Alma by William Bell Page B

crowded, and the odour of damp clothes competed with the fragrance of grilled steak and onions, the Fireside’s famous vegetable soup, and coffee.
    Alma had a tall cola with ice and a long straw in front of her. Clara sipped a cup of steaming coffee.
    They had ordered spaghetti with meatballs, and Alma knew something very important was happening when Clara asked the waitress to put aside two pieces of apple pie for their dessert. Alma looked around as they waited for their food.
    “Well,” Clara began, pulling Alma’s attention back to the table, “you’re probably wondering what’s going on.”
    Alma nodded, slurping the last bit of cola up the straw.
    “You’re now looking at Liffey’s new waitress!” her mother said, smiling. “That means a small raise, more hours, and tips!”
    “That’s great, Mom,” Alma said.
    “And it means I could buy you this,” Clara added, placing a small box before Alma. “It’s a bit early for Christmas, so let’s call it an un-birthday present.”
    “What is it?” Alma asked, though she could guess from the shape of the box.
    “Open it and see.”
    Alma removed the coloured paper carefully so it could be taken home and reused. Inside was a white box with red trim. Alma opened it.
    The pen was black, with a brass clip on the cap and a brass circle near the base of the barrel.Alma pulled off the cap. The nib had a square tip. “Waterman” was etched into the gold-coloured nib in graceful flowing letters.
    “A calligraphy pen! It’s beautiful,” Alma said, looking up. “Can I keep it?”
    “Of course, ninny.”
    “Honest and true?”
    “Honest and true.” Clara smiled. “You can use it to write your stories.”
    “Thanks, Mom.” The cap went
click
when Alma replaced it. “I’m going to write a story in Carolingian hand first. It’s more than a thousand years old. Then I’ll write one in half-uncials. That’s the hand used in Ireland from 600 to 800. It’s not as old, but it’s prettier.”
    The waitress arrived and placed plates of steaming spaghetti on the table.
    “Cheers,” Clara said.
    “Cheers,” said Alma, clinking her water glass against her mother’s.
    When Alma came home from school Friday she found a bulging file on the kitchen table, an accordion-sided container with a string on the flap wound around a stiff paper button. “RR Hawkins” had been written on the edge ofthe file with a fountain pen above a label that said “Inter-library Loan.” A note from Clara said Miss McGregor had sent it home with her. Alma could keep the file for a day or two, but it must be returned Monday at the latest.
    Alma shucked off her coat and hung it up. She took the file to her room, sat on the couch and unwound the string. She lifted the papers out and put the folder aside. Alma slid to the floor and, using the couch as a desktop, began to go through the material, all the while hoping against hope that there would be more books by RR Hawkins. There were newspaper stories, magazine articles, book reviews, just as the other file had contained, but more—not much more, but some. Alma got out her new calligraphy pen and began to make notes.
    After RR Hawkins disappeared, she moved to New York and attempted to remain unnoticed, but interest in her as a writer was high and she was found out. She had a baby, a girl, letting it be known that her husband was still in England. “Maybe Mom was right!” Alma noted in brackets. The press eventually dug up the fact that there was no husband. There was a scandal that drove RR Hawkins into hiding again.
    She was discovered, a few years later, by a fan, in a Boston department store. The press pounced on her again. But this time she apparently decided not to run. She had bought a large house in one of the better neighbourhoods and refused all requests for interviews and public appearances. It was almost, Alma thought as she read, as if the more people wanted RR Hawkins to be public, the deeper they drove her into