Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (23 page)

The very next morning after my first night at home was the Sunday before Christmas. There wasn’t any other choice but to dress in my uniform, because I didn’t have anything else to wear. I don’t know what happened to the clothes I’d sent home in the brown paper parcel, but they weren’t available. Nevertheless, I was proud of the uniform and wanted to show it off. At around half past ten I set out with Veronica and Pauline to walk the mile or so to St. Malachy’s church for the 11 o’clock Mass. I could sense that they felt proud of their big brother as we walked together and were enjoying the escort.

Most things seemed small when I had come home on leave, but this was one instance where it was the reverse. St. Malachy’s is a huge church, almost cathedral-like in size, so when I entered into the high, vaulted and cavernous interior it seemed to be a dramatic contrast to the little wooden building that housed the RC church I’d been attending at St. Athan for the last three months. It also seemed more formal, lacking the intimacy of the much smaller church that I’d become used to. Gradually, I began to notice that many people who would have normally greeted me with at least a “Hello,” before I left home to join the RAF, now pointedly ignored me. And then I understood why; they didn’t see me so much as they saw the uniform. The realization came that attending a Catholic Church service in Northern Ireland whilst wearing a British military uniform wasn’t exactly the smartest thing in the world to do. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. The religious teaching I’d received when growing up told me that it was a mortal sin to miss attending Mass on Sunday and in any case, there was my father to deal with if I didn’t go. Besides, this uniform was all that I had to wear. It would be Christmas day on Tuesday, which was another day when a Catholic was supposed to attend Mass under the pain of mortal sin, so it looked as though I would have to go through the same embarrassing situation all over again. It was too late now, but I promised myself that I would get some civilian clothes before next Sunday came around, so that I wouldn’t find myself in this uncomfortable situation once more.

After the service, I parted company with my sisters and took a different route from theirs, one that took me to my Aunt Alice’s house—just like I’d always done for the past one or two years before becoming a Boy Entrant. Alice, my father’s spinster sister, always went to early Mass, so she was at home when I arrived. She beamed when she saw me and told me that I looked very smart. Did I want something to eat, she wanted to know, as if she hadn’t already correctly guessed my answer. There was a large pot of delicious Irish broth bubbling on the cooker, which I knew because its mouth-watering aroma had hit me as soon as I walked through the door. She made me sit at the table and then set a large soup plate full to the brim with the thick broth, full of vegetables and a few small chunks of mutton, into which four or five medium-sized potatoes had been plopped. As I spooned the nourishing broth into my mouth, Alice asked about all that had happened since she’d seen me off on the train back in October. Was I going to Mass on Sundays, she asked sternly in her brusque manner? Were “they” treating me all right? Was I getting enough to eat? Had I made any friends? I answered her questions and expanded further on the subject by relating a few additional experiences concerning my new life, as all the while she listened to me with an indulgent smile playing on her face. The good news was that she didn’t ask me to take the dog for a walk. Apparently, that was a thing of the past. So, after spending an hour or so with my Aunt Alice, I said goodbye and made my way home.

Sometime in the early afternoon, my pal John Moore came to see if I wanted to go out. He had called at the house a few times during my absence, so he knew when I would be coming home on leave. I saw him coming up the street and opened the door to let him in, but he just stood there in the doorway grinning at me.

Annie joined in, “Och, he’s too posh for us now. Put a tramp on horseback and he’ll ride tae the divil.” It was one of her favourite expressions.

The banter continued for a while, which was typical of any time that John visited our house. He took a perverse delight in always feeding Annie enough ammunition to get her going on about all my faults and then kept stirring the pot. Good friend that he was, it was one trait that pissed me off about him, so it seemed to be time for a tactical withdrawal.

“D’ye want tae go out?” I asked.

“Aye. Where’ll we go?” He replied.

“Dunno. What about goin’ over for Melvin?” I suggested, referring to our mutual pal, Melvin Jackson, who had tried but failed to become a Boy Entrant during that first trip to Belfast that now seemed so long ago.

“Okay,” he agreed.

I went into the bedroom to put on the rest of my uniform. I had given the family a demonstration on using a button stick the previous evening and the buttons were still clean, despite my outing to Mass that morning. Even my father had been interested. It was something new to him, since his navy uniform didn’t include brass buttons or badges.

John looked me up and down now that I was wearing the full regalia. He didn’t really say anything, but his face took on a serious look. I could tell that for a moment he saw me in a very different light. Then the moment passed and the usual smile returned to his face.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Aye,” he answered, getting up from where he’d been sitting and following me out into the chilly December air.

When we were growing up, John lived just a few houses away in one of the other pre-fab houses and we went to St. Malachy’s School together. That’s how we had met and became friends. Then, about two years ago, his family had moved two miles away, to a better house in the Kilowen district of town on the other side of the river Bann: the same part of town in which Melvin Jackson lived. On leaving school, John had been taken on as a trainee projectionist at Christie’s Picture Palace, a cinema not far from where we both used to live. He still worked there, which brought him back to his old home area every day and that’s why he was able to call at my house on a fairly regular basis.

We walked and talked. First, I grumbled at him for stirring things up for me with Annie, but he just laughed as always like it was water off a duck’s back. Then we talked about life in the RAF. He wanted to know if the drill instructors were as mean and nasty as he’d heard. I told him that they were, relating some of the dirty tricks that Hillcrest had played on us and probably exaggerating more than a little, to accentuate toughness at being able to survive in such a hostile environment.

When we arrived at Melvin’s house, his mother greeted us as old friends, which in a way we were. Mrs. Jackson had served school dinners to us during most of the years that we’d attended St. Malachy’s, so she knew both of us well.

