Rock Me Gently (16 page)

Sister Columba could glean nothing from my face; it might as well have been stone. She stared furiously at me. Perfect stillness followed - not a rustle, not a breath. My heart was tearing out of my chest, its beats booming in my ears.

Very, very slowly, Sister Columba brought out her little black book bound by a leather thong. She slapped the pages backwards and forwards, giving all of us a black mark.

‘Very well!’ she thundered. ‘If Norton does not appear within the hour,’ she said, wetting the end of her pencil with the tip of her tongue and scratching in her book, ‘she can sleep in the open and everyone of you will receive the flogging of your life. Think about it, Kelly,’ she said, strapping up her black book and stowing it away.

She left, slamming the door. Uneasiness took possession of every face. ‘What are we going to do?’ we said in one voice.

Frances stood pressed against the wall beside the tiny window, looking out at the graveyard. ‘It could be any of us, out there,’ she said. After a deep lull, she opened her mouth and began to sing, lifting her voice to carry out to Ruth where she hid.

The notes rebounded in the small room, high and piercing. The Magnificat. We all joined in the background chorus in a deep monotone, and in an instant I found myself transported away from the present with its insane dangers, and looking at a world all young, fresh and beautiful. The gloomy boot-room vanished. For the moment, I had no fear of the nuns. The girls’ kindness towards Ruth had brought me into fairyland.

The last note trembled and faded. We fell into a deep silence. Outside in the playground we could hear the constant clip-clopping of the nuns’ boots on the tarmac.

One by one, we began singing again. Slowly, very slowly, the tone of our song changed. The glow passed from blue to purple, and then to angry red. Bit by bit the notes spun together till they made a fierce, restless harmony. And I knew where it was taking us. We all felt the same about the nuns. The room rang with a tremendous shout of ‘Ruth!’ and another, and another. All terror had gone, and fury was beating the air. Encouraged by each other, we threw back our heads to let free fly our shouts, which increased to a roar. Flushed, panting, sweating. I shouted too, until I was hoarse, releasing all my frustration and resentment towards the nuns for keeping me away from Mum. So what if they heard us? So what?

Frances, who was normally so brave, began to cry. I took her hand and squeezed it. I looked at the faces clustered around me, and realised that these girls were all that I had left in the world.

Suddenly the spell was broken. The fairy tale room changed into a prison cell with its suffocating smell of boots and polish. Exhausted, breathless, our rage died down.

Quietly, Janet said, ‘I wish I hadn’t shouted so much. I’ve piddled in my pants.’

‘Oh, Janet!’ someone protested. ‘And you’ve made a puddle.’

Janet reddened and then grew pale as outside the door we could hear Ruth keening, as she was pushed down the stairs and flogged. Mingled with Sister Columba’s booming voice it made a sinister jarring effect inside the boot-room. Every blow seemed to cut into us.

Finally there was silence. A gust of cool wind swirled through the room as the door was flung open. Ruth came in, walking carefully, as if balancing or lame. She stood uncertainly, squinting a little, head poking forward and swinging slowly from side to side like a bewildered elephant. She sat down on the floor and leant against the wall.

‘I gave myself up,’ she croaked, ‘I knew they’d punish all of you on my account if I didn’t.’ She rubbed the sleeve of her now filthy blouse across her face and sniffled. ‘Besides, I’d had enough of your bloody awful caterwauling.’

Mum’s letters gnawed at me. Thinking of them, I lay awake at night, sucking the tops of my arms. Had she written, or not? Sister Mary had no right to keep her letters from me, none. She had no right to flog me for writing what I liked to Mum. I lay in bed glaring at the wall that separated our dormitory from Sister Mary’s cell. My letters, if they were there, were only a few feet away.

They might as well have been on the moon.

I decided not to pray to God any more. When it was time in the evening for the only prayer that was not in Latin, the Lord’s Prayer, I knelt in silence, moving my lips only.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us.

What was the good of those words? Saying them would have no effect on the way the nuns actually behaved towards us and if they meant I would have to forgive the nuns or else go to hell when I died, I was ready to go. Jesus was a hard taskmaster. He understood our weaknesses and how difficult it was to forgive, which was why he put that in. He was always putting in things that were impossible to do really.

