The God Squad (9 page)

‘I didn’t mean it,’ I replied.

‘Let me tell you this,’ Mother Paul said sternly, ‘and remember it. You will never ever again set foot inside an altar rails.’

She could not have known it at the time but her words were prophetic.

As the rest of the boys took off their vestments in the sacristy, Mother Paul left saying she would deal with me later. Some of the boys played handball after Mass and I decided to join in, but was told to ‘get lost’. They jeered me for falling and then fainting. When they saw that I was almost crying they became even more vocal in their taunting. ‘Orphan, orphan,’ they jeered as I walked from the churchyard. As they continued to jeer I became enraged and ran back towards them, kicking and punching as many as I could. The sacristan rushed from the sacristy and pulled me off one boy I was threatening to kill. I was shaking with anger, shocked by my sudden outburst of temper. I wondered briefly if the sacristan would tell the nuns about the incident, before deciding I didn’t care.

I walked through the town, hands in my pockets and head bowed, desperately aware of being watched by the entire community. Down the street Mother Paul was waiting.

‘Get your hands out of your pockets and lift up your head, God knows you’re bad enough. You’re a disgrace to yourself, worse still, you’re a disgrace to the school.’

Hard as she tried, she could not keep her voice down and it rose gradually with every word. People passing looked at her, then at me.

‘If you had lifted your feet the way I have been telling you to, none of this would have happened, but you didn’t. No, you made a fool of yourself and you brought disgrace on all of us.’ She reminded me for the second time that I would never set foot inside the rails of an altar again but this time she added, ‘as long as I am alive.’ She jabbed me with her sharp pointed finger and made me walk in front of her.

‘Lift your head, put back your shoulders and in the name of Almighty God will you lift that foot of yours,’ she said.

On Sunday afternoon visitors came to St Michael’s. They were usually relations of some of the nuns or well-to-do people from the locality. Very occasionally a relation of one of the boys would turn up. When visitors did arrive we were expected to provide entertainment for them by singing or putting on a short play. I felt important being on show. I always sang the same songs: ‘A Mother’s Love is a Blessing’ or ‘Two Little Orphans’, which delighted the nuns and their guests. Mother Michael smiled while playing the piano and scowled if I didn’t reach the notes as she liked me to.

Everyone clapped politely when I was finished and I bowed to them as I had been trained to do. If there was time we would put on a short play,
Tweedledum and
Tweedledee
that finished with all of us singing ‘Little Mister Baggy Britches’. Some people laughed out loud while others smiled politely. When the show was finished, a trolley containing china cups, and plates stacked with cakes was brought into the hall. We remained on the stage as the visitors ate and drank. The voice of John McCormack singing ‘Ave Maria’ crackled through the horn of the black gramophone at the side of the stage, which Miss Sharpe wound up before lowering the heavy needle onto the record’s edge. She quietly warned us not to stare at people eating, then, as she stood out of sight of nuns and visitors, she spoke about McCormack’s sweet voice and the crispness of his diction. A clear voice that never missed a note or lacked breath. He opened his mouth when he sung, he took deep breaths, he didn’t sing through his teeth or his nose. His voice flowed, never wavering.

It was not uncommon for Miss Sharpe to become completely carried away as she listened to her favourite singer. Whenever she was minding us she used to put his records on and it was at such times that some of us would take the opportunity to try and look up her skirt. Quiet arguments arose about the colour of her knickers. We’d dare each other to look up her skirt, taking turns, nervous of being caught.

I had been given a miraculous medal for my Communion. As Mother Paul put the silver medal with its blue string, around my neck, she reminded me of its significance. It was the symbol of purity and chastity. I used to take it off, and slide it across the floor as near to Miss Sharpe’s feet as I could get it. As she stood entranced by the music I’d pick up the medal and at the same time look up her skirt. If she did notice me I was certain I would be able to explain my presence by saying that I had dropped the medal. Afterwards we’d group together and laugh at what we had seen.

There were times when she wouldn’t notice the record had finished or that we were all talking. She’d become annoyed when she realized we were not in the least interested in the music and order us out into the yard, apparently unperturbed by the fact that it was raining heavily.

