The Brothers' Lot (23 page)

Mulvey shook his head sadly and walked down the hill to the village. He turned the corner just in time to see the train pull out of the station. A soft rain began and just as suddenly intensified.

“I’ll write the fecking thing myself if I have to,” he muttered, and stomped toward the station to wait for the next Dublin train. He could get off at Denmark Street Station and walk up to Werburgh Street from there. He smiled as this new plan began to take shape in his head.

“I know it is very late, but I do need to ask you some more questions,” said Father Mulvey softly. “You see, I was on the telephone with the Bishop of Spokes and Duggery and he had a few questions he needed answered before he spoke to Cardinal Russell.”

Brother Boland nodded sadly as if wishing none of this had ever happened.

“So, can you remember the night you found the statuette of Venerable Saorseach?”

Brother Boland nodded slowly.

“The bleeding one?”

Boland nodded again, barely aware of what Mulvey was saying to him. Inside his head, a distracting clamor swirled through his brain. The something wrong was out there again, inside him, all around him, growing wronger. Mulvey was not making it any better. Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly was not making it any better.

“Can you recall hearing anything? A voice? Music? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“I have to go,” said the Brother hoarsely.

Father Mulvey watched in shock as the man’s frail frame seemed to tighten and brace before scuttling to the door. Mulvey ran to the door after him and saw him move up the stairs. Ever the intrepid Diocesan Investigator, he followed.

Mulvey had seriously underestimated Brother Boland’s speed, and by the time he got to the first landing, the man was out of sight.

Several lucky deductive leaps and one false start of bursting into the empty toilets on the second floor were required before Mulvey found his way to the top landing. From there it was easy. Brother Boland had no thoughts of concealing his trail. His only purpose was haste.

Mulvey cautiously passed through the open doorway and looked upward. He saw the spiral stairs and could hear Boland’s labored movement above him. He started cautiously up.

When he came to the ladder he saw the Brother at the top of it keening softly to himself and stroking the big bell as though it had been hurt. Concluding that the ladder could not support both of them, Mulvey prudently waited at the bottom and watched Boland soothe the bell and run his hands over the walls of the bell tower like some shamanic medicine man.

Gradually the Brother’s movements slowed and finally stopped. Exhausted, he crept carefully down the ladder and sat on the bottom rung. He was breathing heavily and sweat was running down his face. When he looked up, he did not seem the least bit surprised to see Father Mulvey standing there.

“Are you all right there, Brother?” asked Mulvey.

Brother Boland nodded.

“Is there something wrong?”

“I don’t know. There is something. Around us. Inside. Something cracking. A sundering. Shards.”

“Is it Venerable Saorseach?”

Brother Boland shook his head, then stopped and peered sadly at Mulvey: “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s say it is Venerable Saorseach. What do you think he is trying to tell you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think maybe he thinks the country is on a downward spiral of moral decay and needs to renew its dedication to piety?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Gaelic football?”

“I don’t know.”

“And the Irish language?”

“I don’t know.”

It was only then Boland noticed that Mulvey was writing everything down in his little red notebook.

“I don’t know, I tell you! I don’t know!” he snapped, and abruptly left.

Father Mulvey sat on the ladder and finished his notes. He closed his notebook, wrapped the rubber band around it, and tapped it thoughtfully on his chin. Yes, he should be able to write this up into a convincing draft for Father Sheehan. If he used
implied, demonstrated
, and
intimated,
instead of
said,
he should be fine.

27

V
an! Men! In the yard! Again! In the yard! I saw them drive in. The janitor opened the gate for them.” Brother Loughlin looked up from his desk to see Brother Boland hopping up and down with agitation in the doorway. “Contain yourself, Brother Boland. I will deal with this.”

Calmly Loughlin got up from his desk and walked down the corridor past the first year classes and out into the yard.

“There! See?” Boland pointed at the rickety van in the middle of the yard.
Brannigan Brothers Roofing Contractors
, read the legend on the side of the van. Two men were unloading timber and tools while a third looked on.

“You can’t park there! You have to leave!” barked Brother Loughlin.

Matt, the overseer, looked up and acknowledged Loughlin with a desultory but friendly wave of his hand.

