Amelia Page 4

  But this only made Amelia weep even more stormily. Why couldn’t someone be mean and nasty to her, so that she could have a proper fight with them? What did they all mean by being so wretchedly nice?

  ‘Poor ‘Melia!’ piped up Edmund in a wobbly voice. And then he burst into tears too, unnerved by the unaccustomed scene. So Mama had to take him on her knee and comfort him.

  Papa gave Amelia his handkerchief, because hers was already sopping. It smelt of Sunlight soap and tobacco, which was Papa’s own special smell.

  Amelia knew she should apologise, but she didn’t trust herself to say anything. If she opened her mouth, more wails might come out. So she said nothing, but did her best to mop up her face with Papa’s hanky, and let a quiet little sob escape every now and then.

  So Papa and Mama had agreed that if Amelia really wanted a party so badly, then she should have it. And if she wanted dancing, well then they would borrow a gramophone from somewhere and she could have music. ‘Perhaps Grandmama might be persuaded to go to the country for a day or two,’ said Papa, for everyone knew what Grandmama would think of something as frivolous as a party with dancing. Luckily, Grandmama took her breakfast in her room and never appeared in public before noon, except on Sundays, and was not present at these discussions.

  ‘And I’ll need a party frock, Mama,’ said Amelia, striking while the iron was hot.

  ‘Well,’ said Mama. ‘Well, if you like, you could have one instead of a birthday present.’

  Amelia always got a surprise present on her birthday. She loved coming down to breakfast on her birthday morning and seeing a special package with a big bow by her place at table. For a moment Amelia wavered. She would miss that lovely sense of anticipation before she opened the present. But it was more important to her to have the new frock.

  ‘Thank you, Mama,’ she said. ‘That would be a lovely present.’

  And this was the reason that Amelia and Mama were on the tram, swaying through Rathmines, over the canal at Portobello, down Camden Street and Dame Street, skirting the gates of Trinity College and on past the Houses of Parliament, over the Liffey to Sackville Street and the Pillar.

  The air was fresh and sweet with spring as they left Kenilworth Square, and it gradually filled with the thronging sounds of the city as they approached the river. Sackville Street itself was alive with people scurrying about their business, but none of them, Amelia was sure, were on such happy business as she and her mama.

  Inside Clery’s it was warm and muffled, after the noisy street. The lady shop assistants wore black skirts with deep belts and trim white blouses, and they all wore their hair neatly pinned up. Some of the more dashing ones wore neckties, like men. A gentleman with an enormous moustache and an ebony cane paced up and down, keeping an eye out for shop-lifters, pick-pockets and trouble-makers.

  In the fabric department, they were served by a shop assistant with a linen measuring tape around her neck. She rolled out bolts of material with a flick of her wrist. The silks and satins and lacy materials cascaded in glorious colours over the counters. Mama fingered all the materials and shook her head. This one was too coarse and that one was too fine and the other one was too expensive.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, satisfied at last, when a pale blue glazed cotton stripe was rolled out. Amelia looked at it in horror. It was quite pretty – the sort of thing you might make a couple of light summer dresses for a small girl out of – but not what Amelia had in mind at all.

  ‘But, Mama,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘I want silk – crimson silk, or cherry.’

  The shop assistant looked from Amelia to Mama. ‘Is it for yourself, Miss?’ she asked.

  Amelia nodded.

  ‘Do you not think you should take whatever your mammy chooses?’

  Amelia’s face got hot and tears stung her eyelids. She said nothing.

  ‘Oh no, no,’ Mama said gamely. ‘This is for a party frock. It’s a birthday present. My daughter must have whatever she prefers – within reason, of course. She seems to have her heart set on crimson. Show us something suitable, if you please.’

  Amelia looked up at Mama in astonishment. She had been sure her mother was going to insist on something sensible.

