Rock Me Gently (18 page)

Afterwards, I lay in bed gazing out the window. The sheets were cool and soft as flowers. It seemed like I had been running for years, and had reached a place where I could rest for a while. Tired, so tired. All the weariness of months of rising at five for Mass, the drudge of scrubbing and polishing floors, living in perpetual fear of the long yellow canes hidden in the folds of the nuns’ habits ...

Now the real world, from which I had been banished for so long, had returned. I felt my breath coming with deep slow movements, and closed my eyes, savouring them. And still I floated on waves of uncertainty. Should I tell Mum tomorrow about how the nuns treated me and the other children? I remembered Sister Mary’s words: ‘I’m warning you ... If you know what’s good for you ...’

My resolve weakened and strengthened, ebbed and flowed. The thing that worried me went on as steadily as my pulse. The nuns’ faces grew dim. I felt like an escaped criminal. For now at least, I had tricked and outwitted them, and they couldn’t touch me.

If my mind now and again picked some faces out of the greyness, they were Frances’s and Ruth’s. Theirs were the only ones I allowed to disturb my thoughts.

Mum stood beside the bed, smiling down at me. She still looked like a film star to me, with her olive-golden complexion that was like a permanent suntan, and her curly hair, dark rich ochre brown.

‘How are you? Would you like me to read to you for a bit?’

I nodded. She sat down on the bed and began reading aloud to me from
Reader’s Digest,
while I hovered around the edges of sleep. The rhythm of her voice sounded like a prayer - a nice prayer, not the sort that we had drummed into us at the convent. A prayer that put me into a relaxed trance, and brought dreams of Frances, Ruth and myself in a nice school full of toys, with polished desks and inkwells and rooms that smelt of plasticine and new books, and loads of mashed potato for Ruth.

You needed a hammer and nails to pin such fuzzy pictures down. When I tried to re-run them on waking, they slipped away like quicksilver.

Later, propped up on pillows, I listened to the far-away sounds of Mum murmuring in a low purr to her neighbour, and to music from the wireless. Summer sunlight slanted through the window. I stared out at the sky, my mind empty, as if rocked on long waves inside a peaceful reef, beyond which crashed the roaring sea.

The distant wireless crackled a warning: ‘Attention all shipping. Here is a gale warning.’ I thought then about the sailors in their tossing ships on the dark enormous sea who were listening to these warnings, lifeboat men sitting in kitchens awaiting their emergency calls in the stormy coastal towns.

‘Fastnet, Hebrides, Fair Isle, Faroes, south east gale force nine, increasing force ten. Imminent, imminent.’

The news that followed meant it was midday. Time was ticking by. In the pause between programmes, the space of heartbeats, the future was taking shape.

I pressed my hands to my ears. I didn’t want any part of it.

That afternoon, Mum and I walked to Church Street open market, where ‘Buy-buy-buy!’ was the staccato advice of the stallholders. Their lingo held a great fascination for Mum, but I couldn’t understand it. I caught the odd words, like ‘tuppence-a-pahnd-Coxes’, yet most of it was meaningless to me. My eyes passed over the glazed apples on the stall: shiny peels; the stallholder must have polished them with a rag or handkerchief.

‘What do you think happens to the apples if none get sold?’ I asked Mum as we passed a stall covered with fruit. ‘Do the stallholders just eat them all themselves?’

Mum burst out laughing, which made me feel light-headed.

My mouth was open, gasping at all the things to see. The noisy bustle and thrill of the place soon had me laughing as well. We passed stalls and second-hand shops that ran the length of the street, swarming with summery-looking people.

A sweet stall had jars of brightly coloured sugary cubes and circles. One stallholder, who wore a striped suit, a bowler hat and had two gold teeth showing in the front, like a well-off rabbit, was shouting in a high-faluting voice: ‘Everything a lady needs for sewing, I have.’

An old lady sat on a chair holding several shiny black shopping bags. She sold one while we watched, taking the coins and stowing them carefully away in her old purse. In the distance, coming in veiled harmonies through the hot air were the strains of a band of buskers. The raucous music mingled with the smell of flowers, fruit and vegetables from the market stalls.

Amid the stall gazers and the press of mothers and prams, I saw a small child fall over, only to be gathered up and dusted, soothed, comforted. I stared. I’d forgotten children could be treated like this.

