“I finally stopped wetting my bed about the time Robbie left,” Paul continued, “so I only had Sammy’s linen to do. Sometimes, he’d wet early in the night and it’d pretty much dry out by morning and we’d cover it over and pray the nuns wouldn’t smell it. If a Sister found out what we’d done, she’d tell Sam to always demand clean linen and pyjamas. And I’d get a belting --- a much less dreadful punishment than washing sheets in freezing water in the false dawn.”
#
Paul wasn’t assigned any other charges after Robbie left, but he had cared for young Sammy until he left that place. Despite the hardships, he had loved him. He told Ern how he ran to comfort him when he fell in the playground and skinned a knee or bruised an elbow, and how he ached for him when he was beaten, wishing he could intervene and take the thrashing for him. He said he would have done almost anything to protect him. The hurt in his eyes as he spoke of the boy confirmed his sincerity.
“I ran into Sam Parry years later, in a pub in Sydney,” he said tonelessly. “He told me about being transferred to a home in Westmead, run by priests. One would take him to his bedroom in the evenings and molest him.”
A little gasp escaped as Ern’s chest heaved. Revulsion creased his brow.
“He ran away when he was 14,” Paul continued. “Robbed a servo to get money to buy food. Did four years in juvie. When he got out, he was alone and destitute and he broke into a grocery store. He was awaiting trial when I met him. I asked him why he did it. It was a rhetorical question. He gazed at me for a while, shrugged his shoulders, took another sip of beer, and said, ‘I was hungry. Nobody wants to give an ex–crim a job. How else was I to get money to buy a feed?’ ”
Paul told Ern he had read Sam’s name in the paper some years later. He’d shot a guard while robbing a bank and was sentenced to life in prison.
“Poor bugger,” Paul said, “I felt a pang of guilt. He was my little brother and I should have taken better care of him. But they separated us. They sent me away, and thank God I didn’t go to Westmead. As shitty as my life was, I was lucky! I drank a toast to poor little Sam. While uttering a quiet prayer for his soul, I renewed my vow that I would exact revenge --- for Sammy, and for all the others, as well as for Jen and me.”
~~~~
7: FATHER JOSEPH
JUNE, 2010
“You located Father Joseph?” Paul’s wide eyes swam with delight. “I loved that man. He parted the grey skies and let the sunshine into my world.” Ern had located the elderly and infirm priest in an aged–care facility, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was still alert and coherent and his recollections of St Patrick’s were vivid.
“That place must have seemed like a prison to the children forced to live there,” he wrote in his reply to Ern’s introductory letter. “It presented as a huge, austere, cold fortress perched high on a hill, just far enough from town that the children could not readily mix with town folk, but could watch --- noses flattened against freezing window panes --- as the lights of the town came on, chimneys puffed their thick grey smoke, and cars, reduced by distance to barely matchbox size, slid down gravel driveways bringing fathers home to children’s hugs and wives’ kisses.
“They couldn’t see the people, and perhaps it was a blessing. But in later years they mixed with the town kids at school and in the grounds of the church on Sunday mornings. They passed them as they marched with military precision to their allotted pews, Sisters barking threats to keep them silent and ensure none forgot to genuflect to the altar and sign the cross with appropriate reverence.”
Ern donned his solicitor’s hat and quizzed the frail old man diligently, but when the priest showed signs of tiring, he helped him on to his bed and made him tea. Then the old Father obligingly bundled Ern into a time machine and took him on a tour of the Dickensian world he had toiled for 25 years to reform.
JULY, 1958
Father Joseph had just turned 40 when he arrived in the country town on the New South Wales tablelands. It was the middle of a bleak, icy winter. Pine trees shivered, their peaked tops tipped with a thick, white, frosty coat. Thinning white carpets made small slippery spots on bitumen roadways and he concreted paths that ran beside them. The massive dark–brick steeple, with its shiny brass cross on top, punctured the clouds, rising above them as a beacon to welcome the newcomer to his cathedral home.
