Sucking Sherbert Lemons

by Michael Carson

  Benson was forced to sit on the armchair next to the television, that nobody ever sat in.

  “Here’s our new Brother!” cried Brother Kay.

  “God willing!” agreed Dad.

  Mum sipped her sherry and said nothing.

  “We’ve been having a chat about you, young man,” said Brother Kay. He winked at Benson, and Benson smiled back at him nervously. “It’s a great blessing when the Lord chooses a boy from a good Catholic family and calls him to His service.”

  “But don’t you think he’s a bit young yet, Brother?” asked Mum helplessly.

  Brother Kay answered, “The younger the better. The Lord places mature thoughts in immature bodies before the Devil can seduce the innocent with his wicked wiles, before the Old Adam rises up and takes charge. Your son is young, that is true. He needs guidance for many years to come. The danger is, that if he remains in the world, he will slowly lose his ideals and get wrapped up in the ways of the world. He’ll listen to the radio and dance to Alma Cogan records and forget his Maker. That is the danger. A vocation is given when the Lord chooses. If His Voice is not listened to He does not ask again. He is God after all. He will just go on down the street and call on another family.”

  There was no answer to that. Mum sat and contemplated the empty sherry glass.

  “It sounds like a tough regime at the monastery,” Dad confided to Benson, a look of no small satisfaction on his face.

  “Anyway,” continued Brother Kay, looking at his watch, “tempus fugit! I fear I have many miles to go before I sleep. There is plenty of time for further discussion and of course there will be medicals and lots of other formalities before your son can be accepted for training. For the moment, let us kneel down and say the Rosary and ask for the guidance of our Most Holy Mother, Mary.”

  The light was switched off and the four knelt and started the five Sorrowful Mysteries.

  Benson could think of nothing but the invisible people in the room praying for his vocation. The voices droned on in a monotone which Benson knew he would find distasteful, were he God. He had always attempted to put some expression into his prayers.

  “I can always say it was a mistake,” Benson told himself.

  But then it was his turn to lead the prayers.

  “The fourth Sorrowful Mystery of the Holy Rosary: The Carrying of The Cross,” began Benson with expression.

  “Do you want to leave us then?” asked Mum.

  Brother Kay had gone, waved up the road by the Benson family, until his grey snub-nosed Standard Vanguard disappeared out of sight. Dad had at once retreated to the garden without another word, leaving Mum and Benson to go back inside alone.

  Benson went into the lounge, his Maths book at the ready. He knew he would have to attempt to do the work or the morrow might prove unbearable. Mum had joined him there. She tried to help him with the equation problems, but Maths was not her strong point, and at last she left him to it and pretended to read her Woman’s Own. But Benson knew she wasn’t reading with any concentration, just as he was not working on his Maths homework with any concentration. He had fully expected the question when it came.

  “Do you really want to leave us?”

  “I don’t er... “ said Benson.

  “Your dad seems very taken with the idea. But I’m not, not at all.”

  “Why not, Mum?” he asked her, though he thought he knew.

  “To be candid, I don’t like the Brothers much. Too Irish. Cold fish and too hard on the boys.”

  “They’re hard so’s to make us better boys, Mum!”

  “Oh, are they? You’ve changed your tune since last week! Wasn’t it you who told me that your Maths teacher knocked you about whenever you couldn’t do the work? You call that Christian? You call that brotherly?”

  “Yes, but... “

  But Mum did not hear. “It’s a long jump from complaining about them to wanting to join them. I just don’t understand how the change came about so suddenly.”

  “I heard a Call,” answered Benson defensively.

  “Oh, you did, did you? Well, look, son, I know the Lord works in mysterious ways but this is just a little too mysterious for my liking. Are you sure it isn’t you telling yourself that you want to be a Brother? You know how moody you are and how you get enthusiastic and then cool off. Remember the Scouts?”

