Lamb (5 page)

‘On holiday?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

Michael was fascinated by his eyelids. He had never seen anything like them before. They looked as if they were oiled, two domes set beneath his eyebrows. His presence made him feel uneasy.

‘Was that your boy with you today?'

‘Yes,' said Michael.

‘A good-looking boy.'

The man's voice was light and his cadences had the tinge of a woman in them. Michael wanted to get up and go but he didn't want to offend. The man introduced himself. He reached out his hand and shook Michael's. His hand lingered too long and made Michael's skin crawl.

‘My name's Lamb, Michael Lamb. How do you do?'

Michael wondered if he should have given a different name but it was too late now.

‘What do you do for a living?' the man asked.

‘I'm a joiner by trade.'

‘You look strong enough for it, anyway.'

Just then Owen came in through the door, followed by a waitress. His voice was excited.

‘Tea's ready, Brother,' he said.

Michael got up and gave him a withering look. At table he said in a whisper,

‘I'd just told that guy you were my son and you come in blabbing your mouth off all over the place, “Tea's ready, Brother”. Brother! When the news gets out it'll not take him long to figure out who we are.'

Owen was hurt at being told off and ate in silence. Rather than meet the man again they went to their room for what was left of the evening.

The next morning at the train Michael was left carrying the bag while Owen rushed on ahead to get a window seat. They sat in the silence of the stopped train opposite one another and smiled.

‘So far so good,' said Michael.

The carriage window faced a cement gable covered in graffiti, spray paint of different colours, chalk, gloss white which had run with a fringe of icicles. It had begun to rain, darkening the top half of the gable. Spits of rain quivered on the window pane.

‘How do you like England?' Michael asked the boy.

‘O.K. Anyway it's Scotland.'

‘What's the farthest you've been from Dublin?'

The boy thought.

‘I dunno. I think I was in Skerries once.'

Michael opened a can of Coke for him with a small explosion. The brown liquid frothed up and Owen put his mouth over the hole, sucking in the foam.

The gable wall moved and they were away. The countryside was grey-green in the rain. The drops now slashed horizontally across the window with the speed of the train. They did not speak except to say the names of the various stations they passed through. They had to go north to Glasgow, then as they moved south the sky cleared and the rain stopped. Owen found an ash tray at his elbow and began to click the flap up and down. He looked inside the aluminium lid, then flicked it louder and louder.

‘Knock it off,' said Michael. The boy stopped.

‘Any fags?' he asked.

The train stopped at Carlisle. Michael seemed annoyed. He leaned forward in his seat and spoke to the boy in a tight whisper.

‘Look, how many times do I have to tell you? Not in public.'

His voice died away when a man, grunting with a heavy suitcase, stopped beside them. He slid his case between the backs of the seats, took off his overcoat and sat down. Michael knew that there would be no talk from Owen for as long as the man sat there. The boy was wary like an animal. Michael remembered when he came to the Home how he had flinched away if anyone near him made a quick movement. A scratch of the head and the boy would duck. Owen did not look at the man but Michael could see that he was annoyed. The boy stared out of the window and put his sneakers up on his seat, scuffing them about. His brow creased. Michael had never seen so many wrinkles in a child of his age.

The man sat puffing slightly. He was corpulent and when he stretched out his legs they saw he wore old-fashioned boots. The train shuddered and moved off from the darkness of the station into the brightness of the town. Roofs, back gardens, a queue of traffic, familiar shops with unknown names, a football field with one man in a blue track-suit, running. The fat man pulled out a packet of cigarettes and Michael saw Owen's eyes swivel to the side. The man lit one and inhaled. He coughed, turning red.

The train began to gather speed and Owen's fingers tapped in rhythm. The pale blue smoke drifted towards him and he wrinkled his nose. Then his hand dived into his pocket and he pulled out a sugar lump and tossed it into his mouth. It cracked and crunched as he chewed it with open mouth. The fat man looked down sideways at him. Owen brought out another two lumps and put them in his mouth, making the same noise.

