Page 118 of The Missing Sister

She didn’t like to ask what a ‘godfather’ actually was – Ambrose didn’t look like God in Heavenorher father. He had round eyes like an owl behind thick glasses, and fluffs of blond hair on his head – a good deal less hair than Father O’Brien or Daddy. He was a lot smaller than them too, but his face was always jollier and less serious.

Then, as if Father O’Brien could read her mind, he’d smiled at her. ‘Think of him as your special protector down here on earth.’

‘Oh. Do all my brothers and sisters have one too?’

‘They all have godparents, yes, but because Ambrose is able to spoil you more than theirs, it’s best you keep anything he gives you secret, or they may get jealous.’

‘Mammy knows, though, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes, and your father, so you’re not to worry you’re doing anything wrong.’

‘I understand,’ she’d nodded gravely.

Last Christmas, Ambrose had given her a book, but it didn’t have anything written in it, only lines on which she was to try practising her letters and forming them into words. Ambrose said it didn’t matter if they were spelt wrong, because he would correct them and that’s the way she would get better.

Reaching under the mattress, she pulled out the book. The light was very bad but she was used to it.

The cover was smooth and silky to the touch and she liked the feel of it, but when she had asked Ambrose what the cover was made of, he had told her it was leather, which came from a cow’s skin. This didn’t make sense at all, because all the cows she knew had hairy skin, covered in mud.

Opening it, she slid out the pencil, which had its own little band to attach it to the side of the book, and turned to the last page she’d written.

Mi familee

Ellen: aje 16. Bossi. Kisses her boyfrend.

John: aje 14. Helps Daddy. Likes cows. Smells like cows. My favorit brotha.

Nora: aje 12. Doesn’t like anithin.

Katie: aje neerli 8. Mi best frend. VERRI pretty. dosnt help much wit babi Bill.

Me: aje nearly 6. Likes books. Not verri pretty. Caled Merry becos I giggel a LOT.

Bill: aje 2. Smells.

New babi: not here yet.

Deciding she should add something about Mammy and Daddy, Merry thought what she might write about them.

Merry loved both her parents very much, but Mammy was always so busy cooking and washing and having more babies, it was difficult to ever talk about the things that went through her mind. Whenever Mammy saw her she would just give her another job to do, like putting fresh straw in for the pigs or picking cabbages out of the ground for their tea.

As for Daddy, he was always out on the farm and wasn’t really one for talking anyway.

Daddy: works VERRI hard. Smells of cow.

Merry thought that didn’t sound very nice, so she added:

VERRI hansom.

Before she had started school a month ago, Merry’s favourite day of the week had always been Mondays, when she and Mammy walked up to the priest’s house together. They chatted about all sorts of things (Merry knew her brothers and sisters thought her a chatterbox, but there were just so many things to be interested in). Mammy would sometimes kiss her on top of her head and call her ‘my special girl’.

Mammy, she wrote carefully,VERRI beautiful. kind. I loveher VERRI much.When up cleaning the priest’s house, Mammy was always rushing around and muttering about Mrs Cavanagh. At home, Mammy called her ‘that old crow’, but Merry had been told never to repeat that outside the family, even if Mrs Cavanagh did look like one. Whenever she saw her at Mass on Sundays, perched on the pew at the front and looking around at the congregation, all beaky and disapproving, she’d see a great black bird instead. Father O’Brien had told Merry there was no need to be afraid of her; Mrs Cavanagh cleaned the priest’s house every day except Monday and complained to anyone who would listen about how Mammy wasn’t doing her job well enough, which made Merry even more cross.

Mrs Cavanagh often talked about having worked up at the Big House, and Merry’s friend Bobby said it was because Mrs Cavanagh had worked for so long for a British family (and he said the word ‘British’ the same way Katie said the word ‘slug’) that she’d been taken over by ‘colonist views’ and took out her anger on the ‘hardworking Irish’. When Merry had asked Bobby what a ‘colonist’ was, he’d gone all red, which made her think it was a word he’d heard at home but didn’t really understand.

Bobby was in her class at school in Clogagh, and because his homeplace was in the same direction as Merry’s farm, she and Katie walked home with him part of the way after school. As Merry and Bobby were at the same reading level, their teacher Miss Lucey, whom Merry adored because she was so pretty and seemed to know everything there was to know in the world, often placed them together. To begin with, Merry had been glad to know someone who liked reading too. Even though everyone else in the class kept away from him because of his temper and gossip about his family, Bobby could be kind when he set his mind to it. He’d given her a pink crayon once and said she could keep it, even though everyone knew his family was very poor. His jumper was full of holes and his long dark hair looked like it had never seen a brush. He lived with his mammy and his little sister (neither of whom she’d ever seen) in a tiny cottage that Nora had said didn’t have a tap or electricity.

Katie said that he was stone mad and should be taken away by the Gardaí, but despite his bad and often strange behaviour, Merry only felt pity for him. She sometimes thought that the only one who loved him was his dog Hunter, a black and white collie who had probably never hunted anything. Hunter was always waiting for Bobby in the lane near Inchybridge, his tail wagging and his tongue hanging out in a smile. Sometimes, when she and Katie parted ways from Bobby, Merry would look back to watch Hunter padding faithfully beside Bobby. Hunter could always calm him down when he was in a rage, even when Merry couldn’t.