About Matilda (3 page)

Grandad says to Danny, Come up to me youngfella and we'll show 'em how it's done.

Danny climbs on Grandad's lap and Grandad tickles Danny's face with his chin whiskers until Danny begs him to stop but he's laughing so much he can't get the words out. Grandad calls it the giggilleens and it's torture.

We gather round the fire and open our crisps and scream for our dog. Grandad doesn't mind how loud the crisp bags are because he's shouting louder, Come on, black fella, come on yeh bastard, he's gonna catch him, Danny, look at him, look he's catchin' up he's catchin up look at him look at him, ah, Jasus, who won? Sheamie again. Danny jumps up and down on Grandad's lap clapping his hands and laughing and tormenting Grandad for a sup of his stout till Grandad gives in.

Nanny says, Good man, Sheamie, we won't have a penny left with you. Sheamie has a grin like there's a saucer in his
mouth. His long legs are stretched out behind him and he makes stacks of his pennies on the rug and wonders is a penny all he can bet?

When the ads come on television, Nanny says to Grandad, Stay as you are, Willie, I'll get you another drink.

Good girl, Annie.

Grandad lights a cigar and makes big smoke circles for us to poke our fingers through. Sheamie prods the coal fire with the poker and the heat comes out as a pink glow we can see on Grandad's trouser leg. He fills his glass with the stout, takes a sup, belches, tilts in his chair and farts.

Right, Danny. Let's see what we can do about Sheamie winning all the money.

Afterwards, Nanny hands us a penny each and puts the rest back in the plastic moneybag for next week. Now, she says, wasn't that great fun altogether?

We all agree it was.

Grandad goes to the pub to play cards and we have our bath in front of the fire in the huge silver bathtub. When we're washed and dried and smelling of talcum powder, we stick forks through slices of bread thick as doorsteps and toast them at the fire and listen to Nanny tell the story of how our father met our mother.

Nanny says our father was the quietest of her fourteen children, hardly said a word. He was always thinking. Then all of a sudden he'd get a notion into his head and neither Hell nor high water would persuade him out of it. Then one day he got into a fight in the school playground in the Christian Brothers. It was the other boy's fault but your father was blamed and beaten half unconscious by a tramp of a Christian Brother. He left school at twelve, barely able to read or write, and went to sea until he was twenty-two. That's where he learned to play guitar.

He was a pirate, wasn't he, Nanny? says Pippa.

That's right. He was indeed.

He had a thing over his eye, a patch, says Pippa.

A black one.

And a parrot, says Pippa.

That's right, Pippa. A yellow one.

Called Polly, says Pippa.

That's right, Pippa.

It sat on his shoulder, didn't it, Nanny? says Pippa.

Shut the fuck up, Pippa, says Mona.

Nanny makes a pretend swing at Mona. Pippa sits back against the brown sofa with her knees pulled up to her chin and a pout on her face but satisfied the story is going to be the same as every other time. The rest of us sit closer to our Nanny's feet, only moving if the heat from the fire gets too much for our backs.

Nanny carries on. Your father's ship worked out of Hamburg in the fifties.

What's the fifties?

A long time ago.

Like once upon a time, Nanny?

That's right, Matilda.

Anyway, that's where he met the Beatles and became friendly with John Lennon. In fact, they looked so alike, your father was often mistaken for him.

The real John Lennon, Nanny? says Sheamie.

The one and only. Of course they weren't famous, then. Anyway, where was I?

Hamburg, says Sheamie.

Now, when he returned from sea and there being no work in Ireland your father went to London with a friend who was starting a showband. I tried to talk him out of it but he said if Brendan Boyer and the Royal Showband could make a go of it,
so could he. Even if he didn't, wouldn't it be a better life than standing on North London's Cricklewood Broadway looking for a day's work shovelling cement? One night he was playing in the National Ballroom in Kilburn and your mother was there on a night out from the Nurses Training College. Someone or other introduced the pair of them, they went out together for a year or so, next thing we hear they were to get married. For some reason Nanny gives Mona a queer look and shrugs her shoulders, then carries on, It was all done in a bit of a hurry. Grandad or myself didn't get a chance to go across to London for the wedding.

