Feed My Dear Dogs

When Harriet’s time is up and it is my turn to take my first peep at Gustavus, Gus, I tug at her green jumper twice, meaning, move along, your time is up, it’s my go, and as she steps past me, I can tell she has something to say.

‘Don’t say manger or the Little Lord thing,’ she whispers.

I roll my eyes and move in close, and the funny thing is, I think about it, the manger situation and how with Jude and Ben behind me, we are like the three kings, I can’t help thinking it. I have been in three Nativity plays so far at my convent, the Nativity being the only play the nuns know how to do, I guess, and my dad is OK with this as long as I have the low-down.

‘It’s just a story, you know,’ he says, all serious, a bit gruff, leaning up against the kitchen counter where Mum is cooking, crowding her a little, it’s a habit of his.

‘Right, Dad,’ I say in a patient but busy voice. I am trying to finish my homework before supper so I can play Action Man with Jude afterwards. Also, my dad tells me this every December, how the Nativity business is just a story, and God can’t have sons who are also God, etc., and I know what’s coming next.

‘Jesus Christ was a Jew. A rabbi. Don’t forget that. OK, Jem?’

‘A rabbi. Jewish. Not God. Got it,’ I reply, and my dad yanks my hair three times, which is his way of saying, I am not mad at you, although I sound mad at you. I know, Dad. No worries, Dad.

I have just about had it with Nativity. The fact is, I don’t want to be in any kind of play, it’s so embarrassing, but I am especially fed up with Nativity ones because of shepherding, quite a vexing role, though not too bad compared to Drummer Boy.

One year I was tried out as the Drummer Boy. I was fairly keen, due to having no words to speak and due to the military aspect and the bravery of drummer boys in military history but what I do not understand is how he comes into the Nativity story. What is he doing here? Does he think there is a war on? Or is he just wild for parades and processions? Never mind. My one job was to do drum rolls on a tin drum looped around my neck and head up the parade to the Baby Jesus while the girls sing that depressing song about the Little Drummer Boy and his drum, ra ta ta tum, but I lost my job and was switched to Shepherd because I was pathetic at drum rolls. My effort at drum rolls was deeply frustrating and induced palpitations in me, and a feeling close to terror, what with Music Nun glaring at me in that horrible manner. It was a horrible experience all in all and definitely a relief to be shepherding flocks again.

A shepherd has two jobs only. 1) Lurk about a fire at night in a shepherdly fashion, at the end of a long day of herding up lambs and sheep, sitting up with two other shepherds usually, unless there is a girl going spare in which case we might be four. We are careful NOT to act like we are waiting for the Angel Gabriel. Whichever girl shepherd knows how to play a recorder has a recorder stuck in her shepherd costume and she has to WAIT for some other designated girl shepherd to say, Dan! DO play us a tune on your pipe! Then she plucks out the recorder and plays a tune. She must not jump the gun or the girl with the line about the pipe, a Nativity play word for wind instrument, will feel downright silly and not know what to do, to say it or skip it. That girl was me one time, another horrible experience, my ears aching like someone had turned the volume up everywhere, the breathing of the audience, soft, the breathing of Directing Nun in the pit, cross, the flutter of girls in the wings, and the awful noise of Lucy White rustling her garments and hauling out her pipe, playing a tune without being asked first. Last year, though, it came out all right, though I was pretty knocked out from how my heart raced gearing up for my big moment and as soon as I spoke it, Dan! DO play us a tune on your pipe, I had a ferocious desire to lie down in a faint and have ministrations. No, Jem. Remember job number two.

Lo! Here comes the Angel Gabriel.

Gabriel points two fingers at us to signify the dual nature of Christ, even though catechism has not been invented yet and it will make no sense to shepherds, Gabriel waving two fingers in the air like that. Never mind. When Gabriel shows up, shepherds have to act spooked and make ridiculous movements, lunging away from the angel and throwing arms aloft like we are being ambushed by German Waffen SS and have no weapons. This is goofy, let’s face it. If I were a shepherd and an angel came my way, I would have no problem with it, but you cannot tell nuns this because they are too excited directing this play and will get confused if they have to make changes, such as maybe having one shepherd NOT in a state of fear and terror. The way they see it, shepherds have to act spooked so the Angel Gabriel can say, Lo! Be not afraid! I am the angel of the Lord! etc. If we do not act as if we were riding the ghost train at the funfair, it just won’t work for nuns. We have to show some hysteria and then we cool our jets for the next bit, the tidings bit, so all the attention can be on Gabriel, no distractions. ‘I bring you great tidings!’ Meaning, news. The news = the Nativity = the birth of Jesus. The Queen of the Waste Lands speaks this word also. When heard ye tidings? I tried it out on my dad once.

