“You’ll also play loads of sports as well,” he said. “There’s tennis, basketball, track and field, and rugby.”
“Rugby?” said Mammy, frowning at Pearse’s mother. “I can’t believe they play a Protestant game at Saint Malachy’s.”
Before we’d left, Pearse had promised her that he’d watch out for me. He’d even put his arm around my shoulders as we stood outside the front door of the pub. But he’d behaved so differently on the bus this morning, grunting only a greeting when he got in and then ignoring me, even after I moved seats to sit beside him. He’d also embarrassed me in front of the other boys when the bus stopped to pick up Mickey and he’d ordered me out of the seat so that his friend could sit. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong or how to fix it.
Fergal and I stood with about a hundred other boys at the front of a huge gym with a knotted pine ceiling and a stage framed in gray velvet curtains at one end. Honey-colored climbing bars ran up the two longest sides of the gym and the wall opposite the stage was painted dark blue and had a basketball net affixed to it. Behind one set of bars, a wall of large windows overlooked a handball court.
“I hope they’ll put us into the same class,” Fergal said. “I don’t want us to be split up.”
“Me, neither.”
A priest entered with his shoulders thrown back and his head tilted toward the ceiling and the teachers went quiet. He clutched a clipboard in one hand and lifted the bottom of his flowing soutane as he ascended the short flight of steps to the stage, like a woman does when wearing a long dress. After adjusting his spectacles, he peered out at us for a moment without smiling. This, I knew, was Father Rafferty.
Within five minutes, he welcomed us to the school and informed us that we were a privileged bunch of boys. He reminded us of the rules about hair length, proper uniform, and wearing sneakers indoors at all times. After calling out boys’ names, he ordered them to stand in line across the width of the gymnasium to form classes. Fergal’s name was called out first and he took his place in Class 1B. More names were announced and the class grew. Fergal kept popping out of the line to check if there was still room left for me. The class grew larger and larger. Just as I’d about given up, my name was called and I walked past Fergal to squeeze into the narrow space between the last boy who’d been called and the wall.
After I heard Connor’s name called for Class 1A, I didn’t hear another thing. I was too busy deciding whether I should be glad I was in the same class as Fergal or jealous my cousin had been put into an “A” class—1A sounded superior to 1B and, if that were the case, my mother would not be pleased.
As I was trying to decide, a woman in a short pleated skirt with the fattest legs I’d ever seen told us to follow her. Her skirt was far too short. The class filed in silence along the corridor, passing closed doors with little side windows through which I could see boys seated at desks, the only noise coming from our creaking sneakers and the teacher’s stockings rubbing where her thighs kissed.
“My name is Miss Brown and I’m your form mistress,” she said, after we’d seated ourselves behind box desks with hinges running across the top. Graffiti covered the sides of the desks. Fergal sat beside me and neither of us could believe graffiti existed at Saint Malachy’s.
Miss Brown’s nostrils flared. “You’re my little men and I intend to see you all do well under my tutelage.”
Her shining, pale brown eyes met mine and she smiled again, a smile so warm and special I knew from that instant I’d do everything in my power to please her. She took us to the stationery store and walked us throughout the school, pointing out the different classrooms and laboratories, teachers’ staff room, and the headmaster’s office. We came to a cloakroom that smelled of dirty feet. A sneaker with a broken sole lay on one of ten highly varnished benches running its length. Each boy was allocated a peg with a number written beneath and told to hang on it his shoe bag (bags sewn from old curtains or bed sheets), which contained the outdoor shoes we’d been carrying with us. Again, she told us about the rule not to wear our indoor shoes out-of-doors.
Back in the classroom, we were shown how to make a timetable and also told a bell would ring every forty minutes to signal the end of a class. As I stared at the timetable I’d made, I was amazed I’d learn nine subjects every day and still have time to take two breaks.
