Little Bones (14 page)

Agnes and Jane followed the procession. When they reached the church hall, they watched the little brides peeling off their gloves to take their lemonade, the mothers fussing over them. The elderly priests were carefully led inside. The banner stood against the wall, the fringes dancing as a breeze took hold.

A few minutes later, Father Boyd stepped outside, looking left and right, with a paper cup in each hand.
‘I
assume you’d both like a drop of lemonade,’ he said.

‘Can anyone be a Catholic?’ asked Agnes.

‘Are you Protestants?’ he asked.

The sisters nodded.

‘Then be good Protestants,’ he said.

‘But we don’t wear white dresses,’ Jane told him, taking a cup from his hands. ‘And we do like the dresses.’

‘I don’t know if I could be good at anything,’ said Agnes, trying to remember the last time she had been to a service.

‘Oh, for sure you could, I can see it in your face.’

The Stretches moved again. This time the landlord knew all about it, helping them to a room around the corner, pushing their belongings, which had miraculously grown, in a squeaky gardener’s wheelbarrow.

‘Have we run out of money again?’ asked Jane.

‘No,’ said her mother, ‘but your father has run out of brains.’

Jane looked at her father, who appeared very nervous. In the street he kept his head down, flinching at every squeak the wheelbarrow made, telling his wife to pipe down and keep walking. When they reached the new house he ran straight to their room upstairs, leaving Ivy and the girls to empty the wheelbarrow, while their old landlord busied himself with his tobacco pouch.

‘What’s the matter with Pa?’ Agnes scowled, her arms full of unwashed sheets.

‘Is he ill?’ asked Jane.

Their mother shook her head, telling the girls their
father
was in hiding from a man called Rogers, having thrown half a brick through his window on a raucous Saturday night.

‘Why in God’s name did you have to throw a brick?’ asked Ivy, throwing down the last of their belongings and stepping over her husband who was crouched beneath the windowsill.

‘It was a very small brick,’ he said. ‘Do you know what Rogers looks like?’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ she told him.

‘Like a fish,’ he whispered. ‘His face resembles a salmon.’

Agnes giggled.

‘You smashed the man’s front window because he looks like a salmon?’ Ivy said.

‘Rogers is a cheat. He uses marked cards.’

Ivy laughed. ‘It seems more enterprising than cheating. Perhaps you should try it?’

‘And then we’d be paying for a window,’ he said.

The room was much the same as their old one. The walls were patterned with squares where pictures once hung. The curtains were at least three inches too short.

‘Well, I’ve no time to waste,’ said Ivy, reaching for her shawl. ‘I’m expected at the coffee house.’

The girls were left with the washing. Ivy walked slowly. Her boots pinched. She looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Salmon Face.

‘Mrs Stretch!’ Ivy turned and paled. It was a man of the cloth. Did he know about the time she’d stolen flowers from St Margaret’s? It had been her mother’s birthday. Had they really missed those few blowsy
chrysanthemums?
How did he know her name? Had someone just died?

‘Mrs Stretch,’ he said, panting. ‘Do you have five minutes?’

‘Only if we walk.’

‘I’m Father Boyd,’ he said. ‘From St Joseph’s.’

‘I’m not a Roman.’

‘I know your girls,’ he told her.

She stopped. ‘What have they done now?’

Shaking his head, the priest assured her that the girls had done nothing wrong; in fact they were both fine girls. ‘Girls,’ he said, ‘to be proud of.’

‘So, what is it you’re wanting?’

After wiping a hand through his hair, he blushed a little, then explained he would like to offer his services as a tutor. He knew the girls had left school a little early. Agnes was particularly bright, and as a Christian he felt it was his duty to offer up a little education.

‘What kind of education?’ said Ivy.

‘The usual kind. I’m free on Monday afternoons.’

‘You are?’ Ivy could feel a headache coming on. ‘Agnes isn’t the bright one,’ she said. ‘Agnes is the pretty one.’

‘I hadn’t noticed, ma’am.’

‘You hadn’t? Then you need to visit an optician. There’s a good one on Bank Street.’

Watching his face quickly redden, she softened. ‘You look very young for a priest,’ she said. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘And a long way from home?’

‘I am a terrible traveller,’ he admitted. ‘I was supposed
to
be going to New York, America, only I couldn’t face the passage.’

‘And what does Agnes think?’

‘I haven’t asked her yet.’

