Hilda and George

Georgina McCarthy had perfect skin. She told me once that it was because she never drank anything but milk or water. I don’t know if that was true, but her skin was certainly flawless, creamy with a faint tinge of rose in the cheeks. It presented an attractive contrast to her dark red hair, worn in a rather boyish cut. Most people in our Year were afraid of George, as she liked to be called. You had to feel very secure in your position in our little Convent world not to be. If you were unlucky enough to become the object of her displeasure, school life rapidly became a misery. She had a clever turn of phrase for a sixteen year old and her comments and observations could be very witty. She knew her audience well. Once she turned her attention to her victim she had no mercy and the rest of us were so relieved not to be at the receiving end of her cruel remarks that we usually stood by to watch the show, smirking at her witticisms. It wasn’t something I was proud of.
For some reason I never seemed to draw this kind of attention from her. When in her company a lot of my energy went into hiding my anxiety. Perhaps I was too insignificant to show up on her radar. She had a little coterie of followers who regularly dropped in and out of favour. One devoted member of the following was Hilda Byrne.
Hilda was George’s shadow, her gofer. She too had red hair, but in contrast to George’s perfect complexion, Hilda suffered from dreadful acne. I sometimes wondered if George kept Hilda by her side to provide a foil for her own beautiful skin. It couldn’t have been because she liked her. She was often on the receiving end of George’s cruel remarks, but Hilda’s devotion never wavered. She was painfully thin. Her legs and arms were like sticks and she was flat-chested and bony. George constantly commented on Hilda’s appearance. It was the seventies and we had all seen the shocking images of starving people on our television screens. George dubbed Hilda ‘The Biafran’ and openly addressed her using this title many times in my hearing. Whenever she did so, Hilda’s usually pale acne-scarred face would flush scarlet with embarrassment and she would turn away. But she never left George’s side.

I can remember the day Hilda wore a new pair of patent leather black shoes into school. George swore that she could see Hilda’s knickers reflected in their shiny black surface - it was a good joke, as the original remark, apparently made by a Head Nun in years gone by to some hapless pupil - had passed into school legend. All day Hilda squirmed under George’s constant references to her underwear. Afterwards I wondered how Hilda could have laid herself open to such an obvious line of attack.

The incident involving the prawn sandwich must have been towards the end of Fifth Year, as it was called in those days, because I remember most of us were in the Senior Common Room, finishing lunch and cramming for a some exam that afternoon. Spring sunshine slanted onto the polished wooden floor and the room was filled with the scent of orange peel.
George and Hilda were sitting at the next table and I looked up when I heard George’s exclamation of disgust.
“Ugh! I hate prawn sandwiches. Why my mum insists on forcing them down my neck I don’t know. Here - Hilda, you have it.”
Hilda looked up nervously.
“No, thanks,” she said and ducked her head down to her own lunch, what looked to be a rather limp cheese sandwich.
“Eat it - go on, mum will have a fit if I bring it home and you know Miss Armstrong checks the waste paper baskets for evidence of imminent anorexia in her students!”
There was a murmur of appreciative laughter.
“I can’t,” Hilda said simply.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” demanded George. “Eat it,” and she shoved it across the table.
“I mean, I can’t,” replied Hilda. “I have an allergy,” she said in a low voice.
“You have a what?” asked George. “You never said before.” She sat back. “I don’t believe you.”
“No, it’s true,” Hilda said, slightly pink now, aware that the conversation had attracted the attention of everyone in the room. “It’s a shellfish allergy.”
“Well I didn’t think you meant peanuts!” George sneered. “So, what would happen if you ate that prawn sandwich? Would you die?”
“No, of course not!” Hilda replied, “I might be quite sick though.”
“You ‘might’ be quite sick - so you don’t actually know for sure?”
Hilda looked nervously round at the rest of us. “Well, not for sure. I never had a bad reaction.”
“I dare you to eat it. Go on, see what happens. You said yourself you never had a bad reaction. What’s the worst case scenario? You miss the stinking history test.”
“Don’t do it, Hilda,” someone ventured bravely.
“Oh shut up - this is a private conversation,” George snapped back. “Go on, Hilda, if you start to feel sick I’ll call Matron.”
One girl, braver than the rest of us, stood up.
“George, don’t be ridiculous. Hilda could get really sick and we’ll all get into trouble. Hilda, don’t you be so stupid. If George told you to jump off a cliff you’d do it. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. If you eat it, I’m going to get Miss Armstrong.”
“Oh piss off can’t you? Let her make her own mind up. She said herself she never had a bad reaction. Hilda, double dare - come on.”
George picked up the sandwich and held it out to Hilda.
“Double dare. You never let me down before…I won’t let anything bad happen…” she promised softly.
Hilda looked at the sandwich, then raised her eyes to George’s face.
“Okay,” and she reached out and took it. Still looking at George, she bit into the sandwich and began to chew. George leaned across the table, watching her carefully. Hilda took another bite, and another, until only a few crumbs were left. George sat back, a smile of satisfaction on her face.
“Now we wait,” she said. For the next ten minutes the room was silent as we all watched in fascination, waiting for a reaction, history forgotten. When the bell rang I think our relief was mingled with a sense of disappointment, that Hilda remained unchanged.
“I don’t think Miss Armstrong would have much to say. I didn’t see anyone running to get her, by the way,” George remarked, to no-one in particular.

