically brainwashed from a very early age.’
Kate looks shocked at that, and denies she feels brainwashed.
‘Okay Kate, get your head out of the sand, do you remember the Priest coming into the classroom when we were seven years of age and saying that in preparation for our first communion, that we had to confess our sins? What sins could we possibly have committed at that age? We were lovely happy innocent children until he made us feel like criminals asking God for forgiveness. For what? We mostly made up the sins, you know that and the Priests knew it too, they went along with it. It was a complete farce.’
‘I detect a wee bit of bitterness there. My God Mags I didn’t think you felt that strongly, I thought you just got a bit fed up going to Mass, not with the whole thing.’
‘I’ve played this game long enough. My kids at this moment are happy in the back garden with Betty’s boys, their two protestant pals. We were never allowed to do that were we? We were segregated in and out of school. Nobody needs to wonder where all the sectarian hatred comes from, it comes from parents and priests telling little children that there is only one way to heaven, the catholic way or the protestant way, depending on your accident of birth and everyone else is condemned to hell.’
‘You’re exaggerating Mags, it’s not as bad as that nowadays...’
‘No? Just go to a Rangers and Celtic match then say it doesn’t matter to all those supporters whose side they are on. I bet if John came in now and said he wanted a Rangers strip for his birthday you would refuse to buy him it and you would think he had gone mad. None of us are faultless, we’re all to blame but the biggest slice of blame goes to the churches and their teaching.’
If a nation is to be judged by how it prepares its next generation, Scotland would be bottom of any league table, seen to be incubating hatred and approval of religious segregation and bigotry. Where have I heard this kind of thing before? South Africa, separating black people from white. Australia with their Aborigines as second class citizens, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Palestine, we are part of a long list of nations with big big problems. The sad difference with Scotland is that the religious leaders are not even trying to make amends, they don’t have any plans for conciliation.
‘Well Mags this has been a relaxed cuppa I don’t think. Pious Phillip and I will slope off now and try not to beat up any Proddys on the way home.’
Next day, John runs in from school, throws his bag in the hall, then drops his jacket, his football and his football kit. He bursts into the living-room,
‘I’m picked, I’m picked’, he shouts loud enough to be heard in Glasgow. We all start shouting and cheering and the girls dance up and down the room.
‘I’m going to be the best footie player in Carfin, then I’ll get picked for Celtic then Bartha,’ he shouts. Good lad, no point in having small ambitions.
I am truly delighted by his happiness. I’ve worried all day about how to handle his disappointment if he didn’t make the cut. The cake I baked to help mend his broken heart can now be used for a celebration. When John seen the cake he asks,
‘How did you know I would get in the team?’
‘Because you are the best, my boy’ I reply.
When it all quietens down, John says, a bit too casually,
‘There’s a letter in my schoolbag you’ve to read…’
Oh dear, this might take the shine off. I take his bag into the kitchen and rake through the books and rubbish to find the letter. It is basically a three-line whip to go to a meeting with the headmistress to discuss John’s behaviour. This is a complete surprise. I have had no complaints about his behaviour at school, ever. I immediately quiz John on what he has been up to. Proclaiming complete innocence, he suggests that the headmistress is probably having a nervous breakdown.
‘Where did you hear something like that?’
‘My teacher told me,’ and here he puts on a very squeaky voice, ‘you will give me and Mrs Mulholland a nervous breakdown if you can’t stop talking, John O’Hara.’
I have to turn away swiftly to stop him seeing the smile on my face.
‘OK, don’t you worry, I’ll sort it out tomorrow.’
Now that John is an important football player, he has a few phone calls to make to Granny and Aunty Kate to tell them his news. Granny promises new football socks, and Kate says she will bring half time oranges for his team when he has his first game.
I keep thinking about the letter from school, why can’t they just phone and discuss any problems, it seems a bit antiquated to be called to a meeting as if the headmistress were some kind of royalty. There are some teachers, certainly not all, who float through their primary and secondary education, quite confident about what they want to do. They then diligently work through college and arrive back at the primary school, comfortably on the other side of the desk. They sometimes never learn what real life is like outside the system. A bell rings and they react, they start to work, they stop, they eat lunch, they go home. Their captive audience is small, vulnerable, trusting and will never be as smart as they are. What a powerful place to be.
John’s teacher is not a bit like that, but the headmistress, Mrs Mulholland, comes very close.
She is a middle aged, middle class bully. She uses intimidation as a control tool on the children and the parents. I’m grateful that she is the headmistress and will never get to teach any of my children, although her influence is strong with the teachers who are scared of her.
I decide to see her at nine o’clock the next day to get it over with.
