by Maeve Binchy
“What is all this about a money prize for an essay competition, Miss O’Hara? Can you explain to me how it came up and when it was discussed with me?”
“Oh, I’ve given them an essay to do and I’m awarding a prize for the best one.” Angela smiled like a simpleton.
“But when was this discussed?” The thin pointed face quivered at the lack of respect, or anxiety at discovery.
“Sure, there’d be no need to discuss every single thing we did in class, Mother, would there? I mean, would you ever get anything done if we came to you over what homework we were going to give them and all?”
“I do not mean that. I mean I need an explanation. Since when have we been paying the children to study?”
Angela felt a sudden weariness. It was going to be like this forever. Any bit of enthusiasm and excitement sat on immediately. Fight for every single thing including the privilege of putting your hand into your own very meager salary and giving some of it as a heady excitement which had even the dullards reading the history books.
It was like a slow and ponderous dance. A series of steps had to be gone through, a fake bewilderment. Angela would now say that she was terribly sorry, she had thought Mother Immaculata would be delighted, which was lies of course since she knew well that Immaculata would have stopped it had she got wind of it earlier. Then a fake display of helplessness, what should they do now, she had all the essays corrected, look here they were, and the children were expecting the results today. Then the fake supplication, could Mother Immaculata ever be kind enough to present the prize? Angela had it here in an envelope. It was twenty-one shillings, a whole guinea. Oh and there was a subsidiary prize for another child who had done well, a book all wrapped up. And finally the fake gratitude and the even more fake promise that it would never happen again.
Mother Immaculata was being gracious now, which was even more sickening than when she was being hostile.
“And who has won this ill-advised competition?” she asked.
“Bernie Conway,” said Angela. “It was the best, there’s no doubt about that. But you know young Clare O’Brien, she did a terrific one altogether, the poor child must have slaved over it. I would like to have given her the guinea but I thought the others would pick on her, she’s too young. So that’s why I got her a book, could you perhaps say something Mother about her being . . .”
Mother Immaculata would agree to nothing of the sort. Clare O’Brien from the little shop down by the steps, wasn’t she only one of the youngest to enter for it? Not at all, it would be highly unsuitable. Imagine putting her in the same league as Bernie Conway from the post office, to think of singling out Chrissie O’Brien’s younger sister. Not at all.
“But she’s nothing like Chrissie—she’s totally different,” wailed Angela. But she had lost. The children were filing into the school hall for their prayers and hymn. Mother Immaculata had put her hand out and taken the envelope containing the guinea and the card saying that Bernadette Mary Conway had been awarded the Prize for Best History Essay. Mother Immaculata left on her desk the neatly wrapped copy of Palgreave’s Golden Treasury for Clare O’Brien for Excellence in History Essay Writing.
Angela picked it up and reminded herself that it was childish to believe that you could win everything.
Mother Immaculata made the announcements after prayers. Clare thought the words were never going to come out of the nun’s thin mouth.
There were announcements about how the school was going to learn to answer Mass with Father O’Dwyer, not serve it of course, only boys could do that, but to answer it, and there must be great attention paid so that it would be done beautifully. And there was a complaint that those girls in charge of school altars were very lacking in diligence about putting clean water in the vases. What hope was there for a child who couldn’t manage to prepare a clean vase for Our Lady? It was a very simple thing surely to do for the Mother of God. Then there was the business about outdoor shoes being worn in the classroom. Finally she came to it. Mother Immaculata’s voice changed slightly. Clare couldn’t quite understand—it was as if she didn’t want to give the history prize.
“It has come to my notice, only this morning, that there is some kind of history competition. I am glad of course to see industry in the school. However, that being said, it gives me great pleasure to present the prize on behalf of the school.”
She paused and her eyes went up and down the rows of girls who stood in front of her. Clare smoothed the sides of her tunic nervously. She must remember to walk slowly and not to run, she could easily fall on the steps leading up to the stage where Mother Immaculata, the other nuns and lay teachers stood. She would be very calm and she would thank Miss O’Hara and remember to thank Mother Immaculata as well.
