The Heaven I Swallowed

by Rachel Hennessy

  ‘Which way, Auntie Grace?’ Mary asked, not without a hint of impatience.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted and, at that moment, a small woman in a fawn dress appeared at the top of the steps of a building to our left. A sign above her declared it the Teacher’s Hut.

  ‘Mrs Smith?’ the woman enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered.

  ‘And Mary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her eyes, which matched her washed-out dress, raked over Mary, her mouth staying closed after our initial exchange. I could not read any change in her expression: she was better educated than the woman in the shoe department and, thus, better able to disguise either her approval or revulsion.

  ‘Come in,’ she said finally and I was grateful that, at the very least, we were not to be turned away at the doorstep.

  She turned and I followed, Mary next to me, down a carpeted hall to a closed frosted-glass door with another sign ‘School Principal’ nailed to the cross beam. The fawn lady, to my surprise, knocked and I realised we had only passed the preliminary barrier. She did not wait for a response from within, opening the door and striding in with the confidence of a trusted employee.

  Behind the desk sat a bald man in a dark suit. He did not stand on our entrance, only moving his head to stare at me with watery blue eyes.

  ‘Forgive me for not standing, Mrs Smith,’ he said and his gaze invited me to follow his to a walking stick sitting under the window. ‘I am having a particularly bad day.’

  I sat in the chair opposite the desk and Mary stood behind me while the fawn woman stood behind the principal. We were uneven bookends, propping up the desk.

  ‘I’m Mr Robertson,’ he announced.

  His office smelt of cod liver oil and as I took in this rheumatic man, all joints and bones, I felt not the slightest tinge of empathy between us. You can tell with certain strangers that there will never be a time when you will come to mean more to one another.

  ‘Father Benjamin has told me about the unfortunate girl,’ Mr Robertson continued. ‘And though I am inclined toward good deeds, I have to constantly watch out for the repu­tation …’

  ‘… of the school,’ the fawn lady finished for him.

  ‘I understand that, Mr Robertson,’ I said, although I did not really understand this aching man. How much pain was he in right now? How quickly did he want us gone so he could groan in private? ‘Mary is, I believe, a good girl. She could benefit from a good education.’

  I felt Mary shift behind me, perhaps, I hoped, standing a little straighter.

  ‘Would you have her stand over there please?’ It was the fawn lady who was asking and I was yet to know who this woman was. The secretary? The head teacher? She seemed to have more self-assurance than I had encountered from my fellow female teachers. The brash young ones were soon beaten down by the stupefying effect of the classroom, the gradual realisation of how little difference you could make to most of your students. Unconsciously, I found myself listening for the school bell, as if I was back in the days of my own teaching when I would sit at the head of the room willing the minutes to pass more quickly.

  Mary moved to the spot the woman had indicated, near the window through which the morning light poured. She was not smiling and I was reminded of the sullen expression she had worn on the day of her arrival. Already I had grown used to not seeing it there, I had become used to a blander face. She had not transformed into ‘happy’ but she had taken off the mantle of sulkiness, which did nothing for her dark features. To see it return, then, particularly in front of the people who could provide her with so much, was distressing. What could I say, however? ‘Brighten up’? I had already ­lectured her about the importance of education. It seemed she had not listened.

  ‘She really is quite …’ Mr Robertson began. His sentence trailed off. I knew what it contained.

  ‘I thought they were supposed to be half-castes, or even quadroons,’ the fawn woman said, and she walked over to stand beside Mary. She reached across to place her hand under the girl’s chin and raised her head as if to give Mr Robertson a better view. She appeared to be a moment away from asking Mary to open her mouth so they could inspect her teeth. Mary did not flinch at the woman’s touch but her eyes had gone dead. Mrs Thompson had said she was a ­beautiful child. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  There had been moments like these in my own childhood when prospective parents would come to inspect us, walking along rows of brightly scrubbed girls, scanning from top to bottom for flaws. Perhaps I wore the kind of expression that Mary now did, for I was almost entirely overlooked in the early years and the time came when I was too old to even be included in the rows. If it had not been for the kindly Auntie Iris I would never have had any trips outside the convent.

