Rock Me Gently (5 page)

It was all too much. Awe made me feel weak. How could the nuns do that? ‘That must be really rough on her. And so unfair.’

No wonder Ruth acted so cold and angry towards everyone. And no wonder so many of the girls seemed in dread of her. I decided that in future when I saw her frown, I’d climb a tree first and find out what the matter was afterwards.

Frances watched me with an amused, tolerant expression. ‘To keep yourself out of trouble, Judith, I’d act the silent sort for the next few days. Copy everything we do. And don’t speak to a nun unless it’s to answer a question.’

We marched along the dimly lit corridor. The girls broke up into several groups, and Frances gestured for me to follow her. Ten of us trooped down a winding stone staircase to the basement, where passages twisted and turned like a rabbit’s burrow. Ruth was in our group, I noticed with a tightening of my stomach; I decided to keep quiet, as Frances had suggested.

We entered a small room with an arched stone ceiling. It was dark and narrow, with green-tiled walls cold to the touch, and smelt of damp and shoe polish. The air in the room chilled me. I shivered and wanted to yawn. The single light bulb had a faint green tinge. It cast the room into shadow, as if it were partially underwater.

Along each wall rows and rows of black boots peeped out of arched pigeonholes. What was this place? I was still looking about me when the girls sprawled together on the dusty, torn sacks spread across the floor and began polishing the boots like professional shoe-shiners. The noise of their chatter filled the room. I side-spied Frances who frowned at me, jerking her head at the pigeonholes.

I slowly pulled out a pair of boots and tried to imitate the others, fumbling as I chose polish and a brush from the wooden box in the corner.
Don’t ask why we’re doing this. Don’t say a
word.
I brushed inexpertly at the heavy black boot, frowning in concentration. Soon I had black polish all over my hands and frock.

Amid the swishing noise of the shoe brushes, Frances said to me, ‘We come here every evening to polish the nuns’ boots, and this is where we tell our secrets.’

I looked up eagerly, relieved to be getting a second chance. ‘Secrets? What sort of secrets?’

‘Like Frances is Sister Mary’s pet,’ said Ruth patting Frances on the shoulder and winking at her.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Frances, her face reddening. ‘Go on, Ruth, tell the new girl about that time you caught Sister Helen making big waves in the what’s-it.’

‘Oh, hell’s bells, that story’s so stale you could shave the whiskers off it,’ said Ruth.

‘Go on,’ said Frances, ‘I want to hear it again.’

Ruth shrugged, brush-brushing rhythmically as she spoke. ‘Hell, it wasn’t my fault that I caught her reigning on the throne. How was I to know she was in there? I just barged in to find her making a sacrifice to the what’s-it god with a wad of Bronco bunched in her hand.’

There was a burst of laughter. ‘Oh my God!’ I clasped my hands over my mouth.

‘That’s just what she said. The sight of her set my underwear creeping up on me like it had legs.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Janet.

‘You’d have thought I had the runs or me arse was on fire, I was in such a rush to get away. I really reckoned I was a goner.’

‘Why?’ I asked before I thought.

A shadow fell over her face. ‘Oh, I’m not shovelling all that on to you. You’re still green. Best to stay that way for as long as you can. You’ll find out soon enough about the nuns. Some of them aren’t exactly sane as biscuits.’

‘Tell her what happened next,’ said Frances.

‘Well, I went on running everywhere to avoid her. Eventually I bumped into her in the corridor. She spread out her arms to stop me like someone who wants to stop a bull charging at them. I was putrified. She put her hand on my shoulder and I thought she was about to lose her rag with me, but all she said was, “I’m afraid nature called me on the hop and I had to answer her immediately, but the what’s-it’s vacant now if you’re still in need of it, child.” , Everyone burst out laughing again.

We returned to our polishing. My hands were getting sore from holding the boot and brush so tightly as I scrubbed. Ruth held her nose over a pair of boots complaining that if Jesus had washed twelve pairs of the nuns’ feet instead of the disciples’, the crucifixion would have seemed like a pushover. Janet put a gleaming pair of boots back into the pigeonholes, and pulled out another pair. ‘Come on, Frances, sing something for us.’

‘Yes, c’mon, Frances, c’mon!’ eager voices seconded this, and Frances needed no further bidding. She put her boot down and began to sing in a voice of pure silver. I felt my eyes widen as the brush slowed and stilled in my hand. She sang with her eyes closed, sitting back on her heels.
‘Magnificat .
. .
anima mea .
. .’

