The Blue Horse

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  She hugged her mother and pulled the bedroom door shut softly behind her. Back in her own room she climbed onto her bunk bed and stared at the ceiling. No matter what she did she just couldn’t get to sleep. Hour dragged into hour until it was morning. Every bit of luck gone, she thought, as she finally drifted off into a light sleep.

  Chapter 18

  WOODEN HEART

  Monday was the worst day of the week. Putting on the navy school sweater and the shoulder straps of her bag across her back was almost like putting on armour and getting ready for battle. She would take a few deep breaths and hold her spine straight to control her inner panic. She got on well with some of her classmates and they would chat to her, and they raised no objections to her sitting beside them. There was another group who avoided looking her in the eye or talking to her, but who did nothing bad to her.

  But there were about five in the class who never let up taunting her. ‘Knacker’, ‘tinker’, they whispered and jeered at her. She hated each and every one of them. Often she felt sure they must be aware of her heart pounding and of the crazy throbs of her pulse if they approached her. But she decided she would not cry even if her heart felt like a wooden heart. She often thought of the words of the song now, and she understood them! Would her heart fall apart, crack and split in two? But once she kept her eyes steady and put a damper on her temper, things passed off.

  Natalie jeered and taunted her as often as she could. She made sure that everyone in the school knew that Katie was a traveller and tried to shame her at every opportunity.

  ‘What’s the point of the likes of you coming here?’ she demanded to know.

  Katie did her best to ignore her. At lunchtime one Wednesday when Katie went to get her sandwich, her locker had been broken open. It was the third time in a week, and this time her drink had been spilt down over her books and soaked her turquoise jacket which was covered with stains and flung on the floor. It was the only jacket she had. Her sandwich had been stood on, so now she had no lunch either. But the worst thing was that her new history book and Irish book the Principal had given her were destroyed.

  It was only when Natalie came out of the toilets that Katie spotted a piece of squashed sandwich stuck on her shoe.

  ‘You busted my locker.’ Katie walked right up to her. Natalie refused to answer.

  ‘You busted the locker and opened my can and spilt it and ruined my lunch.’

  ‘I didn’t touch your locker or your mouldy old cheese sandwich.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘I’ve proof.’

  ‘The proof of a lying little tinker, is it?’

  ‘The cheese on your shoe.’

  ‘Anyone and everyone knows that the likes of you bring dirt and mess wherever you go.’

  ‘I’ve brought no mess, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Ciara, get her a mop and she can clean up her filth.’ As she threw this order to her friend, Natalie snatched the can from the locker shelf and began to shake the dregs around the room.

  Katie tried to grab the can but the other girl was taller and heavier than her and knocked her against the locker door.

  ‘Leave her alone, Natalie.’ It was Brona Dowling.

  ‘Mind your own business. You keep out of this,’ warned Natalie, flushing because someone had dared to question her authority.

  ‘Don’t clean it, Katie, don’t mind her,’ said Brona.

  With her foot, Katie let fly and kicked Natalie against the wall of lockers opposite her.

  Natalie then grabbed at a hank of Katie’s long hair, swinging out of it. Katie felt as if her whole scalp was being tugged off and tears of pain stung her eyes.

  She lashed out with her free hand, while with the other she tried to release her hair, but Ciara tripped her and she fell down on the tiled floor with Natalie on top of her. She tried to knee her off but Natalie was much stronger. She was pinned down and Natalie was just reaching for the can again when their maths teacher’s voice boomed out.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ He stormed over and pulled Natalie off.

  ‘Get to your feet, both of you. Up to Mrs Quinlan’s office immediately. The rest of you stop gaping and tidy up here and go and have your lunches.’

  Katie blushed scarlet. The boys were coming out of their locker room and began to catcall them.

  ‘Hey, girls, who won the wrestling match?’

  ‘When do you fight again?’

  Katie’s head ached and her shoulder was stiff. She noticed that Natalie’s nose had begun to bleed by the time they reached the office.

  Mrs Quinlan was furious.