  ‘I really don’t think …’ Mr Robertson began and, again, trailed off. I wondered if he was capable of finishing a ­sentence.

  ‘I’m not sure she would be suitable.’ The fawn lady spoke for them both. Her hand dropped and she moved away from Mary, returning to stand next to Mr Robertson’s shoulder.

  ‘Although we don’t want you to think …’ said the ­principal.

  ‘She’s a little too old, really. Can she read or write?’ the woman asked, although this should have been her first question. It felt as if the entire room was coated in cod liver oil, as slippery as these two were. To find a different problem when it was clear what the problem was.

  ‘She knows her letters,’ I answered. I had already quizzed Mary on this and discovered the patchy learning she had gained during her two years at the Home. I had worried at the wisdom of giving her more education. Words had always given me such comfort but would they give her expectations beyond her abilities? She had come to me to be domestic so was there any point in introducing the academic? According to Mr Robertson and his pale companion, the answer was no.

  There was silence as, no doubt, Mr Robertson was arranging the carefully chosen words of his rejection: ‘Not quite proper,’ or ‘We’re looking for something different,’ or ‘We’d like one much, much younger, with brighter eyes.’

  I stood up. ‘I understand perfectly. Thank you for your time, Mr Robertson.’ The unexpected movement seemed to throw them, both mouthed ‘Oh’ like goldfish.

  ‘Come on, Mary.’

  The girl moved out of the beam of sunlight she’d been forced to stand in and came to take my hand.

  At the doorway, Mr Robertson called a soft ‘Good day, Mrs Smith’ to me. I did not turn back.

  I had said I understood and, in many ways, I did. The shape of a schoolgirl was fixed in their minds: her long brown—or blonde—plaits, her well-rounded hips, a broad straw boater protecting her ivory face. There was nothing to be done about such preconception.

  ‘I’ll teach you to read, Mary,’ I said, as we passed through the stone pillars once more. On the top of each pillar I saw a lion with his paw holding a shield. The shields were carved with a cross and I had a brief image of a miniature Jesus sacrificed under the lion’s head.

  Mary did not speak as we walked home.

  †

  With the sting of the school rejection still raw, I discovered the penny in the lining of Mary’s blue dress, the same penny she had supposedly thrown into the fountain. It had found its way from a hole in the pocket of the dress to the hem and I knew it was the same penny because I hadn’t given her any other money. I remembered her wet hands and wondered why I had not thought it odd at the time. Had she thrown the coin in the water and then retrieved it when I wasn’t looking? This seemed the only explanation.

  I called to her. She was in the yard, standing on a wooden box, hanging the washing on the line. I watched through the window as she clambered down and made her way to me in the kitchen. I placed the penny on the table in front of her and she looked down at it.

  ‘Another one, Auntie Grace?’ she asked, as if I was going to magically produce a pond for her not to wish at, as if she didn’t know exactly where I’d
found this one.

  ‘I don’t like liars, Mary.’ The iron of my voice had terrified troublemakers of the past and I saw Mary’s body go back into its shell. I had been too nice to her over these first few weeks and she had begun to relax, begun to believe she had the upper hand. Oh, what she would not do if she thought I actually cared about her. How much she would take advantage. Do not trust anyone, Auntie Iris had said, especially those you love.

  I grabbed her upper arm, my hand circling it with overlapping fingers. Pulling her towards her bedroom, I had no vision of what I would do, what punishment to administer. I did not have the school’s boundaries, nor set procedures. I was free to do as I wished.

  ‘Auntie Grace,’ she said quietly, but nothing else. The tone had no reverence, just the flatness of the unbeliever.

  ‘Look what I have done for you,’ I said, still gripping the thin arm, shaking her a little.