We all filed into the Form room for our test and took our seats. Before long, the room was silent except for the sound of pens moving across paper and the odd shuffle and sigh. I forgot all about Hilda and the prawn sandwich until I heard the sound of a chair being suddenly scraped back across the floor. Before turning round I caught sight of the teacher’s shocked pallor. I twisted in my seat just in time to see Hilda, clutching her throat in distress, mouth agape, collapse across her desk and onto the floor. All hell broke loose. As Matron was called and medics arrived, I watched George. She was still and pale with shock.

George got her wish, the exam was postponed. Hilda was rushed to hospital. We were told afterwards that the emergency treatment she received at the hands of the paramedics had saved her life. George was conspicuous by her absence from school for a time but when she returned, she was unchanged, outwardly at least. None of us told the teachers about George’s dare. Hilda was even quieter than usual but no less devoted. The incident faded into memory, becoming part of the student folklore and a cautionary tale to be told by the nuns to future generations.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Hilda and George lately. It's over thirty years since we left school and I’ve lived abroad for twenty of them. Last week, I went home to Dublin to visit my mother and found myself boarding a bus not far from the old Convent School. I was about to take a seat when I was startled by a face from the past. There was no mistaking her. The same red hair and pale complexion. Her skin is clear now but she is just as thin as she was as a girl. Back then I would never have guessed at how lovely Hilda would become. I hesitated for a moment, then sat down beside her and introduced myself. She didn’t remember me at first, then seemed to recall, or was polite enough to dissemble. We exchanged pleasantries and after a time my curiosity got the better of me.
“So, do you see anything of George these days?”
Hilda glanced at me, clearly amused.
“We meet for a drink sometimes,” she said.
“Really?” My surprise was evident. She raised her pale, delicately arched brows.
“It’s just, I always thought she was such a bitch to you.”
She turned away to look out the window and her reply was so long in coming that I wondered if she had heard my question.
“You know, I don’t remember you at all,” she said at last. “But you knew me immediately.” She smiled. “Everyone knew me then. Because of her. Without George, I would have been nothing. Just another nobody.”
She looked at me again and I found myself reddening.
“George was - magnificent. I adored her.” She paused and closed her eyes, lost for a moment in some sweet memory. “Her skin was so very soft...”
“But - but she despised you,” I blurted out.
“Did she?” Hilda’s voice was cold. “What do you know about it?”
“But - what about the prawn sandwich?”
“Oh my God, you remember that, after all these years?”
Hilda made me sound so pathetic.
She shook her head and gave a short laugh.
“I admit, the prawn sandwich business did get out of hand. Neither of us expected that I’d have a reaction like that. It frightened the life out of both of us.”
“You mean, you planned it together?”
“Well of course we did. I didn’t even know I had a shellfish allergy. We made it up. I was just supposed to go in to the exam and then pretend to feel sick and talk funny for a while. It went badly wrong, that’s all. That‘s what we traded on, you see. The fact that you all thought I would be that stupid. George didn‘t despise me. The rest of you did.”
Hilda began to gather herself to get up.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been lovely to catch up,” she said in a sarcastic tone, “But I mustn’t miss my stop. I wouldn’t want to keep my girlfriend waiting.”
Silenced, I stood as she made her way past me, leaving a trace of Chanel in her wake. As for me, I did miss my stop. It was some time before I realised that I was travelling in quite the wrong direction.