The Brothers' Lot (19 page)

In fifteen minutes Brother Loughlin returned to the office with a broken statuette. It did not require much in the line of acuity to see that it was a completely different statuette, but it was generously edged with fresh blood. Father Mulvey took it, looked at it, and then at Brother Loughlin. He nodded meaningfully.

“Good work, Brother. Brother Boland didn’t mention anything that Venerable Saorseach had said to him by any chance, did he?”

“Ah, no, he didn’t. He didn’t say a whole lot. He was very reluctant to give up the statue.”

“Not to worry. There’ll be plenty of time for that.”

“I see.”

“Well, I’ll take this over to the Bishop’s Palace first thing in the morning and we’ll get the ball rolling,” said Father Mulvey, suddenly standing up.

“You’ll, uhm …”

“I’ll be in touch.” Father Mulvey transferred the statue to a plastic bag and held out his hand to Loughlin. “In the meantime, keep everyone out of the oratory. I’ll have a man over first thing in the morning to take some measurements and photographs and then you can start fixing things up.”

The Brother took the priest’s outstretched hand and shook it. Mulvey pressed firmly and Loughlin couldn’t help thinking he was doing it deliberately to increase the soreness of the fresh cut in his forearm.

“Very nice work, Brother,” said Father Mulvey mischievously. He released Loughlin’s hand and pulled the door open. “Sleep well,” he called, and let himself out the front door, which he pulled shut behind him with a cavalier flourish.

Brother Loughlin stood and stared at the door. In his pocket he fingered bits of the freshly broken statuette along with the one he had wrested from Brother Boland. He had a sudden thought.

“Feck! Relics!” he shouted, and bolted out of his office.

22

A
h, would you look at that for a mess. Isn’t it disgraceful? Ah, God help us, but that’s a terrible sight and all them little statues too. Most of them destroyed. Broken to bits. That’s a shame that is. Terrible sad it is.”

From the bottom of the stairs Dermot McDermott could hear Ray McRae’s lamenting voice. “Christ on a crutch!” he muttered to himself, and stomped heavily up the stairs.

“Ah, there you are now! Would you take a look at this?” lamented McRae when McDermott reached the landing.

McDermott ignored his apprentice and looked past him into the oratory. The floor and pews were littered with plaster and bits of wood, and the gaping hole in the ceiling gave the place a look of war-torn desolation.

“Brother Loughlin said not to touch anything,” added McRae

“I know. I saw him on my way in. Why don’t you go and do the toilets?” growled McDermott.

“Ah, I don’t think they need to be done. I gave them a good going over on Wednesday so I’d say they’ll be fine. Used that new stuff with the extra ammonia I did. It’s a power for the germs, so it is. You see, they didn’t even know germs existed until—”

“Look! Just go and do them. You can talk to yourself all you like while you’re at it!”

“Take it easy. Don’t go giving yourself a heart attack. I’ll go do the toilets if that’s what you want. You should make yourself a cup of tea and calm down,” McRae said.

McDermott stared viciously at him.

McRae thought the better of saying anything more and scampered off down the stairs to get his mop and bucket. McDermott put his foot up on the pew that Brother Loughlin had hastily pulled across the doorway and whistled softly at the mess.

“So, can you fix that up, Mr. McDermott?”

McDermott spun around to find Brother Loughlin standing behind him. He hated when they snuck up on him like that. Brother Loughlin was baggy-eyed and unshaven.

“Me?”

“Yes. Of course Mr., uhm, uhm, McWhatsisname could help.”

“McRae. Eh, I don’t think so, Brother. That’s a job for proper tradesmen. You need a joiner to replace those joists and a plasterer to do the ceiling.”

“Mmmm, that presents a slight problem,” mused Brother Loughlin.

“What sort of problem?”

“Well, after our little incident last night, the Brothers feel that it would be wisest to, how shall we say, keep all strangers off the premises. There will be no outside workmen allowed into the school while the miracle is being investigated. You will be taking care of things for a while.”

McDermott looked from Brother Loughlin’s face to the hole in the oratory ceiling and back to the Brother’s face. “You must be joking,” he stumbled.

