Amelia (9 page)

O
ne afternoon, there was no sign of Mama when Amelia came home from school. This was not unusual. If she got time, Mama often slipped out in the afternoon and went to a meeting or a rally in town. She was usually home by five or so. When Mama hadn't turned up by half past five, Amelia bustled into the kitchen and looked for an apron to cover her school smock with. She found one Mama had stitched out of old flourbags, tied it around her body and set to getting the family's evening meal ready.

Separate supper for the grown-ups had been done away with long ago, and no-one had proper tea any more. Everyone helped themselves to a cup from the
teapot
on the little low range when they came in, and cut themselves a slice of bread, if there was any, and whoever happened to be around took a cup to Grandmama, who sat in the tiny front parlour most of the day. And then they all had a hot meal at about seven. Sometimes there was bacon or kippers or stew with a lot of onions and a little meat. Occasionally there was a nice lentil or split-pea soup, if there had been bacon earlier in the week and Mama had remembered to save the bone for stock.
Sometimes
there was only potatoes and cabbage. One awful Friday, when Papa had dropped into the pub and
forgotten to come home, there had been only porridge.

Amelia first put on the kettle to boil and then she took a coarse basket from under the sink and went out to the shed, where a sack of potatoes leant darkly against a corner. She fished out the heavy, earthy vegetables one by one, counting under her breath as she filled her basket. They were cold and crumbly to the touch and mouldy to the nose. Amelia didn't like the smell of earth and sacking, but she knew the
potatoes
underneath would be clean and fresh. Even though there was no meat today, Amelia was determined to make a tasty meal. She knew there was a nice half-pound of butter keeping cool in the safe in a sunless corner of the yard, and with a pinch of salt and a lump of that good yellow butter, the potatoes would be delicious, washed down with some milk. Was there enough milk, she wondered, or would she have to water it a bit to stretch it? She was becoming quite the little housekeeper.

As Amelia scrubbed away, trying not to notice how black her fingernails were getting from the spuds, Mama whirled in, hot and breathless, her cheeks on fire and her hair
coming
down on one side as usual. She threw herself into a kitchen chair and gasped for breath. She'd clearly been
running
. She must have realised she was late.

‘You are a darling child, Amelia,' she said when she got her breath back.

Yes, thought Amelia proudly, I am rather, aren't I? Well, she was a good cook, and what was more she was a willing cook, and she did get on with what had to be done without even being asked.

‘Did you remember to fill the kettle first, though?' Mama went on.

‘Yes, Mama,' said Amelia.

Mama was terribly keen to show off how good she was in the kitchen. Only last week she had worked out that it saved
time if you put on the water for the potatoes first, before you scrubbed them. That way the water boiled as you scrubbed, and you didn't have to sit around waiting for it. She had pointed this out to Amelia as if it were a revolutionary idea. Amelia very kindly didn't say that this was perfectly obvious to any but the most incompetent person.

Mama eased off her boots and reached under the chair to where she kept an old pair of indoor shoes, shabby and shapeless and quite disgraceful to look at, but very comfortable.

‘Have you been to a meeting, Mama?' asked Amelia, tilting the great iron kettle to fill a saucepan for the potatoes.

‘How did you guess?' Mama looked genuinely surprised.

‘Oh, it's the particular way your hair hangs down when you get excited. Was it exciting?'

‘Well,' said Mama, drawing on her indoor shoes, ‘it was certainly invigorating. I'm afraid I made a speech, dear.'

‘On the rights of women, I suppose,' said Amelia, with a resigned air. She tolerated Mama's feminist views, but she found it all very dreary.

‘No,' said Mama, and paused. ‘No. This speech was on the rights of all human beings. It was on the right to stay alive, as a matter of fact. You know the Countess Constance
Markievicz
?'

‘Oh yes. The one with the soup-kitchen and the army of little boys. The one that dressmaker disapproved of, the day I went to have my dress fitted. Do you remember my green silk?' Amelia's voice took on a dreamy tone. She almost over-filled the potato pot.

‘Well, she and a group of other women have got together to form a women's society. Cumann na mBan they call it. That means the company of women. Isn't that a
fine-sounding
name?'

Amelia didn't think so. She thought it sounded deadly
dull, a lot of earnest women in serge skirts and horn-rimmed spectacles smelling not quite fresh and dainty, endlessly
talking
, so she didn't say anything.

‘I wanted to see Constance again. I hadn't spoken to her since we worked together at Liberty Hall during the lock-out, feeding the men who were out of work and their families. And I thought this Cumann na mBan business might be
interesting
. I mean, I knew it was for Nationalist women, but I thought that as women, they might bring a fresh way of thinking to the whole Nationalist issue.'