“So I won’t keep you in any further suspense . . .” Mother Immaculata managed to draw another few seconds out of it.
“The prize is awarded to Bernadette Mary Conway. Congratulations, Bernadette. Come up here, child, and receive your prize.”
Clare told herself she must keep smiling. She must not let her face change. Just think about that and nothing else and she’d be all right. She concentrated fiercely on the smile; it sort of pushed her eyes up a bit and if there were any tears in them people wouldn’t notice.
She kept the smile on as stupid Bernie Conway put her hand to her mouth over and over, and then put her hand on her chest. Her friends had to nudge her to get her to her feet. As she gasped and said it couldn’t be true, Clare clenched her top teeth firmly on top of her lower teeth and smiled on. She saw Miss O’Hara looking round at the school and even looking hard at her. She smiled back hard. Very hard. She would never let Miss O’Hara know how much she hated her. She must be the meanest and most horrible teacher in the world—much meaner than Mother Immaculata—to tell Clare that she had won the prize, to say all those lies about it being the best thing she had read in all her years teaching. Clare kept the smile up until it was time to file out of the hall and into their classrooms. Then she dropped it; it didn’t matter now. She felt one of her ribbons falling off; that didn’t matter now either.
The girls brought sandwiches to eat in the classroom at lunch, and they had to be very careful about crumbs for fear of mice. Clare had made big doorsteps for herself and Chrissie since her big sister was still in disgrace. But she hadn’t the appetite for anything at all. She unwrapped the paper, looked at them and just wrapped them up again. Josie Dillon, who sat beside her, looked at them enviously.
“If you’re sure?” she said as Clare passed them over wordlessly.
“I’m sure,” Clare said.
It was raining, so they couldn’t go out in the yard. Lunchtimes indoors were awful, the windows were all steamed up and there was the smell of food everywhere. The nuns and teachers prowled from classroom to classroom seeing that the high jinks were not too high; the level of noise fell dramatically as soon as a figure of authority appeared and then rose slowly to a crescendo once more when the figure moved on.
Josie was the youngest of the Dillons, the others were away at a boarding school but it was said that they wouldn’t bother sending Josie, she wasn’t too bright. A big pasty girl with a discontented face—only when someone suggested food was there any animation at all.
“These are lovely,” she said with a full mouth to Clare. “You’re cracked not to want them yourself.”
Clare smiled a watery smile.
“Are you feeling all right?” Josie showed concern. “You look a bit green.”
“No, I’m fine,” Clare said. “I’m fine.” She was saying it to herself rather than to Josie Dillon who was busy opening up the second sandwich and looking into it with pleasure.
Miss O’Hara came into the classroom and the noise receded. She gave a few orders: pick up those crusts at once, open the window to let in some fresh air, no it didn’t matter how cold and wet it was, open it. How many times did she have to say put the books away before you start to eat? And suddenly, “Clare,
can you come out here to me a minute?”
Clare didn’t want to go; she didn’t want to talk to her ever again. She hated Miss O’Hara for making such a fool of her, telling her that she’d won the prize and building up her hopes. But Miss O’Hara had said it again. “Clare. Now, please.”
Unwillingly she went out into the corridor which was full of people going to and from the cloakrooms getting ready for afternoon classes. The bell would ring any moment now.
Miss O’Hara put her books on a windowsill right on top of the Sacred Heart altar. There were altars on nearly every windowsill and each class was responsible for one of them.
“I got you another prize, because yours was so good. It was really good and if you had been competing with people nearer your own age you’d have won hands down. So anyway I got this for you.” Miss O’Hara handed her a small parcel. She was smiling and eager for Clare to open it. But Clare would not be bought off with a secret prize.
“Thank you very much, Miss O’Hara,” she said and made no attempt to untie the string.
