The Whipping Club (13 page)

             
Marian and Ben looked at each other and trudged upstairs.

             
“We’re all going to bed now. Good night, Johanna.”

             
“Good night,” Jo answered.

             
They listened by Jo’s door and heard her quietly climb out of her window. They watched her clutch
the drainpipe, and then climb
over the tricky spears and axes railing that adorned the fence which separated her house from the twins’—no doubt to spread the word.

Marian saw the kitchen light on and crept down the stairs and out the front door, stooped by the fence to listen. Jo sat at the O’Rourke’s kitchen table enjoying milk and bread pudding and sharing with the girls and their mother the news of a secret older brother. Marian stood on the ledge and peeked into their kitchen window. Upon hearing of a lost child, Mrs. O’Rourke turned scarlet, the little veins on her face deepened making her white cheeks look even more like radishes. Her evident discomfort prompted Johanna to thank her for the snack and change the subject.

Ever since Jo had told her classmates that she had a brother somewhere, that’s all the boys and girls wanted to talk about.

             
“My ma says your ma’s mixed up in the head,” Jeannie Johnson chided Jo one afternoon, when Mrs. Crowe the monitor had gone off the playground. Johanna could feel her blood churning up inside her as her body prepped for a battle against the bull of bulls. She could feel the kids forming a circle and then she heard, “Don’t let her sit on you, Jo!”

             
“She’s a lying whore,” Jo told Jeannie. She added, “You fat pig!”

inciting a burst of laugher from her friends before she spat at the ground and readied herself for an attack from a girl-woman twice

her size.

             
“Don’t let her sit on you!” someone shouted again.

             
“I won’t.” She raised her dukes. “You know, your ma’s a lying whore, Jeannie. Your last name’s Jelly, too. Not Johnson. You’re a right bastard,” Jo said, listening to the cheering noises and watching Jeannie’s shoulders hunch round her large frame, ready to pounce.

             
The crowd roared when Jeannie launched her attack. Jo felt like running, this mound of blubber could kill her if she got hold of her, got her to the ground. But Jo reminded herself she was an athlete and a lot quicker than this dimwit. She sprinted around her, poking close to her stomach, antagonizing the furious bull.

             
“Jeannie Jelly! Jeannie Jelly!” Jo got the crowd to chant. Victory, thank the Lord, was speedy. Somehow Jo reached over and grabbed Jeannie’s thick ponytail knot and—thank the Lord again—long ponytail, and keeping her distance, dragged her down and around in circles until she looked like a hunchback or some kind of wild beast, her hands reaching out above her head.

             
When Jeannie managed to grab hold of Jo’s arm, Jo’s hand squeezed tight—she didn’t know how she had the good luck—and snatched at Jeannie’s shirt. In an attempt to get away, Jo raised the shirt. The buttons flew off, and then a huge hush came over the playground, as if they’d all inhaled together.

             
Everyone stared at Jeannie’s ginormous, old-fashioned brassiere, the likes of which no one in this class had ever needed or seen up close on a person before, and never on a classmate. Jeannie Jelly, in what must have been some sort of panic, stood still, and allowed the crowd a moment of viewing before she stalked off red and white in speckled patches of her skin.
No doubt a memory this bull of a girl-woman will never forget,
Jo thought, still shell-shocked herself from the bird’s eye view of a brassiere that was almost as large as a girdle, and the sudden triumph, the startled joy from the entertainment she had by some means provided on the faces of her mates.

             
Mr. Hinckley’s brow furrowed when she told him, too, and his mouth got squishy, lines going everywhere, and she knew instantly that she said too much to him. She tried her best to have the tears boil up and, miracle of miracles, it worked, leading to yet another pleasant surprise when Marian came to retrieve her. Mr. Hinckley told Marian that there had been a dislocation but it was minor and already resolved. Marian gazed at his foggy face. She had bigger things on her mind. She thanked him with a sincerity she never before felt. Marian repeated on the way home that we shouldn’t brag about Adrian, but she wasn’t harsh. She just said to her that it was time that Jo outgrew the stage when you tell the teacher, the stranger, anybody everything, and asked her if she told the O’Rourkes yet. Johanna looked up at her mother, the way she did when she wanted something. This time she wanted forgiveness. Marian knew soon there would be talk up and down the street, if there wasn’t already.

             
Jo was helping Marian clean out the attic when the full extent of Jo’s talking became clear. She couldn’t wait to show her much-anticipated new playmate the stuffed toy chest with the gun holsters and the cowboy hats, the clown costumes, and all the circus attire that

surrounded her and her mother. She convinced Ben to buy the whole lot. “We must get some things that boys like, too. I don’t want any dolls for myself,” Jo said, “but I do think the circus games would be fun for me, Da.” All the kids wanted to meet him, wanted to come over and use the new games, and Jo kept them updated on any overheard progress to get her brother into their house.

