‘You go in and ask her. You can understand what she says,’ Aisling orders, when they have pushed away their desserts: tapioca pudding, which is the one dessert she simply cannot force down. Even the sight of its glutinous texture, its myriad bulging eyes, revolts her.
‘No way! We should go together!’
‘ok. But what’s the point? I can’t understand her and she can’t understand me.’
Orla goes into the kitchen alone. She looks around – she has hardly ever been there before. It is a big room, very hot, smelling of frying objects and baking bread. Banatee is at the table thumping a round flat pat of creamy dough. Her hands are floury and her glasses are dusted with a fine white coat of flour. She takes them off when Orla comes in, making them even whiter.
‘Sea, a thaisce?’ Banatee is alarmed. The girls never come into the kitchen. It has never happened before, even once.
‘Mm.’ Orla tries to find the words to say what she is supposed to say. Our friend Sandra wondered if she could come and stay here instead of ... She wonders what the Donegal Irish for wonder is. She asks the question anyway, in the Irish she knows.
‘Caidé sin?’ Banatee has not understood.
Orla asks it again, in another way.
‘Caidé? Abair sin arís, a thaisce?’ Banatee puts her hands to her ears, indicating that she is a bit deaf.
Orla says, in English, ‘Can I have a clean sheet for the bed?’
‘Of course you can, dearie. Why didn’t you just say that in English?’
‘Well ... I thought we weren’t supposed to speak English.’
‘Och, don’t mind what them teachers do be telling you, a thaisce. Sure I’m from Scotland.’
‘You are?’
‘Och aye, did ye not know even that?’
‘No,’ says Orla. She considers telling Banatee that her mother is English, but decides against it.
‘What did she say?’ Aisling is on the stairs. Orla gives her a fresh purple sheet.
‘She said maybe.’
‘We know what that means.’ Aisling sighs. ‘Poor old Sandra!’
‘Sandra’s all right.’ Orla feels cross, very cross, but she does not know why. She has got what she wants, after all. Sandra will never come here now and spoil things between her and Aisling.
Aisling changes for Outdoor Activities, taking off her skirt and blouse and putting on a T-shirt with shorts. Orla rifles through her suitcase until she finds an outfit that is similar. Standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, checking her chin for blackheads, Aisling watches Orla’s reflection.
‘Why are you wearing that?’ She turns when Orla is dressed.
‘Why? Why not?’ Orla knows what she means but decides to pretend not to. ‘It’s a hot day.’
‘You’re copying me, Orla.’ Aisling turns pink and her face contorts, not with anger but with embarrassment. Aisling is always nice; she does not accuse her friends of any faults.
‘I am not!’ Orla expostulates. ‘I am not copying you. It is a very hot day.’
‘So let’s go for a swim then,’ Aisling says. ‘Why can’t we ever go for a swim?’
‘We can. We can go for a swim if that’s what you want.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Aisling runs out of the room.
Orla goes to the mirror and stares at herself in its misty surface. Her T-shirt is green and red, striped, a serviceable colour, and her shorts are khaki. Where did Elizabeth get them? O’Reilly’s, that’s where, close to Clover’s where they bought the tangerine shoes which are on Orla’s feet right now, contrasting vividly with her greyish-brownish socks. The socks were white, and new, when she packed them, but successive washings with cold water and toilet soap have discoloured them. They are now the colour of the burn, a colour that is pleasant in rivers but nasty in socks.
Her legs are browner than they were, and also her arms and face. But she is too fat. She turns and tries to get a look at herself from the back. It’s hard to get a good look, but she sees enough. Her bottom sticks out. It gets rounder all the time, no matter how much exercise she takes. Her legs too, although muscular, are thick.
‘I look terrible!’ Orla goes to the mirror and bangs her head against the reflection of her head.
Aisling is not as skinny as Pauline. But she is thinner than Orla, and taller as well. Her shorts are navy, a good crisp navy, and she wears them with a red and white T-shirt, navy socks, white tennis shoes. Her clothes, washed in the burn like Orla’s, have survived much better – because they were much better to begin with, like everything Aisling has.
