My Name's Not Friday (2 page)

Miss Priestly is sitting at her desk with an open book. There’s an easy equation on the blackboard behind her and the children are sitting in silence, their chalkboards all in front of ’em. The classroom stirs to life as Father Mosely walks up the aisle and I see Joshua sit up straighter in his chair. I sit down too, cos it don’t do to stand out in
a room where people are going to start pointing fingers.

‘How nice,’ Miss Priestly says as the Father places the box, very deliberately, on her desk.

But the Father shakes his head. ‘No, Miss Priestly. There is nothing
nice
about this box.’ He taps a finger on the lid. ‘Despite what it says on the side, there is nothing
pleasant
in the contents of this box.’ He scans the room, from the back row to the front where the little ones sit. ‘Who would like to tell me what is in the box?’

Little Jessie’s hand shoots up in the air. ‘Is it insects?’

Father Mosely takes two steps to Jessie’s desk and slams his hand down so hard it frightens the child. ‘This is not a game of guesses, Jessie! If you do not know then you would do well to keep your opinions to yourself.’

Even from behind I can see that Jessie looks scared – I can see it in the way he hangs his shoulders. And he ain’t the only one. All of us are scared.

Father Mosely pauses for effect. ‘One of you doesn’t need to guess. One of you knows what I have in the box because you left it in the chapel as a present for the Lord.’ He straightens a finger and stabs the air. ‘A foul and stinking gift that reeks of the Devil himself!’

I take a look at Abel Whitley. He’s always saying smutty things so he’s the face I go to first, but Abel looks as shocked as the rest of us.

Father Mosely walks slowly across the front of the classroom. ‘Perhaps whoever left this thinks it’s funny. You might be laughing because you think you’ll get away with it, or you might be quaking in your boots with the fear of what you have done.’ His eyes are all wide in his face. ‘Either way, I say to whoever has done this – own up. Confess your sin so that the Lord may be merciful upon your
soul, although why he should want to be, I do not know.’

When he walks between the rows of desks, every boy in that classroom lowers his eyes and looks away for fear of being blamed. I keep my eyes on Miss Priestly. She’s sitting still as can be, looking about as scared as everyone else. The Father walks in a slow circle, going all around the room, and when he comes back to her desk he stops and takes a look at the watch which he carries in the front pocket of his waistcoat. ‘Will no one tell us what I have in the box?’

Nobody says a thing.

His manner changes. He puts his hands together, becomes all bright and brisk, trying a different kind of game to trap us. ‘Very well then. I shall show you. Miss Priestly, would you find me a sharp pair of scissors, please?’

Miss Priestly nods quickly, stands up from her chair and goes into the store cupboard next to the blackboard. She brings back a pair of scissors, then watches as he removes the lid of the box and cuts the cardboard down each end until the edge makes a flap which he folds out, turning the box into a stage. When he stands aside, we all gasp at the sight of the turd, even me, and I already know it’s there.

Father Mosely smiles with satisfaction at our shock. ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Hard to believe that a boy from this class would go into the chapel and climb upon the table of the Lord to leave him such a gift. But I will give that boy one last chance to confess his sin and ask for mercy.’ He gestures to the open box. ‘Will the boy responsible now put up his hand?’

No one moves. We sit and wait. I don’t know for how long, but it seems like a lifetime. At one point a pigeon lands on the roof. He sits there cooing and tiptoeing about. You can hear his claws scratching on the old tin, but still not one
of us moves a muscle. We hang our heads and close our eyes, each one of us praying to the Lord that it won’t be us that gets the blame, all of us doubting our own minds because although we know one way or the other whether we’re guilty, it feels like whatever we know could just as easily be wrong. That’s how I feel anyway. At any moment the finger might point in my direction and I’ll believe it must have been me. It’s all I can do not to admit it right away, and it would be easier for all of us if I did, cos it’d put an end to this awful silence that’s gonna last until Father Mosely points at one of us and asks for him to stand.

