The Anatomy School

by Bernard Maclaverty

  In the morning Mrs Brennan fussed around in her dressing gown, getting Martin ready. Martin was still distant with sleep: his actions felt unreal, the sounds he heard were indistinct. When the priest finally came down Mrs Brennan pounced on him.

  ‘Here, let me give you a wee brush,’ she said. With two or three deft swipes of the clothes brush she rid his clerical black of dandruff. ‘I’ll have your breakfast ready when you come back. Then, please God, I’ll get a wee run out to nine o’clock mass myself.’ She held out his black overcoat, angling the arm holes on to the priest’s stiff arms as they pointed backwards. She did all but button it up for him like a child. Then she also swiped the shoulders of the overcoat with the brush.

  Each morning of his visit the two walked silently side by side through the dark towards the church. At ten years of age Martin didn’t much know what to say. It was really always the grown-up’s job to keep the conversation going but Father O’Hare didn’t seem interested. He was frail but walked with determination. It was a very cold time of year and there was ice on the puddles. Rather than say something Martin put his weight on one of the ice sheets to let the priest hear the creaking noise it made.

  ‘Keep up, keep up,’ was all he said.

  At that time of morning there was a congregation of about ten or fifteen, sitting here and there, people mostly by themselves. Men in their overalls on their way to work. Mary Lawless was there and, in the left hand aisle, Nurse Gilliland. The church sounded empty because every sound echoed. The door squeaking open and thudding shut. A man’s cough answered by a woman’s cough. Footsteps coming up the aisle — loud on the marble, different sounding on the metal grilles of the floor.

  On the last morning of his stay, after mass Martin had changed and was in the altar boys’ dressing room waiting for Father O’Hare to take off his vestments. The previous two mornings they had walked back home in silence. After a couple of minutes the priest came to the door in his black suit and clerical collar. Martin made to edge past him but the priest barred the way.

  ‘A word, Martin.’ He indicated the bench beneath the row of hooks hung with surplices and soutanes. Under it were black gym shoes with names written on their canvas insides. Martin sat down. ‘I promised your mother I’d have a word.’ Father O’Hare sat down beside him and it seemed very awkward. Martin had never seen a priest on this bench. It had been built low for the boys. Father O’Hare’s knees were jutting up and his hands were fidgeting all over the place. He looked at his watch. ‘Is there an eight o’clock mass?’

  ‘Yes, Father Farquharson is saying it this week.’

  ‘We’ll have to hurry so. What age are you, Martin?’

  ‘Ten and a bit, Father.’

  ‘You know — you know how you are unfortunate enough — not to have a room — forgive me, where you can wash — solely for the purpose of washing. A bathroom. Well your mother has asked me … Did you ever hear tell of the Feast of the Circumcision?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Do you know what the Circumcision is?’

  ‘Yes, Father. It’s the feast — when it happens. After Christmas.’

  ‘But do you know what it is?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Martin seemed unsure now.

  ‘The ancient Jewish religion demanded that every boy have his prepuce surgically removed — for hygienic reasons.’ Father O’Hare’s voice sounded funny — like it was shaking. ‘And of course Our Lord Jesus Christ being born into the Jewish faith was no exception. So his prepuce was removed. Indeed it is a matter of some embarrassment to Our Holy Mother the Church that there are some eight shrines in Europe alone dedicated to the Divine Prepuce. Vying with one another — because only one of them can be genuine. The official Church nowadays turns up its nose but there is a great thirst among the laity for relics, for reassurance. And what greater relic could there be than the flesh of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The Turin Shroud, the one true cross, Veronica’s veil — all of them pale into insignificance beside this, the actual flesh.’ Martin had never heard him say more than one or two sentences at any one time. But now it seemed impossible to stop him talking. And he was talking very fast.

  ‘My mother’ll be waiting, Father.’

  ‘You’re right, young man.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘I don’t want to become involved in a whole rigmarole. Eh?’ Martin didn’t know what to say. ‘Part of the problem might really be about boys’ hygiene. That’s what I promised her good self I would do. Say a few words about that. It can be a terrible trap for germs. Do you understand?’

  ‘What, Father?’

  ‘The prepuce,’ said Father O’Hare. ‘If your prepuce is quite long. I suppose it’ll cause you no problems later on with tightness. All you have to do is pull it back and pop the centre out like a little red acorn. That’s where the trouble is — smegma — that’s where you have to wash every day. You hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘But a demonstration is worth a thousand words. Let’s go back into the sacristy. For a little examination. There’s a toilet there.’ He levered himself up on to his feet and made a sweeping gesture, waving Martin through, like a man bowling. Martin walked ahead of him unsure what this was all about. The toilet door off the sacristy had bubbled opaque glass. Father O’Hare opened the door and looked in.

