The Whipping Club (17 page)

             
“There are worse fates, I suppose.” She sighed, lingering beside him on her bed. “And true callings. Not many locate their true calling; it could be a lot worse,” she said, reaching over to tickle him, “than becoming Fireman Ellis. You’ll have to be the highest rank, though.” He had a strange sensation suddenly of being unmoored, a strange racing of the heart which he’d experienced only once before at Silverbridge, with this unsettling thought of putting out fires. The fear of danger to his body, of his dying, attacked him. “I’d better stay right here with you,” he said, the thought of another separation from her impossible to bear.

             
“Why did you give me up then, Ma?” he suddenly asked, startling her. She had hoped he would never verbalize that painful question. A sad smile played on her face, the dimple he loved emerged briefly and then disappeared.

             
“You know that I love you, Adrian,” she said soft as the Shirelles melody floating from the radio.

             
“Yeah,” he said. He could feel her love; this was true, even in their short time together. And he could see how her face changed when he asked his question, which confirmed to him that something bad had happened to her. And although Nurse had been as useless as tits on a bull most of the time, she hadn’t lied all those years ago when she’d comforted him, told him that he had a Ma who loved him. “Never mind, it’s okay. You don’t have to answer,” he said.

             
“No, it’s not okay, my love,” Ma said. “We’re going to get you home for good. Don’t worry,” she said.

             
Adrian sniffed her Camay soap smell as he nestled closer and let his head fall into her soft, billowy pillow, a grainy lavender sachet inside the pillowcase exhaled its perfume as if taking its last breath.

             
“I’m afraid of the dark,” he said. She’d left his light on last night, and he hoped it would help him overcome his fear and not wet his bed. She’d been worse at his age, would scream bloody murder if the closet door was left ajar, seeing visions of arms and legs, like skeletons, growing out of her hanging smocks. She told him this as she kissed him goodnight, to comfort him. “I used to wedge my little black shoe under my bedroom door so that it couldn’t shut, and I could see down the hall. But then the shadows would scare me, and I’d cry out anyway, or go running into my parent’s room” Ma said. “‘We pay for the good day with the good night,’ your Granda used to say, tucking me back in, laughing at me, really.”

             
Adrian chuckled the way kids do out of politeness. He didn’t understand what his ma meant with that one, and she must have read his confusion. “Your Granda had some quirky ideas, sure, though you would have loved him, and he would have loved you.”

             
He glanced at the bottle of Old Spice, out of place on her dresser, and he wanted to lather some on himself and see how nice it felt to be a worthy man, like his da. “How long will Da be on a business trip?” he asked casually then, even though there really wasn’t a genuine concern in his asking.

             
Johanna turned the doorknob slowly and entered the room in her flannel nightgown, tiny rosebuds and sea green stripes down the front, and climbed onto the bed, ready to join the conversation.

             
“Da’ll be back tonight,” Ma answered him, and left for the toilet.

             
Blast it,
he muttered, thinking what a dolt he was for bringing up Da, which changed the whole blissful mood in the room.

             
“What are you two going on about? Did you sleep in here last night?” Johanna asked him.

             
“I’ve only just come in,” he said, but she didn’t believe him. She rubbed her crusty eyelashes. She could tell from the feel in the room that they’d been talking intimately for some time about something that didn’t concern her. She’d stood outside the door yesterday morning and listened to their lollygagging about, their private conversation about nothing and had complained to him later that Ma slept too much. Adrian wished only that these early morning moments would last forever. He’d said that sleeping was not a sin, like he’d been told in Silverbridge that it was. Johanna looked jealous. Left out again, her timing was off. Ma became busy once she entered the room.

             
“What shall we do today, Ma?” Jo shouted toward the shut bathroom door.

             
“Why don’t you show Adrian the balloon shop this afternoon? I’ll grill the black pudding for you now,” she said, coming out dressed in her light blue smock dress, perfect for indoor rainy days and muddy gardens, she always said. “Would you like that?” Ma said, looking always at Adrian. Johanna noticed and breathed loudly out of her nose.

             
“Go on, both of you, get dressed now and come down for your breakfast,” Marian said, and they left. Adrian gazed back at his ma and watched her pick up Jo’s clay pot to place it in the closet.

             
In the spare room in the attic, they played baby, one of their favorites, until they were summoned downstairs. “I don’t want to play the baby this time,” Johanna said, rummaging for the nappies they used for this game. “You put these on this time.”

             
“No,” Adrian said, trying on the white sheet with the head cut out that they’d painted black and grabbing a thin branch of whittled wood, his make-believe pointer. “No talking, baby bollocks.”

             
Johanna laughed crazily at this. “All right, then,” she said.

             
“Get into the playground, baby. Say goodbye to Nurse.”

             
“I can’t talk, you dolt,” she whispered.

             
“Yes, you can, or we can’t play.”

             
He waited for her to pretend she was on the splintered roundabout, surrounded on all sides by high walls cutting off the sky.

             
“I don’t want to go to the Silverbridge,” she said like clockwork.

             
“You wait here with these nice boys and girls.”

