About Matilda (9 page)

Is he a real man, Daddy?

No, Matilda, he's made of metal.

Does he get cold?

He can't feel anything.

We walk along the prom in the salty air and I'm delighted with my new clothes and the sun on my face. Soon I'll be sunburned and nobody will know I'm a Shep. I step up onto the low wall and walk along it holding onto the railing. On the strand below us, people lie on beach towels and bake in the sun while kids in swimming togs make sandcastles with their plastic buckets and shovels. There's a man and little girl throwing a rubber ball for their small brown dog. The dog leaps and catches the ball in the air and brings it back and drops it at the girl's feet, barking at her to throw it again. It must be nice to have a small brown dog like that.

Daddy brings us to the skating rink and tells the man at the
gate we're from the Holy Shepherd and he's taking us out for the day.

That's nice, says the man.

Daddy takes a step closer and stares hard.

Surely you can let three little girls from the Holy Shepherd in free. It's hardly going to break you. Is it?

I pull at his arm and tell him, No Daddy, don't tell him where we're from but he barks at me, Shut up and keep quiet. He bends down and whispers in my ear that I'll learn more with my mouth shut. Never buy what you can get for free. Free is good. Remember that.

I'm sorry, Daddy.

Mona and Pippa drop their eyes to the ground and move three steps away and I want to move away too, but Daddy warns us, Stay put. Don't move unless I say. The man at the gate tells Daddy he's only working here and it's not for him to let anyone in for free. Daddy carries on pestering him, telling him he has no money and the poor children haven't been outside the convent for almost a year.

There's a queue behind us complaining they'll go elsewhere if the man doesn't get a move on. The man looks down the queue, then back at Daddy who's still staring at him. Daddy winks at the man. Come on, he says. Let the kids in.

The man nods his head towards the gate. Go ahead, he says, go ahead.

The roller skates have black wheels and red straps for your shoes. The skates are heavy and when I try to stand my legs go the wrong way. Mona catches my hand and after a few circles I'm flying around. I'm having such a time of it. With my Daddy watching me I want to be the best roller-skater in the world and with every circle I get faster and faster till I'm going so fast I don't see the little fat boy stopping to lick his ice cream cone. I bang into him and send him sprawling on
the ground. He picks himself up and runs bawling for his mother, his father, anyone to pick him up and buy him another ice cream.

I run to Daddy at the gate. His mouth is clenched and I wonder is he angry with the little fat boy. I've fallen and put a hole in my new jeans and grazed my knee and tell Daddy I don't have to go to the hospital. I don't need stitches. Look.

He glares at me and the veins bulge in his temples.

Are you stupid, are you?

But it wasn't my fault.

He mocks me, Wasn't my fault.

The man at the gate is watching. Daddy doesn't care. He squeezes my arm tight and I want to yell out but he screams in my face, Do you think I'm made of money?

People by the gate lift their children into their arms while others move away.

I'm sorry, Daddy. It was an accident.

It was your fault. You weren't watching.

I was watching.

Don't lie and don't give me back-answers. It's the last time I'm bringing you anywhere. You're too stupid for words.

I don't say anymore. There's no use crying and Mona and Pippa are making faces at me for ruining the day and it's my fault Daddy is in a bad mood now.

When we get back to Nanny's, Daddy goes straight into the front bedroom and slams the door behind him. Pippa and Mona run ahead of me into the kitchen to tell Nanny I fell and tore my new jeans. Nanny is sitting at the kitchen table sticking Green Shield stamps in the Green Shield stamp book so she can get a new set of pans. She closes the book and hits it with the side of her fist so the stamps will stick, then bends down to look at my knee.

It's only a graze. Go out to play until yeer tea is ready.

We go out to play but when we come back in later Daddy is still in the bedroom. Nanny tells Mona to call him for his tea. Mona looks at her new watch to check it is teatime and goes to call Daddy, he doesn't come out, so we follow Nanny when she goes out to the hall and knocks.

Are you in there, Peter?

There's no answer.

Peter, are you in there?

Peter, will you answer for God's sake?

