“Now, before I take the register,” began Brother O’Toole, “I’d like to tell you something that I recalled during my morning meditation. I was contemplating the third Glorious Mystery of the Holy Rosary –” He stopped and asked O’Gorman, “What is the third Glorious Mystery of the Holy Rosary?”
“The Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, sir.”
Brother O’Toole did not acknowledge O’Gorman’s answer, but continued, “And as I was contemplating that blessed Mystery, a thought came to my mind. Back in 1919, before any of you were born, the Black and Tans came to our village. They were looking for an I.R.A. man, name of Docherty. At least that was their excuse. They were really there to raise a ruckus. Anyway, they burst in on old Mrs Flannagan who owned the sweet shop in our village. Now Mrs Flannagan was never one to become unhinged by the likes of the Black and Tans and she just asked the men, ‘Would it be sweets or tobacco you’d be wanting, me boyos?’ Well, didn’t the commander of the wicked band of English bandits take the good woman’s innocent remark for cheek? He cocked his weapon – the heathen dog – and fired at the jars of sweets above Mrs Flannagan’s head. I can see the look of shock on your faces, boys! It’s hard to imagine, now that old Ireland’s free, that such things could ever have taken place. But take place they did, God help us! You boys know very well what the English heathens did to our God-fearing race. You’ve heard about Cromwell and the Potato Famine. But the Good Lord in heaven often made it plain as the nose on your face which side He was on. The Holy Ghost descended that day in all His glory on Mrs Flannagan’s sweet shop. And I’ll tell you for how. Not only did the bullets not hurt one hair of Mrs Flannagan, even though shards of glass showered down all around her ... not only that, but do you know what else?”
Brother O’Toole broke off and looked at each of the boys in turn. “Do you know, O’Shea?”
“No, sir,” replied O’Shea.
“Oh, you don’t, do you, O’Shea? Well you just take your finger down out of your nose and keep it out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know, Rudge?”
“No, sir,” replied Eddie Rudge.
“I will tell you what else, so. There was a statue of the Sacred Heart in the shop, placed on the top of the cigarette shelf. After the Black and Tans had left the shop, laughing, shouting obscene things and pinching chocolate and tobacco as they went, Mrs Flannagan – devout soul that she was, God rest her – went to give thanks before that statue and saw that a shard of glass as narrow as an arrow and a full six inches in length had struck the statue of the Sacred Heart. And can you guess where it struck the statue, boys?”
“In the head, sir,” volunteered O’Gorman.
“No, not in the head, O’Gorman.”
“In the leg,” tried Taggart.
“No, not in the leg.”
“In the eye,” chirped Rudge.
“No, Rudge, not in the eye! The very idea! Sure it is only you, Rudge, who could have thought of such a terrible thing. Sure it is a long way you are, Rudge, from being able to comprehend the workings of the Holy Ghost.”
Benson put his hand up and was called on by Brother O’Toole.
“In the heart, sir,” he answered piously.
“You’re right, Benson. Good. In the heart. In the blessed heart of the Sacred Heart.”
Some of the boys turned and gave Benson a glare of reproach for spoiling their game. Though nobody had heard that particular version of the story before, it took none of them any effort to make the inspired guess that, in all probability the shard of glass would have pierced the Sacred Heart in the heart. Had Benson not intervened, the class would have been able to go through a whole litany of anatomical parts, while avoiding death to the game by aiming for the heart.
Brother O’Toole never appeared to notice these games. He congratulated Benson, who sat down, stabbed by the looks of his classmates but basking in the light of Brother O’Toole’s approval.
“In the heart,” continued Brother O’Toole, “and what that told me, boys, as I walked through the Brothers’ garden this morning at six of the a.m. – long before any of you heathens were awake, I fancy – was that the Holy Ghost descended not just the once on Pentecost Day all those years ago. No. He descends every day just as he descended on Mrs Flannagan’s sweet shop during the Troubles. That statue you will be pleased to hear is now given pride of place in St Laurence’s Church and the Faithful come from miles around to pray for favours and to see the wonders that He hath wrought. Now for your homework I want you to imagine that you are Mrs Flannagan. Tell the story I’ve just told you in your own words. Now open your Julius Caesars, Act 2, Scene 2.”