‘Any good tidings?’ I asked from the doorway of the living room. ‘In your tidings-paper?’

‘Jem, take my dirty plate back to the kitchen, will you?’

‘OK, Dad.’

Shepherd job number two. Go to Nativity. This is the topmost important part of the play for nuns and they get fretful trying to organise it. It is the Adoration part wherein we all traipse to the manger to peek at Jesus, all the shepherds, royalty and Drummer Boy, and Mr and Mrs Innkeeper who would not let Mary and Joseph have a room, maybe because Mary and Joseph were too shabby for their inn, and now, of course, since the great tidings and ensuing events, the innkeepers feel pretty bad about this. Thems the breaks. OK. Now we crowd around the Little Lord Jesus and show our great joy and next, it is time to face the audience and hold hands and sing We WISH you a merry Christmas, we WISH you a merry Christmas and a HA-ppy New Year, which is quite a boring song but it is the end of the play, one more Nativity over and out, and after the clapping, we take off costumes and go home and have a big snack and this is the beginning of the Xmas holidays. Yay.

Last year, Directing Nun had a big idea for the Adoration part. She decided the shepherds and kings and Drummer Boy (girl), etc., ought to go on a long march to the Baby Jesus and not merely sweep in from offstage in the usual scrummage, making it so obvious how we are all just waiting to do this, huddled in the wings ready to sweep in all at once and do some adoring. It’s not realistic, she said. I don’t think realism is a big issue for nuns. I think Directing Nun wanted more of a party scene last year, that’s all, like a Trooping of the Colour parade involving a long march, drum rolls and singing and gifts at the end.

Directing Nun decided we must go down the stairs on the offstage side that leads to outdoors, putting on outdoor shoes first, of course, as we are all in olden times bare feet or sandals and also because nuns are very keen on the right shoes in the right places no matter what kind of emergency situation a girl is in. Girls have three types of shoes. 1) Outdoor shoes: dark brown / lace-ups. I choose Clarks Commandos for type 1 due to the word commando. 2) Indoor shoes: dark brown / buckles. Most girls have the kind I have, with buckles and little holes over the toes part like on a cheese grater, and soft soles so as not to scuff up the stone floors or old wooden floors of our convent. In my view, you would need ice skates to scuff up convent floors, but you cannot say this to nuns. 3) Plimsolls. This is a nun word for gym shoes: black canvas / lace-ups or slip-ons. I choose slip-ons for variety and for the funny feel of stretchy elastic in a tongue shape where laces or buckles usually go. I slip them on and off, on and off. These shoes are like gloves for feet.

Playground Nun is an old nun who watches over us in the playground. I don’t know what else she does apart from praying and wandering up and down the playground. Sometimes she plays tricks. I am patient with Playground Nun who is maybe not all that well. She seeks me out quite often.

‘Jemima Weiss!’

‘Yes, Sister!’

‘What is plimsoll?’

‘Um. Gym shoes, Sister. For gym only.’

‘No! It’s the waterline on the hull of a cargo ship! A safety mark! Named after Samuel Plimsoll, MP, and his Merchant Shipping Act, 1876!’

‘I see. Great. Thank you, Sister. Is that all, Sister?’

‘Yes, my girl!’

Playground Nun pushes her glasses from the speaking to girls position (all the way down the nose for close-up inspection purposes) to her wandering the playground position (top of nose for general countryside vision). She pats me on the head, well chuffed with her trick on me. I don’t like pats on the head because I am not a dog, but Playground Nun is old and she is a nun and she may not be entirely well and you have to allow for things. Furthermore, she is full of special information that is not all to do with God and I believe she needs to impart it from time to time. She chooses Jem. Fine with me.