Because he
will
point at one of us.

Like he has before.

We all of us realize – ’cept maybe little Jessie – that Father Mosely knows who has done the deed. He always does. He knew that it was Billy Fielding stole the cup. He knew that Doddie drew the rude picture on the privy door and wrote underneath that it was Joseph and the Virgin Mary. He knew because God had told him, and I have a pretty good idea that right now God has stopped doing all the other things He has to do and is looking down at our little schoolroom, concentrating just on us and telling Father Mosely who it was that shat upon His table.

‘So be it.’ He breaks the silence with three quiet words, unfolds his hands and lifts his head. ‘Close your eyes,’ he tells us. ‘Close your eyes and let us wait for the judgement of our Lord.’

I’m already there, I’m already praying, muttering, ‘Let it not be me, let it not be me,’ as we close our eyes, but I open ’em quickly to see which desk Father Mosely goes to, and I’m only just in time as I watch him stop right in front of Joshua’s desk – he really does – and my heart drops through
my ass, may the Lord forgive me for saying so, but I can’t even breathe.

I watch the Father’s hands come apart. I see his finger with the gold ring lift high into the air above Joshua’s head and it twitches into life. He’s about to point the finger at my brother.

I stand up, my chair legs scraping on the wooden floor. ‘It was me!’

All the boys open up their eyes as Father Mosely looks across at me. I can see he wasn’t expecting it and he’s in a dilemma now, because God’s told him one thing and I’m telling him another, so I have to be convincing and I have to be quick.

‘It was me who shat upon the table. I did it this morning when I should have been cleaning floors. I went into the chapel and climbed upon the table of the Lord. Then I dropped my pants and did it. I did. I did it right there on the white cloth before the holy eyes of Jesus Christ upon the cross, so help me Lord.’

Father Mosely becomes impatient and annoyed. I think he’s going to tell me to sit down and be quiet, to stop being so stupid, only he hasn’t moved from in front of Joshua’s desk and I know I’ve got to do more, I’ve got to get him to walk away from my brother.

I start shaking from the fear of what I’ve done so I exaggerate it, biting my lip till I can taste the blood and rolling my eyes back into my head, the way I do when we speak in tongues. I stagger to the desk in front of mine and lay on it, scattering the boys like a flock of birds. I screw up my face and stick my tongue out at ’em, all red with blood, as I roll my head from side to side saying, ‘I got the Devil in me. I got the Devil in me and he made me empty my
bowels upon the table of the Lord. It was the Devil made me do it.’

I can feel Father Mosely step away from Joshua. I see him pass back through the middle of the class, coming towards me, half crouched and moving slow, like I’m some animal he’s afraid of.

Then he tries to trick me. ‘What does the Devil look like, Samuel?’ He stands over me as I twist upon the desk, rolling from my front to my back, making spit rise up around my lips. ‘How did the Devil appear to you, Samuel? Tell me exactly what you saw.’

‘I saw … I saw …’ Suddenly I rise up on the desk and come right up close, to his face. ‘Why, he looks just like you, Father.’

He takes a step back.

‘At first I thought it was you, come to visit me in the night, come to lean across me and whisper in my ear, but when you opened your mouth I could see the snake inside and I could smell the liquorice on your breath, and when I looked down I could see you had ninnies, just like Miss Priestly, and they were bare underneath your gown and you said to me, “Samuel, you shall defile the table of the Lord and bring all manner of wickedness upon this place,” and so I did it; I did it like you told me to. I did it just like you said.’

And suddenly it’s like the Devil’s really there inside me, like I ain’t myself any more, and I climb up on my desk, making the room of boys all gasp, and I turn my back on Joshua, cos I don’t want to see his face as I drop my breeches and squat, straining for all I’m worth.

Father Mosely must have found his strength from somewhere. Suddenly he grabs my arm and pulls me off the desk in one quick movement, throwing me to the floor with my
breeches still around my knees, all bruised and with my elbow hurting.