  The wardrobe door hung open and showed the crowd of outfits I had bought her, the two pairs of shoes: the ones from the Home she had stumbled in, scuffed, falling apart, and the shiny new ones, bright and full of promise. Where was her gratitude for this? Today she wore another pair of new sandals, the brown leather straps matching her blasted skin.

  I let go of her arm and she stood at the end of the bed with her eyes down.

  ‘Don’t lie to me again, Mary.’

  ‘Yes, Auntie Grace.’

  ‘Do you promise not to lie to me?’

  ‘Yes, Auntie Grace.’

  The blandness of her tone pushed me, my hand rising up before I could think. I slapped her across the face, a blunt, quick hit.

  She was not shocked. She stood there, holding her cheek, as if she had expected it.

  ‘You will stay in this room all day.’ I kept my voice level and calm despite the anger I felt. ‘You will not sit down. I will know if you have.’

  She did not protest. Had the Home handed out similar punishments? Not enough of them obviously. She had lied to me, pretended compliance, not even clever enough to conceal it properly. I never would have found the penny if she had hidden it under her bed or somewhere else in the house. Why go to the trouble of stealing and then not even carry the crime through?

  I moved to the door, turning to look at her again before closing it. The remnant of my slap was there on her cheek, a slightly reddish tinge. I had used my right hand and there were no rings on those fingers, simply flesh on flesh, hardly enough to raise a bruise. With the mid-morning sun streaming in through the window, her black hair was lit, the acquired shine of my soapy ministrations. I would have to make her tie it back, with her hair loose and wild it was little wonder Mr Robertson had rejected her, she could be a Red Indian, a savage. I closed the door.

  While Mary stood in her room, I sat shaking in the front room. My hand still stung from the slap. I had never hit the girls at my school in such a crude way. I used a cane, made for the purpose, across the palm of the hand mostly, only occasionally on the back of the thighs. It was always prepared and measured, the reason for the punishment calmly articulated before the strike. Most of the girls cried out on the first thump and would be weeping by the last, so much so that I rarely saw the same girl twice. I remember hearing one of the teachers muttering how I liked dishing out the cane too much, as if I enjoyed it. She was wrong. I had met even harsher conditions in my own schooling. The Sisters had a love of suffering, tore the skin of our hands and buttocks to shreds in emulation of the lashes laid on Jesus’s back. In contrast to the Sisters, I never punished without due cause.

  When I was ten I had eaten an entire teacake during a visit to Auntie Iris’s and then lied about it, foolishly insisting it had not been me even though I was the only one in the house. Auntie Iris had made me stand in the front entrance for six hours, a cold hall with a spiral staircase leading to bedrooms I was never invited to stay in. Standing for those hours, my legs beginning to shake, I had ingested so much guilt I was sick with it.

  In the front room, I took large, uneven breaths. I wanted a cup of tea and almost called out to Mary to make me one. No, she was not to be allowed out of her room, although it struck me this meant I would have to finish hanging out the washing and put the kettle on myself.

  †

  I entered Mary’s room after two hours and knew she had not sat down. The bed cover remained un-crumpled and Fred’s desk still had its pure layer of dust upon it. Not surprisingly, she stood with her legs crossed.

  ‘You can go to the bathroom,’ I said and she rushed out without even a thank you. I could have punished her for that as well but I felt weary, as if it had been me standing in this claustrophobic little room. Fred had often come in here to his books. He had taken the job at the bank and I wanted to believe he was content tallying up numbers, keeping the country balanced. Deep down, I knew he wanted more, that one day he hoped to return to the land of words, to retreat to this study and not come out for hours. Despite what he wrote in his letters, I suspected he had always been writing his poetry.

  ‘Do I have to keep standing, Auntie Grace?’ Mary was in the doorway, her tone stronger than I had heard it before, as if the punishment had had the opposite effect than my ­intention.

  ‘Why did I make you stand, Mary?’ I asked her, trying to get myself back on firmer ground.

  ‘Because I didn’t throw the penny in the water, Auntie Grace.’

  ‘And why didn’t you?’