She turns the knob and tries to push the door open with her shoulder. The door is locked. Then we hear furniture being moved, heavy furniture like a wardrobe being pushed against the door. Jesus tonight, says Nanny. Go for Grandad. He's up in bed.

Nanny sits on the end of the stairs with her head in her hands till Grandad comes down rubbing his eyes. What's up?

That son of yours has himself barricaded in the bedroom. I'm not able for his nonsense.

My son? Oh, yes. They're always mine when they do something stupid.

None of your smart-alec talk. Get him out of that room.

Grandad hammers at the door with his fist, shoves it with his shoulder but the door won't budge and Daddy won't answer.

Nanny says, Let him be for now, he'll come out when he's ready. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I'm pushing him too hard over the children.

Grandad opens his mouth to say something but Nanny tells him to shut it so Grandad goes back upstairs to bed.

Next morning Daddy still doesn't answer, or the next. Sometimes we hear him mumbling that Satan is in the room and we run screaming to Nanny to tell her Satan is in the house.
She blesses herself at the sink and makes us kneel at the kitchen table saying the rosary till we stop crying.

Grandad wants to send for the parish priest even though Grandad can't stand the sight of him, but maybe he'll be able to talk sense to Daddy. Nanny tells him she'd be ashamed to know the priest or the neighbours knew her business. There'll be no priest, no gardaí. We'll handle this ourselves.

Grandad goes out to the front garden. Nanny, Mona, Pippa and me follow. The sun is bright above the houses and brings the sweat to Grandad's forehead. He rolls up his shirtsleeves and you can see he has big arms with freckles everywhere. He tries lifting the window but it's stuck hard with old paint. He rattles the glass with his fist. Holds his ear to the window and says he hears Daddy singing a song about newspaper taxis coming to take him away. Nanny says, Merciful Jesus, give me strength. She cocks her head to listen. Mona cocks her head. Pippa shrugs her shoulders as if to say cocking your head won't make any difference. I cock my head anyway. Pippa is right. I can't hear anything.

Nanny cups her hand over her ear but I don't copy her. Only old people do that and it makes you look deaf. Even Mona doesn't do it and she is deaf.

Mister Murphy from next door comes to the fence and asks Nanny if everything is all right there, Annie?

Grand, Mossy.

If you need anything, give me a shout.

Grand, Mossy. We're just thinking about giving the windows a new coat of paint.

Mossy goes back into his house and Nanny tells us, Come into the house quick before the world knows our business. Jesus, Mary and Holy St Joseph, can't people keep their noses out of anything.

Nanny and Grandad sit at the kitchen table drinking tea
wondering what to do. Pippa sits on Grandad's lap, Mona sits on Nanny's lap and I stand by the sink because this is no time for sitting on laps and anyway there's not enough laps to go round and I worry when Nanny and Grandad argue they'll have to break the glass.

Nanny says, You have to.

Grandad says, My arse I will. And who's going to pay? Your son won't, that's for certain.

I see. He's my son now.

I don't want them fighting anymore and I shout at them to stop. Stop fighting. If they don't stop fighting we'll never get Daddy out.

Nanny says to Grandad, Now look what you've done. You've frightened the child.

It's their father who's causing it. I was mindin' me own business in bed when this started.

Nanny holds my head against her belly and tells me it's all right, don't fret, she'll get Daddy out.

Nanny sends for our uncles and they're here in a few minutes, banging their shoulders off the bedroom door. I don't want to be here with them but I want Daddy to be all right, so I sit on the stairs between Mona and Pippa watching them try to open the door. The door shakes when they push their shoulders against it.

Grandad says, Go easy with that door.

Uncle John tells him, Go 'way and get sense. How else can we open it?

Uncle Philip goes out to the garden shed and comes back with a screwdriver and tries to take the lock off the door. Nanny tells him he's wasting his time, it's locked from the inside and there's a bloody big wardrobe jamming it. Our uncles look at Grandad and he tells them, All right, go ahead. Break it down.

The curtains are drawn and the room is blacker than a nun's habit. Nanny opens the curtains and when the sunlight floods the room we see Daddy lying on the bed in his underpants. Sweat oozes through his forehead and he's laughing at the paint on the ceiling. We hold our noses from the stench of the chamber pot brimming over beside the bed. There's a needle on the floor like the needle I got in my bum and I worry if Daddy is going to die.

