The Whipping Club (16 page)

             
“The Jews are the chosen people,” Ben had said last night.

             
“Chosen for what?” Adrian muttered, a suspicious look in his eyes.

             
“Chosen by God, Adrian,” he said.

             
“Fuck, no. Then why is it only Catholics go to Heaven?” The boy answered.

             
Too late.
Jo had overheard and giggled and took Adrian’s hand to play outside again.

             
Ben realized he would have to take it slow. “Hey kids,” he said coming into the kitchen tonight. “Roses are reddish, violets are bluish–”

             
“I know, I know, Da,” Jo said. “If it weren’t for Christmas, we’d all be Jewish,” she said and rolled her eyes.

             
“I have to eat, hungry or not, gobble up maggots if I have to!” Adrian said, grabbing Jo’s dessert.

             
Ben slapped his hand.

             
“Ben!” Marian shouted and Adrian ran to the wall, placed his palms above his head. “It’s all right,” she said, running to him, rubbing his back.

             
“Let’s go, Adrian. Anna and Rona are waiting,” Jo said, moving toward the back door and Adrian quickly followed.

             
“You’re not going out this late, young lady,” Marian said. “Now the two of you, play quietly in Jo’s room.”

             
They sulked through the kitchen, and Marian shook her head at Ben. He dragged himself upstairs, shut the door to their bedroom. It was after ten o’clock in the evening and he listened to Marian and the kids yakking down the hall. The noise subsided temporarily.

             
“I’ve not yet adjusted to the ruckus. I’m knackered,” he said to Marian as she entered. “They said I wasn’t allowed in the attic, but they’d put on a show for me soon.”

             
“I heard them acting the
Wizard of Oz
again,” Marian whispered. 

Ben grunted. “Ah, they’re not so innocent as they pretend. I was listening by the door last night. Adrian’s voice was harsh, acting the boss,” he said getting into bed. “And it wasn’t the
Wizard of Oz
they were playing.”

             
“They play family, sometimes. Sure, it’s healthy for them.”

             
“Marian, he threw Johanna across the room, I think. I went up there and yelled at him. Told him he can’t be roughhousing, that it’s dangerous.”

             
Marian said nothing.
Big surprise.
He guessed it was understandable, her denial, the burden on her to make sure all was beyond reproach and Adrian could come home for good. He got up and stood listening by the attic door and heard them playing teacher, Adrian reminding Johanna not to wet the bed. Calling her a dirty pup. Telling her to grip the bar, whatever that means, and he opened the door to see Johanna’s palms clutching the oak wallboards, her knickers on her head.

             
“Cut it out,” Ben yelled. “Both of you, in bed. And never am I to see you two playing like this again.” He picked up the tattered McCall’s paper dolls that Johanna had treasured since her babyhood. He held out his hands, displaying his ripped present to Johanna, tilting his head.

             
“I’ve told you, Adrian, we don’t play school, family, nothing up here. And we don’t hit,” he said, his voice rising. Adrian looked scared. “And we don’t rip up expensive toys.” He bent and picked up a few more scraps, and then held the door open for them, escorted them back to their rooms.

             
“He’s just a boy. We’re not used to it,” Marian said when he came back to bed.

             
“He’s too bottled up, Marian. Like a battered dog off a leash. The nuns have done a grand job making him hell on wheels.”

             
“Kids fight. Though it may be ten, not two of them, they’re like a shower of savages,” she agreed. “I’m exhausted from thinking about it.”

             
“Ah, you’re probably right,” he conceded, relieved Marian was worried, too.

             
“Jo sticks up for him, gets mad at me if I reprimand him.”

             
“She does me, too,” Ben said.

             
“I’ve told them that we will have only good thoughts and deeds in this house. But you should’ve seen Jo in her black costume, playing the melting wicked witch, Adrian laughing. Sure, they’re having good
craic.
“
Craic
, not
raic
—fun, not foul,” Gran keeps telling them. I did tell them not to play witch outside anymore. You know that Mrs. O’Rourke gives Adrian stern looks. ’Tis a wonder the guards haven’t put her on the force. She’s just cut her hair again and it’s sitting on her head like a helmet,” Marian said.

             
“Don’t let the kids hear you talking like that, for God’s sake, Marian. You and we’ll only have good thoughts in this house, too.”

             
“I hate her, Ben, sticking her nose into our business. I wish she’d find herself interested in anything other than our kids,” Marian said.

             
“Sure, seeing them come flying down the street in witch costumes doesn’t help.”

             
Marian released a happy laugh, which relaxed Ben, made him notice her unzipping her swishy skirt. An abstract black and white pattern slipped from her hips to the floor. “I’ll never forget her hand flying to her mouth when Adrian cackled at her,” she continued, smiling, bending in a scoop-neck black jersey, the shape of her porcelain legs in shadows underneath a white cotton slip.

             
“He certainly is more like you than me,” Ben answered.

             
“Never mind, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes,” she said.

             
He squinted, and she meandered over to him, sat gently on top of him, took off her top.

             
“Are you twistin’ hay now yourself?” he said, as he touched her thighs, kissed her, felt her like one feels music.

             
Ben had made himself clear to Marian two days ago, when Adrian and Johanna had confided in him that they’d stolen nuns’ habits from the basement of Sacred Heart Church. It was not just Adrian, Johanna had a wicked side, too. Marian had shouted at him that night. She never would have thought to do it; he’d shouted back. And without saying more, he knew he was not alone: Adrian’s strong boyish presence was beginning to make Marian nervous. Ben could see plainly, though she had shared it with no one, that she suspected Adrian was dragging Johanna down. Ben tried to suppress his feelings, simmering dangerously just below the surface. At times, he might even have preferred their previous life without him.