The class did so, but too slowly for Brother O’Toole who said as he always did, “Come on lads! We’re taking longer to read this play than the Divine Bard took to pen it! As Gerard Manley Hopkins said: ‘I am soft sift in an hourglass’. Let’s get this done before our allotted span in this vale of tears runs out.”
Brother O’Toole was always asserting that the boys were ‘soft sift in an hourglass’ and the class always laughed. They laughed because Eddie Rudge had amended the line to ‘I am soft snot in an hourglass’. Brother O’Toole heard the laughter and gave himself credit. But in this as in much else, he could not bring himself to plumb the perversities of the boys his vocation had caused him to minister to in the faraway missionary land of England.
When the class was ready, he asked, “Now what can you tell me about the story so far?”
Vincent Latos put up his hand, something he never usually did. Benson immediately felt alarmed for his companion. Nothing good could come out of Vincent speaking in front of the class. Waves of nauseous fear swept over him.
Brother O’Toole pointed to Vincent.
“Julius Caesar is ambition. He has come back in Rome and Pompey is on his chariot wheel. Brutus and Cassius are not like Caesar. They think he ambition. They will think to slaughter him. Former is honourable but latter is hungry and not trustable.”
Some of the less sensitive members of 3B giggled at Vincent’s mistakes.
Brother O’Toole called on Eddie Rudge, who had giggled most, “All right, Vincent. Thank you very much. Now, you, Rudge. Perhaps you’ll tell the class the story so far.
In Polish.”
Everyone laughed at Eddie Rudge.
“Now in Act 2, Scene 2, we see Julius Caesar with his wife, Calpurnia. Now, boys, Calpurnia always reminds me of our first parent, Eve. She tries to persuade Julius Caesar to do what she wants him to do. How like a woman! She is also full of superstition, and in this you can tell that the action of the play took place before Our Lord had come and swept away all human wickedness from the world. If one of those heathen Romans had a dream he always thought it had some implications for his life. They’d open up the liver of a goat and fancy they could find there something to help them predict the future. Imagine the folly of it, boys! But in those days it was all that the poor benighted people had to go on. I always think that things would have been different if Julius Caesar had been born a century later. Who knows, if he had, he might have been St Julius, and Brutus might have been St Brutus and we’d be reading about them in The Lives of the Saints rather than in the secular pages of Mr Shakespeare. Now who wants to be Julius Caesar?”
A forest of hands went up. Brother O’Toole chose David Mulligan, who was good at games and had his own front door-key.
“And Decius?”
O’Gorman was chosen.
“And Calpurnia?”
Nobody put up their hands.
“I’ll have to choose, so! Benson, you’ll make a good Calpurnia.”
More giggles.
“On second thoughts, you, Rudge, will be Calpurnia.”
Benson felt greatly relieved. He was always chosen to play women’s parts. He had already been Portia to Drury’s Brutus and, in the last play, had
been Juliet most of the time and the Nurse when he had not been Juliet. While Brother O’Toole was well known for his absent-mindedness, Benson’s repeated selection for female parts did not help either his ego or his reputation in 3B.
However, among the stuttering monotones of 3B, it had to be admitted that Benson’s performances were of a higher calibre altogether. Were it not for the whispering of “Wobbles!” and “Homo!” that punctuated his performance, the readings would have given Benson great pleasure.
As Rudge slaughtered the lines of Calpurnia, Benson allowed himself the luxury of wondering how Julius Caesar’s stuff got to Calpurnia’s egg.
Benson arrived home without mishap. Mum was in the kitchen washing out towels and making tea at the same time.
“Can I make the table for you, Mum?” asked Benson helpfully.
“Go on then,” said Mum.
