My father’s sister Aunt Margaret is coming from England to get married and the five of us are invited to the wedding. I don’t know anyone in the convent who was at a wedding and I’m pure faintin’. Our cousin Jennifer is coming from London with her father, our Uncle James the millionaire, and her mother, Aunt Peg. Jennifer is the flower girl. I’d like to be a flower girl in a long pink dress and being brought to the hairdresser to have my hair done up in ringlets and the pink ribbons tied in properly. I dreamed about it last night. The altar overflowed with flowers and the sunlight through the windows turned the chapel into a sea of gold and when the organ played ‘Here Comes the Bride’ the guests shuffled in the pews turning to look at Aunt Margaret in her wedding gown, all white and smiling, strolling down the aisle on Grandad’s arm and me in front with my flower basket, everyone saying how pretty I looked and oh, my, Matilda’s hair is only fabulous.
Saturday morning is so warm the tar on the road bubbles. Gabriel drops the five of us up to our grandmother’s house in the mini-bus and there’s a white Rolls-Royce decked in pink and ribbon parked outside. Another long white car is parked behind, with its windows dazzling in the sunshine. Nanny comes to the garden gate to thank Gabriel for bringing us up but I rush past her and straight through the hallway to the sitting room. Grandad is stretched back in his new green leather chair, which now has a new hollow. The horse racing is on television and there’s a glass of stout in his hand and he’d sit there all day by the looks of him.
Well, Grandad, Pippa and me say.
Slow down there now, hold yeer horses the pair of yee. She’s in the front room.
Any winners, Grandad?
He doesn’t answer and that means he has. We stop running and sit on the new green sofa pushing and shoving each other to torment him.
Oh, here, here. He puts his hands in his trouser pocket and hands us a pound note each. Take that and hide it before anyone sees.
Thanks, Grandad.
We run back the way we came, passing Sheamie and Danny in the hallway.
Grandad has money, lads.
We burst into the front bedroom that smells of hairspray and fresh flowers and there’s Aunt Margaret fixing her veil in the mirror. She’s even prettier than in my dream. She says she can’t remember when she saw us last and look how long your hair is. You were like two boys before.
The penguins don’t cut it much anymore, says Pippa.
The women in the room laugh at the way we call the nuns penguins and Aunt Margaret says she’s glad she’s getting married before you two hit the town. There won’t be a man safe. Come over here and give your aunt a hug.
We’re careful not to crumple her veil and I’m delighted she even spoke to us with all the women here telling Margaret how stunning she looks. Mona follows us in and the three of us sit on the bed listening to the women from the street gabble on.
Tell me now, Margaret, did you buy that dress in London? Of course you did, I could tell by looking. You wouldn’t see the likes anywhere here and isn’t it only a fabulous day for you now. You don’t always get weather like this in May. Weren’t you lucky just the same? God no, Annie, I couldn’t touch another drop of sherry. Well, maybe just one more, the blessing of the Virgin Mary aren’t you only great now, so you are.
The other women laugh, Don’t be talkin’ about virgins on a day like this, Hannah. Hannah giggles and offers her glass to Nanny. Just a little more, Annie, a little, that’s grand now.
Pippa nods towards the window and squeezes my arm so tight the blood stops flowing. I see them through the netted curtains walking up the footpath. High hats and grey suits. Uncle Philip and Uncle John. For once I wish my father were here.
Nanny goes to the sitting room to tell Grandad Margaret is ready. I don’t understand why Margaret and Grandad are leaving first. Why can’t we go first and be at the chapel before them? I don’t ask though in case it’s a stupid question and you can’t ask grown-ups stupid questions when they’re full of sherry.
Everyone goes out to the front garden. The afternoon sun is high above the red-brick chimney of Denny’s meat factory and the sky is blue and clear. The boys are playing football on the street. The girls come to the garden gate to watch Margaret walking out the footpath on Grandad’s arm and they say, Oh, isn’t she lovely? Pippa and me hold hands by the door because we don’t know where the safest place is, the house or the garden. But we agree, no matter what, we’re not to take money from our uncles.
