I wanted nothing more than to please Father Joseph and of course I enjoyed donning robes on Sunday mornings and helping Father serve the bread and wine. I felt quite important, robed and carrying the big gold cross, walking up the aisle at the head of the holy procession. I basked in the Father’s praise at the end of the ceremony. I loved Father Joseph, but I did not want to be a Catholic. I met the nuns’ questions with a stony, defiant, unqualified ‘No’, and kept my thoughts about the Father to myself.
They banned me from serving at the altar, and they banned me from fetching fruit for the cook. They even made me stand in the corner of the playground and watch the other boys play. And one afternoon each week they made me board the bus and go with all the other boys to confirmation classes.
I knew Father Joseph was puzzled. In his company, I was obedient, respectful, and quick to offer help with any chore. I quoted the Bible accurately, recited the catechism correctly, knew the ceremonial procedures and performed them with reverence and grace. Yet I persisted in saying that I would not be confirmed Catholic.
The nuns beat me, of course. They told me I must be a good Catholic. They said I might be thrown on to the streets to starve if I didn’t take confirmation, because I wouldn’t be accepted at St Vincent’s. They said I’d go to hell where the devil would torture me with fire for the rest of eternity, but I wouldn’t be swayed. I had no idea what alternatives might be on offer, but I would not be confirmed a Catholic. No matter how they punished me, I kept refusing.
Finally, Confirmation Day. Along with 13 other eleven–year–old boys, I dressed in Sunday best and lined up to board the bus for church. I entered St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral quietly, genuflected dutifully to the cross and walked slowly up the aisle with all the others to my assigned place.
I knew the nuns were watching me anxiously as the service progressed, eyes burning into my back. A bright red shaft of light from the stained–glass window over the altar seemed to pierce my heart, and I feared that God might strike me dead for what I was about to do.
I recited the Creed, kneeled to pray and sang the hymns in a high–pitched boy–soprano voice, not yet broken. When the priest asked the boys questions, I answered in chorus.
By now, the nuns will be convincing themselves I’ve conceded.
Fourteen boys moved forward to kneel in a line at the altar rail. I silently took my place near the far end of the line. Father Joseph moved to the top of the line and began to question each boy in turn, blessing them and asking them to confirm their faith. Each boy responded dutifully, in a hushed voice, reciting in Latin and obediently confirming his faith. Twelve times, Father took a small step sideways and repeated the blessing and questions. The 13th move placed him squarely before me, only the black of his long robes visible as I knelt before him. I felt a desperate urge to please as the Father’s gentle hand descended to rest on my head. Father recited the blessing. Then the question.
“No.” The sound bounced off walls and echoed through the cathedral. It was followed by an echoing chorus of long oohs and short, sharp gasps. The boy beside me poked my side. Trying to appear unruffled, the Father repeated the question.
“No, I do not,” I said, in a clear firm voice, and the ‘oohs’ and sighs were repeated.
Father Joseph asked the question a third time.
“No,” I repeated, loudly enough to be certain the entire congregation would hear.
A fourth time, the anxious Father asked the question. His hand pressed harder on my head. I shrugged it off and looked up to see his eyes pleading with me to reply in the affirmative. The Mother’s threats echoed in my brain and my head pounded as that fellow, Determination, shouted her down and begged me to hold firm in my choice of the unknown over the hell of Westmead.
The Father was frowning now, and I quailed beneath his disapproving look and gulped hard. An icy fear snaked through my veins, but I stared resolutely at him, commanded my throat muscles to unlock and repeated in a firm, clear voice, “No”. Then I rose from the kneeling cushion, nodded to the Father, genuflected to the altar, and marched down the aisle, head held high.
Predictably, the Mother called me to her office that afternoon.
