About Matilda

by Bill Walsh

  Come on, Matilda. Let’s go.

  Lucy Flynn comes to the gate with us but Pippa won’t come past the fire escape. It’s early in the morning and the bright September sun slants along the stone wall. Lucy, Danny and me lean against the wall with our faces in the sunlight and our feet in the shade. We wonder. It can’t be that simple just to open the gate and walk outside. Can it?

  Danny says, What if a penguin that doesn’t know Gabriel said we’re let out sees us? We’d get killed for nothin’.

  Lucy says, So what? We gets killed for nothin’ anyway. Come on, Matilda. I’ll chance it if you will.

  I don’t know what to do. I can’t ask Gabriel ’cos she’ll give me a thick ear for asking pure stupid questions when she already gave everyone the answer. What if someone does see us though? They’d call the gardaíi. We’ll be handcuffed and carted off in the squad car.

  I peek through the rusty shutter in the gate. The road is empty. The footpath is empty. The coast is clear. The squeak when I open the wicket gate sends Lucy running away but Danny stays with me. One scruffy white sandal steps out onto the footpath. The other one has more sense. Danny is behind me whispering, Hurry up, Matilda, before a penguin comes.

  The other scruffy white sandal is lifting its heel, then a car comes roaring down the street and I’m stuck, half-in, half-free. Danny is shittin’ himself behind me and the driver, a man, is in front. Behind the fire escape I hear Pippa screaming at me to get back. But the car keeps going. Danny says, It must be true, Matilda. It must have been on television. We’re free.

  The other white sandal is so delighted it follows the first one out. Now there’s a pair of scruffy white sandals on the footpath. They go in and out and in and out again tap tap on the footpath like a blind man’s white stick. They don’t go too far in case the penguins change their mind because the further away from the gate you are the more trouble. But all day Saturday the scruffy white sandals go in and out, and in a week they’re across to the houses in Trinity Park where the kids who live there stare at us and sometimes we stare back. The next week I’m at the top of Barrack Street and by the third week I’m pissed off. There’s no point going in and out the gate anymore just because I can. I need somewhere to go. I want to do something but I don’t know what’s out here or even if I’ll be let. I never heard of anyone from the convent doing something on the outside. I’ll have to ask Gabriel when we get our pocket money Friday.

  Gabriel’s office makes me knickers stick to me arse. It’s small so there’s no place to run. There’s a narrow wooden table tight against the wall. On the table there’s a rusty biscuit tin, without biscuits, and a glass sweet jar, without sweets. Gabriel sits at the table and studies her list of how much pocket money we get. She hands me five pence from the rusty biscuit tin and my other five pence rattles into the sweet jar. Why couldn’t she use a wooden box? It had to be glass so I can see my silver five pence lying on its own at the bottom of the jar. Broken plates, cups, dishes. Curses, fights, back cheek. Not making your bed properly. Sins, mortal, venial, deadly and a host of others all come out of my pocket money. I never know what I’m getting. Sometimes I wind up owing money and that’s worse than no pocket money at all.

  What’s the five pence for, Mother?

  She looks at me over her glasses like I’ve just asked the most stupid question she’s ever heard and I better not ask again if I know what’s good.

  The missions. Offer up your misfortune, Matilda. Think of the starving babies in Africa with their bellies stuck out like black balloons and nothing in their mouths but flies and a set of teeth that’s pure useless and don’t be sitting there with a mouth like a salmon. You wouldn’t have it long in Africa.

  She knows that’s not what I meant. She knows I was asking why she stopped five pence. I’m sorry for the starving black babies and everything but not sorry enough to give them me pocket money.

  What did I do wrong, Mother?

  You broke two dishes washing up. You were fighting at breakfast.

  I didn’t start it, Mother. It was Mickey Driscoll’s fault. He hit Sheamie.

  I don’t care who started it and Sheamie can fight his own battles.

  Sheamie couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.

  Fighting with boys. I never heard the like. Now shift yourself or you’ll feel the back of my hand. Learn to turn the other cheek.

  But everyone’ll laugh at me.

