Rock Me Gently (15 page)

Ruth was the strong one.

Besides, I had stiffened myself so much on the outside, my insides were blocked up: it was too draining even to cry, to wash things away that way.

‘Well,’ I began, trying to speak past the thing that had risen in my throat, ‘I haven’t received one letter from her since I’ve been here, even though Frances said she saw three letters for me in Sister Mary’s cell.’

‘And you still haven’t been given them?’

‘No ... well, that’s if she wrote at all ... and if she did, I daren’t ask for them, not after that whipping Sister Mary gave me ...’ I stopped. Everything seemed to collapse slowly inwards, my eyes drooped and my shoulders slumped. Ruth hopped down from the table and squeezed my arm roughly. I felt like a kid with an old lady’s head and shuffly feet.

And then it came back, clear and sharp, the memory of a snapshot of Mum, Dad and me on the beach in Margate. I was so small then that Dad looked like a giant; I had a good view of his knobbly knees with his trousers rolled up above them. He was holding out his hand with a tiny crab on it that skittered from one side to the other in a crazy sideways dance. And Mum stood ahead of us in a white sundress dotted with small flowers, the camera up to her smiling face.

And I recalled I was happy a long time ago, when Mum, Dad and I were always together, and remembering that was so painful that I felt sick and dizzy for a moment, trying to push it away, as always. But I breathed through it. I didn’t want Ruth to see me cry. I hadn’t cried in front of her since the early days, when she called me grizzle-guts for being such a baby.

‘C’mon, put a sock in it,’ said Ruth. ‘You should be like me. You’d have something to cry over then. Nothing ever happens without reason. And if your mum hasn’t written to you, she must have had a good one.’

‘Like what?’ I sniffed and like Ruth I rubbed my nose on my sleeve.

‘I don’t know. Stopping you from being unhappy.’

‘But I am unhappy.’

She looked at me long and hard. ‘You poor kid. God, I hate them nuns.’ I held my breath. ‘They’re all batty bloody cycle-paths at heart,’ she hissed.

Though I could never pass Ruth’s swear words over my own lips, it was good to hear them spoken.

‘I think so too,’ I said.

She raised two fingers and rolled her eyes heavenwards and chanted: ‘They believe in the rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth. Glory beat the Father, ran to the Son and the Holy Ghostly men. Hah! Listen, I know a good joke. How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!’

I smiled even though I’d heard it before, because there was a wave of corny jokes about religion sweeping the convent. Religious jokes and food jokes.
Why did the tomato blush?
Because it saw the salad dressing.

‘I’d best finish this boring old job,’ I said, sloshing the mop across the floor again.

Ruth doodled on the table with her needle. ‘What’s the difference between roast beef and pea soup?’

I tried to think what the answer could be and then said, ‘I give up.’

‘Anyone can roast beef.’

‘Ha, ha,’ I said. Part of this ritual was mild derision of other people’s jokes.

‘You’re doing a good job there, Judith,’ she said. ‘You’ve taken to the mop really well.’

We fell silent as we heard the pattering of feet on the heavily polished floor on the other side of the kitchen door. The swish of robes, the slight jangle of a rosary that always warned of the arrival of a nun, and then an entering form darkened the doorway.

‘Norton! You lazy good-for-nothing, haven’t you finished the washing-up yet?’

The light was switched on. There was a miserable glow, more like fog than like light. Sister Columba was revealed crossing the floor with a great deal of noise. Ruth leapt down from the table.

‘N-no, Sister, I was giving my hands a rest because my chilblains have split.’

Sister Columba ranged about the kitchen, touching things here and there. She scrutinised the mopped floor for grime. It was spotless, and for a second I thought she was going to admit it. But no, praise might make me vain. A bubble floated from the bucket and burst wetly on her toecap. She pointed to the draining board piled high with unwashed crockery.

‘The washing-up should have been finished hours ago, Norton, you idle girl!’ Sister Columba squinted her eyes and screwed up her mouth, like she’d smelt an old kipper. The surface of her skin was closer to smooth, slightly dusty cardboard than skin. In the midst of this desert her two eyes gleamed alarmingly, like weedy pools. I thought almost with horror that if those eyes were ever capable of spilling a tear it would surely cut a strange furrow in the dry powdery surface, revealing goodness knew what beneath. She gave off a sweet musty smell, like old linen that had been preserved in a drawer for years.