‘It’s spilling,’ I’d say, pointing to the windows.

‘Get out,’ she’d shout, ‘a drop of rain is not going to kill you.’

I ran around the wet yard, chasing leaves that had been prematurely blown down or skidding into wet and slimy clusters of them, enjoying trying to remain upright and laughing when I landed arse first on the ground.

There was one part of the yard that was always dry because a section of the building protruded out over it. Here I would squat down on my haunches and with my arms outstretched get two other boys to pull me along the concrete. In the twilight, or winter dark, the studs on the soles and heels of my boots would leave a trail of sparks in their wake. Causing sparks was one of the things I enjoyed doing most. To create them I had to run as fast as I could and kick the heel of one boot hard against the ground.

Like many of the other boys I often came in from the yard with my hair plastered flat down onto my head and my clothes soaked, but nobody seemed to care. It was not uncommon for us to sit and eat our evening meal with rain water dripping from our clothing onto the dining hall floor.

In May 1958 most of the older boys in the school were told to write to a relative. Many of us had never met the people we were being asked to write to, and even if we did, couldn’t remember them. The letter writing was supervised by Mother Michael, the nun responsible for our schooling, and their purpose was to ask for a two week holiday away from St Michael’s. All the letters were written under her close supervision.

She told me to write to my aunt Mary. I looked at her, surprised.

‘Don’t look so stunned,’ she said, ‘you do have an aunt as well as an uncle.’

It was three years since I had arrived in the school and though I remembered my uncle, I had never heard of any aunt. Mother Michael wrote a standard letter on the blackboard which she instructed us to copy. The address was in the top right hand corner and the date underneath.

‘Dear . . .’ she had written, telling us that ‘the blank line is for you to fill the name of the person to whom you are writing.’

‘
Dear Aunt Mary
,’ I wrote, before looking at the blackboard to copy what was written on it.

‘
I hope you are well as I am myself, thank Dog. I would like to come and spend a fortnight with you if you would not mind. I will be good, and do everything I am told. Mother Michael and Mother Paul send you their good wishes. I am very happy here, the nuns are very good to me. I pray for you every night. I look forward to hearing from you soon,

I remain,

Your nephew,

Patrick.
’

Mother Michael went around checking the letters. She slapped her wooden ruler down on the desk of one of the boys near me. It made a sharp crack which startled the other boys.

‘Always a capital G for God,’ she shouted.

She picked up my letter, and asked me to spell God.

‘G.O.D.’ I answered confidently. She walked to the top of the classroom with my letter in her hand.

‘This is more of this fellow’s clowning,’ she said. ‘Not only does he tell lies and bring the school into disrepute, now he has taken to making fun of God Himself.’ I watched her face redden as she rushed towards my desk. Thinking she was going to hit me, I cowered. She banged her clenched fist on the desk.

‘Spell God,’ she demanded again.

‘G.O.D.’ I said.

She handed me the letter and asked me to read the first sentence. As soon as I looked at it I realized my mistake. I reached for my pen to correct it.

‘Read,’ she shouted.

‘Dear Aunt Mary,

I hope you are well as I am myself, thank Dog.’ Some of the boys laughed, but stopped suddenly when she said there was nothing to laugh about. She referred to what I had
written as blasphemy, one of the most serious of all sins. Kneeling at the top of the classroom, I was forced to say an ‘Act of Contrition’ before being given six slaps, three on each hand. Then I collected all the letters and left them on her table.

I was startled the day Mother Paul told me my uncle was coming to bring me for a two week holiday to my aunt’s house in Wexford. I was uncertain about whether I wanted to go or not. On the one hand I was delighted to get away from the almost constant punishment, but on the other I knew I would miss the companionship of the boys. Because I knew nothing about my aunt I was nervous of having to spend a holiday with her. Life in Saint Michael’s was by now familiar. I had come to accept it as normal.

