She joined them for dinner only when halfway through the meal Edwards went upstairs to fetch her. There was no shouting this time and John was wondering if Edwards was apologising for whatever she felt he had done wrong, not meaning it but sounding as if he meant it, in the same way as he had made John apologise earlier during the day. John did not go into the hall to eavesdrop this time. He'd been hungry from the hard work in the barn and was too busy eating his meal.
At some point over dinner, Mrs Edwards appealed to her husband again, wanting him to agree to delay John's enrolment in school. He's only arrived; Let him settle some more; It's too much for the poor boy; What if he catches some disease from the other children, were the arguments she brought forward to convince her husband, but to no avail.
Edwards was adamant that John needed to go to school and John was glad about it, especially now that he had decided to stay around a little longer. Maybe.
Eventually she conceded defeat, but not before she told her husband in no uncertain terms that she believed him to be wrong. Claiming again, that he was too delicate to be in school she informed them that she would not stand idly by, as she disappeared in the pantry and a few moments later returned with a brown bottle of Parker's Ginger Tonic, the Cure All of the day. Armed with a tablespoon in her hand, she told them it would help John restore his appetite, and strengthen his mind. He had no idea that he had any issues with either, but imagined it was easier to just go along with it.
Amused by this, Edwards warned him with a chuckle, "brace yourself boy, it tastes like donkey's piss, and probably does F-all for your head but wonders for her own disposition."
John had to grin, the man was obviously somewhat tipsy from whatever he had drank in the pantry earlier. He liked tipsy Edwards he decided, even though it seemed to make Mrs Edwards even more waspish. She was not amused and scolded them both.
Having wrangled an insincere apology out of both of them, she made John swallow two large spoonful of the bitter tasting thick liquid, but John didn't mind. He had worse. Glad to have food when it was available, he was used to having to eat what he was given. Liking it was a luxury. 'Beggars can't be chooser' and 'hunger is the best sauce' was what his mother always used to say to them, when they weren't fond of what was put in front of them. So this was easy and Mrs Edwards' concern for him even a little endearing.
Pleased with herself she put the bottle back into the pantry and sent John upstairs to bed early with a gentle tussle of his hair and a good-natured smile. "You'll need all the sleep you can get for tomorrow," she told him. He could hear it in her voice that she was still somewhat angry though, but it seemed not with him this time. They had started to argue again as he walked up the stairs but this time their voices remained low so he couldn't make out what they actually said to each other.
A good while later he heard Edwards come upstairs and go into the room beside him, where he heard him move about and hammer until late into the night.
Lying in bed, somewhat nervous but also looking forward to going to school in the morning, he decided he no longer was in that much of a rush to leave. It had nothing to do with the content of the pantry, he told himself. Running away simply needed more planning was the excuse with which he quietened his bad conscience, that tried to remind him that his ma possibly would never see the inside of a pantry that full and was probably going out of her mind worrying about him and his brothers.
He changed his mind again however, when in the middle of the night, he was woken up by Edwards, who was hammering his large fists against the door to their bedroom below.
"Let me in, you auld wagon. I have rights, you know, you wretched old hag. Goddammit," he heard Edwards' loud and booming voice travel upstairs. He was obviously at this stage no longer tipsy but properly drunk. His wife however did not seem to agree with her husband's assertion. For some time later, John heard Edwards march back upstairs, with angry footsteps and swearing loudly to himself.
With his heart hammering hard inside his chest, John decided he was glad that he had dared to steal the key to his door earlier on. He quickly locked himself into his own room just in case and was immensely relieved when he heard Edwards slam the door to his workshop shut from the inside.
Despite the locked door he lay in his bed terrified, listening to Edwards bang and clatter about noisily until late into the night. John was well used to people drinking around him. Having seen Edwards downstairs he had seriously misjudged the man however. He thought he'd be the happy kind, the one who'd warm up with a bit of drink in him, the one that would tell stories or sing a song or part with his money more easily with a twinkle in his eye, like Bill, the old farmhand.
He just couldn't make the two out, how they blew hot and cold all the time, but drunk, that was a completely different dimension altogether. People who got that angry when they were drunk could be dangerous, especially men and he knew it. The bruises that his ma sometimes had come home with after a night working as a 'waitress' in one of the saloons were testimony to that. There were some people who would say and do things when they were drunk, that they would be ashamed of when they were sober. He had seen this everywhere around him, where he grew up, even in his own home. His mother, although physically never violent, had a vicious tongue when she was drunk, of which she claimed she had no recollection the next day.
