About Matilda (2 page)

Schoolgirls? Daddy throws his head back and laughs out loud. Grandad laughs too and spews tea from his mouth down the front of his jumper. And that's the last sound I hear. In front of the fire, I fall asleep.

I wake in the dark and there's a sour smell of feet. My teeth clatter so loud, I hear them. I'm in a big soft bed with my brothers and sisters. I'm squashed between Mona and Pippa with my koala on my chest. They're asleep. Sheamie and Danny are at the bottom and Sheamie's toes are in our faces. I'd push them away if I weren't so tired.

There's the clink of a light switch. I see the shape of a door and Nanny coming into the room with the light of the landing
behind her. I try not to make any noise but my teeth won't stop their clattering like a ruler on railings.

Nanny is bending over me whispering my name. She tells me she just came to check and why aren't I asleep. I tell her my teeth woke me up and she tells me it's the cold. She moves away and I hear the squeak of a wardrobe door and metal coat hangers slide.

She comes back carrying a long green coat with gold buttons that twinkle in the landing light. As she bends over, spreading it upon me, she whispers, This was Grandad's coat when he sailed the world in the Merchant Navy and it kept him warm many a cold night at sea, so it did. The coat has a strange smell which gets stronger when she takes little white balls from the pockets and holds them in her hand. I ask, Is the smell from the sea and countries all over the world, Nanny? and she says I'm an awful blaggard to be coddin' her like that. She kisses my forehead and it's lovely the way I can feel her warm lips there even after she is gone and the bedroom door closed and the landing light turned out.

In the morning Nanny sends us out to play. But not the front. She says the road is dangerous with motorcars and we wouldn't be used to that after a year in an orphanage. The back garden is far enough for now. And no climbing, she says.

In the garden, there's a black wooden shed that's falling down. In the middle is a long narrow path that we run up and down in our black duffle coats to keep warm, wondering why Nanny lives in a place with no sun. A place where in winter, my Daddy always told us, everything is cold and hard and damp. My Daddy is no fool.

Sheamie wants to climb to the shed roof and we tell him Nanny said no. He stands there looking up at the shed and he looks funny in the long pants the nuns bought him before we
left Australia. Pippa knows Sheamie's going to climb anyway so she stays near the back door keeping watch on Sheamie out the corner of one blue eye and shaking her head wondering what he's going to break this time.

Sheamie has long skinny arms and can easily reach the top of the plain wood fence that runs down the side of the garden. He pulls himself to the top by putting his feet in the cracks in the boards, stands on the top rail with his arms out from his sides and walks along like he's walking a tightrope. Pippa turns her face away because if she doesn't see him fall then it's not her fault and she can't get blamed. I want to climb too but Mona scrunches her freckles at me. She's the oldest. Daddy says she's in charge.

You let Sheamie climb.

He's a boy. He can do what he likes.

Sheamie straightens his glasses and calls to us that he can see a river. He thinks there's a bridge across it but he's not sure 'cos he can only see one end. There's a hill in the distance, he says, and paddocks with pylons and cows in them. Then he moves along the top of the fence putting one foot in front of the other, heel to toe. He wobbles a bit. I'm certain he's going to fall but he keeps going till he's close enough to the shed to step onto the roof.

There's an empty metal bucket by the door and I carry it to the fence, turn it upside down and stand on it. My eyes are in line with the top of the fence. There's a cold wind in my eyes that stings and makes me blink. Sheamie is now lying on the roof shooting the cows with a pretend rifle, shouting Bang! every time his finger pulls the trigger. The soles of his shoes are caked with wet clay and the hood of his duffle coat is pulled down so you can see his red hair. Pippa is still at the back door shaking her blonde fringe at Sheamie. Pippa thinks pretending is stupid. You either have a gun or you don't.

The shed doesn't look dangerous and Mona has gone inside with Danny because it's warmer. The bucket makes me high enough to drag myself to the top of the fence the way Sheamie did, and I sit on it like you'd sit on a horse. I slide my bottom towards the shed and soon I'm lying on it myself, seeing the pylons like tall iron men carrying wires on their shoulders across the paddocks. I try to stand up straight but I'm scared. The shed roof has a small slope and is slippery with white stuff. Now Danny is trying to climb the fence too.