Promise me now, Pippa.
I promise, Matilda. You know I wouldn’t do that.
Yes, you would.
I know I would but I won’t today.
When Margaret leaves with Grandad I watch the second car pull up to the gate. The driver gets out and holds the back door open for Nanny. Uncle Philip and Uncle John are leaning on the garden wall chatting to Mossy Brennan. Pippa tightens her grip on my hand when Nanny tells them to make sure the doors are locked before they leave. Pippa says, Matilda, ask Nanny if we can go with her. But Nanny is already getting in the car with Danny and Sheamie and Mona. We’re left at the front door surrounded by neighbours mad to chat because the weather is nice and they’re all pissed on sherry and we don’t know what to do till Nanny calls to us, Would you two hurry up, there’s room for everyone, and I never ran out that footpath as fast in me life.
After the wedding we go to the Bridge Hotel and, even though we’ve spent all morning getting ready, the five of us look like Sheps. Our clothes are clean, but tatty and out of date. The lobby is full of relations we’ve never met. The men in suits, the women in long frocks, and they all know who we are. Peter’s children, God help them.
Here, girl, put that in your pocket.
Thank you.
Which one are you?
Matilda.
The function room is packed. We sit by the window with Nanny, Grandad, Uncle James the millionaire, Aunt Peg and our cousin Jennifer. Women in dainty white hats and frilly white aprons bring food on trolleys and it never ends until our bellies are stuffed. Roast beef, roast pork, ham, turkey and sherry trifle. Danny thinks he died and went to Heaven. His round brown eyes pop out every time he fills his gob and, if Sheamie ate everything in the Bridge Hotel, he’d still be the skinniest boy I ever saw.
After the meal we move to the bar while the tables are cleared. The bar smells of beer and cigarette smoke and everywhere there’s a clinking of glasses. The five of us are standing at the bar with Nanny when Uncle Philip walks in jingling the change in his trouser pocket.
Everyone having a good time, I hope. What can I get you to drink, Mammy?
A sherry. And don’t move from here. I’m going to find your father.
Nanny squeezes her way through the crowd. Uncle Philip smiles down at me like he expects me to smile back. I want to run after Nanny but all I can do is gawk around the room like I hardly notice he’s here. Uncle James’s four sons are standing by the window with glasses in their hands. They’re men now and they talk about their careers in the bank, the law, the civil service and a thing called the stock market, where you can make money for nothing. Returns, it’s all about returns. Things I haven’t a clue about and I think how I was nearly their sister if my father had let Danny and me live with Uncle James when we were young. Would I be like a sister to them now or would they talk about returns while they treated me like a maid in a little white hat, fetching and carrying and wiping their arses in general?
Uncle Philip takes a fistful of change from his pocket and starts sharing it out between the five of us. Mona snaps the hand of him. So does Danny. Sheamie counts his.
Here, Matilda. Put that in your pocket.
No, thanks.
Go on, take it.
No, thanks.
What about you, Pippa?
Pippa’s pink cheeks turn scarlet. She lowers her head and her bright blue eyes lift to plead with me for help, but Pippa doesn’t need help because Nanny is back with Grandad wondering where can we sit and didn’t you get that sherry yet, Philip?
Just giving the kids a few bob, Mammy. I’ll get it now.
Oh, says Nanny. There’s a surprise. Wouldn’t you think he’d have bought himself a suit?
I know before I turn round. One look at Sheamie’s long face is enough to know it’s my father. Sheamie is fit to cry because he won’t be able to run away until my father goes back to London. He’d be too scared to chance it.
Sheamie might be upset but I feel like I’ve been let out of jail. My father is at the door with Mona. He bends and puts his arms around Mona’s slim waist and kisses her on the lips. I run to kiss his cheek and this time I really mean it. I’m safe from Uncle Philip when my father is here. My father isn’t that bad and he looks great in his new blue jeans, blue T-shirt and black runners, not giving a shit what anyone thinks. I like that about him and I don’t feel different in my blue poncho anymore. My father is here and I’m safe. Nothing else matters.