  The shop assistant said nothing, but rolled out bolt after bolt of red fabric. There was every shade of red, in silk, satin, cotton, damask, velvet and chiffon, and now Amelia started to finger the fabrics, rubbing them between her fingers to feel the quality. Every now and then, she would pick up a length of material that had dropped over the edge of the counter and hold it up to her body and take a look in the glass. But no matter how many fabrics the shop assistant produced, there didn’t seem to be one that was right. She looked pale and miserable in the mirror, and her green eyes looked dull and watery and pinkish around the rims. Amelia looked at her mother in despair. ‘They don’t suit me, Mama,’ she said in a strangled voice.

  ‘No, they don’t,’ said the shop assistant flatly. ‘Someone with your colouring should wear yellow or green.’

  ‘Well, why on earth didn’t you say so earlier?’ said Mama mildly.

  ‘But you said, Madam, that the young lady was to have whatever she preferred.’ The shop assistant smirked.

  ‘Well, perhaps she will prefer what you show her next,’ Mama said in an unusually severe voice.

  So then the assistant brought golds and marigolds, primroses, lemons and buttery colours and then she brought bottles and jades and limes and leafy greens, some sprigged with tiny flowers, some patterned with stripes and plaids, some plain.

  ‘That’s it!’ shouted Amelia in excitement, when the assistant rolled out a deep emerald silk. She snatched a handful of the cloth and pulled at it until she had several yards of it, then she wound it around her body and turned triumphantly to Mama.

  Her eyes were shining, and her hair hung over her emerald shoulders like spun gold. She looked wonderful, and she knew it, even though she was only wrapped in the material. It rustled and sighed against her as only silk can, and it glowed against her skin.

  Mama flinched when the shop assistant told her the price per yard, and even Amelia was shocked at how expensive it was. All the same, Mama asked the assistant to cut enough to make a dress for Amelia and to assemble whatever haberdashery items would be needed to complete it.

  The assistant measured out the silk on a brass yardstick that was screwed to the counter, and cut it with a pinking shears that made a crisp sound. Then she made up a paper twist with hooks and eyes, bias binding, small pearl buttons and a spool of deep green thread, laid it on the folded fabric and made the lot into a neat brown-paper parcel tied with string. She knotted the string into a bow so that Amelia could carry it, and handed it over. Then she wrote a docket and read out the total to Mama. Mama took out her purse and counted out the amount to the nearest shilling. The shop assistant put the money and the docket into a little wooden vessel, and then she shot it off on the pneumatic money transfer system to the cash office. Presently another little wooden vessel came whizzing back, and the shop assistant unscrewed it and handed the contents to Mama – a sixpenny bit and her receipt. Mama folded up the receipt and put it in her purse, and she handed the sixpence to Amelia.

  Amelia gasped. A whole sixpence! And it wasn’t even her birthday, not yet. She picked up the parcel, and together they left the shop, Amelia swinging her precious package on its loop of string.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mama,’ she said fervently when they got out on the street, and there and then she flung her arms around her mother.

  Mama didn’t seem a bit surprised, though it had been months since she had had a spontaneous hug from Amelia. She squeezed Amelia back and she whispered in her ear in wicked imitation of the assistant, ‘But you said, Madam, that she was to have whatever she preferred.’

  Amelia giggled and, extricating herself from the hug, replied in Mama’s icy tones, ‘Well, perhaps she’ll prefer what you show her next.’

  And mother and daughter held their sides and laughed and
laughed under the clock outside Clery’s. People passing by smiled to see the two of them, so gay and carefree on a Wednesday afternoon in the spring sunshine.

  It wasn’t until she was snuggled up in bed that night and just drifting off to sleep that Amelia was struck by the illogicality of something Papa had said that morning. Only right-angled triangles had hypotenuses anyway! What could Papa have been thinking of? Had he deliberately been provoking her, because he knew she needed a good weep? Good old Papa! thought Amelia, smiling sleepily. And good old Mama! Amelia Pim really was a very lucky girl.

  At the Dressmaker’s

  Amelia was on her way downstairs the next day when she met a huge pile of freshly washed and ironed linen lurching up. ‘Is that you, Mary Ann?’ she said to the pile of linen.

  ‘Yeff, miff,’ came a muffled voice that might have been Mary Ann’s and might not have been, from behind the pile of sheets.

  Amelia climbed back up to the return landing. ‘Gangway, Mary Ann,’ she called. ‘You can come on up now.’