“Filthy heathen,” she screamed. “Evil little beggar! You have inherited the bad blood of your parents and despite our best attempts to cleanse you and teach you God’s ways, you have chosen to follow them to Hell. You will burn there for all eternity and I will praise God for exacting His revenge for the pain you have caused us. But first, you shall suffer in Purgatory. You will be sent to a dreadful place where you will learn the meaning of cruelty and pain. There will be none of the privileges and pleasures you have enjoyed here. Your life there will be hell and you will reflect every day on the foolishness of your behaviour today.”
I glared at her, determined to show no fear, but my blood had turned to ice and I struggled to swallow the boulder in my throat.
“Perhaps three years of suffering in Purgatory will serve to cleanse you and you will beg to be allowed to accept the Faith? Before I condemn you to an awful fate, I have a duty to try one last time to teach you God’s ways.” She unbuckled her belt.
I felt her iron grip on my upper arm. Then I felt the first stinging blow. My blood thawed, then boiled. I welded my teeth together and commanded my vocal chords to be still. I ordered the little voice in my head to repeat over and over, “You can’t hurt me, you stupid, evil bitch. Enjoy this, because you will never beat me again”.
She beat me more savagely than I had ever been beaten before. She commenced the beating in her office, but I tried to run and she followed me and beat me in the hallway. I ran to the asphalt quadrangle between the kitchen and the playground. She followed me there and made a ceremony of beating me in front of 58 pairs of watching eyes, stopping all pretence of play.
She beat me with the buckle end of her belt, and it cut my skin. She beat me until I fell to the ground, then she paused and ordered me to rise and beat me until I fell again. When, finally, I could not rise again, she thrashed and flogged, and when I curled up in a little ball to try to protect my tenderest parts from the blows, she kicked me again and again with that heavy black boot. All the while she shouted at me that I would take the Catholic faith, if she had to beat me to within an inch of my life to make me.
I would not yield.
When she was done with me, a herculean six–foot–one–inch 177 pounds of black–robed, leather–booted crone collapsed against the kitchen door huffing and snorting, her face ashen, her wimple sweat–soaked and her lips and chin sagging. The strap fell from her grip. While I lay consumed with an agony more terrible than I could ever have imagined suffering, and with a murderous rage more intense than I could ever have conceived it possible to feel, the Mother raised her hands to clutch her chest and closed her eyes.
The next day I was called to the Mother Superior’s office to be advised I would be sent to an Anglican Boys’ Home in a small town about an hour away. “It is run by a man --- a former army officer,” the Mother said in a warning tone, “and I’m advised he does not tolerate disrespect or disobedience. He will straighten you out, young man. You’ll not get away with the kind of disobedience we’ve had to suffer from you here. Within a day or two, you will be wishing you had taken confirmation as you were instructed, and gone to Westmead with the other boys. It was a bad choice you made, and you will pay for it now and for many years to come.” She clicked her tongue in disgust. “Such a wonderful opportunity. To be taught God’s ways and how to be a man by good God–fearing Brothers. To be cared for by men like Father Joseph. You loved him, didn’t you? And you let him down so badly, you ungrateful little beggar. You could have been among men like him, but no, you chose to live life as a heathen. Now you will experience hell, and may it be every bit as dreadful as we have taught you to expect. You deserve to rot in hell for the rest of your days, and so you shall. I shall praise the good Lord for exacting the appropriate revenge on you for your ingratitude to those who ha
ve shown you such kindness.”
For just a moment, I felt a pang of remorse. Perhaps, after all, I ought to have taken confirmation and gone away with my ‘brothers’. The Mother’s words sent a shiver through me, but I forced myself to remember the awful things I’d been told about St Vincent’s and I reminded myself of my father’s advice. “Treat everything as an adventure, son.”
I was about to embark on another adventure. Whatever lay ahead, I would find a way to make it bearable. I had survived St Patricks , so I would survive this new home too. I would befriend the cook or the handyman, volunteer for kitchen chores, quiz the other boys about the best ways to win favours.
I would make it bearable, and in three more years, I would be free.
