Part 10 (1/2)

”Oh, yes, heaps-and they make you stuff it down, cabbage an' all. And ”

”They treat you all right?” Mr. Wilson, finding nothing to get at in having too much food, altered his approach. ”Yes.”

”Hit you or anything? Lock you up?”

Mary Ann's eyes widened. ”No. No, they don't.”

”Look, have a bit cake,” Mrs. Wilson thrust a paper plate

towards Mary Ann. ”Oh, ta, Mrs. Wilson.” ' Mary Ann ! Mary Ann ! ” The almost hysterical

shoutingcoming from behind the rock startled them all, and Mary Ann,springing up and remembering that she wasn't on the sands,said, ”Eeh! pu catch it, I'm not supposed to be round here.That's Marian) my friend.” ”Well, bring her round, hinny.” ”It's out of bounds. Eeh! I'd better go.”

”Mary Ann! Mary Ann! Oh, Mary Ann!” Now Marian'sscreams were hysterical, and to her voice others were joined, achorus of them.Eeh. ivfary Ann looked from one to the other, her eyes large and startled. ”Eeh ! Ta-ra, Mr.

Wilson. Ta-ra, Mrs. . Wilson; it was lovely seeing you.”

She turned and ran down to the water's edge, and as she pledged wiiaiy in she imagined somehow that the end of the lor rock had moved out into the water, for the s.h.i.+ngle, sloping steeply at that point, brought the water round her waist. It was still calm and sunny water, but when three steps from the end of the rock it came up to her armpits, the world suddenly became a ma.s.s of water and she knew a tiny tremor of fear, and just as she heard Mr. Wilson's anxious voice, calling, ”Come on back here, hinny!” around the bend rushed Sister Agnes Mary, with the bottom of her habit, although tucked up a little, trailing in the water.

”Child! you'll be punished for this. . . . You will! you will!”

Voice and manner were so unlike those of Sister Agnes Mary that all Mary Ann could do was to stare up at her, and when she was hoisted out of the water and into the Sister's arms, she saw that she was really flaming mad.

Sister Agnes Mary was flaming mad, but it was with fright. Like a distraught mother seeking relief from her fear in action and heedless of the s.h.i.+ngle crippling Mary Ann's bare feet, she pulled her along the beach. At the a.s.sembling point from where, only ten minutes before, Mary Ann had departed, Sister Agnes Mary took Ijer hands and slapped them; then did the same to her bottom, and sent her, crying now, to get dressed, whfl' Marian stood by sniffling and saying, ”I thought she was drowned when I didn't see her-I thought she was drowned.”

During all this Mr. Wilson had been standing by the point of the rock, his trousers rolled up well above the knees, sending an angry commentary back to his wife.

”What did I tell you! Nun clouting her . . . and in the open. If they do that with folks lookin', what'll they do when they can't be seen. . . . It's as I've always said . . . for two pins TM ”

U.

”George! you'll do no such thing. Come on, it's none of your business. Perhaps the woman was worried.”

”Worried? and belting her like that! She looks as big as a house and as mad as a hatter. . . . Convents! By, if I had my way.”

He stood taking in the proceedings of the group, now being hustled into their clothes until the rising tide threatened to engulf him, when he retreated, telling his only listener what he thought about convents-as if she didn't already know-and that he'd give that bairn's da an earful of what went on when he saw him.

iV+'

Dating from the beach incident, life became a problem to Mary Ann, one large, painful problem made up of lesser problems, one of which, the honour of her house, rated highly. Not that she cared too much for the honour of her house, but the ten black marks she had received for just going round the bend put her away ahead of the worst culprit in the convent, and was bound, she was a.s.sured from all sides, which included Lola, to place their house bottom in the running for the cup. She had lain awake at nights thinking along such entwined lines as ”Bust the cup!” and ”Oh! Da,” and ”What's our Michael mean? He's always keeping on”; then, during this particular week, fourteen days after the fateful Wednesday and still three weeks and three days from the holidays, she had asked herself each night not ”What does our Michael mean?” but ”Why didn't he write last week?” It was now eleven days altogether since she had heard from him, and during that time she'd had two letters from her da but only one from her ma, and all three letters had been short, telling her nothing, only to be a good girl and learn her lessons-as if Mr. Lord didn't tell her that every Monday morning.

Leaving out her home worries and returning to her school ones, there remained one ray of hope on her horizon, a ray that might be the means of her getting twenty-five whole marks and so erasing some of the blackness from her sheet. In each house, every' year, was held a compet.i.tion for the best written essay and the best sonnet. Now Mary Ann wasn't as yet much good at the essay, but as to sonnets-she knew them as poetry-she thought she was the tops. She was good at poetry, she told herself with conviction. Hadn't even Mother St. Bede praised her for her efforts-although she had added she must not misconstrue things, like the way she had when asked to write a twelve-line poem on ”Flag Day”, and she wrote : It's was.h.i.+ng day, It's was.h.i.+ng day, My Py-jams are all soap.

They'll shrinl^ and shrinl^ And shrin and shrink^, Oh dear! there is no hope.

It's was.h.i.+ng day, * '.

It's was.h.i.+ng day, The things are on the line.

There's me ma's things, And me da's things, And next to them are mine.

She couldn't have made it rhyme i she had stuck their Michael's name in, and she hadn't thought of

turning ”me ma's” to ”my mother's”, or ”me da's” to ”my father's”, and this seemingly had detracted still

further from the poem's merit; yet, in spite of this, Mother St. Bede had praised her, and apparently for

the very thing that she had condemned which she called misconstruing.

She hadn't pointejl out to Mother St. Bede that ”Flag Day” was how her da referred to the was.h.i.+ng in

the back lanes; Mo^er St. Bede, she felt sure, wouldn't have understood if she had.

And now to write a poem, a beautiful poem, that would win not only the house prize but be the top of the four houses and be set to music, as the winning poem always was. Just that morning they had all sung last year's winning song, which had been won by a girl not in the Upper House, but in the Middle one.

She hummed it to herself :

”Come fly out oj doors and see the rain, Rain that won't come for a year again; **

Golden rain, brittle and brown Singing as it floats waverly down. :

Come, let joy sing in your veins, For only once a year it rains Leaves of Autumn , , Yet promise of Spring. Come fly out of doors and let your heart sing.”

It was a lovely tune an' all. Oh, if only she could write a song like that. So filled did she become with her desire to write a song that the day was but a prelude to the recreation hour, and she waived all thought of letter-writing so that she could get down to it. Having bagged her favourite seat near the window she was down to it when Marian made her appearance.

Marian, Mary Ann was finding, could be a bit of a nuisance. If she wasn't crying about her da she was talking about him. This side of her Mary Ann understood perfectly, and she always allowed her to go on for some time before b.u.t.ting in herself to continue the same theme, but, of course, with a very different da. When she spoke of Mike to her friend she continued to use the forbidden term, and through repet.i.tion Marian had come to think of Mary Ann's father as her da.

”What are you doing?” she asked now flatly.

”Writing some poetry, a poem.” Mary Ann didn't look up.