“I said you’ll have to leave. Move that van,” repeated Loughlin as he walked toward the man.

“No bother, Brother. The lads’ll just load up our stuff and we’ll be on or way. Lar, Con, hurry up, we have to load up again.”

“It’s all very well that you’re here at nine in the morning, but you were supposed to be here months ago. The janitor should not have let you in. We’re not allowing any outsiders into the school,” Loughlin continued.

“Game ball. That’s up to you,” said Matt indifferently.

“Your face rings a bell. I can’t place you. Have you done work here before?” asked Loughlin. He eyed Matt carefully.

“The radiators! The radiators! They were here about the radiators! And the clock! I remember now!” rambled Brother Boland.

“Ah, no, that would be the scrap metal division and the electrical division. They’re completely separate from us,” explained Matt.

Brother Loughlin continued to eye him suspiciously. “What’s your name?”

“Matt. Matt Matthews.”

“All done,” announced Lar as he approached. “We’re all set,” concurred Con.

Again Loughlin found himself assailed by a sense of familiarity. He looked from Lar to Con and back again. “Are you sure you haven’t been here before?”

“Maybe in a previous life, Brother, but not as far as I know,” replied Lar cheerfully.

“Metempsychosis, that is,” Con added with a smile.

“Don’t you two start,” cautioned Matt. “I’m sorry, Brother, they’re forever going on like that. I blame night school.”

“Indeed. Here’s Mr. McDermott now. He’ll open the gate to let you out.”

“Game ball, Brother,” said Matt.

Loughlin shook his head and pulled Boland, who was staring open-mouthed at the three men, after him.

“Stop that carry on, Brother Boland, or I’ll have you locked in your cell!”

“But it’s them! It’s them! They’re part of it all. I’m sure of it.”

“Part of all what? Stop your nonsense or you’ll end up raving and covered in your own spit in the attic like Brother Garvey. Go sweep out your tuck shop. I’m sure it’s filthy.”

“Part of the sadness in the walls.”

“I’ll give you sadness in the walls! Go sweep out your shop!”

“What time is it?” shouted McDonagh above the buzz of voices.

“Nearly half ten.”

“Deadly!”

“Betcha he was out drinking again.”

There was no sign of Mr. Devlin and the intoxicating smell of double free class wafted through the air. The Biology lab was the best place for a free class. It was tucked into a disused part of the monastery and apart from the rest of the classrooms.

By eleven o’clock they were fully convinced Devlin was not going to show up. McDonagh put his head down on the workbench and went to sleep. Lynch dug the stolen
Naughty Night Nurse Confessions
out of his bag and flicked through the pictures of near naked women with an intensity of purpose unusual for him. Scully looked around him for something to do. Finbar started to doodle aimlessly in his copy while furtively staring at the women in Lynch’s magazine. Egan calmly walked to the back of the lab and started to go through the cupboards, occasionally returning to secrete something in his bag.

“Yeaw! Ego! Bringing home yer homework?” called McDonagh. Egan looked at him blankly and went back to the cupboard.

Suddenly bored, Lynch handed the
Naughty Night Nurse Confessions
to Ferrara and walked to the teacher’s desk.

“Now, this morning we’re going to perform an experiment of picking our holes and doing nothing until lunch time,” began Lynch in a near perfect imitation of Mr. Devlin, “cos I was out last night getting locked and woke up under a car and have a head like a balloon on me this morning. While I fall asleep, I want yiz all to pick yer holes and keep quiet. When yiz are done yiz can write a fourteen-page essay about it. When—”

“Sketch!” hissed McDonagh, who could see out into the corridor through the partially open door.

Lynch calmly stepped away from the desk and feigned dropping something in the wastepaper basket.

“It’s okay. It was only Frawley,” said McDonagh after a moment.

Lynch resumed his teaching post: “If yiz have any questions, yiz can ask me hole.”

The mood of a free class could change from one of somnolent laziness to one of giddy messing in a flash, and taking off the teachers was almost guaranteed to make it happen.

