A Girl Called Blue (8 page)

The days passed far too quickly. Lying on the sand on the beach, staring at the cloudless sky, Blue sometimes wished that she was a seagull and could spread her wide wings and fly. Her skin turned golden, her nose was covered in light brown freckles and deep inside her the tight coil that held her together loosened bit by bit.

Sometimes she watched the families on the beach, mothers and fathers who paddled and swam and built sandcastles and pretended to eat sand pies and wrapped big towels around their children and hugged them tight as they stood dripping wet; and brothers and sisters who looked alike and fought and screamed and ran and chased and tickled each other and played along the shore together. She swallowed her jealousy and envy and the constant question of her own parenthood and her hunger to know if she too had a brother or a sister who looked just like her, turning instead to Jess and Mary and Lil and Molly, a ragbag of friends who were the closest to family she would ever know.

On the last morning Sister Carmel told them to pack up their bags, as the bus would collect them in a few hours.

‘Can we have one last swim, Sister?’ they all begged.

Sister Carmel, her nose and cheeks sunburned, looked at the sun-drenched beach and agreed. ‘But no delaying, and everyone is to clean the sand off them before they set foot on the bus or they’ll be in big trouble. Understood?’

‘Yes, Sister,’ they shouted as they ran with togs and towels and buckets for one last swim.

The tide was in, the waves slightly choppy. A strong breeze caught their voices and blew their underwear along the sand.

‘Race you!’ shouted Jess, first undressed as usual and into the water ahead of them all. Blue ran after her, diving in and letting the cold water take her breath away.

Lil made a huge effort to conquer her fear and actually lay down flat in the water as Blue and Mary supported her.

‘See, you can float, nearly,’ cheered Mary.

Blue swam back and forth trying to savour every minute of this last precious swim, pretending she was a mermaid with a tail.

Jess had gone out further than the rest of them as usual and was diving and waving at Blue to come out and join her. Blue took a few strokes out, laughing as the waves broke over her. Suddenly she realised how far out of her depth she was. Nervous, as the tide and current caught her, she tried to keep her head out of the water as she turned and began to swim back towards the safety of the shore.

Sister Paul was blowing the whistle, calling them out of the water. Molly and the smaller kids were out, racing up and down the beach in their wet togs trying to dry off.

‘Come on, Jess’, Blue shouted. ‘It’s time to get out.’ She watched as the dark head dived in under the water, and spurted out
a plume of water from her mouth when she surfaced.

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Come on, Jess!’

Blue shivered. She’d stayed in the water too long and it was time to dry off and get warm again.

‘You go. I’ll be along in a minute,’ Jess called. ‘I wish I could stay here forever.’

Blue sighed. Everybody felt the same. Nobody wanted to go back to Dublin. She ran out of the water and wrapped her towel around herself, drying off her skin, then pulled on her clothes. The others drifted by her and up on to the road.

‘Hurry on!’ called Sister Paul. ‘Get that girl in!’ She pointed towards Jess.

Blue sat on the towel, drying her feet and legs, watching Jess cavort in the waves like a seal. She shook her towel in the wind to get all the sand off, then wrapped her wet togs in it. Blue was ready to go. But Jess still had not come in. Blue looked for the dark head, but it was nowhere to be seen. Where was Jess? Blue blinked and ran back down to the water’s edge, calling her.

‘Jess! Jess!’

But there was no sign of her. Perhaps she was diving under the waves? Blue watched to see where she would re-surface.

‘Jess!’ she yelled, her voice catching in the breeze.

The beach was almost empty. Sister Carmel had come to help Sister Paul assemble the children along the grass verge above the beach. Maybe Jess was already out of the water and was wrapped in a towel standing with the other kids waiting for her? But her
clothes were still there. Blue raced up the beach, calling for her friend.

Sister Paul was gathering the last children together. Sister Carmel had gone on ahead, walking the first group back up to the convent grounds where the bus had arrived.

‘Sister, did Jess come up here?’

The nun looked around quickly. ‘She’s not with me. Would she have gone with Sister Carmel and the others?’

Blue shook her head. ‘Her clothes are still on the beach. I think she’s still in the water.’

The words hung in the sunlit air. Then the nun took charge and despatched Mary to inform Sister Carmel that Jess was missing, while Lil was told to walk the other children to the convent.

Blue ran back down the beach and showed the nun where she had been sitting, her footprints still in the sand. Jess’s blouse and skirt and knickers and socks and shoes were a messy, sand-covered, abandoned pile nearby. Blue pointed to where her friend had ducked and dived only minutes before, the white-topped waves rushing to the shore.