It was a Sunday. Breakfast was served at eight o’clock instead of seven which allowed time to get to early Mass beforehand. I waited in line with the rest of the boys to have my dish filled with porridge from a heavy stainless steel cauldron. I walked carefully to my place, carrying my bowl with my eyes fixed on its floating contents. My steps were slow and deliberate, I didn’t want to spill it. Having eaten the porridge and scraped the bowl clean, I passed the dish to the boy beside who passed his on until there was a pile of dishes stacked at the end of the long table. The nun in charge of the kitchen served cocoa and bread, and when breakfast was finished, four boys were sent to the scullery to wash up. Any other day I would almost certainly have been one of the four, but as I was going on holidays I had to keep myself clean which meant that I didn’t have to do any work at all.

At dinner time I was not allowed to eat with my companions. I was told to remain in the yard where I walked around wondering what my holiday was going to be like. I looked up towards the top floor of the L-shaped building
to the statue of the Sacred Heart. Even in the bright sunlight the building looked cold and grey. I quietly walked up the fire escape so that I could see into the dining hall. Everyone was eating. The orchard was at the other end of the yard. I had often noticed the nuns walking through it as they said their prayers. I walked to its railings and pressed my face tightly against the black bars, almost putting my head through. Amongst the trees and bushes I saw the familiar limping figure of Mr O’Rourke. He was dressed in a dark blue suit with a heavy grey stripe through it. He saw me and immediately came forward.

‘Well, be the hokey, aren’t you the real smasher today?’ I told him I was going away to stay with my aunt for two weeks. He bent his wrinkled face low towards me and said, ‘Sure won’t it be grand for ye to have a bit of a holiday. I wouldn’t mind an ould holiday away from them nuns meself.’ He laughed. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘for a fella that’s going on his holidays, ye don’t look all that happy.’

Before I could answer he slipped his wrinkled hand through the railings and unfolded it.

‘Go on,’ he urged, ‘them’s a grand goosegog, not sour like they were the last time. Why aren’t ye having the dinner?’

‘I’m going to have it with the nuns when my uncle comes.’

The old man’s face beamed, his smile revealing the only two teeth he had, both badly decayed.

‘Dinner with the nuns, begob. Them’s the people that knows how to feed ye, china cups and plates and the best of silver. I had me own dinner with them a couple of times and I can tell ye this, ’tis better than I’d ever get at home. Make the best of it, it’s not often you’ll get the chance.’ I nodded. He turned his back to me and looked round the orchard. ‘When I started here there was nothing, only them goosegog bushes.’ I could feel his pride as he looked around at the
apple and pear trees. ‘Them gravel paths weren’t there either, now begob the nuns is using them for praying on. I wonder do they ever think of me while they’re sayin’ the rosary.’ Before we parted, he told me that while I was away my feet would grow, and I would have to have the boots fixed again when I got back. Then he limped away through the fruit trees and out of sight. By early afternoon I was hungry and growing more anxious at the thought of going to stay with someone I didn’t know. I tried to get into the pantry for a slice of bread but my nerve failed. I was afraid of being caught and each time decided it wouldn’t be worth the risk. I waited in the yard for my uncle. By three o’clock I felt weak and had cramps in my stomach, by four the pain was unbearable and I cried. Mother Paul noticed me.

‘What’s the crying about now?’

‘I’m hungry, Mother, and I have pains in my stomach.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Offer it up for the black babies out in Africa who never get a bit to eat. Go to the kitchen and wait until your uncle comes. The last thing the poor man wants is to turn up and find you crying like a baby.’

The kitchen was hot and filled with steam. The sun shone through a window that looked out onto a yard packed with cardboard boxes laden with the withered leaves of cabbage and galvanized bins overflowing with other food debris. The cook, a small rotund figure, took little notice of me beyond casting the occasional glance over the top of her glasses. I tried to ensure I was not in her way. She wore a white apron over her black habit and had her sleeves rolled up. I watched as she mixed a large bowl of flour and water, her red face perspiring continuously as she used her apron to wipe it. She scattered flour over a rectangular board and tossed a big lump of dough onto it, kneading it vigorously until it was ready for baking.