Three types of shoes. And then come rules. Shoes rules: Do not wear plimsolls outdoors. Even in sports. Do not wear Clarks Commandos indoors. Do not wear indoor shoes in gym (unless you have forgotten your plimsolls) and definitely not outdoors where they will get ruined and become perplexing, unfit for indoors or out. Nowhere shoes. If you have the wrong shoes, a nun will get flustered and usually call upon Mean Nun to sort out the bad situation of the wrong shoes. Mean Nun has an eye out for crime. She is the only no-good nun around, though I am not wild about Sister Clothilda, Nativity play Directing Nun who is also Music Nun. She makes me sing separately from the other girls, standing on a chair on my own, far off from the other girls standing up on benches and singing happily in one voice on the stage of the assembly hall.

Music Nun sits down below in the nun pit, looking up at girls and glancing my way now and again with a cross and confused expression on her face, like she is not quite sure what the bloody-bloody I am doing on her stage, or why I am causing such a terrible disturbance in the sound department. The waves. She is also confused due to my Jewish side. Not all nuns are the same, not all of them have this problem, and I can easily tell the ones who do, catching them looking at me with a cross face and confusion in their eyes, as they try to fathom it, and simply cannot, how I am alive and not Catholic, and nevertheless quite hearty, by which I mean not downtrodden or obviously impaired in any way. Mean Nun has a very bad case of confusion and she will watch me until she comes up with a crime of some sort and then she makes straight for me.

The day Susannah Bonnington found a maggot in her banger, I was right there and saw it poking its little head up like a periscope in a U-boat, weaving left and right, checking out the scene aloft, and I must say, I never want to see a thing like that again, not ever.

‘Sister!’ says Susannah, keeping pretty cool in the circumstances. ‘There’s a maggot in my banger!’

‘So there is, my child,’ replies Dining-Room Nun who is definitely crazy, ‘so there is.’

Sister Catherine is Dining-Room Nun and Babies Nun. Sister Catherine escorts those first year kids all over the joint like she is a bodyguard, and when they are dining, she is happy, as she can do her two jobs at the same time in one same place and she is free to carry on her favourite activity of strolling up and down the alley between dining tables, muttering to herself and twiddling her thumbs in a demented manner, hands clasped before her in woolly gloves she wears in all weathers, woolly gloves with the fingers cut off.

In my opinion, some of her behaviour is open to question. For instance, babies need their own little chairs for dining, due to their small size, and they have to transport the chairs from their classroom to the dining room under the eyes of Sister Catherine, passing by her like a row of ants struggling with crumbs nearly twice their body weight and it is painful to see the little kids stumbling along, crashing the chairs against their little legs and generally making a mess of things, looking sad and worn out but resigned to fate, reminding me of the galley slaves in Ben-Hur, men chained together and marching in the hot sun on the way to the Roman galley ship in which they will be chained to oars and fated to row at varying speeds unto the end of days. Babies enter the dining room first and bigger kids queue up with plates after the babies have settled in and been served. They get served because they are deemed too young and wobbly to carry plates of food without tipping everything on to the decks. It seems to me carrying a plate is not such a hard task, but grappling with a chair round about two-thirds your size is definitely a hard task. Possibly, for Dining-Room Nun, an avalanche of spam and peas and gravy on the nice convent floor is more of a problem than bruisy shins and outright exhaustion in a four-year-old, and this is one instance of behaviour in Sister Catherine which is open to question, and another is when she said, So there is, my child to Susannah Bonnington, bashing off straight away to do some more strolling and muttering, and leaving Susannah and me in the lurch, stark-eyed as in a horror scene from a horror film featuring graveyards and screaming.

A few words on horror. So far, I have seen the beginnings of three horror films only, as I am always sent to bed before things get too grim. Here are reasons why. I am too young for horror films and will have bad dreams and get hysterical. Horror films are not much good or educational, and so there are no loopholes regarding bedtime the way there are with good films and/or documentaries. Fine with me. Horror films are frustrating and give me a headache, due to the endless screaming and the lack of daylight, requiring a lot of squinting to make out what the bejesus is going on, usually just endless screaming and silly things such as people going walkabout in graveyards way past their bedtime when everyone knows there are killers and/or wild beasts on the rampage. Why? Why not stay home until it blows over, or go for a saunter in a more populous area where there are bobbies and lamplight and means of transport for hire in case of emergency? Because it is a horror film, that’s why. So there is screaming in the dark when characters are getting murdered, screaming in the dark when characters are stumbling across maggoty murder victims in graveyards, and in two out of the three films I have seen the beginnings of so far, there is screaming in the dark from raving maniacs in loony bins and it is no wonder so many people are losing their marbles, what with the high rate of murder and all that strolling about in graveyards, etc.

