The Brothers' Lot (30 page)

“I can’t say that I noticed. We were all very perturbed. In a panic, shock, you know, like.”

“I am certain you were,” replied Sheehan. He joined his hands as if for prayer and put the tips of his index fingers to his lips. “I am not quite sure how to say this, Brother Loughlin, but say it I must. I believe that there is more, or rather less, of a divine nature to this so-called miracle than meets the eye. I should not like to have to defend it in front of the Bishop. I would be duty bound to voice my misgivings about the authenticity and, well, if there were an antagonistic investigation, who knows where it might lead?”

Loughlin shifted uncomfortably under Sheehan’s unwavering gaze. Did he know or was he fishing? Would it be best to own up now or try to brave it out? What if Sheehan were to have an accident? Would the process go ahead then? Even if they let the whole thing slip back into the quiet, would Sheehan come after him for his part in falsifying it? What had he already done to Mulvey? What the hell was that racket outside?

The office door burst open and Brother Loughlin and Father Sheehan were treated to the bizarre spectacle of Brother Mulligan struggling into the office while Mrs. Broderick did her best to restrain him.

“Get your hands off me, woman! This is important!”

With astonishing strength for his ancient frame, Mulligan shrugged the woman off and pushed her gently but firmly out the door. He grabbed a chair and wedged it against the door handle to keep her out.

“Brother Mulligan! What do you think you … ?” Loughlin fell silent under the glare from Mulligan.

“Whisht!” hissed Mulligan, and raised his right palm toward Loughlin with a flourish of authority and determination that impelled him back into his chair. Mulligan carefully circled Father Sheehan, who sat unperturbed, patiently waiting for this embarrassing interlude to end. The Brother leaned down and stared into Sheehan’s face from very close. Sheehan shifted a little in his seat and cleared his throat. Mulligan stopped his circling and stood to Sheehan’s left.

“It’s him,” he said to Brother Loughlin conclusively.

“Him? Who him? What are you talking about, you old fool?”

“Sheehan. He’s a Sheehan. I’d know them anywhere!” With this Brother Mulligan seemed to reach a pitch of fury that threatened to burst him. He launched himself at Sheehan, who was forced to stand up and remove the Brother’s hands from around his throat with some considerable effort. Loughlin moved from behind his desk and grabbed Mulligan by the elbows. “What on earth do you think you are at?”

“He’s one of them Sheehans. His father informed to the Black and Tans. Well I’d know the face. Think I don’t know ye, Sheehan? Well I do! Went to Jesuit school on Civil War blood money, ye did! Ye hid long enough, but now that I know who ye are, ye’ll not rest easy till I have me revenge! I know plenty of people who’d be interested to know who you are and where you came from! I’m sure you know Archbishop Ryan’s father was shot by the Black and Tans. That’d put a halt to your gallop quick enough if he found out.”

“Brother Mulligan, Father Sheehan is here about the miracle. He’s no one’s informer. That’s all in the past now.” Loughlin nodded to Sheehan, who removed the chair and opened the door. “Go back to your duties, Brother. I need to have a good talk with Father Sheehan. I will handle this.”

Mulligan glared at Sheehan and exited with slow dignity, leaving the door open behind him. Loughlin watched him leave Mrs. Broderick’s outer office and then closed the door softly.

“Have a seat, Father. I think, in light of Brother Mulligan’s information, we have some more things to discuss, don’t you? I think there might be some mutually beneficial agreement we might reach about these, ehm, how shall we say, revelations,” he grinned.

Father Sheehan smiled wanly. He was intelligent enough to realize that he had lost all advantage and a trade of his silence for Loughlin’s was the best he could hope for. The miracle investigation would go through the motions and then quietly disappear and no one would ever accuse anyone of trying to fake anything.

36

T
he boys lined up by class and year and Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock walked up and down the rows inspecting each boy carefully. From time to time they stopped and conferred in urgent whispers before: “You, boy! Over to the other side.”

Each boy selected trotted over to the other side of the yard to Brother Cox beside the grotto of Our Lady of Indefinite Duration. Whatever their fate, the grotto at least offered temporary shelter from the biting wind that sheared across the rest of the yard.

“What are they doing?” whispered Finbar.

