All Our Hidden Gifts

by Caroline O’donoghue

  “I see,” the host replies. “And, in the interest of balance, we’re also going to be hearing from a rep for Children of Brigid, who are an after-school organization that primarily arrange charity events—”

  “The cabaret was a charity event,” the queen interrupts. “And there’s also evidence that these people are funded by the same American organizations that supported the anti-choice movement during Repeal the Eighth. These people are literally enemies of progress.”

  “We’ll be back after a short break.” The host smiles.

  Fiona, Roe and I watch the whole programme in Fiona’s house. Jos keeps running in and out of the room, waving a broken toy phone around and screeching his disapproval.

  “Is that true?” I ask. “The bit about the funding?”

  Fiona nods. “There was a piece on the Irish Times website about it. There’s this whole thing where this group of wealthy white Irish Americans want to keep Ireland all pure and holy. Their ideal version of a motherland, or some bullshit.”

  “OK, wow. At least the media are reporting it, though.”

  “It was a tiny feature, mind,” Roe counters. “It only made the online version. The media emphasis is still very much ‘these troublesome queers won’t calm down’.”

  I make a silent, slightly shameful note to myself that both of my friends read the Irish Times and that I do not. I write READ THE PAPER into my phone as a reminder.

  “Look, it’s back on,” Fiona says, pointing at the screen.

  To the surprise of absolutely no one, Aaron is the rep speaking on behalf of Children of Brigid. When the show comes back after the ad break, he is sitting on the couch, wearing a suit.

  “I hate him for being so TV-pretty,” Fiona says, throwing a Dorito at the screen.

  And he is. He’s all golden sunshine and white teeth, charming the hosts and assuring everyone that it is a “true pleasure” to be on the show. The drag queen in her pink wig and sequinned dress shoots daggers.

  “I just think we need to be conscious,” Aaron says, “of how young children are being sexualized. Why should a twelve-year-old have to think about their gender? Or their sexuality? Is it naive to think that childhood should last a few more years?”

  “Perhaps it is,” the host says, with a faraway look.

  “When I was twelve, all I cared about was riding my bike and playing on my Nintendo 64.”

  “I loved my Nintendo 64.” The host smiles, and the two of them are locked in a tight, nostalgic romance.

  “This isn’t about sex or Nintendos,” the queen says, confused. “This is about letting these kids be who they are without fear of violence.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Aaron smiles. “Exactly. Let kids be kids. Without it being sexual.”

  “I have to say, I agree,” the host says. “It’s all gotten so complicated now.”

  “I can’t watch this,” Roe says flatly. “Can we turn it off?”

  “Sure,” Fiona says, and switches it off. We’re silent for a moment.

  Fiona has dug out the spell book from my school bag.

  “It’s all a bit suburban, isn’t it?” Fiona says, flicking through. “I mean, where’s the intense stuff?”

  “I don’t know if we really want to go messing with black magic,” I say. “According to every movie ever, it usually doesn’t go well.”

  “How about we take your sailor knot spell, and just … you know, joosh it up a bit?” says Roe, his voice bending strangely on “joosh”.

  “Joosh it up?” I say flatly. “Please explain.”

  “So, more white satin, more of us tying the knots. We could take it all to the river,” he says. “Look, here, it says that the new moon is the most powerful time for casting spells that are trying to ‘banish unwanted entities’. When is the new moon?”

  “March sixth,” says Fiona, searching on her phone. “Five days away.”

  Roe and I look at each other silently.

  “What?” Fiona says.

  “March sixth,” I say. “Lily went missing on February sixth.”

  “I can’t believe it’s been a month,” Roe says glumly. “I can’t believe so much can have changed, but we still haven’t found Lil.”

  Silence. How can so much have changed? In a month I have gained and lost a boyfriend, discovered witchcraft and been involved in a riot. A month for the country to have publicly embraced homophobia and survive a snowstorm.

  Jos looks up from an imaginary call on his toy phone. “You all have to go home now,” he says. “I’m for bed.”

  We laugh, wash our cups in the sink and go.