“I’ve got something for you, Brian,” she said, almost as soon as we arrived at the house, then she disappeared somewhere into the rear of the house, returning a few moments later with an old newspaper. “Your photo’s in here,” she beamed, while ruffling through the pages to find the correct one. Finally, she found the photograph on one of the inside pages, folded the pages back on themselves so that the object of her attention was at the front, then deftly doubled the bottom half of paper up behind the top half before presenting it to me in a triumphant gesture. It was the group picture taken by the “Northern Whig” photographer on the day I’d set off with the other lads on our way to St. Athan. I had completely forgotten about it until she showed it to me.

Whilst all of this was going on, Melvin was cleaning his shoes. He seemed to have some kind of fetish about cleaning them and we always had to wait ages for him to perform this personal chore that took only five minutes for most other people. We ragged him about it and his mother joined in. It was like a repeat performance of what had happened at my house earlier, but now I was on the winning side and that felt a whole lot better. Melvin just smiled, a little like Stan Laurel’s smile in the Laurel and Hardy films, but just kept on shining his gleaming black shoes. I silently wondered how long it would have taken him to bull his boots, had he been successful in joining the Boy Entrants. Maybe that would have cured him, but then again, maybe not.

Eventually, we managed to drag Melvin and his highly polished shoes out of the house. I said goodbye to Mrs. Jackson and thanked her again for the newspaper, then we headed back towards the centre of the town. On the way there, Melvin admired my uniform and remarked on the wheel badge.

“It means I’m a helicopter pilot,” I explained, as straight-faced as possible, repeating a corny old Boy Entrant line of bullshit.

“Naw,” he said. “Is it really? Are they training you to fly a helicopter?”

No longer able to remain deadpan, I grinned as I said yes. He laughed and then punched me playfully on the arm.

“Watch out for the uniform,” I shouted in mock horror and we jostled and fooled around during the mile walk back into Coleraine town centre.

I was getting plenty of looks and stares from passers-by and was particularly aware that girls of around my age were taking notice. In Barry there were so many of us wearing the same uniform that hardly anyone took any notice, but here it worked its magic and I felt like the fabled one-eyed man who was king in the country of the blind.

But, as much as I enjoyed the company of my friends, there seemed to be an undercurrent that disturbed me more than just a little. I felt that sometimes I was out of the loop when the other two frequently discussed experiences and people of which I knew nothing. It was understandable; after all I hadn’t been hanging around with them for the past three months, but these were my friends. John and I had grown up together and had known everything about each other since the time we first became best friends at around age 10. Now I had the feeling of being on the outside looking in, like a new kid at school listening and smiling and nodding along with everyone else when he really hasn’t a clue what the conversation is all about. Sometimes I would ask them questions in an attempt to fill in the background knowledge that I was missing. When this happened, they would stop and patiently explain, but then the flow was lost, the subject changed and I felt even more of an interloper.

But we still had fun. As day turned into evening, we ate fish and chips at Morelli’s. We could afford that now, at least John and I could—Melvin didn’t have a job yet. Later we hung around the main street and, with the sophistication of our advanced years, were actually able to engage some members of the opposite sex in conversation, although it was more about joking and smart-alecking with some girls. One of them grabbed my hat and ran off with it. She laughed and giggled as I chased after her, then screamed in mock terror when I caught up with her, and then we were in a corner a little way off from the others. There was some playful scuffling and awkward kissing, combined with a lot more giggling and “accidental” contact between body parts. It was typical teenage stuff, but that’s as far as it went. Sex education hadn’t been on the curriculum at St. Malachy’s Catholic school and in fact boys and girls were strictly segregated in two separate schools-within-a-school. So, my level of sophistication when it came to interacting with the opposite sex was close to zero. Looking back on it, I’m reminded of the old joke about the dog that chased cars. He could make lots of noise barking and running after them, but wouldn’t have known what to do if he had ever actually caught one. There was a lot of growing up to do and this was just the kindergarten level. Little did I realize that in just a few more days, the pace of my growth from boy to man would be given a slight boost of acceleration.

The next day was Christmas Eve and my sisters asked if I would take them to Midnight Mass. They were still too young to be out that late at night by themselves, but they would be allowed to go if I went with them. It was a good idea because the congregation at this service was usually more relaxed and cosmopolitan, many of them feeling quite mellow after the pubs had shut and not all were Catholics either. It was common knowledge that many Protestants attended the service to experience the “bells and smells” of a High Mass. Therefore, my exposure to the kind of embarrassing wall of silence I had experienced the previous Sunday, for wearing my uniform to church, would be considerably lessened at Midnight Mass. In the end, Annie decided to come too and so the four of us trudged through the lamp-lit streets to St. Malachy’s Church.

Midnight Mass had its own special air of excitement: the sung mass with its three celebrants instead of the usual one, the heavy smell of incense in the air and the joyful feeling of Christmas in everyone’s heart. When it was over, we made our way home to a darkened house and crept quietly to bed. Now we didn’t have to get up and go to church in the morning, but could stay at home and enjoy Christmas.

Christmas dinner wasn’t a grand affair, there wasn’t too much money to spend on luxuries, but we had a nice dinner of roast goose and Annie had baked a cake and made some mince pies. She may have had her faults, but she certainly knew how to cook and bake when the notion took her. Christmas presents were simple and inexpensive. I got an inexpensive watch from Annie, my first ever and that was about it. I gave my sisters and brother Thomas some money, which to them was better than getting a present, but expected nothing in return because they didn’t have the means of buying presents. Later, I went to see Aunt Maggie to wish her a Merry Christmas and took her a little gift. She received it gratefully as if it were something rare and expensive, which it was not. She gave me a pen and pencil set, which was a welcome gift.