‘It’s rotten,’ said Frances in the corridor after Benediction, ‘for both of us to have been flogged because Sister Mary won’t give you your mum’s letters.’

I felt my heart filled by Frances’s words and did not answer.

‘We shouldn’t stand for it,’ she said. ‘We should go and report Sister Mary and Sister Columba to the Mother Superior after collation.’

‘Yes, yes, please do,’ said Janet eagerly. On her cheek, dull and bloodless, was a blotch of ink.

‘Yes, please, please. Tell her,’ other girls said.

And there were some girls from the senior class listening and one said, ‘You could do it, Judith. You’ve got a mother. Do it for all of us. The nuns pick on us. I looked up “sadist” in the dictionary. It said it’s gaining pleasure or sexual gratification from inflicting pain and mental suffering on another person. That’s them all right.’

I nodded in agreement. It sounded right. For some reason I almost wanted to giggle.

But it
was
wrong; it
was
unfair; and later, amid the clatter of plates and knives during collation, I miserably relived the flogging that Sister Mary had given me. And trembling now, I remembered another scene: the moment when I had seen Sister Mary’s faint cruel creases at the corners of her smiling lips as the strokes of Sister Columba’s cane beat Janet and Frances.

I hardly heard a word that was being said during collation because my stomach was churning so much. I could not eat the cockles we had collected from the beach that day due to the ordeal that awaited me. I was thinking I must do it for the sake of the other girls. I must go up and tell the Mother Superior that we had been wrongly punished because Sister Mary was holding on to our letters.

It was easy: all I had to do when collation was over and I came out of the refectory was say a short prayer for guidance, make my way to the stairs that led to the Mother Superior’s rooms, swerve sharp right and then I’d be almost there. I had nothing to do but that. And every girl had said it was unfair, even the girl from the senior class, but they would not go and complain themselves. When I had decided this, I felt a little relief.

The senior girls at the top table stood up. We all stood up and grace was said. I passed out among them in the file. I must do it. I must. I was coming near the refectory door. If I turned left with the other girls, towards the boot-room, I could never go up to the Mother Superior because I would never get up enough courage again. I had reached the door and, turning quickly up to the right, passed the cloakroom where our overcoats hung like headless criminals; I glanced back and saw the girls watching me as they filed quickly out of the refectory.

By now I was in no hurry. I walked slowly down the corridor, planting my feet with care along the polished parquet floor. When I came to the narrow stairs that led to the Mother Superior’s quarters, my remembering feet glided up them. I could hear no sound until I found myself on a broad creaky landing, with a carved wood balustrade behind me and several doors in front of me. They must have been the old people’s rooms. The woodwork was as shiny as an apple. An oppressive silence surged through the passage like a cloud. I looked about me through the gloom and saw the saints looking down on me silently as I passed: St Jude of Thaddeus the patron Saint of Lost Causes pointing to his chest. I reached up and brushed my hand over the rough surface of the portrait for good luck.

As I approached the Mother Superior’s rooms, the chill in the air was reinforced by a damp smell of mildew. My pace slowed until I stood outside her door. I was breathing hard. I placed my hands on my hot cheeks to feel. Closed my eyes. ‘Calm down. Calm down,’ I repeated to myself. I expelled a long breath. It was impossible: I couldn’t. What would happen? I imagined the Mother Superior’s eyes looking at me behind her thick spectacles. I paced up and down, waiting to summon up the courage to enter the room, but after some minutes, I could wait no longer. Hurriedly combing my hair with my fingers and straightening my tunic, I gingerly knocked on her door. My legs were shaking and the scalp of my head trembled as though ghostly fingers had touched it. There was no answer. I knocked again, more loudly. The sound echoed strangely. Then a muffled voice said: ‘Come in.’ I seized the handle firmly and stepped into the room. It was long and narrow with large windows opening on to the front gardens.

The Mother Superior was nowhere to be seen. It was Sister Cuthbert who sat writing at a desk. She looked up, blinking her eyes in surprise. Letters and papers filled the entire surface of the desk. It was still and bright in the room, the sun through the window making great squares on the floor. In the corner stood a leafy green plant. A tinny clock ticked loudly on the mantelpiece. Above it, hung a large picture of jesus, his features hazy and his hair dissolving into a halo of gold. His heart was exposed, and dripped thick treacly blood.