“Not in the least,” replied Brother Loughlin. “I’d better get back downstairs. I’m expecting someone. You have a think about fixing the ceiling and let me know what materials you’ll be needing. You could take another look at that roof while you’re at it.”

McDermott stared open-mouthed after the seemingly possessed figure of Brother Loughlin that bounded down the stairs toward the yard. Staying up almost all night getting the Brothers to return the relics they had pillaged from the oratory so they could be photographed and logged seemed to have given him extraordinary energy.

Mrs. Broderick knocked gently on Brother Loughlin’s office door.

“Come in!” roared the Brother imperiously.

“There are two men here to see you. They say they are from the Diocesan Investigator’s office,” said Mrs. Broderick as she poked her head in the door, her acid tone implying that the two gentlemen looked like total gangsters from some made-up office.

“Ah, good! Show them in!”

Mrs. Broderick offered a fierce frown of disapproval and turned to the men. “You can go in now,” she told them reluctantly.

When Brother Loughlin and the two visitors emerged from the office ten minutes later, the men had opened their coats to reveal that they were not just from the Diocesan Investigator’s office but they were also men of the cloth. It had to be conceded in Mrs. Broderick’s defense that in their overcoats and fedoras they still looked a little like gangsters.

Brother Loughlin ushered the two priests out in front of him. “I’ll be in the oratory with Father Cronin and Father Mulcahy if anyone is looking for me, Mrs. Broderick.”

Mrs. Broderick snorted bad-humoredly and pursed her lips. “And if no one is looking for you, where will you be?” she muttered derisively, taking tiny pedantic revenge on Brother Loughlin’s suspect grammar. Such were the little moments that kept her going.

Spud Murphy sat in the staff room correcting his History tests. What were the three main causes of the collapse of the feudal system?
No football, rats, the First World War.
What were the guilds?
What the ancient fish breathed through.
Who were at the bottom of the Feudal Pyramid?
The pyramid builders.

“Ah, for Christ sake!” Spud couldn’t help smiling a little. He knew they weren’t stupid boys. They just didn’t want to learn. Somewhere in their heads, learning had become inextricably tied up with what the Brothers wanted to force them to do, and as such it had to be resisted. At least they paid him the courtesy of making up amusing answers for his tests.

“Five D?” asked Laverty from the windowsill where he sat reading the paper.

“Yeah.”

“Bunch of baboons!”

“Don’t be such a harsh bastard. They’re all right. It’s just hard to go in after the gestapo and expect them to want to learn anything.”

“I suppose you’re right,” conceded Laverty sheepishly. “But they could make an effort. I mean, you know what I’m saying. If they don’t get some kind of a decent Leaving Cert, they’re always going to be working for ignorant bastards not much better than the Brothers.”

“I know and you know, but have you tried to explain that? Would you have listened when you were their age?”

“Nah. I mean, I don’t know, but, you know, they’re only damaging themselves.”

“Yeah, but I think they see it as trying to avoid damage.”

“But it doesn’t work. Look at that stupid eejit Maher. What did he think he was at, messing at confession like that? He’ll be locked up in a loony bin or something.”

“He’s not the kind of kid to mess like that. I’d love to know what he said though. Fury threw a fit.”

“Oh, I’m sure ‘Broader’ Loughlin will tell us all about it.”

Spud smiled wanly. “Oh yeah, right. Just before Hell freezes over and the flying pigs learn to ice skate.” Considering how much he had disliked Laverty when he first arrived, the man was now the closest thing to human company he had at the school. The rest of the lay teachers were just short of blessing themselves every time they passed a Brother in the hall, and as for Mr. Pollock, he was so thick with the Brothers that it was almost unholy.

Spud turned back to his tests. “Ah, for God sake, would you listen to this. What was the Hanseatic League?
An old version of the World Cup.
You have to laugh, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s that or turn out like the rest of them,” sighed Laverty, as he stared out the window where Mr. Hourican and Mr. Pollock were having a confab in the yard.

“Now there’s a horrible thought,” shuddered Spud.

“And now with that stupid ceiling falling in and locking the gates and their miracle investigation, they’ve gone completely mad. I had to park down on Danegild Street. There’ll be nothing left of me car when I get back.”

“I know. It’s worse this place is getting.”