‘Oh money no object!’ is what Elizabeth says. ‘The best of everything.’ She says this with a strange look on her face, a drawn look, which suggests that she does not like Aisling, or her family, the people with the money. Why then does she insist that Orla be Aisling’s friend, as staunchly as she discourages her from knowing Sandra? Elizabeth is drawn to Aisling and Aisling’s mother even more than Orla is, and at the same time she disparages them, with subtle remarks and less subtle gestures, all the time. Orla knows that she is supposed to be like Aisling, that her mother wants her almost to be Aisling: that is her ambition in life. She is to be Aisling and then her mother will be satisfied. And yet, and yet, if she is Aisling will her mother curl up her face into a ball of resentment, and make sly remarks about her behind her back? Money no object. The best of everything.
Money is the key, Elizabeth teaches Orla, the key to everything that is good in life. Money is beauty and civilisation, money is refinement and flowers on the table, money is Chopin preludes on the piano in the front room and books on shelves in the bedroom. Money is low voices and gentle smiles. To Orla all these things seem complicated and many-faceted, life as lived by Aisling and her parents. But Elizabeth has simplified the complexities. They all boil down to one thing: money. The key to money is education, is the other part of the theory. You get an education in order to get money, and that is all you need to get, in this life. Get it. Orla’s got it. She’s got it that she’s to get it, and then she’ll get Elizabeth’s approval. Elizabeth will lose that sour, hard, cruel, bitter look she carries on her face whenever she talks about her great friend Aisling, and Aisling’s mother behind their backs, and replace it with the sort of look they have. Which is ... different.
Orla removes the shorts and replaces them with her one pair of denims, which are from Dunnes Stores, not Levi’s. That means they are loose, and the denim is dark blue, not the pale, snug-fitting jeans that the best girls wear. She takes off her tangerine shoes. The heels are worn down, completely, from the constant walking. Rummaging in her suitcase she finds the schoolbag sandals, and these she puts on.
Without looking at herself she leaves the room.
The burn scene three
Aisling is with Pauline. Orla can hear them laughing as she passes Pauline’s door, and her stomach contracts with jealousy. She wonders if she should go in, tell them she is off to Outdoor Activities. She decides not to; she hasn’t the courage to face them. She knows if she speaks in their presence her voice will be strangled in her throat. Such jealousy she has hardly ever felt before and she does not know what it is. All she knows is that watching Aisling attach herself to Pauline changes the chemistry of her own body. It shrivels her.
But before she has reached the bottom of the stairs they come out of the room.
‘Where do ye think ye’re off to?’ Pauline shouts.
Orla stops and looks at her, beaming. Her stomach regains its equilibrium.
‘Rounders.’
‘Sneaky article! You could’ve told us you were going!’
Pauline and Aisling come down and they swing out into the sunbaked yard. Micheál is crossing it as they go, carrying a lamb in his arms.
‘What happened the wee lamb?’ Pauline asks.
‘It’s broken its wee leg,’ answers Micheál. The first words he has ever uttered in the presence of any of them.
‘Och the poor wee thing. Isn’t he lovely?’
&nb
sp; Micheál says nothing. He smiles at the girls and doesn’t move. An awkwardness falls over the yard.
‘Baa baa black sheep!’ sings Pauline. ‘What will you do with it now?’
‘Och, put it by the fire. Give it a drop of milk.’
‘From a bottle?’
‘Aye.’ He looks puzzled, as if the implications of this were too much for him.
‘Can I do it?’
‘Feed it from the bottle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why not?’ He moves now, clumsily, to the door of the house. The girls stare at his retreating back and when he goes inside, they laugh.
‘So where are you really going?’ Pauline changes the subject, turns on Orla.
‘Down to the burn, actually.’
‘The burn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Just am.’ She moves away, heading for the garden.
