Shambles Corner. Edward Toman
remembered too the sudden curfews, when the siren atop the Brothers’ would start to wail, sending the women scurrying in from the fields. His father would be fretting indoors for the duration, pacing the floor, unwilling to risk the trip in to the Patriot Bar.
‘The Brothers have lost another one!’ he would repeat.
‘Keep your frigging voice down! And stand away from that window! Do you want us all in trouble?’
‘They’ve no interest in us. It’s the runaway they’re after.’
‘They’ll get him before dark,’ she repeated with tight-lipped satisfaction. ‘He deserves everything that’s coming to him, a young pup that would lift his hand to the Brothers.’
‘He’ll not be lifting much for a while,’ his father added darkly. Through a crack in the doorjamb, Frank could make out another posse of thick-set postulants, their soutanes tucked into Wellington boots, making their way up to the high ground.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ laughed his father, ‘would you look at the cut of the dog they’re taking up with them?’
‘What’s wrong with the dog?’ she snapped. In her book, criticism of even the lesser clergy extended to their dogs.
‘A fucking old Kerry Blue. It couldn’t catch vermin!’
‘The same boy would have the hand off you quick enough,’ she said later, still defending the dog.
Before too long he was reading the deaths and condolences in the Irish News when he visited the lavatory, poring over the long lists of volunteers and victims who were dying daily in the national cause. And when he started to take an equal interest in the dogs and horses on the back pages his father knew that he had taught him all he could and that it was time to hand him over to the Brothers. But Teresa, his mother, was strangely reluctant.
‘He’s company for me at home,’ she said, ‘and you off gallivanting. Besides, the Brothers …’
‘Great men. Where would we be without them?’
‘There’s enough misery in the world without him going looking for it,’ she sighed. ‘Trouble will find him soon enough.’
On his fourth birthday his mother put away the things of childhood, gave his face a lick and marched him over the hill to Brother Murphy.
Seven is the age at which the philosophers deem a child to have reached the use of reason. Thereafter he lives in constant danger of mortal sin and its corollary, hellfire. Brother Murphy took the Fathers of the Church at their word. If Frank was to be saved from eternal damnation he had only three years to knock him into shape.
‘I’ve taught him his prayers, Brother,’ she said defensively.
Brother Murphy picked Frank up by the ears and brought the boy’s face close to his own. ‘Name the First Commandment, boy,’ he ordered. Frank tried to wriggle around, to catch his mother’s eye, but she knew better than to interfere. ‘Well, boy, are you going to answer, or are you a complete amadán?’ Frank began to cry. The Brother dropped him and reached for his hand. He held it out, palm upwards before him. From his pocket he produced the leather strap that all Christian Brothers carry, and gave him three slaps. Then he turned to the boy’s mother. ‘He can stay if he pulls his socks up,’ he growled, dismissing her.
‘Thank you, Brother,’ she said.
Brother Murphy cast a baleful eye round the hushed classroom, slowly choosing the morning’s victim. Up and down each row of desks he gazed, pausing for a few seconds to stare at each boy in turn. ‘We have a new boy with us this morning,’ he announced. ‘Francis Xavier Pacelli Feely! That’s a name and a half for a bucko from the backside of the hills!’ His mother had added the ‘Pacelli’ at the font, the maiden name of old Saint Pius, in the forlorn hope that some of the late pontiff’s good fortune would rub off on him.
Brother Murphy let the syllables roll round his mouth before he spat the name out. ‘Pacelli… Pacelli,’ he mused. Encouraged by the nervous tittering of the class he repeated it. ‘There’s a boy here who calls himself Pacelli.’ He waited for them to snigger dutifully. ‘I suppose an honest-to-God Irish name wasn’t good enough for his parents: Patrick or Michael or Seamus. I suppose we haven’t enough Irish saints! We have to go running after Italian ones!’ The boys began to laugh. Heavy-handed irony was Brother Murphy’s stock in trade and they knew better than to scorn his efforts. With any luck Frank would be up on the podium all morning and they would be off the hook.
‘Let’s hear our Italian friend here say the Ár nAthair,’ demanded Brother Murphy. ‘The words our Saviour taught us, in the language of the Gael.’ The rest of the class began to breathe more easily. Once a week, with much dumb show of disbelief, the Brother discovered a boy who didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer. They might sit up half the night, rehearsing it with their mothers till they were word perfect, but under the third degree not one of them could be relied on to get beyond ‘go dtaga Do ríocht’ without corpsing. And once a week, do chum glóir Dé agus onóra na hEirinn, Brother Murphy would take the sacrificial victim through it syllable by syllable.
‘Here’s a corner boy who doesn’t know his prayers!’ proclaimed the Brother by way of an introit. ‘Hold out your hand, corner boy, and we’ll soon see if our friend here’ – he waved the strap aloft - ‘can’t refresh your memory.’ The strap came down with a crash, the force of the blow almost lifting him off his feet. Frank’s face was contorted with pain and terror, but he tried to hold back the hot tears that the blow forced into his eyes. To cry would be fatal. It would invite further ridicule, further humiliation.
‘Ár nAthair atá ar neamh,’ intoned Brother Murphy, ‘go naofar Do ainm; go dtaga Do ríocht; go ndéantar Do thoil ar an talamh mar a níthear ar neamh. Now let’s see if this young lout can tell us the next bit. Well, Feely, we’re all waiting.’
The class could see Frank’s brow furrowed in fruitless concentration as he searched the confused spaces in his head for the next verse. ‘Ár n-arán laethúil tabhair dúinn inniú,’ give us this day our daily bread. The words deserted him now.
There was silence in the school save for the ominous swishing of the taws against the side of the Brother’s soutane. ‘Well, Mister Feely, we’re still waiting,’ he said after a while. His voice was quiet, almost reasonable. He was in no hurry. What better way was there to spend a morning than teaching the lads the Lord’s Prayer?
‘I don’t know,’ stuttered Frank after another pause.
‘I don’t know what?’ corrected the Brother gently.
‘I don’t know, sir!’
‘That’s better,’ he said, lifting the boy’s hand and giving him three, the statutory punishment for lapses in etiquette. ‘Now what don’t you know, Mister Feely?’
‘What comes next.’
Again Brother Murphy took his hand and tenderly, almost lovingly, stretched out the curled palm till it was straight and flat and ready, and then slowly and methodically began to beat him, punctuating each blow with a verse of the prayer. ‘Now, boy, let’s see if we can remember what comes next.’ He was looking flushed from his exertions, like a man who needed to sit down, but there would be no resting from his labours till the job was done. Word by word the inquisition continued. Together they asked that their trespasses be forgiven (as we forgive those that trespass against us) and begged not to be led into temptation. At every halting, stuttering utterance the slaps rang out. They were winding up the oration with a plea for deliverance from evil when Brother Murphy, by way of climax, threw down the strap, seized from the wall a wooden blackboard compass, and administered a two-handed crack to Frank’s skull that sent him careering across the classroom with bells ringing ‘Papa Piccolino’ in his ears.
His