A Girl Called Blue (13 page)

‘This way!’ Mary announced in her big-sister voice, and she led the way to the small dormitory in the middle of the corridor. They pushed open the door, and they both instantly recognised the small figure with the tousled hair, trying to fasten up a pair of striped pyjamas much too big for him.

‘Tommy!’

Brother and sister flew into each other’s arms and held on like they would never let go again. Mary’s face was like a ghost as she hugged and kissed little Tommy. Then she sat on the bed beside him.

‘I told you I’d find you, didn’t I?’

The small pale face with the freckles and blue eyes nodded. ‘I knew you’d come,’ was all he said as he buried his face again in her jacket and school cardigan.

Blue swallowed hard, not wanting to cry, but suddenly envious of Mary and her brother.

A whisper went around the corridor and the rest of the boys stayed outside leaving the two of them alone. Suddenly Conor ran in.

‘It’s Brother Benildus, he’s on his way up the stairs,’ he warned. ‘We can delay him for a few minutes but he checks all the rooms every night before we go to bed, honest.’

‘Mary, come on!’ urged Blue. ‘We’ve got to get out of here before we’re discovered.’

Her friend sat obstinately on the bed, clutching her little brother.

‘I’m not leaving him, Blue, do you hear! I don’t care what the brothers say or do. He’s my brother and I promised Mammy I’d look after him. They can’t just go and split us up. I won’t let them!’ Tommy had a firm grip on his sister and refused to let go of her.

Blue was almost out of her mind with panic as she heard the heavy steps on the corridor and the adult voice asking the boys had
they washed their hands and faces.

‘Mary, come on!’ she pleaded. ‘We have to get out of here or we’ll be caught. You’ve seen Tommy now, but we’ve got to get going or else we’ll be in right trouble.’

Mary turned her back, ignoring her. ‘I’m not leaving him.’

Blue didn’t know what to do.

‘Over here!’ shouted Conor, pulling Blue’s hand, ‘to the window.’ It was almost dark outside, but Blue could see the metal railings and bars of the fire escape.

‘You have to be careful as the bottom part is wired off to stop people climbing it …’

He didn’t have to say any more, it was an escape route and that was all that mattered.

‘Mary,’ she begged one last time, but seeing the tears and the desperate look on young Tommy’s stricken face she knew Mary would not leave her brother. Conor held the window open as far as it would go. It was no more than a strip but she was skinny enough to squeeze through. Conor closed the window firmly and pulled the curtains closed after her. She didn’t stay to listen to what Brother Benildus would say when he discovered Mary. She began to move silently down the steps, praying she wouldn’t slip or lose her footing. She didn’t dare think what the consequences for Mary and Tommy would be or what the brothers in Saint Gerard’s would do to her friend. She had to concentrate on herself now and on getting away. At the bottom of the metal stairs, where it was wired off, she made a wild jump on to the grass, wincing with pain as she hit the ground. Her right ankle landed on a stone. But she
could walk. What would she do now?

She couldn’t stay here. The brothers might search the grounds for her if Mary or the boys told them she had come with a friend. She had to get away as quickly as possible. She limped down the driveway and back out the main gates on to the narrow road. It was four miles to Galway and she had no option but to walk.

The night was dry at least, and it wasn’t cold. She tried not to think of the pain, and pretended she was a scout out hunting for food in the darkness of the African savannah, letting the moon be her guide.

Galway was deserted in the early morning and Blue curled up on a park bench in Eyre Square to rest, her mind in turmoil. She couldn’t stay here. The brothers from Saint Gerard’s might be looking for her. The city was too small, they could easily track her down. She’d have to go back to Dublin where she could disappear among the crowds. She’d kept her promise to Mary to help find her brother, but now she had to think of herself.

The sound of vans and lorries woke her as Galway began to stir. Porters with tall brushes came out to sweep the steps of the Great Southern hotel. Soon the shutters would go up in the shops, and the banks and offices would open for the day’s business and trading. She watched as people arrived for the early-morning train, carrying their cases and bags towards the train station around the corner. If only she had a ticket for the train to Dublin. Curious, she followed a group of women who got out of a big black car.