Brother Charlie went with him to St Patrick’s the first time. He introduced the Father to the Sisters and they served him tea with homemade Anzac biscuits, little cakes with fresh cream from their own cows, and sweet, fresh fruit from the orchard out back. They sat in the richly furnished front room, warmed by a blazing open fire, thick drapes over the high, narrow windows, and a plush carpet square on the floor between the deep leather armchairs. Afterward, Charlie and Sister Anne showed him around the building, explained management policies, and related the children’s stories.
“Some of the children stay only a short time,” Charlie explained. “Parents leave them while they recover from illness, sort out financial problems or find suitable living quarters. Some are children of widows, widowers, unmarried mothers or divorcees, surrendered voluntarily to care because the parent can’t cope alone. Many of those only stay until their mum or dad remarries. They are the hardest to manage, because a parent or relative might visit from time to time and interfere.”
They were also the lucky ones. The nuns were much kinder to those whose relatives made regular checks on their welfare, especially when their attention includes donations to the Home.
“Most of the children here were removed from family homes because of alleged parental neglect,” the Mother told him. “Social workers look for signs of neglect and issue orders to place kids in State care, and the courts send them here or to one of many other homes like this, mostly run by churches.” The Father learnt that each social worker might move a dozen or so kids each year to homes like St Patrick’s. All were told it was only temporary and promised they could go back home soon, but most would never be permitted contact with their parents again.
Being ‘neglected’ was a crime, and kids charged would carry the shame of a ‘record’ through to adulthood.Footnote3 Along with the shame, they carried the stigma of being a ‘home kid’ and the belief, instilled in them through countless cruel reminders, that they were society’s burden. A high percentage of kids moved from institutions like St Patrick’s to juvenile detention centres and jails.
“Not much anyone can do about it,” the Mother Superior said. “Bad blood!”
The Home was a strong profit centre for the Church. The Government paid an allowance for every child in care there and parents were generally required to pay maintenance as well, although few actually met that obligation. Community donations were generous. Cases of fruit from local orchards; cakes, pies and bread from the town bakery; meat from the butchers and the surrounding cattle stations; and clothes kids from local families had outgrown, plus from stores who sent their shop–soiled stock and the surplus left at the end of each season.
The clothes were stored in a big basement room on racks and in cartons. Volunteers sorted them by size and mended tears and broken zips. The volunteers took the good stuff home for their own kids. Most of the rest remained in storage, it seemed, until deemed sufficiently moth–eaten or mildewed for urchins to wear. The Mother seemed to think most of the clothing was too good for children who would likely only soil it or scuff the knees and elbows until holes appeared. Clothes that were allocated were typically far too large for the wearer and, unless they disintegrated sooner, were worn well after the child had outgrown them.
Brother Charlie pointed out the cows and chooks and told the Father they produced an abundance of eggs, milk and cream. He didn’t tell him that the cream was given to the volunteers. The milk was heavily diluted to make a sickly-sweet, weak tea, or watered down for use on cereals.
“Once, a stand–in cook used the milk and cream to make a big, creamy rice pudding,” Charlie report
ed. “The Mother was furious. She said such food was inappropriate. The children’s diet is bland and Spartan. Rich food would make them all sick.” Footnote4
Charlie took the Father to inspect the orphanage school --- a single oversized classroom where nearly 60 children aged five to 14 laboured, supervised by the same nuns who guarded the playgrounds. Untrained as educators and unmotivated to teach, they strutted up and down the rows with rulers, rapping the knuckles of anyone whose attention appeared to lapse. They seemed concerned with little more than maintaining silence and compelling the children to persevere, with heads down and chalks gripped, in copying symbols on a slate.
