Marilyn’s Child. Lynne Pemberton

with a glob of phlegm had flown out of my mouth to land on the hem of Mother Thomas’s habit. I don’t think she ever forgave me for that, and even now, after all this time, I can’t bring myself to think about the look on her face as she’d carefully spooned my vomit from her habit on to my plate. She did it slowly and methodically, and as I watched the realization of what she intended to do had dawned, and I remember wishing with all my heart that I’d eaten the liver when it had first been served.

      Now I can feel her breath, hot and moist; it smells rank like bad meat. I want to spit in her face, and think of the pleasure it would give me. I watch her tongue dart out to lick her thin and curly lips, the top one puckered like ragged scar tissue. It’s a face better suited to a witch than an angel of the Lord. She’s from the north; Belfast, I think Bridget said. ‘That’s why she’s cruel, been taught by the English.’ Her accent, unlike mine, sounds almost English, her voice high-pitched and squeaky like a child.

      ‘A Catholic priest is not an object of desire. I won’t have you talking about the good father in that way. Blasphemous it is, you know so, Kate O’Sullivan. If you dare utter one more word about Father Declan Steele, I’ll see to it that you –’

      I interrupt. ‘You’ll see to what, Sister Thomas? See me burn in hell? See me get my comeuppance?’ I can see her anger rising and feel a familiar panic. I’ve got what I call jelly belly and I take a deep breath.

      ‘What did you call me?’

      ‘Sister Thom—’

      I glimpse the cane, like a rigid snake sliding down her sleeve. Now the jelly belly has gone to my legs and I’ve got to summon up every ounce of strength to say, ‘I called you Sister.’

      ‘It’s Mother to you, Mother, Mother, Mother! Say it, you evil girl. Say it, or I’ll see to it that you –’ The banshee shrieks have a familiar ring and I know she’s lost it, her mind that is, and as of now anything can happen. With all my strength I fight my fear. At the very worst she’s going to cane me, and I can survive that.

      In a calm voice I say, ‘I suppose you’re going to do what you always do, give me a good beating, and not just a thump round the head, a really good hiding. How can anyone be taught a lesson unless they’re black and blue and bleeding like our Lord on the cross with nails in his hands, suffering so that we might suffer? When I was a little girl I really believed grown-ups when they told me I had to suffer for my sins. I don’t believe that any more, and I’m not afraid.’

      I can’t believe I’ve just spoken to Mother Thomas like that and I’m not surprised when I feel her hand swipe the side of my face. It stings. I want to lash back but daren’t.

      ‘Hell is where you belong, Kate O’Sullivan. You’re a lying, evil child. Like I always said, the devil’s own, that’s what you are and that’s where you’ll end your days. With him, the devil in hell and damnation.’ With her cane she points at the other girls, screaming, ‘Get out of here, all of you, I need to teach this evil pup a lesson.’

      The girls scatter. Before she leaves I catch a glimpse of Bridget. Her face reveals what I know she feels: concern and hatred. Now I have the nausea deep in my stomach, and it takes all my will power to keep from crying out. I take a long step back, away from the nun. My head hits the wall and for a moment the urge to throttle her overwhelms me. What joy to stanch the stream of abuse spilling out of her ugly mouth. Or, better still, I long to stick a knife in her fat belly, twisting it round again and again while she begs for mercy. For a few seconds I revel in the pleasure killing her would give me, then in a voice that doesn’t sound remotely like my own I hiss, ‘Don’t touch me. I’m warning you, don’t come near me.’

      With her right hand she grabs me by the throat, cutting off my air supply. I try to resist but she’s too strong and a moment later I hit the bed face-down. With vice-like strength she pins me to the bed. I can feel her nails digging into my spine. Suddenly my head feels hot, my temples and forehead are burning, and I have this terrible image of the first time she did this to me, when I was six. As she drags my dress up and pulls my knickers down, I’m talking into the horse-hair mattress, repeating mantra-like: ‘I hate you, Mother Thomas, with all my heart, I hate you, hate you, hate you.’

      The anticipation, those few suspended moments before cane meets flesh, is always the worst. I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking of how soon I’ll be leaving this place, of my own bedroom with sun streaming through big windows, and a pink rosebud bedspread. The monster nun from hell takes a deep breath before bringing the cane down. My entire body freezes in spasm and I bite my tongue. It hurts like hell and I want to scream but don’t. I won’t give her that satisfaction. In fact, it’s a long time since I’ve cried. I can hear her panting, and know she’s lifting the cane for the next blow. ‘You’ll burn in hell, Kate O’Sullivan, that’s where you’re going. The devil’s own, that’s what you are.’

      Suddenly there’s a strange noise inside my head, like a light switch clicking on then off, and before she can hit me again I roll over and scramble to the other side of the bed.

      My knickers are hanging around my ankles, my backside feels like it’s been torched, but the shaking has stopped and I no longer feel physically sick. We face each other on opposing sides of the bed. My eyes are harnessed to hers, and I detect to my glee a little uncertainty in those glassy beads. ‘Mother Thomas has eyes just like a raven,’ Bridget always says, and until now I’d agreed, but today they, like her, have diminished to those of a common sparrow. In the same strange detached voice I say, ‘You’ll never hit me again because if you do I’ve got orders from the devil to kill you. And if it’s hell I’m going to, you won’t be far behind.’ She’s staring directly into my eyes; hers don’t waver or blink, but she says nothing as I go on: ‘When I’m rich and famous, and I will be, you’ll be sorry, very sorry – that is, if you’re still alive.’

      I know, as soon as I enter and kneel, that it isn’t Father O’Neill in the confessional box. Whiskey breath and sweaty feet do not smell of freshly squeezed lemons mixed with a trace of lavender. The smell is different from any I’ve ever encountered. I inhale, exhale, then say, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s two weeks since my last confession.’

      I know it’s him. Holding my breath, I wait for confirmation.

      ‘Tell me about it, my child.’ Father Steele’s melodic voice washes over me. I close my eyes and imagine bathing in spring water on a warm summer day. It isn’t something I do regularly, but I had, a couple of times last summer, been allowed to go on a picnic with a girlfriend from school. We’d gone in her father’s car to Kinsale, where we’d eaten tons of egg sandwiches and drunk gallons of lemonade. Then afterwards we’d swum in the river. It had felt like Father Steele’s voice: warm and soothing.

      I sigh. ‘I’ve had a terrible row with Mother Thomas. I said some awful things to her. She beat me, not for the first time, and I’ve been punished by Mother Virgilus.’

      I look down: my hands are red and sore, the skin peeling. Work-worn hands, like those I’d seen a thousand times in the village, attached to pink arms scrubbing front steps or polishing brass door-knockers. Ashamed, I try to cover them up. The sight of them makes me angry, and sad that I should have such hands at fifteen. My hands were intended to paint, not scrub floors and polish brass, or be submerged elbow-deep in boggy water in the laundry where I’d been since my tussle with Mother Thomas.

      ‘Sure, I said things I shouldn’t have, but she made me say them. She made me very angry, Father.’

      ‘Are you sorry, my child?’

      I know the simple way to get off the hook is to say, Yes, Father, I’m very sorry; I won’t do it again. But today, with only a panel of wood and a foot-square grille separating me from the man of my dreams, I’ve no desire to get off lightly. And instead of feeling penitent, I’m busily inventing more sins to confess. The rate they’re popping into my head I reckon I could be in the confessional box all day.

      ‘Mother Thomas is mean and cruel, and if God were all he claims to be, he wouldn’t let her live. I told her to go to hell, and that I wished her dead. In truth,