‘Hurry on, Anna, hurry on!’ called one of them.

‘I’m coming, Aunt Teresa,’ said a younger one, ‘but I’ve got to get my ticket.’

‘No time for that, dear, or we’ll miss getting seats together.
Hurry up and we’ll pay on the train.’

Pay on the train! Blue couldn’t believe her ears. So you could pay on the train. Imagine! The group of women dragged several huge cases, a couple of hat boxes and a zip-up hold-all down to the station entrance. Blue followed them along the platform as they tried to manoeuvre the bags up on to the train.

‘Give us a hand, Anna,’ called the aunt, struggling with the heaviest bag.

Blue stepped forward. ‘Here, let me help you with that,’ she offered, humping the big suitcase with all her strength as she stepped on to the train.

‘Oh, thank you, dear,’ smiled the woman.

Blue filed into the same carriage as the women and squeezed into the seat next to the door, saying nothing as the rest of the carriage filled up. She waited, heart thumping, as the doors were shut and the train began to shunt out of the station. Blue turned her face to the wall. They couldn’t throw her off the train, could they? They’d at least take her to the next stop and put her off there.

As the train got going the carriage filled with the laughter and chatter of the group of women around her. They were on their way to a wedding in Dublin. Blue kept an eye on the door, ready to run when she spotted the conductor coming to check the tickets. A boy came by with a trolley of tea and coffee and sandwiches. She felt in her pocket. She hadn’t enough even for a sandwich. The woman beside her ordered tea and ham sandwiches and some biscuits. Blue gulped hard and her stomach flipped over with hunger watching the woman eat, her eyes almost popping out of her head when she
saw the discarded piece of buttered crust and a digestive biscuit. The woman excused herself to go to the toilet, and in a flash, when no one was looking, Blue had wolfed down the left-overs.

She felt warm, and the motion of the train made her drowsy. Her head got heavier and heavier and she longed to sleep. Then she heard the words: ‘Tickets, please. Tickets, please.’

The conductor was coming down the train. She had to get away. She jumped up and made for the toilet. Closing the door after her and slipping the lock across, she sat down in the tiny space to hide. Would the woman tell the conductor about her? Would the conductor come looking for her?

She waited and waited in the tiny space, the noise of the engine getting louder, the train moving faster as they flew through the countryside. She was able to wash her hands and face and sit on the toilet seat all at the same time. Her ankle ached and she dampened some toilet paper to wrap it up. After what seemed like half an hour she wondered should she come out. She opened the door a crack, peeped out and saw two people waiting to use the facilities. Checking that the conductor was gone from the carriage, she went back to her seat. The woman had fallen asleep, and was snoring slightly, her mouth open. Blue slipped in beside her. Relief washed over her as she settled down for the rest of the journey.

Rain spattered against the windows as they approached Dublin city and green fields turned to grey city streets and roofs. The woman beside Blue began to refresh her make-up, then she stood up and put on her heavy raincoat. The train got slower and slower, eventually coming to a grinding halt. All the passengers stood up to
leave, gathering their belongings. Blue was determined to stay with the wedding group as they departed the train and station. She kept her head down and passed quickly through the gates before anyone could notice her. She walked along under the high station ceilings, across the tiled entrance hall and out onto the street. It was raining heavily. Some of the travellers joined the queue for taxis, others had friends to meet them, but Blue was all alone.

She stepped out into the pelting rain and began to walk towards the city centre. Her hair hung in rats’ tails and her jacket and skirt were soaked. She could feel the water leaking in through holes in her shoes. She just had to keep walking – she wasn’t sure where to, but she felt that if she stayed on her feet and kept moving she’d be all right. She tried to ignore the pain in her foot as she walked along by the river wall. The heavy rain soaked her face as the wind swept upriver. It was a busy quay. Cars hooted and heavy trucks exiting Guinness’s brewery splashed her as they thundered by. Blue cursed them under her breath.