  ‘I will not have it! Two girls fighting like …’

  Katie almost laughed. She had nearly said the word ‘tinkers’.

  ‘Who started it?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘No! she did.’

  ‘She accused me of stealing her lunch.’

  ‘You busted my locker.’

  Mrs Quinlan came out from behind her desk.

  ‘Mr Byrne saw the two of you fighting. Both of you have disgraced yourselves. Neither of you knows how to behave as a lady should. Natalie, last week you were in this office over remarks made about a teacher, and Katie, you know you are in this school under special circumstances. That temper of yours will have to be kept under control. I have a large school to run.

  ‘We get bullying and beatings amongst the boys and I have to come down firmly on them, so it’s only fair that you girls get the same punishment. You are both suspended for two days. I will inform your parents. You will gather your things and I suggest you both go home straight away. I will see you next week in this office.’

  Katie rolled up her jacket into her schoolbag. Maybe she’d get a chance to soak out the stains before Mam saw it.

  * * *

  The kitchen was quiet when she got in from school – the others wouldn’t be home for nearly two hours. She found a note on the table under the sugar bowl. It was written in her brother’s large scrawly writing. She read it quickly then stuffed it into her pocket and ran upstairs.

  She was surprised to find Mam in bed with Davey lying near her, dozing.

  ‘Ah, Katie, you’re home early. We’re just having a little nap.’

  ‘I’m suspended, Mam.’

  Her mother looked puzzled. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I’m not let back to school for two days.’

  ‘But what did you do?’

  ‘A girl was bullying me and we got into a fight …’ she trailed off.

  ‘I knew it, Katie, you and that temper! It’ll always get you into trouble!’

  ‘Honest, Mam, it wasn’t my fault at all.’

  ‘How often have I heard that? Well, tell me then how is it you always end up involved in some way or another. You and Paddy, now the two of you in trouble. What’s happening to my family at all?’

  Katie wondered what she should do with Tom’s note. Would this break her Mam’s heart altogether? She decided to tell her and get it over with.

  ‘I found this note, Mam. It’s from Tom.’ She handed the note to her mother who stared at it blankly. ‘You’ll have to read it to me,’ Mam said.

  Katie read it out:

  Katie

  Tell Mam I’m sorry but I can’t stick it here

  any longer. I’m going to find Da.

  If I stayed any longer I’d only bring the

  Guards down on the whole family. The twins

  will be glad to have the room.

  Love

  Tom

  Mam didn’t say a word. She took the letter and held it close.

  Chapter 19

  EMERGENCY

  Mam left the house early next morning with Paddy. She was going to walk the four miles to school with him to talk to his teacher. Hannah got the bus on her own. It was lucky that Katie was at home to mind Davey.

  As soon as the others were gone she went up and began to
make the beds. There were three spare sheets so she re-made the twins’ and Hannah’s beds. It was breezy out, a good day to do a wash. She filled the buckets with hot sudsy water. The washing took her the whole morning.

  It was almost midday by the time Mam got back. She gave Katie money to go to the shops for some bread and a bag of potatoes and two cans of beans. Katie noticed that Mam’s purse was empty. This was all the money she had left until she collected the children’s allowances. Mam really wasn’t well. Her face was pasty white. Katie sent the others out to play when they got home so the house was quiet.

  By teatime she wondered if she should get the doctor, but Mam would have none of it.

  ‘I’ll just rest, pet, I’ll be fine.’

  The others were also worried and Brian blamed Paddy for making Mam sick.

  It must have been about eleven o’clock that night when Katie heard Mam calling her. The minute she walked into the room she knew things were bad.

  She lifted Davey from the bed and carried him still asleep and put him in Tom’s bed. He never stirred.

  ‘Mam, what is it? You need the doctor!’

  ‘No, Katie. I’ll have to go to the hospital. You’ll have to get an ambulance – and quickly.’

  ‘But I can’t leave you.’

  Katie stood in the centre of the room and didn’t know which way to turn. If only Da or Tom were here. She slipped into the boys’ room. Paddy was shifting in his sleep. She shook him.