Like the dormitories, the classroom walls were dark unpainted brick and the windows were high and small. There was a pervasive stench in that musty, airless old building, created by the combination of human odour and the disinfectant with which the floors and furnishings were regularly scrubbed. In the summer, the heat was savage. Thick, stale air hung heavily and perspiration soaked necks and poured from foreheads. Sweat soaked the backs of white shirts and caused rough serge pants to stick to skin, making thighs itch, until an irresistible urge to scratch exceeded fears of retribution and a child’s persistent fidgeting enraged the Sisters. A nun would then relieve the itch, temporarily, by applying a leather strap or a ruler to legs or backside.
On the day of the Father’s visit, the unheated room was freezing. The nuns were heavily clad, but the children wore only thin jumpers and, save for short socks, the girls’ legs were bare. They shivered through the winter, fingers and toes swollen with angry purple chilblains that burnt and itched.
“The children don’t go to school in the town?” the Father asked Mother Emmanuel.
“Oh no, Father!” she replied. “It would create all kinds of problems to compel the children of decent families to mix with the likes of these.”
Later that day, Father Joseph shocked the Sisters by entering the playground and talking --- crouched on one knee with his robe dragging in the dust --- to some of the boys. He asked them if they might invite him to play cricket with them when the spring came.
“We got a pitch, Father,” Jimmy Phillips replied. “But ain’t got no proper wickets or good bat to use on it.”
The Father stood and reached down to ruffle the lad’s hair.
“I can fix that, young fella,” he said, grinning radiantly. “You just get me an invite and I’ll bring all the gear you need. Bet I can teach you some tricks too. I’ve hit a few sixes in my time, and I can bowl to strike out champions.”
#
The following Sunday, Father Joseph witnessed an act of brutality that confirmed his conviction that God had sent him here to instigate reform. He came to conduct an early morning service in the orphanage chapel. The nuns invited him to breakfast after, in the parlour. A girl, aged 17, was employed at the Home as a kitchen-hand and charged with carrying his breakfast tray. She was one of several girls who had grown up in the Home and stayed on, after she turned 15, as hired help.
The Father’s tray was generously laden with fried tomatoes and two fried eggs resting on thick buttered toast. On the side, a little bowl of fresh fruit salad was topped with a scoop of cream, and beside the cup of steaming tea, a glass brimmed with freshly squeezed orange juice.
The girl left the kitchen with the tray, started across the courtyard to the parlour, then paused a minute, gazing at the meal. She looked furtively about her, then balanced the tray edge briefly on a narrow ledge and reached for the juice. Her eyes darted about warily as she drew it to her lips and took a tiny sip. She set it back on the tray, licked her lips, glanced about her again, then hastened into the parlour to set the breakfast before the Father.
Father Joseph had already wiped the grease and runny yellow yoke from his plate with the last piece of toast and leant back in the armchair to sip his tea when he heard it. The girl’s shrill screams were punctuated by thin whistles, followed by sharp slapping sounds. He lurched forward, alarmed. The Mother raised her hand to signal stop and smiled at him graciously.
“It’s quite all right, Father,” she assured him. “The girl who served you was seen stealing. Sister Agnes is administering her punishment. She will be done in a moment. The girl must learn to live by God’s rules. Sometimes it requires harsh measures to teach these children. They have bad blood running in their veins.” Footnote5
Father Joseph shivered as another slapping sound preceded another sharp scream. Then the slapping and the screaming stopped and he was aware of soft, sobbing sounds drawing closer. The girl stood before him, head bowed, face streaked with tears, trembling.
“Forgive me, Father,” she mumbled. “I stole a sip from your juice glass.”
“And why did you do that, my child?” he asked gently.
“Because I... you see... I didn’t mean to. I knew it was wrong. It was just that...”
“Just what, my child?”
“I ... I have served it to the Sisters and their guests so many times. I just...” She broke off and stood staring miserably at her feet.
“Is it not served here with your breakfast?”
“Oh, no! Not to the children, Father.”
“But you are no longer a child? You are grown now and just work here, yes?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And do you earn a wage for your work and pay some to the Sisters for your keep?”
