The God Squad (7 page)

As I slowly made my way up the long wooden stairs to the dormitory I was followed by another boy.

‘Mother Paul said you’re not to lie on your bed, or sit on it. You’re to stand beside it until she has time to deal with you.’

The dormitory was cold and dark even though the sun was shining. I stood by my bed as I had been told, too frightened to do anything else. From the dining room, I could smell food and hear the sounds of the other boys having dinner. I was hungry. When dinner was finished I
could hear them playing ‘tig’. I knew that others would be playing priests and altar boys. I wondered who was acting as priest, since it was usually me who played that role.

I began to cry remembering the last time I had been beaten, the stinging of the cane and the nun’s taunting as she delighted in my terror. Without warning the image returned of a man’s body trembling violently as it hung from a short length of rope tied to an alder tree. It became so real that I was certain I could touch it. I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, trying desperately to block out the vision. I trembled violently and then screamed, a high-pitched, piercing cry that echoed through the stillness of the dormitory down to the assembly hall. As I yelled at the image to ‘get away’, Mother Paul grabbed me tightly by the shoulders and slapped me across the face.

‘What in the name of God,’ she shouted, ‘is the matter with you?’

‘I saw the man hanging.’

‘What man?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, Mother, just a man.’

She hit me again. ‘This nonsense will have to stop, it’s distressing the other children. What you are seeing is just in your imagination. People don’t hang themselves. You’re here for us to look after because your parents are dead. You’ll see them again when you die, provided you get to heaven and that is where they are.’

I remained silent. She told me to get undressed and prepare to take the punishment I deserved. I trembled, taking my clothes off, from both the cold and the knowledge of what I knew I was going to have to endure. Mother Paul walked towards the dormitory door, took a large key from the pocket of her habit and locked it. I hadn’t finished undressing by the time she returned to my bedside. She became agitated and shouted at me to hurry.

‘The sooner we get this over,’ she said, ‘the sooner I can be getting on with my work.’

Once undressed, I lay on my side. Mother Paul told me to lie face down. I noticed a tremor in her voice, a nervous excitement.

‘I’m only going to give you a light spanking,’ she said, ‘as long as you promise not to tell anyone I let you off with the punishment you should be getting.’

I didn’t answer her. I tensed my body and waited for the cane to strike, but it didn’t. Her hand slapped me gently on the bare backside, then with the other hand she rubbed the area she had just hit. I was nervous, desperately anxious, and unsure. I could hear her breath, deep and rushing through her nostrils. She ran her fingers down the centre of my back and out towards my shoulder-blades. Then she eased them along the full length of my body in long, gentle, sweeping movements.

‘Lie over on your back,’ she said.

I turned slowly and looked into her flushed face. She held my limp penis in her hand and drew back the foreskin. It hurt slightly but I was too frightened to say anything.

‘You must make sure that you do this every time you are washing yourself, it’s very important to keep that part of your body clean.’ She moved the skin backwards and forwards until I had an erection. A sensation I had never experienced swept through my body causing me to squirm and writhe involuntarily. When it had passed I sobbed uncontrollably, frightened at what had happened.

She explained that what I had experienced sometimes happened to boys and men when they are washing their ‘private parts’ and added that it was not a sin.

‘Sometimes boys and men play with themselves for pleasure. Not only is that a sin, it is a mortal sin which can only be forgiven by a Bishop in confession. It is up to him
to decide whether to give absolution or not. If he doesn’t, then that black stain will remain on your soul for ever. If that happened you certainly would never see your father or mother again with God in Heaven. Now get dressed, and remember, nobody is to be told I let you off so lightly.’ She unlocked the dormitory door and watched as I dressed.

Downstairs, in the assembly hall, I could hear the other children playing, and when I had my clothes on I walked towards the door leading to the stairs. As I passed her, Mother Paul hit me across the back of the head with the full force of her hand and, losing my footing, I fell down the stairs. I tried to break my fall as I tumbled but could not. I landed on my back in the hall. She rushed down the stairs after me shouting, ‘You filthy dirty pup.’

I got to my feet and ran.

‘Stop, stop,’ she screamed, ‘before I have to deal with you again.’ Her tenderness in the dormitory had evaporated and was now replaced by a rage I had not seen in her before. When she eventually caught me she hit me across the face and I ran away from her. She shouted at some of the other boys to catch me. One grabbed my jumper and held it until she took over.

‘How many times am I going to have to ask you to stop dragging that foot after you?’ She struck me again, this time on the right side of my face.

‘If you don’t stop dragging it then as sure as God is in Heaven, I’ll ensure that you don’t serve Mass again.’

The idea of not being allowed to serve Mass hurt more than the physical punishment. Walking away, I looked down at my feet and wondered what I was doing wrong.

Mother Paul brushed past me and indicated with her finger that I was to follow. She walked towards the boiler room, opened the doors and pushed me inside. I tripped
and fell. She didn’t wait to see if I was all right. The doors closed and I heard her putting a brush across the two handles so that I could not open them. I remained on the floor crying for a few minutes before realizing the torture was finished.

The boiler room was dark except for a weary yellow flame trying to ignite the coals which had been stacked in the grate of the black range. Through the iron bars of the door I watched the flame leaping and bobbing. Slowly the coals lit and the room warmed, I was content in the heat and happy to remain where I was for a long time. I thought of hell as I watched the coals redden and once again I wished Mother Paul would go straight there and burn.

As the heat of the fire intensified, so did the noise. An eerie howl as the hot air was drawn up the chimney. I found a piece of old newspaper on the floor and began to tear it into little pieces which I tossed into the fire. It burned quickly, before its blackened remains rose on the hot air currents and disappeared.

