Amelia Read online

  ‘Mama!’ Edmund cried at intervals, reaching his arms up to Amelia.

  ‘No, Edmund. It’s Amelia. Mama is away. She will come soon, but not now. This is Amelia speaking, Edmund. Amelia.’

  ‘Mama,’ the boy muttered.

  ‘Amelia,’ she said firmly.

  His lips moved. Amelia put her ear close to hear him.

  ‘Mealy,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, Edmund!’ said Amelia softly. She’d got through to him. He knew her. He was sensible. He was going to be all right.

  She looked up and saw the familiar grey streaks pushing through the black of night, and she knew the sun would soon be up. It had been the longest night of her life, and she was thoroughly exhausted. But she had pulled Edmund from the edge of death, and now he was going to live and get well and strong and he was going to be there, up and about, when Mama came home.

  Already Edmund’s temperature, which had soared in the night, was beginning to come down a little. His cheeks were flaming, but the perspiration in which he had been bathed had halted, and at last his eyes closed in a proper, even sleep.

  Amelia went and woke Grandmama and asked her to take over. As soon as Grandmama vacated Edmund’s old bed, Amelia sank onto it, fully dressed, and slept her first sound sleep for over a week. She didn’t hear Grandmama going to the door to have the milk-can filled when the milk-cart came around or, later in the morning, the solemn peal of the church bells and the families going off to church – children calling out for attention in their Sunday best – on foot, or in carts, one or two adventurous souls on bicycles; she didn’t hear the families coming back from church, some of them meeting the congregation of the next mass as they returned, and stopping for a leisurely gossip on the pavement; she never saw the sun rise higher and higher in the sky or smelt the smells up and down the street of Sunday dinners being cooked.

  It was lunchtime when she woke, with a bad taste in her mouth and a shivery feeling from having slept over the clothes instead of under them. She still felt tired, but better. She stretched a long stretch and she sighed a long sigh, and then she stood up and went in to see how Edmund had passed the rest of the night. Grandmama had gone to Meeting and left Papa in charge. He sat by Edmund’s bed, reading the Sunday newspaper. Edmund was still sleeping deeply, as Amelia had last seen him at five o’clock that morning.

  Papa smiled at his daughter. ‘He’s much better, Amelia,’ he said. ‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’

  Amelia nodded and smiled back. Then she left the room, closing the door softly, and went downstairs, her heart singing, to get a jug of water to wash in.

  As she was washing, Amelia heard the clamour in the street of the people returning from the last mass. It must be lunchtime, she thought. Sunday lunchtime. Good heavens! She was supposed to meet Mary Ann today at the Metropole at two o’clock. Oh dear! She tiptoed back into her own room, where Edmund still slept soundly under Papa’s watchful eye, to find something respectable to wear. Amelia scrabbled in the wardrobe. All her nicest dresses had got too short and tight. She’d have to make do with an everyday dress, even though it was Sunday and a special occasion.

  ‘Papa,’ she said, as she pulled out first one dress and then another. ‘I’m going out for a little while. Will you be all right with Edmund? I’m sure Grandmama will be back shortly.’

  She fully expected Papa to ask where she was going, and with whom, and when she would be back. But he just smiled at her again. ‘We’ll be all right, princess,’ he said. ‘You deserve a little time off. Enjoy yourself.’

  He had spoken to her as if she were a grown-up. Amelia wasn’t sure if she liked that, but just this afternoon, it suited her purposes very well. She didn’t want to have to explain about meeting Mary Ann, but equally she didn’t want to have to tell a lie. She changed quickly and pulled a brush through her hair, glancing in the mirror as she did so. She was pale, and there were black rings under her eyes. She looked a sight. It struck her, as she reviewed her reflection, that she hadn’t looked in a looking-glass for nine whole days.

  The Meeting

  Amelia had never seen Mary Ann in her outdoor things before. She looked much older in a coat and hat, but Amelia could see that under the coat she was still as thin as a rake. The two girls viewed each other shyly. Amelia wasn’t sure whether to hug Mary Ann or to shake her hand. In the end she did neither, just fiddled with her gloves and smiled at her.

  ‘Well, let’s get a move on then,’ said Mary Ann at last, settling her heavy basket on her arm. ‘I haven’t got much time. We can talk as we walk.’