He set about collecting three sets of cutlery and laying them out on the table. There were lots of knives, forks and spoons in the cutlery drawer, each in their own separate compartments. But they were of different sizes, and much of the challenge of laying the table lay in the selection of cutlery of matching sizes for each place-setting.
He rummaged until he found two small settings – for himself and his mum – and one large one for his dad. He dimly remembered that a long time ago this cutlery had been located on top of the sideboard in a wooden canteen.
He rolled the word around in his mouth. “Canteen.” What a funny word for a cutlery case!
“What do you want when you get married?”
“I want a canteen of cutlery, please, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
That would be what he would ask for, a canteen of cutlery.
But this cutlery had for some reason found itself demoted to the kitchen drawer and was now used for every day. He was not quite sure why. There did not seem to be much wrong with it. Perhaps the silver was coming off in places. And where had the canteen gone? It had disappeared as if it had never been. Oh, it’s true, he thought, all flesh is grass.
“Where’s Dad, Mum?”
Mum was coughing as she wrung out the towels energetically. Benson watched the flesh jiggle on her upper arms.
“He’s not back yet,” she said, her voice strangled by the effort involved in wringing out the towels.
“Not back yet?”
“No, and don’t you dare ask me why! I’ve not heard from him all day.”
“What about tea? Are we waiting?”
“We’ll wait until half-six. It he doesn’t come by then I’ll put a lid on his plate and put it in the oven.”
“I’ll get on with my homework.”
“Have you got much, love?”
“No, not much,” said Benson. He had already decided not to do his Maths homework, banking on his luck holding out and the Vocations Brother giving the class his talk during Maths. “Can I do my homework here? You’re good at compositions.”
Mum lit a cigarette and stood on a chair to put the towels on the drying rack that hung from the ceiling.
“I shouldn’t help you at all,” she began, but she didn’t fool Benson for a minute. Mum loved exercising her flair for composition. She often did Benson’s compositions for him, though for a while she had been scared off by a red remark made by Brother O’Toole on Benson’s copybook: “Do I smell mother here?” She had refused to provide any creative insights for a long while after that. Brother O’Toole must have missed Mum’s mature touches because he wrote soon after, quoting Tennyson: “O for the touch of a vanish’d hand, And the sound of a voice that is still.” Mum took this as a coded message from Brother O’Toole that she could resume her assistance.
“But you’ll like this one,” Benson said persuasively. “We have to imagine that we are Mrs Flannagan in a sweet shop. The Black and Tans come in and then... “ And he retold Brother O’Toole’s story.
Mum sat down and watched Benson as he opened his composition book. “What did I get for my last effort?” she asked him.
“Eight out of ten. Very good.”
“What are we going to call this composition?”
“How about ‘Mrs Flannagan’s Day’?”
“No, we can do better than that. What about ‘The Day Sweet Jesus Came to My Sweet Shop’?”
“Yes, that’s good!” Benson at once copied down the title with capital letters for every word except ‘to’. He underlined the title using his comb, which made an artistic wavy line.
Mum lit another cigarette. “Ready?” she asked.
“Ready!” said Benson, his pen poised.
At a measured pace Mum dictated, “It had been a slow day in the shop. An ounce of Erinmore to old Mr Hephernan; three gobstoppers bought by the tinker for his blathering kids – more as a kindness to the tinker’s ears I’m thinking than for the benefit of the kids, sure it was to my way of thinking – a noisy bunch they are so they are. And haven’t I always to keep my eyes peeled in case they make off with anything that isn’t nailed down? Oh yes, and just before the Angelus in walks Mrs Pierce for her weekly half-pound of sherbet lemons...”
“Did they have sherbet lemons in those days, Mum?” asked Benson, wishing suddenly that he had not chomped his way through his two ounces the night before. He recalled that Brother McNulty had told him that gluttony often led straight to impurity. That had certainly proved true last night.
“Yes, I’m sure they did. Look, you’re making me lose the thread. Read back what we’ve done so far.”
