Fiona O’Brien stuffed her tattered copybook into her school bag. Porridge bubbled in the pot on the stove, the scent of warm milk and oats permeated the kitchen. She shoved her bicycle helmet on her head and turned to her mother.
“Ah, Mam. Dad said that I could,” she said and clipped the buckle under her chin.
“Don’t “ah, Mam” me. Never mind what your father said. It’ll be me that feeds it, not him. And don’t pull that puss with me,” the mother said, wagging her finger.
“Johnny Buckley only has one pup left and Dymphna Hegarty’s mother said she could have one already.”
“And I suppose if Dymphna Hegarty stuck her head in the fire you’d do that too.”
Fiona O’Brien’s bottom lip trembled.
“You’re tearing the arse out of it now. Out! Off to school with you.”
*
Fiona moved. Fast. She ripped across the pitch, her school uniform a dash of blue streaking through the boys, her black hair glinting in sunlight. Flaherty kicked the ball as she raised her arm. She slammed her fist into his stomach. He doubled over grasping his middle.
“Jaysus, O’Brien! What was that for?”
“ Timmy Shea told me what you said,” she roared into his face.
He laughed and pushed her in the shoulder. “Girls can’t play soccer. G’wan way and make a daisy chain.”
The girl bristled, rubbing her filthy hands over her grass stained uniform. “You can’t kick a ball to save yer life, Flaherty, why don’t you go make a daisy chain? Sure, yer good for nothin’ else.”
His face changed and he pushed her a little harder. “Yer not even a proper girl, O’Brien; no one wants to play with you.”
The boys swarmed around them, cat-calling.
“I wouldn’t take that, O’Brien–”
“Punch him–”
“Girls shouldn’t play with boys–”
She lunged toward him and pulled him into a headlock. “Take it back,” she said. “Take it back or I’ll kick the living daylights out of you.”
The boys jeered. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
She hitched her foot behind his ankle and dragged him to the ground. They rolled around punching and kicking each other, until she bettered him, straddled him, and clawed at his face.
“Take it back, you pig,” she said. Tears threatened.
He covered his head with his arms and laughed maniacally. “Get off me, you mad bitch.”
Master O’Sullivan, a tall, greying brick of a man, burst through the ring of boys and dragged her off him. She spat out blood and crossed her arms looking at them all with contempt. The crowd dispersed. Flaherty stood up nursing his bloody face.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“She started it,” he whined, pointing at the girl. She stuck out her tongue behind Sully’s back.
“And I’m stopping it,” Sully said through clenched teeth. “This is the third time this week. I’ll ban the soccer if ye can’t get along.”
They looked at each other in horror.
“I mean it. Once more and the whole lot of ye are in detention for a week. Did ye hear me?” He eyed each of the boys on the pitch scuttling away from him, “Did ye hear me?” he said, again and louder. “Detention for the whole week if ye can’t get over a girl beating ye.”
Fiona hugged this to herself, like a blanket. Sully pulled her aside. “Wipe the smirk off, O’Brien, or I’ll be telling your parents about this.”
The bell tolled and he strolled away. She ran back to her jumper on the sidelines. She shoved it on over her head, beating off pieces of cut grass. Some of the boys, headed by Flaherty, approached her.
“Me and you after school, O’Brien.”
She considered him a moment. “Yer on. What are you going to do when Sully isn’t around to save you?”
“I was going to say the same myself. We all know yer a coward.”
The boys mumbled in agreement. “Sully’s pet like,” Breen says.
She snorted, “I got more guts about me than the whole lot o’ ye put together.”
“Oh yeah? Well, if you’re so brave why don’t you knock on Mad Bill’s house?”
She laughed, nervously. “No one would be thick enough.”
“John Michael did it before he went to big school, swore he saw Old Mrs Murphy behind the glass and she dead with years.” He smirked. “Go on. I dare you.”
She paused. “Yer only saying that ‘cause you know I’d kill you.”
“Chicken,” he hissed.
*
Sully droned on as gaelige about past tense versus present tense. She couldn’t understand a word of it. She bit her nails as she scanned the book, open and perched on D’Arcy’s back. He already had Timmy Shea stand up in front of the whole room for being a thick, and he’d only been looking to catch her out since lunchtime.
“O’Brien.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said, heart pounding.
“Stand up and recite the homework I gave ye last night.”
She was done for now and she knew it. She stood up slowly getting a sly last look at the poem.