He still has all his baby teeth like white needles in his gums. He can't quite manage the climb, so he runs to the other side of the garden with his chubby little legs red from the cold and turns and runs at the fence with his head down and bumps straight into it and falls on his bum. Mona runs from the shed and catches his hand. She tells me to get down. But I can't. I'm stuck.

Danny pulls away from Mona and runs at the fence and bangs his head again.

Sheamie turns around and sits up. He tells me, Just walk slowly, don't straighten up yet, Matilda.

I feel dizzy. I see the clouds moving across Sheamie's thick glasses. I reach for Sheamie, who's sliding towards me on his bum with his hand out. I feel his icy fingertips but before he catches my hand properly I slip and bounce on the footpath beside Mona.

I stand up quick. I don't want to be in trouble. I don't feel pain until Mona pinches my leg.

You were told not to climb.

Danny points at my leg, Look, ‘Tilda. He covers his hand with his mouth and says, Bud!

There's blood spouting from my knee. I want my Mum.

I run down the path and in the back door. Nanny is drinking tea at the kitchen table and I run to her.

She jumps up, Jesus, Mary and holy St Joseph!

Mona runs in the back door with Pippa behind her. Pippa yells, She fell off the roof. She fell off the roof.

Nanny fixes her old grey eyes on Pippa. Did you see her climb?

No, Nanny.

Mona says, I told Matilda not to climb.

My leg is cold but the blood is wet and warm and running into my sock and making it squishy.

Nanny rinses a cloth under the tap and holds it to my knee and tells Mona to go upstairs for Grandad. That knee needs stitches.

Daddy comes from the sitting room. He doesn't say anything, just pulls on an overcoat that's hanging on the back of one of the chairs and lifts me in his arms.

I grab hold of his neck and he runs with me out the front door and through the streets. People stop and ask, What's the matter? Daddy rushes past. He tells me I'm a brave girl for not crying. The wind is bitter and I shelter my face in his neck where it's warm and smells of cod liver oil.

At the top of a hill there's a building with tall windows. The corridor is full. There are people on crutches, in wheelchairs, lying on trolleys complaining they'd be better off at home with a glass of water and an aspirin for all the attention they get. But I'm the only one with blood, the only one in her Daddy's arms. He holds me high for all the world to see.

A nurse in a blue veil hurries from behind a desk. She has a fluffy moustache and smells of medicine. She pulls at my knee and I pull my leg away. She says it's nothing a few stitches won't fix. There might be a scar but that can't be helped. Sit and wait.

Daddy pushes her aside, kicks the door open and sends the empty trolley behind it crashing off the wall. Nurses rush from
behind bed curtains and patients sit up in their beds. Daddy lays me on an empty bed. Don't move, Matilda, I'll be straight back.

He pulls the white curtain around me and comes back with a man wearing a white coat. The nurse in the blue veil rushes in and tells Daddy he'll have to wait in the queue. Do you hear me?

Daddy keeps his back to her and tells the man in the white coat we arrived from Australia yesterday, and about Mona, Sheamie, Pippa and Danny back in Nanny's. About our mother walking out, about us spending a year in the orphanage and how I'm worn out from three days travelling on planes and trains and he won't have his daughter sitting in a queue. She's been through enough.

The man has a kind face. He smiles at me and tells me I'm a lucky girl to have a Daddy that cares.

The nurse complains to the man in the white coat. We can't have people jumping queues, Doctor. They must wait their turn.

We can make an exception, Sister. Disinfect that child's knee. Give her a tetanus injection. I'll be right back.

Daddy holds my hand when the nurse puts the needle in my bum and, even though the needle is sharp and makes my leg stiff, I don't cry. And I don't cry when the man puts stitches in my knee with a needle and thread and wraps it in a bandage the same colour as my leg. He says I'm a great girl. They must make them tough in Australia. He hands me a lollipop from a glass jar on the windowsill and tells Daddy I'm young, there won't be a scar.

Grandad is waiting outside in the car in his slippers, but slippers or no slippers, he needs a pint after this. What would you think yourself, Peter?

Daddy says he hardly drinks anymore. Yesterday was the
first pint he had in years. Australia isn't like Ireland with a pub on every corner.

No pints? Is it jokin' me yeh are? By Jesus, I'm after hearin' everything now.