             
So much Johanna didn’t know, but one thing she did: Things were changing. And there was a part of her that was excited that soon her parents would tell her more about her brother, but Marian worried that there was a part of her that no
longer trusted either of them.
When they came down from the attic, Johanna noticed the photograph of her was no longer in its place on the mantelpiece. She stomped into her pink bedroom, sat on her high bed, and poked the hard buttoned nose of her stuffed Toto. She wondered why her mother was not including her, wondered if she herself could have anything to do with Adrian’s fate. Marian told her, again, that was ridiculous, as she did last week when Jo asked; she was not even born yet. She didn’t want to upset her ma, so she didn’t tell her until now about the nun who visited her school and asked her some questions. At first, when Sister Agnes asked Johanna about her prayer life, she said she prayed that her parents would stop fighting over Adrian, and Sister Agnes prayed with her. But her puffy eyes stretched wide open when Johanna asked her if it were true that some people thought Catholics were damned. Jo knew that she went too far, and said she must have misunderstood her father.

Adrian Ellis was fairly good with numbers, for a boy of eleven years, as proved by his skill in maths class at Silverbridge Orphanage. Late last night he taught his friend Peter Twombly how to multiply by tens. The outside teacher, Mr. Callahan, was the kindest man he’d ever known, and beside the
large pictures of the Joyful,
Glorious and Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, he posted a bright ten times table on the wall and gave out navy blue sticky stars when the class correctly recited their tables. His friend Peter hadn’t the benefit of the outside teacher. Peter wasn’t a real orphan, but Sister Agnes called him one anyway. Although his mother visited twice each year, she couldn’t pay anything so she wasn’t like a real mother, and he had no other visits from relatives. Real orphans were treated far worse than the children who had regular, paying visitors. Sister Agnes told them that it costs to raise the spawn of whores and that orphans had nothing to add to what the State provided for their upkeep. Peter’s ma was visiting today, this June morning, and taking Adrian with them. Adrian was over the moon.

             
He couldn’t wait to get out and breathe in the smells from the Inchicore sandwich shop and try to read a book and—ah, just everything!

             
Adrian fought the weakness he felt from lack of sleep, though. He was sick to his stomach from the slop he’d eaten for supper, and ran to the toilet with the smelly flood rushing down his legs. He tried to do a job of cleaning himself, but failed miserably. Wanting a bit of comfort, he meandered into St. Peter’s Dormitory, where the babies lived, to watch Sister Adela on duty feeding them. Approaching her with mouth wide open, she pushed a spoon filled with goody into his mouth, then put a finger to her lips silently telling him to keep his pie hole shut. He reached out and hugged Sister Adela. It was the sweetest food he ever tasted, milk-soaked bread with sugar. She held him close to her. And kissed him on his head.

             
“When I grow up, I know for sure I’ll be wanting to marry you,” he said.

             
“Oh, for the love of God, when will you learn? You can’t be marrying me,” she said, wiping his cheek. Sister Adela and the orphan Rosemary, who had entered the room to help put the babies to bed, exchanged mocking glances, but he didn’t mind as he was concentrating on the tingling feeling radiating from his head, the exact spot where Sister Adela’s hand was resting.

             
“I’m already married to God,” she added softly. He felt the tingles going up his head as she spoke, and he could have lingered there for hours.

             
“You’ll just have to marry Rosemary,” she said.

             
Rosemary blushed and laughed at what must have been the thought of marrying in general.

             
“He’s a bit young for me,” she said, “but he’ll find himself a proper girl. He’s as wide as a gate.” Rosemary flashed a smile at him, and he fell under a trance of happiness.

             
“Here you go, Adrian. Clean up fast and then be off with the others,” Sister Adela said, handing him some strips of newspaper. Sister Adela was the only one who called the orphans by their names. And why were they all called orphans anyway, he wondered. Many of the children had destitute parents who placed them there to insure three square meals and an education for a nominal boarding fee, Rosemary once told him.

             
He watched a young orphan girl, one of Sister Adela’s helpers, slap a baby hard across its face to shock him out of crying. It made Adrian want to run over and punch her. Who did she think she was? She’d been little once herself, probably in this very room. The girl, he realized, was not much older than himself. She stood on a stool to reach into the infant’s cot, and was more than likely, deathly afraid of a severe punishment if the baby in her care kept wailing. The nursery girls on duty were not the ones the nuns favored. They always put the detested ones with the babies, giving them no time at all—night or day—to play. Up all night they were, most of the time, with no way to stop their workload.

             
Sister Agnes thumped in and throttled him for being out of his dorm. Adrian was almost as tall as Sister Thunder Thighs and he loved that, wanted to compare heights with her all the time. He stood back from her now; she was in a mood.

             
“Sister Adela, what is Four Seventy-Six doing here?” Sister Agnes asked.

             
He hated watching Sister Adela become nervous. Her sweetness gone, she stared down at the wood floor.

             
“You know the boys are not to be in here with you.”

             
“I’m sorry, Sister Agnes. He just needed a wipe,” Rosemary interrupted. “Come with me,” she said, and led him away. Sister’s anger went through him, though, and he felt pee running down his leg, making a tapping noise as it hit the linoleum on the way down the hall. Rosemary cleaned up the stench quickly as he hurried away to the dormitory. He lay down on his cot, listening to the blessed brown radio discuss weather on a shelf across the room. Rosemary came in and sat beside him, wiped his face with a clean, cool towel, smiled and shook her head at him, ruffled up the top of his head.

             
“Meteorologists have argued that tornadoes don’t happen in the British Isles. Thus, damage of this sort is attributed to a freak gust. Strong winds prevail out over the Atlantic and the Irish Sea, with speeds in the range of one hundred-twenty knots, and that, mixed with the rains forecast for…”