The peace of the boiler room was broken by the sound of the brush being removed from the door. Mother Paul pushed the doors open, allowing the colder air of the outside to sweep through the room and chill the warmth I had been so comfortable in.

She told me to go to the dining room and have my supper. When I was finished, the boots belonging to the other boys had to be polished and shone. One of the other boys would help me.

I took my place at the table, waiting for the big jug of cocoa to come around to fill my tin mug. The bread was coated in lard that stuck to the roof of my mouth as I ate it, allowing the weak, watery cocoa to take the greasy feeling from my mouth.

Like every meal, it was taken in silence. After supper as I walked out of the dining room, Mother Paul grabbed me by the arm and asked me if there was something wrong with my boots.

I told her they were a bit tight and that they were hurting my toes. They were not hurting me at all but I felt I had to offer some excuse in order to avoid further punishment.

‘Go to Mr O’Rourke in the morning and see if he can do anything about them for you,’ she said.

‘Yes, Mother,’ I replied.

When all the other boys were gone to the dormitory, John Cleary and I began the twice weekly task of polishing and shining their boots. On this occasion he did the polishing and I the shining. One by one, pair by pair, until all sixty pairs were finished. Then they had to be put into boxes on the wall, each box with its number corresponding to a tag on the back of every pair. It was a tedious and tiring process, but to relieve the boredom we chatted quietly to each other. Cleary asked why Mother Paul had called me a dirty little pup.

‘Because of the big gick I did under the stones up in the other convent.’

‘What gick?’ he laughed.

‘The one that Mother Immaculate stuck her foot in,’ I said.

John laughed hysterically. ‘Shut up,’ I said, knowing we would get into trouble if caught laughing or talking when we were supposed to be doing something. Invariably, when we were laughing, one or other of the nuns would accuse us of laughing or jeering at them, or talking about something dirty. Once we had finished and tidied away the tins of polish and brushes, we went to bed. It was late and most of the other boys were asleep. With a fleeting ‘good
night’ we parted, he to one end of the big room and I to the other. At the sound of a nun approaching I took my hands from under the bedcovers and folded them prayer-like across my chest. She reminded me to include in my prayers all those who were so good to me, particularly the nuns who looked after me. Because of the fear of dying that had been instilled from my first days in the school, the prayer I said most fervently each night was: ‘If I should die before I wake . . .’ Mother Paul frequently reminded us that we could never tell the day, or the hour, when God would call.

Mr O’Rourke was the convent handyman. He did everything from farming the few acres of land the nuns had, to weeding the flowerbeds at the front of the convent. I went looking for him to see if he could do anything about my boots. He was an elderly man with wrinkled pock-marked skin and an almost bald head on which he wore a cap with the peak to one side. He was a quiet, soft-spoken, shy man. The first place I went to look for him was the farm. In the distance I saw him leading two horses as he steered a plough. The smell of freshly-turned earth was evident. Overhead a flock of birds swooped and dived to pick the succulent worms unearthed by the plough. I stood at the edge of the field watching man and animals move in unison. I watched birds fighting over juicy worms and waved to him but he didn’t notice. He was puffing contentedly at his pipe and concentrating on the furrow he was ploughing. When he eventually noticed me he took the pipe from his mouth, held it in his hand and spat onto the ploughed clay before waving back. Once finished, the horses were freed to roam an adjoining field. He walked towards me. The crests and troughs in the field exaggerated his limp, giving his body a deformed appearance. He greeted me with an affectionate toothless smile, enquiring what the nuns wanted this time.
I told him that Mother Paul had sent me to him to see if he could do anything about my boots because they were too tight.

‘What I like about the ploughing is this,’ he said. ‘It’s grand to be out there on your own with the smell of the clay. I get away from the nuns for a while and I can smoke me ould pipe without a bother. Mind now, I wouldn’t say that to them, but I know you won’t say a word to anyone.’ He lifted his cap and wiped his head with the back of his right arm. Both of us stood there for a while looking out over the field he had just finished working on. The birds continued to land, grab at a worm and resume their flight, pursued by a more aggressive flyer anxious to have everything his way.

‘Come on so, me lad, and we’ll see what we can do for ye.’ He led the way through the convent orchard to a greenhouse where we both sat down on a wooden bench. He told me he knew me from serving Mass in the local church.

‘What’s this they call ye?’

‘Pat,’ I answered.

‘That’s a great name, Patrick. That’s the man they say drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Did ye know that?’

‘I did,’ I answered.

He asked me to give him a look at the boots. I undid the laces as he scraped out the bowl of his pipe with a penknife. I sat there in my stockinged feet watching him cut slices from a block of tobacco and then rub it delicately between his palms before pressing it into the bowl of his pipe. He struck a match and waited a few seconds, explaining to me that a pipe should never be lit while there is still sulphur on the match – ‘It gives the tobacco a horrid taste.’

Slowly he sucked on the pipe and drew the flame from the match into the bowl. I could see the tobacco redden and as
he released the smoke from his mouth, the greenhouse was temporarily filled in a ghostly mist. He waved his hand to disperse the smoke and picked up one of my boots. He pulled the leather in an effort to stretch it and, with his penknife, scraped at the inside, taking away tiny slivers of leather. He did the same with the second boot, and told me to put them on to see how they felt.

‘They’re fine,’ I said. He suggested that we walk through the orchard just to be certain, and to see if there might be anything worth eating.

It was too early in the year for fruit to be ripe but that did not prevent me biting into a pear he picked from a fan-shaped tree growing against a wall bathed in sunshine.

‘D’ye see them goosegogs?’ Mr O’Rourke said as we passed a bush laden with green gooseberries. ‘Them’s the lads that’d give ye a right pain in the belly.’

I couldn’t resist the temptation to take one. It was sour and I immediately spat out the piece I had bitten off. The old man laughed as I threw away what was left.