He puts his hand between my eyes and pins me down. I could struggle, I could make more of a show of it, but I know that it’s over. Father Mosely’s got no choice.

‘Pray for the soul of the sinner here before us,’ he calls out loudly, beginning the intonation of the words we know so well. And the boys begin to chant with him, surrounding the two of us as we crouch together on the floor.

‘Let us pray that God has mercy on his soul.’

Father Mosely’s got me grovelling in the dirt of the privy, my head and feet against the wooden walls with the chair of judgement hard up against my back. It ain’t much to look at – just a small wooden chair, same as the ones we sit at for supper – but I knew that already cos the day Billy got taken by the Devil we sneaked around the back and looked through a hole in the wood expecting to see a burnished throne and a hot pit of ashes.

Father Mosely brought me out here. He put me inside and locked the door. He’s taken the other boys back to the house where they will go without supper as they pray for my soul, and in the morning he’ll bring ’em back, so they can see what judgement has befallen me.

I been here a long time now, long enough for the last rays of the sun to squeeze through the gaps of the wall in thin bright golden lines. A short while ago I heard the footsteps of Father Mosely trudging through the gloom. I know the noise of his walk – the long stride and the heavy step, firm upon the ground like there ain’t no uncertainty in him at all. He must have gone over to the chapel and he must still be there cos he ain’t come back this way.

He’ll be praying. I expect he will. Probably discussing with the good Lord what to do with me.

Perhaps God’ll be angry with him. He’ll say,
Look what you did! You chose the wrong boy!

Father Mosely will have to apologize:
I’m sorry. He confused me. But we can’t let the Devil take him. We can’t let an innocent boy burn in the fire pits of hell for the rest of eternity.

God’ll shake his head.
I don’t see how I’ve got much choice.

Well, there’s some truth in that. We ain’t never opened the door on the chair of judgement the next morning and found a boy still sitting there. He’s always been judged good and proper and there ain’t nothing left of him to see.

I know Father Mosely will stick up for me.
But we can’t let the Devil take him.

He lied didn’t he? He spoke with the tongue of the serpent?

And I did lie. I did. I got the tongue of the serpent in my mouth and I got wicked thoughts in my head about Miss Priestly.

I slap my face. Slap it hard and put dirt in my mouth, cos I am undone. The Devil’s coming for me with red-hot pincers. He’ll pick me up and drop me in a pot of boiling oil. Maybe he’ll string me up by my wrists and never let me go. Maybe he’ll whip me till I’m red raw.

Father Mosely will plead for me. I know he will:
But, Lord, Samuel done a noble thing. He sacrificed himself to save another. Surely he shouldn’t be damned for that?

He’ll argue it well. Cos he likes me.

But God will look down on him with those big blue eyes.
Well, someone has to pay, and I told you who it
was. It was Joshua that did it. I made that very clear.

Yes. It was Joshua. Same as it always is. He’s been getting into trouble since he learned to crawl. Never stays in one place. Doesn’t matter whether I hit him or speak to him nicely, he won’t take any notice of me. Never has. As a baby I had to stop him crawling through the legs of horses. I had to stop him pulling the plates off shelves. If it weren’t one thing, it was another. One time he tried to pick up a glowing coal and throw it on the rug, nearly set the whole place on fire, and he can’t have been more than two years old. I got the blame for that too.

No. There’s no escaping it. Joshua’s got the Devil in him for sure. I reckon that’s why Mama died giving birth to him. But he’s done for us this time. He really has.

Outside the privy the light has faded. I hear footsteps in the darkness, some quick little steps that patter across the dirt in the yard, and when I put my eye to the hole in the wood he’s suddenly there – my brother Joshua – but I don’t want to see him and I shuffle away from the door, putting my spine against the far wall.

‘Samuel,’ he whispers loudly, his mouth up close to the privy wall. ‘Samuel, you in there?’

