A Girl Called Blue (3 page)

Blue tried her best each night to rouse Molly from her sleep and make her go to the toilet, but Molly would turn over and protest, not wanting to leave the cosy warmth of the bed. Blue would shake her, call her, get cross with her. Some nights it worked, but other times Blue herself was just too tired, worn out from schoolwork, kitchen work and working in the bead room making rosaries, and she fell into a deep sleep, Molly’s bedwetting problems forgotten. And in the morning there wasn’t enough time to help her wash without getting in trouble herself for being late for mass.

She hated the name-calling and the shaming that inevitably followed as Molly had to strip her bed, yet again, and carry the sheets to the laundry room in front of everyone. Sister Regina, the head nun, had even summoned Molly to her office for a scolding, but none of it did any good. Blue watched as the little girl became more withdrawn and isolated from the other children, ashamed of herself.

‘The poor kid,’ murmured Lil one lunchtime. ‘I heard some of the kids in school call her Stinky, and they won’t sit beside her.’

‘That’s so mean and cruel,’ agreed Blue. ‘She’s been through
enough with getting put in here when her mother died. It’s just not fair.’

‘I know, but what can anyone do about it?’

Blue racked her brains, as the taunting and jeering got worse. It was as if Joan and her friends actually
wanted
Molly to fail every morning so they would have the fun of jeering at her at the start of the day. Blue got angry even thinking about it. She had promised Sister Monica to watch her temper and try to take things slowly and gently, but she was sorely tempted to lash out. She couldn’t – no, wouldn’t – let them away with tormenting the little girl. She would think of something.

The idea came to her in a flash, in the middle of history class. Mrs Brady, her teacher, looked at her suspiciously, wondering why she was grinning to herself. It was so simple. She wouldn’t tell Molly in case she got the child into more trouble. She would do this all on her own. There was only one thing she needed and she hoped Big Ellen would agree.

After tea and homework Blue volunteered to go up and help with the babies. Big Ellen laughed out loud when she heard what Blue wanted.

That night Blue had to stay awake. She dozed fitfully until she finally heard the nuns turn off the lights and head for their own beds. Blue woke Molly and made her go to the bathroom; then she visited the bathroom herself. She waited and waited until Molly and the rest of the dormitory were fast asleep before she sneaked over to Joan’s bed, a plastic potty in her hand.

Joan’s broad face was peaceful as she slept, the blanket pulled
up almost over her nose. She was dead to the world.

Blue took her time and very gently worked her way around the bed, easing the blankets and sheets back ever so slowly. She mustn’t wake Joan. The girl stirred in her sleep, her arm lashing out as if she sensed something, before rolling right over on her other side.

Blue held her breath, waited a few moments, then finished off what she was doing, and dropped the covers back down. Exhausted, she crept back to bed, not stirring till Sister Carmel’s booming voice woke them in the morning.

‘Morning, Molly!’ Blue said, grinning.

Molly sat up, her look of trepidation disappearing as soon as she realised her bed was dry. But from the other side of the room there was a commotion.

Joan was standing beside her bed. The strong smell of urine hit everyone in the room.

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ she protested. ‘This has never happened me before, honest, it never has.’

‘Wet-a-bed! Wet-a-bed!’ Joan’s friends began their usual taunting chorus of jeers, now directed at Joan. Joan looked utterly miserable in her damp nightdress as the nun surveyed her yellow-stained sheets and all the girls pressed forward to see what was going on.

‘This is a disgrace,’ shouted the nun. ‘A big girl your age not having control of her bladder. I never heard the like of it. Sister Regina will have to be informed of this.’

‘Please, Sister, I’m sorry, I don’t know how it happened. I must
have been too tired.’

Joan looked like she was about to break down and cry. ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’

‘Bathroom? You’ll carry those sheets to the laundry room first, my girl.’

‘Please, Sister, let me carry them downstairs later.’

‘You will remove those filthy sheets immediately.’

Blue felt a momentary pang of guilt as Joan bundled the wet sheets in her arms, a look of utter shame on her face. But she was rewarded in seeing the rapt attention of Molly, who stood watching, her eyes bright with pride at her own dry bed.

‘Wet-a-bed!’ the voices from the corner came again.

Joan ran over and would have attacked her friends but for the intervention of the nun, who took her out to the busy corridor to discuss her bad behaviour.