Mona, Pippa and me huddle in the corner when our uncles carry Daddy out by his feet and arms to the sitting room and stretch him out on the brown sofa and cover him with a blanket and I'm happy when they leave but worried over Daddy. His eyes are dull and his hair matted with sweat. Why can't Daddy be like that Daddy on the beach with the little girl and the small brown dog?

Grandad leaves the screwdriver on the mantelpiece and collapses in his armchair. That's it now, he says, no more. He wants Daddy gone. He wants the children gone. He wants the house to himself. He never saw the likes in his life. He's seen the world ten times over from the pyramids in Egypt to the frozen Antarctic waste but, Jesus, never did he come across the likes of this. The Wild Men of Borneo frying each other for breakfast wouldn't tolerate the likes of this. No, Annie, enough is enough. Do you hear? Enough is enough. I done me bit, I'm not able for it anymore.

Oh, shut up for yourself.

I'm goin' to the pub.

Go then. That's all you were ever good for.

In the morning, Mona, Pippa and me get dressed and come downstairs early. The cinders in the fireplace are still glowing from last night. Daddy wakes up, licking his tongue over his dry cracked lips. His eyes are long and narrow like grains of
rice and he doesn't know where he is. I go to the kitchen to make tea but Mona follows me and says she'll do it. She's ten, I'm only seven and everyone knows you can't make tea when you're seven. I'm to get the cup out of the press. Pippa stays sitting on the couch beside Daddy with her hands between her knees and keeps quiet.

Nanny comes downstairs in her pink nightdress and when she sees Daddy she says, Oh, you're awake. Daddy mumbles something I can't understand and takes a sip of hot tea. Nanny tells him he'll have to sort himself. He's making us a laughing-stock. If anyone hears about this carry-on we'll be the talk of the town and she doesn't want that shame. She takes money from her purse and gives it to Daddy and tells him it's best if he went back to London. I'll have the children up for the odd weekend and a week at Christmas. Get yourself help, Peter, then you might get your children back. Don't come back to this house till you do. I mean it.

Nanny walks us back to the convent and on the way she tells us not to worry. Daddy will get better, and whatever we do, don't say a word to the nuns.

We won't, Nanny.

It's very important. Do you understand me?

We do, Nanny.

She hugs us goodbye at the wicket gate and tells us she'll call for us at Christmas. We can spend the week with her. We turn our faces to the wall so nobody will see our tears when the nun comes to walk us inside.

I think Pippa should go first but Pippa shakes her head no. It's early on a June morning and we're sitting on the green roof of the tin sheds, our faces black from the sun and the nuns' garden behind us a sea of bluebells swaying in the breeze. The sun turns Pippa's hair so blonde it's almost white. Pippa says it won't make no difference whether we say it or not. We'll get kilt by big girls anyway.

You go first, Matilda.

You're older, Pippa. I'm not nine yet. You're nearly ten. You're even startin' to get a chest.

Yeah but you're taller, Matilda, she says, as if getting a chest doesn't really count, but all the same you can see how proud she is of her bumps the way she has her cardigan open and the sleeves halfway down her arms like all she needs is a pair of high heels and she'd be pure faintin'.

Pippa shows me the cut on her knee she got when she fell running from a gang of girls. The girls caught her anyway but Pippa bawled so much they got scared and carried her inside to Gabriel.

You're tryin' to get out of it, Pippa. That's the worst excuse I ever heard in me life.

Pippa promises she'll say it after me and makes the sign of the cross over her heart and that means she'll die right here and go straight to Hell if she doesn't say it, only Pippa is always crossing her heart, and she never dies.

Are you doin' it or not, Matilda?

You're some coward, Pippa.

You can't talk.

It was my idea, Pippa.

Then do it, Matilda. I dare yeh. And no whisperin' and no doin' it behind your hand. Come on, you go first.

Will I?

Yeah, go on.

I take a deep breath and put my top teeth out over my bottom lip ready to say it, but not that loud that anyone can hear. Only Pippa.