About Matilda (20 page)

Your gang, Mickey? Go 'way and play with yourself.

Ah, come on. Meself and Sheamie started it. There're six of the boys in it but we needs girls as well. We have to have more boys than girls or it'll be a sissy gang and we'll all get kilt. This'll be a great gang, we have rules an everythin'.

Rules, Mickey?

You can't fight with anyone else in the gang unless they become traitors and skin to the nuns if we do anythin' wrong, which we will because there's no point having a gang if you don't. If someone in the gang is gettin' kilt you have to jump in to save them even if there's a hundred against you and you die tryin' to save your own. Oh, and we all have to dress the same.

How can we all dress the same, Mickey boy? We're in the convent, are yeh fuckin' stupid or what?

We're all to dress like Bay City Rollers and wear metal studs in the heels of our shoes. We'll have to rob the studs in Woolworth. The cheap ones with the spikes you stick in the heels of your shoes yourself, we can't afford the real ones in the cobblers yet. That's the boys' job. The nuns have rolls of tartan from the olden times up in the linen room and Gabriel
said to take all we need as long as we do the sewin' ourselves, only the boys can't sew. I wouldn't have them in the gang if they could. That's the girls' job.

We'd love to give Mickey a good kick in the arse for thinking girls can't steal and he only wants us for sewing but we decide to join and, like Mickey says, we can't fight with our own.

The linen room is in the attic at the top of a narrow stairway. It was used in the olden times for making costumes for the plays and Irish dancing when the girls who lived here were never let out. The grey donkey from the Christmas pantomime is looking lonely in the corner. Fairy godmothers and wicked witches face each other in centre of the room. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty lie asleep in the corner while the shelves on every wall are so high that polished wooden ladders slide where leprechauns, elves and hobgoblins hide. The room is bright from the two skylights and even though nobody comes in here much it still smells holy and clean.

Mona wants nothing to do with any gang. She has boyfriends to look after, thank-you-very-much. Pippa says we'll all get caught and end up in Cork, miles from everyone. It's just another one of Sheamie's stupid ideas. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm staying with Mona. It's safer.

Stay with your pal, Mona, then.

Ha, ha, very funny.

You asked for it.

Lucy and me spend days and nights cutting tartan into strips and sewing it on to the sides of everyone's jeans and the sleeves of jumpers and making scarves for our necks and wrists on the old black sewing machine with the push plate underneath, and I wonder what it was like to live here in the olden times when you were never let out, and I feel sad for all the girls who made tartan dresses back then for Irish dancing nobody came to see.

When we're done, Mickey says he should have wider stripes because he's the leader.

Fuck off, Mickey.

We sit in the green sheds and plan our attacks on Grace's supermarket. Sheamie is demented because Grace's have stopped sending us the white sliced bread and he's sick of the nuns' home-made bread. He doesn't care people come from miles to buy it. Sheamie says it's war. If we can't have the bread then nobody else can.

We steal all the sweets we can eat and crush whatever we can't carry so that it will end up in the convent. We stick our fingers through the wrapping on the white sliced bread so it can't be sold and ends up in the convent as well. We're doing so much damage the boys who collect the shopping trolleys tell us the manager is pure demented, tearing the place asunder for mice. He raves all day about mice.

Did you see mice, son?

No, sir.

Keep watching. They're everywhere.

But I'm not happy. What's the use of a manager who is too demented over mice to give you a decent chase and I'm sick of bread. If I eat any more I'll turn into a large sliced pan. This isn't why I joined the gang. We need money for Sheamie and we won't get it like this. I want something big.

Mickey Driscoll says, I have contacts, Matilda.

This gets Lucy excited and she dances round the shed.

Ah, fuck dat. I'm not shootin' anyone. Dat's too much now, Mickey.

Lucy, I said contacts. Not contracts.

Why don't yeh spake proply, den?

In a week Mickey tells us there's a job on. That's how Mickey talks because he watches too much television and that's what happens when you watch too much television. He
won't tell us what the job is because we're on a need-to-know basis.