“Come on now, O’Brien, we can’t be watching grass grow waiting for you.”
A snigger drifted through the class. She’d be hung, drawn and quartered going home with another brown envelope from him. The mother would kill her. She gulped, thinking of excuses.
There was a rap at the door. Mrs McCarthy peered in at them, jam jar glasses perched at the end of her nose. “Master O’Sullivan, a word if you please.”
The girl heaved a sigh of relief and the class shuddered. She never thought she’d be happy to see that hag. Her mother said she didn’t know how that woman still had her job with her falling asleep every day, after lunch, in that chair with those rosary beads and a picture of Padre Pio clasped in her hands. Fiona wasn’t so sure, she was convinced the woman spent half her time pretending to sleep when really she watched them through the slits in her eyes, like a snake. The worst was getting caught ribbing Flaherty for being a mammy’s boy after he slapped her on the knuckles with a ruler. She’d been thrown into the cupboard for that one while Flaherty was petted. Sitting in the dark, she’d cursed herself. She should have known the old bat wasn’t asleep. She hadn’t been snoring.
They stood outside the door, their shadows contorted by the rose-coloured, leaf-patterned glass. There wasn’t a sound from inside except for her, still standing, rustling through the Irish book to learn off the homework before Sully walked back in.
Sully stuck his head in the door. “Keep quiet you lot or there’ll be double homework tonight.” He looked around for dramatic effect. “By God, O’Brien, are you slow? Sit down and I’ll have that poem when I come in,” he said.
Someone sniggered. Flaherty. She sat down, red-faced.
She pulled the book to her, and scanned the lines quickly. All other heads were bent over the homework throwing side-glances to see who’d brave the talking first.
“Did ye get a load of the chalk handprints all over Sully’s arse?” Dwyer roared out and the class broke into a low hum of conversation.
Flaherty, swivelled around. “Psst”
She ignored him.
“Psst.” Louder this time.
No answer.
“O’Brien,” he shouted.
“Shh, will you. I’m a goner if I don’t have this off,” she said, brow furrowed.
“Come on, O’Brien. Give us the answer.”
“What are you on about?” she said, exasperated. “Yer some amadáin, g’way from me.”
“O’Brien, would you stop acting the fool. You know what I’m on about.”
She looked back down at the book but the words swam in front of her. Mad Bill’s place, could I? She mustered up a snooty face, the one like her mother’s.
“Am I up for it?” she looked around at the class. Every eye in the room focused on her. She couldn’t let Flaherty get the better of her.
“Chicken,” he hissed.
“I’m not the chicken,” she said, “I’ll do it if you do it.”
Flaherty was silent. A paper ball sailed across the classroom and slapped him in the side of the head just as Sully walked back into the room.
“And what do you think you’re doing throwing paper around the room, Dwyer? Didn’t I tell ye there’d be double homework?” he said.
“Yes, Sir, I was just practicing my basketball, Sir. The town league, Sir?”
He put on the innocent face. The girl snorted into her hand and Sully glared at her. She coughed and banged at her chest.
“Well done, Dwyer, you might use the brains your mother gave you and practice it outside my classroom. Now, where were we?”
The girl paled.
“That’s right, the Irish homework,” he slapped his hands and rubbed them together.
I’m dead, she thought.
“Dwyer,” he said.
“But, Sir-“
“Stand up.”
She let out a huge sigh and smiled at Sully. He nearly smiled back.
Dwyer stumbled through the poem, and Flaherty turned and watched her as Breen stuffed a note into her hand.
“Yer on,” it said.
She looked up at him and he raised his hand to give her the thumbs up.
“Flaherty,” Sully roared.
Flaherty nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Get up and stand here for the rest of the class.”
Even that didn’t drag a smile out of her.
*
The girl banged her fists off the door. She could hear Flaherty outside laughing. She tried the handle again but it was held fast from outside. He locked me in with Mad Bill. The thought occurred to her through her own shouting.
Locked in. She stilled, afraid to breathe. With Mad Bill. Fear crept along her skin. Must and rotten food cloyed at her nostrils. She turned. It was dark. So dark. She searched for an escape while her eyes adjusted. Huge piles of rubbish. Everywhere. Tall, yellowing stacks of newspapers lined the hall, teetering up as far as the ceiling. There was no floor, only garbage up to her knees. She could hear mice crawl, squeaking, though the debris.