Gradually, almost organically, the noise level increased as more and more boys had a go. The scene reached a fever pitch when Lynch as Mr. Devlin was threatening to vomit all over McDonagh as Mr. Pollock, while Scully as Brother Boland gibbered, shook, and drooled all over the floor and Ferrara did a passable parody of Father Flynn trying to calm them all down. So carried away did they get that they lost track of who was keeping watch and it took a couple of seconds for it to dawn on them that the “What in the name of God is the meaning of this outrage?” actually came from the real Brother Kennedy.

Lynch, McDonagh, Scully, and Ferrara were caught. There was no pretending to be looking for a pen or putting something in the bin. Brother Kennedy grabbed them roughly by the arms and put them out to the line by the door.

“The rest of you can write this out fifty times while I deal with these baloobas. Take out your copybooks!” he shouted, and wrote on the board:

If I had given the slightest bit of thought to my fortunate position as a pupil in this school, I would have taken advantage of the opportunity to repay the time and effort that has gone into making me a better person by applying myself to my books instead of howling and carrying on like an ill-bred corner boy. I am a worthless bowsie only good for cannon-fodder and do not deserve the effort expended on my education by my betters.

Brother Kennedy turned on his four victims: “Oh no, you couldn’t just show a little respect. You couldn’t use a free class for some useful purpose. You had to start acting the blackguard and draw attention to yourselves, didn’t you? I’m still supposed to be resting, you know. I’ll learn you manners!”

He leathered each of them twice on each hand and sent them back to their places.

“Copy that fifty times before the end of this class and no messing! If you’re not finished, you will stay back after school to finish.”

Brother Kennedy started pacing round the lab. He stopped behind Brian Egan and stared over his shoulder. The boy sensed Kennedy behind him and shrank down into his shoulders. He continued to write nervously under the scrutiny.

“Perhaps you can tell me what that is supposed to be,” he said, pointing at Egan’s copybook.

“Fortunate,”
answered Egan, his voice hesitant against the coagulating resentful silence that was emanating from the rest of the class.

“Spell it.”

“F-O-R-T-U-N-E-A-T-E.”

“Is that so? Look at the board! How many E’s in
fortunate
?”

“One, Brother.”

“Yes.
One, Brother
. For God sake, you can’t even copy down from the board! What sort of eejit are you?” Brother Kennedy leathered Egan twice on his writing hand.

From the other side of the lab there came the sudden metallic crash of a Geometry set hitting the floor.

“What clumsy fool did that?” barked Brother Kennedy.

“I did,” called Scully, much to the relief of Shorthall, whose Geometry set he had just deliberately pushed onto the floor.

“Get out to the line!”

“Which line?” asked Scully.

“Over there by the door!” snarled Brother Kennedy.

Scully nodded solemnly to himself and bounded out to the line, satisfied that Kennedy’s fuse was now lit. Picking on Egan like that was not on. There was something broken inside Egan that made Scully weirdly protective.

“You expect me to correct that tiny handwriting, do you, Mr. Sullivan?”

Finbar froze in his seat. He’d read Scully’s signal. Was there a perfect wrong answer to this question? He could feel Mullen tense beside him as if waiting for the blow. He was trapped. Now that he actually wanted to annoy Brother Kennedy, he couldn’t think of the right wrong thing to say.

“Brother, can I bring me lines out to the line?” bellowed Scully suddenly.

Kennedy spun around and stared carefully at Scully, checking for any sign of disrespect or slyness. Finding none, he gruffly nodded his assent and returned to baiting Finbar.

“Start that one again! Make it legible!”

Scully grabbed his jotter and returned to the line. There he made an awkward show of trying to lean on the window-sill and write, the exaggerated eagerness of his movements conveying its message to the rest. They were going out of their way to provoke Kennedy. This was another blackout.

The Brother stood over Finbar and watched carefully as he rewrote the line in unnaturally large letters. Kennedy gently tapped his leather against his cassock in anticipation of the slightest mistake. Finbar let the pen take over and suddenly there it was in large block letters:
IF I HAD GIVEN THE SHITEST BIT OF THOUGHT—

“Out to the line!” rasped Brother Kennedy, and snapped his knuckles hard across the back of Finbar’s head.

“An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leabharlann?” (May I go to the library?)