‘What do you mean, a fresh way of thinking?' Mama said the oddest things sometimes, Amelia thought.

But Mama wasn't listening. She was bursting to tell her daughter about the meeting.

‘But oh, Amelia!' she exclaimed. ‘They want to make
soldiers
of themselves! To fight the British.'

This was a strange idea. Women soldiers. Amelia tried to imagine battalions of women, marching in battle dress,
carrying
guns, but she couldn't.

‘That is not what women should be doing.' Mama was thumping the table and speaking in a loud, rousing voice, as if she were addressing a meeting, not her own daughter in her own kitchen. ‘Women should be trying to persuade their men-folk not to go to war, not encouraging them in their daft and bloody ideals.'

‘Mary Ann says that Ireland unfree will never be at peace,' Amelia said, suddenly making a link between what Mama was saying and her old friend. Mary Ann was always going on about the Nationalist cause and making veiled remarks about guns and fighting.

Mama didn't seem to notice how Amelia had slipped Mary Ann's name into the conversation.

‘I am as anxious to see Ireland free as the next person,' she went on, still addressing an imaginary audience. ‘But this
isn't the time to start a revolution. And anyway, I shall never believe that you achieve peace through violence.'

At this point, Mama smacked her boot, which she was still holding in one hand, smartly down on the table top. Her eyes were shining and her lock of escaped hair had slapped itself across her face and plastered itself over her mouth, so that she looked as if she had been gagged. ‘Eugh!' she exclaimed, poking hair out her mouth.

Amelia was at a bit of a loss. She wasn't entirely clear what Mama was on about. So she asked what seemed to her the obvious question: ‘Did you speak to the Countess?'

‘No. She gave me a fiery look when I said my piece and she swept past me when she left.'

‘But you used to be friends, Mama.' Amelia felt strongly about friendship just now, and she couldn't keep a sad note out of her voice.

‘No. We were never that, Amelia. I admired her. I still do. Her work in the women's suffrage movement was wonderful in the old days. She has high ideals and she really cares. But she has some wild and dangerous ideas too, and I can't go along with her when it comes to guns and armies. We were comrades once, not friends. And my understanding of
comradeship
doesn't stretch to the military meaning of the word.'

‘Mama, do you think someone like Mary Ann might join an organisation like that comin' thing you were talking about?'

‘Mary Ann? I doubt it.' Mama didn't sound very interested. She suddenly looked very tired and worried, and she sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and asked: ‘Is there any tea in that pot, or is it stewed to gravy?'

Amelia had been half-hoping Mama might have met Mary Ann at the meeting, if it was one for women
interested
in the Nationalist cause. She knew Mary Ann held Nationalist views, but it had only been an off-chance that
Mama might have spotted her there.

How was she ever going to trace Mary Ann without asking Mama directly? And she didn't think she could do that. Look how Mama had brushed off her tentative enquiry. No. Mama didn't want to encourage Amelia to seek out Mary Ann. That much was clear.

A
melia had had a brilliant idea. The Shackletons were a rich family, she knew, with a big business in town. And they had a car and a reputation for being modern. With a little bit of luck, they would have a telephone. Not many people had telephones in their private houses. But an important
businessman
might have one.

Now, if they had a telephone, all Amelia had to do was find out the telephone number and ring them up and ask to speak to Mary Ann. What could be simpler? She gave herself a little hug when she thought of it.

But how did you find out somebody’s telephone number? It wouldn’t be in Thom’s Directory in the library. That was only for street addresses, as far as she knew. Was there some sort of an equivalent directory for telephone numbers,
Amelia
wondered? She wished they’d had a telephone in Kenilworth Square when they’d been rich, so that she would be
au fait
with how they worked. But Grandmama said
telephones
were instruments of the devil, invented to encourage idle chatter, and that if anyone needed to get a message to them in a hurry, they could send a telegram, as civilised
people
did. Besides, telegrams kept telegraph boys in employment, Grandmama reasoned. You mark her words, but if ever these telephone machines caught on good and
proper there’d be no more work for those lads.

That was all very well, but the upshot of it was that Amelia hadn’t the least idea how to use a telephone, or even how to find out a telephone number. Never mind, she would go to the General Post Office and someone there would be sure to be able to help her.

