Sucking Sherbert Lemons

by Michael Carson

“Do you have many friends who are ... er?”

  “Some. What about you?”

  “Me? No,” replied Benson, a part of him shocked at the idea. Andy pursed his lips and Benson added, “Except you, of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. This is nice coffee.”

  They drank their coffee and Benson said he ought to be getting back. Andy said OK but was once more kneeling in front of him.

  This time it was more a labour for both of them, but it was just as nice.

  “Can I see you again?” asked Benson as he put on his mac.

  “I’m not sure. You mustn’t come here without giving me a ring first. You can have my number. I’m busy for a while and may be going away for a bit but give us a call in a fortnight.”

  “A fortnight! That’s a long time,” sighed Benson.

  Andy shrugged and gave him his phone number.

  Benson ran home, mulling over what had happened that night. *

  Mum had gone to bed when Benson got home. Dad was in his armchair reading Amateur Gardener.

  “Where’s Mum?” he asked.

  “She’s gone off to bed, son. She said she wasn’t feeling too bright,” replied Dad, looking up from his magazine, then closing it.

  “Mum is all right, isn’t she, Dad?” Benson asked. He had noticed that Mum seemed to have lost some of her energy. She no longer pulled out each strand of white hair that appeared, saying, “Out you come!” They were spreading over her once-black hair like sherbet over a sideboard.

  “Yes, I think so. She gets a bit out of sorts sometimes. She tires herself out, you know. I tell her to take it easy but you know what she’s like.” Dad had opened the magazine again but he seemed restless. At last he threw it across the room onto the settee.

  Benson tried to make his exit. “I’ve got to do some learning work before I go to sleep,” he said, hanging on the door.

  “Don’t go just yet, son. Sit down for a moment, will you?”

  Benson did so, wondering what could be on his dad’s mind and fearing the worst.

  Dad looked at Benson sitting next to the ‘Amateur Gardener’. He looked uncomfortable to Benson and this increased his own agitation.

  “Father Hanlon told me about the funny business at St Finbar’s. It came as quite a fright, I can tell you, son,” said Dad, in a voice quite unlike his usual one.

  Benson looked down at his hands and said nothing. He thought of Father Hanlon and that he had promised that he would say nothing.

  “I er... “ said Benson.

  “What’s done is done,” said Dad. “I just thought I should warn you that you must fight to put all that sort of nonsense behind you. In my line of work we get all sorts of bent people arrested and brought in and sent off to prison. They’re pretty pathetic for the most part, these homos. If I thought my son was that way, well I ... I don’t know what I would do.”

  Dad did not sound angry. Benson sat with eyes downcast not knowing what was going on in his father’s mind but knowing that he felt miserable and dirty.

  “I’m not one of them, Dad,” he said.

  “I hope not, son. If you were, well, it would kill your mother.

  “Well I’m not! Honest, Dad!” Benson managed. He had started to cry.

  “Nobody’s accusing you,” said Dad in his policeman’s voice. “We all make mistakes and Father Hanlon says it was probably just a stage and that you have grown out of it. I just thought I should warn you. That’s all.”

  At last Benson said goodnight to Dad and went up to bed. He did not look at Tribes of the Southern Sudan. He lay in the dark wondering if he was adopted, and hating Father Hanlon. He wished the priest would die and go to hell, for he did not feel that he would ever be able to see his dad again without embarrassment and guilt welling up in him. For that the priest should pay and pay and pay. For all eternity.

  The next day, because of the illness of their form teacher, Brother O’Toole, Benson’s class had Brother Wood for their Religion lesson.

  Nobody in the class liked Brother Wood. He refused to give any respect to the Sixth-Form students, respect they felt their age and status deserved. Brother Wood had been known to strap boys from the Sixth Form and seemed to take delight in humiliating them in front of boys from the lower forms.

  Benson had unhappy memories of Brother Wood from the time before he went off to be a Brother. The boredom and fear of those Maths lessons had stayed with him, a bad memory at once activated by the sight of the cruel Brother.