The fat man leaned forward to Michael and said, nodding at the boy, ‘We used to have a horse like that.'

Michael smiled at the man's joke.

‘Did you remember to bring your tablets?'

The boy nodded.

‘Take one now then.'

Owen took a tablet and a sugar lump and crunched them together, swilling them down with another Coke.

The fat man leaned across to Michael again and asked the way to the bar. Michael pointed. The man heaved himself to his feet, stubbing a large cigarette end into the armrest ash tray and lumbered off up the train. Owen got up.

‘Where are you going?' asked Michael.

‘The john.'

‘How many sugar lumps did you nick?'

The boy just smiled over his shoulder. As the boy moved past Michael he heard the click of the ash tray closing. He looked out the window. They were moving into the countryside again. The fields were huge compared with Ireland. And there were fewer trees.

Suddenly he got up and looked in the ash tray. It was empty. He walked quickly down the train after Owen and just saw him disappearing into the toilet. He knocked on the door but there was no answer.

‘Owen. It's me. Owen.' He knocked again louder. ‘Owen.' The bolt slid back to vacant and the door opened. Michael stepped inside and snibbed the door. Owen with the last of the man's bent cigarette-end between finger and thumb, cupping it in his hand, inhaled then flicked it into the toilet bowl.

‘I'm mad at you, Owen. You know . . . '

‘But, Brother . . . '

‘Less of the Brother business. It's Dad. How can I let you smoke? What father would let his child smoke at the age of twelve? In public? Can you not wait for a fag until you get somewhere safe? Jesus, Owen, would you blow the whole thing for the puff of a fag? You're extremely selfish.'

The boy stood mute and resentful, his underlip curled. He shrugged. Michael regretted saying what he had said. How could the boy help but be selfish? His selfishness was something he would have to learn to live with. Michael felt the fault was in him for applying his values to the boy. He had no right to.

‘Hands above your head,' he said. He tapped his hands down the boy's pockets and took out a box of matches. ‘Where did you nick those?'

‘On the boat yesterday.' His answer was sullen. Michael felt another dozen lumps of sugar at least, but said nothing.

‘You're not going to huff on me, are you?' He raised the boy's chin with his finger. ‘So early?'

The boy gave a shrug, then smiled. He had good teeth.

‘That's better,' said Michael. ‘Let's get back.'

For hours the train charged through the countryside, through a landscape of fields, of slag-heaps and towns. Michael and Owen did not speak again, but sat opposite, their faces averted towards the window. The fat man came back, smelling of beer, and slept.

Michael wondered if he was taking the right line with Owen and his smoking. There would be no doubt in Brother Benedict's mind as to how to cure it. Six of the belt every time he smelt smoke on his breath. And a few times when he didn't smell it. That would put a stop to it. But Michael's reluctance to use the belt was one of the reasons why he had not got on with Benedict. He pictured the scene of himself strapping Owen for smoking in the john of a British Rail train half way across England. He had told the boy what it would do to his health, that it would eventually kill him, and if it didn't kill him it would drastically shorten his life, but Owen had shrugged. He said that he didn't care whether he died or not. Michael was taking on the task of giving him something to live for. His discipline of the boy must be positive, not negative like Brother Benedict's. Benedict had given himself away the day he had said sourly,

‘Anybody who says he loves children doesn't understand them.'

He seemed to take a pleasure in using the belt. His little pre-execution phrases showed someone who was savouring the moment.

‘Boy, I have been wanting to do this to you for a very long time,' or ‘Long runs the fox' (a smile like a brittle flash of lightning), or ‘Ponder these for the next hour or so, boy', and he'd bring the belt crashing down from a height, all his twelve wiry stone behind it. His advice to Brother Sebastian had been to make it a deterrent,

‘If it is going to be of any use to you, you must do it to really
hurt.
Otherwise you make a fool of yourself. Discipline, Brother Sebastian, is love disguised. The strap shows we care. It's the only thing they know. Kill and cure. Kill and cure. That's my motto. I was belted black and blue myself and what harm did it do me?'

