Rock Me Gently (12 page)

‘And what do
you
have to say for yourself, Dover? Are you ever going to be saved from the hot nook of Satan?’ she asked, the smile still on her face. ‘It doesn’t surprise me that your mother never wanted you. You filthy slut, always wetting your bed.’

Janet’s jaw twitched again. She scratched her nose.

‘Don’t pick! Don’t fiddle!’

‘Yesssister,’ Janet mumbled. She began to wheeze, her breath coming in small bursts. I saw Frances shut her eyes.

Sister Columba then advanced on them screaming, ‘We do not tolerate such goings-on!’ Her words were slathered in spit as she lunged at the two girls. Snorting with effort, she raised the cane high above her shoulder. It made a loud swishing sound, and there was a piercing crack as it struck each of the girls in turn. The blows immediately caused red marks to appear on their legs and arms and their eyes welled with tears. With every blow, the nun’s rosary beads clinked together, making a noise like gnashing teeth; her face was red and quivering.

Sister Mary stood beside the door, her eyes opaque and glinting like steel, her tongue licking at her lips.

Both girls staggered. The thin muscles of Janet’s legs buckled under her and she then crouched on the floor, hands over her head, but Frances stayed upright, parting her feet for a better grip. The nun’s stick streaked back and forth in a rain of blows, again, again, again, again, again. With each swipe Frances’s dark hair jumped, but her body and head hardly moved.

Janet, whose face had been pale then red, burst into high-pitched hysterical sobs. She howled half-angry, half-frightened, wailing ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ She then staggered to her feet and fell against the wall with her hand over her mouth, biting her palm in an effort to stop herself from screaming. Sister Mary hurried forward and, grasping Janet by the hair, dragged her into the middle of the classroom. Sister Columba was instantly behind her, taking a thick cloth from her pocket, wrapping it around Janet’s mouth and knotting it secure from the back.

Sweating profusely, her hot hue reflected in her white wimple, Sister Columba resumed the flogging of the two girls. But just as the beating had begun to take on a rhythm, Frances slowly straightened to her full height. Head up, chest out, she seemed to tower over Sister Columba even though the nun was taller than she.

Turning, the nun concentrated her cane on Frances alone. Frances stood very still, glaring at her, until with a cry of fury and her jaw hanging wide, Sister Mary ran forward again and pushed Frances to the floor.

‘Get down, you little tyke!’ she screamed.

Her eyes glazed and lips trembling, Frances immediately struggled to her feet again.

A gasp of dismay ran across the hot classroom. Some of the girls were crying. Ruth, as always, was stiff as a statue, her face twisted into a mask of hate. I kept my head tilted upwards, my eyes on the ceiling. My ragged fingernails gouged into my palms, willing Frances to stay down.

Sister Columba stood still for a stupefied moment, her beady black eyes gleaming. She opened her prim, rather savage little mouth and was about to say something, but before she could, Sister Mary grabbed Frances and pinioned her arms from behind. She then bent her double with her backside uppermost, holding her against her chest. I could see the top of Frances’s white legs shining under the glare of the outside light.

‘Give her a good hiding!’ shrieked Sister Mary.

With a whistle of wind, the blows of the knotty cane lashed against Frances’s buttocks with such strength that it almost knocked Sister Mary off her feet. Each blow brought muffled gasps and low moans from Frances’s mouth like those of a sick animal. Smarting under the blows of the cane, she began to buck desperately.

Sister Mary’s face was gleaming with sweat, her eyes alight with glee. The blows finally stopped after a dozen shots had found their mark.

Puffing and blowing, with white saliva dotting the corners of her mouth, we heard Sister Columba say: ‘I think you have both learnt your lesson now.’ She nodded to Sister Mary who released Frances and untied the gag around Janet’s mouth.

‘This class is dismissed!’ Sister Mary screamed.

Then both nuns swept out of the classroom tossing their veils and slamming the door behind them.

Frances sagged to her knees and toppled over. A few of us rushed forward to help her and Janet to their feet. With great presence of mind Frances delegated some of the girls to help Janet to the dormitory.

‘But keep your voices down and make sure you’re not seen,’ she told them through dry and puffy lips. Her eyes looked mad, scared and sticking out, her pupils huge as though she’d been in the dark and the light had been turned on.