We move back to the function room. The hotel lights are turned down. Above our heads a great silver ball spins and catches the light like a million tiny mirrors. The tables have been moved back to the walls and there’s a space in the middle of the room for dancing. The bar is full all day. Some men never leave it. Uncle James stands there rubbing his fat belly, drinking whiskey soda and buying a drink for anyone that stands near. I hear his deep voice every time I go to the toilet.
Put your money away, it’s no good here.
Uncle John is on his own. He’s perched, like an eagle, at the end of the bar, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke and the stink of his own farts. His claws wrapped around a fresh pint of stout and his beak stained black from the last one.
White tablecloths are covered with glasses. Empty, half empty, full. Stout, beer, ale, red and white wine. Grandad swirls his brandy glass while he puffs on a fat cigar like a Texan. There’s a band, three men in shiny red shirts and black waistcoats playing guitar and a fourth playing drums and singing into the microphone. There’s a small black box in front of them with flashing lights that change colour with the music, and all I want to do is dance and dance but I wouldn’t dare. I’ve never danced before.
I’m sitting beside my father. Sheamie is on the other side of him drinking Coke and talking to one of Uncle James’s sons about stock markets and stuff, even though a fool could see he’s just being nice to Sheamie ’cos it’s a wedding and any other time he wouldn’t give Sheamie the steam off his piss. Mona is across from me drinking white wine. Daddy said she’s old enough. She’s almost fifteen. Pippa is sitting beside Mona drinking lemonade, looking around at everyone. Danny is sitting beside Grandad drinking Grandad’s stout when he thinks Grandad isn’t looking. Everyone stands and cheers when the bride and groom stand up to dance. Nanny and Grandad dance next and before the first song is over the dance floor is covered in suits and frocks.
Jennifer, the flower girl, is dancing with her father, our Uncle James. She looks pretty in that pink dress and the ribbons in her hair. My feet are tapping under the table to the beat and when the music gets faster my arse starts banging off the seat. The chair legs bang off the floor and I’m having a great time till one chair leg lands on my father’s foot and, when I look down, his runner is tore. The yellow eyes glare at me. Oh, fuck, I’m dead.
Like dancing, do you, Matilda?
Sorry, Daddy. It was an accident.
He bends down slowly to take off his runners and suddenly dancing doesn’t seem such fun. He leaves the runners under the table and stands up over me. The disco lights flickering across his forehead make him look like he’s covered in confetti.
Come on, he says, follow me.
I said I was sorry, Daddy. It was an accident.
And I said, follow me.
I know he’s bringing me outside for a beating. Making a show, no, an example of me. Making me feel less than I do already in front of our relations with their suits and frocks and talk about returns. He puts his huge hand around my wrist and pulls me across the dance floor and there’s nothing for my legs to do but follow.
Nanny is dancing with Grandad and she gives me a wave over Grandad’s shoulder when I pass and I wonder is she after drinking too much sherry. When we get to the middle of the dance floor my father stops and pulls up his sleeves. The band start singing ‘Twist and Shout’.
He’s going to start on me in front of everyone. He catches my two hands and twirls me around. He pushes me out then pulls me back closer and spins me round. Does he want me to dance, or what? I don’t know what to think. It looks like he does. I want him to mean it. We dance till the song is over and he never lets me fall and then the band starts again and we’re still dancing. He’s a good dancer. I know he won a trophy once in the Olympia Ballroom, dancing with my mother. I saw the picture but I can’t remember when. The two of them were holding a tall trophy between them with a little dancing man and woman on the top. My parents were smiling, in love, happy. My father was handsome. Still would be if he shaved himself and cut his hair. He wore a white shirt and black tie. His hair was slicked back. Her hair was let down. My mother looked beautiful. It was a black and white photograph but I know her eyes were blue. I don’t know what colour her dress was. It was nice. Square-cut collar and no sleeves. I hope it was blue too. That’s the way I like to picture her that night.
