A Girl Called Blue

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  Poor Jimmy, thought Blue. She imagined his little boy in England never getting to see his daddy.

  * * *

  ‘Don’t tell me you have the child playing cards already?’ joked Jimmy when he arrived home. Blue’s stomach sank at the thought of what he’d say about her and what they would decide to do.

  ‘Sit down, the dinner’ll be ready in a minute,’ said Mrs Mooney as she set out three place mats, and knives and forks, and Jimmy buried himself in the sports results in the evening newspaper.

  The shepherd’s pie was delicious, full of meat and gravy and creamy potato on top. Blue ate it as slowly as she could, to savour every minute of sitting around the table with them while Jimmy told them about the tourist who left one of his bags in the car and gave him an extra big tip for returning it to his hotel and Mrs Mooney praised Blue’s card-playing abilities.

  ‘Still raining outside?’ asked Mrs Mooney.

  ‘Hasn’t let up all day.’

  ‘’Tis an awful night to be going back out in the rain and dark with the child. Maybe it would be best to let her sleep in the small room, just for the night, what d’ye think?’

  Blue held her breath, waiting for his answer.

  Jimmy Mooney hesitated, torn between doing what his heart told him and getting into trouble with the law.

  ‘All right, Ma, she can stay the night but I’ll have to take her back first thing in the morning after breakfast. We’ll be in terrible trouble if I don’t.’

  Blue jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him on his big red cheek.

  Mrs Mooney came up to check on her after she had settled in the comfy bed. The kind old woman brought her a glass of warm milk and a digestive biscuit. Blue lay, snuggled up under a layer of heavy woollen blankets and a feather quilt with three squashy pillows behind her head. She wore an old floral-patterned nightdress Mrs Mooney had given her and she had a warm hot-water bottle to cuddle up to as she gazed at the rosebud-patterned wallpaper and the gaily striped curtains, with the rain lashing down outside. She could hear from downstairs the sing-song voices of mother and son talking late into the night. She concentrated on every moment of warmth and comfort, so she could call it up in her imagination in the future. This was one time when there was no need to imagine herself in another place. Instead, she pretended that this was her room and this was her home.

  Jimmy Mooney was quiet the next morning and Blue couldn’t help but be nervous as she ate the creamy porridge and slice of brown bread for breakfast. Her own clothes and shoes were dry again.

  ‘You’ll come back soon to visit us, love,’ said Nance Mooney kindly.

  Blue nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She noticed that Jimmy had put on a clean shirt and tie and combed hair oil through his few strands of dark hair. Eventually he led her out to the narrow street of identical red-brick, terraced homes where his shiny black taxi cab was parked.

  ‘You take care, love, and don’t mind what any of those old rips of nuns say to you,’ advised Nance Mooney. Blue flung herself into the broad arms, not wanting to leave.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got to go,’ urged Jimmy, and Blue sat into the front seat of the car beside him.

  Blue was determined not to cry or beg or let herself down as she resigned herself to returning to the place where she had been raised. There would be no more running away. No more escapes. Larch Hill was the only home she had and it was high time she accepted it. The nuns would kill her. They would make an example of her in front of the other girls and Sister Regina would have a suitable punishment planned for her. She tried not to shake when she thought about it, not wanting the fear to engulf her. Instead she thought about Mary and Tommy and prayed that both of them were okay.

  Jimmy coughed. ‘You understand, Blue, that Mammy and I wouldn’t be suitable candidates to raise a child or foster one. Mammy’s too old and I’m on my own since Sheila left me.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she sighed. ‘I understand.’

  ‘I already have a child, a little boy, Danny. He’s almost six and I never get to see him.’

  ‘Thank you and Mrs Mooney for taking me in and looking after me.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  She watched the buses and cars in front of them.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she lied. ‘Fine.’