  ‘Wake up quick, Paddy!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Stop asking questions, just get up, and don’t wake Brian. Davey’s asleep here too.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ His cheeks were flushed with sleep and his ginger hair stood on end.

  ‘You must get to a phone and ring for an ambulance. Mam’s real bad and I can’t leave her.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I think she’s losing the baby. Just stop looking at me like that, and for once do what you’re told.’

  A look of total confusion and bewilderment filled his nine-year-old face. He pulled on his tracksuit bottoms and a jumper and shoved his bare feet into his runners.

  ‘I’ll need money for the phone,’ he whispered. There were no phones nearby but there was a public call box at the entrance to Ashfield estate, and in daylight hours there was usually a long queue to use it.

  ‘I’ll get Mam’s purse.’ It was empty.

  Katie searched everywhere and at last found two 20p coins in Hannah’s new piggy bank. She took them out and shoved them into Paddy’s hand.

  ‘Hurry up,’ she urged him.

  A minute later she let him out the hall door. She wondered should she run in next door and get Mrs Dunne, but instead she went in again and pulled the sheet off the living-room window and put the light on. It would be hard enough for an ambulance to find the house in this maze. She also left the hall door slightly open, with the light on there too. Paddy seemed to take ages. She got Mam a glass of water and two pain-killing tablets from the kitchen.

  Big tears slid down Mam’s face. ‘I’m losing the baby, Katie. I don’t think there’ll be any saving it now.’

  Katie didn’t know what to say. All she could do was hold Mam’s hand and sit and wait. Da should be here, she thought again, and a stab of anger so sharp that it hurt jolted her.

  Paddy finally arrived back and ran up the stairs, panting and out of breath.

  ‘They – huh – they – huh – are coming about ten – huh – minutes they said.’ He stood bent over, trying to get his breath back.

  It was another fifteen minutes, though it seemed like an hour, before Katie heard the ambulance turn into the road, its blue light sending flashing patterns around the room. Paddy led the two uniformed men up the stairs to the bedroom.

  Straight away they took control of the situation. One of them sat on the bed beside Mam and talked gently to her.

  ‘Now, my dear, we’re going to have to move you.’ They had a kind of chair-shaped stretcher and they helped her into it.

  Katie and Paddy went down the stairs ahead of them and stood anxiously at the bottom.

  It was a cool star-spangled night and the air was still. The blue light of the ambulance had obviously woken a few neighbours. Mrs Dunne was standing in her doorway in an orange dressing-gown and fluffy slippers, wondering what was happening. Katie held Mam’s hand as they wheeled her down the driveway.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Katie, don’t worry.’ But Mam looked so ill, Katie felt sure she was going to die.

  They lifted her up the step and put her onto a flat bed in the ambulance.

  ‘Katie! You go with your mother, I’ll stay with the rest of them.’ Mrs Dunne was standing beside her.

  ‘But I have to mind the others. If Davey wakes he’ll want a bottle and Hannah will be – ‘

  ‘Listen, pet, you go with your mother. I’ll manage, don’t you worry.’ The younger ambulance man had jumped in and was about to pull up the step. ‘Are you coming with us?’

  She made a snap decision and in an instant was sitting opposite her mother.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Dunne. Thank you very much!’

  The door slammed shut and the ambulance turned and moved off. Mam’s eyes were closed.

  ‘Are you there, Katie?’

  ‘Mam, I’m going with you. You’ll be fine, just relax.’ She was amazed she could even speak. At this moment she felt as if she belonged in another world and that this was something happening to another girl and another mother, not to them.

  The ambulance man took out a pad and began to fill in a form.

  ‘Maybe you can help me with the details,’ he said to Katie. She gave Mam’s full name; she wasn’t sure about her age and birth date.

  ‘There are six of us, but two are twins.’

  She told him how tired Mam had been the last week or so, also about the fire, about losing everything and moving to Ashfield.