Introductions were next. Miss Brown told us to stand in turn, announce our names and where we came from in a “loud Saint Malachy’s voice,” and ask one question. When my turn came, as the words tripped out, my voice was alive with trembles that wouldn’t stop. I could not lift my head or halt the damned trembling.
“Speak up, Gabriel, and look at the other boys when you speak,” Miss Brown said. “Remember, I said in a confident Saint Malachy’s voice.”
I took a deep breath and looked up just like she’d said. Twenty-one heads of all shapes and sizes watched and waited for my words. It felt like a thousand boys watched. I gripped the sides of the desk until I thought it would splinter. I said, “I’m Gabriel Harkin and I come from Knockburn.”
“Very good, Gabriel, but you forgot your question,” Miss Brown said.
My form teacher had just praised me and no one had laughed. This was going to be far different from my previous schooling.
“Miss Brown, are the boys in class 1A smarter than us in 1B?” I asked. I held my breath.
“An excellent question, Gabriel. Boys, I want you to know that 1A and 1B are one and the same with regard to intelligence. One and the same.”
The bell rang soon thereafter and we were led to a room called Group Activities 1 for Latin class, where Miss Brown left us in the hands of Mr. Carmichael.
The Saturday after my first school week was very hot. House martins swarmed about the house and garage, their high-pitched twitters filling the sky as they prepared to leave for warmer countries. As I watched their darting flights, I wondered if some of these same birds would go to Kenya and build their nests on the eaves of Uncle Brendan’s school, because he’d once told me they had house martins there as well. Thoughts like that made me feel close to him, despite his being so far away in a country that I knew nothing about. A week previous, he’d sent me a lovely letter wishing me well at Saint Malachy’s and had also enclosed a photograph of his new school extension. I’d pinned it to my bedroom wall.
“Gabriel! Gabriel!” Nuala ran into the backyard, where I was tossing a rubber ball against the wall. “Mammy says you and Caroline must take James and me for our last summer bath in the river before tea. You must do it now.”
During the summer months, if it was warm, our mother liked us to bathe at the river because it saved her having to do it. I always picked the same spot for us to bathe, right where a high bank of rust-red clay reared up on one side. Prickly rings of gorse carpeted the other side and the shimmering river water sang as it trickled over the smooth stones. No one but cows chewing cud on the lip of the high bank could see us naked. When we got to the river, it was always Caroline’s job to shampoo and rinse James’s and Nuala’s hair and mine to make sure they washed their arses, necks, and inside their ears.
I placed my arms on Nuala’s shoulders. Her front teeth criss-crossed slightly and made her smile impish. Her every request always began with a “must.”
“We must, must we, Nuala?”
I fetched some towels and we went to the river. After we’d bathed Nuala, she got out of the water and disappeared among the gorse clumps, returning a few minutes later clutching a hen’s egg. She gave it to me. The egg was yellowish and peppered with tiny white spots, and I wondered how a hen had managed to escape its coop and make its way down to the river to lay it.
“Were there any bones nearby?” I asked, thinking a fox had caught the thing and it had laid the egg in fright before it died.
Nuala shook her head so vigorously her curly hair flew away from her face.
“Take me to the spot where you found it.”
We toweled ourselves quickly and d
ressed. As she and I searched the area, Noel appeared from behind a dense gorse bush. He took the egg and smashed it against a mossy stone. A terrible stink lifted from the runny mess. Nuala jumped back, pinching her nostrils.
“I was looking for you and your aul doll said you were here,” he said. “How’d the first week at school go?”
“I’ve got a really gorgeous form mistress.”
Noel looked at my sister. “Go back to the others and tell them Gabriel’s coming with me. We’ll be back in a minute.”
I watched Nuala scurry across the clearing and disappear just as Caroline called out she’d caught a fish with her hands and wanted me to see it. I started toward the river, but Noel seized my arm.
“Let’s go to the bridge.”
“Let’s go and see the fish.”