The mysterious song soared and echoed between the narrow walls. Her voice rose and fell and caught in her throat with such pure sadness that I was surprised not to see tears running down her face. As she sang, the other girls stopped polishing, basking in the melancholy song.

‘What’s that she’s singing?’ I whispered to Janet. I wanted to know.

‘The Magnificat. We sing it in the choir, don’t you know it?’

I took a deep breath, blew out my cheeks and puffed. ‘No, I don’t understand the words.’

Janet looked momentarily puzzled. ‘Well, that’s because they’re in Latin. We don’t understand them either.’

Frances stopped singing. Turning to me, she said all in a flood:
‘Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles. Esurientes
implevit bonis: et divites dimisit inanes
...’
*

How could she do that? How was that done? How could anyone reel off the words so quickly and confidently? It sounded magical.

‘Yes, but what does it mean?’

‘Well, the nuns don’t tell us that, do they? But I know it off by heart,’ said Frances.

‘Sing it again,’ I said.

‘Yes, out with it again,’ the other girls demanded.

Frances grimaced and rolled her eyes. Then she opened her mouth and her voice rose loud and proud through the hush of air. It sounded better the second time. It soared; a bird, it held its flight. It tugged at something deep within me. I turned away to put more polish on my brush to hide the tears she brought to my eyes.

Frances finished on a high, wavering note.

‘Well sung!’ Everyone clapped. Clap-clip-clap. Her song finished, Frances’s voice turned matter-of-fact again. ‘Someone else, now. Ruth?’

One by one they took their turn to sing a song. They sang ‘Greensleeves’, ‘Ave Maria’, ‘Danny Boy’ and lots of other old ones. Whenever a song had a chorus the other girls picked it up until a full choir of voices was singing. The songs were sad, the voices thin. I was too shy to join in, and terrified that they’d pounce on me to sing something. I stared down at the boots I was polishing, stiffly humming and nodding my head as though I were having a wonderful time.

‘Now it’s your turn, Judith,’ said Frances.

My stomach kicked in apprehension. I looked at the ten expectant faces surrounding me, all of them waiting for me to sing. Ruth’s eyebrows were drawn together in a smirk. I remembered Frances’s advice to fall in with everything. Imitate, I told myself. Act. Mimic.

‘Go on then,’ ordered Ruth.

I struggled to my feet and closed my eyes. What should I sing? I opened my mouth and let out a wailing sound. My voice went up and up, thin and reedy, like a bird’s. I tried to imitate Teresa Brewer, but I’d forgotten the words to ‘Put Another Nickel In, In That Nickelodeon’. Improvising, my song had no beginning and no end. I felt a bit lost. I began in the middle and made up the words, moving my arms about like a sultry singer.

I opened my eyes to several smiling faces rocking in time to my song. Ruth seemed to be choking badly. Then a shrill shriek of laughter sprang from her throat.

‘She can’t sing for toffee!’ Which took the wind out of my sails.

‘Sshh! Go on, Judith,’ said Frances. ‘It’s good.’

I took courage and let my voice ring out. I began to add my own words:

I am in the boot-room too,

Polishing a nun’s big shoe,

All I want is loving you, and music, music, music.

Other popular songs flooded into my mind, and I sang fragments of them, too, winding them all together into one crazy song. I knew the girls wouldn’t know any of them. I had seen no wireless or a television set in the convent.

‘What’s she singing now?’ laughed Ruth.

‘Shut up and listen!’ someone answered.

My song ended with the refrain of
‘Oompah, oompah, stick it
up your jumper’,
which earned me wild applause mingled with giggling peals of laughter.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and sat down again. I felt encircled by the girls’ enthusiasm and approval as though by a warm arm.

The juniors slept in the same enormous grey bare-walled dormitory as the senior girls. The seniors each had a tiny thin-curtained cubicle to sleep in; our beds, lined up at the other end of the room, looked exposed, with high black iron bedsteads like something out of a Dickens novel.

My triumph in the boot-room faded utterly as I stood beside an empty bed, staring at the thin mattress in dismay. Suddenly this was all very real, and stark, and horrible. How long would I be here? Mum, please come and get me soon!

Frances came over to me. ‘Here, look - we’ve all got a chair beside our beds, see? That’s where your clothes go at night.’

I stared at her. No wardrobe? No drawers? But already I knew better than to ask. I began to take off my dress. I stood in my knickers vaguely scratching my back. I felt sad and very tired.