Eventually, when everything did quieten John filled his pockets with his few belongings, put on an extra jumper and snuck out onto the stairs. He'd made up his mind. He was going to take the pistol which he had seen in the good room on his first evening, and some ammunition too. He was going to sneak into the pantry to fill one of the empty little sacks he'd seen there earlier with some food and then make his way over to the barn and steal a bedroll there. He had it all planned out. He would walk along the river. By morning time, he reckoned, he would be at the outskirts of the city. He'd make his way to the train station and jump onto one of the early morning trains before the place got too busy. He'd try to get into one of the carriages in the back that were usually reserved for people's horses and goods, where he could hide more easily and it was less likely that he was discovered.
But of course it wasn't meant to be.
He didn't even make it all the way down the first flight of stairs when Edwards came charging out of his room with a bottle in hand and barked at him, "...come back up them stairs, you!"
John had assumed Edwards to be one of those kind of drunks who'd fall into an alcohol induced comatosed slumber after his outburst, on accounts that there had been absolutely no noise or movement coming from next door but he'd been wrong. The alcohol had done nothing for the man's ability to fall asleep it seemed. He obviously was one of those kind of drunks who'd sit and stew in their anger and self pity until someone disturbed their train of thought that usually circles around how unfair life had been to them thus far. Someone who when drunk, like a loaded gun, should be left well alone, lest he'd go off and explode.
"Where do you think you are going at this time of the night," he bellowed angrily at him.
Wondering if it was a good thing that he could hear the bedroom door downstairs open, John stammered helplessly at first, fearing that Edwards had realised he was about to be running away but then quickly came to his senses and made up a plausible excuse. "I am on my way to the outhouse, I need to go, my tummy is a little upset," he told the man, hoping it would suffice. He could call himself lucky he wasn't caught in the good room with his hand on the gun or much worse the pantry stealing food, he thought.
"You're doing no such thing," Edwards barked, still as angry but thankfully not moving towards him. "There is a chamber pot under your bed. You can use that if you have to go," Edwards told him sternly with a little more composer than just a moment ago, and John realised that the man although drunk, was not that drunk that he was completely out of control or couldn't make sense of what was going on around him.
With a "yes sir," and "it won't happen again, sir" and eyes semi downcast, so that he could still watch out in case he needed to safe his skin, John managed to sufficiently appease the man and made it back into his room in one piece with only one heavy-handed upward slap onto the back of his head in passing. "Don't you dare go out on your own after dark, boy," Edwards scolded, and reminded John that he had been told this on his first night, which John believed not to be true, but was smart enough not to say to Edwards in the state that he was in.
'I forgot,' was not an excuse that was going to be tolerated in his home, Edwards told him in no uncertain terms and then also added that if he would ever forget an instruction again, he would be given a sound whipping with the switch.
'You don't need to be afraid of me,' he had told John in the afternoon when he saw him being frightened of him. John didn't believe him then, and he certainly didn't believe him now.
John locked himself in but still did not get much sleep. Despite that, morning came all too soon. Tired and wary from the night's events, he was glad however to be getting out from under their feet for a bit and hopeful that school was something more predictable and certain.
Edwards himself was hungover and looked miserable as he sat in front of his breakfast at the kitchen table. To John' surprise, Mrs Edwards lovingly fuzzed over him, as if she hadn't been on the brunt of her husband's behaviour during the night and the man's condition was not entirely self-inflicted. She gave him two spoonful of the tonic she had given John the evening before and he quietly endured her fuzzing but John could see he was not impressed by it and would have preferred to be left alone. Scowling first at her then John, he told John to make a move on, and have his breakfast.
"That teacher is known to be strict. You don't want your backside tanned on your first day, boy," he barked at him in the same tone as the night before, and then added, "And you mind my word - you get a tanning in school, you also get one at home, you hear boy," which made John swallow and remind himself that he'd never been given a 'tanning' in school before. He had liked school the few times he was there, why should it be different this time around, he tried his best to reassure himself.
