Heaps of Trouble (7 page)

With the organ and choir giving a rendition of the ‘Ave Maria', the mass slowly marched its way towards the highlight of the day. Then, to the ringing of altar bells and incense wafted at us by priests waving silver holders on gold chains, the bishop uttered his final ‘Amen' and turned to the tabernacle, withdrawing the chalice containing the ‘body and blood' of Christ.

The choir once again broke into a rousing hymn and, at a clap of the Reverend Mother's hands, we all rose as one and started to file out from the pews in two columns. Girls to the left and boys to the right, we made our way up towards the long rail in front of the altar. Seconds before the first in the line reached the altar rail Red Head was rushed up to the furthest corner of the altar by his ‘minders'. The two nuns knelt on either side and squashed him in the middle as if they were trying to disguise their charge. One of the priests in attendance to the bishop reached into the chalice and withdrew a single piece of communion wafer, then rushed over and quickly attached the wafer to a tongue that was poked out as far as Red Head could possibly stick it. No sooner had the priest withdrawn his hand than up jumped the nuns and, grabbing Red Head, they herded him up the aisle and out of the church by a side door.

*

It was expected that when you finished your schooling at the Golden Bridge Convent you went across to the other side of Keogh Square and continued your education with the Christian Brothers. The very thought of this filled us all with dread, as the stories that filtered back from the last lot of kids who had made ‘The Walk' exceeded the horror of our wildest imaginings. They told of an institution that operated on beatings and stern men of God who believed that the only way to teach a child was to hammer knowledge into him.

Thankfully my mother was not going to subject me to that indignation. So it was with great relief that, a few weeks after I had made my communion, I heard I was to don my best, because we were off to Leeson Street for an interview with the principle of a private school called the Catholic University School (better known as CUS). And, ‘for God's sake, don't open you mouth unless you are spoken to.' Chauffeured by the father, who declined the invitation to join us ‘as I won't be able to get a word in edgeways anyway…and isn't there a pub down the street where I can wait?'

The mother and I knocked on a large Georgian door halfway up Leeson Street, although it seemed totally unlikely that it could have a whole school hiding behind it. A priest, who was all smiles and kindness, duly admitted us into a waiting-room and asked would we like to take a seat while he went to inform the principle that we were there. At the precise moment when we were finally escorted into the principle's study my bladder screamed ‘full' to my brain. This cast a complete haze over our tour of the school and its facilities, as I was too preoccupied trying to keep my legs crossed and not wet myself. However some part of their conversation must have filtered through, because at one stage I heard the principle remark, ‘What a large gap your son has between his front teeth, Mrs Heaps.'

‘Oh,' drooled the mother, while grabbing my head as if it were a large cauliflower and cranking it skywards (very nearly the final straw for my distressed bladder), ‘his grandmother claims it's the sign of being a great singer, you know.'

‘Well, we must have him in our school choir then.' A promise that held as much excitement for me as being told I was to be enrolled in a knitting group. But it had the mother beaming with pride. Since I was under strict instructions to ‘be seen and not heard', it wasn't until we finally reached the schoolyard that, out of sheer desperation, I broke my vow of silence with ‘Jaysus mister, is there a jax anywhere around here? I'm busting.'

Galloping off in the direction of the sternly pointed finger, I left the two of them in a state of shock, since I don't believe that my first words were quite in keeping with the mother's previous account of my character. It's amazing how simple things in life can affect your future. As I came out of the toilet (expecting a rebuke from the mother for my unauthorised departure) I found that a second priest had joined them. He had spotted me dashing across the yard and was so impressed with my speed and agility that, during my absence, he had enrolled me into the school's junior rugby team. I couldn't help wondering how, simply as a result of having a gap between my front teeth and needing to go to the toilet, I had ended up in the school's choir
and
on its rugby team in such a short time, even before starting at the school. I could only bless my lucky stars that I hadn't also thrown a few skips into my run, as I might have ended up in the dance class as well.