~~~~
13: A NEW HOME
DECEMBER, 1960
The black car came again in the early summer of 1960, just after my 12th birthday. I was to travel alone this time. No farewells were allowed. My sister knew boys didn’t stay, but she was not told where I was to go. Children in the playground stopped their games to stare and wave, but were not permitted past the fence line. Had they asked, they would not have been told where I was being sent, nor permitted to maintain any contact with me. But we had all been so thoroughly conditioned that none would dare to ask, and so thoroughly desensitised that none of us knew how to care.
The black sedan rolled down the long drive, through the huge iron gate, round to the right, on to the highway, past the high school, and out of the town. Leafy liquid amber soldiers formed a guard of honour, standing smartly to attention, one every 20 feet, motionless, silent, bidding me a solemn goodbye. I shivered in the back seat, but not from cold, for the sun poured through the windows of the big sedan making it quite hot inside. A massive hand squeezed my chest until I struggled to breathe. My gut churned and my heart pounded and thumped and occasionally gave a little flutter like a moth caught in a web.
Perhaps I made the wrong decision? I might have been travelling with a group of boys my age to a Catholic boys’ home far away. The nuns said it was a nice place. But I didn’t trust the nuns and I didn’t want to be a Catholic.
I focused on the grassy brown paddocks littered with sheep. The occasional clump of trees stretched as far as the eye could see. Here and there, a homestead chimney peeped from behind a cluster of trees. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of a horseman and his dog, urging sheep across a paddock, and I was reminded of my father.
Ducks danced over a large expanse of water in one paddock quite close to the road. Here and there a muddy little creek, edged in green, sliced pastures. The scenery reminded me of home and I longed to run on the sand and swing on willows and lie in the grass with Rusty licking me all over. For a little while I pretended I was going home. Fear was replaced by excitement, but I couldn’t keep the fear at bay for long.
The paddocks were greener now. The trees were mostly gums, but here and there a cluster of stately green pines reached for the clouds or willows wept into a muddy dam. The black sedan crossed a grid on to a narrow dirt road, and I read the sign “Ohio Station”.
A sheep station! Am I going to live here? Don’t get your hopes up.
I caught sight of a big mud–brick rendered homestead, with several smaller timber outbuildings scattered around it. It was a sort of mucky yellow colour and it looked much more cheerful than the dark brick of the orphanage.
The sedan drew to a halt between the homestead and a small timber cottage with a long veranda. A woman emerged from the homestead wearing a garish floral dress. A colourful apron was tied approximately where her waist ought to have been. She wore flat, lace–up shoes and thick stockings. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks shone and there was a welcoming warmth about her that probably ought to have eased my fears, but I had learnt to distrust even the most pleasant–looking stranger. I’d been cautioned to fear this place and those who ran it.
“Welcome to Ohio,” she called. “I’m Mrs Tuck, Matron, Mum --- whichever you feel comfortable calling me. My husband and I take care of all the boys here. You’ll make 22 now, counting our son, Peter, who lives here with us. You’ll meet him soon --- when they finish their game.”
She nodded towards a group of boys kicking a soccer ball about in a nearby paddock. The driver opened the rear door and summoned me. I stood there shivering, despite the summer heat. The driver set my little suitcase down beside us and handed the woman a large brown envelope. She wrote something on a page attached to a clipboard. Then the driver walked slowly around the sedan. The door slammed and the motor whirred. Gravel crunched under spinning tyres as the now dusty brown sedan slid down the long driveway and out of sight.
Still trembling, I followed the woman through a large institutional–style dining room furnished with several long tables, through into a dim hallway and up a narrow flight of stairs to another hallway that led to a large room with two neat rows of metal–framed beds.
Oh God! Those all too familiar tightly pulled covers and sharp mitred corners. Small metal cabinets separating the beds. Tiny spaces between the beds, barely wide enough to provide space to dress. Polished linoleum floors. The air rank with that acidic disinfectant odour. The smell of fear!