  On Wednesday morning Fiona and I are sitting on the radiator in the bathroom when Miss Harris marches in.

  “Maeve,” she says. “My office. Now.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Now, Maeve.”

  I shrug at Fi and follow Miss Harris through. What’s this about? I haven’t “acted out” once. I’ve been carrying on doing the bare minimum to get by, and my grades haven’t become any better or any worse. Not that they could get much worse.

  I’m sitting in front of her desk, and my face is blank. For once, I have no idea what I’ve done wrong, rather than just pretending I don’t know what’s wrong.

  “Maeve, I think you know why you’re here.”

  “I don’t, Miss. Genuinely.”

  “I take stealing very seriously, Maeve. It can be grounds for suspension.”

  “I haven’t stolen anything,” I say, still confused.

  “Please, Maeve, lies will only make things worse.”

  She breathes heavily and massages the bridge of her nose. “Maeve, when I took those tarot cards from you, it was for your own good.”

  Oh.

  Oh, crap.

  “Miss, I didn’t take them,” I respond, truthfully.

  “Maeve, no one else knew that I had them. They were locked in my bottom desk drawer. I only opened it today to get a file from there, and you can imagine my surprise to find that they were gone.”

  I say nothing, and just bite down on the inside of my cheek.

  “I didn’t take them,” I repeat. How can I explain to someone like Miss Harris that the cards just reappeared in my bedside locker weeks ago?

  “Well, then, Maeve, who did?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, the tears rising to my eyes. God, why do I cry so much lately? I never used to cry before.

  “Look, I don’t care about the cards, Maeve. I just need to know how you got the key.”

  “Miss, I promise, I didn’t touch it.” A tear rolls down my cheek. “Genuinely.”

  She looks at me, hard. “Well, Maeve, I don’t know what to say. You’re the only one who knew where they were.”

  I lower my head and imagine myself coming home with another note from school. And Mum and Dad are so convinced that things are looking up for me.

  She sighs. “But I suppose I have no proof.”

  I look up.

  “All right, Maeve. I’ll forget about this whole thing, the tarot cards and all, if you stay after school and help with some odd jobs again. You did such a great job with the Chokey the last time. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I say eagerly. I’m terrified she’s going to open up my bag and find not only the tarot cards, but my bags of crystals too.

  “Right,” she says brusquely. “Be here at 4 p.m.”

  I nod and get back to class like a cat with a hot arse.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MISS HARRIS TOLD ME I HAD TO DO ODD JOBS.

  She did not tell me I had to do them with Sister Assumpta.

  “Miss, no,” I protest. “Look, if I can just clear out one of the old classrooms myself, I can get it done way faster than if Sister is supervising me.”

  “I’m not leaving you unsupervised in this building again, Maeve. We all know what that leads to. Just do what she says.”

  “But…”

  “Do as she says. And have some respect, for God’s sake.”
/>   I wait in Sister Assumpta’s lemon-walled office until the old nun eventually wanders in. She’s over a foot shorter than me and is wearing her habit, something that comes and goes depending on her mood. She hasn’t been a nun in years and years, but I think she got used to wearing it. Or maybe she just wants to remind people that she’s still, in her heart, married to Jesus.

  “Hello, Sister,” I say in my most respectful voice.

  She gazes at me suspiciously.

  “I’m Maeve,” I say. “I’m going to be helping you today.”

  “What did you do wrong?” she asks, her voice rasping.

  “Nothing,” I say staunchly. “I’m just helping.”

  “You did something,” she corrects, looking me up and down. “You did something wrong.”

  And for some reason, I don’t think she’s talking about today.

  “Here,” she says, brandishing a handheld vacuum cleaner at me. “Run this over the gluaisteán.”

  I look at her in confusion, trying to remember my Irish.

  “The car,” she snaps in frustration.

  I am marched out to Sister Assumpta’s powder-blue VW Bug in the car park, the one that always has the passenger window cracked open. The back seat is filled with rotting leaves, the windows stained with bird poo. It’s a mess.