  She darts a glance over the glasses again but there’s a smile in her eyes and I wonder if this is a good time to ask about doing something on the outside, joining something. Maybe not, but you never know when is a good time, so I ask. Gabriel takes off her glasses and fiddles with them on the table while the sweat dries on my palms.

  Something on the outside, Matilda. Like what for example? she says as if she never heard of anything outside the convent herself and she’s curious to find out.

  I don’t know, Mother.

  We’ll see, Matilda.

  I know by the way she says it she was hoping I’d have more to say than, I don’t know, and I hate it when Gabriel says, We’ll see. If I ask again I’ll get a clatter on the head. I’ll have to wait until she’s forgotten I asked and is in a good mood before I ask again, only I never know when that is either. I’m back where I started.

  Next Friday Gabriel says I get no pocket money at all for fighting again. She raps her knuckles off my forehead and nearly knocks my head off.

  What in the name of Our Saviour is it with you, Matilda? Just look at yourself.

  A big girl hit Pippa so I hit the big girl. She gave me a black eye but I don’t care. Black eyes are great. Nobody messes with you when you have a black eye. You look dangerous. Then some sneaky girl told Gabriel I was hiding my pointy green boots inside the gate and wearing the new white sandals to school. Gabriel drags me up by the ear lobe and holds the green boots in front of my eyes.

  There’s the name of ten other girls written on these boots, Matilda. Not a single complaint before you got your feet in them. Explain yourself.

  It’s a waste of time talking to her. How do you tell someone who lives in black what pointy green boots look like with yellow socks?

  The rest of my pocket money is stopped for running from Doyler when she came at me with the razor. Pippa and me were taking the lice out of each other’s hair. We caught and squashed so many lice our fingernails were red with our own blood. Gabriel said our hair was to come off but we complained that girls in school don’t get their head shaved when they have lice so why should we? Doyler cut it anyway. I ask Gabriel again about joining something. After what happened to my hair I don’t care, she can hit me if she wants. She doesn’t. She says she’ll have to see Father Devlin about things like that. He’s a great man and if anyone knows such things it’s Father Devlin. If he says it’s safe, then we’ll see.

  There she goes again.

  Saturday morning from my bedroom window I see Father Devlin’s black station wagon park in the playground. He walks along the corridor clapping his hands and rubbing the small kids’ heads. Where’s Matilda? he asks because he hasn’t seen me running down the stairs as he was walking past.

  I’m here, Father Devlin.

  By God, Matilda, look at the height you’re getting. I’ll have to put a book on your head.

  I wonder what he’d want to put a book on anyone’s head for but I don’t ask because it might be a stupid question and I don’t want everyone to laugh.

  Will we have a little chat, Matilda?

  All right, Father Devlin.

  Father Devlin rubs his hands together and looks around the corridor checking for nuns because he likes to bring us to the landing on top of the stairs so he can tickle us when there’re no nuns about. He sits on the floor and slaps his lap telling us to sit and I sit, even though at nine I think I’m too old for sitting on Father Devlin’s lap, but priests are like nuns and you have to do what they say. And if I don’t then he mightn’t let me join something on the outside.
/>   I feel his white collar biting into my neck, the roughness of his black pants on the backs of my legs. I say, Stop, because he tickles too rough. I say, Stop, like I mean it. But you always say that and you never know if you mean it or not. He grunts in my ear and says I’m a pretty girl. Stop, Father. I can smell his sweat. I can see it. It’s like white rosary beads on his forehead. You’re hurting me Father, let me down. His black shoes wobble on the stairs and I know he’s getting tired. He stands up and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

  Up be God, he says. You have me worn out. Wasn’t that great fun altogether? Will we go downstairs to Sister Gabriel?

  Yes, Father Devlin.

  Father Devlin slips into the bathroom and tells me go on down. I’ll be right behind you, Matilda.

  Gabriel always makes tea and bakes scones for Father Devlin when he visits. She gets out her best yellow tablecloth and lays it with her best china cups. She pours Father Devlin his tea and spreads butter on his warm scones while she leaves me standing here with my tongue scraping the floor.

  Do you like those scones, Father Devlin?

  They are only delicious, Sister Gabriel.

  He wipes the crumbs from his chin and that takes some wiping when you have a chin like Father Devlin’s. He’s the only person I know who has a chin wider than their forehead.