I was surprised to notice books resting on top of several of the personal tables. There was even a little bag of marbles on one. A single dormer window looked down over a vast green lawn that rolled past a post–and–wire fence to a tree–lined creek. Boys sat on the banks holding fishing rods, or waded in the shallows. Cows and their calves grazed serenely under smiling little summer clouds. The sun polished tree leaves and the water surface and trickled through the dormer glass to toast my chill limbs. Mrs Tuck was still smiling.
For the next three years, this will be home.
#
On my first afternoon at Ohio, Matron discarded the clothes I’d brought and issued replacements. They were hand–me–downs, but they were in fair condition and I noticed all the boys were much better dressed than the St Patrick’s children. I was assigned chores and instructed when and how they must be performed. Older boys the Boss had appointed as ‘corporals’ took pains to ensure I understood the penalties for not completing them properly. I was pleased to be able to help. Onerous chores were part of life in an institution, but I was surprised to find the Boss and Matron thanked boys for their help and coached them gently if they struggled to do something the right way.
The corporals carefully explained the house rules to me, and the consequences of breaking them. They warned me against being late for meals and cautioned me to never think of relaxation until my chores were properly completed.
“Always speak respectfully to Boss and Matron and obey their instructions, stay out of trouble at school, and treat the other boys courteously,” one of the seniors advised, adding “Clean your teeth morning and night, polish your shoes every morning and keep yourself and your section of the dorm clean and tidy.” The latter caution wasn’t needed. I’d had adequate training in personal hygiene and neatness.
The Matron led me to the kitchen and I sat and watched the kitchen boys prepare vegetables and the Matron cook dinner. She sang as she worked, beautiful Welsh folk songs and hymns and ballads, sung in the sweetest resonant voice. She wore a warm smile, and if any little mishap occurred she laughed a deep belly laugh that sent little waves of flesh rippling from shoulder to elbow. She talked to the boys as they worked --- about school, friends, sport and the books they were reading. It surprised me that she seemed genuinely interested in whatever interested them. She invited me to tell her how I was feeling or what interested me or what food I liked, but not with direct questions that demanded response. When I didn’t answer, she just smiled and said perhaps I’d feel more like talking later.
She made a tasty beef stew for dinner, with creamy bread and butter pudding to follow. I’d suffered my last cold, unappetising meal. She was an excellent cook and she relished watching the boys enjoy the food she prepared for them.
There was no ‘silence at
meal time’ rule here, but talk was ordered. The Boss and Matron asked the boys about their day. Between courses, there were organised mind games, devised by the Boss to develop thinking skills and memory and sharpen wits. After dinner, the kitchen boys cleared the dishes and washed up, and the rest of the boys retired to the library to read or do homework or play quiet indoor games. There was a warmth about the place that contrasted sharply with the austerity of St Patrick’s. The boys all seemed remarkably happy. I noticed that Boss and Matron often tousled hair or patted a shoulder affectionately and paid compliments. They said ‘please’ when they asked a boy to do something and thanked the boys for good behaviour. When they spoke to me, their tone was friendly.
I undressed that first evening in the boys’ shower block, feeling deeply self–conscious comparing my skinny, bruised body with the solid muscled forms and clean skins of the others. I was smaller than several of the younger boys. I had a bald patch on the side of my head where I constantly pulled my hair out by the roots. My ribs stuck out. None of the others wore dark blue–black or yellowing bruises on their backs and behinds or sharp red welts edged with broken skin across their upper arms and legs.
I stepped across a long drain and on to cold, wet concrete and turned on a tap below one in an unseparated row of spraying mouths dropping from a single horizontal pipe above. After soaping myself, I turned to let a warm spray hose my back.
Mr Tuck, the man the boys referred to variously as ‘the Boss’ or ‘Dad’, ducked to enter the shower block. He towered over even the tallest of the boys and he had a certain presence, a don’t–mess–with–me sternness in the set of his jaw and his steely expression. His eyes warned you he was keeping a close eye on your every move. I remembered the Mother Superior’s warnings about him and cringed a little.
The Pencil Case Page 11