As the girls left, she buried her face in her hands. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she seemed to lose consciousness for a moment. Her body felt so light it was like hugging a bamboo chair. Very far away, I heard children moving, heard someone whispering, heard a door shut.

When at last she raised her head, I said, ‘It’s all over. It’s all over.’ I repeated it again and again, in a soothing, almost hypnotic voice, rocking her back and forth. That was when she let go and wept.

We sat like this for a long time, until Frances’s tears were almost spent.

‘My head hurts,’ said Frances finally. ‘And I feel really sick.’

‘You’d feel better if you lay down upstairs,’ I said. ‘There won’t be any nuns around for a while. You know they always make themselves scarce after a flogging.’

‘Yes, they get upset,’ said Frances. ‘If we’d hit someone like that we’d get upset too.’

‘I don’t think I could ever hit anyone,’ I said.

‘Nor could 1.’

When we reached the dormitory, she entered like a heroine, to a soft fluttering of applause from the other girls. She drew a finger over her lips, and told one of the girls to keep a lookout at the door for the approach of any nuns.

In silence, we fetched wet towels and dabbed water on Frances’s swelling scarlet wounds. In between them lay mottled purple bruises. I winced feeling the blazing warmth from the swellings. Janet sat on her bed, eyes closed, arms around her shins, rocking and rocking, crooning to herself in a soft nasal tone. Frances lay unmoving, eyes closed, breathing deeply. I blew into her hair.

‘You were very brave,’ I whispered, squeezing her hand, ‘but you should have stayed on the floor when Sister Columba pushed you down.’

‘Yeah, then Sister Mary wouldn’t have had to squash you against her titties and shown us your bare bum,’ said Ruth. ‘She’s dead kinky. Do you think she’s going through her mental pause?’

Frances’s eyes flew open. She lifted her head. The other girls hovering around at once began telling her to lie back. Instead, she half sat up.

‘Shut up, Ruth,’ she said in a low, serious voice, gasping a little as she spoke. ‘It’s not fair, it’s your birthday, Judith. I saw three letters for you from your mum in Sister Mary’s cell, and a birthday card. They had all been opened.’

‘The sly old dirtbag!’ said Ruth.

‘You did it for my sake?’ I gasped. Pride swelled within me for having such a friend. At the same time a tidal wave of relief almost knocked me off my feet. Mum had written! She had been in touch with me after all, she hadn’t forgotten me. I squeezed Frances’s hand, unable to thank her.

Like stray cats, we piled ourselves around Frances on her bed. Others had made Janet’s bed into a cradle and were gently rocking her. With her eyes dry now, Frances outlined what had happened.

‘It was like this, see,’ whispered Frances cautiously, looking over her shoulder at the dormitory door. ‘I knew Janet was in the dormitory doing wet-bed punishment and I knew she would help me. I sprinkled a bit of sugar I’d taken from the kitchen over the dormitory floor leading up to Sister Mary’s cell. Then me and Janet climbed through her porthole window. We managed to look through a few letters. We saw one for Janet from her brother. Then Janet found some long woollen bloomers that smelt of mothballs. We were doubled up laughing at them when suddenly from the dormitory came a loud sound,
crunch!
It sounded like a giant was walking on stones. Then we heard the high-pitched voice of Sister Columba in the distance. “Who did this?” she was shrieking. She went crunching through the dormitory. “Where are you, Dover? Own up immediately! Step forward now or woe betide you!” Then she saw us through the window. She looked like she had steam coming out of her nostrils.

First she made us sweep up the sugar and then she marched us to the classroom, and brought out Sister Mary. She just glared at us.’

‘Sister Mary called Janet a slut,’ I said. ‘Do sluts live in slums?’

Crows of stifled laughter.

‘Shut up, Sister Cuthbert’s coming!’ hissed the girl on lookout. We all leapt off the bed as Sister Cuthbert entered the dormitory quietly on her fat little buttery feet. Frances and Janet were too given up to misery to move.

The nun said in a calm voice, ‘So this is where you’re all hiding out.’ She looked first at Janet and then at Frances, and smiled, a full flat mouth on a chunky chin. ‘It saddens me to see you looking so distressed, but one day I hope you will appreciate the importance of the punishments you have to undergo.’