“It’s only a bloody trout she’s tickled. You’ve seen a trout before, haven’t you?”
I shrugged and followed him. As we walked along the riverbank, Noel and I compared timetables. Even though he was over twelve, he didn’t study German or Irish, because his school was only an intermediate, not a grammar one like mine. He had to study nasty subjects like woodwork and metalwork.
We came to a deep part of the river where the water was pitch-black, and rusty-colored froth clung like soapsuds to the trailing brambles and grass. Near the edge, a sack peeped out of the water’s still surface. Noel bent over and pulled it toward him. Water rushed from its loose weave as he held it up. After the trickles became a steady drip, he laid the sack on the grass and opened it. “Just as I figured.”
I peered inside and thought it was a pile of black and white rags until my eyes focused. Inside were five Border collie pups curled around a glistening black stone, their eyes closed as if asleep.
“Some farmer’s bitch had a litter and the bastard’s drowned them,” Noel said.
He drew the twine around the neck of the sack and tossed it into the water again. I watched the bag float and then sink silently beneath the blackness. The rusty froth rocked back and forth until the last ring of ripples vanished and the water stilled again.
“We should find out who did this and report him to the RSPCA,” I said.
“What good would that do? Sure, the river’s full of bags of dead kittens and pups.”
On the way to the bridge, I couldn’t stop thinking about the pups. As we drew near, I could see Fergal’s house through gaps in the trees, about two hundred yards farther up the brae. I heard his voice and saw him playing ball with three other boys on the road. I wanted to show him the sack of pups and called out his name as I waved. He didn’t look at us. Only the smallest, a fry of a boy acting as goalie, looked back for a moment before turning back to the game.
“Shut your fucking mouth. We don’t want them coming down here.” Noel checked to see if the boys were coming. “We’ll go to the pigsty, instead.”
“I can’t. We’re expected home for tea soon.”
The bridge had two arches whose stone ceilings stood five feet above the riverbed. Water flowed entirely through the far arch but only partly through the nearest one, leaving a two-foot strip of stones and grainy sand where people could walk to the other side without getting their feet wet.
“We’ll go under the arch,” he said.
After climbing over a fence of sagging barbed wire running across the mouths of the arches, we walked into the cool, dim shade. Noel stopped halfway inside. A car passed overhead with a whoosh of wheels and the rising whine of its engine as it picked up speed to climb the hill. The noise faded, replaced by the babbling of the cheerful water. Without speaking, Noel unzipped his jeans and pulled down his underpants to just above his knees.
“Quick, do me.”
His voice sounded hollow underneath the bridge. I couldn’t believe what he’d asked. We always started our play with doctors and nurses. Now, he was skipping that bit and wanted the last part first.
“We can’t play here.” I watched in scared fascination as his thing grew. “It’s not dark enough . . . and we haven’t done our doctors and nurses examination.”
“I want you to suck me now. Nobody will see us. Only this one time in daylight, Gabriel. I’ll do it to you, too. Take down your trousers and kneel before me.”
I sank to my knees. Noel’s white legs and jutting thing looked so out of place among the crumbling lime and moss on the bridge’s walls.
“I don’t want to do this, Noel. I’m feeling so sad about the pups.”
It wasn’t right to do this here, especially since my brother and sisters were playing farther up the river and a bag of murdered puppies lay in the water. Noel put his hand around the back of my head and pulled my face toward his middle. Moments later, his hands left my head at the same time a loud gasp came from the entrance.
I turned, expecting to see James. But Fergal stood there. He stared at me kneeling in front of Noel’s thing, His bangs were clumped with sweat. It all seemed unreal; I thought I was dreaming.
I sprang to my feet and looked again. Fergal wasn’t there, but I heard grunting as he scrambled up the ditch. As fast as my thoughts, I whipped up my jeans and spilled over the barbed wire fence. I grabbed the back of Fergal’s pants before he plunged through a hole in the hedge.