“Well, aren’t you going to look at it?”
“I’ll open it later,” she said. It was as near to being rude as she dared to go, and in case it had been just that bit too much she added, “Thank you very much.”
“Stop sulking, Clare, and open it.” Miss O’Hara’s voice was firm.
“I’m not sulking.”
“Of course, you are, and it’s a horrible habit. Stop it this minute and open up the present I bought you so generously out of my own money.” It was an order. It also made Clare feel mean. Whatever it was she would be very polite.
It was a book of poetry, a book with a soft leather cover that had fancy flowers painted on it with gold-leaf paint. It was called The Golden Treasury of Verse. It was beautiful.
Some of the sparkle had come back into the small face with the big eyes. “Open the book now and see what I wrote.” Angela was still very teacherish.
Clare read the inscription aloud.
“ ‘That’s the first book for your library. One day when you have a big library of books you’ll remember this one, and you’ll take it out and show it to someone, and you’ll say it was your first book, and you won it when you were ten.’ ”
“Will I have a library?” Clare asked excitedly.
“You will if you want to. You can have anything if you want to.”
“Is that true?” Clare felt Miss O’Hara was being a bit jokey, her voice had a tinny ring to it.
“No, not really. I wanted to give you this in front of the whole school, I wanted Immaculata to give it to you, but she wouldn’t. Make you too uppity or something. No, there’s a lot of things I want and don’t get, but that’s not the point, the point is you must go out and try for it, if you don’t try you can’t get anything.”
“It’s beautiful.” Clare stroked the book.
“It’s a grand collection, much nicer than your poetry book in class.”
Clare felt very grown-up: Miss O’Hara saying “Immaculata” without “Mother” before it. Miss O’Hara saying their poetry textbook wasn’t great! “I’d have bought a book anyway if I’d won the guinea,” she said forgivingly.
“I know you would, and that eejit of a Bernie Conway will probably buy a handbag or a whole lot of hairbands. What happened to those nice yellow ribbons you were wearing this morning?”
“I took them off, and put them in my schoolbag. They seemed wrong.”
“Yes, well maybe they’ll seem right later on, you know.”
“Oh, they will, Miss O’Hara. Thank you for the beautiful book. Thank you, really.”
Miss O’Hara seemed to understand. Then she said suddenly, “You could get anywhere you wanted, Clare, you know, if you didn’t give up and say it’s all hopeless. You don’t have to turn out like the rest of them.”
“I’d love to . . . well, to get on you know,” Clare admitted. It was out, this thing that had been inside for so long and never said in case it would be laughed at. “But it would be very hard, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course, it would, but that’s what makes it worth doing. If it were easy, then every divil and dirt could do it. It’s because it’s hard it’s special.”
“Like being a saint,” Clare said, eyes shining.
“Yes, but that’s a different road to go down. Let’s see if you can get you an education first. Be a mature saint, not a child saint, will you?”
The bell rang, deafening them for a moment.
“I’d prefer not to be a child saint all right. They’re usually martyred for their faith, aren’t they?”
“Almost invariably,” Miss O’Hara said, nearly sweeping the statue of the Sacred Heart with her as she gathered her books for class.
Chrissie and her two desperate friends Peggy and Kath had planned a visit to Miss O’Flaherty’s to apologize. Gerry Doyle had apparently told Chrissie last night that this was the best thing to do by far. After all, she knew it was them, they’d all been caught and punished by their parents, why not go in and say sorry, then Miss O’Flaherty would have to forgive them or else everyone would say she was a mean old bag who held a grudge. Chrissie hadn’t gone along with this in the beginning but Gerry had been very persuasive. What could they lose? he argued. They didn’t need to mean they were sorry, they only needed to say it, and then it would take the heat off them all so that they could get on with the plans for the party in the cave, otherwise they would all be under house arrest. Do it soon, and put your heart and soul into it, had been Gerry’s advice. Grown-ups loved what they thought were reformed characters. Lay it on good and thick.