  The gates looked bigger, the wall even higher, as the car pulled up the driveway of Larch Hill. Mr Mooney came to a halt outside the front door. Blue swallowed hard as dread clenched her muscles. Jimmy, looking uncomfortable, opened the car door and walked with her up the steps to ring the bell. They heard distant footsteps on the tiled floor. Sister Agnes opened the door, her eyes widening when she saw Blue.

  ‘I found the child wandering along by the quays,’ offered Jimmy Mooney. ‘She was in a right state. Shock, I reckon.’

  ‘Thank you very much, sir, for returning Bernadette to us. We’ve been frantic with worry about her and had alerted the relevant authorities,’ said the nun. She smiled a false smile, her pale face taut with suppressed anger. ‘You can leave the child with me. I will bring her straight to our mother superior to tell her the good news that the child has been found safe and well. We are very grateful for your good deed. I will look after her now as you have already given up more than enough of your time to bring her here.’

  ‘What will happen her?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Happen?’ The nun looked perplexed. ‘Naturally, the child must learn that she cannot behave in such a fashion. Such things cannot be tolerated in a place like this. We have all the other children in our care to think of. She needs discipline and Sister Regina, our mother superior, will know what to do.’

  Sister Agnes was trying to politely move the taxi driver out of the hall towards the door and back out to his car.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, Sister,’ his face had flushed red, the veins on his neck standing out above his shirt collar, ‘I would like to meet Sister Regina. I think it’s important that I talk to her myself.’

  ‘She is very busy at present,’ muttered the nun.

  ‘Then I’ll wait.’ He stepped past Sister Agnes and lowered himself into a high-backed mahogany chair. ‘I’m not leaving here till I speak to her.’

  Sister Agnes was unable to disguise her annoyance.

  ‘That child doesn’t need punishing,’ he explained slowly. ‘I reckon she’s had punishment enough.’

  ‘Well, that is for us, her guardians, to decide,’ replied the nun coldly.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to hear that one hair on the girl’s head had been harmed, or that a finger had been laid on her,’ the man said obstinately.

  Sister Agnes moved her lips and face, but no words came out.

  ‘Bernadette, go upstairs immediately and wait in your room,’ she said eventually. ‘I will tend to you in time, so stay there, do you hear?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Blue threw a grateful glance at Jimmy Mooney, who, despite his discomfort, looked like he was prepared to sit for hours if he had to.

  ‘You take care of yourself, Blue,’ he called as she began to walk up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 26

  The Cell

  She waited and waited in the empty dormitory but there was no sign of Sister Agnes or Sister Regina. She wondered what could be going on and what kind of awful punishment she could expect. The lunch bell went and from below came the heavy trooping of footsteps as the others come back from school for their midday meal.

  Lil surprised her by coming upstairs to get her cardigan.

  ‘Blue!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re back! We thought we’d never see you again.’

  Immediately the two girls fell into each other’s arms.

  ‘Where’s Mary? Isn’t she with you?’

  ‘No. We went to Galway and we found Tommy. She wanted to stay and take care of him. We were upstairs in the dormitory in Saint Gerard’s when we heard one of the brothers coming and I made a run for it. I escaped but Mary wouldn’t leave him. I don’t know what’s hap
pened her. Did you hear anything?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘God, I hope she’s okay.’

  ‘But why did you come back?’

  Blue sat on the corner of the bed, going over and over it in her head.

  ‘I had no money and nowhere else to go,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ grinned Lil, her brown eyes sparkling. ‘I missed you.’ She could only stay a few minutes and then had to return downstairs. ‘Wait till I tell everyone you’re back, they won’t believe it.’

  Blue sat hunched and miserable on the mattress. So much for her great escape plans. Dreaming, that’s all it was. She would never leave here, never. Not until she was sixteen. It was too long to wait.

  Finally, Sister Regina came up to see her. She recognised the heavy step in the corridor and she prepared herself to become the focus for all the nun’s rage and anger.