They searched and searched for Jess, but she had disappeared. She was gone. A crowd gathered, men swimming out to sea, diving down under the water, shaking their heads as they emerged. The nuns, the police, the coastguard, even some of the holidaymakers from the caravans and beach homes nearby offered to help. Some of the men put out to sea in two small dinghies, rowing back and forth, scanning the waves and shoreline for the missing child.

Blue repeated the story over and over again, telling all the people around her where she had been swimming and what a good swimmer Jess was. Despite the hot sun blazing down on her, Blue felt cold at the dawning realisation that Jess had actually vanished, drowned, and she might never see her again. Silent, she stared up at the sand dunes, wondering if Jess was playing one last great trick on them, hiding up there, laughing. She could not believe Jess was never coming back! Jess, her best friend in the whole world …

As it began to get dark the beach emptied. The search was finally called off until the morning. Sister Paul put her arms around Blue and took her back to the empty convent, the bus now gone.

‘We must pray for her,’ she said. She began to say the familiar words, Blue automatically joining in: ‘Our Father, Who art in Heaven …’

They never found Jess. They said she must have drowned in the currents and the high tide. That her body was probably washed out to sea. Joan and her friends wondered had the fish got her by now and eaten her bones clean, Blue wanting to punch them and break some of their own bones and teeth! No one ever saw sight or sign of Jacinta O’Reilly again. She had totally disappeared.

At night Blue cried and cried, lonesome for her best friend. She knew Jess had wanted to get away from here, but not like this. Jess wanted to go places, see things, be happy and have fun. Jess had been so full of life, always.

Mary and Lil were kind to Blue and even Sister Carmel would make a point of talking to her. At mass they all prayed for Jess.

Every time she stared at Jess’s bed Blue felt the lump in her throat. Sister Carmel finally emptied the painted locker, putting Jess’s few bits and pieces into a plastic bag. There was a
Bunty
comic, a half-eaten stick of rock and a few barley-sugar sweets.

‘Would you like these?’ the nun asked Blue.

But Blue shook her head. Mary took them instead, as Sister Carmel went off to get fresh bed-linen for whatever new girl
would sleep beside Blue.

‘I could move into Jess’s bed,’ offered Mary, ‘then I’d be between you and Lil.’

Blue agreed. She didn’t really care who slept beside her now that Jess was gone. Imagine, she thought, all that was left of her friend could fit into a small plastic bag. Suddenly she remembered Jess’s money sock. It was where Jess stored the bits of money she managed to save over the years. But where was it?

She rooted in the locker but there was no sign of it. She lifted up the mattress – nothing there. Where would Jess have put it? She knew Jess hadn’t taken it on the holiday because she remembered her taking out a ten-shilling note to bring with her.

She racked her brains. The few bits of clothes Jess owned were still folded messily in the large cupboard where all their clothes were kept – her winter skirt and jacket and uniform hanging in the wardrobe along with all the other clothes. But there was nothing in any of the pockets. Then Blue saw the shoes. Jess had the biggest feet ever, and how she had hated them! Her long skinny toes and narrow feet were crammed every day during the winter into big, heavy, lace-up black shoes. She could see them now behind all the other rows of shoes, standing side by side, the laces loosely tied together. Blue reached her hands in and pushed her fingers inside. There was something very intimate about her friend’s shoes – her shape was still there, imprinted forever on them. Then Blue felt the bulge in the right shoe, in under the toe-cap. She pulled at it and eventually it came out – it was Jess’s darned old money sock. Saying nothing to anybody, she slipped it into her own pocket. A
few minutes later she emptied it out on her lap in the toilet, counting out the three red ten-shilling notes and a half-crown coin. Jess’s safety money. Her escape money. Blue was sure Jess would want her to have it now. She said a silent thank you to Jess and wondered where she should hide it.

Back at school in September she could see the shock in the other girls’ faces when they heard about what had happened to Jess. Two or three of them burst out crying. Mrs Brady, their teacher, was tearful too and told everyone to take out their work copies and write quietly for the morning about safety and obeying the rules. She blew her nose in a hanky and went to talk to the teacher next door.

School, work, nothing seemed as much fun without Jess! Blue did her best to concentrate but often found herself daydreaming.

One Sunday, about a month later, she was helping Sister Monica brush up the leaves near the front door of the convent when she saw a woman approaching. It was a visitor. As she drew nearer she recognised her by her grey tweed coat. It was Eileen, a distant relation of Jess’s, the woman who came to take her out twice a year and gave her the money.