So one afternoon after school, instead of going home directly, she caught a tram at Portobello Bridge and made a little expedition into town. The tram followed the same route it had on that day she had gone to town with Mama for the silk for her party dress, the day Mama had given her her lucky sixpence. She had put the little silver coin away
carefully
that evening, thinking that since it was a special sixpence she had come by completely unexpectedly, she mustn’t spend it on peggy’s legs or toffee or aniseed balls or any of the usual things she spent her pennies on, but she must keep it for some day in the future, when she might have a particular use for it. As soon as Amelia thought of the plan of telephoning Mary Ann, she realised the day had come to spend her lucky sixpence. She wouldn’t have had the
tram-fare
otherwise, and she hadn’t time to walk all the way.

Amelia stepped down from the tram at the Pillar and tripped across the road to the
GPO
. It was a great imposing building, with pillars that went up and up, and revolving doors like glass capsules that trapped you inside, forced you around and spat you out the other side. Inside, it was all
marble
and mahogany and brass, and a hollow, echoing sound of people talking and cash boxes snapping shut. She joined a short queue at a grille that was manned by a youngish, friendly fellow, who looked as if he wouldn’t mind
explaining
about telephoning to a nervous girl. While she waited, Amelia admired the gleaming brass rods that separated the clerks from the public. Funny – a few weeks ago she would probably not even have seen the brass; but now she knew
just how much Brasso and elbow grease it took to keep brass bright and yellow like that, and suddenly she appreciated it.

The clerk looked up the telephone number for her. ‘
Shackleton
, Charles; Shackleton, Jonathan; Shackleton, William,’ he rattled off.

‘Oh dear,’ said Amelia. ‘I don’t know which one it is.’

‘You mean you don’t know who it is you want to ring up?’ asked the clerk in surprise.

‘Not really,’ admitted Amelia.

This seemed to amuse the clerk.

‘Perhaps it’s the father’s name you don’t know,’ he said waggishly. ‘Maybe it’s young Master Shackleton you’re
interested
in, is that right?’

‘Oh, is there a young Master Shackleton?’ said Amelia.

‘My, but you’re a cool one,’ said the clerk. ‘Look, give us a clue.’

Amelia was standing first on one foot and then on the other, as she did when she was agitated. She thought the clerk was trying to play some sort of little game with her, but she didn’t know the rules. She wished she did know, so she could make the right move next and get the information she needed.

‘What sort of a clue?’

‘Well, is it the Kingstown Shackletons you want, or the Rathfarnham Shackletons, or the Glasnevin Shackletons?’

‘Glasnevin! That’s it. Oh, thank you!’ Amelia beamed at the clerk.

He thought she was a funny sort of an elf to be out on her own looking for a telephone number, but he wrote it down for her, in pencil on a torn-off piece of newspaper.

‘What do I do now?’ she asked.

‘You ring them up,’ he said slowly.

‘Yes, but how?’

She really was a rum one, he thought. ‘Look, you take the
number to that lady over there. She’ll tell you what to do. Next!’ The last word was directed loudly and firmly over Amelia’s shoulder to the person behind her, who had been shuffling and sighing for some time.

Amelia stumbled across the great hall to the lady the clerk had pointed out.

‘I’d like to telephone this number, please,’ she said,
handing
over the scrap of paper.

‘Booth 5!’ said the lady telephonist loudly, to no-one in particular.

Amelia looked around her. There was nobody there but herself.

‘Booth 5?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

Amelia had no idea what she meant. She looked
enquiringly
at the telephonist, who pointed to a row of upright wooden coffins with windows, against a wall.

‘One of those?’ Amelia asked, her mouth dry.

‘Booth 5. You know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.’ The telephonist counted out the numbers on her fingers, as if Amelia were a foreigner or an idiot.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, and drifted off to booth 5.

She creaked the door open and went in. It was dark and stuffy inside and she couldn’t see a thing. Just then the door clicked shut behind her and an electric light came on, right above her head. Amelia gave a little scream. She had never seen an electric light bulb up close before – they’d had gas in the main rooms in Kenilworth Square, and they only had oil-lamps in Lombard Street – and she had no idea that an electric light switch could be wired up to a door, so it seemed to her as if the light had come on by supernatural means.

Luckily nobody heard her scream. It was only a little scream, and the door was stout, so she was insulated from the world outside. She peered out through the glass panels
and looked at the people going about their business, quite unaware that Amelia Pim was having a trying afternoon. This must be what it was like to be a goldfish, able to see the
outside
world, but able to hear it only in a muffled way. Just then there was a shrill ringing sound. Amelia almost jumped out of her skin. The high-pitched ring came again. She reached out for the telephone with a trembling hand. She thought
she
was going to ring
them
, so how was it that
they
were ringing
her
? Just as she was about to pick up the
ear-piece
the telephone gave another piercing squeal, as if it was impatient with her. She snatched the ear-piece from the hook and tried to reach the mouthpiece, but it was too high for her. She had to stand on tiptoe and shout into it.

