by John Boyne
I had won the English prize for an essay I’d written entitled “Seven Ways to Better Myself,” in which I listed various qualities that I knew would impress the priests but that I had absolutely no intention of pursuing in real life (except for the last one, whose addendum wasn’t a problem to me at all). They were, in order of appearance:
1 Study the life of St. Francis Xavier and recognize aspects of his Christian behavior that I could emulate.
2 Identify those boys in my class who were struggling at subjects in which I excelled and offer to help them.
3 Learn a musical instrument, preferably the piano but definitely not the guitar.
4 Read the novels of Walter Macken.
5 Begin a novena dedicated to the repose of the soul of the late Pope Pius XII.
6 Find a Protestant and make him see the errors of his ways.
7 Banish all impure thoughts from my mind, particularly those that focused on the intimate parts of people of the opposite gender.
It wasn’t the gold medal that I craved so much as the day out, the destination of which changed every year and had previously included such exhilarating venues as Dublin Zoo, Howth Head and Dun Laoghaire pier. This year, however, things had taken a more exciting turn with the announcement of a visit to the city center, a place that, despite its proximity to our school, was out of bounds to us at all times with no exceptions according to the student handbook. As boarders we could leave Belvedere on weekends as long as we were in the custody of a parent, a guardian or a priest, none of which particularly appealed to us. However, it was absolutely forbidden to spend any time in O’Connell Street or Henry Street, which, we were told, were havens for vice and iniquity, or Grafton Street and its environs, which were the domain of writers, artists and other deviants.
“I know the city center quite well,” Julian told me on the short bus journey from Parnell Square to Kildare Street. “My father brings me and Alice there for lunch occasionally but he always refuses to take me to the places that I really want to go.”
“Which ones are they?” I asked.
“Harcourt Street,” he replied knowingly. “That’s where all the girls hang out. And the nightclubs on Leeson Street. But of course they’re not open till nighttime. I hear that the women there will do it with anyone if you buy them a Snowball.”
I said nothing and looked out the window at the posters advertising Ben-Hur that hung from the front of the Savoy Cinema. As infatuated as I was with Julian, I found his tendency to talk constantly about girls frustrating. It was an obsession for him, as much as it is for most fourteen-year-old boys I suppose, but he seemed excessively preoccupied with sex and wasn’t shy about telling me all the things that he would do to any girl who would let him have his way with her, fantasies that both aroused and distressed me with the certain knowledge that he would never want to do any of those things with me.
Did I spend much time examining my feelings for Julian in those days? Probably not. If anything, I deliberately avoided analyzing them. It was 1959, after all. I knew almost nothing of homosexuality, except for the fact that to act on such urges was a criminal act in Ireland that could result in a jail sentence, unless of course you were a priest, in which case it was a perk of the job. I had a crush on him, I recognized that much at least, but I didn’t think any harm could come from it and assumed that in time those feelings would pass and my attentions would shift toward girls. I thought I was just a slow developer; the notion that I could have what was then considered to be a mental disorder was one that would have horrified me.
“The seat of government,” said Father Squires, rubbing his hands together in glee as we disembarked the bus on Kildare Street and made our way past the pair of Gardaí standing by the gates to the courtyard, who waved us in without even a word when they saw the collar around our principal’s neck. “Think, lads, of all the great men who have passed through these doors. Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass, Seán T. O’Kelly. The Countess Markievicz who, strictly speaking, was not a man at all but had the heart and guts of one. We’ll not speak of Michael Collins and the Blueshirts. If you see any of them renegades inside, look the other way as you would a Medusa. They’re the sort of West Brit good-for-nothings that your daddy would have great time for, am I right, Julian Woodbead?”
All heads turned in Julian’s direction and he shrugged his shoulders. The Jesuits, of course, were ideologically opposed to Max Woodbead’s veneration for the British Empire and would have considered his love affair with Queen Elizabeth II to be heretical, although it didn’t prevent them from taking his money.
“Probably,” said Julian, who believed that taking offense at anything a priest said was beneath his dignity. “We’ve had James Dillon over to the house a few times for dinner if that’s what you mean. Nice enough fellow, I suppose. Could do with a little advice on the personal hygiene front, of course.”
Father Squires shook his head in scorn and led the way through the doors, where we were met by an usher who bowed and scraped before the priest before giving us a tour of the ground floor of the House and leading us up a narrow staircase toward the Visitors’ Gallery, where we took our seats in the colonnade. The chamber, that green horseshoe of independence that represented everything that the Irish people had fought for over the years, lay before us and there was the Taoiseach, the great Éamon de Valera himself, who we scarcely believed existed outside of newspaper reports and our history lessons, holding forth on some topic to do with taxation and agriculture, and there wasn’t a boy among our number who didn’t feel they were in the presence of greatness. How often had we had read about his role at Boland’s Mill during the Easter Rising of 1916 or how he had raised millions of American dollars to assist in the establishment of an Irish Republic three years later? He was the stuff of legend and there he was, in full sight of us, reading from a sheaf of papers in an uninterested voice as if none of these grand events were anything to do with him at all.
