Polly's Angel (18 page)

‘They're all good gorls, so they are,' she said soothingly. ‘You've got to have a way wit' you, though, Deirdre, if you're going to make a good waitress. A ready smile, no offence took if a feller makes a bit of a pass, but he's got to be shown you aren't interested in that sort of t'ing . . . It takes tact, so it does, but you'll know what I mean.'

Deirdre thought she could guess, but simply smiled, agreed to be in at eleven next morning so that Trixie could show her the ropes before going off, and went proudly home to tell Peader that she was now an employee and would be bringing in an extra eighteen and sixpence a week, plus tips, and might sometimes be given leftovers into the bargain.

Polly and Sunny were walking up the Scotland Road, arguing hotly over what they should do that day. Sunny wanted to go fishing at Seaforth Sands but Polly, who had had some of that, said it was boring and why could they not catch the next ferry to Woodside and go into the country for the day? Sunny had a proprietorial arm about Polly's shoulders and Polly was snuggled against him when they stopped for a moment to look into a cake-shop window.

‘Do we have enough pennies for a bag of sticky buns?' Polly was saying longingly when a voice which turned the marrow in her bones to ice said: ‘Polly O'Brady, what in the good God's name are you doing here in the middle of the morning? I sent you off to school wit' your little brother and what do I find? Don't you try to tell me you aren't mitching, Polly, because I'll not believe you, not if you swear it on a stack of Bibles!'

‘Mammy!' Polly gasped, thunderstruck. ‘Oh, Mammy!'

‘She felt unwell, Mrs O'Brady,' Sunny said at once, giving Deirdre the benefit of his most charming smile. ‘Poor kid, I met up wi' her outside her school an' said I'd walk her home, but I thought mebbe she'd feel better wi' some food inside her, so . . .'

Polly might not have been the Saint Polly her brother had called her, nor the goody-goody Sunny had taunted her with, but she was not a liar and she would have been ashamed to shelter behind the lies of another. She pushed Sunny's arm off her shoulders and faced her mother, very pink-cheeked and hot-eyed, but straightly, as was her wont. ‘I am mitchin', Mammy,' she said in a very small voice. ‘I didn't feel even a little bit ill, only it was such a sunny day, and—'

‘It's all my fault, Mrs O'Brady,' Sunny said, charming again. ‘I talked her into it, she wasn't at all keen at first . . . If you want to blame anyone, blame me.'

‘I do,' Deirdre said steadily. ‘She's always been a good girl has my Polly, and would be still if she'd not met yourself. Oh, I know a bad, idle feller when I see one, Sunny Andersen, and I'll t'ank you not to try to turn my good daughter into just such another.' She put her arm around Polly, so that she and Polly faced Sunny across the pavement. ‘Leave her alone, d'you hear me, lad?' She swung Polly round, taking her hand in a firm grip. ‘You go off home, as Polly and meself will. Then I'll go up to the school and see what the teachers have to say.'

‘But it ain't Poll's fault, Mrs O'Brady,' Sunny said, sounding agitated now and almost running along beside them to keep up with Deirdre's fast pace. ‘I telled her to sag off school, I telled her we'd have fun . . . it's all my fault!'

‘Oh? You went into the schoolroom, did you, and dragged her out by one arm and a leg?' Deirdre enquired frostily, still keeping up her fast pace and not allowing Polly to hang back. ‘And she does what you tell her, eh? When you say mitch, she mitches. Is that the story you're trying to get me to believe? Well, all I can say is, what next will you say to me daughter? Will you tell her to take flowers from the graves in Anfield Cemetery, and sell them around the streets? Will you suggest that she goes into Mrs McKenna's and helps herself to a quarter of aniseed balls and two ounces of liquorice? Oh, go ‘way, Polly's not afraid of taking responsibility for the wrong she's done.'

‘Oh, but . . . please, Mrs O'Brady, it were all my fault,' Sunny said desperately. ‘I just want to explain . . . want to tell you how sorry I am . . .'