‘Good morning, Sister,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve come to collect Jess O’Reilly and take her out for the day.’

Sister Monica looked up, her face upset, her wrinkled old hands shaking. ‘Oh, my dear. Please … please … step inside to the parlour.’

Blue stood with the brush in her hand saying nothing.

‘No, Sister,’ the woman said softly. ‘I’ll just wait here for Jess. Please tell her to hurry along.’

Sister Monica stepped forward and caught hold of the woman’s arm. ‘Please, my dear, come inside and sit down for a minute.’

The visitor looked uncomfortable, but, seeing the agitation of the elderly nun, agreed to go inside.

‘Blue, run and get Sister Agnes or Sister Regina if you can find them,’ instructed Sister Monica. ‘We’ll be here in the front parlour.’

Blue dropped her brush and took off up the stairs. She’d try the chapel first, then the office, then the garden. Sometimes the nuns walked in the grounds, saying their prayers. The chapel was empty, the office locked and she was just about to run down the back stairs and out the kitchen door when she spotted Sister Regina on the upper landing, having words with Big Ellen at the door of the nursery. Obviously there was some trouble – Big Ellen looked like she was about to cry.

Blue raced up the stairs. ‘Please, Sister,’ she interrupted. ‘Sister Monica wants you to come down to the parlour immediately to one of the visitors.’

‘Oh!’ the nun sighed. ‘Can she not even deal with the simplest of things!’

‘She says you have to come. The visitor is looking for Jess.’

Sister Regina turned around at once and made for the staircase. Big Ellen looked relieved. Blue ran after the nun, trying to keep up with her. As they approached the parlour Sister Regina
told her to resume her sweeping.

In moments, the air filled with a loud wailing as the woman, obviously, was told the news about Jess. The parlour door flew open.

‘But my child! My child! I trusted you to care for my child!’ screamed Eileen.

‘Control yourself,’ urged Sister Regina.

Blue stood, appalled. The visitor in her shabby grey coat was overcome with grief. Her face was livid white, her eyes desperate. She looked like she was going to faint, just as some of the girls in the church did in the mornings.

‘Please, Eileen, come back in and sit down!’ soothed Sister Monica. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock. We’ll get you a glass of water.’

‘I gave her into your protection and look what has happened!’

Blue couldn’t believe it. She suddenly realised that the woman standing in front of her was no ordinary visitor, no distant relative. She was Jess’s mother. She had to be. She could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. The woman was distraught.

Blue scrunched up her face trying not to cry too. It was too awful. Jess had never known that Eileen was her mother. Why had no one ever told her? Why had they all kept it a secret from her? All those years Jess thought she had no mother and that Eileen was just being charitable coming to see her once or twice a year. All those wasted years.

‘Bernadette, run to the kitchen and get a glass of water,’ said Sister Monica, her face filled with concern and pity.

‘I should never have put my baby into this place,’ sobbed the woman. ‘I should have taken her out of Larch Hill.’

‘Eileen, you did what was best,’ murmured Sister Monica, patting her arm. ‘You weren’t able to provide for her. The child had friends here, was doing well in school. Jess was so clever and bright, God rest her.’

‘Jess was well taken care of here,’ said Sister Regina, her expression hard. ‘But, I’m afraid she was wild and wilful, often disobeyed the rules …’

Blue ran to the kitchen and filled a glass with cold water from the tap. She was careful not to spill it as she returned. She stared at Jess’s mother, she couldn’t help herself. Sister Monica had managed to get the woman back indoors to sit down. Eileen took a few sips.

‘You will have to excuse me,’ Sister Regina said. ‘I must attend to a matter in the nursery. My prayers are with you in these troubled times, Eileen.’

‘I don’t want your prayers, Sister,’ replied Eileen angrily, standing up again. ‘I should never have listened to your promises about my child having a better start and being well cared for here!’ She moved towards the front door, obviously anxious to get away from the nuns.

‘If there is any word from the authorities I promise we will get in touch with you,’ said Sister Monica, trying to comfort her.

Blue stood like a statue. not knowing what to say. She watched the lonely figure walk back down the convent driveway through the fallen leaves towards the gate.

Blue could not get what had happened out of her mind. She kept thinking about Jess and her mother. If only Jess had known who Eileen was, how different things might have been. Maybe she had a mother too? What if somewhere out there was the woman who had given birth to her? Maybe she looked like her or talked like her or had the same blue eyes? Sister Regina and the nuns knew but they wouldn’t tell her. Blue was determined somehow or other to find out the truth about her mother, and who she really was.