Just before they were about to leave Mrs Edwards started her fuzzing over him again. Asking Edwards again, if it might not be better for the boy to start school next week, on a Monday, instead of on the Friday. "What's one more day?" she asked softly, "let him have today off and the weekend to settle in," she pleaded, at which Edwards almost lost his patience with her as he swore under his breath and now barked at her the way he had earlier barked at John, "Theresa, the boy is starting school today, now let this be the end of it. I am not well enough to argue with you," he snarled with a threatening scowl.
So his wife conceded but begged him to wait for just one moment, as she ran back into the house and after a little while came back with the 'Ginger Tonic', this time for John.
"Oh, go on then. If it makes you feel better," Edwards said with a roll of his eyes and pushed John back into the house.
John too had to smirk. It was kind of sweet how the woman was fuzzing over him, and kept treating him as if he was precious, so he obediently opened his mouth, and at the same time squeezed his nose with his thumb and index finger, in the hope that this would help him not taste the spicy tonic. It was only when the second mouthful of the oily substance oozed down his throat that he realised it was not the same tonic.
For a brief moment they looked at each other. She smiled down at him kindly and stroked his black curls out of his face as he stared up at her in utter disbelief.
Edwards beside him noticed none of it and grabbed John by the shirt, turning him around and then pulled him along and down of the porch, simultaneously instructing his wife to stop fuzzing, "For God' sake. You'll have him back in a few hours, woman!" he told her.
They walked to the school the same way as they did the day before, but this time John was too stunned to take in the landscape. He was too puzzled by what had just happened and worried about what was going to happen. He tried to tell himself he must have imagined it, but the aftertaste in his mouth left no doubt. It was the same vile stuff that his ma used to give Billy when he was so backed up that liquid seeped past the plug of poo lodged in his constipated bowel.
Poor little Billy who was in so much pain from not going to the outhouse and just as much pain when eventually his bowels had to open. It was an ever-repeating cycle of pain that was caused as much by the fear of the painful bowel movement as the pain from being constipated itself. Billy was holding in his poo until he was in so much pain that he no longer could eat or even walk so that his ma had to give him the dreadful medicine that he was always afraid of because of its vile taste, the cramps it caused in his belly when it made him have to go to the dreaded outhouse that he feared so much because of the pain the actual poo coming out caused his little bum.
"See it is not that bad," John had told his little brother once when he took half a spoonful out of sympathy, and to encourage the little brother, but boy did he regret it. Two hours later the cramps started and his bowels exploded and the liquid came running out of him as if he was a barrel of beer on which a tap had been opened below. He almost did not make it to the outhouse and he was lucky it hadn't been occupied by anyone else from their building. That time he'd only taken half a spoonful, and Mrs Edwards had given him two. Who'd do such a thing? And why? Was this punishment for wanting to go to school, or for calling her Mother Edwards? Or was it just to prove her husband wrong?
"Please Mr Edwards, we have to go back, I can't go to school this morning," John finally found the courage to address the hungover and angry man dragging him down the street by the hand. He knew he had at least an hour before something was going to happen but he did not want it to happen in school.
Edwards stopped for a moment and looked at John perplexed. "What? Where is this coming from now? I thought you wanted to go to school?" he asked sounding gruff.
"I do. But my belly is sore. I think I am getting sick," John replied.
Edwards started to walk again, dragging John along with him. "Nonsense boy, there's nothing wrong with you. She's gotten into your head. You're just nervous because it's your first day. Now walk. You don't want to be late on your first day," Edwards reminded him sharply.
All the way to school John tried to reason with Edwards but which only seemed to make the man angrier and more determined than ever. He tried everything but tell Edwards the truth. He knew he'd side with his wife and call him a liar. The mood he was in, he wouldn't put it past him to punish him there and then in the street, so John gave up.
When they got to the school, John went straight to the outhouse, in the hope he might be able to will the elixir to work earlier than expected. It didn't work of course and the thought of him suddenly having to go in the middle of class terrified him. What if he didn't make it. The shame of having an accident would have been unbearable.
When he got back to the front of the schoolhouse, he found Edwards was still there and talking to the teacher. "I am glad you used the facilities before class, John. I do not permit students to go to the outhouse during class," the teacher informed him, not entirely unkindly.
