phrases: ‘don’t you know’; not a question but an expression of encouragement.
‘You need,’ Gladden told me during one of our sessions, ‘to brush up either the night before or early in the morning.’ He suggested I work on my primer underneath the bedclothes for half an hour at night: ‘It will put you ahead,’ he said. So he lent me his torch. ‘Make sure Leo has done his last round,’ he warned.
That night, after lights out, and after Father McCartie had made his final stealthy round in the dark, I began to study a set of irregular verbs under the tent of my sheet and blankets. I had been working for fifteen minutes or so, coming up for occasional gasps of air, when the bedclothes were pulled back sharply and the figure of Father McCartie towered over me.
‘My room!’
Leading the way with a torch of his own, he descended the staircase through the laundry room below the dormitory where we emerged into his office. Bending down in my pyjamas,I was thrashed in silence: six strokes of Father McCartie’s bamboo cane on my buttocks. Confiscating Peter’s torch, he led me back to my bed and left me without a word, my bottom throbbing agonisingly. At least, I thought, the brutal Mr Murphy of Saints Peter and Paul would have bid me goodnight.
Lying in bed looking out at the night sky through the dormer window, I felt a sense of painful loneliness sweep over me. I had the impression that my companions were gloating. The silence was broken only by an occasional rustle of a mattress as a boy turned. Thinking of home, and the immense distance that lay between our valley outside and London in the far-off south of England, I started to sob.
I was still weeping when I was conscious of a hand touching my cheek. ‘Don’t cry, Fru,’ said a boy’s voice level with my face in the dark; then I felt the hand stroking my head. ‘Come on! Cut it out! Go to sleep!’ It was Charles, whose bed was several places down from mine. I tried to reach out; I just felt his arm with the tips of my fingers as he withdrew. He had taken a risk to come the few yards to be at my side. The boy’s concern for me, even though I guessed he thought me a fool, calmed me down. I stopped crying and fell asleep.
29
O N THE FEAST of Saint Wilfred, patron saint of the college, we donned our black suits, stiff white detachable collars and black ties. The first Mass of the day was followed by a breakfast of grilled bacon. At 10.30 there was High Mass in full cloth-of-gold vestments, Father Doran celebrating in a fog of incense. We put our hearts into the glorious four-part Mass. As the choir processed out of church into the sacristy, the keyboard teacher, Mr Brennan, played a Bach fugue, with sudden crescendosreverberating in the rafters of the church. My sense of fervour was heightened by the prospect of a full day’s release from Latin drill.
At lunch the nuns had spread white tablecloths and set out vases of autumn flowers and sprays of greenery. There were flowers around the statue of Saint Wilfred situated on a plinth high above the far wall of the refectory. There was roast lamb, followed by fruit pudding and custard. Father McCartie, looking congenial, came around with an enamel jug pouring an allowance of beer into the mugs of the sixth and fifth formers. Looking about me at the flushed, merry faces, I felt that I belonged. Several nuns had come to the door of the refectory to watch us. They were blushing and shyly ducking their veiled heads.
They were usually on their knees scrubbing, sleeves rolled, reddened arms up to the elbows in soapsuds; or peeling potatoes in the dark interior of the kitchens. I had never seen them outside their working element. None of them walked out in the fresh air except the retired and very elderly Mother Saint Thomas who was allowed, in token of her great age, to keep a small garden.
‘Look,’ said Peter Gladden, ‘the witches have come to take a peek at us. Wave to them!’ He gave a little wave
‘You need,’ Gladden told me during one of our sessions, ‘to brush up either the night before or early in the morning.’ He suggested I work on my primer underneath the bedclothes for half an hour at night: ‘It will put you ahead,’ he said. So he lent me his torch. ‘Make sure Leo has done his last round,’ he warned.
That night, after lights out, and after Father McCartie had made his final stealthy round in the dark, I began to study a set of irregular verbs under the tent of my sheet and blankets. I had been working for fifteen minutes or so, coming up for occasional gasps of air, when the bedclothes were pulled back sharply and the figure of Father McCartie towered over me.
‘My room!’
Leading the way with a torch of his own, he descended the staircase through the laundry room below the dormitory where we emerged into his office. Bending down in my pyjamas,I was thrashed in silence: six strokes of Father McCartie’s bamboo cane on my buttocks. Confiscating Peter’s torch, he led me back to my bed and left me without a word, my bottom throbbing agonisingly. At least, I thought, the brutal Mr Murphy of Saints Peter and Paul would have bid me goodnight.
Lying in bed looking out at the night sky through the dormer window, I felt a sense of painful loneliness sweep over me. I had the impression that my companions were gloating. The silence was broken only by an occasional rustle of a mattress as a boy turned. Thinking of home, and the immense distance that lay between our valley outside and London in the far-off south of England, I started to sob.
I was still weeping when I was conscious of a hand touching my cheek. ‘Don’t cry, Fru,’ said a boy’s voice level with my face in the dark; then I felt the hand stroking my head. ‘Come on! Cut it out! Go to sleep!’ It was Charles, whose bed was several places down from mine. I tried to reach out; I just felt his arm with the tips of my fingers as he withdrew. He had taken a risk to come the few yards to be at my side. The boy’s concern for me, even though I guessed he thought me a fool, calmed me down. I stopped crying and fell asleep.
29
O N THE FEAST of Saint Wilfred, patron saint of the college, we donned our black suits, stiff white detachable collars and black ties. The first Mass of the day was followed by a breakfast of grilled bacon. At 10.30 there was High Mass in full cloth-of-gold vestments, Father Doran celebrating in a fog of incense. We put our hearts into the glorious four-part Mass. As the choir processed out of church into the sacristy, the keyboard teacher, Mr Brennan, played a Bach fugue, with sudden crescendosreverberating in the rafters of the church. My sense of fervour was heightened by the prospect of a full day’s release from Latin drill.
At lunch the nuns had spread white tablecloths and set out vases of autumn flowers and sprays of greenery. There were flowers around the statue of Saint Wilfred situated on a plinth high above the far wall of the refectory. There was roast lamb, followed by fruit pudding and custard. Father McCartie, looking congenial, came around with an enamel jug pouring an allowance of beer into the mugs of the sixth and fifth formers. Looking about me at the flushed, merry faces, I felt that I belonged. Several nuns had come to the door of the refectory to watch us. They were blushing and shyly ducking their veiled heads.
They were usually on their knees scrubbing, sleeves rolled, reddened arms up to the elbows in soapsuds; or peeling potatoes in the dark interior of the kitchens. I had never seen them outside their working element. None of them walked out in the fresh air except the retired and very elderly Mother Saint Thomas who was allowed, in token of her great age, to keep a small garden.
‘Look,’ said Peter Gladden, ‘the witches have come to take a peek at us. Wave to them!’ He gave a little wave
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