‘I’m coming too so I am.’ Pauline jumps up.
Aisling looks taken aback.
‘Come on Ash, time for action!’
They follow Orla around the house to the garden and on into the field.
‘Can’t we walk along the bank? We’ll get wet.’
‘It’s more fun this way!’ Pauline yells, leaping from stone to stone. Aisling stands up to her knees in ripe grass and long-stemmed buttercups, watching as Pauline leaps rapidly from stone to stone downstream. Orla looks over her shoulder and waits for Aisling who, after a minute, steps into the burn and begins to make her way along its course with diffident steps.
They cross the second, ragweed field and come to the ditch where the burn goes underground.
‘You can get through here,’ Orla says, pleased to be able to surprise even Pauline. ‘I’ll show you.’ She crouches and begins to creep under the wild hedge.
‘I’m not going in there!’ Aisling is red in the face and pouting. Orla hopes she won’t cry. She finds a tiny smugness, a mean satisfaction, creeping into her. Aisling is not brave enough for Pauline.
‘Don’t be a fraidy cat!’ Pauline looks at her crossly. Fraidy cat. Cowardy custard, Orla thinks, translating, but does not say. She just continues to crawl through the bushes. Pauline follows.
Aisling stares at them in dismay and irritation. ‘I’m going back,’ she says. ‘It’s nearly teatime. Banatee will be looking for us.’
‘So long!’ Pauline sings in a high neutral tone. ‘Don’t eat all the slugs on us.’
Orla and Pauline are in the glaucous cavern. It is a brilliantly sunny day outside, and here and there a flash of light penetrates the green roof of the tunnel, turning the dark amber water to gold.
‘This darksome burn, horseback brown, his rollrock highroad roaring down,’ announces Orla suddenly.
‘What’s that? This place is going to your head.’ Pauline looks puzzled and annoyed.
‘Nothing. Look.’ Orla points at the raspberries. There are a few left.
‘What are they?’
‘Raspberries. Wild raspberries. I ate some the other day, they’re lovely.’
‘Maybe you’re poisoning me? Maybe this is the last the world will ever see of Pauline?’
Orla steps across the burn and picks the last raspberries. There are about half a dozen left. She eats two herself and lets the red juice run out around her mouth. ‘Here!’ She hands the remainder over.
Pauline tastes one. ‘Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?’ she chants. ‘Mm. Yum yum. Is that all there is?’
‘Here anyway. Maybe further down.’
This is as far as she has come before. Pauline moves along ahead of her. The burn continues at much the same pace and size for a few hundred yards. They move easily along, their ears filled with the sound of it. It babbles, and at the same time there is a continuous loud hum, like the sound of a machine, under the babbling. On top of the burn sounds are the rustlings of the leaves, rustles made by birds and perhaps animals in the banks and overhead, and birdsong. Orla can let it sink into her head, along her bloodstream, even now, even in the company of Pauline.
The roaring becomes louder. After a while the burn runs deeper. It is harder to find stepping stones. Pauline, failing in one leap, steps into the water.
‘Hey!’ says Orla. ‘Won’t you take off your shoes?’
‘No,’ says Pauline. ‘I’ll be getting out again, sure.’
Orla follows suit, although she is wearing jeans and they get hopelessly wet. They wade through the brown, cold water, which in places reaches up to their thighs.
Then they come to the waterfall. The roaring is a thundering; they go as close to the edge of the fall as they can and look over. It is not very high, about six feet, and underneath, the burn widens into a generous pool. It is blacker than the water up here, and looks much deeper.
They stare at the pool for a while, and listen to the waterfall.
‘I’m going down,’ says Pauline.
‘Mm. You can’t, it’s dangerous.’
‘Doesn’t look dangerous to me.’
‘We don’t know how deep it is.’
‘I can swim. Can’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘You never come to the shore.’
‘Well ...’ One of Orla’s little secrets. She is not going to divulge it to Pauline, of all people.
‘Double dare you!’
‘Hm.’
