Ruby McBride

by Freda Lightfoot

  Religious studies took up an increasingly large portion of Ruby’s life, as if Sister Joseph had decided that she was more in need of it than the other girls: chanting prayers, singing hymns, listening to readings, or endlessly reciting dozens of Hail Marys as penance for her failings. There were lessons on the meaning and interpretation of the catechism, and she would be regularly examined and interrogated on every aspect of the scriptures to prove that she fully comprehended their spiritual message. And woe betide her if she got any of it wrong! Punishment would follow, swift and sure. This strict regime demanded unquestioning obedience, a state of mind Ruby struggled hard to achieve.

  Morning showers at Ignatius House were always cold and, because of the large number of girls, necessarily short. Each was allowed four minutes and Sister Joseph would time them to the second on a fob watch which dangled, together with a large bunch of keys, from her belt. If a girl overran her allotted time, she would march over and turn off the tap. Ruby considered herself fortunate if she was allowed three minutes and generally managed to wash herself in half of that time, just to make sure she was gone before the nun reached her. Otherwise, she might very well find the soft skin of her backside rapped by the bundle of watch and keys for being dilatory and slow, and poor Ruby would feel the stinging blows for hours afterwards. But then, the slightest misdemeanour seemed to bring down the wrath of Sister Joseph upon her head.

  Even for something as relatively minor as not being able to find her handkerchief when it was time to hand it in for a clean one. She would be given a thorough scolding in front of everyone and made to manage without a clean one for a whole week. And always she had to keep smiling or Billy started to worry.

  ‘Are you sick, our Ruby?’ he would ask if her spirits faltered.

  ‘No, Billy. Just tired.’

  ‘You won’t be going to the sanitary, will you?’

  ‘No, Billy. I shan’t be going to the sanatorium. I’d never leave you.’

  ‘Mam said she’d never let me out of her sight, but she did, didn’t she?’

  Ruby’s throat tightened on a shaft of pain. ‘Mam couldn’t help it. I can. I’m not going to be ill, so stop worrying.’

  She could tolerate anything in order to see Billy every day, and keep a careful eye on him and Pearl. So long as they could all stay together, Ruby felt certain she could cope.

  But the worst part about living at Ignatius House was not the amount of work they had to do, the stark routine, or even the severity of the punishments. It was the lack of love and absence of emotion of any kind. The children were adequately, if plainly, fed on three meals a day. They were certainly kept clean and healthy with much outward scrubbing from the seemingly endless ablutions in the bowl-room, and the inner purging with castor oil of what the nuns called ‘impurities’.

  They could benefit from the fresh country air that Mam had set such store by since they were taken on regular Sunday walks as well as being given work to do each day in the gardens. There were lessons in reading, writing and reckoning, a library of books at their disposal, games and toys to amuse them, and a play room for the babies.

  But nothing was provided beyond these practical considerations. Rarely was there even a kind word of approval, let alone a warm, loving hug.

  It was true that not all the nuns were as stern and sour-faced as Sister Joseph, or as ineffectual as the more reasonable Sister George, but Ruby thought that even the gentlest and kindest could not compensate in any way for the loss of a mother’s love.

  On the rare occasions when Sister Joseph did appear to soften slightly towards Pearl, who was her favourite, Ruby’s trust in the nun was so low that she never felt comfortable about it and would watch her like a hawk.

  What the McBride children missed most, and grieved for day after day, was their mother. Gone were the nightly story times, the teasing and tickling, the fun and laughter, the kisses and cuddles. Some of the children had visitors from home, whom they entertained in the parlour on a Sunday afternoon. But there were never any for Ruby, Pearl and Billy.

  Then one day they got a letter. They knew Mam hadn’t written it because she couldn’t even read, but one of the nurses in the sanatorium had found the time to send them a short note, telling the children how much Molly loved and missed them, how she thought of them every day and how she would do her utmost to get better and come to collect them.

  ‘Read us Mam’s letter again, Ruby,’ Pearl would say, clutching her doll tight to her chest.