None of us replied. Scanning us with her small fat-encircled eyes, Sister Cuthbert went on with a chirpy wag of the head: ‘I know you must be thinking that the punishment meted out to Janet and Frances was not warranted. But you must understand that only through suffering can goodness be achieved.’

We stared at the nun, flummoxed, not daring to interrupt. She came forward and rested her plump pink hand on Janet’s forehead.

‘I can see that it’s hard for you to bear each other’s pain, but suffering is the only means of salvation. The sisters here are only trying to do their best for you, even though at times our treatment may seem a little harsh.
Vere dignum et iustum est
- It is indeed fitting and right. To learn, one must be humble. But life is a great teacher. I won’t ask you the reason why you were beaten, but I am sure you must have deserved it.’

The nun turned to Frances. ‘Many things must have happened to you here at the convent, which have seemed unkind, unfair even. But very few things have happened by accident - I am telling you this for your own good. McCarthy, the fact that you are gifted with a wonderful singing voice is going to your head. You’re all puffed up with conceit. Tell me, what on earth do you think you will do when you leave the convent?’

Frances said she wanted to be an opera singer.

Sister Cuthbert tutted. ‘Your attitude only confirms what I have said. Puffed up with conceit. Yours is strictly a bathroom voice. Learning classical singing is not an option for you. We like our opera stars to have studied music at a very high level. The way you’re going it’s the sweetie factory or work as a shop assistant for you, my girl.’

Frances shrugged, tears in her eyes. ‘Well, you asked what I wanted to do. I want to be like Maria Callas.’

‘Opera? Maria Callas? I’ve heard some things in my time, but that takes the biscuit. You need to be rich to be an opera singer. Don’t you know that opera is the most expensive noise known to man? However, there is one feature of your character that could be an asset to you in the future and that is your candour. However, candour like honesty is not only admitting our faults, but also thanking God for our talents and then using them for Him and for the good of everyone else.’

‘But Sister Cuthbert, it’s not fair, we didn’t deserve to be so badly beaten,’ Frances choked out suddenly.

The nun appeared to think for a moment. Then shaking her clasped hands before her, went on: ‘No, I don’t want to hear any complaints from our little opera star. You must have deserved your punishment. Forgiveness is for Almighty God, who sees into every heart, not for me.
Corruptio optimi est pessima.
*
Hands up anyone who knows what that means.’

We stared at her blankly. She stopped shaking her clasped hands and putting them to her brow, looked eagerly at her listeners out of her small eyes. ‘I mean, a Catholic is more capable of evil than anyone, I think, perhaps - because we believe in Him - we are more in touch with the devil than other people. But we must hope,’ she said mechanically, ‘hope and pray.’

Frances muttered weakly, ‘It’s not fair.’

‘No, and life’s not fair, but I am not going to discuss the wicked, foolish things you and Dover have been up to. The nuns have a huge responsibility’, said Sister Cuthbert flicking her veil over her shoulder, ‘overseeing the welfare of all your souls. In other schools, you would be expelled for your misdeeds, but as many of you are essentially orphans, it is not possible. Therefore you should not complain. You are not really entitled to complain, because you are lucky children: think of all those orphans who have been shipped off to Australia. It’s happened here before and it could happen again.’

We all listened to her words intently, for Sister Cuthbert was the only nun we came close to trusting. But she was a grown-up and all grown-ups were dangerous creatures at this school. She could be blunt and forceful and often she would say to us: a hard life strengthens the character. She wasn’t Sister Mary and Sister Columba, who were like the darkness when the night-light went out in the dormitory or the frozen blocks of earth I had seen one winter in a graveyard; you just had to endure Sister Mary and Sister Columba when they were there and forget about them quickly when they were away, smother the thought of them, ram it deep down. Sister Cuthbert was attempting to do away with the white cotton frocks that we had to wear in our weekly pea-soup baths, which smelt like dirty teeth, the same water shared between us all. But she made no attempt to do away with the system of spying and violence to which all the children were subjected. She lacked the desire or conviction to question it, let alone bring the abuse to the eyes of a higher authority. She had more to lose than to gain by such confrontation and would be out-nunned, out-manoeuvred and out-foxed if she dared.

Questions surged within me as she spoke. Were we really wicked? So wicked that we had to be beaten like criminals? Did it please God to see us broken and battered? I stared at the floor, unable to ask them. Afraid to know the answers, maybe.