  He scribbled down some notes. He turned to Mam. ‘Mrs Connors, are you all right?’ There was no reply. Mam seemed to have fallen asleep.

  He leaned forward and held her wrist.

  ‘Joe, get a move on,’ he shouted and banged at the glass behind the driver’s head.

  Katie reached for Mam’s hand. It was cold. The man put another blanket over her. They were going so fast that to Katie it felt like they weren’t even touching the road. Then they slowed down and turned in somewhere.

  ‘Nearly there,’ the man coaxed Mam. ‘You’ll be in hospital in a minute, Missus.’

  Suddenly they stopped and the door was flung open. The two men were out of the ambulance in a flash, pushing Mam in through huge swing doors towards bright lights.

  Katie stumbled down after them. Her stomach felt sick, she thought she was going to faint.

  Mam was disappearing in the distance behind a row of curtains. A porter at the desk just pointed Katie in the direction of a waiting room. There were two rows of chairs, and a huge television with a blank screen in one corner. A smell of stale smoke choked the air and made her feel worse. A bin overflowed with empty drink cans and cigarette butts. The room was empty except for a greasy-haired man down the end who was engrossed in reading the day’s newspapers. A clock ticked over their heads. An hour went by and there was still no word of her mother. She went to the desk two or three times and asked the nurse, but all she was told was: ‘The doctor is with your mother, so try not to worry.’

  Finally a nurse appeared and sat down beside her.

  ‘Where is your father, dear?’

  Katie felt her blood run slow. ‘I don’t know. None of us have seen him for about six weeks.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he’d be? You’re travellers, aren’t you? Would he be with his family?’

  Katie shrugged. ‘We moved into the house and he didn’t want to. My brother Tom left and went to join him, and except for my Da phoning the welfare office to say that Tom was with him, we’ve heard nothing.’

  ‘You do have a social worker,
then?’

  ‘Miss O’Gorman.’

  The nurse jotted it down.

  ‘Listen, Katie, your mother will have to have an operation tonight. She has lost a lot of blood and is very weak, but she’ll be fine.’

  ‘She won’t die, will she?’ Katie felt such a coldness inside as she asked the question.

  ‘No! No! We’ll take good care of her. Listen, you’re all done in yourself. Sit there and I’ll bring you a cup of tea.’

  Once the nurse left Katie began to cry. Mam would be okay. She wouldn’t die. God was so good. She searched for a tissue and found one crumpled in the pocket of her jeans. She had put them on over her pyjamas and her jumper was on inside out. She pulled it over her head and put it back on the right way.

  ‘Now, here you are, love, get that into you. You’ve had a right old fright tonight.’

  There was a cup of milky tea and a plate of pale golden toast. The nurse watched her take it.

  ‘I’ve ordered a taxi to take you home. It will be here in a few minutes,’ she added kindly.

  ‘But I’ve no money for a taxi,’ Katie blurted out. ‘I have nothing on me to pay for it.’

  ‘Listen, love, we can hardly expect you to get home like that at this hour. It’s our treat, so don’t worry about it.’ Katie looked down, the nurse was pointing at her feet. God! she still had her slippers on!

  ‘Come back tomorrow at visiting time. Your Mam will be upstairs in Unit 5 then.’

  The nurse took up the plate and cup and left quietly.

  A taxi man arrived in to the waiting room soon after, calling, ‘Taxi to Ashfield for Connors!’ He stared when Katie came towards him, but opened the door of the big car as if she was a person who was used to taking taxis everywhere. She told him her full address and he chatted away to her as they drove home.

  ‘Delivered a baby last year in this car. All kinds of emergencies – you get used to them.’

  Katie’s eyes were almost closed by the time they drew up outside number 167. The taxi man walked her to the door.

  The sky was beginning to brighten. It would soon be morning. Through the window she could see Paddy asleep on the couch. Mrs Dunne was sitting with her mouth wide open, sleeping too. Katie tapped the glass. The heavy-lidded eyes blinked open and the woman yawned as she stood up. She stretched as she opened the door.