About Matilda (19 page)

I only want a pair of runners, Mother.

Have I ever told you the story of Jesse Owens, Matilda?

Never heard of him.

She stares so long over the sad-eyed puppies I have to turn my eyes away.

Glass, Matilda?

Yes, Mother.

Waterford Glass?

Of course, Mother.

Perhaps we can do something for you so.

Gabriel brings me upstairs to the big shoe closet in the corridor, the shelves stuffed with every size five shoe, sandal, runner and boot that ever passed through the Holy Shepherd. She holds the door open with one hand and holds on to the chocolates with sad-eyed puppies with the other hand and I ask her, Mother, how come you never come to see me race?

Why, you never asked, Matilda.

I'm not supposed to ask, Mother. You're supposed to just come.

Gabriel smiles down at me like I'm a great girl altogether and says she'll come on Sunday, but that only torments me because now I don't know if she's coming to see me run or because I tormented her. Still, she's coming, that's the main thing.

On your own now, Mother. You can't bring the kids.

You know I couldn't go without them, especially the younger ones.

I know she's right. They'd say I was her favourite and she loves me more than them. But, if she brings them, they'll make a holy show of me tearing around the park, like lunatics on an outing from the asylum. It's better if I go on my own,
so I tell her, It's all right, Mother. You don't have to come. But she won't hear a bar of it.

No, Matilda. You're right.

No I'm not.

Of course you are.

I'm not. Honest I'm not. I'd know if I was.

I should have gone to see you run a long time ago. I just never realized it was this important to you.

It isn't, Mother. Honest. Well, it is but it isn't. Do you know what I mean?

Of course it is important, Matilda. I insist on going. I'm looking forward to it already.

No, Mother, please, please, they'll make a show of me.

Gabriel's red eyes roll under her eyelids as if she's picturing sixty Sheps going berserk in a park.

Will we leave it so, Matilda?

We will, Mother.

Now, about those runners.

One look in the closet is enough.

I'll keep the ones I have, Mother.

Are you certain?

I'm positive.

Gabriel closes the cupboard and I head down the stairs before she changes her mind. I can't steal new runners. I would if I could but the shoe shop only put one of each pair on the stand outside the door and I'd look a right gawk wearing one new runner. I could steal new shoelaces though. White bulky ones would cover the top and if I put whitening on them before I leave Sunday morning they might look new.

The fat manager in Grace's supermarket knows I'm in here every chance I get stealing right and left with Lucy but today I have Danny with me. I started him stealing in small shops, the stupid ones that keep the sweets and biscuits on our side of
the counter. He wants a T-shirt with the Bay City Rollers on the front so I tell him what to do and send him upstairs to where the clothes are. And for Jesus' sake, Danny, don't get caught.

The fat manager is parading up and down the aisle in his blue suit pretending not to notice me. I have a penny in my pocket just in case he checks. Now he's lurking around the washing powder. He knows I don't steal washing powder and he's trying to look like he's not watching me, so to torment him I stand beside him. I pick up a box of Persil and read the instructions. I compare prices with other brands and make tut-tut sounds with my tongue as if his prices are a disgrace and he should be reported to the proper authorities. To torment him even more I stroll towards the sweet counter. I can feel his fat head lifting and his eyes bulging at either the cheek or the stupidity of me stealing from under his nose, then just as I get to the sweet counter I turn away and head upstairs to Danny with the shoelaces already in my pocket.

Danny is in the changing room doing what I told him. Put the T-shirt on under your own shirt. Button your collar and walk out.