Clare was surprised to see the threesome stop outside Miss O’Flaherty’s shop. She was sure they’d have scurried past but they were marching in bold as brass. She pretended to be looking at the flyblown window display that had never changed as long as she knew it, but she wanted to hear what was coming from inside the shop.
The bits that she heard were astonishing. Chrissie was saying something about not being able to sleep last night on account of it all, Peg was hanging her head and saying she thought it was a joke at the time but the more she thought of it, it wasn’t a bit funny to frighten anyone. And Kath said that she’d be happy to do any messages for Miss O’Flaherty to make up for it.
Miss O’Flaherty was a big confused woman with hair like a bird’s nest. She was flabbergasted by the apology and had no idea how to cope.
“So, anyway, there it is,” Chrissie had said, trying to finish it up. “We’re all as sorry as can be.”
“And, of course, we’re well punished at home,” added Kath. “But that’s no help to you, Miss O’Flaherty.”
“And maybe if our mothers come in you might say that we . . .”
Miss O’Flaherty had a jar of biscuits out. There would be no more said about it. They were harmless skitters of girls when all was said and done, and they had the good grace to come and admit their wrongdoing. They were totally forgiven. She would tell all their mothers. They skipped out of the shop free souls again. Clare was disgusted with them. Miss O’Flaherty was horrible and she deserved to be terrified with bits of seaweed. Why were they saying sorry now at this late stage? It was a mystery.
She didn’t get much enlightenment from Chrissie, who was annoyed to see her.
“I’m sorry, Peg and Kath, but my boring sister seems to be following us around.”
“I’m not following you. I’m coming home from school,” Clare said. “I have to come home this way. It’s too windy to walk on the cliff road.”
“Huh,” said Kath.
“Listening,” said Peg.
“You’re so lucky that you don’t have any sisters younger than you,” Chrissie said. “It’s like having a knife stuck into you to have a younger sister.”
“I don’t see why. We don’t think Ben and Jimmy are like knives,” Clare argued.
“They’re normal,” Chrissie said. “Not following you round with whinges and whines day in day out.” The other t
wo nodded sympathetically.
Clare dawdled and looked into the drapery. She knew everything off by heart in that window too. The green cardigan on the bust had been there forever, and the boxes of hankies slightly faded from the summer sun were still on show. Clare waited there until the others had rounded the corner. Then she walked slowly on down the street toward the big gap in the cliffs where the steps went down to the beach, back home to O’Brien’s shop which everyone said should be a little gold mine since it was perched on the road going down to the sea. It was the last shop you saw before you got to the beach so people bought their oranges and sweets there, it was the first shop you met on the way back with your tongue hanging out for an ice cream or a fizzy drink. It was the nearest place if you sent a child back up the cliff for reinforcements on a sunny day. Tom O’Brien should be making a small fortune there people said, nodding their heads. Clare wondered why people thought that. The summer was the same length for the O’Briens as for everyone else. Eleven weeks. And the winter was even longer and colder because they were so exposed to the wind and weren’t as sheltered as people all along Church Street.
Molly Power said that it was lonely for David having no friends of his own and perhaps they should let him ask a friend to stay. The doctor thought that there were plenty of young lads in the town, boys he had played with before he went off to boarding school. But Molly said it wasn’t the same at all, and shouldn’t they let him ring his friend James Nolan in Dublin and invite him for a few days? His family could put him on the train and they could meet him. David was delighted, it would be great to have Nolan to stay, Nolan had sounded very pleased on the phone. He said it would be good to get away from home, he hadn’t realized how mad his relations were. They must have got worse since he’d gone to boarding school and he hadn’t noticed. David told him it would be very quiet after the bright lights of Dublin. Nolan said the lights of Dublin weren’t as bright as that, and his mother wouldn’t let him go to the pictures in case he got fleas. He couldn’t wait to get to the seaside.