Jewels

Julie liked things to be nice. Early childhood was filled with Thomas the Tank Engine books that were neatly stacked on a separate shelf above her dolls, which she kept in their original plastic boxes, their eyes all looking upwards, waiting to be picked up and nursed. The diary that she kept was meticulously kept and full of her observations of the world.

Name: Julie Connelly.

Subject. Shopping.

Monday 18th June 1977.

‘Mummy is going to collect me from school and we are going to go shopping and we are going to go home and I am going to wear my Laura Ashley dress and its blue and grey with yellow flowers. I am going to get Daddy a birthday present of blue socks. I am going to Grannys and I like her, but its boring without Paula who bites and is grounded.’

Julie winning a full residential scholarship to Dusnwater Academy in Bearsden was a Godsend and seemed almost like fate. It was originally a convent for the Poor Clare Sisters, but had closed and opened again as a private school. Dunswater Academy, or the shortened colloquial form of ‘The Duns,’ was acceptable to the nuns that remained and taught there. Girls, whether they were four years old or eighteen were expected to remain girls and to wear blue check dresses, white blouses that buttoned up to the neck, blue hats and black shoes. The school curriculum included Latin and etiquette, but the Science block was the beating heart of the school, all glass and chrome. There was an almost hysterical expectation that Duns’ girls, when they grew up, would go to Glasgow University and become medical doctors or engineers.

Julie was all hair and teeth and polished nails. The mumbo-jumbo of name-calling, because of her background, had ended as abruptly as it began, as too uncool at fifteen and eyebrow raising passé at sixteen. She was self-conscious enough to believe that no one could be like her, with her fluttering darting fingers, flailing limbs, her rhythm of speech that rose and fell with words that caught, seemingly of their own accord, in the flap at the back of her throat. There were also strange smells that seemed to stick to her, no matter how hard she scrubbed with Johnson’s Baby Soap. She felt awkward and buried like a bulb in uncertainty.

Paula coming through the black wrought iron school gates changed everything. She had never been considered academic, unlike her twin sister Julie, and it was her first and last visit. The orange-red glow of the Victorian facing brick facade of Dunswater Academy made her squirm with anxiety. The dunce school, for snobby dunces, Paula mockingly called it. She had Mathew, or ‘Owl boy,’ as she called her little boy with her, because of his enormous expressive eyes. He was sitting in his pushchair with his white bobble hat, pulling off his socks and wiggling his toes in a freedom dance and screeching to be let loose in the sanctuary of Sister Veronica’s office. His head was up like a periscope. Sister Veronica sitting quietly entombed in black and white was of no interest to him. The lure of a long broad desk that smelled of beeswax and some kind of bright yellow flower and pictures that glowed and books to rip through and cushioned chairs to explore were, in contrast, too much for him. He threw himself at the grey nylon restraints, like a snake trying to loosen its worn out skin, rocking from side to side, salvia running out of the corner of his mouth as he gurgled and fought, almost toppling his four wheel buggy with restrained unhappiness

Caroline, a fellow prefect had, with a wan smile, passed Julie a hand written message. She had come straight from the sixth form common room and knocked briefly on Sister Veronica’s door, before entering.

‘You can cry.’ Sister Veronica said when she told her the news and handed Julie her own white linen handkerchief to encourage her. She had been using it to dab her own eyes.

The handkerchief was blue, with patterned flowers around the edges. It smelled of Parma Violets and Sister Veronica. ‘Thank You Miss.’ Julie took it as gently as dog stealing a lollipop from a child’s mouth, their eyes meeting briefly.

Julie looked away first, up towards the statue of our Lady of the Sea landlocked on her plinth in the corner of the room, sad-eyed, looking up and off to heaven, before discreetly passing the handkerchief to her sister.

Paula with her nasal howling, in the seat beside Julie, needed more of a tablecloth than a hanky. Matthew was clutched tight in her arms, crying in commiseration with his mum’s grief, but also trying to slide down off her lap and to make good his escape.

‘I’ll take him,’ Julie said.

Matthew looked at Julie with his big eyes. There was a moment of indecision before he allowed himself to be picked up and into Julie’s arms, where he knew he’d have a better chance of escape. She made it easy for him, taking him out of the cloistered office and out into the endless corridors. They made people smile as he careered about, with her own Saint Vitus’ like dance of attendance on every misplaced step he made. And it gave her time to think. Her mum was dead. She felt nothing and something; it was a strange shape that didn’t seem to fit into her head.

The school paid for a black Hackney to pick Julie, Paula and Matthew up and take them home. Paula said that they could afford it, with the money they charged. But there was no longer any shock value in her words. All animosity between the sisters had been rubbed away, locked away, like so many used up words, like heart attack, grief and coping.

The hope of uncertainty ended when Julie saw her Dad standing at the front door to their house. His arms were out, crucified by sadness, waiting for his girls to rush into them and fill the void where his wife should have been. Julie took a step towards him then stopped. Paula was trying to get the baby and the buggy out at the same time and doing neither. She juggled with the doors of the taxi, its engine ticking and diesel fumes choking up the driveway. Julie turned and in her usual manner, almost banged her head on the corner of the open cab door, as ducked down to help her sister and Matthew out of the taxi.

There was no anchor on misery for Julie. When Paula went home to Barry to deal with her grief, only Julie and her dad were left. There were shouting and screaming and alarm calls of love and hate and the discovery of a dad that she didn’t know. In the simmering silences all history ended and she sorted through her mum’s wardrobe with black bags lying on the marital bed for The Heart Foundation Charity Shop.

Coat hangers were groaning with short dresses and long dresses; blouses that were too thin and too big and on a diet; tank tops and changing fashions; bright colours when mum had felt fat and gaudy colour when she felt better about herself;a black Armani dress for nights on the town-and for funerals. Julie held it to her nose. It was like a post card from her mum. Tears ran silently down her cheeks, choking her, making her want to vomit up all the things she’d wanted to say. She carefully put the dress back on the empty hanger, in an empty wardrobe and slumped down on the floor.

‘Mum,’ she said, ‘if you can hear me I love you.’