“No idea,” answered Scully. His mind was whirring as he tried to figure out what was going on and whether he should concentrate his efforts on getting himself sent to the other side or on being left where he was. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the selection process. Some of the quietest and some of the worst boys were being sent to the other side. He could not figure out the underlying plan. That made him very uneasy.

Finbar looked up and down the fifth year row where he stood. There was a nervous uncertainty in the air. To his left Smalley Mullen was shaking. It could have been the cold, but the way he kept looking from side to side told Finbar that the boy was very nervous.

“Eyes front!” barked Mr. Pollock suddenly. Finbar snapped his gaze forward. Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock were in the third year row in front of him. They had stopped beside a very tall third year. Brother Loughlin moved the boy’s head from side to side and peered at his face.

“Walk up and down for me,” said Loughlin. The boy stepped forward and moved along the space between the rows of boys. Loughlin and Pollock exchanged meaningful glances as the boy’s left foot made a harsh dragging sound on the gravel.

“Lift your feet when you walk, boy!” ordered Pollock.

“I can’t, sir. It’s my leg.”

“Then get over to the other side with you,” barked Loughlin.

They moved on along the row. Soon they would get to Finbar.

“Pssssst!”

Finbar turned to see Smalley Mullen gesticulating wildly. It was clear he wanted to know what was going on.

I don’t know
, mouthed Finbar back at him.

Smalley waved him to lean back. He wanted Scully’s opinion, not Finbar’s.

Scully shrugged his shoulders at Smalley.
No fucking idea
, he mouthed.

Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock were now at the beginning of the fifth year row and coming toward them. They stopped in front of Lynch.

“Are those your only shoes?” asked Brother Loughlin.

“Yes, Brother,” mumbled Lynch, looking down at his scuffed and broken shoes to see what the problem might be.

“Other side!”

Lynch slouched across the yard with an air of complete indifference. It was all the same to him; middle of the yard or beside the grotto, none of it mattered a shite. His gait as much as said so.

“And hurry on with you!” Loughlin snarled after him.

Finbar tensed as they moved closer. They stopped at Bradshaw on the other side of Scully. Loughlin motioned Pollock, who reluctantly leaned forward and sniffed at the boy. He recoiled sharply and nodded to Loughlin.

“Other side!”

They slowly passed Finbar and Scully, moved down the row, and stopped at Smalley.

“Stop that shaking, boy!”

Smalley pulled his arms tightly about himself in an attempt to stop shivering.

“What on earth is the matter with you?”

“Cold, Brother,” struggled Smalley between his chattering teeth.

“Cough,” instructed Mr. Pollock. “What, sir?”

“I said cough.”

Puzzled, Smalley let out a small
ahem-ahem
.

“None of your messing. Cough properly!”

Smalley coughed a little harder and then doubled over in a violent fit of genuine coughing.

“I thought as much. Other side!”

By the time Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock finished their inspection, some eighty boys had been sent to the other side of the yard. Brother Cox was concentrating very hard on remembering the instructions Loughlin had given him. He divided the boys into two even groups. With a nod from Loughlin he sent one group back to stand behind all the other boys. Then Loughlin sent half the boys from his side of the yard to stand in front of Cox’s boys. They formed two groups on each side of the yard like some press-ganged guard of honor with the offending handpicked boys at the back of each group.

“Is the Pope coming or what?” asked McDonagh quietly as he stood between Finbar and Scully.

As if in answer to McDonagh’s question, two black cars pulled into the yard between the battalions of boys.

Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock stepped forward to meet the occupants of the vehicles when they stepped out.

“Ah, Mr. DePaor, how nice to see you again!” Brother Loughlin greeted. “I believe you already know our vice principal, Mr. Pollock.”

DePaor perfunctorily shook hands with Loughlin and Pollock. “Let me introduce my colleagues.” He gestured to the man and woman who had just emerged from the other car.

“I don’t believe you have met Mr. Nolan from the Department of Schools, Reformatories, and Borstals, and this is Miss Moloney from the Department of Waifs, Strays, and Orphans. They will be joining our inspection.”

Inspection
. The word rippled through the boys like a forest fire, igniting sensations of fear always associated with inspectors, followed quickly by the euphoric realization that they, the boys, were not the subject of the inspection—it was the school and the staff.