Then a car slowed down beside her, but she ignored it. The driver beeped and honked his horn again and again until she finally looked up. It was a taxi-cab. She hadn’t the money for a fare, so she ignored him.

But he honked his horn at her again, and rolled down his window.

‘Get in!’ he shouted.

She stopped, ready to shout at him and tell him to leave her alone when she recognised him. It was Jimmy Mooney, the taxi driver who had taken them all to the zoo and who had brought her
home from hospital.

‘Get in, girl, you’re soaked to the skin.’

She hesitated as he opened the door for her.

‘I’m all wet,’ she warned. ‘I’ll ruin your car.’

‘That don’t matter. Get in!’

She clambered into the back of the cab, a pool of water forming immediately on the floor of the car.

‘What in heaven’s name are you doing out on a day like this?’ he demanded, pulling back out into the traffic. ‘Have the nuns gone mad?’

She stayed silent. She caught a glimpse of him staring at her in the mirror.

‘I spotted you coming out of the station,’ he said. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘I was in Galway.’

‘Galway?’

‘With a friend.’

‘A friend?’ he harrumphed. ‘I’ll take you back to Larch Hill.’

‘No!’ she shouted, trying to open the door of the car, ‘I’m not going back there.’

‘Not going back?’

The traffic was heavy and the car had almost come to a standstill, enabling him to turn around to face her.

‘I don’t live there any more.’

A silence hung between them.

‘Well, then, where do you live? Give me the address and I’ll take you home.’

She felt wet and cold and shivery and although she wanted to be smart and lie and make up an address, she couldn’t. She sniffed. Jimmy Mooney was looking at her.

‘What’s the matter, kid?’

‘I’ve run away.’

‘Run away! Holy God, you’ve run away from Sister Agnes and Sister Regina and the rest of them?’

She nodded dumbly, realising the enormity of what she’d done.

‘I can’t go back. I won’t go back.’

The traffic lights had turned green and Jimmy began to drive. Blue realised eventually that he was driving around in a circle, passing the same shops and offices again.

‘Don’t send me back there!’ she pleaded. ‘Please, Jimmy, don’t.’

He kept driving, obviously trying to decide the right thing to do. ‘Sister Regina will be fuming, I’ll give you that, and you’ll be in right old trouble, but you have to go back.’

‘I’ll get thrashed. She’ll use the leather …’

She could see the concern in his eyes, the indecision.

‘The nuns wouldn’t do that.’

‘She would, that’s what happened before …’ she trailed off. ‘I hate Larch Hill. I hate them all. Stop! Let me out of the car!’

She tried to pull open the handle of door. ‘I’m not going back there!’

Jimmy Mooney tried to concentrate on driving in the downpour. The insides of his windows were fogged up and his windscreen wipers couldn’t keep pace with the lashing rain. Plus, he was trying to stop the child jumping out of a moving vehicle.

She looked wild and crazy. Eventually he made up his mind and headed off purposefully in a different direction.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Blue wailed.

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘I don’t want to go back to Larch Hill. I don’t want to go there.’

‘No. Home to my place,’ he explained. ‘Ma is there. She’ll know what to do.’

She sank back in the seat with relief as Jimmy checked to make sure she wasn’t going to try and escape again.

‘Ma will have to know what to do,’ he said firmly.

Jimmy showed Blue into the small kitchen at Iveagh Terrace where Nance Mooney was sitting by the fire with her feet up on a leatherette pouffe.

‘Where in heaven’s name did you find the child, Jimmy?’ she asked, jumping up to get a towel so that Blue could dry herself.

‘The girl is half-drowned with the rain and half-starved too by the look of it. Her name’s Bernadette O’Malley, but they call her “Blue”,’ he reminded her. ‘You remember her, don’t you? From the day at the zoo? She’s one of the kids from Larch Hill. I spotted her down by the station.’

‘Larch Hill?’ Nance Mooney bent closer to get a good look at her. ‘Yes, I remember her.’

Blue suddenly felt cold and shivery and weak, too tired even to think.