Sister Cuthbert stared at me, unsmiling, her lips parted, and I stared back, blushing hotly and feeling that my eyes were as round as saucers.

‘Well, child, what is it?’ she said, leaning back in her chair, making it groan.

I stood still for a moment in utter incomprehension. I swallowed hard and said: ‘I wanted to speak to - Will Mother Superior be back soon?’

‘No, she will not be in the school until tomorrow. Is there anything I can do for you?’

I wasn’t thinking clearly. All courage had left me. I swallowed again and tried to keep my legs and voice from shaking.

‘No, it’s all right, thank you, Sister,’ I muttered; I could feel the blood rising again in my face. I turned to dash from the room when she suddenly called me back. She searched through the papers on the desk and then held up a letter with Mum’s handwriting on the envelope. Of course, I still recognized her writing.

‘This letter is for you. The Mother Superior must have meant to give it to Sister Mary. Just a moment while I open it for you,’ she said. I went hot and cold and turned deaf and dumb for a split second, my lips parted while she unfolded the letter and scanned it.

‘Well now, your mother says she’s coming to pay you a visit next month. That’s nice, isn’t it?’ She handed the letter to me. I took it slowly, like a sacred relic and put it in my tunic pocket. Mum had written. She was coming to see me! I decided that Sister Cuthbert was after all a nice nun with a really sweet face. Her coif suited her large head. I felt tears wetting my eyes and murmured, ‘Oh thank you, Sister.’

I walked quietly out of the room, closing the door carefully and slowly. But when I reached the narrow dark corridor I began to walk faster and faster, saying a quick thank-you to St Jude’s portrait. I did not look at the letter at once. Its presence there in my pocket was an absolute comfort. I wanted it to remain, for the moment, a lucky charm, a magic stone, a holy relic, something entirely protective. Faster and faster with my fingertips upon Mum’s letter in my pocket, I hurried through the gloom. I could hear the distant choir of voices in the boot-room. I broke into a run and, running quicker and quicker with pounding steps, I leapt down the stairs until I reached the boot-room.

The girls had heard me running. Clapping and cheers greeted my entrance. They closed round me in a ring, pushing one against the other.

‘Tell us! Did you see her? Tell us!’

‘What did she say?’

‘Did you go in?’

‘What did she say?’

‘C’mon on! Tell us!’

I told them what had happened and with trembling fingers showed them Mum’s letter. All the girls jumped up and down and clapped their hands in wild frenzy and yelled in a chorus of cheers: ‘Hurray! Hurray! Hoo-blummin’-ray! Good old Judith!’ I raised my arms above my head, basking in the applause.

Some girls formed a cradle of their locked hands and swung me up and down, while the others chanted their support. And when I struggled free of them, their cheers turned to murmurs of admiration that died away in the watery green light. I looked at the envelope and felt free as I realised that it was almost over. I could leave now. All I had to do was tell Mum what was happening, and that was it, I’d be gone.

It was too earth-shaking. The world swayed as I tried to take it m.

Frances entered the boot-room. I watched her as she approached me with her upbeat, bouncy walk, and for a moment it was as though I had already left her behind. Poor Frances: she had no one to visit her. She was stuck for ever in this hellhole, while I now had the opportunity to escape. Comparing our lives made me feel so lucky it ached.

‘I went to fetch these for you,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d give them to you for being so brave.’

She produced a brown paper bag of toffees with the smile of an amateur conjuror producing a rabbit. ‘I’ve eaten most of them, but there are a few left.’

‘Where did you get those from?’

‘Sister Mary gave them to me,’ she stammered.

‘The greaser,’ I said. ‘I bet she smarmed round you after all?’

Frances eyed me guiltily and said in a shaky voice, ‘I can’t tell you, she would kill me. You don’t know the half of it.’

‘Half of what?’

‘Well, any news?’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘Yes, the Mother Superior’s not around today - and Sister Cuthbert gave me this,’ I said breathlessly.

‘Gosh.’ Tears of joy shone in her delighted eyes. She put her hand on my shoulder and looked at my fist, clenched around the envelope, as if it might blow away. ‘A letter from your Mum ... you must be over the moon!’