Notions, by Bríd McAteer

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

Niamh had expected socks. Her grandmother had given her socks every birthday since she was eleven, navy for school, wrapped in the same brown paper, which was smoothed out afterwards and put back in the drawer under the stairs. So when Nana Rose came up the hall on her sixteenth birthday with something square and heavy in her arms, breathing hard, Niamh’s first thought was that somebody had died and left them a clock.

‘Well, take it,’ said Nana Rose. ‘My arms are not what they were.’

It was a typewriter. An Olivetti, pale blue, with a chip out of the case and one key, the letter q, missing its little round cap. Niamh stared at it on the kitchen table among the breakfast things. She could not speak. Only last month this same grandmother had found her notebook down the side of the settee and read out a page of it in a flat, mocking voice, and then said that girls with notions ended up with nothing, and that the bank on Royal Avenue was taking on juniors. Niamh had burned with shame for a week. She had stopped writing at the table and started writing in bed, by torchlight, like a criminal.

‘Where did you get it?’ she managed.

‘Never you mind where.’ Nana Rose sat down and reached for the teapot, not looking at her. ‘Mrs Devlin’s nephew. It works. I tried it.’

Niamh imagined her grandmother in Mrs Devlin’s front room, pressing the keys one at a time with a single stiff finger, and something swelled in her throat so fast that it hurt. She wanted to throw her arms round the old woman. She wanted, at the same time, to ask why, why after all those words about notions, but she was afraid that asking would break whatever this was.

She put one finger on the keys and typed her own name. The letters struck the paper with a sharp, decisive clack, each one a small, solid fact.

‘Mind you don’t wear it out,’ said Nana Rose, buttering toast, and Niamh saw that her grandmother’s hand was not quite steady.

How does the writer show Niamh’s thoughts and feelings when she is given the typewriter?

You should consider:

• what the writer says about Niamh
• the writer’s use of language to show her thoughts and feelings

You must refer to the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.