Blue glanced around the room. Some of the girls were embarrassed, others were wondering: if it happened to Joan could it happen to me? She tried to hide her smile for she had a feeling that there would be no more jeers or name-calling, not in their dormitory at least.

Blue’s longing to find a family of her own continued, even after her disappointment with the Hickeys. She was sure that somewhere in the world there was someone she could love or care for who would love her right back.

Sister Gabriel was the nun in charge of placements. Blue was called to see her and when she told the nun of her wish Sister Gabriel’s face filled with concern. ‘You know how difficult it is to find a placement once you get older, Bernadette. All the families tend to want the same thing, a baby or a small child.’

‘I know,’ said Blue. But she was adamant she wanted to try and find a family of her own, no matter what.

‘I really want to try again, Sister.’

The nun studied the girl in front of her with the piercing blue eyes, who seemed to have spent more time in her office over the past four years than most. A wild child, unsettled, bold, troublesome, lonely were just some of the many words she’d written on the file. Finding a family who would want to take her on would be difficult. Sister Gabriel turned over page after page of her file.

‘I do have another couple here on my list, the Maguires. Small farmers, they only recently applied for a visit. They have three children, three boys I believe.’

Three boys. Blue imagined that could be fun.

‘Apparently Mrs Maguire would really like to host or foster a girl about your age for the summer, as she wants some female company.’

Blue’s heart lifted. Someone who wanted a girl, wanted a girl to talk to.

‘I could set up a preliminary visit with them if you want. It would be a chance for all of you to get to know each other.’

‘Yes, please,’ agreed Blue, keeping her fingers crossed.

Sister Gabriel arranged for the Maguires to come and meet herself and Blue at Larch Hill first.

Blue was nervous when she stepped into the parlour. She shook each of them by the hand as the nun introduced them. Mr Maguire was a small man with a big round belly and heavy cheeks, who said very little. Mrs Maguire was the total opposite, a tall thin woman with hard, tight features. Her sharp eyes scrutinised every inch of the parlour while they spoke.

Blue listened as the adults discussed her.

‘What about school? Is she bright and good at school and her work?’ asked the woman.

‘Bernadette is an excellent student, very good at her work,’ smiled Sister Gabriel. ‘All her teachers over the years have said it.’

A look passed between the couple.

‘What about her health?’

Blue tried to sit up straight and look the epitome of fitness and good health.

‘Excellent.’

‘Well, that’s very good to hear,’ nodded Mr Maguire. ‘We wouldn’t want a sickly child.’

‘I believe you are an only child?’ Mrs Maguire turned to Blue. ‘It must be a little lonely being on your own?’

Blue felt the familiar lump in her throat, as she gave her standard reply. ‘In Larch Hill we are never really on our own as there are lots of other children here. Still, it would be nice to have somebody …’

Her words hung in the air.

She could see Mr Maguire shifting in the big armchair as Mrs Maguire smiled. ‘We have three sons, you know. The boys are a great help to Ted with the farm and the animals, but having a girl about the place would be nice.’

By the end of the meeting Sister Gabriel had arranged for Blue to visit the Maguire home the following weekend and stay overnight on Saturday.

‘I think you’re daft,’ warned Mary, as they got ready for bed that night, ‘wanting to go and stay with total strangers and waste your time on them.’

‘They might be nice,’ Blue smiled, hopeful that it was the truth.

‘I think it’s fishy if they’ve already got three kids of their own and they’re suddenly looking to foster someone.’

‘They’ve only got boys,’ she explained.

‘So they want someone to dress up in pink dresses and tie bows in her hair, is that it?’

Blue hoped not. She certainly wasn’t the pretty, girly type, if that’s what the Maguires were expecting.

‘Mind your own business, Mary Doyle, and I’ll mind mine,’ shouted Blue, wiping her face on a towel and banging the door of the bathroom shut behind her.

Mr Maguire collected her on Saturday morning in a rather battered-looking Ford Anglia. Sister Gabriel had told her the family ran a small dairy just outside the city. Blue imagined fields and animals and a big, warm farmhouse, and had to admit to slight disappointment as the car pulled up in a yard to the side of a shabby-looking house, in sore need of painting, and a ramshackle collection of outhouses where the cows were kept. The yard was muddy and dirty and everything seemed to smell. She wrinkled her nose.