It was our last day at Golden Bridge Convent and a gloomy silence had descended over the class. Aggravated further by Sister Charlotte's quiet depression, with which she had infected the whole class. She had even forgotten to say the usual morning prayers and spent her time pacing up and down the aisle between the desks. She paused, now and again, to pat a boy over the head while peering anxiously at the door. At around eleven the silence was broken suddenly by the sound of three loud knocks on the classroom door, which caused Sister Charlotte to rouse herself into action, clapping her hands and rushing to open the door.

Simultaneously a low murmur broke out and rose rapidly to the level that can only be reached by over forty kids talking at once. It stopped just as suddenly as it had started when she threw open the door. There, standing on the threshold, were three black-coated angels of death, the height of the tallest emphasised by his thin frame and gaunt features. The light streaming through the doorway silhouetted his figure. His face, with its deep, sunken eyes, resembled a skull across which old skin had been stretched. He detached himself from the others and strode into the room, casting cold eyes on the assembly as if he was viewing a fish stall on Moore Street. As his eyes swept over each desk, he instilled such an aura of fear in us that each boy hunched down his head and took great interest in the inkwells.

The Christian Brothers had arrived to collect their charges and march them across the square, as a sort of introductory lesson, so that when they started in September they would know where to go and to what classroom they should present themselves. Even though I knew I wasn't making that walk, I sat there cowering like the rest. But not quite as much as the other poor souls, because curiosity was beginning to override my fear. With the tall one now marching up and down every aisle, examining each child intensely, I followed his movements with mounting interest. Sensing my gaze on him, he whipped his head around and glared at me with those dreadful eyes that said, ‘Wait until I get you across the street, boy.' Then, with one last sneer in my direction, he stomped to the head of the class.

With a high-pitched voice and a lisp that bordered on a speech impediment he said, ‘All those pupilsss thwat are going to the Qwristian Bwothers swand now.'

I barked out a laugh that I could only attribute to release of tension, causing him to glare at me with an expression that shouted ‘you are dead, boy'.

All of the class stood up, bar five others and myself, and, still staring at me as if I was hard of hearing, the Christian Brother repeated the question. His look of sheer disappointment when he finally realised that he was not going to get his hands on my body gave way to an explosion of rage directed at the others. Ordering them to move out into the aisles and to stand to attention, he beckoned to his two similarly attired henchmen, who had not moved from the door as if they were expecting an escape attempt. With military precision, arms swinging, they marched the boys out of the classroom and off down the street. He slammed the door with a final glance in my direction, his features once again silhouetted by the bright light from outside, only this time he looked more comical than frightening.

Sister Charlotte had not moved once during the whole episode, nor had ‘skull head' made any attempt to converse with her, almost as if he believed the nuns had only been playing with our education and they, the Brothers, were now going to show these kids what real teaching was all about. She turned to the six of us scattered around the now very empty classroom and, with a voice like that of a mother whose children had all been abducted, whispered that we were free to go. Very slowly we filed past her and went out the door and, as I was the last to leave, I turned to close it.

My last memory of that classroom, in which I received my first few years of education, was that of a nun standing in the middle of an empty, gloomy space, softly crying. The feeling of sadness lasted about three paces from the door, until the realisation of freedom and the thought of never-ending summer holidays ahead lifted my spirits. I bolted off down the street with a skip and a hop and was just in time to see, off to my right, a long line of small boys slowly marching their way across the square.

Two days later I was standing in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother who (for once) were conversing with each other, when, with a cry, the mother clutched her stomach, which appeared to have grown a lot larger over the past number of weeks. The mother grabbed the grandmother, who helped her into a chair, and instructed me to run to the dispensary and get my father as quickly as I could. By the time I returned, the mother was in the hallway with a packed bag and a blue blanket under her right arm. As the questions tumbled out of my mouth, the father led the mother to the car and settled her in the back seat. Then they drove off together in the direction of Kilmainham. When the father came back, all of the questions I had stored up dissolved quickly at his suggestion that I go with him to Newlands Golf Club and caddy for him.