  ‘Where are we going, Mary Ann?’ asked Amelia, trotting along beside her friend, who was taking long quick steps and had a look on her face that meant she knew where she was going and intended to get there quickly.

  ‘To London, to see the queen,’ said Mary Ann impishly.

  ‘What!’ Amelia stopped in her tracks and forced Mary Ann to stop too, pulling at her brown gabardine elbow. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Didn’t you know the queen was my aunt?’ said Mary Ann. ‘She’s giving a coming-out party for me next week, and I just have to settle the last details about the invitations.’

  Amelia had forgotten that Mary Ann’s sense of humour could be a bit alarming at times.

  ‘Oh, Mary Ann,’ she said wearily. ‘Don’t play tricks on me, not today. I’m just not up to it.’

  ‘Why?’ said Mary Ann. ‘Does coming down in the world not agree with you?’

  ‘Oh Mary Ann!’ said Amelia, cut to the quick. ‘I thought you were my friend.’

  ‘Friend, is it? Some friend you’ve been, Amelia Pim! I don’t hear from you for weeks on end, and then out of the blue there’s a telephone call putting the heart crossways in me, telling me my ma was poorly, and now you expect me to be full of smiles?’

  ‘But, Mary Ann!’ Amelia was close to tears. Here was her one friend in the world, as she thought, being just as unkind as the rest of them. ‘I didn’t know where you were. And I was waiting to hear from you.’

  ‘But how would I know where you were? You didn’t leave me your new address.’

  ‘You didn’t leave me yours either.’

  ‘But your ma knew where I was. She got me the job. All you had to do was ask her.’

  ‘My mother … my mother’s away, Mary Ann,’ said Amelia softly, her voice almost breaking. ‘She’s … she’s in gaol, actually.’

  ‘Amelia! Mrs Pim in gaol! Oh lawny!’ Mary Ann’s shoulders slumped, and she forgot all about her quarrel with Amelia. She set her basket down in the street, as if to concentrate on this piece of news. ‘What happened to her?’ she asked in disbelief.

  ‘She didn’t do anything bad,’ said Amelia quickly.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ agreed Mary Ann. ‘Our Pat didn’t do anything bad either.’

  No, but he might have if he got half a chance, Amelia thought to herself, but she didn’t voice this thought. She didn’t want to lose Mary Ann’s sympathy again.

  ‘Come on, Amelia,’ said Mary Ann briskly, picking up her basket again. ‘We’re going to have to have a little chat, you and me.’ And off she set again at a canter.

  After a hot and tiring few minutes, they reached Mountjoy Square. The gate to the park in the centre of the square was open, swinging on rusty hinges, and the girls creaked their way in and found themselves a bench in the sunshine. The dark green paint on the seat was blistering, and there was a smell of creosote or oil, but it was pleasantly warm sitting on the weather-beaten wood, and the two girls sat for a moment, their small white faces turned to the sun, which neither of them had seen properly for some time. Mary Ann tucked her basket under the wooden seat, where it was cooler, and she turned to look at Amelia.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘out with it. What’s been happening?’

  It was as if a dam had burst. All Amelia’s terrible experiences of the past weeks came gushing out in a terrific torrent. It was such a relief to tell somebody the whole story: how nas
ty the girls at school had been to her, then how Mama had been taken away, how Papa had been less than heroic, and how Amelia had felt so depended upon and responsible for everything, with Mama away, and Grandmama old and rather distant most of the time, and Papa distracted by his own sense of failure, Mama’s imprisonment, and finally how Edmund had been so ill and Amelia had had to nurse him. Loyally, she drew the line at mentioning Papa’s new interest in beer and public houses. ‘It’s just been one thing after another, Mary Ann,’ she finished.

  ‘So it has,’ said Mary Ann, in a sympathetic but very matter-of-fact tone. She didn’t seem to think the story, disaster-laden as it was, so very incredible as it sounded to Amelia’s own ears, even though she had lived through it all. ‘But that’s the way things always happen, Amelia, one after another.’ And she gave Amelia a wink and a smile.