  Benson preferred not to remember the Scouts. He had pestered Mum and Dad for months to be allowed to join. Then, once he had joined and had wet his sleeping-bag at Easter Camp so that the Scoutmaster had had to send him home in his wife’s car, all enthusiasm for the Scouts had disappeared, and a barely-used Scout uniform had found its way to the Parish jumble sale.

  “That was different!”

  “No, son, it isn’t different. Your dad thought becoming a Scout would make a man of you. Now he thinks becoming a Brother will make a man of you. But you and I both know that you are a long way from being a man. It will come in its own good time but at the moment you’ve still got this problem with the bed-wetting. How would you cope in the monastery if you kept wetting the bed? The Brothers would probably rub your nose in it!”

  Benson gave his mother a sideways glance laced with great reproach. Bed-wetting was his one public vice. All the others he had managed, he fancied, to keep to himself.

  “Remember Harrogate?” asked Mum.

  “Yes.”

  He would never forget it. The posh hotel in Yorkshire full for the summer and Benson told to share a room with the son of the owners, a couple who had spent years in Burma. Every night a wet patch on the mattress where his water had leaked over the edge of his rubber sheet. The son, a slim, athletic blond who spoke like someone on the radio and had cups for running on his mantelpiece and a Scout’s Cord and a fierce dog called Reggie only he could control, had told his mother about Benson’s accidents and called him ‘the wet whale’. The boy’s mother had told Mum that it was disgraceful that a boy of Benson’s age should still be wetting the bed and that something must be wrong with him. Mum had taken offence and insisted that they leave the hotel, even though Dad did not want to leave. They went to a boarding house in Pickering, but Benson had continued to wet the bed. He had ruined everyone’s holiday.

  “Well,” continued Mum, “it will be worse than that at the monastery. You just mark my words!”

  By the time the weekend came Benson had changed his mind about becoming a Brother. It was Maths the following morning which had partly brought this about. Mum’s tears when he returned from school had clinched his decision. He told himself that it would be much better for him to love and serve the Lord in the world.

  He had done his Maths homework after a fashion, but had solved the equations in a random fashion while praying fervently to St Jude for inspiration. x + y – 2y = x + 2xy – x wrote Benson randomly. However, St Jude had remained a hopeless case and every sum he did was hopelessly wrong.

  Brother Wood had made his way down the aisle like a black-clad reaper through a field. The scythe of his nervous hand flashed and left boys’ faces red and smarting. By the time Brother Wood had arrived at Benson’s desk, Benson was speechless with fear.

  Brother Wood had corrected Vincent Latos’ book first. Big red ticks soon covered the page. “Good lad!” exclaimed Brother Wood and gave Vincent a rare smile. Then he reached across and took Benson’s book. Livid red crosses marched down the page like a cemetery. Brother Wood began to perceive the randomness of Benson’s answers and with his left hand he hit the back of Benson’s head. He completed his marking and shouted, “Out to the front, you!”

  Benson, dizzy with pain and fear, marched to the front of the class. Brother Wood let him wait by the board as he continued marking around the class. Nobody else was hit, not even Eddie Rudge.

  From the back of the class Brother Wood surveyed Benson with distaste. He slowly screwed the cap onto his pen and pa
ced up the aisle, never once taking his eyes off Benson.

  He came up very close to him. “Where’s your copybook? Get your copybook, fat boy!” On the word ‘get’ he slapped Benson’s right cheek hard. Benson went to get his book. Vincent was holding it out to him but had averted his eyes.

  Benson’s eyes were smarting and watering from the blow as he handed his copybook to Brother Wood.

  “Crying are you?” asked Brother Wood, approaching very close to Benson, so near that Benson could smell the Brother’s unpleasant breath. Mum said that such breath was caused by not being able to go to the toilet every day.

  “No, sir! My eyes were smarting from the smack, sir!”

  Brother Wood glared at him, then went over to the board and wrote out one of the problems.

  “Show the class how you do this!” And he held out a piece of chalk.