‘Then I’ll ask her. If she likes you well enough, then you can teach Jane and I’ll let Agnes accompany her.’

‘I was only thinking of her learning.’

‘Of course you were,’ she said.

That evening, Ivy treated the family to a pork-pie supper. Arthur, apparently still in hiding, was eating his in bed. ‘Agnes, you will be going to the rectory as Jane’s chaperone,’ she explained. ‘Which means you’ll have to sit with her.’

Agnes groaned. She licked a blob of aspic from her fingers. ‘And will I have to read and write?’ she said. ‘Or will I have to sit saying nothing, feeling worse than a lemon?’

‘Oh,’ said Ivy with a belch, ‘I’m sure that nice young priest will think of something.’

The rectory was beautiful. Jane told herself she would try to remember everything about it, in case they removed far away and didn’t come again.

‘I thought we could use the dining room,’ said the priest. ‘It’s a glorious day. There’s the table of course. And it looks onto the garden.’

‘You have a garden?’ said Agnes.

‘Nothing too grand, but there’s honeysuckle and lavender and the bees seem to like it.’

Agnes, wearing her best skirt and blouse, stood close to the window. Whatever the priest had said, the garden
looked
huge. ‘It’s like looking at the countryside. Though I’m not too fond of it myself.’

‘The garden?’

‘No,’ she blushed. ‘The countryside. The way there’s nothing in it.’

‘Then you would not like Enniskillen.’

The dining-room walls were the colour of thick Jersey cream. A vase of yellow lilies spilled pollen onto the polished oval table. There were pictures of Jesus. They stretched across the walls. Some were four deep. There were praying hands. Saints.

‘All these pictures of Jesus,’ said Jane. ‘He does look very pained.’

‘Gifts,’ said Father Boyd. ‘It would be rude not to hang them.’

There was a tap at the door, and a woman appeared with a tray of cold drinks. She wore a black dress with an old-fashioned lace collar. Her salt-and-pepper hair was parted in the middle, like a curtain.

‘Mrs Reed,’ said Father Boyd. ‘Here are my students.’

‘I hope you’ll be very careful with your ink,’ she said, placing down the tray and tutting at the pollen which she quickly swept away with a duster she had hidden in her pocket. ‘Ink is terrible for staining.’

‘I’ve heard milk is very good for ink stains,’ said Agnes.

Mrs Reed looked startled. ‘I’ve been housekeeping for years. Milk changes nothing but the colour of your tea.’

‘Thank you for the drinks,’ said the priest. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘Oh, I know you do, only, could you rinse the glasses later, as I have to be getting along.’

When the woman left, the priest slipped a book from the shelf. ‘Geography,’ he said. ‘I thought we could start with geography.’

The book looked thick and dull. It had a plain leather binding, no illustrations, and the words were very small.

‘Can I go and sit outside?’ said Agnes.

‘Of course. There’s a seat near the lily pond.’

‘A lily pond!’

‘Oh don’t get too excited. It’s tiny. It’s like a small murky footbath.’

To avoid ink spillage and the wrath of Mrs Reed, Jane was given a pencil and a few sheets of paper. Father Boyd asked if there was any country in particular she was interested in, and though she almost said ‘India’, she said ‘Ireland’, to please him.

Groaning, he opened up his hands. ‘Oh, anywhere but there.’

‘Africa?’

He flicked through the index and pushed the book towards her. ‘
See here
,’ he said. ‘Kenya. Write notes, and we’ll talk about it later.’

The priest was soon fidgeting. He made a few excuses before going outside. Jane didn’t mind. In the book there were no pictures, but she thought Kenya must be a warm burnt-up place, very wild, and not quite as interesting as India. She didn’t know anyone who had been to Kenya.
Near the end of the 15th Century the first Europeans arrived on the Kenyan coast
, she read.
In 1498, the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama found the East African coast while in search of China
.

Jane licked the end of her pencil. Explorers who were
lost
were still explorers. She wondered if the natives were pleased to see him. She saw him stepping from the sailing boat and looking at the sun. Which poor sailor would dare to tell the great man himself that the people here were brown and not Chinese at all? ‘Of course I knew that,’ de Gama would say. ‘I know exactly where we are. I thought we’d take the scenic route.’

Agnes was pink from the sun. A daisy-chain bracelet sat wilting on her wrist. Next to her, the priest looked very tall.

‘Kenya?’ he asked, looking down at Jane’s paper.

‘Look,’ said Agnes. ‘I think my nose has burnt.’