  Billy’s eyes would shine. ‘She’ll be coming for us soon, won’t she?’

  Ruby too treasured the letter. She kept it safe under her pillow and read it so many times that it was soon falling apart at the folds. Whenever the three children met up at recreation time, they would talk about their mother, huddle together in a corner and watch with keen attention while Ruby wrote down their carefully chosen words in her best handwriting. They liked to tell Mam what they were up to, what they’d had to eat for dinner, which book Pearl was reading and how many marks clever Ruby had got for her composition. Most of all, they needed to give her their love. When they were quite satisfied, they would each of them sign the letter, Pearl and Ruby with their cursive, carefully learned script while Billy, tongue stuck out in fierce concentration, might manage a large B and several sticks, so long as Ruby was guiding his hand.

  Then Ruby would hand the letter over to Sister Joseph for posting, as instructed. They did this every week with hope in their hearts, and never received a single reply to any of them.

  As the months of waiting turned into years, a sort of acceptance crept over them. Ruby decided that her mother didn’t want to worry them over the length of time it was taking for her to get better, and that was the reason there were no letters. She acquired the art of avoiding Sister Joseph, even managing to curb her natural urge to break the rules and stand up for herself.

  Ruby’s body too began to change. She became aware of budding breasts, of hair growing where it never had before, of strange emotions pulsing through her. Yet not once was she able to view her own nakedness. The girls were instructed to undress each night with all due modesty. Not a scrap of flesh must be glimpsed as layers of clothing were removed, most of it wriggled out of under cover of a voluminous night-dress. Having grown used to sleeping fully clothed in the cellar, at first Pearl and Ruby had left most of their undergarments in place, in order to keep warm in the large, draughty dormitory. But when Sister Joseph had found no neatly folded pile in place on their chair, they’d been taken to task for disobedience and unseemly behaviour.

  Since then they’d grown used to the nightly ritual but the odd glimpse of herself, which was all Ruby was privy too, left her with the strange misapprehension of being ugly; of lumps and bumps, aches and pains, which didn’t seem quite normal. Did all girls feel this same disillusionment in themselves? Did they too get belly ache, and have this mysterious bleeding which never seemed to be stemmed by the pads of rough cotton Sister George gave her? When it had first happened, she’d felt certain that she was bleeding to death, but Sister had assured her she would live. After a brief initial instruction on how to wash the cloths, no explanation or further mention had been made. The subject was never referred to again. If only someone would speak of it, then she wouldn’t worry so much.

  Pearl and Billy too were different. Billy had certainly grown taller under the nuns’ care. His eczema had cleared up and his hair grown back strong and healthy. But ever since the bullying episode he hadn’t been the same, lively little boy he’d once been. He’d become oddly quiet, almost withdrawn, rarely seeming to pay any attention to the activities going on around him. And there were still occasions when there were mysterious marks on his legs and arms. She would ask him if everything was all right, if he felt sick perhaps, or if the big boys had started on him again. But he would simply shrug his shoulders, or lay his head on his arms and say nothing. He hated to be questioned about anything, and Ruby worried about this a great deal. In her heart, she s
uspected the bullying continued, though felt at a loss to know how to stop it since she couldn’t prove anything.

  Once, she’d asked him what had happened to his little wooden boat, the one Mam had made for him, and he’d swung round in a fury and shouted at her.

  ‘Wooden boats are for babies, our Ruby, and I’m a big boy now!’

  She was stunned by this outburst, so unlike the cheerful little boy he’d once been.

  ‘’Course you are, and getting bigger every day. By heck, you’ll be growing out of them boots in no time.’

  Ruby suspected one of the bullies had deliberately broken the toy, and Billy was pretending not to care. The thought made her feel sick.