  Amelia was so grateful for that wink and smile. It was just like old times. Mary Ann hadn’t lost her special gift for taking Amelia out of herself. She sat very still, shoulder to shoulder with her friend, and said nothing for a little while, just enjoyed sitting there in the sunshine with her. A blackbird high in a tree opened his throat and let out a long liquid trill, and a small boy wearing a makeshift triangular sun-hat folded from newspaper trailed along with his head cocked on one side, as if he wanted to scan the ground for interesting things like lollipop sticks or pebbles, but was afraid of losing his headgear.

  ‘Well, it seems to me, Amelia,’ said Mary Ann at last, ‘that you’ve done a lot of growing up since I saw you last.’

  Amelia glowed.

  ‘Families!’ Mary Ann went on, sounding just like a married woman with more children than she could manage. ‘They’re such a responsibility!’

  Amelia gave a little giggle at this parody of womanhood. Yes, there was no doubt that half-an-hour of Mary Ann was exactly what she needed.

  ‘Which reminds me,’ said Mary Ann. ‘I have my own responsibilities to see to. I’m going to have to go, Amelia.’

  The blood drained from Amelia’s face. ‘No!’ she yelped. She couldn’t be parted from Mary Ann just yet. She’d only just found her again.

  ‘I have to see my family, Amelia. This is my only day off. I must go.’

  ‘But you haven’t even told me about your new position yet,’ Amelia protested. Still, she didn’t want to be selfish. She knew Mary Ann would have to go. A thought struck her like a flash: ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Mary Ann, standing up and retrieving her basket. ‘It’s no place for the likes of you, Amelia.’

  ‘What do you mean, Mary Ann?’ Amelia was indignant suddenly.

  ‘I don’t mean to be unkind, Amelia. It’s just that you’re used to better things. You’re a young lady.’

  ‘No!’ cried Amelia. ‘I’m just a … well, a girl really, a girl like yourself, Mary Ann.’ She surprised herself by saying that, but what surprised her was not so much that she made such a claim, but that she didn’t give a fig any more for all that young lady nonsense.

  Mary Ann looked dubious.

  ‘I insist, Mary Ann,’ said Amelia imperiously, unconsciously sounding more young-ladyish than she had all afternoon.

  The incongruity of Amelia’s tone made Mary Ann laugh. ‘Oh well, come on then,’ she said.

  Mary Ann’s family lived all together in one room in a large, old, crumbling house with damp patches on the walls. Amelia got a shock when she went in the front door, which stood permanently open, because so many families used it. The hallway stank, and she had to hold her breath as they climbed the bare stairs. When they reached the Maloneys’ room, she was able to let out her breath, because here the air was fresher, mainly because two panes of glass had fallen out and hadn’t been replaced, and a breeze constantly blew in. Even so, there was still a strong underlying smell of cabbage, urine and rotting wood – the smell of poverty.

  Amelia had never seen so many children in one room before, other than in a classroom. She could hardly believe they were all brothers and sisters. They all seemed to be the same age, for a start, and they were all desperately thin, like Mary Ann. None of them wore shoes, and they all had on an odd assortment of old clothes that had obviously started life in somebody else’s wardrobe. Even some of the boys wore skirts. The children swarmed and squirmed everywhere, over chairs and under tables, and a row of them sat on the room’s only bed, a large double one, which slouched in a corner, looking as if it had seen better days. The only adult in the room was a middle-aged man, in a coat and hat, who sat at the table, reading an out-of-date newspaper.

  ‘How’ya, Da,’ said Mary Ann to the man, taking off her hat and putting it on the oilcloth-covered table.

  Immediately a dozen children, or so it seemed, fell upon the hat and squabbled over it, first one trying it on, and then the next snatching it off the first one’s head and prancing about with it.

  ‘If you make a mess of my hat, there’ll be no tea for any of yous!’ warned Mary Ann, who was unpacking the basket she had been carrying.

  The children just laughed and continued to pass the hat from one head to the next.

  ‘This is Miss Amelia Pim, Da,’ said Mary Ann, laying out a glass jar of potted meat, a cold semolina pudding, partly eaten, two heels of shop-loaf and a quarter of a cake of soda bread, an apple, a ramekin of butter, a small packet of tea, half a bag of sugar, two slices of rhubarb tart, a box of Galtee cheese, a jar of Lamb’s plum jam, partly eaten, two hard-boiled eggs, three slices of cooked ham, a bowl of congealed yellow custard and half-a-dozen cold sausages. Finally she produced from her basket a tin can with a lid, presumably full of milk, which she stood carefully on the table, and the carcase of a roasted chicken, totally stripped of meat. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘Humph!’ said Mary Ann’s father, without removing his hat, but giving it an absent-minded little tip with his index finger. Amelia wondered why he wore it indoors. Maybe he felt the cold, with the glass missing from the windows, even though the day was warm, or maybe he knew that if he put it down, the children would run off with it.