Mum stopped at a stall that was like a sea chest of treasure, with a dusty heap of brooches, bracelets and rings. There were also brass ashtrays, embroidered match-cases, books too shabby for the bookshop, postcard albums, an electro-plated egg-boiler, a long pink cigarette-holder, a signed postcard of Mrs Winston Churchill, and a plateful of mixed copper coins. A tiny woman sat on a high stool behind the stall. When she opened her mouth, she only had three teeth. She looked like a puckered old apple.

‘Come on, love, have a look,’ she said to Mum. ‘I don’t hold no imitations here. You won’t find better.’

‘That looks interesting,’ said Mum, pointing to a brooch made of plaited silks.

‘That’s a Victorian mourning locket. They liked to be reminded of the dead in those days. Nowadays, it’s out of sight, out of mind.’ She sighed, shaking her head. Her stockings were sagged at the ankles over thick black-laced shoes.

‘They cut off the dead person’s hair and weaved the strands into a brooch or ring. Look at the workmanship in that waving hair. What they could accomplish in them days.’

‘Ooh, morbid!’ Mum screwed up her face. She chose a pile of beads from a green glass bowl. The woman was selling them at tuppence each.

‘Personal worry beads for my collection,’ Mum said to me. She tucked them away in her handbag. ‘I do worry sometimes.’

I said nothing and gave her a forced smile.

As we walked on, I noticed it was the stallholders’ raw patter that held the audience. Arms akimbo, they stood on the pavement bawling with surprising speed, loud cries from gritty throats, craftily conning people into buying things they did not want.

“Ere, come ‘ere! Nah then, give us another line, Jean.’

The stallholder’s wife, who had a nervous facial tic, held up some chintzy plates.

‘That’s it, them plates.’ Taking hold of several, he shuffled them like cards.

“Ere, don’t muck about, give us them dozen cups and saucers as well. How about that then? These bone china plates and cups and saucers to match, worth a few quid of anyone’s money. But I’ll not charge you twenty quid. Nor ten quid, nor even a fiver.’

A slight pause, followed by, ‘Tell you what, I’m daft! Who’ll give me a couple of quid for the lot? No? Sod me, I’m giving them away. The kids’ll starve this week. ‘Ere Jean, gimme them dozen side plates as well. C’mon woman, stop gawping at me, we’ve got a living to make.’

He made as if to throw the pile of china at her. She stood frozen, trying to smile. Through the laughter and rustle of the crowd I recognised the expression in her eyes, and my hand tightened in Mum’s as my stomach flinched in sympathy for the woman. But Mum was laughing too. She didn’t see it any more than the other laughing punters did.

We sat inside a cafe while Mum drank a cup of tea and I sucked cold lemonade through a straw. It was the most delicious drink I’d tasted in a long time. Mum got out her make-up compact from her handbag and began to powder her nose in the mirror. She kept humming in a preoccupied way, giving close attention to her lips and eyelashes. Finally she smiled at her reflection and snapped the compact shut. Dropping it back into her handbag, she smiled again, as if at a private joke. Crossing her legs, she sat back in her chair and lit a cigarette, puffing a line of smoke into the air.

‘Mum,’ I said, blowing bubbles into my lemonade bottle.

‘Yes?’

‘Am I still your little girl?’

There was a long pause. ‘Yes, of course you are,’ she said finally and she took hold of my hand and squeezed it very tight.

‘Why shouldn’t you be?’

‘No reason,’ I said, and went on blowing bubbles. I loved her so much, but I couldn’t bear to look at her. I was afraid she would see right through me, see past the fear and shame, right through me to the truth. And part of me was angry that she couldn’t see.

The bubbles made me burp. ‘Oops, pardon Mrs Arden, I’ve got the ‘iccups,’ I said, trying to sound happy.

A frown touched her face. ‘Your accent and the jargon you use have changed,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘You mustn’t drop your aitches. It sounds common.’

I found it exciting to use Ruth’s slang and catchphrases when she wasn’t around.

‘Everyone speaks like that in the convent.’

‘As long as you don’t use it when you’re with me.’ Her look scanned over me, taking in my posture. ‘And your table manners have altered, as well.’

‘I have to do as the others do.’

‘No, you don’t. You’re not the same as them, you know.’ She stubbed out her cigarette into a saucer, and smiled at me. ‘You’ve taken to boarding school like a duck to water, haven’t you? It shows you’ve got character. I knew you’d get used to it.’