  Tell me, Father, says Gabriel, have you news of that matter we discussed?

  I’ve started an athletic club with a Mister Douglas. We’ll be training Monday night at seven o’clock. How does that sound, Matilda?

  Great, Father Devlin. Thanks.

  Gabriel says, Now, Matilda, what do you say to Father Devlin? Isn’t he wonderful?

  I said, Thanks, Mother.

  Well, we don’t say thanks, we say, thank you. Don’t we, Matilda? So I say, Thank you, Father Devlin.

  Gabriel says, That’s better now, and Father Devlin says, No, no, she’s fine, she’s fine.

  I wonder why I have to say thank you to Father Devlin when in mass we say give thanks to the Lord Our God and if thanks is good enough for the Lord Our God it should be good enough for Father Devlin. Father Devlin says, Don’t forget, Matilda. Monday night at the Grotto. Do you know where Our Lady’s Grotto is?

  Yes, Father Devlin. Thank you, Father Devlin.

  If you’re half as fast in a race as you are around that playground, you’ll have a grand time altogether. And if any of the other kids want to come down, he says to Sister Gabriel, then the more the merrier.

  Gabriel holds her hands to her flushed cheeks, Oh, Father Devlin, there’s no doubt but you are a marvel. Whatever would we do without you?

  Monday night, the green in front of Our Lady’s Grotto is bright from the streetlights and Father Devlin is there in his black overcoat. Mister Douglas is writing kids’ names in a notebook. Mister Douglas has a long thin nose like looking sideways at a coat hanger and it’s like every kid from the Cork Road is hanging from it. He has thin red hair, a lighted cigarette in his hand and he doesn’t look like he can run far. The other kids call him Sonny and I wish I were like kids on the outside where you call a grown man you never saw before, Sonny.

  Gabriel bought me new runners. She said if I’m going to do it I might as well do it properly. They’re not for kicking and climbing, they’re for your running, Matilda, and I don’t want to see a mark on them. I can’t hand out runners right and left. It’s not made of money we are. I have to budget.

  The runners are smashing. White-white, and there’s a lovely smell of new from the inside. I’m pure faintin’. I have my red shorts from school, a red T-shirt, and I look just like the other girls here except for the shaved-up hair and the black eye. There’s a girl in a blue tracksuit with three white stripes on the side and you’d hardly get stripes like that unless you were good.

  Father Devlin pulls on his cap and tells us Mister Douglas will be taking care of us. He buttons up his overcoat and leaves in his car. I wish he’d stay. Father Devlin is all right when he’s not asking us to sit on his lap, but Mister Douglas is a stranger and you never know what strange men will do.

  We do sit-ups, press-ups and squats on the green then go on a run out the Cork Road past the glass factory. I look back to see if Mister Douglas is following, but he’s sitting on the red-brick wall outside his house talking to his chubby-cheeked wife.

  Stay on the footpath, he shouts after us. Stay on the footpath.

  After a month of training we’re travelling on a bus to our first meet. Sunday morning there’re six kids from the Holy Shepherd. I’m wearing handed-in, hand-me-down blue slacks a hundred years old and a green boy’s jumper with crazy black zigzags and I’m ashamed. The other kids know I’m from the convent but I hate the world seeing I’m a Shep.

  I sit at the back of the bus. I wonder why my father hasn’t come home. And about my mother. Where is she now, is she thinking of us, does she miss me like I miss her?

  But part of me is excited and I can barely sit still. I’m going somewhere different, seeing new things. I drift away, lost in the mountains and fields. I’m swimming in rivers and diving naked into warm blue lakes, though after a while all the rivers and mountains and lakes look just the same. There’s a boy in a field flying a kite, his fingers clenched to the string. That’s what I want to be. A kite. A kite without string dancing in the breeze and sun, soaring over forests and cities high up to the clouds away from the convent out over the sea to countries all over the world and never stop till I’m home in Australia where it’s blue and warm and the white sand is soft beneath my toes. There’s icy lemonade on the veranda and she’s there in her bright white uniform like we were never gone, my Mum.