  “There are buckets in the basement,” she says, and wanders back into her office.

  Great. I’ve been tricked into valeting a nun’s car.

  I wonder, as I’m hoovering out the back seat, if Miss Harris was just sick of having this disgusting car sitting in the car park and bringing down the desperate upper-middle-class attitude of the school. Maybe she noticed that the tarot cards were missing weeks ago, but was just waiting until she needed a favour to cash this chip in.

  After I’m done hoovering, I fill two buckets up with soapy water to wash the outside. As I’m trodding back out to the car park, Sister calls from her office. “Don’t forget the boot!”

  “OK!” I call back.

  “I beg your pudding?”

  “I mean, yes, Sister.”

  I pop the boot, preparing to give it a quick sweep. Inside, there are rows and rows of black velvet jewellery cases.

  It’s a jarringly familiar sight. These are the boxes filled with cheap costume jewellery that Lily and I were forced to carry into school during our first week at St Bernadette’s. We laughed at the strangeness of it. Strange in a way that reminded us of ourselves. Why would a nun have this much flashy jewellery? And what was it doing in the school?

  I lift a case gingerly, expecting it to be heavy. It isn’t. Curious, I unfasten each silver clasp on the side of the box. Inside, there’s no jewellery at all.

  Just paper.

  Newspaper, photographs, doodles, essays. Sister Assumpta wasn’t using these boxes to take jewellery into the school. The soft, satin-lined boxes meant for keeping delicate necklaces and bracelets in perfect condition were being used to store delicate memories instead.

  There are a dozen boxes, and I carry them all into the back seat of Sister Assumpta’s car. I picture Jo’s face looking disapproving, saying something about respecting the property of others. But I figure I’m cleaning this woman’s car for free. I deserve a bit of a nose around.

  Most of it is just glowing write-ups about the school and records of the achievements of former pupils. “ST BERNADETTE’S TOPS LEAVING CERT RESULTS, BEATING BOYS’ SCHOOL AGAIN” is one, and “CHILDREN’S AUTHOR SAYS BERNIE’S WAS HER INSPIRATION” is another.

  It’s all very sweet, really. I’ve never really considered Sister Assumpta as a woman capable of sentiment. She’s been so old the entire time I’ve been at St Bernadette’s that I just know her for rasping complaints at everyone. I’ve always been vaguely aware that she’s considered to be a trailblazer in the city, using her inheritance for good, trying to get Catholic girls an education, blah, blah blah. But there’s something heartbreaking about all of those memories and achievements stored in little black boxes in the back of a car filled with leaves.

  All of the boxes are labelled on their underside with white stickers and tiny, chicken-scratch handwriting. There is no order or sense to the labelling system. “1970–79” is one, but “ATTIC EXTENSION” is another. I look around for a “SPRING 1990” box but don’t see anything.

  What I do find, though, is a box called “HARRIET”.

  Harriet’s box starts in September 1985.

  “ST BERNADETTE’S WELCOMES FIRST CROP OF SCHOLARSHIP STUDENTS…”

  It’s a small item on one of the local free papers, and includes a big toothy photo of four girls grinning in front of the school. Sister Assumpta is there, nun habit on, hands on her hips.

  “PICTURED L to R: Harriet Evans, Sarah Byrne, Nan Hegarty, Catherine O’Faolainn.”

  There’s a condescending article about how these girls are being given “the chance of a lifetime”. The journalist asks Sister Assumpta whether she’s worried about bullying, given “the obvious lifestyle differences between the scholarship girls and the fee-paying girls”.

  I cringe, sinking deeper into the back seat. I’ve never once thought about this issue before my fight with Roe. I never thought that Fiona might feel there was a difference between her and “fee-paying girls”. Maybe that’s why she didn’t properly mix with anyone else in school before we became friends. I had never suspected she might feel left out, too.

  I gaze at Harriet Evans. She’s a big, pretty girl, with nice brown eyes and thick, curly hair like a woman from an Edwardian painting. She has winged eyeliner and a big smile. She looks like fun.