John had feared this was the case. The teacher in the orphanage had the same system, and there always was a queue in front of the facilities, so that not everyone who needed to go could go in the time that was assigned for it. Thank god John never had that problem for he had a great bladder and strong stomach. He could hold his pee forever, but for many of those unfortunates who needed to use the lavatory during the school day, it was an impossible choice, between getting a beating for being late or one for having an accident in class.
"He complained about a sore stomach, this morning," Edwards informed the teacher nonchalantly. "nerves I suspect, he's a soft lad," it was meant as a criticism, and reminded John of the incident with the horse on the previous day.
The teacher looked at Edwards with a raised eyebrow. Softness he felt was not a bad thing in children such as these, he thought. In his previous employ, a busy school, that was serving a big and thriving farming community southeast, he and his colleagues had the 'pleasure' to teach a small number of orphans from the big cities. Like John they had come in on the trains. They were a tough little lot, especially the older boys. Although not uncompassionate towards their plight, and not blind to where they had come from either, he had little doubt in where their future was headed and there was nothing he could do about it since they had showed little interest in what he had to offer to them. His colleagues and him felt they had no choice but to reign them in with a strict and heavy hand. They would have ruined the school and corrupted their fellow students in no time had they not.
Mr Wilson looked down at John with doubtful eyes, which made John blush and look away. He knew the man tried to seize him up and knew as well as himself that Edwards had him all wrong. He'd been called many things in his past, tough as nail, stubborn, bold, insolent, disobedient, ungrateful, obstructive, wild, at best wilful, but never soft or delicate. Only his ma sometimes referred to him in such a way but then it was not meant as a criticism. She liked it but also told him not to ever show it. "Be tough out there. Only cry at home," she advised him. She knew he could be both.
Tough or not, however, he had no intention to give the teacher a hard time. He wanted to be there. He wasn't going to mess it up, not on purpose anyhow. He had liked going to school before and until this morning had hoped this was going to be no different.
He was glad that the teacher, Mr Wilson had sent him to a desk at the back of the class, right next to the door. He was wondering if he really would not let him go to the toilet when he needed to go. He had already decided however that he wasn't going to take the chance, but sneak out when the time would come. He knew he couldn't afford to be refused his request, so why ask in the first place.
Three times he was chastised by Wilson for not having listened in class and his constant fidgeting. The sting on his palm made by the man's ruler was almost a welcomed distraction from the anxiety building up inside of his body that slowly reached its peak. Not sure if he imagined movement inside his belly, and pressure building up below or not, he sat in his bench shaking his legs rapidly and fidgeting with the material of his clothes between his fingers when he wasn't biting his nails, which made the teacher watch him constantly.
When it finally did come almost two hours after taking the medicine, the assault on his belly was so sudden, he barely made it to the outhouse. He had hoped he could sneak out quietly and unnoticed but he was in so much pain and the waste wanted to leave his body so quickly, exiting the building was the only thing on his mind. He jumped up, loudly moving his chair backwards and then made a run for the door. As the door fell shut behind him with a loud bang, he could hear Mr Wilson bark his name but even if he wanted to, there was no way John could have obeyed the teacher to come back into the classroom.
When almost fifteen minutes later the teacher knocked on the door of the little building, shouting his name angrily, John almost jumped up in fright. He'd been sitting there for quite some time, already, his head resting on one of the walls to the side of the building, exhausted, clammy and at the same time cold from the sweat below his clothes, his body alternating between painful cramps and eliminating his waste, a mixture of tears of humiliation, fear and plain pain running down his cheeks. All the food in the world for the rest of his life was not worth this.
He had hoped the teacher had decided to deal with him on his return to the class instead of following him but apparently he decided he had waited long enough. "Edwards, are you hiding in there?" the man yelled as he banged at the door for a second time, "You open this door this instant, or I will lift it of its hinges, and god help you then, boy," the man threatened.
John groaned in pain, too troubled with another painful cramp building up inside of him than taking offence with having been enrolled by those people's name. "I can't," he moaned pitifully, followed by a high-pitched sob. "I am sorry Mr Wilson, sir. I can't."
The teacher paused a moment, remembering that the parent did speak of stomach issues when he had dropped the child to school, so giving the boy the benefit of doubt asked John, if he was alright.