The bell for small break rang out and Spud stuffed the tests into his bag. “Can’t wait to get back to them,” he joked.

“Are you on yard duty this week?”

“Yeah.”

“Take it easy.”

“I’ll try. Thank God it’s Christmas next week.”

Spud stashed his bag in his cubbyhole and headed out into the yard.

23

I
n the IRA shop Finbar stood back and let a couple of third years go in front of him. He had to make sure how this was done. He had to look like he’d been doing it for years. He did not want to end up appearing foolish. He wanted to have the exact change in his hand like he knew exactly what he was doing. Ideally he would have liked the shop to be empty, but that was not going to happen at this hour of the morning.

He hadn’t smoked again since Christmas Eve when he’d stolen one of Uncle Francie’s and smoked it out the bathroom window. He’d only inhaled a couple of drags and had somewhat enjoyed the light-headedness. But since the miserable Christmas Day he’d been dreaming of another one. His mother had insisted on badgering Declan about getting a job all through dinner and his father had got snarlingly drunk after the meal and argued with Francie, who’d driven straight back to Cork that afternoon even though he was supposed to stay for a week. Later that night he’d heard Declan and his father talking in low angry voices in the parlor—something about Sheila Barry, but he couldn’t make it out.

Finbar was also convinced that the tiny microscope his parents had given him was a complete last-minute purchase. Never in his life had he expressed the slightest interest in science. He directed all his anger at them into this defiant act of buying cigarettes on this, the first day back at school after the break.

“Two loosies and two matches,” muttered the ragged third year.

“Are ye sure ye can do it with two matches? It’s a windy day out there. Five for a penny?”

Malachy was on a marketing drive. He had been told to up profitability. The dream of Irish reunification could not be realized if he kept selling only one match per loose cigarette.

Malachy turned and suddenly it was Finbar’s turn. He took a deep breath and let it out as casually and confidently as he could: “Two loosies and two matches, please.”

Malachy flipped the loose cigarettes onto the counter and two matches on top of them. Finbar dropped four pennies into the expectant palm. Malachy raised his eyebrows in derision: “What d’you think? Matches grow on trees?”

Finbar handed over another ha’penny. Malachy’s hand snapped shut like a trap and he fired the change into the little drawer under the counter. The boy stuffed his smokes and matches into the top pocket of his shirt and bolted for the door.

“It’s all right. You can light up in here before you go out,” called Malachy.

Finbar ignored him. He was not going to attempt to light a cigarette in full view of anyone.

“Now, before you all go running at this thing like a bull at a gate, take a couple of minutes to make sure you have ever ything. Each group… Ah, good morning, Mr. Sullivan, nice of you to finally join us. Sit down there with Scully and Ferrara. Each group should have a beaker, a pipette, copper oxide crystals, a piece of turnip, and some blotting paper,” explained Mr. Devlin, the Biology teacher.

Finbar squeezed in at the bench beside Ferrara. Beads of now cold sweat sat on his forehead. He was chilled and his face felt like it was pulled too tight across his skull. Notwithstanding, it was a vast improvement on how he had felt five minutes before as he threw his guts up in the lane behind Baker’s Pride with the smell of fresh-baked bread mocking his upheaving stomach. He tried to not even think of the second cigarette that still nestled in his shirt pocket, filled with the promise of new experiences of nausea, dizziness, and puking.

“Sir! Sir!”

“Yes, Mr. McDonagh?”

“We don’t have a pipette.”

Mr. Devlin walked down to the bench where McDonagh was sitting. He picked up the pipette that was lying on the bench and held it up: “And what do you think this is? Blotting paper?”

“No sir,” muttered McDonagh. He was not going to admit that he thought a pipette was one of those really sharp little knives.

The boys watched bemused as Mr. Devlin demonstrated the experiment. He put some copper sulfate crystals in the bottom of a beaker, added some water using the pipette, then laid the slice of turnip on the solution and placed the blotting paper on top. The experiment would show how the turnip would conduct the solution up into itself; the blotting paper would then turn bright blue. It was a boring experiment and Mr. Devlin knew it.

“Now, each group should repeat the experiment a second time to verify, but be very sure that you only get eighty milliliters of water in the pipette; no more, no less.”
That should slow them down
, he thought with satisfaction.