Frances’s hand flew out to grab my arm. ‘No, not like that! Look, you put your nightdress on first.’ She pointed to an enormous white tent-like thing that was laid across my bed. ‘Then you take your clothes off under that. It’s a rule: you’re never to be uncovered.’

I didn’t ask what terrible thing would happen if the nuns caught me uncovered. Miserably, I drew the scratchy nightdress over my head. I told my hands to hurry up, but I was butterfingered with anxiety as I fumbled with the fiddly buttons at the neck. What a time it took, the great folds of material stifling and suffocating me.

‘Don’t worry, it gets easier with practice,’ said Frances encouragingly.

Draped head to toe in our Victorian nightdresses, we poured into the cavernous washroom, a troop of bare feet pattering on red tiles, and washed our faces and cleaned our teeth in silence. Sister Cuthbert called out instructions: ‘Rinse your hands thoroughly, before you wipe them on the towel, then all the germs will go down the plughole. Have some sense, Ruth, it’s no use trying to look for them, they’re minuscule.’

I cleared my throat and asked Frances, ‘Where’s the mirror? So I can brush my hair.’

Frances shook her head, and told me what I wasn’t surprised to hear by then. ‘We aren’t allowed to have mirrors. If you’re caught with one - ‘ She shook her head, hinting at terrible things.

As we returned to the dormitory, a bell rang. ‘Kneel beside your bed quick,’ whispered Frances. I obeyed, dropping my head on my hands. I heard a door open, and then Sister Cuthbert’s voice said:
‘Precamur, sante domini, hac nocte nos custodiae:
*
I felt my shoulders shuddering as several shrill voices answered throughout the dormitory: ‘Amen.’

Complete silence followed. Another bell rang, and this time there was a scramble jumping into bed and much noisy pulling -to of the senior girls’ curtains. Tucking the end of my nightdress under my feet, I curled myself together under the cold sheets, shaking and trembling. I peered out for an instant over the blanket and saw green curtains round the seniors’ beds. The light switch clacked loudly and we were in darkness. I shivered and yawned. My mattress felt lumpy. I thought of my sheets at home, with their smell of fresh air mingling with Mum’s perfume. She’d have the kettle on the gas now to make a cup of tea.

Huddled on my pillow, which smelt of dust and age, I watched Sister Cuthbert’s huge shadow move across the cracked ceiling. Was it true what Ruth said, that rats ran around the dormitory at night? She said they could jump on your bed and sever your jugular vein and you’d bleed to death like a stuffed pig. I uncurled my legs and turned over to lie prone in the bed, burying my face in the pillow.

Noiseless except for a vague rattle of beads, Sister Cuthbert approached my bed. I held my breath as the murky figure hovered over me.

‘Are you missing your mother?’ asked Sister Cuthbert. I could feel the humidity of her breath on my ear.

‘No, Sister.’

‘Always answer me with a complete sentence, please.’

I felt her hand on my forehead; her hand felt damp and cold. It slithered down to my neck. Was that the way a big fat rat felt-slithery and damp and cold? Ruth said that every rat had cold slimy fur and red-rimmed eyes.

Sister Cuthbert said, ‘Now, tomorrow you will have to be up at five o’clock in time for Mass. Have you practised your genuflection?’

‘Yes, Sister, I have practised it a lot.’

‘I should think so, too. We don’t want you making a fool of yourself again in church. Don’t lie on your side like that. The correct way to lie is on your back. Did you not know that?’

‘No, Sister.’

‘Answer me with a complete sentence.’

‘No Sister, I did not know that the correct way to lie in bed was on my back.’

‘Well, do so now.’

The bed groaned as I rolled over. As I pushed my feet downwards I felt a slight rip in the too thin sheets as my toes scraped against the harsh blanket.

That’s a good girl,’ said Sister Cuthbert. ‘Arms above the bedclothes and make them into a cross like this.’ I crossed my arms over my chest in imitation of the nun.

Now close your eyes and before you fall asleep transport yourself to the foot of the cross like a good Catholic. Let that be a comforting thought to help you drift off to sleep tonight.’

When I sensed that she was gone I slowly opened my eyes. I wondered how the other children comforted themselves in an effort to get to sleep. I could hear the sucking of thumbs and low whisperings. It was no comfort to me to try to do what Sister Cuthbert had said. I may as well try counting sheep I thought wretchedly. One, two, thr ... It was then I heard Ruth’s gruff voice ring out: ‘Night, night, sleep tight, mind the fleas don’t bite.’