“They keep my pay in a bank account for when I leave. Some of it they take to pay for the food I eat and my lodgings.”
“Then why…” he turned to the Mother, “Why should the girl not have orange juice? Why not the children, in fact? There is an abundance of fruit on the trees out back and I know the local farmers bring cases of fruit.”
“There are things you do not understand, Father,” the Mother replied. “We do our best here, but there are good reasons not to provide certain luxuries. We have 50 to 60 children to feed and our budget does not stretch to indulgences like orange juice for breakfast.”
“Not even for those that are grown and paying their own way?”
“It would not be wise, Father. The children would want what they see the older girls have. It is a question of management, you see. In any case, we are dealing with a thief here, Father. What matters is that God’s child learns to obey His law.”
The Mother bellowed at the girl. “You will apologise now to Father Joseph, for taking what was his. And you shall ask for penance at confession.”
The Father couldn’t see why any further penance ought to be required after what the lass had suffered, but the nuns taught the only way to atone properly for sin was via a voluntary self–punishment. The punishment they administered was merely to ensure the children understood they had sinned and penance was required. What they gave them to understand, in fact, was that they were so filled with sin that no amount of penance would ever redeem them. They were all born bad and could never ever be capable of good.
“But I saw the good in so many of them,” the Father told Ern. “They shone when I praised and encouraged them. Brand a child bad, he might grow to fit that brand. Many did. They were taught to hate, and that adults were entitled to be violent when offended. They suffered such hurt that many of them, like Paul, grew up determined to exact revenge.”
~~~~
8: SPORTSMAN AND THIEF
FEBRUARY, 1958
Ouch!
Brother John’s nicotine–stained fingers pulled hard at the hair of my sideburns. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my lips. The stink of nicotine irritated my nostrils and the side of my head throbbed. The Brother snatched the adventure book from my lap and thumped his finger on a page of the math book on the desk.
I hated math. It was the only subject I struggled with, so I retreated to reading as often as I thought I could get away with it. At the orphanage school, I’d never learnt to recognise more than a few simple words. No–one bothered to teach me, so I was left to try to make out words in the dull “Tom and Mary” reader by word–pictu
re association. I had stared blankly at the pages until a child was called on to read aloud, then struggled to memorise the words I heard so I could make a passable pretence when called on later. But at the start of the 1958 school year, a Sister had called the children to line up and board a bus, announcing the orphanage school was closed and we would now attend school in the town. I was ecstatic. For a few precious hours each day there was a semblance of normality in my life. Taught by Brothers who had chosen teaching as their vocation, I learnt easily, and loved learning.
“You have 10 minutes to finish those sums, young man,” Brother John said sternly. “Or you’ll be sitting here doing sums through your lunch hour.”
I turned my attention reluctantly to the required calculations, battling frantically to complete them. My mouth watered, thinking of the broken pie that might replace the stale peanut butter sandwich in my lunch box --- if I could just get out of the classroom in time.
Done! The bell rang and I raced out to join a little group drawing straws to select a boy to stand watch while we crept down the back alley to the rear of the town bakery. The baker was generous with his ‘staffies’ --- broken pies and flopped cakes that weren’t suitable for sale. The Brothers knew the orphanage boys regularly snuck out, but they turned a blind eye. They hated seeing growing boys go hungry.
Returning with my belly full, I fished in my pocket for marbles. Rolling my precious taw between my fingers, I waited for the other boys to choose a game, find an adequate drawing stick and draw a ring in the dust. I’d had to borrow a few little balls to join the first tournament of the season, but I won consistently. Today was no exception. Started with five, and by the end of the lunch hour I counted eight round gems into the little biscuit tin Sister Anne had found for me. There were some real pretty cat’s eyes among them. I’d even taken a steelie from that smug little Keith Woodrow, the mechanic’s son. I left the ring jubilant, mates congratulating me and mourning their losses, and trooped off for an afternoon session of reading in the library.
The Pencil Case Page 6