  ‘So you came back!’ the woman sneered. ‘Decided that Larch Hill was your home – the only place that would take you in, probably.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Don’t you “Yes, Sister” me like that. I know what you’re like. A troublemaker, a hothead! You incite others to get into trouble too. You encouraged Mary Doyle to go with you. Well, no doubt you’ll be glad to hear that she was caught and that she and her brother have been moved to a children’s home in Donegal.’

  ‘Both of them have been moved?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said. I told Brother Benildus to lock the two of them up and throw away the key. I’ll be sending a report about those Doyle children to whoever is in charge of them now. I’ll mark their card.’

  Blue was so relieved that Mary and Tommy had been kept together that she almost cheered. She might never see her friend again but at least Mary was with her brother. It was all she had ever wanted.

  ‘Once again you have caused this order endless trouble and embarrassment. We had the Guards out looking for you and I had to inform the authorities and the head of the order of your disappearance.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister.’

  ‘Sorry! I take a dim view of your behaviour. You have let Larch Hill down and are a bad influence on the rest of the children here. If I had my way you would be moved to another children’s facility, where they wouldn’t suffer any of your nonsense. We have almost two hundred children here to look after and we don’t have the time for troublemakers like you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ she whispered.

  ‘Sorry! You don’t even know the meaning of the word. You are to be at my office in two hours’ time. I will deal with you then.’

  The nun swished out of the room, the skirt of her long black habit flying as she turned away. Blue felt sick to the stomach, knowing that she would be punished severely.

  Two hours later she stood outside the nun’s office, trying to get her courage up to knock on the door.

  ‘Enter!’ Sister Regina called, when she finally managed it.

  Blue tried to control the shaking that overwhelmed her as she stood in front of the nun’s desk.

  ‘Not as brave and cheeky as you were a few days ago, I see,’ commented Sister Regina, who sat at her desk with her pen and papers spread out in front of her.

  Blue, unsure what to say or do, said nothing. She was waiting for the order: ‘hold out your hands’. Her fingers and hands were quivering and shaking and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t control them.

  ‘Keep still!’ insisted the nun.

  Blue was determined not to cry or beg or break down. She wasn’t going to give the nun the satisfaction of that. She looked down at the blue and red braided mat on the floor, trying to get her breath as Sister Regina stood up.

  This time there was no leather, no strap, but the nun launched into a torrent of words telling her how valueless she was, that she was a nothing, that she would be out on the streets if it weren’t for the charity of the order, calling her mother words Blue didn’t even understand, only sensing the shame of their meaning. Like waves the words washed over her, almost knocking her down, and she thought of Jess smiling and waving to her to join her, to swim in the sea, saying her friend’s name over and over in her head to block out the bad words as the nun ranted on and on telling her that no one wanted her or loved her and that she should be separated from decent children.

  Blue could have kicked or spat at her or pulled the veil from the woman’s head and scratched at her face and eyes, but instead she stayed still, listening to the frantic beat of her heart and the sound of her breath, knowing, somehow, deep inside her that the woman before her had little or no connection with the God she was supposed to pray to. Eventually the stinging snake of words stopped.

  ‘What have you to say for yourself?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  Sister Regina let out an exasperated sigh as she sat back into her chair.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I am a child of God, and God loves me,’ said Blue softly, words Sister Monica had once said to her somehow coming into her head. For a split second she thought that Sister Regina would pull out the leather strap and begin to beat her.

  ‘Get out of here!’ the nun ordered.

  * * *

  ‘Blue! Blue! Are you all right?’ The voice pulled her from the faraway place, as she struggled to wake up.

  ‘You’ve been asleep for ages,’ grinned Sarah. ‘You missed tea, but we kept you some.’

  ‘I’m not hungry …’ she started to say, not wanting to deprive them of their food.

  But Lil pulled a slice of bread and jam, lightly wrapped in a hanky, from her pocket and handed it to Blue.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, her voice shaking.