A circle grows around us in the middle of the floor. Everyone is watching and I know now he’s not making a fool of me. He looks great in his white socks, not giving a shit about anyone. This is how to do the hucklebuck, Matilda. He wriggles like a snake and waddles like a duck smiling and clapping his hands pushing his long hair behind his ears while he spins and glides twisting around the dance floor clicking his fingers and three songs later he’s still dancing with me showing me how to do the hokey-cokey and telling everyone I’m his daughter. I’m pure faintin’, I’m floating over the dance floor when he tells me I’m some mover. I have rhythm. I’m just like my mother. The more he tells me the more I want to dance and make him proud of me because he’s changed. He’s better because he knows now he has the five of us and that’s all he’ll ever need. I know he’s going to take us out of the convent and buy a house here. We’ll have a dog and we’ll all be happy and forget everything bad that happened. Our mother might come back. She might come soon.
Everyone is calling for my father to sing and when he heads for the stage Aunt Peg calls the five of us together. Aunt Peg wears a gold bracelet with gold charms dangling from her wrists, gold necklace and gold earrings in loops that jingle when she walks and there’s a fur over her shoulders she says is real fox fur. I know she’s not lying because the poor bastard’s bushy tail is lying on one shoulder while his dead brown eyes gawk at me from the other and you have to wonder why the fuck Aunt Peg is wearing a thing like that with all the money she has.
Aunt Peg says how thrilled she is to finally meet us all. You’re lovely children. Your Daddy is really proud of you. I’ve never seen him this happy. Look at him up there on stage playing the guitar and singing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ better than Bill Haley himself. It’s more like a concert than a wedding.
We turn to watch my father when he sits on a high stool with the microphone to his lips and the guitar on his lap, and my cheeks are on fire because everyone in the room knows he’s singing for me and I know I’ll never forget this moment if I live till I’m forty. I know the words from when I was little and I remember the song is about a man who would rather die than go to prison. I could never be as brave as that.
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah-tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda,
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’
Now, says Aunt Peg over the music, I’ll be going back to England on Monday with Uncle James but we’ll be down to see you on Sunday morning. You can spend the day with us.
There’s a tap on my shoulder. Uncle Philip wobbling with the drink. The pink shirt open halfway down his chest and the top hat crooked on his head. Daddy is finished singing and he’s making his way back to our table.
What about a dance?
I don’t want to dance.
That’s a nice way to treat your uncle.
He says it loud so my Daddy can hear him and give out to me for not dancing. Uncle Philip knows nobody will believe me if I say why I won’t dance. I’ll be called a troublemaker and I’ll be sent away for ever. But this time it’s different. I don’t have to dance with Uncle Philip and I don’t have to talk to him. My Daddy is here, he’s changed, he’s proud of me. He’s coming home and we’re all going to be happy and Uncle Philip can’t ever bother me again.
I turn my back and walk away from the table. Nanny stands up to go to the bathroom and I bump against her and knock her back in the chair but I keep going across the dance floor. I want my Daddy to follow and ask me why I didn’t dance and I’ll tell him, I will. He’ll believe me too. He wouldn’t have before, but tonight he will. He’ll go straight in and kick Uncle Philip all over the Bridge Hotel when I tell him everything Uncle Philip made me do and if Uncle John tries to run we’ll jump on him and so will Sheamie and Mona and Danny because they hate him as much as I do.
It’s twilight out on the footpath. The night air is sweet and the breeze from the River Suir cools me. If you look hard you can just make out the quarter moon above Tory Hill. The cars are stopped at the traffic lights with their headlights on. The green man bleeps and I cross to the other side of the Quay and wait by the chains along the river. The breeze is colder here and brings goose bumps to my arms. The tide is rushing out. You can hear it gurgle under the bridge on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. This is where I want to tell my Daddy everything because I’m sure that’s what girls do. We’ll walk along the riverbank holding hands until I’m ready to talk. He’ll give me time. We’ll sit on a bench. He’ll put his arms around me and pull me close to him and tell me he’s sorry for everything. He misses us. He loves us. I’ll lay me forehead against his chest and feel safe. He’ll promise never to leave us again.