  Brother Wood came into a class already hushed by the knowledge of his imminent arrival.

  “You can imagine with what joy I heard that I would have to take you irreligious so-and-so’s for Religion during Brother O’Toole’s unfortunate illness,” Brother Wood began in his usual tone. He took from the inside pocket of his cassock a little red Catechism. “I don’t propose to continue with the lesson that Brother O’Toole would have given you.” He held the little book high. “Now I know that many of you will not have seen this Catechism of Christian Doctrine for some time. It seems to have fallen out of favour of late. However, I think some of you need reminding that what it contains remains, despite what the Vatican Council may have intimated to the contrary, the backbone of our faith. If you know this, you know the Church, and that is all you know on earth and all you need to know, as the Irish poet said.”

  Still the class sat on in silence.

  “A question and answer session, I think. I shall choose questions drawn from random parts of the Catechism and quiz the class. Three failures and it’s a strapping ... to keep you on your toes.”

  With that, Brother Wood started at the front of the row on the right and worked his way back.

  “O’Boyle, what do you mean when you say that the Pope is infallible?”

  “When I say that the Pope is infallible, I mean that the Pope cannot err when, as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals, to be held by the whole Church,” replied O’Boyle with alacrity.

  “Scott, what honour should be give to relics, crucifixes and holy pictures?”

  “We should give relics, crucifixes and holy pictures a relative honour, as they relate to Christ and His Saints, and are memorials of them,” replied Scott.

  “Muir, is it a sacrilege to contract marriage in serious sin, or in disobedience to the laws of the Church?”

  “It is sacrilege to contract marriage in serious sin, or in disobedience to the laws of the Church and, instead of a blessing, the guilty parties draw upon themselves the anger of God,” replied Muir.

  “Hepher, what do you mean by the flesh?”

  “Let me see. By the flesh I mean our own corrupt inclinations and passions, which are the most dangerous of all our enemies,” replied Hepher, in a monotone.

  “Only just, Hepher. Only just.”

  Then it was Benson’s turn. Brother Wood searched through his Catechism to find a question for him. As he did so he kept saying, “One for Benson. One for the lost sheep, Benson.”

  He found what he was looking for and asked, “What are the four sins crying to heaven for vengeance?”

  Benson knew he was going to get that one, or one like it. He stood up, afraid and shaking slightly, though more shaking with barely contained dislike for the Brother than from fear. “The four sins crying to heaven for vengeance are: 1. Wilful murder. 2. Oppression of the poor. 3. Defrauding labourers of their wages,” replied Benson and sat down.

  “You’ve forgotten one, young fellow-me-lad.”

  Benson repeated the three he had said, then, wild and inspired, added, “Giving a bad example to youth,” while he looked straight up at Brother Wood, making no attempt to conceal his dislike.

  Brother Wood returned Benson’s gaze for a long moment. Then, with the hand that held the Catechism, he hit ou
t at Benson, catching him a stinging blow on his cheek. Benson reeled back but in a moment he was straight again and once more looking with contempt at Brother Wood.

  “You’re a nasty piece of work, so you are, Benson,” he said between clenched teeth. Then he added, “I’d have thought you of all people would have remembered the other sin that cries to heaven for vengeance: The sin of Sodom.”

  He hissed the words and moved on to the top of the next row, still looking at Benson hard. The Catechism shook slightly in his hand.

  At the end of the first round of questions only Benson and Flynn had failed to answer their questions.

  Benson looked at his watch. There was still twenty-five minutes to go. He hoped that he would be able to answer the next ones. At least he thought he hoped he could. Another part of him was saying, “Let the beast do his worst! Let him hit me again and again!” He thought of Father Hanlon and his betrayal of him, and hated.

  Brother Wood came to Hepher again at last but looked all the time at Benson as he spoke the question. Benson looked back at him steadily. He felt a stillness inside which, coming as it did in stark contrast to his usual busy brain, he found remarkably pleasurable. Even the stinging in his cheek was nice, made him feel somehow detached, free from anguish.