Deirdre stopped short and turned to face him. She longed to give him a hard slapping, to march him home to his own mother and tell that lady just what she thought of her good-for-nothing son, but she knew that Sunny was too big, too old for such treatment and anyway, she knew better, she told herself, than to slap another woman's child. But she did not intend to have him trailing along behind them all the way to Titchfield Street. ‘Go home, boy,' she said, in a quiet tone which nevertheless had ice in it. ‘Go home and don't come near me daughter no more. I'm telling you I mean it, and if I catch you hanging around her it'll be the scuffers who'll come knocking on your door; hear me? Because as God's me witness, I mean to stop you seeing Polly. She's only thirteen still, so I'll have right, and the law, on me side in getting rid of you. I've telled you once, now I'm telling you again. Clear off.'

Sunny scuffled with his feet in the dust, then turned to Polly. ‘Ah, I were only sayin' it weren't your fault, queen,' he began, but Deirdre did not wait for any more arguments. Further up the street she could see a policeman, strolling along in the bright sunshine with his helmet tipped back a bit and his white gloves in one hand. She pointed and Sunny, after a startled glance, sighed, shook his head, then turned on his heel. The last Deirdre saw of him was his back view as he hurried away down the pavement.

‘Oh, Mam, he was only tryin' to say he was sorry—' Polly began, only to be told to hold her peace until they got indoors.

‘For this sort of behaviour has got to stop, and I'm the woman who's after stopping it,' Deirdre said briskly to her daughter's downbent head, for Polly was staring at her sandals as though they were the only interesting things for miles. ‘Not another word now, miss, until I've got you indoors.'

It was late before Polly got to bed that night. The row had lasted, on and off, all through the afternoon and into the evening, but at last she had capitulated, and now that she had done so, had agreed not to see Sunny again, she found that she was almost relieved. Ever since she had started her life of sin, things had been going wrong. Her angel, who was usually on the half-landing when she made her way up to bed, had not so much as appeared, no matter how hard she tried to peep out of the corner of her eye. Ivan had realised that something was going on and though he was too good a kid to tell on her, he had begun muttering that she would be in big trouble, so she would, when Mammy found out, and she had known that this was true. What was more her friends, Alice and Sylvia, thought she was being a proper fool, and had begun to count her out of evening entertainments because she was so often with Sunny.

And she had known, with increasing conviction, that what she was doing was really wrong. She had mitched off school whenever he asked her to do so, that was certainly true, but her conscience had begun first to whisper, then to mutter and, this past week, had been positively shouting. She knew it was wrong to mitch, to catch trains and ferries using tickets skilfully ‘doctored' by Sunny. Even more wrong was going into shops and picking up any sweets or biscuits handy when the staff were serving someone else. She had refused to do it at first, but then it had seemed awful mean to enjoy the stuff that Sunny prigged in that fashion and never to do her share.

Of course, Mammy hadn't known about the used tickets or the sweeties, but it was almost as if she guessed that such things were a regular part of Sunny's days when he wasn't working. Polly had tried to defend herself against the only known sin, which had been mitching off school, but it hadn't worked.

‘You've not got a leg to stand on, Polleen,' her father had said, his voice so sad and so loving all at once that Polly had had hard work not to start crying again. ‘You lied to the teachers, you took in false notes to say you'd had a family bereavement, you simply let that young feller lead you round by the nose, so you did. And it isn't as if your mammy wanted to punish you for these t'ings, because she's said a dozen times she won't do so. All she's doing is trying to see that you behave properly in future. And she's doing that by askin' you to promise, on the Bible, that you'll not see that young feller again. After all, alanna, he's t'ree years older than yourself, he should be workin', not idlin' round the streets corruptin' a child still not even in the top class at school.'

So Polly had promised, with her hand on the Bible which Mammy had fetched out of the parlour, that she would not see Sunny again, although she didn't think that Peader's comments about Sunny's age were very fair – he was only a little older than her pal Tad, and Polly herself would be fourteen next year.

‘Only I can't stop him speakin' to me, Mammy, and it's awful rude not to answer, so it is,' she had pointed out in a small and shaking voice, for it had been a gruelling row in which she had done little but cry and protest that Sunny was all right really, so he was, and that she would never mitch off school again.