I see him coming now through the glass door and he looks angry. He’s already guessed what’s up. He sprints across the road in his white socks, making the cars stop for him, and stands so close to me I can’t see his face without bending back. His huge forehead is wrinkled and the veins in his temples swollen like thick blue ropes.
What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
What? I –
Why is he talking to me like this? The words are in my head but they won’t come out. My feet that couldn’t stop dancing are stuck to the ground.
I feel the back of his hand across my jaw that sends me flying against the chains. The chains sway and I hear the river gushing past. There’s darkness and silver in my head like the great silver ball fell from the ceiling and shattered over my head. I’m losing my balance till my father grabs my arm and pulls me back.
Get back in there and tell Uncle Philip and your Nanny you’re sorry. Go on. Do it right now. What is it with you? Everywhere you’re brought you cause trouble. You’re just stupid. That’s why you’re in that school. You know that, don’t you? Now get back in there and apologize.
He grabs my hair and drags me across the road past the cars stopped at the traffic lights. He streals me through the hotel lobby past relations and strangers watching. They turn their backs to us but there’s nothing new about that. I don’t know which is worse, strangers or relations or the pain in my scalp. I try to yell out but my father doesn’t care and there’s nothing to do but go inside and do what I’m told.
Sunday morning, my head hurts and I know my father didn’t change but I’m used of it. Anyway, Aunt Peg is calling. She’ll come along early in her big English car. She’ll bring us to Tramore where we’ll go on the bumper cars and the roller coaster and spend as long as we like on the slot machines that gobble pennies by the bucketload, but who cares when you have a rich aunt handing out English pound notes. She’ll definitely buy the pink ice cream cones and the chips in the Beach Grill, who every fool knows make the tastiest chips in the world. There’s nothing in the world like Tramore when you can have chips in oodles of vinegar, cool ice cream at the back of your throat and an English pound to do what you like with. If paradise has a feel, it has to be the feel of an English pound in your pocket.
We’re scrubbed and washed. Gabriel is ironing my blue poncho on the worktop by the sink and says she wouldn’t know me if she saw me in anything else, although it is getting a little small for you and isn’t it time you thought about sending it to the missions, Matilda?
No, Mother.
But surely…
No, Mother.
I can’t explain to Gabriel how the poncho reminds me of my mother so I wander outside to the playground. Danny is sitting on the swings with Mona and Sheamie. Pippa and me push each other on the roundabout and wonder what time Aunt Peg is coming. The bells for twelve o’clock mass ring out over the city and if she’s not here soon she won’t be here until after lunch.
We stay on the swings a while longer until Gabriel comes to the door to say lunch is ready, if we want it. She doesn’t want to ruin our appetites with the big day ahead but the salt air will take care of that. There’s nothing like salt air to give you an appetite.
By three o’clock Gabriel is complaining. Your Aunt Peg is very late. Are you certain she said today?
Yes, Mother.
Gabriel says she’ll turn on the television while we’re waiting. There’s a film she wouldn’t mind watching herself. We go into the sitting room and sit and watch Shirley Temple singing and dancing all over the orphanage because she has a rich aunt she never knew she had who’s come to take her home.
Sheamie hates Shirley Temple.
Girls’ stuff. Come on, Matilda, we’ll do something else. Sheamie walks ahead of me out to the playground with his hands in his pockets. Gabriel lifts her head from embroidering one of her pocket-handkerchiefs and warns us not to stray. Stay where I can find you in case your aunt turns up.
Sheamie isn’t interested in aunts or anything. He wants to go to the orchard, even though we’re not supposed to, and we have to pass the penguins’ mansion on the way. Sheamie says they won’t see us unless they’re looking out windows. It’s Sunday and the penguins are too busy praying to look out windows. Sheamie’s in such a mood over Aunt Peg not turning up when she should and our father turning up when he shouldn’t I think I’d better go with him in case he does something daft.
