Can be read without reading the first part, if you so wish. Please critique!
#2
Teacup- Tam: Aged Twelve. [Picture: 7, Prompt 16]
Tam doesn’t think she’s ever been as uncomfortable as she is now, sitting on the sofa in the priest’s house. Miss Greene, her teacher, sent her here so that the priest could ‘knock some sense into her.’ She’s never been in a house before, only caravans and buildings like the school, hospital and once, the library. It’s dusty, and the whole place smells of old man. The housekeeper made her take her shoes off at the door, so she’s left with her feet dancing a little nervously on the rug in the big stripy socks that were Helen’s before she died the year before. Mam told her to take Helen’s clothes, but most of them were too big for her. The socks are one size fits all though, and she’s worn them to school at least once a week for the past year. She likes to think it’s to remember Helen.
“You’re in trouble, Miss Dooley,” says the priest and he licks his lips. The dainty little teacup has flowers painted on the side of it. Periwinkles. She read the word in the Encyclopaedia of Plants that time in the library. It’s the only book she likes.
“I know, Father,” Tam says, twisting her fingers in her lap. He slurps his tea. The housekeeper didn’t offer her tea. She was a crisply dressed lady and Tam can hear her humming as she irons in the next room.
“Do you know why you’re in trouble?” the old priest asks, setting the cup down.
Tam shakes her head. She may have some idea. Miss Greene is forever shouting at her to pay attention, but school is, for the most part, boring, and full of books.
“Mary O’Brien says you hit her,” the priest says softly.
Tam opens her mouth, but can’t quite find the words. “Father, I can promise you that’s not true,” she says and means it. She’s not as religious as her mam, and even though she daydreams rather than prays in mass, she still reckons it’s a sin to lie to a priest.
He licks his lips again. “Then why would Miss O’Brien say that, Miss Dooley?” Tam quite likes that he calls her Miss Dooley. Nobody’s ever called her that before.
She pauses- not to think, she already knows the answer and it upsets her slightly, it’s just a pause- then she says very quietly, “Mary calls me a tinker, Father. She doesn’t like me one bit.”
The priest sighs, licks his lips and sets his teacup down on the saucer with a slight clink. Tam likes the noise. It’s like the wind chimes that Helen put up by the caravan kitchen window before she died. Tam listens to them on summer nights when she can’t sleep. They soothe her to sleep quick enough that she doesn’t have to hear Da come in. She’s learnt to be a heavy sleeper.
“Miss Dooley, we all have hardships in life,” he says quietly. “You must forgive Miss O’Brien her sins.”
Tam bows her head. “I know, Father,” she says, but doesn’t say she will. She would never pick a fight with Mary O’Brien, but that doesn’t mean she can’t hold a grudge. Tam doesn’t really hold grudges, although lately Mary O’Brien’s been really getting to her. Then she adds, almost without thinking and surprising herself, “But she doesn’t forgive me for being who I am.”
The priest frowns, then he leans forward, his beetle black eyes boring into hers. Tam’s a bit glad, really, that he isn’t instead looking at her short hair (she shore it off the day after Helen’s funeral and Mam barely raise an eyebrow) or her toes in their stripes. People look at her like that all the time, they have same dirty word on their lips as Mary O’Brien does.
“You’re a thinker, Miss Dooley,” he says and smiles. Tam doesn’t think she’s ever seen him smile before. “Thinker.” There’s a ‘h’ in there that makes it a different word. Nobody’s ever called her that before either. She returns his smile. “Don’t you like school?” he asks and licks his lips. He does that a lot, Tam notices.
“Bits of it, Father. I like running. And I like writing stories.”
“Reading stories?” he prompts.
“All the stories we read are boring,” Tam says, and it’s true. They’re never exciting, there’s no faeries or dragons, it’s all about children living with old people. “In any case, Father, this’ll be my last year of school. Da wants me to stop.” Her father’s face, red and bloated floats into her memory. Helen used to fight with him a lot, but Tam isn’t like Helen. She’s happy to go along with his plans.
“And do you want to stop?”
“Yes, Father,” she says. After all, the decision isn’t hers to make.
