Rock Me Gently Read Online Free PDF Page A

believe you, thousands wouldn’t.’ She leaned across the table and made sniffing noises in my direction. ‘Cor! Get a whiff of her!’
    Ruth had a flat, dimpled face and almost comically round dark eyes. A scattering of freckles dusted her nose. ‘Tell us, do you know what Jeyes’ Fluid is?’
    I answered, ‘No.’
    Ruth turned to the other girls and said, ‘Oh, I say, she must come from a dead mucky home.’
    All the girls stopped eating and looked at me, laughing. I blushed under their eyes. I tried to laugh with them. But I could not because my lips were all shivery. Should I have said yes to the question?
    Frances sighed wearily. ‘Don’t get at her, Ruth. It’s not her fault if she doesn’t know about the work routine yet.’
    ‘The sooner she gets used to it the better, then.’ Ruth took a swig of the bitter black tea from her tin mug and, puckering her bronzed tea-bathed lips, said, ‘Yuk! This stuff is strong enough for a mouse to trot on.’
    ‘The milk must be cheesy again,’ said Janet.
    I tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t upset Ruth.
    Everything in my head was jumbled and arguing. I wondered if it was worth telling them that the children never had to do chores in my London school.
    I took another slow bite of bread and dripping. It stuck in my throat. Ruth sat cleaning her teeth with a crust, which she finally gummed into mush and swallowed. Leftover crusts, turned brown by the tea into which they had been dunked, lay scattered on the table. Ruth picked them up and crammed them into her tunic pocket.
    A bell rang for grace. Ruth, while stiffly crossing herself, stuck her tongue out at me, then mouthed the words ‘What you staring at?’ I looked away, feeling as though she had punched me, or pinned a sign to my dress: This person is to be despised! She doesn’t know what Jeyes’s Fluid is!
    Section by section, the girls filed out of the refectory, the junior girls last. I asked Frances in a low voice why Ruth didn’t like me.
    Frances sighed again, looking irritated at my incompetence.
    ‘Don’t worry, take it with a pinch of salt. She can’t stand anyone here, especially the nuns.’
    ‘Why can’t she stand the nuns?’
    ‘She has to work in the kitchen most days instead of being in school.’
    I was horrified. ‘Why?’
    ‘Because she’s left-handed.’
    ‘You’re joking!’
    Frances’s dark eyebrows arched in surprise. She looked around to see if anyone was coming. ‘No, I’m not. Sister Mary used to whack her every day in class. She said she was doing the devil’s work. Ruth tried using her right hand, but she was no good at it. She’s not thick, you know, but she’s much older than the rest of us in our class. She’s put in with us because the nuns make her work in the kitchen and laundry so much that she gets behind with her lessons. Sister Mary hates her. Sometimes it’s really funny, because she’ll be writing something on the blackboard with her back to us, and she’ll say, “Norton, I know you’re up to something over there. Don’t let me catch you.” She forgets that Ruth’s not in the classroom. She’s slogging away in the kitchen.’
    I bent my head forward to hear better as Frances continued. ‘Ruth has a bad chest, you know. She had TB a few years ago. Yet nearly every day she has to go down on her knees like an old washerwoman and scrub every inch of the kitchen floor with carbolic soap. There’s a nun at her heels most days, telling her that work is a virtue that will make her a useful member of society. Well, something like that. But if Ruth stops for a second, they hit her on the legs with a cane. But she never cries. Once she had to get out on the window ledge and clean the windows. Another time she had to wash the walls and kill the bugs and flies by squashing them. She’s as happy as a skylark most days, but sometimes it gets her down, like today. That’s all.’
    It was all too much. Awe made me feel weak. How could the nuns