We climb the stone wall to the penguins’ garden then dive on our bellies and crawl through the sea of bluebells. The sun is overhead and we can feel the heat on our backs. When we’re through the bluebells we can stand up and run the two fields to the orchard. I look back but Sheamie is gone and I think he’s after turning back till his head sticks up from a hole with his glasses still on. He climbs out and runs past me and I wonder what sort of a brother I have trying to escape from the convent so he can go to Australia to find our mother when he can’t even get to the orchard without falling down a hole.
The orchard is lovely in spring. The trees are thick with blossom and all round there’s a sweet smell of apple. We can reach the bottom branches and pull ourselves up, then climb high into the trees where we’ll never be seen. Sheamie jumps up on the big bough, scratching himself under his arms, making monkey noises, but his legs are skinny and he can’t hang upside down from the branches and grip on by his knees like I can. He falls and twists his ankle and won’t climb back up, so now he wants to do something else.
In the next field is the wooden hut where the pigs are kept. We see them stick their heads in the air and sniff and I wonder how they can smell anything with a flat nose like that. One pig struts around the wire pen with a ring through his nose. Another has baby pigs hanging from a belly full of swollen pink tits. It’s sad to see them locked up. Penguins always keep things locked up. Sheamie wonders why they keep pigs at all when he never ate a rasher in his life. Rashers are for Father Devlin and special visitors like the government man who comes once a year to check we’re all still breathing, but Reverend Mother has him so pissed on whiskey he never gets past her office. Sheamie smiles when he remembers the pigs eat the blood and leftover bits from the babies born to girls who come to slave in the laundry while they’re waiting for their babies to be born.
We sit on the rusty tin roof and lie back with the sun on our faces. Sheamie complains, Grown-ups don’t care, Matilda. Even Gabriel was only tormented because she had to get our clothes cleaned for nothin’.
Let’s get them back, Sheamie.
Who?
All of them.
The iron gate at the front of the pen is heavy but the two of us manage to open it wide enough to make a gap. We climb back up on the tin roof and sit and watch. But the pigs don’t move. Sheamie shouts, Hull, hull, but they still don’t move. Sheamie throws a stone and hits the pig with the ring right between the two eyes. It jumps and squeals and sprays shit all over the pen and we have to hold our jumpers over our faces with the stench. The pig with the ring sniffs its way towards the gate and pokes his nose outside. His arse follows. The baby pigs follow the pig with the swollen pink tits. More pigs come from inside the wooden hut till now the field is littered with pigs snorting and spraying.
There’s a shout.
Sheamie and Matilda Kelly. Don’t move!
I don’t believe it. There’s a penguin leaning out a window. She’s so far away she’s like a head on a postage stamp but somehow she’s able to see us and soon we’re surrounded by penguins. The pigs take off and the penguins take off after them. Sheamie is buckled up laughing on the tin roof. Penguins covered in mud are falling on their backsides, veils over their faces, chasing screeching pigs. By dark we’re all locked up, the pigs in the sty and Sheamie and me upstairs. We’re thumped, legs, heads, shoulders, and barred from leaving the playground. We are to go to Confession. In the meantime, do twenty-five Hail Marys, ten Our Fathers, a good Act of Contrition and the ten decades of the rosary. Do it in silence on your knees in that corner there, the both of you.
But we’ll be here for a week.
Do it!
Sheamie is kneeling beside me. His face is serious but his eyes twinkle at the wall. I’m happy Sheamie is my brother and I know I could never swap any of my brothers or sisters for Uncle James and Aunt Peg or all the stock market returns in the world, whatever they are.
Sheamie whispers, It were worth it, Matilda.
It was, Sheamie.
Are you saying the rosary, Matilda?
It’s kinda hard not to when you’re on your knees, Sheamie. It’s a habit.
But, are you really saying it, Matilda?
’Course not. Are you?
Nah.