‘Triple dare you. Don’t be a fraidy cat!’ Pauline does not say another word. She pulls herself out of the water and onto the rocks at the crest of the waterfall. Then she takes a jump – not a dive, just a clumsy, reckless jump, into the water below. Orla feels her heart stop. She watches Pauline descend – it is not so frightening, since Pauline is about the same length as the waterfall. Her feet are hitting the water below while her head is still just under the higher level. But her head disappears below the surface. The splash, the white spray, disappear, and the water closes over Pauline like a black skin. The violence of the falling water is all Orla hears. Pauline is gone.
Orla feels paralysed. Stands there at the top of the waterfall, staring. Her body has become, suddenly, totally relaxed. All the muscles spread pleasurably, the way they do after intense running or something like that. Her arms, tummy, thighs, legs feel soft, pleasured. They seem removed from her head.
Pauline surfaces. ‘Hello there baby bear!’ She can hardly be heard above the noise, but she swims around the black pool, her hair sleeked against her head, her brown eyes laughing.
‘Come on fraidy cat!’
Orla closes her eyes and flexes to jump. But she can’t. When the moment comes to give herself over to the jump, she can’t do it.
‘Come on! It’s great! It’s easy as cheese!’
Orla looks down at Pauline and thinks that it is easy, the water is deep and safe, the waterfall is not so high. All you have to do is close your eyes and stop thinking. Stop thinking! Stop thinking!
She closes her eyes and stops ... no she does not stop. She can’t stop thinking. Every time she flexes her body for the leap her fear catches her, like a hand on her shoulder, and pulls her back. The struggle goes on like a battle in her stomach and her head. She flexes, she blacks out everything, she’s almost doing it ... But the hand clutches her and paralyses her. Her anguish is appalling.
‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘ I just can’t.’
Why can’t she?
Pauline looks up, puzzled. But she recognises an impasse, or cowardice, when it stares her in the face from the top of a waterfall. She waves and says nothing. She swims around for another minute or two and then climbs up the side of the fall. Orla waits for her, wishing she could be so reckless, gazing at the black, dark pool. She loves to look at it, to skirt it on its banks, to find stepping stones across it. If she fell from one of those stones or from the slippery grass she would swim across the pool, loving the cold fresh water. It’s the jumping she can’t cope with, that sensation of free falling, being out of control.
Writing to yourse
lf
Dear Mummy,
I hope you are keeping well and that your headaches are not bothering you. I am fine.
The weather is quite good now, coldish but dry, at least. We can go to the shore every day, or play rounders. Usually I play rounders. I am getting quite good at it. Yesterday our team won by fifteen rounds, which is really good.
Jacqueline, one of the girls from Derry who was staying in Dohertys’ with us, went home a few days ago. She just couldn’t stand the food we get here and wanted to eat some chips. The food is awful but it is edible. She was a strange girl! I think she was just homesick really. Her father is in prison in Long Kesh and her mother was not allowed to move into their new corporation house by the British Army.
Pauline the other girl from Derry is on her own now in the back room. It must be nice to have a room to yourself, but I suppose it is a bit lonely too. Aisling and I still share the master bedroom!
I am losing loads of weight. We walk for miles every day and there is so much to do. But it is fun.
I have not visited Auntie Annie yet. I still have the present for her in my case and will call in with it as soon as I get a chance. It is hard to get the time. We are always busy doing something or other.
I hope you and Daddy are well. I wonder why you do not write? Is something wrong? I would like to telephone but I have no money left. Please do not work too hard and have a nice rest. And please write soon!
Much love,
Orla xxx.
Every day she writes now, recklessly buying stamps, hoping that a barrage of post will force a reply out of Elizabeth. As a strategy it fails.
And now Orla has no money at all, apart from the sterling Elizabeth has given her for purchases in the North. She hasn’t enough Irish money to buy even one more stamp. So she decides to ask Aisling if she would consider being a bureau de change.
The Dancers Dancing Page 12