Benson did so.
“... sherbet lemons. I was just about to close up the shop to have me lunch. I thought I’d treat meself to the trout Mr Murphy had brought me the night before. Sure I don’t know where he gets them from but they’re really delicious... “
“It’s getting a bit long, Mum. Don’t you think it’s time for a new paragraph?”
“There you go again!” replied Mum, scowling, “When I’m making a story I don’t think about things like paragraphs! All you’re doing is taking it down! You’re the one who should be thinking about paragraphs!”
Benson started a new paragraph because Brother O’Toole liked lots of paragraphs and Benson knew that one had to try to please one’s audience.
“It was then that they came into me shop,” said Mum, her cigarette describing dramatic arcs in the air, “three young soldiers of the great and glorious British army; fathers of the sons who would one day, long after I was dead and in me grave, put Hitler and his filthy cronies into the hell they deserved... “
Benson pulled a critical face. “I don’t think Brother O’Toole will take to that, Mum.”
Mum ignored Benson and continued. “I think these boys were a little the worse for the drink. It is only that which can explain their conduct. They asked me if I had seen a Mr Docherty. They felt that he could be of assistance to them in their enquiries. When I replied truthfully that no I had not, they got a little upset. The one with the red hair aimed his rifle and before I knew what was happening he had fired. I can’t remember what happened next. There was glass all over the place. There was glass on my Penguin Biscuits. There was glass on my Mars Bars. There was glass on my Carr’s Water Biscuits. There was glass on the floor and there was glass on the till. There was even glass on me but I wasn’t hurt. The three soldiers were sorry for what they had done. They left hurriedly. When they had gone I went over to the Sacred Heart statue to make sure He was all right and to seek succour there. And what did I see? A slither of glass had pierced Our Lord’s Heart. It was a message for sure. I went and fetched Father McNally. Do I feel bitter? I do not. I’m sure, had the soldiers known what had happened to the Sacred Heart, they would have been sorry. These things happen in the best-run armies. How’s that?” asked Mum.
“I don’t think Brother O’Toole will like some of the things you say, Mum.”
“Serves him right! Teaching English
children to hate their own soldiers! Ought to be ashamed.”
Benson’s mum had no Irish blood in her veins as far as she knew.
“I’m hungry, Mum.”
“Offer it up!” replied Mum.
There was no answer to that. Benson pursed his lips.
At a quarter past six Benson heard the unmistakeable sound of Dad coming in. The key-click in the lock, the brief whoosh of draught-excluder over carpet, then a pause and the same whoosh, followed by a tick-tock note of the door closing.
“Hello, lady!” Dad called to Mum from the hall as he always did.
Then the hall wardrobe was unlocked, a longish operation taking many turns of the key. A silence and the sound of a policeman’s coat settling down for a night off duty on its metal hanger.
“Hello, lady!” again, and the wardrobe door closing followed by a prolonged turning of the key, an operation which in a few seconds always drove his son mad with boredom. Then five paces down the hall. The morning room door was opened, the handle loose, requiring a knack Dad had.
“Sorry, lady!”
It had taken Benson a long time to make out what it was Dad was saying to Mum whenever he came in. It sounded like ‘Maisie’ but Mum wasn’t called Maisie.
“We’d given you up,” said Mum.
Dad gave Mum a kiss on the cheek. “Bloody awful business! Hello, son.”
Benson smiled at Dad.
“Sit down. Your tea’s ready,” said Mum as Benson asked:
“What’s the awful business, Dad?”
“It’s too old for you,” said Dad.
“Oh, Dad!”
They ate stew for a while in silence, then Mum asked if it was something serious that had kept him out so long.
“A H–O–M–O interfered with a kid last night. The kid’s in a bad way,” Dad spelled out.
“Have you found who did it?”
Dad shook his head.
“What about the boy?”
“Later.”
“Do we know him?”
“Later.”
Sucking Sherbert Lemons Page 5