First time I met her was when your father and herself turned up at door with Sheamie in the pram and Mona barely walking. Said they were leaving for Australia. Your mother was hardly more than a child herself. Now, that's as much as I know. Finish yeer supper and get off to bed.

I don't really want to go to bed. I'm not tired but I climb under the green coat with my brothers and sisters and, when we cuddle together, I fall asleep dreaming about a nurse who falls in love with a prince who plays a guitar.

The door to Nanny's shop buzzes when it opens. It has a wooden floor and a wooden counter with shelves behind. There's a picture of a man on the wall with a grey beard and blue cap and underneath him in big letters it says, Players Please.

Grandad says it's a gossip shop.

I ask him what's a gossip shop and he whispers behind his hand so Nanny won't hear, A place for passin' on everyone's business, girl.

In the shop, I sit on the floor behind the counter eating jellybeans and listening to Nanny gossip to the neighbours, passing on what she's heard from the last customer after
promising may the Lord strike her down if she breathes a word.

I love it when it's just the two of us. I haven't had anyone to love me for a long time and if it's just the two of us here she might love me more.

And tell me, Annie, the woman standing on the other side of the counter says, is that one of the grandchildren you were telling me about?

It is indeed. Say hello to Missus Sullivan, Matilda.

Missus Sullivan bends over the counter and looks down at me. She's wearing a red scarf and red lipstick and smiling like she knows me.

Isn't she a sweet child, God love her. And very affectionate I'd say, Annie.

She is, and a quiet poor child. Sure, I hardly know she's there.

Missus Sullivan pulls her head back and I can't see her anymore. I wonder why she doesn't say listen to that accent like everyone else, and what does affectionate mean? It must be something you get instead of an accent.

It's a big change from just having Philip in the house, says Nanny. He's the last of them left in Waterford. John's in the army and the rest of them are in London.

I heard John was in the Congo, says Mrs Sullivan.

He's back a few years from there, says Nanny. His term of service is nearly up.

Will he come back do you think? He must be hitting thirty. Time for him to settle down.

Nanny glares out over the counter to Missus Sullivan. I don't know what he intends to do. It's his own business what he does.

Oh I didn't mean… says Missus Sullivan. Tell you what,
I'll have a pound of butter. Well, you're a great woman, Annie, after what you done.

Nanny takes the butter from the fridge and leaves it on the counter.

What could I do after their mother walked out? I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to them way over there. I know the nuns were good to them, but 'tis not the same as a proper home, is it, Hannah?

'Tis not indeed, Annie. Look at them poor children down in the Holy Shepherd convent. Isn't it disgraceful how they're fired in there with the tinkers and the tippers without a mother or a father between them?

It is of course. It's no place for any child.

Did I hear something on the news that the government were talking about improving those places?

Talk is cheap, says Nanny.

And I'll have a pound of cooked ham too, Annie.

A pound of ham, Hannah? A whole pound. Ah here, talk might be cheap but I wouldn't say the same for ham. Have you visitors from America or what?

Well, well, maybe a quarter, Annie?

That'd be more like it right enough.

I better go up and tidy the house before himself gets home or he'll be wonderin' have I anything better to do all day than gossip. No other news I suppose, Annie.

Not lately, Hannah. No.

Oh well, put that on the book for me so, Annie. I'll be in Friday to settle up, as usual.

I will, says Nanny, and she's already licking the tip of her pencil.

When Missus Sullivan is gone Nanny says, The cheek a that one, Matilda. Her and her pound of ham, and asking questions
about my John. I don't know what this town is comin' to. Fur coat and no knickers the lot of them, doing their best to gawk down their noses at the rest. They'll get nothing to talk about out of this shop.

Nanny laughs, then I laugh, even though I don't know what she's laughing at, but I'm happy I'm here with Nanny and not down in the Holy Shepherd with the tinkers and tippers and children without a mother or father.

Nanny closes the shop early today. She pulls down the grey blinds. She says it's February, we've had a month to settle and it's time to start school. She's bringing Mona, Pippa and me to enrol in the Sisters of Divinity Girls' School, and Grandad is taking Sheamie to the De La Salle Brothers.