“That’s what it was!” whispered Finbar suddenly.

“What?” hissed Scully.

“They put all the sick and dirty-looking fellahs at the back for the inspection.”

“The sly bastards! They must be worried.”

“Very nice to meet you both!” called Brother Loughlin as he bustled round the car to shake hands with Mr. Nolan and Miss Moloney.

They each took his hand for an instant and nodded curtly. Mr. Nolan went back to the car and retrieved a very thick file. Brother Loughlin eyed it suspiciously, wondering where on earth Nolan could have got so much information on his school.

“May we begin?” asked Miss Moloney in a brittle, impatient voice.

“Oh yes. Of course. Of course. This way, please!” beamed Loughlin. Pollock nodded and smiled nervously at Mr. Nolan and Miss Moloney.

Mr. Nolan turned from the group and approached the boys to his left. He flinched slightly when he saw the boys recoil en masse as he came near.

“What’s your name, young man?”

“Martin Wardick, sir.”

“My name’s Martin too. Isn’t that funny?” Mr. Nolan smiled. Wardick stood blinking and bewildered. “Do you like school, Martin? Are you happy here?” he asked kindly.

Wardick continued to stare at the man. The incongruity of being addressed by his first name, combined with the alien concepts of liking or being made happy by school, succeeded in paralyzing his mind completely. He gawked helplessly and repeated: “Martin Wardick, sir.”

Mr. Nolan smiled painfully at the boy and moved to join the rest of the inspection team. He caught Brother Loughlin’s ingratiating eye and a dark scowl clouded his normally serene face.

“Mr. Nolan has just returned from investigating the Deargalstown Reformatory fire,” announced Mr. DePaor while the inspection team moved toward the school.

Brother Loughlin’s blood ran cold as he suddenly made the connection: this was the Mr. Nolan who had excoriated the nuns at Deargalstown when his investigation found that so many girls had died in the fire because the nuns insisted that they change out of their nightgowns before fleeing the building. The Mother Superior had said she’d been afraid their virtue might be put at risk. Nolan had scathingly concluded in his report that the nuns deemed it better that a girl be burned to death than risk an occasion of immodesty. It was creating quite a controversy.

“I thought we’d begin with a quick tour of our laboratories. I’m sure Mr. Nolan will find our school a very different proposition to Deargalstown,” Brother Loughlin informed the group as he ushered them into the school.

“It is clearly not a girls’ reformatory, but the rest remains to be seen,” replied Mr. Nolan coldly.

“The rest of you, back to your classes!” shouted Brother Cox once Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock had taken the inspectors into the lab.

Finbar’s sense of excitement mounted: “They’re the ones in trouble. Not us!” he explained eagerly to Scully on the stairs. “Did you see the way Loughlin was licking up to them? They’re shitting bricks.”

They walked into the classroom to find Brother Moody waiting for them. He was not supposed to be there. They were supposed to have Civics with Larry Skelly.

As the boys entered, Moody handed each one a rag: “There are tins of polish in that sack. You will work four to a tin and you will begin with this corridor. Now get to work! And put your backs into it, you lazy guttersnipes!”

The Brother walked along the corridor inspecting the boys’ work. Wherever he saw a missed patch he ground his foot on it to make it worse and told them to do it again. Suddenly Smalley Mullen sneezed and, his hands being otherwise occupied with polishing, delivered a generous dollop of snot onto the floor.

In a flash Brother Moody was beside him: “Lick that up, you disgusting little savage.”

Smalley looked up at him. “I can get a hanky and wipe it up, Brother.”

“You could, but what did I say?”

“You said lick it up, Brother.”

“That’s what I said. Are you about to defy me?” Moody clenched his thin pale fingers into a fist and then unfurled them into their individual crab-leg glory again. “Come on now, Mr. Mullen. It’s not like it’s anything new to you. Every time I turn around I see you with half your fist up your snotty little nose excavating some morsel out of there. Lick it up!”

Smalley stayed immobile on his hands and knees vainly hoping that this moment would just go away. He stared up at Brother Moody’s pinched, bitter face and then glanced down at the glob of snot on the parquet. Before he could look up again, Brother Moody had grabbed his hair and pushed his face against the floor. “Lick it up!”