‘Poor pet, she looks all done in,’ murmured the elderly woman, her double chin wobbling with concern. ‘Jimmy, go get a blanket and the red dressing-gown from my room. We’d better get her out of these wet clothes before she catches her death of cold.’

Ten minutes later Blue found herself wrapped in a huge, soft,
wool dressing gown, a check blanket spread over her lap and knees, and her hair combed out on her shoulders to dry. She watched Mrs Mooney make her a mug of hot, milky tea and set sausages and rashers on the pan to fry.

‘What were the nuns doing letting her out on a day like this?’ she tut-tutted as she pricked the sizzling sausages.

‘She ran away, Ma.’ Jimmy glanced over at the girl. ‘The nuns had nothing to do with it.’

‘Ran away? She’s a runaway!’ Mrs Mooney looked at Blue, her expression curious and concerned. ‘Is that true, child?’

Blue nodded, miserable. All her defiance and energy was deflated like a big balloon from which all the air had escaped.

‘Well, I never! What are we going to do? We’d better send her straight back to the nuns. By now they probably have the Guards and half the country out looking for her.’

‘I don’t want to go back,’ Blue burst out. ‘I hate it there. Please don’t make me go back to Larch Hill, Mrs Mooney, please!’

Blue’s eyes filled with tears and she had a choking feeling in the back of her throat. She looked at the big man with his blinking brown eyes and balding head, and the small, plump woman, with her neatly permed grey hair, staring at her. These people were her only hope. But what could they do for her? She would soon be back with the nuns, for sure. Her heart sank.

Jimmy put two spoonfuls of sugar in his tea, and stirred it slowly, considering the situation.

‘Have you family, friends, anyone you can go to?’ asked Mrs Mooney.

Blue shook her head. ‘No one. I’m on my own.’

A stricken look passed over Nance Mooney’s face as she realised the implication of not having a relation in the world to call on or cling to. ‘My God, you poor little thing.’ Instinctively, she reached forward and hugged the girl. Blue sank into the warm flesh and scent of soap and rosewater. Her head snuggled into the plump shoulders and breast.

‘Here, Ma, the sausages are burning,’ said Jimmy.

Minutes later they were all sitting around the table. Hunger overwhelmed Blue and she devoured her plate of sausages and rashers, along with three slices of fried bread and another mug of tea.

‘There isn’t a pick on the child! She needs feeding up, if you ask me,’ announced Mrs Mooney. ‘Don’t they feed you proper in that place?’

Blue thought of the plates of disgusting, dreary food that was served in the home – lumpy porridge, stale bread, soapy potatoes, squelchy mash and runny, watery eggs, and, if there was meat, it was either too fatty or too greasy or too gristly to enjoy. The serving size never changed and there was never enough for the children to eat.

‘They do feed us,’ she hesitated, ‘but it’s nothing like this.’

A pleased look spread across the woman’s face.

‘Well, what are we going to do with her?’ insisted Jimmy.

Blue looked from one face to the other, hoping they wouldn’t send her back.

‘She looks exhausted,’ said his mother. ‘Maybe she could stay a
while here and rest, get her breath back and have a bit of a sleep.’

‘I have to go back to work, Ma. She’d have to stay here with you.’

‘Away you go then, Jimmy,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll have a think about it and decide what to do when you get back. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.’

Blue watched through sleepy eyes as Jimmy pulled on his heavy jacket and got his car keys. She wondered would he arrive back with the police in tow to arrest her or with Sister Regina to drag her back to Larch Hill.

Mrs Mooney fussed around the kitchen tidying up, her feet encased in two big pink furry slippers, her ankles and legs wrapped in flesh-coloured tights that emphasised her varicose veins.

Blue felt warm and drowsy and full.

It was almost dark when she woke to find Mrs Mooney looking at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she yawned. ‘Did I fall asleep?’

‘You’ve been dead to the world for the past four hours. I didn’t want to disturb you in case I gave you a fright.’

‘Is Jimmy back?’

‘Not yet. He’ll be home in a while.’

