Rock Me Gently

by Judith Kelly

  I had stopped mopping to listen. Now I resumed mopping and negotiated a tricky corner with a twist of the handle. Nobody knew what form of punishment the nuns had employed to keep Ruth under control at that time, but Frances had figured that she was kept tied to a bed in the isolation ward for a week.

  ‘Aren’t you interested in what I’ve just told you, or has the cat got your tongue?’ Ruth said, heaving herself up to sit on the kitchen table. She brushed back her helmet of hair to get a better look at me.

  ‘You said you don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Don’t be so polite! Can you just stop mopping a minute? It’s driving me mad. Ask me something.’

  There was a slight pause as Ruth picked her teeth with her needle while I blotted out her footprints with my mop. I was dying to keep talking, to make it last longer. Say something, anything, so long as it wasn’t stupid. ‘Do you ever read books?’ I felt like a clot as soon as I’d said it. I knew that she couldn’t read properly because she’d been made to work in the kitchen and laundry for so long instead of attending class.

  ‘Thanks a bleeding bundle.’ There was another pause. She dislodged a crumb from her teeth on to the point of her needle and gazed at it intently. ‘The covers of books are too far apart for me,’ she said, staring at the end of her needle. ‘I’m not totally illiteral. I did try to read a book once, but it was like wading through treacle. Little black dots stuck to the pages that meant nothing.’

  ‘One day, when you’re free of this place, you’ll learn to read properly.’

  ‘Yeah, freedom!’ she said. ‘When I first walked into this dump, I was a child. Now I’m not sure who I am. The years here have changed me for sure.’

  I gave the floor a few more strokes with the mop and wondered if I had changed. I had not been physically ruined like Janet, nor beaten as much as Frances. And I wasn’t the lit fuse Ruth had become. My anger was burning on a slower fuse. It was more controlled, mixed as it was with deep fear. In my time in the convent, I never could summon the sort of courage that Ruth found to keep the nuns at bay. I saw that there would never be an end to my imperfections in their eyes, or to my doing things the wrong way; even when I grew up, no matter how hard I scrubbed, whatever I did, I knew there would always be somebody looking daggers at me.

  I sighed and stood back to survey the kitchen floor with my head on one side. In its silence, the kitchen appeared serene and glistening. I looked out the window into the playground. The sun had almost gone, but the sky still retained a murky orange glow, gleaming with a few feathers of pale cloud, against which the line of poplar trees appeared black and delicately clear. I stood there realising that this was the first moment of peace in my day.

  Ruth sniffed as she continued to pick crumbs off the kitchen table with her needle while swinging her skinny legs with their red knees and heavy black shoes like two pendulums. She hummed cheerfully between sniffs. I thought about her bad lungs. What exactly was TB? I tried to picture her lungs hidden beneath the billow of her tunic, like two pale spongy things in the thick darkness inside her body. They would be covered with dark bruises. It hurt when I thought about it, but TB was fascinating, like a horrible treasure.

  ‘Me belly’s fair sagging,’ Ruth said rooting again with her needle at her teeth, ‘I licked half of my Gibbs’ toothpaste before Mass this morning. If I could have one wish at this moment, it would be for a plate of cornflakes.’

  ‘Or just a broth of spuds and bacon rind. Anything other than those onions boiled in their overcoats we had last night.’

  ‘Yeah, but them nuns got fried liver with theirs. I ate their leftover gristly bits that I was supposed to feed to Sister Ann’s pet pusscat. What’s in that blue enamel saucepan on the hob?’

  I went to the ancient stove and peered at the bleachy water in the saucepan.

  ‘Knickers, I think,’ I said.

  ‘Crikey, is there nothing for us to eat? I could do with some baked beans. Trouble is, they give me gas. Talking of gas, have you heard the joke about the drunk who sat down in the confession box and said nothing?’ She laughed, the rumble of a cough starting in her chest. ‘Father Holland kept knocking on the wall to get the bloke’s attention. The drunk said, “It’s no use knocking, mate, there’s no paper in this one either.”’

  I laughed. ‘You’ll have to go to confession and tell Father Holland you said that.’

  ‘Bollocks! Don’t be soft,’ she said, sucking at the crevice in her teeth. ‘He’ll probably give me a thousand Hail Marys. It would take me all day and night to finish them. Who is God, anyway?’

  ‘He’s a magician and he’s in Heaven, isn’t he?’

  ‘Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?’

  “Course I do,’ she said with an inane smile. ‘Hell’s a house made of fire where millions and trillions of sinners growl like dragons and howl like dogs and above it all God’s angry voice thunders shaking the walls.’

  ‘But Heaven is fun, isn’t it?’

  Ruth grinned, yawned and nodded all in one. ‘Ooooh, maybe, maybe. But if Heaven is going to be filled with the likes of the nuns, well, God can have them to himself.’

  Sated by her yawn, she said with tear-washed eyes, ‘I wonder how much God weighs? If God is everywhere, then he’s in food. I don’t believe in Heaven, I believe in food.’

  I looked forward to Sunday, when we had cast-off cakes and doughnuts that the local bakery donated to the convent all mixed together and baked into a big pudding. I loved it. It made a change from the daily rice pudding mixed with tea leaves plonked on the same plate as our first course.

  Ruth concentrated on picking at the table and I went back to mopping the floor, moving the wet strands from side to side so that no dry patches remained.

  ‘Was your father ...?’ Ruth interrupted herself for an instant, and then said, ‘I don’t want to poke my nose into your business, but was your father rich? I mean, before he died?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘What was he?’ she asked after a pause.

  ‘My mum told me that he was ...’ Throwing my fist in the air and extending one finger after another, I counted, ‘A journalist, an aircraft fitter, a pub-owner, a gambler, a Catholic, a drinker, a story-teller, something in a factory, a football pools agent ...’

  ‘And now a corpse!’ A coughball of laughter rattled in Ruth’s throat. ‘The aircraft fitter sounds good.’

  Speaking of Dad made my thoughts skitter back to Mum. I had still received no word from her. Maybe she hadn’t written after all; maybe Frances had just imagined seeing three letters from her in Sister Mary’s cell. Or maybe she had just said it to make me feel better.

  I had been here for over a year. My head throbbed, thinking about it.

  As if reading my thoughts, Ruth suddenly asked with a chirpy wag of her head, ‘Do you think your mum’s abandoned you?’

  I hated it when someone cut in on your thoughts, like they’d been peeking about in your mind.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’ve never worried about her really wanting to leave me. Maybe that’s just me being big-headed but ... she wouldn’t. At first when I didn’t hear from her, I felt angry. Then I felt sad because I thought something might have happened to her, then I realized ... well, loads of things.’

  ‘Like what?’ Ruth asked.

  I gulped. I didn’t want to talk about it because it always led to trouble when I did, or I’d start to cry. Crying just made things worse. It would be letting Ruth down if I were to crumple.

  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.