             
“I don’t want to. I don’t like it here, Nurse. I want to stay with you,” she cried. Johanna stood there, looking very weak, as hungry eyes watched her. He had described for her the gray school building, which had the biggest windows she’d ever see, too far up for her to look into the rooms inside.

             
“This is how Sister Agnes walks. I’m as tall as she is, old Thunder Thighs.” He walked like a rodeo man, inducing Johanna to cover her mouth to keep from breaking into hysterics.

             
“Be the good girl and settle down.”

             
“I don’t want to go to the Silverbridge!” she shouted.

Adrian grabbed her from behind. She tried to break free, but he held her shirtdress tight and pulled her up off her feet. She wiggled hard, and he felt her getting away. He pulled her up by her hair again, and she was stunned by a smack he planted against her head. She looked dizzily around at him, but he continued to pull her around the room.

             
“Another one for Dormo One,” he said, taking off his sheet and rummaging through their costume box for an old blue skirt. “Bow to your teacher,” he said, concentrating on pinning the skirt around him. “I watch you and the rest of the four- to eight-year-old girls. You’ll do as you’re told.” He took a sack to the far side of the room and flung it down.

             
“You’ve had your tea by now,” he whispered to Jo. “It’s time for bed. Put these on.” He pulled pajamas from the costume box. Johanna had recovered and was back in character, standing by a pretend bed in an outgrown nightie.

             
“You’re number Four Seventy-Six. Four Seventy-Six, don’t forget it. All your clothes will have this number, and when you’re called, you’ll stand at attention.”

             
Johanna played her part okay, though she no longer pretended to be scared of him, and he felt silly walking around in a long skirt. She had been curious about the orphanage, but he worried that he was taking this game too far and if he hit her again she was going to quit.

             
“She looks like she’s had a good scrub before she came,” he said to the air. “No nits. Get into your bed. I’ll go get the other girls from their tea."

             
“I want my ma to come for me now,” she said. “I want to go to the circus,” she giggled.

             
“Are you stupid or something? Why do you think you’re here? Your ma doesn’t want you. She’s not coming.”

             
“Yes, Nurse said she’d come for me.”

             
“Nurse lied. Now what’s your number?”

             
Jo tried to play along and let out a laugh.

             
Adrian slapped her. “What did you say, you dirty pup?”

             
“Nothing.”

             
A harder slap against her legs with the pointer. “Tell me, girl, before I give you a beating you’ll never forget, you stupid pup. What did you say?”

             
“I said Nurse lied?”

             
“Kneel by your cot.”

             
Johanna looked like she might laugh or cry now, he didn’t know which.

             
“Here’s your wash bag with your number on it. It hangs from

here.” He hung the prop from a hook in the wall.

             
“My ma’s coming for me, you dolt,” she laughed.

             
Teacher Adrian slapped her.

             
“She didn’t say she’s not coming,” she said under her breath.

             
Adrian slapped her again. “What did you say, you little shite?”

             
“Nothing.”

             
Adrian turned on the pretend big brown radio on a shelf across the room and began imitating a man speaking almost in a whisper.

             
“Now, what’s your number?”

             
Johanna startled as he changed his voice again to that of a bad-tempered teacher, and she burst out in tears.

             
“None of your beeswax,” she shouted. “I want to talk about Peter now.”

             
“We’re not through. Who are you?”

             
“A smart girl who wants to talk about Peter rather than play this stupid game.”

             
“Face the wall, you stupid pup. You sleep facing the wall. Everybody up and face the wall.”

             
“Yes, Sister,” she mocked.

             
He pulled her hair until his face came within an inch of hers. “I’m a lay person. You call me teacher, do you understand?”

             
“Stop, I said!” Jo screamed, and kicked him in his groin.

She grabbed the pointer, and slapped him hard on his behind. “You, stupid pup, you!” she said and started laughing.

             
He turned red and he rubbed his bottom from the sting of her

attack. “You’re just a dumb, rich girl. You’re the stupid one,” he said.

             
“I’m not the one Ma and Da gave away,” she countered, an adult’s footsteps coming quick. Adrian sat down in the corner as the attic door opened.

             
“What is going on in here?” Ma said.

             
“We’re talking,” Johanna said.

             
“Give me that stick. That’s dangerous,” Ma said, grabbing the prop out of Jo’s hand, noticing blue-red blotches on her legs and Adrian rubbing his bottom.

             
“No roughhousing in this house. We’ve told you. Don’t you ever hit each other again,” she warned, pointing the stick at them.

             
Whenever he heard angry talk from a grown-up, the world began to move in slow motion for Adrian. He concentrated on each syllable and let the words float
away somewhere above his head.

“We were just playing, Ma,” he said, feeling guilty.

             
“Be careful up here when you play. Both of you. And keep the noise down.”

             
He looked at his mother, and Jo motioned with her head for him to come with her downstairs. They sat on her bed stock-still.

             
“I’m sorry, Adrian. I didn’t mean what I said. I really didn’t.”

             
“I know,” he said. “Neither did I.”

             
“Let’s make a pact or something,” Jo said. “A secret signal so we’ll know when one of us wants to stop the game, when one of us truly wants to stop. We’ll put our fists together when we’re dead serious about anything.”