John wasn't sure what to say and how. He knew that the words they had used for this would likely cause offence, they had judged him rude and had chastised him at the orphanage when he tried to explain Billy's ailment. They had given him a better word for it but at this stage he'd forgotten it again. Mc Manus had explained Billy's difficulties to the farmer's wife at their last place, and in fairness, the woman had a handle on it in no time. She was just as good to Billy, as she was to Charlie, doted on him just as much, despite the fact that Billy almost always kept himself invisible.
"I..., I..., I have the shits, sir," he almost whispered ashamed of what was happening and not having better means to describe it, when the teacher banged on the door another time impatiently demanding an explanation.
The teacher paused again. "You have diarrhoea, John," he corrected him with a scolding tone.
"Yes, sir. That," John said and as if needing to prove the fact, the noise his body made and the waste splashing into the well beneath the wooden box he sat on, was confirming it.
"Right, Edwards. I will send for your parent to collect you," Mr Wilson said.
"No," John immediately cried, and then added in a meeker, more pleading tone, "No, please sir. I am not sick. I'll be okay in a bit. I want to stay."
Mr Wilson paused again. This was most unusual. He was a fair teacher and he believed some of his students did not altogether dislike him nor coming to school but he was under no illusion that given the choice, none of them would prefer it to be sent home to rest for the remainder of the day. School was not meant to be pleasant.
He could hear the boy' soft sobs and started to wonder if he was scared rather than just in pain. The few orphaned children like John, he had taught in his last position, had fared well enough with whom they were placed out. Some better than others. In some ways life undoubtedly was still though of course but at least now, they were safe from criminal predators and well fed. One or two were even loved. One however, he remembered did not do so well and on accounts of his complaints was eventually removed from her family by the agency that had placed her there. He shuddered at the thought, as he remembered the emaciated and troubled girl that trusted him well enough to reach out to him. He made a difference to her of that he was certain and she to him as she gave him the feeling that he was doing the right thing and was in the right job.
"John you are sick and not in trouble. Are you afraid you might get punished?" the teacher asked in a genuinely kind and inquisitive tone.
John paused, the tone surprised him and reminded him of Jeremiah' straight forward communicating. He thought about what he could tell the man. Would he believe him if he told him the woman gave him the 'shits oil' as they used to call it back home. Probably not, he decided. Who would? It was inconceivable, but he wanted to stay, and more importantly he wanted to be able to come back. Unless he'd be able to make a run for it in the meantime of course, because now more than ever he was determined to get away from these people and find his mother.
"No, sir. At least I don't think they'd punish me, but she mightn't let me come back. She already thinks I am too sickly for school, and Sir I am not. I just have it today, that, dia-thing, you said. I'll be okay once it's all out, Mr Wilson. Please let me stay?" John pleaded with the teacher, being able to communicate more coherently again as his body slowly adjusted itself back at the end of the process.
He heard the teacher chuckle a little. "I am afraid I will still send you home, John. You don't have diarrhoea for no reason. You are sick, and need to be in bed for the rest of the day, but I make sure to let Mrs Edwards know that she is to return you to me on Monday morning," Mr Wilson told him in a kind tone of voice, after which he went inside to tell one of his students to fetch one of John's parents at the livery.
He gave the children some work to keep them busy and then returned to John, where he waited for the boy to finally come back out. He was worried that given half a chance, John would scarper and he would then be blamed. Not for nothing had Mr Edwards told him this morning that under no circumstances was John to be allowed to walk home by himself. He hadn't settled in as well as they had hoped yet and they feared he'd run away, Edwards had told him, which was why the teacher didn't think to look at the outhouse first but had been running up and down the street asking people if they had seen the boy.
Running away, although not far away from his thoughts, was not something John would have even been able to contemplate at this moment of time. He was exhausted and wobbly on his legs. Embarrassed but also grateful for the fact that the teacher seemed to be a sincere man who did not pounce on him when he finally opened the door and stepped back out onto the fresh air, he accompanied him to the water pump at the front of the schoolhouse where Mr Wilson kindly gave him something to drink and then dampened his handkerchief and dabbed it over John's forehead.
They sat on the steps to the schoolhouse, waiting for either Mr or Mrs Edwards to arrive, both contemplating in silence and glad for different reasons that no matter where they were, there was always at least one that made a difference.