“Keep quiet now, lads,” said Father Squires, his eyes growing moist with adoration. “Listen to the great man speak.”
I did as I was told but it wasn’t long before I grew bored. He may well have been a great man but he didn’t seem to know when he’d made his point and should sit down again. Leaning over the railing, I glanced around at the half-empty seats of the chamber and counted how many of the Teachtaí Dála were asleep. The number was seventeen. I searched for women TDs but there were none to be found. Matthew Willoughby, who had won the history medal, had brought a notebook with him and was busy scribbling down every word that was said and as time went on and Father Squires showed no sign of wanting to leave, my eyes started to close and only when Julian tapped me on the arm and nodded toward the door behind us did I come back to life.
“What?” I said, stifling a yawn.
“Let’s go outside and take a look around,” he said.
“We’ll get in trouble.”
“And what if we do? Does it matter?”
I looked over toward Father Squires. He was seated in the front row, practically dribbling with Republican zeal. The chances of him noticing that we had abandoned our posts were nonexistent.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We stood up and snuck out the same way that we had come in, ignoring the ushers standing on duty at the doors of the gallery lest they challenge us on our departure, and made our way down the staircase where another Garda was sitting on an ornamental chair—the very replica of the one that had once sat on the ground floor of the house on Dartmouth Square—reading a newspaper.
“Where do you lads think you’re going?” he asked, looking as if he didn’t particularly care about the answer but felt duty-bound to ask anyway.
“Toilet,” said Julian, grabbing his crotch with one hand while doing a little dance on the spot as the man rolled his eyes.
“Along down the corridor there,” he said, pointing the way as he dismissed us.
We walked past him and past the toilets too, staring up at the oil p
ortraits of the unknown dignitaries that glared down at us from the walls as if they knew that we were up to no good, and felt the excitement of being young, alive and unsupervised by adults. I had no idea where we were going, neither of us did, but it felt great to be on our own and having an adventure.
“Do you have any money on you, Cyril?” Julian asked after we had run out of corridors to investigate.
“Some,” I said. “Not much. Why?”
“There’s a tearoom over there. We could get something to drink.”
“Right enough,” I said and we made our way inside, holding our heads high as if we had every right to be there. It was a large room, about thirty feet wide and four times as long, and a woman was seated behind a desk on the nearest wall, a cash register next to her, watching people come to and fro as she counted her receipts. To my surprise, a pair of yellow phone boxes, the like of which I had only ever seen on street corners, stood on either side of her desk. One was occupied by a TD whose photograph I had seen in the papers but the other was empty. The tables ran in three long rows and despite the fact that there were plenty of empty seats the men were gathered like moths around the few tables where the flame of seniority burned bright. I recognized a group of junior Fianna Fáil TDs sitting on the floor near a couple of ministers, waiting for a seat at the top table to open up and doing their best not to acknowledge the sheer indignity of their position.
Naturally, Julian and I avoided the occupied tables and made our way to an empty one by a window, where we sat down with all the confidence of a couple of young dauphins until a young waitress, not much older than either of us, noticed us and came over. She was wearing a tight-fitting black and white uniform with the two top buttons of her blouse undone and I could see Julian staring at her in hunger, his pupils dilating as he took her in. She was a looker, there was no denying it, with shoulder-length blonde hair and pale clear skin.
“Let me wipe that clean for you,” she said, leaning over and running a damp dishcloth across the top of the table while she glanced from one of us to the other. I noticed her gaze settle on Julian, who was so much more handsome than me, and envied the ease with which she could take him in and appreciate his beauty. As she turned away to clear some napkins from the table’s previous occupants, he sat up straight, craned his neck forward and it was obvious that he was doing everything he could to look down her open blouse to capture every square inch of breast that was on display, to record it like a still photograph and develop it whenever he felt the urge. “What can I get you?” she asked finally, standing up again.
“Two pints of Guinness,” said Julian, casual as you like. “And do you have any of that walnut cake that you had in here last Tuesday?”
She stared at him with an expression that mingled amusement with attraction. He was only fourteen but behaved in such an adult and confident fashion that I could tell that she didn’t want to dismiss him out of hand.
“We’re out of walnut cake,” she said. “There was a run on it earlier. We have a bit of almond, though, if you’d like that.”
“Oh Christ no,” said Julian, shaking his head. “Almond gives me terrible gas. I have a group of constituents coming in to see me later this afternoon and the last thing I need is to be burping all over them. They’ll never vote for me again and that’ll be me out of a job. I’ll have to go back to teaching. What’s your name anyway, sweetheart?” he asked, and I looked down at my fingers, counting them one by one and wishing that she would just bring a pot of tea to the table and leave us in peace. “I haven’t seen you in here before, have I?”
“Bridget,” said the waitress. “I’m new.”
“How new?”
“This is my fourth day.”
“The virgin waitress,” said Julian, breaking into a broad grin, and I glanced across at him, scandalized by his choice of words, but Bridget seemed pleased with the flirtation and was ready to give back as good as she got.