  ‘Sit down, Amelia,’ said Mary Ann, pointing to a rickety chair that looked as if it wouldn’t take her weight. She sat down gingerly on it, and it creaked in protest, but it didn’t crack. Immediately, children started to pull at her skirts and tried to prise themselves up onto her knee. Amelia held herself stiffly, as if she were being over-run by rats. She didn’t like small children with snotty noses.

  ‘And how’s my little Jimmy?’ said Mary Ann, scooping up what appeared to be the youngest and snottiest child, and kissing the top of his head with vigour.

  The small fellow squealed with delight as Mary Ann swung him in the air, and Amelia closed her eyes for a moment.

  When she opened them again, Mary Ann had plonked the child down on the bed and was pouring water from a bucket into a saucepan over the chicken bones. ‘Chicken soup in an hour!’ she cried, and the children all clapped their hands.

  Amelia didn’t ask where Mary Ann had got all the food, but she didn’t expect she’d been given it. Stealing, that was called. Amelia looked at these ragged children. Her heart didn’t warm to them – she wasn’t that sort of girl. But she could see how very thin they were, and she could imagine how hungry they must be. And she knew they were Mary Ann’s brothers and sisters, and that Mary Ann must love them.

  So was it wrong of Mary Ann to snitch this food for them? she wondered to herself. After all, most of this food was clearly leftovers. It could easily have been thrown out. Obviously it was better to save it for some hungry children than to feed it to the cat or throw it in the bin. The rich family Mary Ann worked for wouldn’t miss it. Maybe stealing didn’t count if the person stolen from wouldn’t miss it. If they wouldn’t miss it, then they didn’t need it, she argued, and maybe they didn’t deserve it in the first place.

  Mary Ann cut the bread up into small thin slices, and buttered each slice carefully. Then she spread potted meat on some slices, and she laid pi
eces of ham on others. She split the sausages down the middle, and laid them on the remaining slices of bread. She peeled the hard-boiled eggs and sliced them thinly and put the slices in a saucer, and she took the cheese out of its box, unwrapped it, sliced it and put the slices on another saucer. She put the jam away for another day. When the chicken broth was ready, she doled it out into cups, mugs, jam-jars, anything she could find, and then she called the children to the table. They all stood around, blessed themselves at a signal from Mary Ann, and sang out together: ‘Bless us, oh Lord, and these Thy gifts, which of Thy bounty we are about to receive, AMEN.’ And then they fell upon the stolen goodies. Mary Ann was like a referee at a football match, making sure nobody ate more than their fair share. When every last crumb was gone, she spooned out helpings of semolina and custard, and performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes with the two slices of tart, and while they ate that she washed the cups and jamjars, and made tea. Even the littlest children drank tea, well milked.

  Mary Ann herself didn’t eat, and she didn’t offer Amelia anything.

  ‘Well,’ said Mary Ann, after they had said goodbye to the Maloneys and were out on the street again, ‘that’ll be their last decent meal for another fortnight.’

  Heavens! thought Amelia, the terribleness of their situation at last coming home to her. That picnic, that scratched-together lunch of scraps and bits, that was their main meal, not only for that day, but for fourteen days! Amelia had thought that the Pims were poor now. But they were rich, overfed, indulged and pampered in comparison to these children. It occurred to her that if one of them got pneumonia, as Edmund had, he would simply die. And suddenly she remembered Mary Ann’s mother. Where was she?

  ‘Mary Ann, your mother wasn’t there.’

  ‘No,’ said Mary Ann briefly.

  ‘She isn’t … she hasn’t …’ Amelia was covered in guilt that she hadn’t asked Mary Ann about her mother before this. Mary Ann had sat and listened to Amelia’s sad story without saying a word about her own family. And if Amelia hadn’t insisted on coming, she probably would never have known how bad things were.