The father had joined the club about ten minutes after he had bought the car and I loved these visits to the golf club, as I got to play with the flags on the greens. I became the flag-holder for the seventh cavalry and could gallop up and down the fairways, leading an imaginary charge against fearsome foe. That particular evening, when we had completed the eighteen holes and a lengthy stay in the clubhouse bar, he suggested that we visit Wong's restaurant on the way home, which had me rushing to the car before he had finished talking. Wong's coleslaw was the tastiest food that I had ever eaten and, if served with a burger (another new item that I never got at home), well, I was in seventh heaven.

We got home as the bells of St Michael's were tolling out the midnight hour. He parked the car on the pavement outside the shop and, much to my amazement, Mrs Clooney appeared as if by magic and announced to the father that he had a baby daughter. Whereupon he turned to me, grinning like an idiot, and suggested we should visit the mother. We set off for St James' Hospital, where we found on our arrival that children were not allowed in at that time of night. Following directions from the father, I crept along the outside of the building, peering into each ground-floor room, until I could see the father standing by the mother's bedside. He opened the window when I tapped on it and helped me climb in. There, lying in a cot, wrapped in pink blankets and wearing a white bonnet, was my new sister, whom they had decided to call Catherine.

Before I could come to terms with the full delight of having a sister to look after, the door swung open – there was just enough time to duck under the high hospital bed and take cover. I watched grey-stockinged legs walk over to the bed and held my breath for fear of discovery. When the nurse had completed her ministrations (during which the mother informed her that she was not to forget that
she
was once a nurse too), she walked over and closed the window. She then bundled my father out of the room, telling him, ‘You should know better than visit your wife at gone midnight, she needs her rest, and anyway, where were you during the birth?'

With the door closed on the two of them, I popped out from under the bed and came face to face with the mother, who was now falling asleep. Panic rose in me, since I wasn't tall enough to open the window latch. But the father returned, muttering, ‘Who the hell does she think she is…wait until I find the matron', and once again I climbed through the window and escaped back to the car.

A week after Catherine was brought home, I was told by the father that the grandmother and I were to spend my summer holidays in Carrick-on-Suir with her other sisters on Aunt Josie's farm. While I realised that, for me, this was a real holiday, grandmother was actually being exiled back to her roots, as a result of an accident that had happened a few nights before.

It had been late evening: the grandmother and I were in bed and, as hers was further from the door, I witnessed her attempt to reach the toilet in time. But all she succeeded in doing was spreading a trail of diarrhoea from her bed across the floor, through the hallway and into the toilet; the mother spotted this before the grandmother even had a chance to begin cleaning up. She started screaming at the grandmother and insisted that she returned to her bed. This the mother discovered was also destroyed, driving her even deeper into frenzy and a demand that the father phone his brother Stan.

Silently we all waited until we heard Stan and his wife, Mona, arrive, whereupon the mother brought them up to the bedroom. The grandmother, cowering like a disobedient child, was further subjected to the indignation of having to lie there while the mother threw back the sheets, screaming, ‘Look what I have to put up with, who is going to clean up this mess? That woman has to go.'

So that is how Stan, the father, the grandmother and I arrived at Auntie Josie's farm on a lovely summer's evening. The two brothers stayed overnight before roaring off in a cloud of dust the following morning, no doubt on a slow pub-crawl back to Dublin.

For me it was akin to being launched into the cast of
Cinderella
, except there was no Cinderella and the ugly sisters numbered three. Since they were all about the same age, reuniting the grandmother with her two siblings had the same effect as introducing a cantankerous old hen into a well-established chicken coup with a clearly defined pecking order. It was bedlam for the first week while the three of them tried to assert authority over each other. As each bedroom led off the kitchen, this area became the main battleground, allowing them a line of retreat back to their individual ‘roosts' when they tired of snapping at each other. For me, it was a time of keeping out of their way and being left to my own devices that I used to full advantage, spending days exploring the countryside and assuming the roles of my heroes, from Robin Hood to John Wayne (and everybody in-between).