When the nun’s back was turned, Ruth made her hand snap open and shut like a beak, while she silently mouthed, ‘Nag, nag, nag.’

‘But I’ve been mopping the floor for hours. Haven’t I?’ she said, rounding fiercely on my shrinking form. ‘I have, haven’t I?’ she added, thrusting her face belligerently to mine.

‘Yes,’ I said faintly, handing her the mop.

‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, don’t exaggerate,’ said Sister Columba. ‘You tell enough white lies to ice a cake. Now, on - and - finish - the - washing-up!’ The nun gritted her teeth and ground out the last words slowly, as if she were spelling.

Ruth ambled over to the sink.

‘Get a move on!’ said Sister Columba. ‘Do you realise what time it is?’

‘Yeah, I do, ta very much.’

‘I’ve met some hard-boiled girls in my time,’ barked Sister Columba, ‘but you - you’re twenty minutes. You’re rude, retarded, incapable of learning and incapable of work.’

‘But I’ve been sweating cobs all afternoon.’

‘It’s about time you accepted your condition without rebellion and without abusing those of us placed in authority over you.’

Ruth waved her hand. ‘Oh, go boil your head!’

I gasped. What on earth had got into her? I recoiled against the wall, body stiff, shoulders hunched, watching as all the portals of hell blasted open. Taking a wet floorcloth covered in grease and smuts, the nun sloshed it at Ruth’s head. Swish. Ruth backed away and put the table between them; another swipe and another, with no effect. Again. Swish, swish. ‘That does it! I shall speak to the Mother Superior about you after tea.’

‘Oh yes, must have your tea and rock cakes first,’ cried Ruth, beginning to laugh and cough.

‘Come here! I’ll beat the stuffing out of you once I catch you,’ said Sister Columba, leaning across the table in an effort to grab Ruth, who dodged out of the way. The pantomime continued at a fantastic rate; they looked like a speeded-up film with Sister Columba charging and swinging her soggy weapon and Ruth nimbly side-stepping the clumsy swings.

The filthy mulch flew in all directions, speckling the nun’s white wimple. The ceiling. A large blotch landed on Sister Columba’s upper lip, just beneath her nose, giving her a Hitler moustache. When I saw it, I became paralysed with horror, but a foolish giggling fit had got hold of me. I pressed my lips together so as not to laugh out loud. Tears of suppressed half-hysterical laughter began to course from my eyes.

The floorcloth couldn’t withstand such violence and was soon reduced to a ragged, soggy mess. Exhausted in wind and words, Sister Columba paused, chest heaving. She threw the cloth in Ruth’s face.

Ruth shuddered. With her teeth clenched, she very slowly wiped her face. She stood there poised, frozen in a half-turn towards the draining board, with one hand outstretched balletically, and, slowly allowing a look of imbecilic delight to transfigure her features, she took one swipe at the crockery and smashed it all to the ground. The nun lurched backwards. To keep her balance she twisted about on her heel and found herself face to face with Ruth, whose teeth were chattering with anger. Picking up the soggy cloth, she threw it into Sister Columba’s face. ‘Heil Hitler, yah, yah, yah!’

There was one of those you-could-hear-a-pin-drop-silences. The nun glared at Ruth in the feeble light of the feeble bare bulb. Ruth smiled and stared back at her - rawly, savagely with dark eyes a thousand years old in their wicked wisdom. Then she let out a shocking laugh as she ran past me out of the kitchen.

‘Come back here, you skunk!’ Sister Columba screamed. She whirled on me. ‘Don’t just stand there looking like a frozen custard!’ She was panting, as if she had been running. ‘Go and bring her back!’

I slowly put my mop away. ‘Shouldn’t I sweep up the broken plates first, Sister?’

‘Later! Go and get Norton!’

I stood staring at the nun’s sweaty speckled face. Does she, I wondered, know how much I hate her? How willingly I would allow my stare to kill her if only I had the power? Perhaps she did, because she lifted her arm and, taking a full swing, hit me with the flat of her hand with such violence that I staggered back against the wall and almost fell to the floor.

‘Go now, before I have your teeth across the floor.’

The right side of my face was burning, the taste of blood was in my mouth. I ran outside into the dark, shadowy playground. It was a clear, wintry evening, with the sky freckled with stars. I suddenly remembered that once they would have seemed beautiful to me. A full moon smiled stupidly, showing no understanding of the lunacy in the convent.