We're heading for the front door and I tell Danny, Don't run and don't look back. I want to look back myself and see how close the manager is. I'm not even sure he's following but it's great to think he is and my gut ripples wondering what's coming first, the door or his hand on my shoulder. A woman wearing a scarf pushes a shopping trolley overflowing with bread, cereals, apples, oranges, onions, milk and sugar in our way and we have to stop. I nudge Danny to stop biting his lip, then bite my own to keep the smile from my face at the beads of sweat pouring down Danny's cheeks. I thought he was scared but he's not. He's just trying to keep himself from laughing. The woman moves just enough for us to squeeze between her trolley and the wall and we're at the
Savoy cinema before we look back. There's a queue forming for
The Exorcist
, their faces as white as handkerchiefs before they even get to the woman in the ticket office. Some change their minds and run the other way. I hear a woman throwing her guts up in the lane around the corner and I'm not too happy here myself. The fat manager is at the supermarket door scratching the back of his skull and Danny and me scatter back to the convent before he figures out what we've done.

Sunday morning there's frost on the window panes but by afternoon the winter sun is shining and the People's Park is thronged. Everyone's mother, father, uncles, aunts and cousins are here. Mothers with children in prams and daddies with little girls on their shoulders buy chips and sausages from the vans that came for the day and a man with a blue loudspeaker stands on a platform behind the table with the Waterford Glass.

The narrow racetrack is marked with thick blue ropes tied to trees and wooden stakes and runs right around the park. The track starts at the water fountain then goes past the rusty iron bridge that leads to the old courthouse with its crumbling steps and pillars, then on past the cycle track, past the bandstand and back again to the fountain. While I'm waiting for my race, I stand by the finish line in my red tracksuit watching the others. The crowds line the blue ropes and call out, Come on, Mary, Come on, Patricia, Come on, Louise, Come on, Katherine. I listen to the families calling out the names. I hear how excited they are, whether their children are first or last doesn't matter. They cheer. I'm sorry now I didn't let Gabriel come. There're hundreds here and nobody would have noticed the convent kids.

The man with the blue loudspeaker calls my name. I hand my tracksuit to Sonny and line up with the other girls and wait for the starting pistol. It goes off like a cannon gun and I
break out in goose pimples. It's five times around the park but after the first lap I know I could run around it a hundred times and start all over. I hear the families screaming out, Come on Patricia, Come on Mary, you're going great, but I'm running so fast to bring the Waterford Glass to Gabriel for my hug I'm winning by half a lap. I see the finish line ahead and I wonder why everyone is still shouting for Mary and Katherine and Louise. I hear the names going around in my head. Mary, Katherine, Louise, Patricia, and every girl's name I ever heard. No one calls for Matilda. No one shouts, Come on, Matilda. I hear in their voices how much their families care about them and I know no one cares about me. No one cares if I win or lose or never came here at all. And I know I shouldn't be here winning their race from their children and spoiling their day. All they'll say is, That young one from the Holy Shepherd won, and they'll laugh at me and say look at her coddin' herself with her stolen white shoelaces pretending she has new runners. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't belong.

I stop. I just stop and walk away and nobody notices. I bend under the blue ropes and run away and sit behind a tree and cry and wish I was never born. Why did I come? Why was I this stupid? I just want to go home to the convent and never see or hear anyone again in my life.

Matilda!

It's Sonny, and he looks disappointed.

Leave me alone, Sonny. Just let me be.

Why, Matilda? You had it won.

I don't care.

What's the matter? Tell me.

Sonny takes his cap off and kneels on one knee beside me. You're not a quitter, Matilda. Tell me what the matter is.

Nothing, Sonny. I'm just not feeling well, that's all. I want to go home. Will you bring me home?

I like the runners, Matilda. Are they new?

I cleaned them, Sonny.

Jasus, Matilda, they look new.

I feel my tears stopping and a smile coming to my lips and I don't know why.

Sonny stands up and offers me his hand and, when I stand, he puts his arm around my shoulder. I want to pull away but I'd never pull away from Sonny. His fingers are warm when he catches my hand and brings me to a shorter track by the bandstand where girls are lining up for the 100 yards, and he tells me he wants me to run in this race, he'll arrange it.

I can't run short races, Sonny. You know I can't. Just let me go home, please.

On course you can. You're a fighter. You mightn't have much, Matilda, but you have what matters. You've a great heart. Come on, run this race.

Honest, Sonny, I'd rather go home.

Then do it for me. Will you do that, do it for me?

