Polly's Angel (16 page)

‘Correct. Thank you, Polly,' Miss Witherspoon said. Rightly taking this for dismissal, Polly returned to her seat whilst another girl took her place to find the subject and object of the sentence.

‘Considerin' you was half-asleep . . .' Alice whispered as Polly sat down. ‘Still, ole Withers don't usually prose on like this. I wish she'd forget all this rubbishy stuff an' let us read
A Tale of Two Cities.
We was up to an excitin' bit when the bell rang last time.'

Miss Witherspoon, despite her nickname, was an energetic young teacher with black hair arranged in the popular pageboy cut and a trim figure clad in grey and white poplin. She was a great favourite with the girls and her lesson, English, was easily Polly's best subject yet somehow, today, even had the class been reading the Dickens classic, it would have seemed a waste of time. But she had refused to sag off school because she wanted a good report at the end of the summer, so she really ought to concentrate on the lesson.

For a few minutes, indeed, she did so, but then her mind began to wander again. What would Sunny be doing? He wasn't working, that much was certain, so he could be doing almost anything, she supposed wistfully. He loved to fish, probably because he usually fished either sitting down or standing still, and he liked the cinema too. Polly remembered trips to the Grand Canal in Dublin, with Tad importantly hefting a hazel wand and carrying a tin filled with a quantity of writhing, bug-eyed maggots which he would examine with masculine pride every five minutes, just so that he could make her squeak with dismay, and that made her wonder what Tad was doing as well. It would be a lovely day in Dublin of course, that went without saying. She could hardly remember any dull days in Dublin, either the sun was shining or the snow was falling in her dreamy recollections of her home town, and now she visualised Tad setting off to catch himself a few minnows in the canal, or maybe going down to the quays to see what he could pull out of the Liffey . . .

‘So if we're left with only that phrase . . . Polly, would you like to come up and mark the last words, please?'

Miss Witherspoon was so nice, so polite, Polly thought dismally, making her way to the front through the rows of desks. Other teachers ordered, threatened, shouted, but Miss Witherspoon treated them like the young ladies they thought themselves, and never forgot to say ‘please' when she asked one to do something, and ‘thank you' when it was done. Now, Polly looked across at the board and saw at once that the unmarked phrase was an adverbial clause . . . as if it mattered! She stopped short, a couple of feet from the board, and turned to face the teacher. She could feel boredom and rebellion rising in her chest like the River Mersey rose when the tide began to come in, and suddenly she did not like school at all, or lessons. Not even Miss Witherspoon seemed worth the waste of this lovely day.

‘Well, the t'ing is, Miss Witherspoon – what does it matter? I mean, who's goin' to ask us to analyse a sentence once we've left St Syl's?'

It wasn't a fair question, she realised that as soon as she saw the colour rise up the white neck and invade the face of her favourite teacher, and she was suddenly shocked that she had asked it. But having asked it she did not intend to let such a thing as fairness cause her to back down so she stood there, politely smiling, her eyebrows still raised.

‘Well, unless you're intending to be a traveller, Polly, I don't suppose that geography will be of much use to you in your future life, do you?' Miss Witherspoon said with a very slight edge to her voice. ‘As for mathematics, well, since you don't intend to become a chartered accountant I suppose one could argue that mathematics, too, has little use for a young person such as yourself.'

No one laughed. The class, to a girl, thought that Polly's question was fair and Miss Witherspoon's answer was not. Polly went on waiting. Miss Witherspoon sighed. She pointed to the board. ‘Don't you know the answer, dear? Then I'll ask someone else to come up, so if you'll return to your place—'

‘I do know the answer as it happens, but you're not after answerin' me question, Miss Witherspoon,' Polly said obstinately, keeping her eyes fixed on the teacher. If she had been a bad girl, the sort of girl that Sunny would clearly much have preferred, she would not be here at all, on this hot and delightful day, standing in front of the board in a stuffy classroom whilst the teacher tried to evade giving her a straight answer. ‘You could say that it's kind o' useful to know that the Chinese grow rice, I suppose, or good to know Paris is the capital of France – for them crossword puzzles – and even bein' able to add two and two is useful if you're workin' in a shop. But analysin' a sentence . . . well, I don't see the
use
of it, no matter how hard I try.' And in a final burst of bravery she added, ‘Which makes this lesson seem a waste of time, so it does.'