  She paused, obviously weighing up the best possible answer.

  ‘I didn’t want to wish.’

  ‘It was not up to you, Mary. I gave you the penny for that reason. Not for you to hide away. Not for you to lie to me about. Do you have anything to say to me?’

  She was still standing in the doorway, her hands behind her back in a stance that should have been submissive. ‘I didn’t want to wish,’ she repeated.

  I was stuck between anger and admiration. She held her shoulders back, aware this would give her credence.

  ‘Go and make me tea,’ I ordered her. I had already finished hanging out the clothes.

  ‘Yes, Auntie Grace.’

  She spun away and disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, I heard the sound of her filling the kettle.

  †

  I dreamt that night I was a girl once more trying to find my way through the dark dormitory to the outhouse. I was no one’s pet, no older girl was taking my hand and shushing me, telling me not to be afraid, leading me through the darkness. There was only someone hissing at me to be quiet as the floorboards squeaked beneath my feet. I walked down the chilled corridor alone and when I found my way outside I was in the field of arum lilies, their flower heads taller than me, and their pollen making my skin itch. Instead of the path ahead, I saw Auntie Iris’s sandstone wall. I ran to it and began rubbing my palm against the wall as if it was Aladdin’s lamp, wishing it to take me down to the beach beyond, to the soft sand of Shelley’s beach where families would sit for hours on end, in the sun, laughing. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed the wall and still no genie appeared.

  †

  ‘Auntie Grace?’

  I opened my eyes and found I was standing at the bottom of the back concrete steps with bare feet, shivering in my nightgown, my hands clenched in a ball, my fingers sore. I could not remember getting out of bed or walking through the house. My hair was loose, my hair net slipped off.

  I turned around to see the girl in the doorway, holding open the screen door.

  ‘You’re cold,’ she said simply.

  Her face seemed to have caught the moonlight, it streamed down on her, turning her eyes into tubs of knowing. But what did she know?

  ‘What are you, Mary?’ I asked, for perhaps I had conjured her up and this was still part of the dream.

  ‘Come inside,’ she said, as if I were the child.

  I could not move and found myself staring at her, at her skin.

  ‘Corpus Domini nostri Jesu, Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ
keep your soul unto life everlasting.’

  A pure, white body, hanging on the cross.

  ‘May Thy Body, O Lord, which I have received, and Thy Blood, which I have drunk, cleave to mine inmost parts: and do Thou grant that no stain of sin remain in me.’

  She stood. An abo, a nigger, a darky.

  ‘Grant that no stain of skin remain in me.’

  The girl seemed about to move towards me. I could not stand it.

  ‘Get away,’ I spoke softly. ‘Go back to bed.’

  She let go of the screen door and it slammed shut, echoing in the quiet. For a moment I could only see her eyes, separate from the rest of her. They held something, something long lost to me. She dissolved into the darkness and I stood alone on the concrete, flexing my hands. Abo, nigger, darky. Abo, nigger, darky.

  Did she know I had seen right through to her bones? Did she know what she had brought to me? This … darkness.

  The next morning when I went to wake her, her blanket was lying crumpled on the floor, her old blue dress was missing and the front door was unlocked. She had gone.

  4

  I decided I would find Mary by myself. She could not have gone far, I reasoned, for she had no one to go to; she would be wandering out there, with no clear plan as to what to do. I didn’t want to involve Father Benjamin. He wouldn’t think I was such a good person if, after only three weeks, I had driven her away. Nor did I want the Church to bring in the police who would, no doubt, label her a fugitive and try to track her down.

  I dressed quickly, in hat and gloves. It was hot out there, at the end of March, with strange mixed-up days, one clouded and windy, the next still and clear, as if God kept changing His mind. I thought about going in the car but decided it would be too conspicuous, a slow drive down the street would arouse more comments than a quick walk around the block. I would take my shopping basket for the excuse of a longer, more winding route. How hard would it be to look for her without looking as if I was looking? Had Mary’s presence been so noted they would wonder about my solitude?