I could see just Ruth ahead of me. I bounded after her. ‘Ruth! Sister Columba sent me to fetch you back.’

She turned aside and spat on the ground.

‘Phth!
to her, right in her eye.’

‘You must come back,’ I gasped. With the tip of my tongue, I could taste the blood inside my cheek from Sister Columba’s blow. I spat it out.

‘You know what will happen to us if you don’t ‘

Ruth halted beside the nuns’ graveyard, breathing hard and swallowing her breath. Her eyes were wild. She folded her arms across her chest, rocking herself. ‘Well, you’re wrongedy-wrong-wrong. I’ll wait until she’s calmed down a bit. Where shall I hide?’

I sagged like a pricked balloon. The chaos Ruth had created would inevitably affect the other girls if she didn’t return to Sister Columba immediately. Yet in a way she was right - best to wait until the nun was less crazed with anger. Beatings were always more vicious when anger was at its height.

But where was she to hide? We looked despairingly about us. Shouts drifted out from the convent. We knew Sister Columba would be rallying her posse of nuns like rooks hovering in a black cloud. There was agitation and trouble everywhere, with the noise of many feet approaching from the direction of the convent.

‘Think, think, think! Don’t panic!’ said Ruth. Behind us were the formidable figures of the nuns, ahead of us the pitch darkness of the nuns’ graveyard. The nuns were more of a menace.

‘I’ll hide in here,’ said Ruth, pointing to the graveyard. Tall cypress trees encircled it, whispering in the night.

I shivered for her. ‘But it’s out of bounds.’

‘The nuns won’t go in there. They never do unless there’s a burial.’

She was right: the nuns were superstitious about it. She’d never be found in there. But even in the strongest there is anguish in the dead of night.

‘Pray for me!’ Ruth said, and quick as a squirrel, she climbed over the railings and hid herself in the mist and darkness among the graves.

I could hear the nuns searching the playground: the rattle of the rosary beads, the swish of the skirts, the clip-clopping of boots like hooves on the tarmac. I could see their black shapeless habits swaying as they moved and the sharp outline of the blue shadows that the moon cast behind them.

Suddenly Sister Columba called to me. ‘Well, Kelly, where is she?’

‘I don’t know, Sister,’ I lied.

Her tight face became tighter. ‘Well, don’t just stand there gawping, you dope. Go and join the other juniors in the boot-room.’

As I ran back towards the convent windows, which seemed washed with warmth and brightness, I heard Sister Columba thrashing her cane on the side of the railings. ‘She is here somewhere!’ she screamed. It was a wonder her cane didn’t break.

Ten questioning faces greeted me in the boot-room. So the news had spread. We huddled together.
What’s happening? Has
Ruth run away? Have you heard anything? Seen anything?

Where’s she hiding?
I told them that Ruth had thrown a real wobbly.

‘I haven’t seen her so mad for a long time,’ I whispered.

‘Sister Columba will give us a hell of a time if she doesn’t return soon,’ said Frances.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I did try to reason with her, but it was hopeless. She was so mad.’

Of course, when I reached the point in my story where Ruth threw the floorcloth back at Sister Columba, it excited them so much that it almost belittled the main concern - Ruth in hiding.

‘So where is she?’

‘In the nuns’ graveyard.’ They all gasped in horror.

‘Shh! What’s that?’ I whispered, ‘Did you hear something?’

‘When?’

‘Just now.’

‘Yes, listen.’

We listened in silence until our ears ached. Finally we could just hear the faint pitter-patter of boots on the stone stairs. We all quickly knelt and began polishing shoes with vehemence.

The door all but burst its hinges as Sister Columba slammed into the boot-room. We stood to attention, eyes straight ahead. She was using her usual trick of holding her rosary crushed in her hand. So that it wouldn’t chink. Taking her bamboo cane from the folds of her habit, she pointed at each of us in turn.

‘Ruth Norton struck me. The nuns will not tolerate such behaviour. We make the rules within this convent. And they’re not to be lightly cast aside at the whim of a single troublemaker. The devil soon finds work for empty hands. There will be no food for any of you tonight. Now, Kelly, where is Norton hiding?’

I replied that I didn’t know, my voice cracking from fear and nerves. I tried to avoid the nun’s gaze, concentrating my eyes on her mulch-spotted wimple, still smelling strongly of Jeyes’ Fluid. Everyone looked at me. I felt weak enough to faint.