  And the pile of bedlinen swayed unsteadily up. Gradually, Mary Ann’s skirt and then her black-stockinged ankles and shoes came into view under the pile of washing, and Mary Ann arrived with a sigh of relief on the half-landing.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ said Amelia, taking the top third off the bundle, to reveal Mary Ann’s face, red with exertion, and her cap knocked to one side.

  ‘Hello,’ said Mary Ann with a grin, passing Amelia and continuing on around the corner and up to the main landing. Amelia followed her to the hot-press, with her smaller bundle of sheets. They were fragrant with soap and sunshine and the hot, toasty smell of the iron.

  Mary Ann laid the linen lovingly on the shelves, spreading lavender bags between the layers, and then turned to take Amelia’s pile. ‘Thanks, Miss,’ she said. ‘We keep meeting on the stairs.’

  ‘Amelia, for heaven’s sake,’ said Amelia. ‘How’s your mother, Mary Ann?’

  ‘Much better, Miss. Amelia, I mean. Thanks to your ma.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you see, the medicine wasn’t doing her any good. Your ma said that was because she wasn’t getting enough nourishment. She said giving medicine to a person who’s not eating properly is like pouring it down the drain. So she started sending broth to my mother. And within a week, you could see the difference. She’s got a bit of colour back, and I really think the medicine is doing her some good now.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Amelia. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘She’s a living saint, your ma is,’ said Mary Ann.

  Amelia thought this a strange thing to say. Of course, Amelia didn’t go to church, but she had seen inside one or two on a few occasions, and the statues of saints she had seen were mostly very dreary-looking people with long faces who would trip up if they were alive, because their eyes were always cast heavenwards. Mama wasn’t the least bit like any of them.

  ‘And if it wasn’t for her,’ Mary Ann was saying, ‘my ma’d be a dead saint, like all the other saints.’ And she gave a laugh at her macabre little joke.

  ‘How can you laugh about that, Mary Ann?’ said Amelia in a shocked voice.

  ‘Ah, Miss, you have to learn to laugh. It’s the only thing that keeps you going, sometimes, don’t you find?’

  ‘No,’ said Amelia. ‘At least, I never thought about it.’

  ‘Well, I’ve thought about it. And I can tell you it’s the truth. A good laugh sees you through many a worrisome moment.’

  ‘And what about your brother Patrick, Mary Ann?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘What about him?’ said Mary Ann stiffly.

  ‘Well, I mean, is he still … is he still, you know, in prison?’

  ‘Yes, he is, I’m proud to say,’ said Mary Ann.

  ‘Proud!’ Amelia was stunned. How could anyone possibly be proud to have a prisoner in the family?

  ‘Yes, Miss. I’m proud to be the sister of a patriot.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Amelia. She had a vague idea it was something out of the Old Testament, but that didn’t seem very appropriate.

  ‘It means someone who puts his country before his king,’ said Mary Ann staunchly.

  ‘But the king is the country, isn’t he? In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘We don’t see it that way. We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland.’

  ‘Gosh!’ breathed Amelia, not too sure what Mary Ann was on about, but impressed by the sound of it. ‘Are you a Nationalist, Mary Ann?’

  ‘And a Socialist,’ nodded Mary Ann.

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘Don’t sound so disapproving, Miss Amelia. Your ma and da are Socialists too, or the next thing to it.’

  ‘Oh no. We’re Quakers.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Friends of prisoners and champions of the poor, that’s what the Quakers are, I’ve been told. You people are pacificists, of course, but I don’t hold that against you.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m glad.’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  The two girls smiled at one another. Just then, Amelia’s mother’s voice came calling up the stairs: ‘Amelia! Do get a move on! We’re supposed to be there ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Oops!’ said Amelia. ‘Mary Ann, I have to run. I’m being fitted for a gorgeous new dress. You’ll love it!’

  ‘Goodbye, Miss. Amelia, I mean,’ said Mary Ann, but she was talking to the air, for Amelia had flown down the stairs with a clatter of feet and a whoop of laughter. Mary Ann could hear excited chattering in the hall as Amelia and her mother got their coats on. Presently the front door banged and the chattering subsided.