‘I'm afraid you'll have to be rude then, alanna,' Deirdre had said firmly. ‘You've made a promise, a serious promise, remember.' She had patted Polly's shoulder, then bent and kissed her tear-streaked face, rumpling the soft, untidy curls. ‘Don't worry about it; he'll soon find someone else to go around wit', especially if he gets himself a job.'

So Polly, having given in and agreed not to see Sunny again, had sat down with her parents and her two brothers, eaten a meal, washed up and cleared away, and had then come up to her room, where she sat on the edge of her bed, slowly taking off her clothing, and wondering why, after such a dreadful time, she was actually feeling almost better. A peacefulness which she had not known for weeks and weeks was slowly taking possession of her. She supposed, as she pulled her white cotton nightie over her head and began to brush out her hair, that it was because at last her conscience was clear. She had known all along that Sunny had encouraged her to be a bad girl, she had even known that her guardian angel was so disappointed with her that she – her guardian angel was definitely a she – had taken herself off somewhere. She had stopped saying her prayers before bed each night, not because she wanted to do so but because she was afraid of what God would think if he took a peep at her and saw all the sins weighing down her soul.

And now all that was over. As she had been wearily climbing the stairs she had seen, on the edge of her vision, a shadow, a shade which she had been almost sure was that of her guardian angel, almost visible but not quite, in the very corner where she had always appeared to Polly.

I'm meself again . . . though I'm goin' to miss that Sunny tarble bad, Polly thought drowsily as she said her prayers and then climbed into her little bed. It were fun while it lasted, but I t'ink not seem' Sunny again is for the best.

Just before she fell asleep, she thought of something else too. She thought of the friendship of Tad Donoghue, far away in Dublin, Tad who had taken care of her and given her Lionel as a kitten and teased her and played with her, but had never led her into bad or sinful ways.

It was a pity, she thought, that Sunny was so handsome and Tad so plain. Of course, everyone knew that it wasn't looks which mattered, it was character, but she'd been awful proud to be seen out wit' Sunny, so she had, and now she would have to go around wit' girls again. And write to Tad and tell him . . . Or was it really necessary to tell him anything, save that she still thought about him all the time? She had boasted about Sunny's friendship, of course, but she need not actually admit that she didn't see Sunny any more. She would just write a nice, friendly letter . . . and with Tad she could be a little girl again, because he didn't expect anything else. Sunny's arm round her in the cinema, his habit of kissing her nose and tousling her hair, was something she would not miss at all. It was all a bit worrying and grown-up, and was one of the reasons, she realised now, that she had not been too dreadfully unhappy over her promise not to have anything to do with him in future.

She had not yet dropped off when her bedroom door opened softly and she saw her mammy. Once, she would have feigned sleep but now, because of the guilt she felt, she stirred and opened her eyes to smile at the figure in the doorway.

‘Not asleep yet? Well, it's been a long day so it has but it's over now, and forgotten. Tomorrow's a fresh day for a fresh start. All right, acushla?'

‘I'm fine, Mammy,' Polly whispered. ‘Will you come and give me a butterfly kiss now, and tell me you aren't still in a bate wit' me?'

Deirdre with Peader, hovering behind her came and gave Polly the required butterfly kiss and then a cuddle. ‘Oh, Polly, I can never be in a rage wit' you for more than a few minutes,' she said. ‘Go to sleep now and forget all about today. As for tomorrow, it's another day as they say in the song. Goodnight, alanna.'

‘Goodnight Mammy, Daddy,' Polly whispered. ‘I'll sleep good now – I've said me prayers and I saw me guardian angel as I come up the stairs . . . just a shadow, you know, but she's there again so she is.'

Deirdre smiled, then bent and kissed her. ‘All's right wit' the world, then,' she said softly. ‘Sleep well, me darlin' daughter.'

Chapter Six

D
ECEMBER
1939

It was a cold day and Polly, emerging from Blackler's with her arms full of packages, paused for a moment on the pavement to put down her burdens whilst she straightened the belt of her navy-blue coat and pulled on her knitted mittens. As she did so her breath fanned out like fog round her and she gave a little shiver, then glanced up at the lowering sky. It wasn't snowing yet, but it was cold enough; they might have a white Christmas.