A few days later Nanny is sitting at the kitchen table with big tears on her chin that she wipes away with her small white hands. Daddy bends down to kiss her forehead and she hugs him before saying, I'll offer a novena that you uncover some news.

We all go out to the garden. The clouds hurry by and a crow squawks away from the front gate and sails down Gracedieu Road and over the red-brick chimney of a factory at the bottom of the street. Nanny tries to smile as she wraps a scarf around Daddy's neck and tells him to keep himself covered. The Irish Sea is a rough place in January.

Daddy's friend, who he calls Umbilical Bill, has got him a lift to England on a cattle boat. He's going to see our Mum's brother, the bishop, and his own brother James, who's a millionaire. He says he'll let no stone unturned to find our mother. I want to ask Nanny why would Mum be under a stone but she'd probably tell me I'm an awful blaggard to be coddin' her like that.

Daddy kisses us goodbye at the gate and tells us not to cry. He hoists his green canvas bag to his shoulder and tells us to be good for our Nanny.

I watch him step out onto the footpath and down the street. I start to run after him and get the gate open but Nanny chases and clutches my arm. I try to pull away. I scream out, Daddy, come back. But he's too far away.

Nanny says, Shush, he'll be back. Your father won't leave you.

Our Mummy did.

Don't worry about your Daddy, Matilda. Your Daddy had no choice but to put you into that place when your mother left. The man had to work. He had to search for your mother. Your Daddy loves all of you very much.

Nanny's fingers are soft and warm and calm me. I stop wriggling and she strokes my neck with her fingers.

Pippa is at the gate, her bottom lip sticks out and there are tears in her blue eyes and I know Pippa doesn't believe Nanny either when she says, Your father will be back. I lean my head against the top of Nanny's leg where it's soft and say a prayer that Daddy will come back with Mum so I can tell her I'm sorry. She left because I done something wrong even though I don't know what. Daddy has to find her so I can tell her I love her and ask if she'll come home to us again. I'll say my prayers and I'll be good and do what I'm told. We all will. It will be a new start. We'll be happy and forget everything bad that happened. Maybe she'll come tomorrow.

Grandad lifts Danny into his arms and Danny waves after Daddy, even though we can't see Daddy anymore. Sheamie wanders out into the street with his hands in his pockets. Nanny calls him back but Sheamie keeps walking.

Mona says, Don't mind him, Nanny. No matter where Sheamie is he wants to be someplace else.

Nanny says, The poor little boy. He misses his mother.

Grandad likes to sit in his car with an oily rag in his hand listening to the radio. When he does come in, he sits in his chair with the hollow and drinks stout from small fat bottles and wonders when dinner will be ready.

It will be ready when it's ready!

Nanny has two voices. The one that never stops talking and the one that barks and makes us hop. Even Grandad hops. He loves Friday nights when the greyhound races come on television. Other than that, he says he wouldn't have television in the house.

Nanny says, That television is going nowhere till she sees what happens to Dr Richard Kimble chasing the one-armed man all over America and running from that awful Inspector Gerard. And what would I do without
The Riordans
?

Couldn't yeh do what yeh always done, Annie?

Put them thoughts out of your head and don't talk like that in front of the children.

I meant the novena.

I know what you meant, all right.

I never know what they're arguing about, but Nanny always wins.

Friday nights, when Uncle Philip goes to the Savoy cinema with his girlfriend Rita, Nanny sends me into the shop for a big bottle of orange and some packets of crisps. Quick, she says, they're starting. She brings Grandad his bottle of stout and sets it beside his ankle.

Batten down the hatches, Annie, says Grandad, and pours his stout into a tall glass.

Nanny tells Sheamie to get the bucket of coal from the yard. Pippa, turn off the sitting-room light. Mona, turn off the kitchen light. Nanny goes out to the hallway herself and takes the key out of the front door and stuffs a sock in the back of the letterbox to keep out the draught. She closes the sitting-room door behind her and sits in the armchair in front of the fire and tells us if we hear a knock, don't answer. They can come back tomorrow. She takes the plastic moneybag from her apron pocket and divides the pennies between us as we take our places on the red rug. Nanny says there're six greyhounds in each race. Everyone pick a dog and put a penny on it to win. Grandad says, Sure, I'll pick an aul dog meself, but Nanny says there're not enough dogs, because there're five of us children and her and only six dogs in each race. Help Danny pick one.