  As for Pearl, she made constant demands upon the nuns who were her teachers, begging for their help and sympathy whenever she didn’t understand something, but would then forget what they’d said or refuse to do the work. She could be vexing and manipulative, selfish and utterly brutal. She became ever more clinging and dependent, rarely leaving Ruby’s side. If Ruby were to speak to, or play a game with, any girl other than her sister, Pearl would exhibit every sign of jealousy even to giving the unfortunate interloper peevish little nips to make her go away. Yet the same rules didn’t apply to her own friends, whom she picked up and abandoned with regular and heartless callousness. One minute she would be all over them, being silly and giddy, the next she would toss them aside and refuse even to speak to them.

  Ruby wisely guessed that perhaps her sister wanted to make sure she was the one to end the friendship before they grew bored and abandoned her. That way, she might not be hurt quite so much. Sometimes Ruby would be driven to say something. ‘Try not to be unkind to your friends, Pearl. You should treat them as well as you’d like them to treat you. I know it hurts, losing Mam, but it’s not right to take out your pain on others.’

  But these sessions always ended in the same way, with her younger sister in tears asking if it was because of her being naughty that Mam had gone away. Ruby assured her that it wasn’t.

  Losing Mam had, without doubt, affected them all very badly.

  There were days when Ruby could scarcely concentrate on her work, she missed her mother that much. The pain of it at times was almost unbearable. She missed her smile, her laugh, her silly way of making a joke about everything and not taking life too seriously, even her own state of health. She missed the warmth and smell of her, even the little sips of stout she’d let them taste, and her rollicking laughter when Ruby had pulled a face.

  The responsibility she felt for her younger siblings became a heavy burden. Perhaps that was why she would readily make promises which were impossible to keep.

  ‘Mam will get better soon and come and fetch us, won’t she?’ Billy would beg.

  ‘’Course she will.’

  Pearl would be equally certain that the latest letter they’d written would be the one to bring the much longed for reply. `Won’t it, our Ruby?’

  ‘She’ll write and tell us that she’s fine and dandy, then she’ll waltz in that door with a great grin on her face, like always,’ Ruby would agree, and they went on writing and hoping.

  Ruby was carrying just such a letter in her pocket one morning on her way to breakfast with Pearl when they happened to pass Sister Joseph’s office. ‘I’ll put it on her desk now, rather than after breakfast,’ Ruby said, ‘so there’s no risk of my being late for lessons.’

  ‘Ooh, don’t go into her office, our Ruby. Not without permission. What would I do if anything happened to you?’

  Ruby laughed. ‘Pearl, you’re a treasure, you are really. Never one to think of others before yourself, are you, love?’

  After a quick glance over her shoulder to check that the corridor was empty, Ruby sped into the office, her eyes seeking the wire basket in which the girls’ letters were stacked.

  ‘Ooh, do be quick!’ Pearl whispered from the door, dancing from one foot to the other in her agitation. ‘What’ll I do if she comes?’

  Quite by chance, just as she turned to leave, Ruby happened to glance down into the waste paper basket which clearly hadn’t been emptied for some days. There was something about the writing on one of the envelopes which made her bend and pick it out. Ruby stared at it transfixed, her brain unable to take in the implications. Yet it was all too clear. The answer came to her with a slow, dawning horror that chilled her to the bone. The writing was her own. The envelope still contained the letter she’d written the previous week, at her brother and sister’s dictation, though instead of being posted, it had been torn up and thrown in the waste paper basket. Did this mean that none of their letters had ever been posted? That they had ended up in this way.

  ‘Ruby!’

  Pearl’s frantic cry from the door brought her out of her numbed state and Ruby slid the torn pieces into the pocket of her pinafore and quickly followed her sister into breakfast.

  Despite being hungry, Ruby found it quite impossible to eat the porridge. She could feel the ruined letter in her pocket, like a lead weight. When she heard the click-clack of Sister Joseph’s boots, and the swish of her long skirts, she felt herself stiffen and wished she could be a thousand miles away from this heartless, unfeeling place.

  ‘Not on another hunger strike are we 451 ?’

  ‘No, Sister.’

  ‘Is the porridge not to your liking perhaps?’

  Ruby could sense the atmosphere in the dining hall gradually still and quieten, as if a storm were about to break. ‘I’m too upset to eat, that’s all.’