Blue sighed to herself. No doubt he’d be back any minute to drive her to Larch Hill.

‘I’ve got the dinner on, a nice shepherd’s pie. Do you like shepherd’s pie?’

Blue shrugged. She had no idea what it was. ‘I’m not used to fancy food,’ she explained.

Mrs Mooney burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she had to sit back down in her wide armchair.

‘Well, I never! That’s a good one. Shepherd’s pie a fancy food! You are a funny little thing. Do you know how to play cards?’

Blue shook her head. Sometimes a deck of cards would appear at the children’s home but usually there were cards missing from it. She could play Snap and Fish in the Pool, but these games usually caused rows and the cards ended up being flung in the air with annoyance.

‘Then it’s high time you learned.’ Nance Mooney took out a pack of cards from the drawer and dealt them each a hand, explaining the symbols and numbers to Blue and their worth. ‘We’ll play Twenty-one.’

Engrossed, Blue followed the instructions carefully, examining her cards and working out a strategy. Mrs Mooney got all excited whenever Blue managed to win a trick.

‘I tell you, Blue, you’re picking it up. I’ll soon have you playing poker and winning.’

Blue grinned. She liked Jimmy’s mother and the card-playing. While they played they talked. Blue told her about running away to Galway and how Mary and Tommy were reunited, and about the Hickeys and the Maguires, and about losing Jess and about kind Sister Monica and the other girls in Larch Hill, and what had happened with Sister Regina the time she left the newspaper clipping on the floor in her office.

Mrs Mooney reminisced about her late husband Paddy, who was the best husband a woman could have, and her daughter
Terry, who lived in Dundalk with her husband John and had four children, and confided how hard it was for Jimmy since his wife had run off to Manchester with an old boyfriend and had taken their little boy Danny with her.

Poor Jimmy, thought Blue. She imagined his little boy in England never getting to see his daddy.

‘Don’t tell me you have the child playing cards already?’ joked Jimmy when he arrived home. Blue’s stomach sank at the thought of what he’d say about her and what they would decide to do.

‘Sit down, the dinner’ll be ready in a minute,’ said Mrs Mooney as she set out three place mats, and knives and forks, and Jimmy buried himself in the sports results in the evening newspaper.

The shepherd’s pie was delicious, full of meat and gravy and creamy potato on top. Blue ate it as slowly as she could, to savour every minute of sitting around the table with them while Jimmy told them about the tourist who left one of his bags in the car and gave him an extra big tip for returning it to his hotel and Mrs Mooney praised Blue’s card-playing abilities.

‘Still raining outside?’ asked Mrs Mooney.

‘Hasn’t let up all day.’

‘’Tis an awful night to be going back out in the rain and dark with the child. Maybe it would be best to let her sleep in the small room, just for the night, what d’ye think?’

Blue held her breath, waiting for his answer.

Jimmy Mooney hesitated, torn between doing what his heart
told him and getting into trouble with the law.

‘All right, Ma, she can stay the night but I’ll have to take her back first thing in the morning after breakfast. We’ll be in terrible trouble if I don’t.’

Blue jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him on his big red cheek.

Mrs Mooney came up to check on her after she had settled in the comfy bed. The kind old woman brought her a glass of warm milk and a digestive biscuit. Blue lay, snuggled up under a layer of heavy woollen blankets and a feather quilt with three squashy pillows behind her head. She wore an old floral-patterned nightdress Mrs Mooney had given her and she had a warm hot-water bottle to cuddle up to as she gazed at the rosebud-patterned wallpaper and the gaily striped curtains, with the rain lashing down outside. She could hear from downstairs the sing-song voices of mother and son talking late into the night. She concentrated on every moment of warmth and comfort, so she could call it up in her imagination in the future. This was one time when there was no need to imagine herself in another place. Instead, she pretended that this was
her
room and this was
her
home.

Jimmy Mooney was quiet the next morning and Blue couldn’t help but be nervous as she ate the creamy porridge and slice of brown bread for breakfast. Her own clothes and shoes were dry again.