‘Animals and farms smell,’ remarked Mr Maguire. ‘You’d best get used to it.’

She followed him into a narrow hallway. Mr Maguire took her coat and hung it on the mahogany coat-stand. Blue caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her face pale and nervous, her eyes anxious, her hair looking straggly and unkempt despite her best efforts to look neat and tidy. Mrs Maguire suddenly appeared and politely welcomed her, leading the way into the front sitting room.
The air smelled of stale cigarette smoke and everything from the large couch and armchairs to the floral-patterned carpets and curtains seemed to be coated in a dim layer of smoky brownness.

‘Sit down, Bernadette, and make yourself comfortable. You are most welcome to our home.’ The woman smiled.

Blue shifted on the couch. There was an awkward pause, nobody knowing what to say.

‘I’ve just made a pot of tea and some scones,’ said Mrs Maguire, disappearing into the kitchen. ‘We could all do with a cup, I’m sure.’

Blue followed her, offering to help. The kitchen was small and poky compared to Larch Hill. There was a gas cooker and a fridge and a row of blue-painted presses along one wall. There was a narrow formica table where, obviously, the family normally dined. Mrs Maguire lit a cigarette, the smoke seeming to calm her as she pointed out where things were and filled a jug with milk.

‘You can take that in now, like a good girl.’

Blue placed the tray on the coffee table, leaving space for Mrs Maguire to bring the teapot.

The tea was strong, the scones warm and delicious and Mrs Maguire’s thin face lit up with appreciation at Blue’s praise.

‘I’ll give you some to take back to Larch Hill,’ she promised.

Blue hoped that there would be a few cherry ones.

‘Where are the boys?’ asked Blue.

‘Frank and Dermot are out playing football and won’t be home for another hour or two at least, and Paddy is outside somewhere, playing,’ laughed their mother. ‘Boys will be boys. They are never
around when you need them.’

After a while Mrs Maguire decided to show Blue the rest of the house. There was a small scullery behind the kitchen and a dark, narrow room, which held a long mahogany table and six chairs.

‘We hardly use this room,’ explained Mrs Maguire.

Blue had already guessed that, by the musty smell and the boxes stacked in the four corners.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms and a bathroom.

‘This is your room.’ Mrs Maguire opened the door to the smallest bedroom. It barely held the narrow bed and heavy, oak wardrobe. There was a green sateen quilt on the bed and heavy brown and beige curtains, which almost covered the small window that overlooked the farmyard. The room was filled with the smell from the yard. Any hopes of Mary’s pink girly bedroom were immediately dashed and Blue swallowed hard, trying to imagine herself sleeping in the lonely bed in that awful room.

‘I was trying to air it before you came,’ the woman apologised, pulling the window closed. ‘You can hang your clothes up here.’

Blue felt ashamed when she saw the hangers dangling in the empty space, wishing she had some nice things to hang up instead of the single bottle-green jumper and some tatty, faded underwear.

When they got back downstairs, the Maguires’ ten-year-old son Paddy had appeared, and he was busy polishing off two buttered scones. He stared blankly up at her.

‘Paddy, be a good boy and show Bernadette the cows,’ prompted his mother.

Blue was glad to get outside in the fresh air and followed the boy across the yard, trying not to step in dirt and dung in her good black shoes.

He climbed up on a gate, pointing as he told her the names of some of their small dairy herd. The cows mooed balefully at them.

‘Are you coming to live with us?’ he asked, unnerving her.

‘I don’t know yet.’ She shrugged.

He made no other comment and asked no other question of her, which she thought was a bit strange, as he showed her how to pat the cows’ heads and give them a handful of straw to eat. Over at the far end of the yard there was a pigsty with a large sow and eight pink piglets, all running and squirming and trying to climb up on their mother.

Blue thought the baby pigs were the cutest animals she had ever seen as they squealed and pushed against each other.

‘What are they called?’

‘They’ve got no names.’

Blue reached out towards a small piglet, who tottered over to her searching for food, the little wet snout twitching at her fingers.

‘He’s so sweet.’

‘It’s a she.’

‘Well, she’s beautiful … she should be called Bonnie.’

Patrick laughed.

Blue thought of the fun she could have naming all the piglets.

Mrs Maguire was in the kitchen and was in the middle of cutting up meat for a stew when she went back inside.

‘Can I help?’ she offered.