Friday 23rd May
As I walk into the school and pass the office, the secretaries and assistants all sit up smartly, like dogs at Crufts, ready for the show. I knock and enter the head’s office and feel a ghostly chill of intimidation crawl down my spine, no doubt left over from my own days here, many years ago. The mixture of chalky smells and squeaky linoleum floors take me whizzing back twenty years.
‘Margaret, (oh, so its first names,) how are you, and I hope your Mother is well.’
‘My mother is very well, Christine’, she recoils at my casual use of her first name, but she started it. She boldly soldiers on.
‘The reason I’ve asked to speak to you is because I have a problem with your John at the moment,’ she says, ‘he seems to be telling his friends and teachers lies about his family.’
Mrs Mulholland takes a deep breath, as if what she has to say is causing her great pain and stress. I can really do without the dramatics.
‘He has been telling Khalid that his Aunty Kate is getting a baby very soon, but she isn’t pregnant, and that his Uncle Mickey has a boyfriend.’
Oh Shit! What will I deal with first? I look across the table at her and see a large square woman with crisply waved short hair and a no-nonsense skirt and heather twin set. She may look the part of a benevolent small town headmistress, but what she is, is a vindictive fool.
‘Christine, my son is not telling lies about his Aunty Kate, she is presently being assessed for adopting a baby. It’s obviously wrong for John to discuss this in school, but he is only a child and we are all very excited about it. As far as you’re concerned this is confidential information, and only Kate can decide what she tells people at the moment so let your teachers know that too. She looks a bit crestfallen that John has not been lying about that bit.
Now for the more difficult bit, I sit and look at Mrs Mulholland, knowing she is desperate for gossip about Mickey’s life and knowing she will not like the silence. Eventually she says,
‘And Margaret now, what about his Uncle, your brother Mickey?’
‘What about him, Christine?’ This use of first names is getting a bit petty but I am past caring, ‘I don’t know what John is talking about but I’ll have a word with him.’
‘He shouldn’t be allowed to tell lies now, should he,’ she insists.
Bugger this, I can’t let her away with it, she won’t intimidate me.
‘If you’re asking me if my brother is gay, and has a male partner, I would have to say that’s none of your business, Christine, and as you had Mickey in this school for six years, maybe you should hold on to some memory of what a kind, generous and intelligent person he is, without worrying about his sexuality, but don’t you worry, I’ll deal with John.’
Mrs Mulholland's face had a very deep frown between her brows and her skin was now mottled red. Not attractive. She looks like she’s going to throw a tantrum or have a stroke. Obviously she is never normally spoken to like this, but she manages to says in a thin strained voice,
‘John will need a great deal of control, if you don’t want him to turn out a right wee gossip.’ How spiteful she sounds, I’m totally fed up with her now.
‘I’m the one to control John, Christine, I’m his mother, remember that. You are only here to help direct his education and from now on just try to ignore his gossip.’
I decide on a swift exit before she has a seizure. I hope John isn’t made to suffer from this! I could strangle him at times. He must be listening in to every adult conversation in the house.
As I walk home, cooling off, I remember being told off numerous times by my Mam for telling tales and exaggerating family facts to make them more exciting. I told my teacher once that Kate was not really my sister but a little girl my mother found in the back garden. My mother and Kate were mortified, of course. Mam’s voice still rings in my ears,
‘Wait ‘till your father gets home Margaret Coyle, ‘He’ll not believe your behaviour, look at you my daughter, you thinks it is a joke. Dear God, what am I going to do with this child? You’ve upset Kate too, how could you say she’s not your sister?
I remember feeling a bit shamefaced at that, but I had no fear in me of my father coming home. He would not go into a temper, or hit me, he never did, he just told us to do what Mam said and we would be fine.
‘Tell Kathleen you’re sorry, go on,’ Mam says, very sternly.
‘Okay, I’m very sorry Kate, stop snivelling and I’ll let you play with my doll later,’ I said with a cheeky grin.
Kate couldn’t stay sad for long as we were great pals most of the time. I told her that if she had been left on the doorstep, maybe she could have been a lost princess or somebody special, but now we knew she is just ordinary. What a little bitch I was, I had to have the last word.
In the family photographs, Kate and I looked like lovely perfect little girls. We were not always lovely just normal and mostly happy. Mam spent most of her energy making sure we looked just right and telling us we were each so lucky to have a sister which was something she never had. I love all little girls, but of course I love mine especially. When I think of what I like about Theresa and Rosie, I visualise all of their small feminine gestures, the way they hook their hair behind their ears with their index fingers, the way they hold their hand to their mouth when they giggle. I love the way they stand, hands on hips, leaning forward and feet together to make a point. Their small soft round belly that’s made to hold a baby some day, the easy tears, and the rapid expressive hand movements that accompany their chatter, is what makes them unmistakably feminine. I love the casual yet confident way they can hold a doll in one arm, balanced at their hip, unconsciously learning skills for later life.