I don't have the heart to refuse Sonny when he's so good to us, so I take a deep breath and tell him I will. Sonny says, I'm going to stand at the finish line and I want you to look straight ahead. Look at me, Matilda. Don't look at anything else, only me.

I won't, Sonny.

Good girl, now dry your eyes.

I dry my eyes and cheeks with my thumbs and line up beside the other girls. Sonny throws his overcoat on the grass and rolls up the sleeves of his white shirt and stands at the finish line bent over with his hands on his knees and when the starting pistol fires, he shouts, Come on, Matilda, come on. I feel my legs stretch from my hips like they never stretched before and I see Sonny getting closer and closer, bigger and bigger, louder and louder, Come on, Matilda, come on, his
arms waving faster and faster, Sonny getting closer and closer till he catches me and I knock him back on his arse I'm running so fast.

Oh, God, oh, Sonny. Are you all right, Sonny? Can you get up?

Sonny is flat on his back with his legs in the air. He pokes his head between his knees and tells me, Don't ever do what you done back there again, promise me now.

I won't, Sonny. I'm sorry.

Good girl. Now, give me a hand up.

I offer Sonny my hand and wonder how he knew what was wrong with me.

I'm too excited to wait for a lift home in the bus so I walk the road from the park with the box of glass pressed against my heart. I turn up the Mall, past the wheelchair ramps of the Mad School, past the ringing bells of St John's Church, and the brown railings of the boys' school on the Manor. My feet are bursting to run with every step but I walk so I won't drop the Waterford Glass.

The convent playground is empty and the only sound is from Mickey Driscoll down under the chestnut trees beating a builder's barrel with the handle of a sweeping brush.

Gabriel is sitting at the kitchen table. She lifts her eyes from her prayer book when I burst in beaming and breathless.

I won, Mother.

There you are, now. You didn't need me after all.

These are for you, Mother.

I hand her my prize and wait for my hug. Gabriel slips the prayer book into her pocket and goes to the drawer for a knife to cut the string and when she opens the box there's that little smile for me like I'm a great girl altogether.

Wine glasses, she says, how appropriate, Matilda.

She lifts one of the wine glasses to the window. It sparkles
in the sunlight and golden light streaks the room and, when she taps it with her finger, it tinkles like a small brass bell so she knows how good they are.

What about my hug?

There's only the two of us. Nobody would know. Nobody would be jealous. I'd sit on her lap even though I'm too big for sitting on laps, but I'd do it, I would. I wouldn't feel stupid or anything. I'd sit there on her big black lap and feel my forehead against her warm cheek and her arms around me. I'd carry it with me always. It would be our secret. Mine and Gabriel's for ever. And whenever I needed a hug I'd think of it and never need another hug again.

Gabriel leaves the glass back in the box and closes the lid.

We'll keep these for special visitors, Matilda, and won't they be only lovely to have?

What about my hug? She's waiting, that's all. She really wants to give me a hug. She's just not certain of what I'll do when she does. She'll lock the wine glasses away then check we're alone. She wouldn't want anyone to walk in on us.

Gabriel kneels down to lock the glasses in the sideboard under Billy the goldfish, where I know they'll never see light again but that doesn't matter. I won them. I won them for Gabriel.

Gabriel walks to the door and looks outside to the playground. I'm standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway trying to look as if a hug is the last thing on my mind, which is hard when it's the only thing on my mind. Gabriel walks back in and gives me that little smile as if I'm a great girl altogether and I hate it when she does that. She says, I must see Reverend Mother about next week's retreat, Matilda. I'll be back later.

I'm not getting my hug and I feel a fool. I don't even know why I wanted one now. I just did that's all.

Mickey Driscoll is fifteen. He's all shoulders and no neck, like his head's been battered into his body with a frying pan. He has ears like jug handles and his face is covered in greasy spots. Mickey heard about Lucy and me stealing and he wants in. I'm sitting in the green sheds with Lucy and here comes Mickey bopping over like Garry Glitter.

You two wanna be in my gang?