School Holidays

"It was lovely. You don't know the peace of the place and the lovely singing in the chapel, and I had a key and could go to the town to dances or to the pictures. And I got all my food and hours of help at my books."

"You won't leave us, will you Rita?" Kit felt a shadow of change fall over them.

Rita was honest. "Not while you're young and the way you are. Not till Emmet's grown up a bit."

"Mam would die if you left, Rita You're part of the family."

"Your mother understands, honestly she does. She and I often talk about trying to take your change in life; she encourages me to better myself. She knows it means I hope to be doing better than scrubbing floors."

Kit's eyes felt full of tears suddenly. "It's not safe when you talk life that I want things always to be the same not to change."

Rita said, "That's not going to be the way it is. Look at the way Farouk stopped being a kitten and is a cat now; we wanted him to be a kitten for ever. And look at the way those little ducklings in Sister Madeleine's grew up and sailed away. And your mother wants you and Emmet to be young and nice like you are, but you'll grow up and leave them. It's the way of things,"

Kit wished it wasn't the way of things, but she feard that Rita was right.

"Will you come out in the boat with me, Mam?" Kit asked.

"Lord no, my love. I'd not have time for that. Go on yourself with Clio."

"I'm sick of Clio. I'd like you to come. I want to show you places you haven't been."

"No Kit it is not possible."

"But what do you do in the afternoons, Mam? What do you do that's more important than coming out in the boat?"

It was only in the school holidays that Kit was aware of how her mother's pattern of living differed from other people's.

Clio's mother was always getting a bus or a lift to the big town to look at curtain material or to try on clothes, or to have coffeein one of the smart shops with friends.