‘There are two rainy seasons in Kenya,’ said Jane. ‘The short rains in October and November, and the long rains from March to May.’

‘Should I look for some cold cream?’ said the priest.

The following Monday Jane chose Russia. ‘Much of Russia is made up of rolling, tree-less plains, called steppes.’

Agnes sat with a glass of elderflower cordial, dipping her fingers into the lily pond. Father Boyd had already located the cold cream. He had a pot of it on standby.

Then France. ‘The capital of France is Paris. The Eiffel Tower was built to celebrate the French Revolution.’

Agnes, wearing a nice green dress, picked at a slice of currant cake. It was raining.

‘Egypt plays a major role in the life of many biblical characters, from Moses and Joseph, to Jesus.’

Agnes sat chewing her fingernails. She yawned. Then she walked around the edge of the pale square lawn. She could feel the damp in it. Then she stood
on
tiptoe to smell the scent of the flowers – this was a complete affectation, it was something she had seen pictured in an advertisement for Royal Jasmine Cologne.

And now Scotland, and Jane was in the dining room reading
A Borderland of England
when suddenly Agnes ran inside, her hands cupped in front of her.

‘Look,’ she said, revealing a pale yellow butterfly, the wings beating hard against her fingers.

‘We were having a nature lesson,’ said the priest, adjusting his collar, ‘and Agnes got carried away.’

The next Monday Father Boyd suggested he take Agnes on a tour of Regent’s Park. There were plenty more butterflies. All kinds of flowers.

‘On our own?’ said Agnes. ‘What about Jane?’

The priest chewed his lips, saying nothing.

‘Oh don’t mind me,’ Jane smiled. ‘I’ll go for a walk, though I might need a sixpence for refreshments.’

Jane didn’t buy refreshments. She used the money to buy a bus ticket to Liza Smithson’s house. She would spend the afternoon in a thick cloud of incense. Liza Smithson would wear her best sari. They would eat burtas and chutney. The scent of the spices would stay in her hair.

Liza wasn’t in. The bead-workers (if they were still upstairs) weren’t answering the door. Disappointed, Jane stood as tall as she could and peered into the window. The room looked the same. The circular cushions. The tail-to-trunk elephants. She hadn’t been inside the room for almost five years and she missed it.

Jane sat on the step and waited twenty minutes. She closed her eyes. She willed Southwark into India. Madras. A woman with henna-patterned hands threw chapatti dough. Boys walked with their dhotis rolled high above their mud-splattered knees. Elephants wore garlands. In the distance, smoke came winding from the ghats near the Ganges. If you looked hard enough, Liza once told her, you could sometimes see the souls, clinging to the edges of the sky.

When Jane retuned home, Agnes was pressing the flowers she’d picked in Regent’s Park between the pages of Corinthians. Jane watched her sister arranging the small greasy petals. The sun from the window was glinting through her hair.

‘I went to Liza Smithson’s,’ said Jane.

Agnes looked up. ‘Does she still smell dirty, like a foreigner?’

‘She wasn’t in.’

‘I had ice cream,’ said Agnes. She was humming. A small white daisy was sticking to her fingertips. ‘Italian ice cream.’

‘What do you do when you’re with him?’ asked Jane.

‘We walk,’ she said. ‘We look at things.’

Jane nodded. The priest was an observer. She had seen him transfixed at the sight of a blackbird bathing in dust – the way it cocked its head, the fluttering of its wings. ‘So you like him?’ she asked.

‘He’s handsome,’ said Agnes. ‘Yes.’

‘Handsome? Is that why you like him?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘He is handsome,’ Jane agreed, ‘but I like the way he talks to me, as if I know things.’

‘That’ll be his training.’

Yet despite the long walks, flower-picking, the Italian ice cream and the priest’s handsome face, Agnes admitted liking a boy called Charlie Spencer. ‘And I’m seeing him on Saturday,’ she said.

‘Does the priest know?’

Agnes laughed. ‘The priest? Why should he know?’

‘Have you ever kissed Father Boyd?’

‘Of course we didn’t kiss! I’m fourteen years old!’ she said. ‘Though we did hold hands now and then.’

On Saturday, they walked in a straggly meandering procession. Ivy was swaying, though she’d not had a drink all morning. Agnes and Charlie Spencer were in the lead. Jane walked behind them. They were on their way to a fair in Southwark Park. Arthur was missing, though rumour had it he was sleeping in the back room of the Swan.