The Celtic Knot

Flying

When Kathleen asks Tess and her gang how much the dancing lessons cost, she’s hoping the fee is too dear so she won’t have to go. “Oh, nothing,” Tess replies airily. “We pay nothing, do we, girls?” Brigid starts to agree that it’s free, but Tess tosses her head and cuts her off. “You see, Kathleen? It’s free. We pay nothing.” So Kathleen has to tag along with them after school to Mrs. Maguire’s Irish Dancing School, whether she likes it or not.

“A new girl!” Mrs. Maguire announces, sounding to Kathleen like the spider inviting the fly into her parlor. She is dumpy and stocky and wears an extraordinary dress made out of what looks like brown canvas that goes down to her ankles. Brigid whispers in Kathleen’s ear that she’s supposed to look like Queen Maeve in that dress, reminding Kathleen that Queen Maeve was the warrior queen of Connacht who went to war over a bull, from their lessons in third class. Kathleen responds that she looks like a sack of potatoes, and Brigid dissolves into giggles.

Mrs. Maguire doesn’t look as if she can dance a single step, certainly not in that outfit, and Kathleen never once sees her lift a foot. All the teaching, she soon discovers, is done by verbal instruction, so she learns by watching the other, more experienced dancers. Mrs. Maguire batters out the tunes on a woodwormy old upright piano. Some of the keys are dead, and whenever she hits one she hums the missing note loudly to cover for it. She mainly plays two tunes, “The Rakes of Mallow” for the reels and “The Irish Washerwoman” for the jigs.

Kathleen starts with the baby reel. “AON, dó, trí, ceathair, cúig, sé, seacht!” Mrs. Maguire roars over the piano, meaning one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, calling “point those toes” as she counts it over and over. At first Kathleen has no idea what’s going on, but she soon gets the hang of it. She learns to hold her right foot precisely in front of her left, heel well up, arch exaggerated, toes clenched so she seems to have only a big toe, while she counts the opening bars under her breath. After a few false starts, something clicks, and she’s off on the first beat like a shot off a shovel, tripping lightly up to seven, one leg chasing the other as if she’s skipping up an invisible staircase, her skirt bouncing merrily in rhythm with the music, till she comes down again and skims off in the opposite direction on the next count of seven.

Kathleen can do it. It feels like flying, better than swinging on the swingboats at the carnival, better even than stealing a ride off the back of the milkman’s cart as it clops and rolls over the cobbled streets. By the end of class, Kathleen is hot, sticky, and out of breath, but thrilled with herself. She can dance.

Tess taunts Kathleen with an ugly face as they peel off their dancing poms and pull their outdoor shoes back on. Mrs. Maguire had loaned Kathleen a pair of poms since she’s new and doesn’t own any of her own, a little big but stuffed out with cardboard insoles.

No, Kathleen replies warily, though her eyes are shining with excitement and give her away. Kathleen explains she doesn’t think she’s great at all, but she did enjoy it. She asks if Tess enjoys it. Tess spitefully retorts it’s not supposed to be enjoyable. It’s supposed to be a lesson. They are supposed to be learning.

Kathleen humbly admits she is learning. And she has a lot to learn. It’ll be a long time before she’s up to Tess’s standard. She knows flattery is the only way to handle Tess.

As Kathleen passes the piano on her way out, Mrs. Maguire stops her and states that’ll be ninepence. Kathleen blushes scarlet, the blood banging against her temples, her cheeks radiating heat. Kathleen stutters that she didn’t realize… Mrs. Maguire huffs that she thought it was free, gratis, and for nothing? Her face is as red as Kathleen’s, and she draws in her chin and puffs her cheeks out until her neck disappears, looking like a fussy pigeon or hen. She asks Kathleen how she thinks she’s supposed to make a living?

It’s ninepence a lesson or seven-and-six a term, which is twelve lessons. That’s a discount of one-and-six if she pays the lump sum. Kathleen has never even seen seven-and-sixpence all together in one place in her life, and Mam certainly isn’t going to be able to fork out that kind of money.