  ‘What did that bloody tormentor do to you?’

  Blue didn’t want to talk about it, there was no point. She looked around at the sea of faces clustered near her bed. Sarah and Lil and Big Ellen, even Annie and Carmel and Roisin – they were her friends, the only people in the world that cared about her. Tears began to run down her face again.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m crying,’ she blubbered, feeling like a big eejit as Lil wrapped her arms around her.

  ‘You’re going to be all right, Blue, honest.’

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  They all nearly jumped out of their skins when they looked up and saw the black habit and veil, relief washing over them when they realised it was Sister Monica.

  ‘Bernadette O’Malley is back, Sister,’ announced Annie.

  ‘Well, isn’t that good news, girls. The missing sheep has returned to the flock.’

  She waited for the nun to give out to her, but there was no display of anger or temper. ‘You girls had all better start getting ready for bed,’ she warned instead. ‘I believe Sister Agnes is on her way up.’

  Everyone scattered to change into their nightclothes and wash their faces and hands and brush their teeth.

  Blue sat wearily on the edge of her bed as Sister Agnes appeared. ‘Bernadette O’Malley, what are you doing in this dormitory?’

  ‘I sleep here, Sister,’ she replied, confused.

  ‘Not any more, you don’t. You heard Sister Regina, she has made other arrangements for you. You are no longer allowed to share this room with the other girls.’

  Blue stood up, embarrassed. ‘But, Sister, where am I to sleep, then?’

  ‘You are to follow me.’

  The rest of the girls kept their eyes down as Blue left the large dormitory where she had slept for almost ten years.

  ‘It is decided that you will sleep on your own, where you have no chance to influence the other girls with your bad behaviour.’

  She followed Sister Agnes up the narrow back stairs, stopping outside a heavy wooden door. ‘This is your room,’ said the nun, pushing open the door.

  The room was tiny, with just enough space for a narrow bed and a chair. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling. The window was way above her head, too high for her to see out of. A m
ulticoloured rag rug covered part of the floor, the only colour in the room. A chamber pot nestled under the iron bed frame.

  ‘That is in case you are taken short during the night.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your door will be locked. It will be opened again by one of the sisters when we rise for early-morning mass.’

  Blue could feel her heart plummet. She was going to be kept prisoner in this cell.

  ‘It is for your own good,’ offered the nun. ‘We can’t have you running away again.’

  Sister Monica suddenly appeared on the stairway behind them, her eyes concerned as she looked at the room.

  ‘There must be some mistake, Agnes,’ she objected. ‘This place isn’t suitable for a child. It’s meant for adult contemplation, prayer.’

  ‘Sister Regina feels it is. If you have a problem about this, Sister, I suggest you take it up with her in the morning.’

  ‘I shall do that,’ said Sister Monica, looking flushed and annoyed.

  Blue sat down on the bed.

  ‘I’ll sit with the child for a while,’ offered the kind old nun. ‘We’ll pray together before she sleeps.’

  Satisfied, Sister Agnes left.

  ‘I’ll try and sort things out in the morning, Bernadette,’ she promised, but both of them knew that the head nun was not one to change her mind or back down on anything.

  Over the next half hour Blue found herself telling Sister Monica about running away to Galway, about Mary and Tommy finding each other, and about Mr and Mrs Mooney and the small house on Iveagh Terrace.

  ‘I ran away too, when I was twelve,’ confided Sister Monica. ‘I wanted to join Duffy’s Travelling Circus.’

  ‘The circus?’

  ‘I wanted to be a bare-back rider or a trapeze artist. Could you imagine me swinging from a rope in the middle of the big top?’ she chuckled.

  Blue could.

  ‘Luckily, my older sister discovered my plan and managed to haul me home before I got into too much trouble. The thing is, sometimes we all feel the need to run away.’

  Blue felt strangely comforted for she liked and respected the thin, wiry little nun with her strange ways and habits.