“What do you think yer doing?” Her head swivelled round. No body for the voice. Her stomach wriggled, tears pricked at her eyes, her body shook.
“Well,” it says. “Don’t be standing there like some gombeen and answer me.”
She snivelled. “I– I– I–”
“You what now, girl? It’d want to be a good un’. I’ve half a mind to give you a hiding.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m really sorry.” She turned and jiggled at the door, banged her fist against the glass willing it to open. It was so thick with dirt it was impossible to see through but there was only silence on the other side. She heard shuffling behind her and the pith-pith-pith of Mad Bill spitting. She stopped, swallowing air through her mouth; her nose was blocked with snots.
“Mind, pet. Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you,” it says.
She turned to face him. And there was Mad Bill, wiry grey hair standing at angles to a face caked with dirt. He was dirty all over – hair, face, clothes, hands.
“Mind, girl, mind,” he said, lifting his hand like he’d pet her.
She steadied herself. “Sorry,” she whispered and a teardrop fell. She hung her head in shame.
His eyes crinkled at her. “No crying now. The damage is done. Decided to get a look at the mad fucker is it?”
“No, I–”
“Don’t lie to me girl.” He shoved her out of the way and grasped the door handle, jiggled it but it wouldn’t open.
Pith-pith-pith. “Some rascal has locked you in, is it? Great joke it is.” He growled under his breath. “Come here and let me look at you.”
He bent over close to her face, the smell of stale sweat and cigarettes bowled her over. She held her breath as he examined her face through the murk of the room. He roared out laughing, holding his sides and grabbing her shoulder. “By God, yer O’Brien’s daughter.” He smacked his stomach. “He told me ye were a wild one alright.”
She took a longer look at his face and thought his eyes kind.
“Now, now, pet,” he said, “yer father’s a good man. Tell me what happened.”
It spilled out in one rush of words, the soccer, the fighting, Flaherty, and the dare. He listened, carefully, and nodded in places.
“ A sorry tale to be sure. Follow me.” He strode away, wading through the layers of rubbish, kicking it out of the way as he moved. She took one long last look at the door and turned, he stood in the hallway of newspapers waiting.
She followed.
*
She thought it had to be a kitchen, there was a table with mounds of food wrappers, plates with hairy, green food, and empty plastic bottles of pop. He pulled out a chair, and swiped the rubbish on the seat to the ground. He smacked out the dirt and patted it for her to sit, which she did, dutifully.
“Tea?”
She looked at the plates. “No, I’m grand, thank you,” she said.
He laughed. “Yer father was here yesterday, brought me to the shops he did, for my messages.” He raised his eyebrows. “He had tea.”
“I don’t like tea.”
“What class of a girl doesn’t like tea?”
She crossed her arms and pursed her lips.
“Yer the image of him and that’s for sure.”
“How do you know my father?”
“I know yer mother as well, fine lady she is,” he eyed her up her filthy shoes and grass-stained uniform. “Tis after yer father ye take though.”
She kept her arms crossed.
He sighed. Pith-pith-pith. “And stubborn like him too. Me and yer father were in that school there across the road. We were good buddies before he left to work on yer grandfather’s farm.”
She settled into the chair. “What was he like? Back then.”
“A bit like you and yer lad, Flaherty,” he said.
She snorted.
“I’m tellin’ ya, he was a bloody holy terror.”
“I’m not a holy terror,” she said.
“Perhaps an unholy terror, if you like.” His eyes twinkled and she smiled a little.
“I don’t believe you. “
“Believe what you like. T’isn’t off a stone you licked it, girl.”
He bustled about the kitchen tearing up papers and pushing piles of plates out of his way with his elbow. A glass fell to the ground, but the rubbish eased its fall. He scratched his head as he looked around.
“Where did I-“ he said to himself and dove back into the mess a few feet away.
“Aha!”
He held a phone in his hand.
*
Her father drove the van with a face like thunder, his lips pursed into a white line under his black beard, his face tomato red from the effort of keeping the anger in. He ignored Johnny Buckley waving. There goes her pup, she thought. The gear stick took the brunt of the violence – he shoved it and pulled it. The car argued back, revving its protests.
They pulled up to the house, and he was up and out of the van before she had her seatbelt undone. She got out and watched as he walked down to the yard to a beaten down tractor, the parts strewn around it on a ripped piece of tarpaulin. His hands, black with oil, made fists. She pulled out her bike from the back of the van. Her mother, at the window above the kitchen sink, shook her head. Fiona wheeled the bike up to the whitewashed gable wall. The door opened. Her mother stood, hands on hips, shaking her head.