Someone giggled. Someone else gave a muffled snort. Miss Witherspoon turned from a delicate shade of rose-pink to the dark red of a boiled beetroot. She pointed her chalk at Polly in a very decided sort of way, though her hand trembled a little. ‘In that case, since my lesson's useless to you, you'd best go and call on Miss Rutherford,' she said in a voice which she strove to keep even, but which climbed a trifle. ‘No doubt she will be able to convince you that I'm not analysing sentences just to waste either your time or my own,' she finished.

Polly had never been told to go to the headmistress before, but she found that she did not care in the least, and once outside the classroom door, decided that she would
not
go to Miss Rutherford to get told off for asking a perfectly respectable question. Instead, she would go quietly off home . . . No, she would go off to Sunny's home, and see if he still wanted to go to Seaforth for the day.

It was not hard getting out of the school – in fact, she just walked across the playground, through the gate and into the road. And she felt free, and lovely, and not in the least guilty. I'm thirteen years old, so I am, and that's too big for stayin' indoors on a hot day whilst a teacher writes on the board and won't answer questions, she told herself, padding along the pavement. She rather wished she had taken her carry-out with her, but that would have made Miss Witherspoon suspect that something was up. No, she would go round to Sunny's house and he would doubtless find her something to eat – and he would praise her for being sensible for once – and then they could set off for Seaforth, or wherever they decided they most wanted to spend the rest of the day.

Whistling a tune beneath her breath, Polly stepped out.

It took a good deal longer to catch up with Sunny than she had supposed it would, because when she reached his house no one was in at all, but a neighbour, an old lady who spent most of the day sitting on her front steps watching the life of the waterfront go by, had seen Sunny setting off earlier in the morning and had asked him where he was bound.

‘He said somethin' about the Pier 'ead,' the old lady said. ‘I wondered if he'd tek off to New Brighton, bein' as 'ow he's rare fond o' the seaside. This time a year ago, he were sellin' ice cream over there, wi' a bicycle an' cart.'

So Polly, though a little daunted by the vagueness of the neighbour's suggestions, set off for the Pier Head, and it was here that she found him, leaning on the handlebars of a stop-me-and-buy-one bicycle whilst he studied the goods set out in the window of the small shop which huddled beneath the docker's umbrella.

‘Sunny, I'm out o' school,' Polly had shouted, running across the roadway and grabbing his arm. ‘Where d'you get the bike?'

‘From the factory, of course,' Sunny said. He sounded rather cross. ‘Honest to God, Poll, what a girl you are for messin' a feller about! I'd not have hired the bleedin' bike if I'd known you was goin' to sag off school after all – now what'll I do?'

‘Whatever it is, I'll do it as well, so I shall,' Polly said peacefully, turning to stare into the shop window which seemed to be interesting Sunny so much. ‘What does it matter about the bike, Sunny? You can push instead of ride, when I'm out o' breath wit' runnin'.'

Sunny's frown disappeared and he grinned at Polly, all his annoyance seeming to melt away. Then he turned round and began to wrench open the metal container which was strapped to the rear part of his bicycle. ‘It don't matter about pushin', queen,' he said. ‘Here, I'll mek you up a wafer. I were goin' to sell this lot round here, where there ain't no one else sellin' it, so I could earn us some spare money for Sat'day . . .' he went on, gesturing to the ice-cream container, which was now open and sending a delicious smell and wreaths of white vapour into the warm air,'. . . only I didn't know they'd mek me hire the bike, so I've no money left. Still, you can have all the ice cream you can eat until I've sold some of the stuff an' made some gelt,' he added with his customary generosity. ‘Eh, look, a customer!'

Polly, standing beside him and licking her wafer, saw very soon that Sunny's instinct had been right about selling the ice cream. Within five minutes he had a small queue of people waiting, within ten minutes a long queue. After an hour he was regretfully scraping the bottom of the container and the old leather bag slung round his chest and one shoulder literally bulged with pennies and ha'pennies.