  ‘Dear me, and who has upset your tender feelings this time?’

  ‘You have!’ A gasp rippled around the dining hall. Ruby ignored it. She looked up into Sister Joseph’s face, as hard and unyielding as granite, and quietly taking the torn envelope from her pinafore pocket, laid it on the table top for all to see. ‘To accept letters, week after week, month after month, pretending that you’re posting them and then throwing them away in the waste paper basket is the wickedest, most cruel thing any person could do, let alone a nun. How many more did you tear up?’

  ‘All of them,’ Sister Joseph told her, without any sign of emotion. ‘Telling your brother and sister that your mother is going to answer those silly letters was nothing less than a lie, a sin against God. Why you insisted on continuing to write them is beyond me, since it was always perfectly obvious that she wasn’t ever going to answer.’

  ‘You didn’t know that!’ Only the rage Ruby felt at the injustice of the nun’s harsh words held her tears in check.

  Sister Joseph snorted. ‘Of course I knew it. A woman of her ilk can’t even read and write. She abandoned you, and no doubt by now is dead.’

  It was as if she had been smacked in the face. Ruby went numb. The world itself seemed to stop turning. Even the familiar sounds in the dining hall of countless plates being stacked, knives and forks collected up, died away as though this familiar routine took place in some far-distant place.

  ‘Dead?’ How she managed to get the word out, Ruby would never afterwards know. She blinked, cleared her throat, tried again. ‘I d-don’t understand. What are you saying?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, stop making such a fuss 451. Everyone knows that your mother will be dead by now, and no amount of writing silly letters to her week after week, or telling fairy stories to your little brother and sister will alter that fact. I ripped them to pieces to save us all a deal of trouble, putting them in the waste paper basket where such rubbish belongs.’

  It was in that moment, burning with a hatred which left her speechless, that Ruby made her decision. She wasn’t stopping in this dreadful place another day, another minute. They would run away. She would take her family and go. No matter what it cost them in pain and anguish, somehow they would find Mam and prove Sister Joseph wrong.

  Chapter Five

  Ruby wasted no time in putting her plan into action. They made their escape the very next Sunday as they walked in crocodile formation back from church. She’d given Pearl and Billy
careful instructions, ordering them not to do anything which might jeopardise their chances of success. The whole thing worked like a dream. Sister George collected up their prayer books and as Sister Joseph was impatiently ushering her charges out of the church yard along the road, the three McBrides slipped quietly out of line and managed to duck under the hedge without anyone noticing, just as the crocodile of children turned the corner. None of them moved a muscle after that, scarcely daring even to breathe as they waited for the last of the stragglers to vanish from sight. Once the road was empty, they grinned triumphantly at each other.

  If Ruby had known it could be this easy, she’d have done it years ago. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s find the sanatorium.’

  This proved to be more of a problem than they anticipated. They made their way back into Salford unerringly, as if it hadn’t been nearly three years since they’d left it. None of them spoke throughout the entire journey, not wishing to remember the joy of that day when the Queen herself had come to open the Manchester Ship Canal, and Mam had looked pretty as a picture in her wide-brimmed straw hat with the artificial flowers on top, nor their last sight of her walking away sobbing from Ignatius House.

  But once back in the maelstrom of the city, they became disorientated and confused. Which way to the sanatorium? They hadn’t the first idea, then Ruby remembered their much loved neighbour. ‘Auntie Nellie! We could go and ask Auntie Nellie. She’ll tell us the way, and she’ll probably be able to tell us how Mam is.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Pearl said, and set off at a run, Billy galloping along excitedly beside her. In no time Ruby was running too, skipping and jumping with them, the three of them laughing as if this were nothing more than a jolly picnic. Ruby could almost hear Mam saying, ‘I’ll not lose me sparkle.’

  Nellie Bradshaw stared at them in wonder, almost as if they’d dropped on her doorstep straight from heaven. ‘By heck, how did you three land up here? On the back of a dust cart?’