There's a narrow lane at the back of Grace's supermarket where the delivery lorries park. There's the ruin of a castle with weeds growing through the floor. The lane is always quiet, maybe the odd old woman with a wicker shopping bag taking a short cut to town, or kids on the mooch hiding in the castle; but at four o'clock on a cold March morning there's just the ten of us dressed in tartan.

Sheamie tells us we have to wait here on the footpath. I don't ask why because I don't care as long as I get the five pounds Mickey said I'd be paid if we done our job properly and keep stum afterwards.

Keep stum. That's what Mickey calls keeping your mouth shut.

I see the headlights rounding the corner and the green truck pulls up beside us. I know the driver but there's no point running now; he's already seen Sheamie and me. It's our father's friend, Umbilical Bill, and he doesn't have his usual friendly face on. He doesn't even talk as he snaps the lock off the door of the delivery lorry with a crowbar.

I jump in the back with Danny and Lucy. It's dark but we manage to pass the cardboard boxes filled with cartons of cigarettes to the others outside, forming a line to the back doors of the green truck, and in under five minutes Bill is gone one way and we're gone the other way with five pounds each. None of us knows what to do with five pounds. Some of it has to be put away for Sheamie but there's loads left over. At this rate Sheamie will have his escape money in no time. Maybe I'll buy loafers like kids on the outside and get the cobbler to put metal tips in the heels. I'd like that and in a few weeks I'm certain I have enough.

The woman behind the counter in Mark's shoe shop looks
me up and down when I ask for size five loafers. They're nine pounds she says, as if all who ever belonged to me never had nine pounds between them.

Would you wrap them for me, please?

Passing the Apple Market, Umbilical Bill waves me over to his fruit stall. It's cold and Bill is flogging yellow T-shirts that say, Shit Happens, and you can see the tattoo on the back of his hand telling the world, I love Mum.

I like the Apple Market when my father's not around. You can buy anything here from a spanner to a carrot or the shirt off a trader's back. I've seen them do it. Take the shirt off and wave it in the air. I'm not asking five pounds. I'm not asking two. I'm not even asking one. I never know what they're asking, but it's great to watch.

Bill hands me a brown paper bag full of apples and whispers not to mention anything to my father about our, a, well about, you know.

What are you talking about?

He coughs and talks under his breath. About our little arrangement.

I won't, Bill.

Great stuff. There might be another job on this week.

I walk back to the convent with the bag of apples under one arm and the black loafers under the other and it's some comfort to know we're not the only ones worried over my father.

In the morning, the bed sheets are covered in blood and I don't know what to do. I search the other bedrooms for Pippa and Mona but there's no sign. I run downstairs but there's only Gabriel feeding Polly the budgie. She looks at me through the bars of the cage. Her bushy black eyebrows search me from head to toenails.

Bleeding, Matilda?

I'm goin' red, but I don't care. I turn my face away and point, Down there, mother.

Gabriel doesn't look surprised. Oh, you'd better come with me.

I wonder where she's bringing me. Father Devlin for confession? Reverend Mother? Jesus, am I in trouble?

Gabriel brings me upstairs and leaves me standing in the corridor when she goes into the bedroom Doyler uses on the nights Doyler sleeps over. Through the window I can see Pippa and Mona down by the chestnut trees with Sheamie. They're digging a hole to hide our money and I have to move to block Gabriel's view when she comes out with one hand behind her back. She closes the door behind her. She doesn't say a word when she hands me the blue plastic packet and walks away down the stairs.

What do I do with these? I'm left standing in the corridor under a picture of the Blessed Virgin. She's blue, I'm red and I wonder if she ever bled like this.

I run downstairs for Pippa. Grab her by the arm and pull her upstairs and tell her what's happened but she won't talk to me over what I done to her in Grace's supermarket. Shoved all the sweets in her hand and ran off. I thought she'd run too, but she stood there bawling like a baby. She bawled so much the fat manager took pity and let her keep the sweets anyway. Now I have to tell her I'm sorry before she'll take the sulky look off and talk to me.