Pippa doesn't want to go to school. We still talk like Australians and everyone will laugh, she says. Nanny says she won't have the school inspector at the door wondering why her grandchildren haven't started school. They take children away for that. She goes to the kitchen for her handbag and Mona yanks Pippa's hair and warns her not to cause trouble. We have to go to school like Nanny said. Pippa says, Ouch! Grandad says, Stop that, stop that for the love a Christ. Nanny screams from the kitchen, Mona, are you tormenting your sisters? Leave those girls alone, you're too bloody big. Mona scrunches her freckles at me to see if I want to complain, but I wouldn't complain to Mona when she's like this, and anyway I'm fed up hanging round the house when it's raining outside and the other kids from the street are in school.

Danny cries to go to school but he's too young. He pulls at Grandad's trouser leg and Grandad pats his head and tells him, Next year, Danny. Danny still cries. Grandad lifts Danny onto his shoulders and Danny claps his hands and smiles down at us with his lovely white baby teeth because he's higher than everyone now and that's better than going to school anytime.

Nanny hurries us out to the car, grumbling at how slow we are and warning Grandad if he sets one foot in the pub this day she'll swing for him.

Sister Gertrude sits behind a desk in a small room with a crucifix on the wall and says sorry, she's full. She holds a black fountain pen in her hand but the pen doesn't move. She turns the pages of her big red book and says, Yes, indeed we are full. Isn't that an awful pity?

Pippa smiles.

Sister Gertrude says Nanny might like to try another school, the Mercy Convent or the Presentation, and stands.

Nanny lowers her handbag to the floor like she's getting ready to fight. Sister Gertrude sits down again.

Well, perhaps, and I'm only saying perhaps, we can fit them in next term, Missus Kelly. Of course they'd have to be Roman Catholics.

Nanny leans back in her chair. Sure, isn't their uncle only a bishop.

Really? says Sister Gertrude.

Really, says Nanny.

Of course, they won't be learning the Irish language because they weren't born in Ireland. Though they will learn the Irish dancing. The jig, the hornpipe and reel. Start Monday.

Monday I'm first into my new blue uniform and yellow socks. In the playground we see other girls come in. The ones with raggedy hair and dirty uniforms sit at the back of the class and have books covered in wallpaper so everyone knows what their sitting room looks like. The girls who have clean uniforms sit in the front and have their books covered in brown greaseproof.

I'm put in the second row beside Natasha White. She has
dimples and wears a yellow hair band and giggles all the time. I tell her my Daddy is in London. She tells me her Daddy went to London once but came back to work in the glass factory. Theresa Flanagan, with the scabby knees and runny nose that she wipes in her sleeve, sits behind us. She says her Daddy went to London too and he came back as well. Her Mammy always says she'd be better off if he'd stayed where he was. The bollox.

Our teacher is Miss Bolger. She has wavy red hair and wears dresses with silver buckles and high-heeled shoes that click when she walks. She likes the girls in clean uniforms the best. Theresa Flanagan invites me to play, but I spend lunchtime sitting against the wall so my uniform won't get dirty.

Saturday morning Uncle Philip minds us while Nanny and Grandad drive to the Cash and Carry store. He sits in Grandad's chair with the hollow and pats his lap and calls to me to sit. He says I'm his special favourite. I'm his pet. That makes me happy because I was never anyone's pet before, but I can't tell anyone because it's our secret and Uncle Philip says you can't tell secrets.

Easter Sunday morning I'm sitting at the kitchen table with Nanny. We're late for mass. Pippa is sitting on Nanny's lap, her bright eyes watery from hay fever and her chest wheezy with asthma. Danny is under the table playing with Nanny's slippers. Mona is walking out the back door in her Sunday frock to call Sheamie from the garden when the front door opens. She stops by the door and we wait for Nanny to say who's there but she's busy telling Grandad to hurry. Grandad is standing at the sink shaving in front of the cracked mirror on the windowsill. The sunshine coming through the glass glistens off his razor as it slides through the lather. He says
there was a time he could look in that mirror and see a young good-looking man staring back. They don't make mirrors like they used to. He turns to us with his pink lips grinning through the lather on his round face and I think he wants us to laugh but I don't know why and I don't care why because the kitchen door opens and I know who's here.