  “I can’t do it, sir! I don’t understand them at all, sir!”

  “ ‘I don’t understand them at all, sir!’ “ mimicked Brother Wood, putting on a fruity English accent. Then he hit Benson on the other cheek.

  “Come and see me after school, you!”

  Benson sat down.

  After school he was set to doing the problems but could manage nothing. After an hour of tense non-achievement, Brother Wood came up to him and said, “You’re a stupid boy, Benson! Stupid and fat! What are you?”

  “I’m a stupid boy. Stupid and fat, sir,” said Benson without conviction.

  “Get out of my sight!”

  And Benson had done so.

  Late home, and he had had to ask Mum, “Why are you crying, Mum?”

  He had never seen Mum cry before.

  “I’ve been at it all day!”

  “Why, Mum?”

  “Don’t go and be a Brother! I don’t want you to be a Brother!”

  Benson thought for a moment and then said: “OK, Mum, I won’t go.”

  Mum cheered up immediately.

  She set about preparing the evening meal and Benson used the time to weave the prongs of a fork through the tablecloth. When he had done this, he withdrew the fork, sprinkled some salt around and tried to place grains of salt into the tiny holes in the cloth. While thus gainfully employed, he asked Mum, “Am I fat, Mum?”

  Mum did not answer for a long moment. Then she turned around and advanced towards him, wiping her hands on her apron. She took him in her arms.

  “No, you’re not fat, son. You’re just well-made,” she said softly.

  Although luxuriating in the warmth of Mum’s hug and feeling the hurt of the day lessening, Benson did not feel convinced. Mum had told him on several occasions that he was well-made. She had also insisted that he was ‘bigboned’, and blamed the Irish side for that. But increasingly the evidence of his own eyes and the daily expletives hurled at him at school had gone a long way towards convincing him that he was, indeed, fat.

  “No, Mum, I think I’m fat,” insisted Benson.

  “It’s just a stage, puppy-fat,” said Mum, turning back to her work.

  “I am fat,” thought Benson.

  Later that evening he was leafing through Mum’s copy of Woman’s Own when he came upon an advertisement:

  RUB AWAY THOSE UNWANTED POUNDS!

  GET YOURSELF OUR BALL-MASSAGER!

  AN OFFER EXCLUSIVE TO READERS OF WOMAN’S

  OWN!

  There was a picture of a very slim woman rubbing a round pad set with what looked to Benson like tiny marbles.

  The Ball Massager seemed to have worked wonderfully well for the woman in the picture. Benson decided that it was just what he needed and took down the address. The nine-and-sixpence including postage would be harder to arrange, but arrange it he would! He’d cash in some of his savings stamps, the ones with Prince Charles on the front, and send off for it. It would make a new man of him.

  Eric Jenkins called humbly at the back door. Benson did not invite him in, and dismissed him with a few curt phrases. He realised that Bruno had not been given a thought for at least twenty-four hours. So he thought about Bruno and resolved to make a Pastoral Visit to him at some indefinite future date. Benson devoted the remainder of the evening to the refurbishment of the wardrobe altar.

  Before he slept he thought of Mum and the promise he had made to her. What could have made him reverse himself like that? In truth he was sick – fat and stupid too. What would Brother Kay say? What would Jesus say? What would Mary say? What would Brother Hooper say? What would St Joseph say? What would Guardian Angel Tom say?

  Then he consoled himself with the thought of the massager he would send for. Yes, that is what he would do the following morning. Yes, that is what he’d do ...

  “Does your mum know you’re cashing in your savings stamps?” asked the man in the post office.

  “Oh, yes, Mr Bolton. She’s anxious that I do it, in fact,” replied Benson.

  Mr Bolton raised his eyebrows and took Benson’s savings book wearily. He pulled out the four half-crown stamps and passed a ten-shilling note across the counter.

  “Can you give me a postal order for nine-and-six and one twopence-halfpenny stamp, please?”

  Mr Bolton did so.