“I have never been more disappointed in you, Fiona O’Brien,” she said. “To think a child of mine would do such a thing.”
Fiona hunched her shoulders and dropped her schoolbag by the door, even her mother’s devil-cat was under the table, too afraid to approach.
“I didn’t mean–”
“You didn’t mean what? To break into a house? A house of one of our friends? Just for a cruel joke. I thought you were better than that.” Her mother’s face was sad. “Both of us did.” The girl wished she had shouted.
“Ma-aa-am,” she whined.
“Don’t use that tone with me, go to your room until dinner, I can’t even look at you.”
The mother turned back to the range, picked up a ladle and stirred a huge pot of lamb stew.
*
Dinner was silent, like she wasn’t there. Her mother played with the food on her plate and her father stabbed at the chucks of warm, succulent meat with his fork and shoveled it into his mouth. The girl thought he must be keeping it full to stop the words from tumbling out. He got up from the table and walked out of the house. The mother looked at her over the untouched plate of stew.
“You aren’t eating your dinner,” she said.
“I’m not hungry.”
The girl steeled herself for stories about starving children but her mother sighed, sat back, and pushed her plate to the middle of the table.
“Neither am I.”
And Fiona cried into her hands. Her mother dragged her chair close and hugged her. Fiona wrapped her arms around her mother’s middle and buried her face into her neck. The mother placed a hand on her head and made soft noises to her grubby child, the snots and tears wetting her shoulder.
“Does Da-da-daddy hate me, Mammy?”
“Mush! Your father loves you.”
Fiona thought her mother smelled like a summer garden. “Then why is he so mad at me?”
“Sometimes you get mad at people you love, and, because you love them, you get madder at them than at anyone else. But it never lasts long.” Her mother pulled Fiona’s head back, smiled at her, and rubbed the damp tendrils of hair from her face.
“Bill rang your father an hour ago,” her mother said, “after ye got home. Said those boys locked you into the house. Said you were a nice girl. Bit wild, but nice.”
Fiona stole a look at her mother and caught the ghost of a smile.
“Not everyone is as lucky as you, Fiona. Some people never grow up in their head and they don’t have a mammy or daddy to mind them. You have to be kind to Bill.”
“I’m sorry, Mammy.”
“I know you are.” She got up, grabbed the dirty plates, and brought them to the sink. “I don’t know what they’re teaching you in that school, not a bit of cop on. You know now there won’t be any cycling to school for a week? And when you do, you’re to come home straight after, no messing outside with those boys.”
“I won’t, Mammy.”
The mother raised her brown eyebrow.
“I promise, Mammy.”
Her mother glanced at an oil-slicked engine part resting on the draining board.
“I’m blue in the face from telling your father about leaving those dirty things in the house, and on a good tea towel,” she said, looking at it with disgust. “Won’t you be a good girl and take it out to him?”
Fiona grabbed it and went out of the house. She saw her father in the yard fiddling with the engine beside the tractor, scratching his head with one hand, the other on his hip. She stood behind him and coughed. He half-jumped, turned, and faced her holding it out to him with both hands. He pointed at a spot outside of the circle of parts. She placed it carefully on the ground.
“Bring me the wrench, like a good girl,” he said. She picked up the pliers. “No, the one beside that.”
She gave it to him and he bent over the engine. Silence stretched between them until she couldn’t bear it.
“I’m sorry. I never knew M–” She faltered. “Bill couldn’t grow up.”
“Your mother says you can’t have the puppy now. Says you have to prove yourself first.”
Her heart sank.
“Tomorrow, after school, you’re coming for a drive,” he said.
“Where?” she asked his back.
“I take Bill to the post office on Thursdays. Stay there for an hour for a bit of company. He has no family left. No one to mind him.”
She said nothing and he gave her a side eye.
“Flaherty’s boy should be cleaning the garden,” he said, as he kneeled down and fiddled with a bolt. “Think Bill wants the shed done, I told him you’d do it.”
The piles of rubbish flashed in her mind. God knows what the shed would be like, she thought. He took the bolt in his hand and scratched his beard.
“You’ll have to be careful, mind, there’s pups in that shed.”
Lorraine Mona Carey 