  Mary Ann smiled to herself as she smoothed the linen down. Young Amelia had a few things to learn. Life wasn’t all tram-rides to Clery’s and appointments with the dressmaker. But no doubt she would find that out soon enough.

  The dressmaker congratulated Amelia on her choice of fabric and she took approving notes about the style Amelia wanted and added a few suggestions of her own. Amelia and the dressmaker agreed that Amelia’s birthday frock was going to be perfectly beautiful.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s going to be lovely, Mama?’ asked Amelia, standing on a little stool with her arms stretched out so that the dressmaker could measure her.

  ‘Quite,’ said Mama vaguely, peering out of the dressmaker’s front window into the street. ‘Dear, dear,’ she went on, though Amelia couldn’t be sure whether she was talking to herself or not, ‘I do hate to see those children looking so ragged and hungry.’

  ‘Are those Kelly children playing outside my house again?’ said the dressmaker impatiently. ‘I’ve told Mrs Kelly over and over again to keep her brats – I beg your pardon, her young’uns – out of the way of my ladies. “Ladies don’t like to be troubled by your br… your childer, Mrs Kelly,” I tell her. “It puts them off. It’s bad for trade.” Honest to God, they’re no better than tinkers, those Kellys.’

  ‘It looks to me,’ said Amelia’s mother, ‘as if they don’t get enough to eat. Is their father working?’

  ‘No, Ma’am. Not since the lock-out. A lot of the men from these cottages worked on the trams. Most of them went back to work, of course, but not Kelly. He was too proud to sign Mr Martin Murphy’s anti-union papers, so he never got taken on again. I blame that Mr Larkin and his communist ideas! Coming over here from England and stirring up trouble, it’s a holy disgrace, so it is. Himself and that Countess Markievicz should be tied together and thrown off a cliff, if you ask me. We don’t need their foreign ideas here, so we don’t.’

  Amelia looked at Mama. She didn’t really understand all about the lock-out, but she knew that men had wanted to join the unions under James Larkin, and that their employers had locked them out of their work because of it. And that a lot of poor families went hungry as a result. But what Amelia was most concerned about was Mama’s reaction to what the dressmaker had said about Countess Markievicz. Everyone knew about the Countess and her political activities. She was always making speec
hes about women’s rights and about Nationalism. The Countess and Mama were not exactly friends, but they did serve on some of the same committees.

  ‘And what about the mother?’ asked Amelia’s mother, not mentioning her connections with the Countess.

  ‘A brazen hussy!’

  ‘No, I mean, has she work?’

  ‘She used to be in service, before she was married. Now she helps out sometimes in the house where she was employed, when they have guests in and need someone extra in the kitchen.’

  ‘And otherwise?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘So, how do they live?’

  The dressmaker had finished measuring Amelia and now she was making little marks with a piece of french chalk on the material. She shrugged in answer to Mama’s question.

  Mama shook her head sadly.

  ‘How many children has Mrs Kelly?’ asked Amelia, remembering what Lucinda had said about poor people.

  ‘Five, and one on the way. Her last baby died. Just as well, otherwise there’d be seven of them soon, not counting the parents.’

  ‘Six children!’ said Amelia. ‘That’s too many!’

  ‘What ever do you mean, Amelia?’ asked Mama, her cheeks pink with sudden anger. ‘There’s no such thing as too many children. There’s only not enough food to feed them.’

  ‘But it’s the same thing, Mama. If you have more children than you can feed, then you have too many.’

  ‘No, it’s not the same thing,’ said Mama hotly. ‘If you have more children than you can feed, then you are poor, that’s all. Lots of our friends and relations have five or six children, and each one is precious. Do you think these people’s children are any less precious to them?’

  ‘No, Mama,’ said Amelia, feeling a little ashamed of what she had said, but also feeling that there was something illogical about Mama’s argument.

  ‘Mama?’ said Amelia when they had left the dressmaker’s cottage and had turned onto the Harold’s Cross Road, back towards home.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nobody uses the orangery much any more, do they?’