‘Come wi' me to tek the bike back,' he suggested presently, having closed the lids of the container and turned the bicycle back towards the main road. ‘I'll gi' you a seater; hop on!'

Nothing loth, Polly hopped, and very shortly the two of them, having concluded their business with the ice-cream factory and handed back the hired bicycle, were jumping aboard a tram and heading for the overhead railway.

‘Seaforth Sands, here we come,' Sunny said blissfully, as they got off the tram at the Pier Head and went to buy their tickets. ‘Eh, you won't regret it, young Poll – and I called you a goody-goody! Yet here you are, saggin' off school wi' the best of 'em.'

‘I know,' Polly said. ‘And I don't feel at all guilty, I just feel happy.'

‘So you ought,' Sunny said decidedly. ‘Two returns to Seaforth, please, mister.'

When, tired but happy, Polly got home that evening she waited for Mammy to start asking her just what she had been up to, leaving school in the middle of the morning, but Deirdre said nothing. She had taken Peader in his wheelchair to Princes Park, and the two of them had wandered amongst the flower beds and the lawns, and admired the lake and the ducks, and it had put Peader in mind of the crossing cottage and how he had enjoyed his life there. The two of them, Deirdre told Polly, had spent a wonderful day planning how they would go back to the country when Peader retired and how, until then, Peader would potter about the house and maybe take on a simple little job like stuffing envelopes, or helping someone with their books, whilst she worked outside the home for a while. This meant that they could, she hoped, save up sufficient money for a place in the country again.

‘Not to buy,' Deirdre added hastily, seeing her daughter's eyes widen. ‘Just to rent . . . but we'll need money to live on, and though the railway pension's a help, we'll need a bit more earned if we're to put anything by for a rainy day.'

‘Do – do you really think Daddy will work again?' Polly asked, as Deirdre cleaned lettuce and sliced tomatoes whilst she herself cut and buttered the bread. ‘Only his walkin' doesn't seem to get much better, no matter how hard he tries. And sometimes I've wondered whether he could stand bein' in some ticket office all day, so I have.'

Deirdre looked all round her, clearly checking that Peader was still reading his book in the front room and not about to appear in the kitchen, then lowered her voice. ‘Sure an' you're a sensible girl, Polly me love, so I don't mind tellin' you that it'll be a long job, if it happens at all. But if he's here, at home, wit' something to take his mind off himself, then I t'ink he'll get better quicker. I don't mind telling you there's days when I don't know which way to turn for the rent, let alone extras. Ivan seems to go through trousers like nobody's business. We managed while me little job lasted but since then . . . If only I could get another job . . . But work's hard to come by.'

So Polly went to bed with a good deal to think about despite not having had to pay for her day's illicit pleasure. She wished that Deirdre did not have to work, but being a practical person, she realised that every family needed a wage-earner. So if Mammy works now, then as soon as I'm fourteen I'll get a job and she can go back to being a housewife again, she told herself, snuggling under the covers. And though it's grand, so it is, that no one at home knows about me day out, tomorrer I'll probably get a good scolding, if nothing worse.

Yet when she went into school next morning she was neither seized upon nor punished. ‘Miss Witherspoon said you'd been unwell in class, and had probably gone home rather than risk upsetting the lessons,' her class teacher, Miss Chardwell, had said. She had stopped Polly as the girls were streaming past her after a history lesson, heading for the playground and twenty minutes of comparative freedom. ‘But another time, Polly, just tell me you're feeling poorly and want to go home. As your class teacher I'm responsible for your well-being, you know. What exactly was the matter?'

‘Sorry, Miss Chardwell,' Polly said. She decided to buy Miss Witherspoon a bunch of roses and bring them in to school the following day. What a sport old Withers was, not to give her away – and she had behaved awful bad, she knew it. ‘It was women's troubles, miss,' she added with relish, since her class teacher was still looking at her enquiringly. She knew that there were such things as women's troubles, she had heard her mammy talking about them, but as yet they had not troubled her. But having been bad yesterday, a little lie to keep the stick from her back seemed only sensible.