             
“Adrian won’t be the first boy with filthy knickers from a day of playing about,” Marian said between kisses.

             
“Mrs. O’Rourke would give him a good…”

             
“Never mind Mrs. O’Rourke,” Marian said, grabbing his arms, pinning him. He overtook her, and now there was only the quiet of their lovely rhythm.

             
They lay there, spent.

             
“There are some ladies who don’t take well to the motherhood routine, and go about miserable with the multiple children,” she whispered to him. “I haven’t been afforded that luxury. I was miserable before I had the two of them together. I’m delighted with all the washing and cleaning and cooking, all the mess.”

             
He thought about the innocence on the kids’ faces early this morning, and then last Saturday, how joyful they had been playing catch with him. Because of the shame involved, Marian had kept Adrian’s secret from Ben, as did Jo, but Ben knew that Adrian was a bed wetter. He’d told Adrian privately that all would be calm soon and to have no worries. But he was worried. Ben knew Jo was a good sister, too, a loyal person. That had been a great discovery. She’d never once made fun of him, never mentioned the sour smell on his pajamas. And Jo loved the physicality that playing with a sibling close in age provides. And Adrian appreciated everything: every lemonade, every sandwich, every late morning nap, every kiss. And with his every mouthful of cornflakes and milk and sprinkled sugar, day-old bread and dripping, Marian said she felt as though she were nourishing her own body as she watched the two of them share a meal. It was important for Ben that Marian stay happy.
The four of us will eventually get on.
Each day of their missing years was a lot to ask of one summer. Two steps forward, one step backward, but it irked Ben that it seemed the other way around. He would have to stop Adrian from any more antics.

             
“They’ll be putting on some show Friday night. A circus act,” Marian whispered. “They’ve ruined my favorite lipsticks and tried to take your good suits.”

             
“Keep them away from the suits. I have to go up north Friday. And no more freak shows, please. Try to steer them clear of that attic. Keep them with the ball and the kids outside.”

             
“Into the bloody mess you’re going? That’s grand, Ben,” she said, switching on her bedside light.

             
He looked at her soft, blonde curls in a hodgepodge.

             
“Where will you be?”

             
“I’ll be staying at the Crown.”

             
“Only the most bombed hotel in the world, Ben.”

             
“Just two nights.” 

             
“Never mind,” she said, switching off her light.

             
“I’m off probation, Marian. It’s actually a promotion that Mr. Darby picked me to cover the story. I’m interviewing some Unionists who don’t support Terence O’Neill as Prime Minister.”

             
“Never mind,” she muttered, turning on her side. Ben listened to Jo and Adrian’s naughty voices rising again well past their bedtime. “They should marry Jews,” Marian said. “Nobody wants to popify them, except Christ, of course, but who listens to God? We’re all too busy shouting at each other,” she said, switching on her light again and leaving the room to tuck the pair of mischief-makers in bed again.

Adrian felt the warmth of his Ma’s shin cradled with his own, the cool sheets warming up with their ritual morning hug, the aloe vera plant she’d purchased to soothe his sunburn from yesterday’s outing to Dollymount beach sticky on his shoulders.

             
“I’ve never seen the sea before this summer, except in pictures.”

             
“Isn’t it grand?”

             
“It is.”

             
“We’ll go to Sandymount Strand, if you like.”

             
“Can I bring Peter here someday?” he asked. His mother looked at him, put her fingers through the short growth of fair hair on his head, but responded only with a goofy-looking smile.
God is a dreamer,
Rosemary had told him once.
Never mind what Sister Agnes tells you, that daydreamers don’t amount to anything.
“Don’t rest your eyes beyond what is your own,” was Thunder Thigh’s favorite saying. Adrian loved his mother no matter what Sister had warned against daydreamers and laziness, even if she were a bit simple and sleepy sometimes, an ethereal look in her eyes. Sister Agnes would have slapped that stupid look off her face, but he didn’t mind. He loved her, as children do their mothers, and forgave everything about her dreaminess that others might have found nonsensical.

             
“Peter and I, we’re thinking about becoming firefighters when we’re grown up,” he said, touching a clay pot on her night table signed
I Love You
, Jo in scribble with Rickie Tickie flowers stuck all over it.

             
“You are, are you?”

             
“I love the idea, Ma. Jo does as well.” Marian smiled at him, really listening to his words.

             
He glanced at the perfume bottles on her dresser, the lace underneath the glass bottles. The room was a warm red color. Large pale green leaves and pink peonies on the long curtains. Colors were everywhere. Wide pink and green stripes on her coverlet. And the thick beige rug under her bed he liked to feel between his toes.

             
“Once we get you home, you might go on to university. You’re still young, and we have lots of time to talk about your future. You might change your mind, love.”

             
He worried that the summer was going by too fast. Ma could soon become the visitor, bringing him sandwiches and licorice sticks, an extra shilling or two for his pocket, toiletries, a transistor radio, all she could stuff into a tote bag. He took a deep breath, calmed himself. Weren’t all mothers relegated to the position of visitor soon enough, he thought. Sons either in a foreign land, or absorbed in their work, like Da, or in their wives’ homes, growing close with somebody else. This was not the life she dreamed for him, a life apart from her, he felt this. And his silly talk of becoming a firefighter! But what kind of child ever follows the dreams of their parents, he wondered. Certainly such a child would not have been taught to think on his own, like his ma always said. Certainly she would listen to his dreams.