‘You’ll come back soon to visit us, love,’ said Nance Mooney kindly.

Blue nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She noticed that
Jimmy had put on a clean shirt and tie and combed hair oil through his few strands of dark hair. Eventually he led her out to the narrow street of identical red-brick, terraced homes where his shiny black taxi cab was parked.

‘You take care, love, and don’t mind what any of those old rips of nuns say to you,’ advised Nance Mooney. Blue flung herself into the broad arms, not wanting to leave.

‘Come on, we’ve got to go,’ urged Jimmy, and Blue sat into the front seat of the car beside him.

Blue was determined not to cry or beg or let herself down as she resigned herself to returning to the place where she had been raised. There would be no more running away. No more escapes. Larch Hill was the only home she had and it was high time she accepted it. The nuns would kill her. They would make an example of her in front of the other girls and Sister Regina would have a suitable punishment planned for her. She tried not to shake when she thought about it, not wanting the fear to engulf her. Instead she thought about Mary and Tommy and prayed that both of them were okay.

Jimmy coughed. ‘You understand, Blue, that Mammy and I wouldn’t be suitable candidates to raise a child or foster one. Mammy’s too old and I’m on my own since Sheila left me.’

‘It’s all right,’ she sighed. ‘I understand.’

‘I already have a child, a little boy, Danny. He’s almost six and I never get to see him.’

‘Thank you and Mrs Mooney for taking me in and looking after me.’

‘Will you be all right?’

She watched the buses and cars in front of them.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she lied. ‘Fine.’

The gates looked bigger, the wall even higher, as the car pulled up the driveway of Larch Hill. Mr Mooney came to a halt outside the front door. Blue swallowed hard as dread clenched her muscles. Jimmy, looking uncomfortable, opened the car door and walked with her up the steps to ring the bell. They heard distant footsteps on the tiled floor. Sister Agnes opened the door, her eyes widening when she saw Blue.

‘I found the child wandering along by the quays,’ offered Jimmy Mooney. ‘She was in a right state. Shock, I reckon.’

‘Thank you very much, sir, for returning Bernadette to us. We’ve been frantic with worry about her and had alerted the relevant authorities,’ said the nun. She smiled a false smile, her pale face taut with suppressed anger. ‘You can leave the child with me. I will bring her straight to our mother superior to tell her the good news that the child has been found safe and well. We are very grateful for your good deed. I will look after her now as you have already given up more than enough of your time to bring her here.’

‘What will happen her?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Happen?’ The nun looked perplexed. ‘Naturally, the child must learn that she cannot behave in such a fashion. Such things cannot be tolerated in a place like this. We have all the other children in our care to think of. She needs discipline and Sister Regina, our mother superior, will know what to do.’

Sister Agnes was trying to politely move the taxi driver out of
the hall towards the door and back out to his car.

‘If you’ll excuse me, Sister,’ his face had flushed red, the veins on his neck standing out above his shirt collar, ‘I would like to meet Sister Regina. I think it’s important that I talk to her myself.’

‘She is very busy at present,’ muttered the nun.

‘Then I’ll wait.’ He stepped past Sister Agnes and lowered himself into a high-backed mahogany chair. ‘I’m not leaving here till I speak to her.’

Sister Agnes was unable to disguise her annoyance.

‘That child doesn’t need punishing,’ he explained slowly. ‘I reckon she’s had punishment enough.’

‘Well, that is for us, her guardians, to decide,’ replied the nun coldly.

‘I wouldn’t like to hear that one hair on the girl’s head had been harmed, or that a finger had been laid on her,’ the man said obstinately.

Sister Agnes moved her lips and face, but no words came out.

‘Bernadette, go upstairs immediately and wait in your room,’ she said eventually. ‘I will tend to you in time, so stay there, do you hear?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Blue threw a grateful glance at Jimmy Mooney, who, despite his discomfort, looked like he was prepared to sit for hours if he had to.

‘You take care of yourself, Blue,’ he called as she began to walk up the stairs.