As she sipped her tea, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I looked at her and tucked my hair behind my ears, clearing my throat. Up until then, she hadn’t mentioned the convent much and I’d told her very little. She had asked me about my schoolwork and I had given her clipped answers, minimising everything, making it sound normal. ‘What books are you reading?’ ‘All sorts of books.’ ‘Have you reached
The Ten
O’clock Stories
yet? ‘I’ve got past them.’ Mum scarcely listened to my answers. I felt all mixed up. Should I tell her the truth now? Would she believe me? What would the nuns do to me if they found out?

‘I’ve made my First Communion,’ I said, trying to test her reaction.

Mum shook a fresh cigarette out of the pack and told me that Jesus had not been the Son of God. ‘Did the idea ever occur to you that Jesus was not what he pretended to be? Did you know that there were many who claimed to be the Messiah in those days? Do you realise that Jesus was just one of a dozen men who made such a declaration?’

I did not know. I did not realise.

In the background, dull music whined from a wireless in the cafe. The whiff of cigarette smoke floated towards me. I opened my mouth to say something, and closed it again.

‘I love this song,’ Mum said, her eyes growing soft and wet.

The music was ‘Secret Love’. It trembled across the crumby stained tablecloths, the salt cellars and sauce bottles. Yet music was just a sound. I knew the truth: all of this was just pretend, too good to be true, and she didn’t really want me, she probably never did, not like I wanted her to, anyway.

I looked around me. At another table sat a family. The mother and father were talking animatedly together and their son and daughter were vigorously teasing one another. I listened to their conversation with covetous envy.

‘Oh, I didn’t say that, you liar!’

‘Oh, you did!’

‘Oh, but I didn’t!’

‘I heard you.’

‘Oh, there’s a ... whopping great big lie!’

The mother glanced over her shoulder and smiled at me. I was surprised and suddenly felt weighed down by a feeling of loneliness, an awful lack of understanding. A sense of immeasurable sadness, of injustice, overwhelmed me. I wanted to confide, to lay down burdens. I stared into my lemonade. It was no use. Telling Mum about the nuns would have to wait until the next time I saw her. Maybe she’d want me by then. I bit my lips together to stop the tears.

I didn’t speak much as the afternoon wore on. I felt too drained for words - it was the smiling that tired me out the most. It made my face ache. That and pretending to Mum that everything was all right. Lying about everything, trying to remember where I was in the lie so I wouldn’t get caught. It tired me. I needed silence and peace if I was to carryon any life at all. I dreaded my return to the convent.

When I arrived back at the convent the next day, the children were at Benediction. I sat on my bed in the dimness of the dormitory. Reaching under my mattress, I pulled out my diary. I’d stuck a picture of the Holy Family on the front to make it look like a prayer book. Inside was a black-and-white photograph of Mum with me sitting on her lap. It had been taken when we went to the circus with Nana. Mum was smiling at the camera, and I had no front teeth. Already that child seemed much younger, farther away, a shrunken, ignorant version of myself. I had other pictures of Mum, but this was my favourite, the one that could still make me cry.

‘Be a good girl, Judith,’ she had said as she hugged me goodbye. ‘I’ll see you again when I can. Keep writing to me; I love hearing from you.’

When she had stooped to give me a lipstick kiss, I felt it linger, like a gooey pearl on my cheek. Sister Mary had smiled at her, patting me on the shoulder. ‘We’ll see that she writes, Mrs Kelly, don’t worry.’ She gave Mum a vigorous shake of the hand, which obviously caused her some pain. Mum gave me a sideways glance and I smiled back at her. Then I hugged her tightly again before she went out into the sunshine and I heard the sad sound of the front door being closed and locked behind her. The sour smell of the convent surrounded me again, stifling me. The weekend away might never have happened.

Now, as I waited for the girls to come back from church, I wondered what Mum was doing. Perhaps she was thinking of me, just as I was thinking of her. But I didn’t really believe it. I stared at the photograph. My hand tightened around it, ready to tear it into pieces.

I couldn’t do it. Instead came the tears I had been fighting against all day. I curled up on my bed, shedding them in wretched, heaving silence. Tears only mattered to myself, and there was no one here.

So much had happened since Dad died, one storm after another, and now it was almost like a dream that he had been alive at all. Still, I felt him in my heart; I ached for him, and how could I stop that? No Dad, no Nana and Pop - and no Mum, now, either; not really.