‘Yes?’

‘Your call is through now, caller. Thank you.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Amelia loudly into the mouthpiece.

‘I beg your pardon?’ came a man’s voice. ‘This is the Shackleton residence. May I help you?’

‘Oh!’ said Amelia. ‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

‘Could I speak to Mary Ann, please.’

‘I’m afraid you must have a wrong connection. I’m so sorry. This is the Shackleton residence.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Amelia. ‘Does Mary Ann Maloney not work there?’

‘Maloney? The under-housemaid! Good heavens, we don’t take telephone calls for the servants!’

‘Please, don’t hang up.’ Amelia thought fast. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but you see I’m afraid it’s an emergency.’

‘Emergency? What sort of emergency can there possibly be that requires the tweeny to come to the telephone?’

‘It’s her mother,’ said Amelia quickly. ‘She’s very ill. She may not last the night. Please let me talk to her.’

‘Very well. You may have three minutes.’

It must be the butler, Amelia thought. Nobody else would be so pompous. A real gentleman would never refer to his own house as his ‘residence’.

‘Hello?’ Mary Ann’s voice sounded very tiny and wobbly.

‘It’s all right, Mary Ann. There’s nothing wrong with your mother. It’s me, Amelia.’

‘Amelia!’ Mary Ann’s voice still sounded wobbly.

‘Is that horrid butler listening?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary Ann.

‘Botheration! Now listen, I’ll do the talking in that case. You just say Yes and No. All right?’

‘Yes.’

‘I told him your mother was ill. Did he tell you that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry. She’s not. I just had to make that up to get him to let you come to the telephone. Oh, Mary Ann! I need to see you. I miss you. How are you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary Ann.

Amelia started to giggle. ‘Have you got time off on
Sunday
?’

‘No.’

‘Not even on Sundays!’

‘Yes,’ said Mary Ann.

This was getting very confusing.

Amelia had a brainwave. ‘You mean you have time off on some Sundays?’

‘Yes.’

‘But not this Sunday coming?’

‘No.’

‘The one after that then?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the afternoon?’ This was hard work!

‘Yes.’

‘Can you meet me somewhere?’

‘Yes.’

Bother and double-bother! How was Amelia ever going to make a complicated arrangement like this with someone who could only answer Yes or No?

‘He’s gone!’ Mary Ann’s voice came suddenly rapidly and more loudly. ‘Sunday week, two o’clock, outside the
Metropole
hotel. Goodbye.’

‘Mary Ann, where are … oh!’ There was only a buzzing sound from the instrument. Mary Ann had gone.

Amelia stood there for a moment, overcome by the
excitement
of it all. Then she hung the telephone receiver up on its little hook again, and pushed her way out of the telephone booth.

Well, that hadn’t been so bad. Now all she needed to do was to make sure she was at the hotel on Sunday week. She was sure she could manage that. She’d managed to make a telephone call all by herself, hadn’t she? She felt quite
satisfied
with herself as she crossed the marble floor again towards the revolving door.

‘Miss! Hey you! Miss!’

Amelia stopped in her tracks. Could they mean her? What had she done? She looked back to see the telephonist
waving
angrily at her.

‘You there! You didn’t pay for your telephone call!’

Amelia was mortified. People would think she was trying to cheat. She ran back to the counter, wishing the woman would stop shouting. Everyone was looking at her. That’s Amelia Pim, they were thinking. Trying to pull a fast one. I wouldn’t trust those Pims. They don’t pay their debts.

She was almost in tears when she reached the telephonist. ‘I’m so sorry! I’m most terribly sorry! I didn’t know.’

‘I suppose you thought telephone calls were free, gratis and for nothing? Courtesy of His Majesty’s Government?’

‘No. I just didn’t think.’

‘Didn’t think is no excuse. Think the next time, young missy. That’ll be a penny ha’penny, please.’

Amelia poked the coins out of her purse and fled from the GPO, swirling through the revolving doors and out with a clunk onto the pavement. She ran all the way to College Green, fleeing from the feeling of being watched and pointed at. At last she stopped to catch her breath. The streets were busy: men were shouting at horses and women were calling to children, hurrying them along, and trams were clanging by at a great rate. It was the end of the
working
day, and everyone was scurrying home to their tea. Nobody had time to stop and wonder about Amelia Pim. She slowed down to a walk. She might as well walk the rest of the way, as she had come so far, and save the rest of her money for another day.

What an adventure it had all been! But it had been worth it. She’d got to talk to Mary Ann. And now she had a meeting with her friend to look forward to.