  “Hepher, are we bound to obey the Church?”

  Hepher replied as meek as a lamb, “We are bound to obey the Church, because Christ has said to the pastors of the Church, ‘He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me’.”

  Then Brother Wood stood in front of Benson. He did not look at the little red book in his hand. His eyes looked straight into Benson’s and then blinked and looked at an area of air about a foot above his head.

  “Benson, what are the four sins crying to heaven for vengeance?” he asked.

  “You asked me that one before, Brother.”

  “Well I’m asking you again.”

  “The four sins crying to heaven for vengeance are: 1. Wilful murder. 2. Oppression of the poor. 3. Defrauding labourers of their wages.” And he stopped.

  “There’s another, Benson!” said Brother Wood, between clenched teeth.

  “I’m sorry, Brother. I’ve forgotten it again.”

  Brother Wood gave Benson a look which made Benson think, “He hates me! He really hates me!” But he smiled at the thought because he knew that Brother Wood was committing a sin by hating.

  “Can any of you tell me what the fourth sin crying to heaven for vengeance is?” asked Brother Wood, still looking steadily at Benson.

  “The sin of Sodom, sir,” volunteered Scott.

  “That’s right, Scott. Benson here has a selective memory, I’m thinking. He likes to banish from his mind what should be foremost in his mind.”

  Benson, a stranger to himself, asked, “What do you mean by that, Brother?”

  But Brother Wood ignored him. “That’s two failures, Benson. Another one and you’re for it.” And he departed up the row, his shaking nicotined fingers forming a V sign.

  Benson was now the only one with two failures against his name. He knew that there would be a third and still he did not care. They looked at one another eye to eye and Benson hated Brother Wood back – tooth for tooth, tit for tat.

  At last Brother Wood was back to Hepher.

  “Hepher, what are the seven Corporal Works of Mercy?”

  “The seven Corporal Works of Mercy are: 1. To feed the hungry. 2. To give drink to the thirsty. 3. To clothe the naked. 4. To harbour the harbourless. 5. To visit the sick. 6. To visit the imprisoned. 7. To bury the dead.”

  “Very good, Hepher,” smiled Brother Wood, his voice shaking slightly.

  And for the third time Brother Wood stood in front of Benson. The two looked at one another a long time. Then Brother Wood looked away and Benson felt he had won, but, seeing the man’s hands shaking violently, could not take much pleasure in the victory.

  Quietly, Brother Wood asked Benson. “Benson, what are the seven Spiritual Works of Mercy?”

  “The seven Spiritual Works of Mercy are: 1. To convert the sinner. 2. To instruct the ignorant. 3. To counsel the doubtful. 4. To comfort the sorrowful. 5. To bear wrongs patiently. 6. To forgive injuries. 7. To pray for the living and the dead,” replied Benson, in a tone which he hoped, not knowing why, was conciliatory.

  “Saved by the skin of your teeth, Benson,” said Brother Wood.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Benson, triumphant.

  The bell rang, much to the relief of everyone. Brother Wood left the room and the class turned to look at Benson.

  Scott said, “He’s given you a black eye. Sue him.”

  Hepher said, “Well done, Moses.”

  “Benson to you, Hepher,” Benson replied.

  In the school toilets at lunchbreak Benson assessed his injuries. A livid red-black bruise, the shape of Australia without the Northern Territories, covered his right cheekbone. He bathed it with cold water, stood back and decided that, all in all, he liked it and found it a suitable addition to his already handsome appearance.

  Some of his classmates gathered round him to admire and commiserate, then left to spread the news the length and breadth of the playground that Moses had been transfigured by a blow from Brother Wood, but, throughout, he had never once winced, and who would have thought it?

  Clitherow, a member of Benson’s class who was terribly brainy and was often absent because he took special classes for Oxford Entrance, stayed with him.