  “It’s a pity you’re taking out all that money, sunny Jim. Only two more half-crown ones and you’d have been able to buy a Savings Certificate, you know. Then you’d be earning interest.”

  “I expect you’re right,” replied Benson, though he had absolutely no interest in interest.

  “It’s never too early to start thinking of the future, you know,” continued Mr Bolton doggedly.

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s quite true, Mr Bolton,” sighed Benson, though he felt that without a massager he did not have a future.

  “Before you know it you’ll be my age and then where will you be?”

  “Er ... yes,” said Benson. He turned and saw Bruno at the other end of the shop, browsing through the paperback books.

  With Mr Bolton forgotten behind his glass, Benson retreated to the writing counter to address his letter to Woman’s Own. He kept a weather-eye out for Bruno, realising with some certainty that he did not want to see him ever again.

  He wondered as he stuck the envelope down if he would be able to get past Bruno without his seeing. This he attempted by walking past the stationery display, keeping well to the right. He felt he was about to succeed in this daring enterprise, but as he came level Bruno spun round and looked him straight in the eye.

  “I saw you down there at the post office. What were you doing?” Bruno asked.

  “Something for Mum,” lied Benson.

  “I’ve been reading these books. Have you read Camp on Blood Island? It’s about the Japanese during the war. It’s all good, but page forty-two is really, really good. Have you read it?”

  “No, I haven’t, Bruno. Is it there?” asked Benson by way of making polite conversation.

  “Yes, it is. There it is. Have a look.”

  Benson picked up the book and turned to page forty-two. He read it for a while, then he asked, “Why does he want to give her chocolate?”

  “It tells you! Can’t you read?” And Bruno quoted from memory: “‘To make you strong and healthy for me.’ “

  “Why does he want her to be strong and healthy for him?”

  “You still don’t know anything, do you? So he can do it to her, that’s why!”

  “Do what?”

  Bruno came closer to Benson, and took the book out of his hands. “Do her, that’s what.”

  “Do her?” The question was intended to act as an antidote to the powerful aphrodisiac effect that Bruno’s presence was having on Benson. “I should be going home. My mum...”

  “Where are you going? I’ll come too.” Bruno took Benson’s arm and led him from the post office.

  “Er... “ said Benson.

&
nbsp; “What?”

  “I was just thinking, I mean, I was sorry to hear about what happened to you.”

  “Well, least said soonest mended. That’s what my dad says anyway.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” agreed Benson. “Look, I must post this letter... “

  He ran over to the postbox wondering if he could just wave at Bruno and then go off in the opposite direction. But, he told himself, that would probably not work and anyway he was not sure he really wanted to retreat. He was curious about Bruno. It was amazing how casual he seemed about everything that had happened to him. He had expected to find him a physical and emotional wreck, but such did not appear to be the case.

  “Where’s your bike?” he asked.

  “It’s gone. My dad’s buying me a new one and he’s given my old one to the shop to go towards it. I’ll get the new one on Monday night. It’s a yellow and black Dawes with drop-handlebars,” announced Bruno proudly.

  “Gosh! You lucky thing!”

  “Where shall we go?” asked Bruno.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, don’t you want to know what happened to me?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you here, can I? Someone might hear.”

  “Where shall we go?” asked Benson.

  “Back of the Prom?”

  “All right.”

  ‘The back of the Prom’ referred to the area behind the promenade, built to protect Benson’s town against encroachment by the Irish Sea. The area, to the seaward, bounded by low sandstone cliffs, marked the former coastline.

  Between these cliffs and the merchants’ houses that hugged the crest of the crocodile-profiled hill lay a half-mile strip of rough, wild ground. Gun emplacements littered the area, remains of the Second World War; steel rabbit warrens among the hawthorn bushes and sand-gullies.

  There, greying men walked their dogs and gossiped to them about the War and their time in the Home Guard. There, courting couples found a private trysting place out of sight of all but the most curious in the affluent houses at the top of the hill.