I would quite like to go in for some screaming in plain daylight right this minute because of the maggot before me, but I do not. I am not a baby. I am seven going on eight and have a fair grasp of language, and decent manners, and screaming and howling is not fashionable behaviour in a person my age who is not in a horror film. I do feel sick though, and ask to be excused. I step out into the courtyard for a deep breath or two, a remedy of Mum’s, and extremely useful, according to her, in all walks of life and eventualities of a trying nature. It is something I recommend for characters in horror films.

Oh no. Here comes Mean Nun, flapping my way.

‘Weiss!’

Mean Nun has a big thing for calling my name out, ever since I corrected her pronunciation one time, informing her as gently as possible about the V sound in the W, so that now she hits the V sound real hard and lingers over the double SS at the end. It’s annoying and it is her revenge on me for correcting her for the second time in my life. What is the problem here? Some grownups correct kids about every little thing, blaring hasty hints and instructions before you touch anything or go anywhere, so sure you are going to slip up or do some destruction, and that your mind is merely an empty place with breezes blowing through it, but the moment you correct a grown-up of that type, it’s a criminal act, worse than sticking your tongue out and swearing which can usually be chalked up to insanity, whereas correcting is close to a capital offence, i.e. deserving of death. Jude says capital comes from the Latin word for head, and denotes beheading by axe, sword or guillotine and even though there are many kinds of capital punishment that do not involve having your head chopped off necessarily, the word capital still applies for all methods, and I can see why. Let’s face it, when a person is killed, his head is no good to him, attached or not attached, but this has me thinking again about graveyards and screaming, so I try to concentrate instead on deep breaths and recovery from the sight of that maggot poking its white head out of Susannah’s banger.

‘Weiss! Where are we?’ demands Mean Nun.

This is a trap. What does she want? The month, the country? Is it a nun-type question, a matter of catechism? Right near me in the courtyard is a statue of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God with the Baby Jesus in her arms. Mary has a dreamy limp look, like Jesus is just a bunch of flowers or something. Maybe Mean Nun does not like me standing so close to the statue, due to my Jewish side. Is that it?

‘Well, child? Are we indoors or outdoors?’

‘Sort of half-half,’ I say, wondering about covered courtyards and what category they are in. I don’t want to make a mistake.

‘Sister!’

‘Sister! Sorry.’

‘We are outdoors. What shoes are you wearing?’

Oh. It’s a shoe crime. Bloody. ‘Indoor shoes, Sister. Thing is, I feel sick and I need deep breaths, I had to rush out here!’

‘Outside, we wear outdoor shoes. Inside, indoor shoes. Plimsolls for PE. If you are poorly, see Sister Martha. You are a very rude girl, Weiss.’

I want to tell her that she wears the same type shoes all over the shop, indoors, outdoors, the same hard noisy black nun shoes, and that I am not rude, my mother knows I am not rude, and then I think about something Jude told me, because of my new big thing for knights and chivalry, he said not all knights are good, and Crusader knights were downright dodgy, going in for massacres of Jews, or else selling them into slavery and this is very depressing news for me, how being a knight is not necessarily good, and wearing a big red cross on your knightly tunic, like on an ambulance, is not always a sign of hope and rescue, and therefore, perhaps, seeing a lady flapping your way dressed in nun clothes and wearing a cross around her neck does not always mean you are safe. It’s confusing and I want to see Sister Martha now, but I need to do some crying first. Not in front of Mean Nun. Go away, Mean Nun.

At my convent, it is important to wear the right shoes in the right places, no matter what emergency situation you are in, such as on the night of the Nativity the year of the big idea, when Directing Nun sent girls on a long march outdoors in the dark and back indoors, and all the way down the aisle through the audience in an embarrassing procession of kings and shepherds, Drummer Boy (girl) and innkeepers, and up the little wheely front steps, no tripping on garments allowed, up on to the stage to kneel in our specially organised places around the angels and Mary and Joseph and baby, kneeling so as to indicate Adoration and also, so as not to hide the angels and blessed family from plain view because angels and blessed family are more important, they are the stars.