Benedict seemed to enjoy his power over the boys, to make them do or say anything he wanted them to. One day, the previous winter, Benedict and Michael had been walking together. Snow had fallen and Michael was aware of the blackness of their soutanes and the fog of their breath as they strolled round the house.

‘Wait till you hear this,' said Benedict. He called a boy who was passing. ‘O'Halloran!'

‘Yes, Brother.' O'Halloran came to attention.

‘You know something about birds, don't you?'

‘Yes, Brother, a bit.'

‘Listen to the humility. Did you know of this expertise, Brother Sebastian?'

‘No, I did not.'

‘Well, Brother, O'Halloran here is our bird expert, our resident ornithologist. Am I not right, O'Halloran?'

‘Yes, Brother.'

‘They call him with a certain gentle irony “the Bird Man of Alcatraz”. O'Halloran, do you see those tracks there?' He pointed to the ground and the freshly fallen snow where some bird tracks had been imprinted.

‘Yes, Brother.'

‘Tell Brother Sebastian what they are.'

Michael leaned forward, interested in what the boy had to say.

‘They're sparrow tracks, Brother.'

‘Mmmmm.' Brother Benedict rubbed his chin. ‘I'm not an expert in these matters, O'Halloran, but I would say . . . mmmm . . . they were eagle tracks.'

The boy stared at them. Michael watched.

‘No, Brother, they couldn't be eagle tracks. They're too small and anyway . . . ' The boy looked to Michael for help.

‘Are you contradicting me, O'Halloran?' The voice was loud and rising in mock anger.

‘No, Brother.'

‘Good. Now tell Brother Sebastian what they are.'

‘They are eagle tracks,' said the boy quietly.

‘Very good, O'Halloran. Another lesson well learnt. Now off you go about your business.' Brother Benedict chuckled and rolled his eyes at Michael.

The incident left a bad taste in Michael's mouth although at the time he did not say anything. In later games like this Michael had seen boys turn insolent and Benedict would become genuinely angry and end by thrashing them. He was the only man in a mock battle who had live ammunition.

When they arrived in London they sat in the huge station not knowing what to do, as people rushed in every direction as if certain where they were going.

‘First things first,' said Michael. ‘If we're going to stay in a hotel you can't go in looking like a Dublin jackeen. Let's walk for a bit and see if we can't get you a new rig-out.'

Owen carried the bag, putting his arms through the straps and hoisting it on to his back like a school bag. He leaned forward, an old man beneath his burden.

Eventually they found a large department store. Michael sat outside the changing cubicle while Owen tried on denim trousers and a jacket. Michael remembered the state of the boy's underwear and rushed off to buy him some. But he didn't know the size.

‘What size of drawers for a boy of twelve?' he asked the girl behind the counter.

‘Draus?'

‘Yes, drawers. These.' He held up a pair of Y-fronts. She told him. He took two pairs and two vests and a few pairs of socks. The assistant offered him a wire basket and he piled the things into it. When he got back Owen was standing in front of a mirror, turning and admiring himself.

‘The new man,' said Michael whistling. Owen seemed shy for the first time since Michael had known him, and coloured.

‘Do they fit?' Owen nodded. ‘Right let's have them.'

‘We could nick them easy,' said Owen. ‘Just walk out and leave the oul' ones there.'

‘I've got money,' said Michael, a warning in his voice.

Michael bought him a pair of sensible shoes and a classy pair of training shoes, white with three blue stripes.

He thought that if the boy changed in the shop they might be stopped as shoplifters, even though he had the receipts. Attention of that sort was the last thing he wanted, so they found the nearest public toilet and Owen changed into his new gear. Michael felt nervous hanging about the toilet so he washed his hands slowly and thoroughly. He had heard things about London toilets and did not want Owen to be there on his own.