  “You did very well,” he told Benson. “It was easy enough to see what Wood was trying to do to you and you beat him well and truly, the beast!”

  This was a rare compliment, coming from Clitherow. Clitherow sailed through the Lower Sixth on a high intellectual cloud. He was excused the adolescent banter of the other boys because even the dimmest could discern that he was bright and heading for the heights. He had never once spoken to Benson, though they always nodded greetings. His manners were perfect.

  “What are you going to do about it?” he asked Benson. “Nothing,” Benson replied. “Why not? You’d be doing a service for the whole school! That Wood is a worse than senseless thing!” “No, really, Clitherow. It doesn’t matter.” “I suppose it’s your outmoded belief in the Catholic

  Church that’s holding you back,” stated Clitherow, in a patronising tone. “No, it’s not that...” “What then?” Clitherow was impatient of confusion. He did not have friends at school and seemed to drift round St Bede’s like a superior lost ghost who should have been haunting a stately home but had somehow ended up haunting a council house. He did not speak like the rest of the boys, more like the people who read the news on the Home Service. His father was a consultant at a hospital and a Knight of St Columba.

  “I don’t want to make trouble,” said Benson. “I see,” Clitherow sounded disappointed. “I mean, I think I won my argument,” Benson continued. “What argument was that? I wasn’t listening.” “Never mind.” “No, tell me!” “I wouldn’t answer Brother Wood’s question about the

  Four Sins crying to heaven for vengeance.” “Why not?” “Because I don’t think it does.” “You’ve lost me,” said Clitherow. “To tell you the truth, I’m lost myself,” said Benson. “Good,” said Clitherow and he shook Benson’s hand. Benson was flattered by all this attention from the Brain of the Lower Sixth. “Do you want to go for a walk in the playground?” he asked, though he would have accepted a negative answer gracefully.

  “I’d be delighted.”

  The two walked out into the playground, where every boy in the school seemed to be screaming and running around aimlessly.

  “Do you ever feel out of place here?” asked Clitherow, surveying the scene.

  “All the time. All the time.”

  “Shake on it.” And he shook Benson’s hand again.

  Benson was as pleased as Punch. This
was living!

  “Have you read Sartre?” asked Clitherow.

  “Er, no. Who’s he?”

  “You haven’t read Sartre! Please do so as soon as possible. He has much to say about our situation. But tell me, where do you stand with regards the Myth of Rome?”

  Benson felt he was drowning in his ignorance. “How do you mean, the Myth of Rome?”

  “It’s my term for Catholicism. What do you think of Catholicism? They seem to have you down as a Holy Joe round here. That essay you wrote on Hamlet’s character was a scream. I had to put my handkerchief in my mouth to stop the titters.”

  “Well, I have problems with hell.”

  “That’s a start, but is that the only thing you have problems with?”

  Benson thought hard. “I have problems with the way, say, Brother Wood acts towards us.”

  “I would agree,” conceded Clitherow. “There is a yawning gap between the spirit of the Gospels and the spirit prevailing at this institution. The problem is, you see, that Christianity just won’t work. The Fathers of the Church realised that quite early on and they set about making the whole thing more worldly and comprehensible. I’ve nothing against Jesus per se. Quite a decent sort of fellow. He’d obviously read his Aristotle. But all the rest? A distraction.”

  Clitherow had lost Benson and Benson told him so. “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Right-ho. Let’s just say that I am an agnostic.”

  “But you do go to Church, don’t you?” asked Benson, shocked.

  “I do not.”

  “How long ... how long have you been like this?”

  “Since I attained the age of reason. But that’s enough about me. Where do you stand?”

  “Well I still believe in the Church. I think. It just that I do have problems with some details,” replied Benson.

  “As I say, that’s a start anyway. Once you’ve made a small hole in the dyke the water of unbelief will soon swamp the City of the Plains.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I can’t imagine life without God. It would make life ... well ... silly somehow. A waste of time.”