“Wait a minute.” My heart knocked so loudly, I thought he’d hear it. “Noel and I play doctors and nurses. We examine each other for fun.” My lips were dry. “You caught us doing the last bit first and . . . come and play with us, if you want.”
Fergal shook his head. “My cousin said you were calling out for me, that’s why I came. But I’m not playing any game like that.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I’m going back to my cousins. I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
I don’t know why—I think it was his gaze and voice—but I was scared of him for the first time in my life. I needed to make things right.
“Noel found a sack of drowned pups and I’ll show you where they are.”
Fergal looked into my eyes for a long time. He didn’t blink once. I met his stare, though it was powerful hard to do it.
“I’ve got to go. Another time.”
I watched as he passed through the hole in the hedge and then stood staring at the empty space for a long moment. When I returned underneath the bridge, Noel was gone. Just his footprints, my footprints, and the hollows where my knees had sunk into the grainy soil before him remained.
Eleven
Fergal said no more to me about what he’d seen. As the days passed, I convinced myself he’d seen very little, though part of me kept asking why he hadn’t wanted to join in the game. His words had had a hard edge, too, which troubled me.
I was so troubled, I asked Noel the following Saturday, while we were in our nest, if boys really did play this game together.
Noel switched on the flashlight and propped himself up on one elbow. “Of course, they do.”
“Why did he say he didn’t want to play ‘any game like that’? That’s exactly the words he used, Noel.”
He didn’t respond for a moment. “Lots of boys do it,” he said finally. “You needn’t worry. Some do it only with girls. Others do it with boys and girls, both.”
“So there’s nothing wrong with it, then?”
“Not one single thing.” He switched off the flashlight. “Fergal just doesn’t want to do it.”
I felt so happy about this that I forced myself to stay after the lovely pains passed and the other feelings, the ones that always made me jump up and leave, came over me. I ignored them and forced myself to stay, because I wanted to continue pleasing Noel.
After a while, he began making weird noises. Soft noises like cries. Cries that grew louder and deeper. His body trembled and he called out, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
I pulled away, fumbled about until I found the flashlight, and switched it on.
“First time you’ve been able to make me do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Come.
” There was creamy liquid on his stomach.
“What’s that on your belly?”
“Spunk. Only older boys make it. You can’t yet.”
“What is it?”
“A man rides a woman until his spunk comes out and it mixes with her egg to make a baby.”
“Why did you make it come out?”
“You can’t stop it. It’s a feeling that comes over your body and won’t stop.”
Everything clicked instantly in my brain. I knew exactly what he was describing. “Is it like a lovely pain?”
His face scrunched. “That’s a good way to describe it . . . and your aul doll will explain it when she gets ’round to telling you about sexual intercourse.”
I waited for my chance to ask my mother about sexual intercourse. It came on bath night four days later, after I’d washed and was sitting in front of the fire while she read a magazine. Two hours earlier, they’d argued and Daddy had left the house. The disagreement had started because he was going out to the pub with his friends. She hadn’t been out for a long time and was fed up, she said, and she told him that he was a married man and should be taking her, as well, because she was his wife, not his slave. She said also he had to change his ways, because I was at grammar school now and beginning to understand more about the nature of adult relationships.
“Exactly what did you mean when you said to Daddy I’d be understanding more about adult relationships now that I’m at Saint Malachy’s?”
“Oh, I meant all sorts of things.” She flipped a page crisply.
“Would it include things like . . .” I paused and looked at Caroline, but pressed on. “How a man’s spunk mixes with the woman’s egg to make a baby?”
Caroline was brushing Nuala’s wet hair and pushed her away at my words. She’d dared me twice to ask Mammy after I’d told her what Noel had said.
My mother closed the magazine slowly. “Spunk is a filthy word, Gabriel.” Her nostrils widened. “Filthy.”
A Son Called Gabriel Page 12