When I don’t answer, he says it again louder and I have to stop him or we’ll both be caught. ‘Quiet yourself!’ I whisper sharply. ‘You’ll have the Father or Sister Miriam out here. My Lord you will.’

‘I can’t find the key to get you out.’

‘Go back inside, Joshua. Go back inside and pray to the Lord. You ask Him for forgiveness. Do you hear me?’

‘I been praying for hours, Samuel. We all been praying for the Lord to let you out, but I don’t think it’s gonna work so I’m looking for the key, only it ain’t in Father’s jacket
pocket like it usually is. Do you know where he might have hidden it?’

‘What you doing going through Father Mosely’s pockets? And how do you know that’s where his keys are? Have you been thieving as well, Joshua? Have you been stealing from a priest?’ I hear his little body slump against the door of the privy and he won’t answer me, so I know it must be true. ‘Go back to the house, Joshua, before you get caught.’

‘Why’d you do it, Samuel?’

I ain’t exactly sure how he means, but he asks me in such a way that it melts the very heart of me. He’s only a little fella, and that’s easy to forget when I get angry with him.

‘I did it cos someone has to pay for what you did wrong. The good Lord holds us to account, Joshua, and someone always has to pay. That’s the way it works. You gotta remember that while I’m gone. You gotta try to be good, cos every time you do something bad there’s someone has to pay the reparations on your soul. Can you remember that? Can you try a little harder to be good?’ He puts a finger through the notch in the door and I touch the tip of it where he still has the scar from that burning coal. ‘It’s gonna be all right, Joshua. Everything’s gonna be all right. Now go on back to the house.’

I got a fistful of dread lodged in my throat at the thought of losing him, and he must know cos he won’t leave me, even though I told him to. ‘I don’t want to be left here on my own.’

‘I know, Joshua. But you gotta be good. You gotta stay out of trouble and you gotta wait for me. Do you understand? Cos I’m coming back for you. Wherever it is I go – I don’t care whether it’s heaven or hell – I’m coming back. Do you hear me?’

I swallow hard, pushing his finger back out through the hole. Joshua puts his lips to the gap. ‘You’re the best brother a boy could have, Samuel. I ain’t gonna forget you and I’ll try to be good, I will, cos you’re the best. Always will be.’

There! He breaks the very heart of me, same as always.

‘Stay away from that Abel Whitley,’ I tell him, as he makes his way back to the house, but my voice cracks and he don’t hear me before he disappears into the dark.

Just then, the chapel door opens and the Father’s footsteps come past. He don’t stop to talk to me. He just goes on into the house.

So it has been decided. Whatever God wants to do with me, there’s no way I can change it. All I can do is wait. I get myself up off the ground and sit in the chair, cos I reckon if I’m sitting straight it’ll make a better impression on whoever it is comes to take me away.

Perhaps God and Father Mosely have made a compromise. Maybe they struck a deal. Yes. That’ll be it. I know they have.

From somewhere high above me, God is laughing gently. I can hear Him. He’s saying it’s all gonna be all right. He’s saying He was never gonna leave me for the Devil. He was only kidding, and He’s gonna come for me himself. He’s gonna have me sitting up in heaven on His right-hand side.

But later, when the night is fully dark, I’m still there waiting.

I need some sleep, so I push the chair of judgement to the edge of the privy and curl up on the floor. I close my eyes. Try to clear my mind and calm my beating heart.

God ain’t gonna hurt me, I can be sure of that, cos I’ve always been a good boy.

But it still ain’t easy to sleep. If I can remember something
happy, then that might help. So I think of the trips we make into the village, on the first Saturday of every month, when Father Mosely gives us a nickel each for sweets from the store and we get to see the girls in their pretty dresses. Those Saturdays sure are nice. Those days are lovely and warm.

And I fall asleep with the smell of the marzipan all up inside my nostrils.