“That’s as much as you know,” she said. “They say Elizabeth I was a Virgin Queen but she was putting it about to every man left, right and center. I saw a film about her with Bette Davis.”
“I’m more of a Rita Hayworth man myself,” he said. “Have you seen Gilda? Do you go to the pictures much?”
“I’m only saying,” she said, ignoring his question. “Don’t judge a book by its cover. Who are you anyway? Do you have a name?”
“Julian,” said Julian. “Julian Woodbead. TD for Dublin Central. When you’ve been here a few weeks, you’ll get to know all our names. The other girls do.”
She stared at him and I could see that she was balancing in her mind the sheer impossibility of a boy his age being an elected representative while, at the same time, considering how ludicrous it would be for him to be making such a story up. In the right light, he could have passed for older than fourteen—not enough that any sensible person would believe he was a TD but enough that a new girl in the tearoom might be anxious enough about challenging him.
“Is that right?” she said suspiciously.
“It is for the moment,” he replied. “But there’ll be an election in a year or two and I think my days might be numbered. The Blueshirts are giving me an awful run for my money on the social welfare benefits. You’re not a Blueshirt, are you, Bridget?”
“I am not,” she snapped. “Would you give me some credit? My family has always stood with Dev. My grandfather was in the GPO on Easter Sunday and two of my uncles fought in the War of Independence.”
“It must have been fierce busy in the GPO that day,” I said, looking up and speaking for the first time. “There’s barely a man, woman or child in Ireland who doesn’t claim that their father or grandfather was at one of the windows standing his post. It must have been near impossible to buy a stamp.”
“Who’s this fella then?” asked Bridget of Julian, looking at me as if I was something that had been dragged in by the cat on a cold winter’s night.
“My sister’s eldest lad,” said Julian. “Don’t mind him, sure he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His hormones are all over the place at the moment. Now, about those pints of Guinness, darling, is there any risk of getting them before I pass out with the thirst?”
She looked around as if uncertain what she should do. “I don’t know what Mrs. Goggin would say.”
“And who’s Mrs. Goggin?” asked Julian.
“The manageress. My boss. She says I’m on trial for six weeks and we’ll see after that.”
“She sounds like a difficult article.”
“No, she’s very nice, actually,” said Bridget, shaking her head. “She gave me a chance here when no one else would.”
“Well, if she’s all that nice, then I don’t think she’d object to you taking an order from an elected TD from Dublin South, do you?”
“I thought you were Dublin Central?”
“You’re misremembering. I’m Dublin South.”
“You’re a bit of a laugh but I don’t believe a word you say.”
“Ah, Bridget,” said Julian, looking at her mournfully. “Don’t be like that. If you think I’m a laugh now, I promise you that I’m even more fun when I have a drink in me. Two pints of Guinness, that’s all we want. Come on now, we’ve a thirst on us like Lawrence of Arabia.”
She issued a deep sigh, as if she couldn’t be bothered debating anymore, before walking away and, to my astonishment, returning a few minutes later with two full dark pints of Guinness Stout, which she placed before us, the yellow foam at the top spilling lazily over the head, leaving a snail’s trail along the side of the glass.
“Enjoy them now,” she said. “Mr. TD for wherever you’re from now.”
“We will,” said Julian. He lifted his pint and took a long gulp and I watched his face grimace a little as he tried to swallow. His eyes closed briefly as he fought the urge to spit it back up. “Christ, that tastes good,” he said with all the credibility of a Parisian complimenting a meal in Central London. “I needed that.”
/> I took a sip from mine and, as it happens, didn’t mind the taste at all. It was warmer than I had expected and had a bitter flavor to it but, somehow, it didn’t make me gag. I gave it a sniff, then took another mouthful and breathed out through my nose. All good, I thought. I could get used to this.
“What do you think, Cyril?” he asked me. “Do I have a chance?”
“A chance at what?”
“A chance at Bridget.”
“She’s old,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s only about seventeen. Three years older than me. That’s a great age for a girl.”
I shook my head, feeling a rare irritation with him. “What do you know about girls anyway?” I asked. “You’re all talk.”
“I know that if you say the right things to one you can get her to do whatever you want.”
“Like what?”
“Well, most of them won’t let you go all the way but they’ll give you a blowie if you ask nicely.”
I said nothing for a moment and considered this. I didn’t want to display my ignorance before him but was eager to know. “What’s a blowie?” I asked.
“Ah come on, Cyril. You’re not that innocent.”
“I’m joking,” I said.
“No, you’re not. You don’t know.”
“I do,” I said.
“Well, go on then. What is it?”
“It’s when a girl kisses you,” I said. “And then she blows into your mouth.”
He stared at me in bewilderment before starting to laugh. “Why would any sane person do such a thing?” he asked me. “Unless you’d drowned, of course, and she was trying to bring you back to life. A blowie, Cyril, is where they put your thing in their mouth and give it an old suck.”
My eyes opened wide and I felt the familiar stirring in the crotch of my pants, attacking me faster than usual, my whole body alive with the idea of someone doing this to me. Or me doing it to someone else.