  We park in a field and I change my clothes in the bus. The black eye is gone and my hair is almost to my shoulders and I look like everyone else. Mister Douglas has new red tracksuits for us. Real ones. Heavy ones. They make me feel like I’m a real runner. A real person.

  The field is filled with people in boots and caps and scarves and kids in shorts and tracksuits. There are mini-buses, big buses, cars and vans parked in a line beside the ditch with their front lights facing outward. The ground is soft and the mud clings to the soles of my runners but the air is fresh and crisp and there’s that sweet smell that comes after rain.

  Perfect conditions, says Mister Douglas. There’s not a cloud. The main thing, lads, is to enjoy it. Do yeer best and don’t let yourselves down.

  I line up with other girls for my race and I have to bend over and put my head between my knees. That’s what Mister Douglas says to do.

  Relax, girl, relax, sure you’ll be grand.

  The man with the gun fires and scatters the birds from the trees and I know if I can stay close to the girl who had the white stripes on her tracksuit when we were training, I have a chance. The race is three miles and after two I’m ahead of the girl. She looked really good with the number on her back. I thought she had a plan but now when I glance back I see she’s last. Up ahead there’re girls in yellow and red and blue tops. Some are so far ahead I barely see them. I pass one girl, two girls. I’m not as nervous now and keep passing girls until there’s more behind than in front but the finish is too soon and I’m only fourth but Mister Douglas says I done well.

  Did I?

  Yes, of course, you’re in the final.

  I’d like to smile but then he might think that I think I belong here when I know I don’t. I turn my face away but the smile comes anyway.

  The next race is for boys, then older girls, then it’s my turn again. This time I go straight to the front and when I cross the finish line I’m dancing. I’m at the Olympics and the national anthem is playing while they hang my gold medal around my neck. I’m a girl floating up to Heaven on a cloud when Mister Douglas comes across to me smiling and tells me all the running will be like this. Long-distance and cross-country, if I keep it up I’ll be very good. He lights a cigarette, coughs, and tells me I have great stamina. I’m eager and never give up and he likes that. I
hope you don’t smoke. Fags are bad for the running. And eat plenty of raw eggs.

  I don’t smoke anyway but I don’t know where I’m going to get raw eggs. Any eggs. I couldn’t tell Mister Douglas I get one egg a year, Easter Sunday. And that’s hardboiled. That only the penguins, Doyler, and special visitors get eggs from the fat blue chicken in the fridge.

  On the way home the bus stops outside a sweet shop and the kids from the outside go in. There’re six of us from the Holy Shepherd sitting together at the back of the bus wishing we had mammies and daddies to give us money when we go away on buses. Mickey Driscoll and his sister Molly sit across from me. Their faces are blotchy like they’re going to cry. Mickey won a gold medal too, but my race was over so I won first. I wouldn’t tell him that though. I wonder if they’ll come next week. I wonder if I’ll come next week, until Mister Douglas walks back and slips us money when nobody else can see and tells us not to be shy about taking it.

  Us shy? You can tell Mister Douglas never had nothing.

  We snap the hand off him. Thanks, Mister Douglas.

  Would you lot ever stop this Mister Douglas business and call me Sonny.

  We say, Thanks, Sonny, and chase into the shop after the others and it’s great to be like kids on the outside where you call a grown man, Sonny.

  Gabriel is sitting in her armchair by the sitting-room fire watching Andy Williams on television, while she’s embroidering one of those little white pocket-handkerchiefs I often see her with. I’m bursting to show Gabriel my gold medal with the picture of a runner wearing a red top the same as mine but she says, Sit here, Matilda, on the seat beside me, those Osmond Brothers will be on in a minute. I sit beside her and listen to Donny Osmond singing ‘Puppy Love’. He’s gorgeous and I’m so so gob-smacked when he’s finished I have to remind myself what I came in for. I tell Gabriel I won and she says God was running with me and the Holy Spirit was giving me strength. I’m to hang my medal on the board in the kitchen with the holy medals the penguins give for our own sports day but I want to wear it around my neck like girls in school who win dancing medals. I ask Gabriel, Can I keep it for a while, Mother? She looks at me over her glasses and Gabriel has a look would strip the peel off an orange and even though you know you’ve done nothing wrong you just can’t help wondering.