Tess and Annie are tittering, pointing, and whispering to each other, and Kathleen blushes even harder, sure they’re laughing at her. They are positively rich compared to her, and ninepence would be nothing to them; they probably get pocket money every week, like children in books. The only money Kathleen and her family ever see comes from collecting jam jars and hauling them back to the shop to redeem the deposit, a ha’penny a jar.

Kathleen mumbles an apology, and Mrs. Maguire briskly allows she can bring it next week. She closes the piano lid and lets her chin jut back out so her neck reappears. Kathleen stammers that she may not come back again next week. Mrs. Maguire puffs up again, and Kathleen quietly thanks her for the lesson. It was great, and she’ll bring her the ninepence as soon as she can. But she can’t come again. Mrs. Maguire’s mouth falls open, her bottom teeth wobbling as if they might drop into her lap, but she snaps it shut just in time.

Kathleen fetches her navy gabardine raincoat from the bench by the door where all the coats are thrown and walks out. She doesn’t look back, but she can hear the stifled giggles of the others.

Kathleen runs home through the darkening streets, pounds up the stairs, races through the kitchen and into the girls’ bedroom, and flings herself onto the bed, burying her hot, humiliated face in the cool cotton of the pillowslip. After a while her cheeks cool and she can bear to lift her head. In the cracked piece of mirror glass propped on the chest of drawers, her face is bright pink, which doesn’t suit her red hair and freckles. She splashes her face with water from the basin beside the mirror, pulls the hairbrush through her hair, and goes out to face Mam.

Mam is outraged when she learns the lessons cost ninepence each. It’s as though Kathleen were asking for the money for herself. She protests she could feed a family on that for a week. Kathleen knows that isn’t really true, but it doesn’t matter.

Kathleen tells Mam she didn’t like it anyway. She hates that Tess O’Hara and her pals. She’d just as soon not go again.

Mam remarks she’s glad to hear that. But she wasn’t even thinking about how she felt about not going again. She’s still wondering where they’re going to get the ninepence for today’s lesson.

Kathleen asks if they can’t even manage one little ninepence. She’s astonished. Mam says it might be a little thing to Kathleen, but with Da—

Just then the door opens and Da comes in, fresh from his first stint working in the convent gardens. He flops into a chair and remarks it wasn’t so bad, and he earned three-and-sixpence for himself, which is no fortune, but it’s not to be sneezed at either, and it’s an awful lot better than no three-and-sixpence. He looks pleased with himself, glancing from Kathleen to Mam and back, clearly expecting to be congratulated.

Mam stony-faced tells him to hand it over. Da protests, but he hands it over all the same.

Mam hands some coins to Kathleen and tells her to run it back to Mrs. Maguire. Never let it be said the Murphys don’t pay their debts. She hands a shilling to Tommy for himself, and tells Kathleen to put the rest in the tin box. The tin box is an old sweet tin kept on the mantelpiece, decorated with horses and carriages, very swish, where Mam saves up the rent money.

Finally, Mam tells Kathleen that she’s sorry, but they can’t afford that sort of money. Kathleen shouts that she knows that. She doesn’t care about the old dancing. To blazes with Mrs. Maguire and her flipping ninepence. She hopes it chokes her.

Mam scolds Kathleen reproachfully, but Da takes a different view. He says that’s the spirit. He hands Kathleen a penny and tells her to get a fizz bag on the way home.

Kathleen thanks Da and flies out the door, back down the stairs and over the streets to the long, dingy room where Mrs. Maguire runs her dancing school. But it’s all a lie. She does care. She does want to dance, and she knows she’s good at it, too. It seems cruel that she’s just discovered this lovely thing only to have it snatched away the moment she got a taste for it. To blazes with Tess O’Hara and her stuck-up pals, too. To blazes with everything.