I am looking for my shoebag. Where is my shoebag? Oh-oh. I scramble about in heaps of costumes and stuff and my shepherd hat is slapping at my cheeks and it’s dark back here and pretty quiet all of a sudden. Hey. Where is Mrs McCabe? Mrs McCabe is a non-nun teacher and Irish and she wears a great white cardigan with brown leather buttons and bumps in the knitting. Mrs McCabe is quite lively and jovial and prone to short sharp hugs, which is an Irish custom, I believe, as Sister Martha is prone likewise, though a Sister Martha hug is a less hazardous experience than being in the grip of Mrs McCabe who mashes me against her so I can feel all the knitting bumps digging into my temples and eye sockets. I like Mrs McCabe very much, but I make a note never to wear bumpy apparel in my lifetime, in case I am prone to doling out hugs also, and hugs ought to be all good, with no risks involved, no smothering or bruising. I take note. Smooth apparel is better and less hazardous. OK.

Where is Mrs McCabe? On Nativity night, she is supposed to be here, she is always here in the offstage regions, cracking jokes and larking about in a lively Irish manner and all the while doing her important job of snapping on angel wings and haloes and shoving us onstage at the right times, and she is not here, she has already shuffled off outside with the shepherds and kings, etc. They have left me behind. This is a bad feeling. I am hot and I cannot think straight and I wish I were in bed, waking up on a Saturday with nothing to do but play with Jude all day.

There is my shoebag, glowing white with a red F embroidered on it, the bag Mum gave me, hers, and now mine, old, not new, and very nice indeed with the first letter of Mum’s name there-upon, better than J for Jem, a gift to me from her, and a fine thing, a bag made especially for shoes, and I never knew there were such things, bags made especially for footwear with fancy embroidered letters standing proudly for the name of shoebag owners upon them. Whoa. I fumble with the drawstring and haul out my shoes but they are the wrong shoes. Indoor, not outdoor, and yikes, I know who is in the cloakroom ready to receive shepherds and kings coming in from the cold and send them down the aisle in the assembly hall, making sure all our bits are on just so. Sister Teresa. Mean Nun. Now I am having a nightmare of epic proportions as Ben would say. Epic, a short sharp word to do with gravity and size.

I slip my bare shepherd feet into shoes and skip out on the buckling action. I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. I push the door open and clamber down the stairs with my toes curled tight to keep my shoes from flying off. It strikes me I might as well head straight for the wire and wait there for Mum and Dad and not bother with the Adoration seeing as I’ve spoken my nine words and done the abiding and the fear not part, and anyway, there will be two other shepherds in a whole gang of adorers, that’s enough, plus I cannot sing and Music Nun will show me her cross face and Mean Nun is waiting for me and there isn’t a king or a shepherd in sight out here. Fuck-hell.

Come on, Jem.

Go to cloakroom doors. Knock softly. Sister Teresa will let you in. These are my orders. I dash like a commando for the double doors and lose an indoor shoe on the way. The grass is wet and I have bad visions of slugs and worms and spiders in the dark wet grass so I run back for my shoe. OK. Now, knock softly. No answer. Knock louder. Nothing. Here come prickly tears, a rush of them, and I don’t care any more about orders, I pound the doors like a maniac until I hear Mean Nun calling for me. Where is she? She is poking her head out of some doors further along and waving her arms in a frantic manner. What is she doing over there? Oh no. Wrong doors, Jem. You have been pounding on the assembly-hall doors with audience on the other side wondering what all the racket is and who is causing this big-noise crime. It’s me. Jem Weiss.

Mean Nun is speechless, she hates me beyond words. I kick off my shoes and let her grapple me in the shoulders and propel me out of the cloakroom into the assembly hall and I get whiplash in the process so that my shepherd hat slips over my eyes and I have to fix it quick sticks. It’s not really a hat, it’s a dishcloth with an elastic strip around the forehead to hold it snug and I hate it, it makes my ears hot and the elastic gives me a headache. I would quite like to ditch my shepherd hat but I am already in trouble and going in bareheaded would freak out Directing Nun for whom a dishcloth on the head is the main distinguishing mark for a shepherd who might otherwise get mistaken for a fourth king, some character NOT in the Bible, and thereby her great fame in the Nativity department will be in ruins, ruins.