  I move to the next clipping, from 1986. It’s a picture of some kind of demonstration, or protest. This one doesn’t mention Harriet at all, and I have to squint to see her in the crowd photo. Harriet is mid-scream and carrying a “VOTE YES” sign over her head.

  “CATHOLIC GIRLS’ SCHOOL JOINS DIVORCE DEMO

  “Today thousands joined a pro-divorce protest in Bishop Stanley Square, with schoolchildren leaving school in order to voice their wish for a ‘yes’ vote. Teenagers too young to vote in the June referendum are in favour of divorce being legal in Ireland, which many pundits are saying is due to the influence of American films and television. Most surprising of all was the addition of St Bernadette’s Catholic Girls’ School, a school known for its conservative policies. Sister Assumpta, the former nun and founder of the establishment, was quoted as saying that she had her ‘head turned’ on the subject of divorce after ‘sound and passionate pleas from the students who this issue affected’. There have been concerns raised from parents of students, saying that the school’s ‘yes’ stance is a sign of its wavering commitment to morality.”

  “Commitment to morality”? I let out a harsh, hollow laugh. Is that what St Bernadette’s was known for? As long as I’ve been here, it’s been known for slightly dippy posh girls with delusions of grandeur.

  It’s funny how often I forget that divorce in Ireland is relatively new. We didn’t get it until 1995, only ten years before I was born. Mum had three kids by then.

  I move on. Now I’m on 1989, and Harriet is my age. She has the glowing confidence of a senator, her wide shoulders are back, her chin jutting out.

  “SCHOLARSHIP GIRL WOWS WASHINGTON IN INTERNATIONAL ESSAY CONTEST

  “St Bernadette’s scholarship winner Harriet Evans, sixteen, has another win under her belt – only this time, she’s going stateside! The talented student has won the UN’s ‘Together for Change’ contest with her essay on divorce in Ireland. ‘I wanted to highlight the sheer number of people affected by this issue,’ explains Evans. ‘I did a huge amount of research on women living in refuges, almost all of whom believe that their lives would be different if the 1986 referendum hadn’t failed.’

  “Evans is set to present her essay at the ‘Together for Change’ youth conference in Washington, DC, at the end of the month. Are her parents proud? ‘My mother and sister are over the moon,’ Evans says.”

  At
this point, I’m actively trying not to resent Harriet Evans. A politically active genius who wins essay competitions? Also, who says “all of whom”, like she is a grammar book? Give me a break. Still, it’s weird that with all the impressive students that St Bernadette’s has had, Sister Assumpta has chosen to focus on Harriet Evans. I mean, there’s been some actually famous pupils. We have an Olivier Award-winning actress, and she doesn’t have her own velvet jewellery case. I wonder if Fiona will ever get her own one.

  The last thing in Harriet’s file is a school photo from 1990. It’s her graduation photo, A4-sized. She’s lost a lot of weight since the essay competition win, as well as her Greek statue shine. She looks huddled and inward, not like the screaming girl in the divorce referendum photo, or the proud one in the competition win.

  I stare at the photo for a long time, feeling dissatisfied. I’ve just lived through this entire girl’s school career … but why? What’s the ending? Why is it here?

  And then I turn the photo over, to find the Housekeeper staring right back at me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  HARRIET’S DRAWING STYLE IS NOTHING LIKE LILY’S, BUT IT’S undeniable that she has talent. This Housekeeper is in watercolours, dusky yellows, deep greys and murky greens. But it’s definitely her. The dog at her feet looks bruised but protective, his head lolling against her thigh. The Housekeeper is as expressionless as she always is in my dreams, human-ish but not truly human. I remember again what Sylvia said about how people manifest spirits and ghosts when their emotions have nowhere else to go. That’s what the Housekeeper in Harriet’s drawing looks like. Like a pool where hate gathers, but not where it originates.

  My hands shake as I begin to realize: I have Harriet’s Walkman. I have Harriet’s tape.

  A stone hits the bottom of my stomach like it’s being flung down a well.

  I have Harriet’s cards.