That's your period, she says.

I know it's me fuckin' period. Do you think I'm stupid or something? I want to know more about it though.

I don't know much more. It's to do with eggs.

That's it. I'm not eatin' any more eggs.

Won't make no difference, Matilda. I never eat eggs and I still gets them.

You get periods?

Ages ago.

Does Mona get them?

Of course.

Some sister yee are, all pally-wally the two of yee with yeer periods. Don't tell me, whatever you do.

Nobody told me before I got them either, Matilda, so don't blame me.

I show her the blue plastic packet and ask her what to do?

Open it for a start.

I rip the packet open and inside there's cotton wool in a net bag with strings at the side. Pippa takes one, opens the strings out, and steps into it over her jeans like it's her knickers.

The strings go here and the pad covers your fanny.

I burst out laughing, but just the same I take off my jeans, put it on and get dressed again.

Ah, Jesus, look at the state of me, Pippa. It sticks out like a willy.

You have to wear a dress, Matilda.

I never wear a dress. How am I going to steal in a dress?

Pippa shrugs.

The bleeding lasts for days and then I'm free and in a few weeks there's almost a hundred pounds buried under the chestnut tree. Sheamie says he'll leave at the end of May, before our father turns up for summer.

This time I think I really do want Sheamie to leave. I know Pippa is probably right and it's all a stupid idea. Sheamie might never find our mother. But it's the only way I'll ever get out of the Mad School. It's the only thing that gives me hope.

My father's sister Aunt Margaret is coming from England to get married and the five of us are invited to the wedding. I don't know anyone in the convent who was at a wedding and I'm pure faintin'. Our cousin Jennifer is coming from London with her father, our Uncle James the millionaire, and her mother, Aunt Peg. Jennifer is the flower girl. I'd like to be a flower girl in a long pink dress and being brought to the hairdresser to have my hair done up in ringlets and the pink ribbons tied in properly. I dreamed about it last night. The altar overflowed with flowers and the sunlight through the windows turned the chapel into a sea of gold and when the organ played ‘Here Comes the Bride' the guests shuffled in the pews turning to look at Aunt Margaret in her wedding gown, all white and smiling, strolling down the aisle on Grandad's arm and me in front with my flower basket, everyone saying how pretty I looked and oh, my, Matilda's hair is only fabulous.

Saturday morning is so warm the tar on the road bubbles. Gabriel drops the five of us up to our grandmother's house in the mini-bus and there's a white Rolls-Royce decked in pink and ribbon parked outside. Another long white car is parked behind, with its windows dazzling in the sunshine. Nanny comes to the garden gate to thank Gabriel for bringing us up but I rush past her and straight through the hallway to the sitting room. Grandad is stretched back in his new green leather chair, which now has a new hollow. The horse racing is on television and there's a glass of stout in his hand and he'd sit there all day by the looks of him.

Well, Grandad, Pippa and me say.

Slow down there now, hold yeer horses the pair of yee. She's in the front room.

Any winners, Grandad?

He doesn't answer and that means he has. We stop running and sit on the new green sofa pushing and shoving each other to torment him.

Oh, here, here. He puts his hands in his trouser pocket and hands us a pound note each. Take that and hide it before anyone sees.

Thanks, Grandad.

We run back the way we came, passing Sheamie and Danny in the hallway.

Grandad has money, lads.

We burst into the front bedroom that smells of hairspray and fresh flowers and there's Aunt Margaret fixing her veil in the mirror. She's even prettier than in my dream. She says she can't remember when she saw us last and look how long your hair is. You were like two boys before.

The penguins don't cut it much anymore, says Pippa.

The women in the room laugh at the way we call the nuns penguins and Aunt Margaret says she's glad she's getting married before you two hit the town. There won't be a man safe. Come over here and give your aunt a hug.

We're careful not to crumple her veil and I'm delighted she even spoke to us with all the women here telling Margaret how stunning she looks. Mona follows us in and the three of us sit on the bed listening to the women from the street gabble on.