Mrs Maguire gave a huge grin. ‘In a month of Sundays the boys would never lift a finger to help me in the kitchen,’ she exclaimed, ‘and here you are only a minute in the place and you know what’s needed. You chop up those carrots there and I’ll do the onions.’

Work was something everyone in Larch Hill was well used to. By the time Blue had finished Mrs Maguire was sitting at the kitchen table lighting up another cigarette from the red Carroll’s Number One packet.

‘Don’t ever start smoking, dear, for ’tis the very divil to give up,’ the woman cautioned, taking a huge drag of the cigarette.

Blue watched, fascinated, as she smoked one cigarette, then another, stubbing them out in an old cockle shell that she used as an ashtray. Mrs Maguire talked a lot about the boys and Blue was more than curious to meet the other two. From what she could gather, nothing was too much for the Maguire boys as far as their mother was concerned.

She was in the middle of peeling potatoes for the dinner when the eldest boy, Frank, trooped into the kitchen, the mud from his boots falling on the floor. He was about seventeen years old, tall and heavy-set, with a thatch of red hair and a freckled face.

‘Mam, can you give us a hand outside?’ he said, ignoring Blue. ‘The milking buckets all need cleaning.’

‘I’m busy here,’ she responded, ‘but maybe Bernadette might be able to.’

Blue felt suddenly shy when the older boy looked at her. He said a gruff hello and then gestured for her to follow him back outside. 

‘She needs boots,’ called Mrs Maguire, glancing at the mud and dirt already encrusted on her black shoes.

‘Put on your boots,’ ordered Frank.

‘I don’t have any,’ replied Blue, embarrassed.

‘No wellie boots!’ he said, clearly astounded.

‘Grab her a pair from the cupboard under the stairs. Those old ones of Dermot’s might fit her,’ suggested his mother.

Frank passed her a pair of black wellington boots, which Blue pulled on. They were way too big.

‘They’ll do,’ grinned Frank, as he pushed open the back door and stomped across the yard. She followed him, trying not to stumble as she got used to the boots which came right up over her knees.

The milking parlour was small, with room only for a few cows. In one corner stood a pile of enamel buckets.

‘We’ll be milking soon, so we’d best get all the buckets done,’ he said.

Blue picked up a bucket, unsure of what was expected of her. To her eyes the bucket looked clean enough.

‘This one seems all right,’ she ventured.

‘They have to be perfectly clean,’ he retorted. ‘There’s sour milk on the bottom of that and the sides. It needs rinsing and a good scrub, else the creamery won’t touch our milk and we’ll get a bad name.’

‘I see.’

‘Da and I’ll be milking soon so we’d best get a move on,’ he bossed.

Outside the door of the milking shed there was a cold-water tap and Blue carried out a few of the buckets there and began to fill them. The water splashed everywhere and she was thankful now for the rubber boots.

Frank tossed her a brush and she scrubbed the bottoms and sides and rims of the buckets as hard as she could.

He stood, arms folded, watching her. ‘Mind you do the rims properly,’ he warned. ‘The germs stay there.’

Pushing her hair back out of her eyes Blue worked, scrubbing and cleaning and washing till the buckets looked like new.

‘They’ll do,’ smiled Frank, giving her a bit of grudging praise.

She hoped he’d offer to let her help with the milking, but instead he dismissed her, telling her, ‘You’d best go inside and help my Mam.’

The ends of her sleeves were wet and the front of her skirt was damp as she went back to the house, wishing she had a change of clothes.

Mrs Maguire had finished cooking and was busy sorting out laundry. Blue found herself carrying a basket full of clothes out to the clothes line.

By the time dinner was ready, Blue was starving and exhausted. She helped pass around plates and a big bowl of floury potatoes, before getting her own meal. The beef stew was good and she ate it hungrily. Dermot, the middle boy, pushed in at the table beside her, saying nothing, his black, greasy hair hanging in a fringe over his forehead. He kept sticking his elbows in her way. Mr and Mrs Maguire chatted away to the boys about the milking and the farm
and the afternoon’s football match and their neighbours who had just bought a tractor. Blue smiled, listening, waiting for someone to ask her a question or an opinion, or even if she liked the food, but no one did and she passed the meal in total silence. She blinked, thinking of Mary and Lil and Jess beside her on the bench at meal times in Larch Hill.