  ‘Empty.’ He smiled. An outer door banged and footsteps approached over the boards of the hallway. The sacristy door opened. It was Father Farquharson.

  ‘Good morning, Estyn. Martin.’ He clapped his hands together and complained of the bitter cold. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Father O’Hare. The old priest turned around and moved towards the outside door. He beckoned to Martin. Father O’Hare held the sacristy door open for the boy.

  ‘What about the toilet, Father?’

  ‘Just go — if you want to.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Oh very well.’ There was now irritation in his voice. ‘Come along — your mother will have the breakfast out.’

  ‘You’re leaving today?’ said Father Farquharson.

  ‘I am indeed.’

  ‘I’ll come round and see you before you go.’

  On the way home very little was said. ‘I’ll tell your mother we had our little talk. It was her, after all, who asked me to tell you. But, the way things are, I don’t think you should report any of our conversation. Women are easily embarrassed by these kind of things, by men’s personal hygiene. So promise me. Not a word?’

  Martin nodded. Father O’Hare handed him a folded ten shilling note.

  ‘Good boy. You wouldn’t want to embarrass that dear mother of yours. She’s a living saint.’

  Martin had never told a soul about the conversation because he was confused about what had been said. At the time he hadn’t a baldy notion what the man was on about. He could hardly remember the words. What kind of praying was Pray Puss? But he knew that something weird had just happened. And he never told his mother about the money.

  The white tiles and glass roof of the toilets reflected sounds, gave them a sharp echo, like public swimming baths. Every so often there was a violent hissing from the row of upright urinals in the central island as they rinsed automatically then drained away. The cisterns would begin to refill. Clinking and dribbling. Martin thought there was something incredibly lonely in the sounds. Eventually he heard the break bell ring in the distance.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ he said and, at last feeling safe, he stood. He guessed there would be a red weal on his backside and thighs in the shape of a horseshoe. He fixed his trousers, pulled back the bolt and went out into the main area. He lit his cigarette to have it well smoked by the time the scroungers arrived. He had another one in a packet in his breast pocket for the afternoon. Very quickly the daffs began to fill. Various groups tended to stand together — the Gaelic footballers, the hard men, the hobbies crowd. Juniors, like Maguire, came in and messed around. Maguire lived near Martin and felt it ga
ve him the right to talk to him even though he was years below him.

  ‘Brennan, give us a drag.’

  ‘If you can’t afford them, son, don’t smoke.’

  But he offered the cigarette to the boy. Maguire inhaled once, and then again quickly.

  ‘Easy — don’t make a fuckin furnace out of it.’

  Martin took his cigarette back. The others began to arrive and light up. Brian Sweeny lit a tiny butt with a single match which he struck between the glazed tiles.

  ‘Look at the size of that.’

  ‘Hard times,’ said Brian. ‘Singe the hairs up your nose — lighting it.’ The noise level inside the toilet block rose as everybody shouted to be heard above the noise. The air was filled with blue-grey cigarette smoke. Martin edged his hip onto a washbasin and tapped his cigarette into it. The ash went black where it came in contact with water. Kavanagh joined them.

  ‘Why did you not turn up at English?’ he said.

  ‘I hadn’t the homework done,’ said Martin. ‘I hate that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not being able to say, I’ll hand it in tomorrow. He makes you feel like some kind of a brainless cunt if you don’t hand it in when he wants it.’

  ‘He’s not so bad,’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘I have just spent the longest forty minutes of my life. Sitting around in toilets all morning.’

  ‘Did your bowels move?’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘Where’s Blaise?’

  ‘He’s on his way.’ The Gaelic football players were making a lot of noise in the right hand corner. One of them, a very small guy called Corscadden, was doing exercises, trying to chin the door frame ten times. The others were counting aloud, urging him on. Blaise joined them by the washbasins. ‘Do you see your wee man over there?’ said Kavanagh. ‘The one chinning the bar? He’s so wee that when he went to see the careers officer the guy recommended him for a bonsai lumberjack.’

  After the joke nobody said anything for a while. Blaise had his hands in his pockets and he was leaning his back against the tiled wall. He said, ‘Compared to Simeon Stylites we’re having a ball.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who him?’

  ‘Him — a mad medieval fucker who stood on a sixty-foot pillar most of his life. For the greater glory of God.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t Nelson?’

  ‘Or a stand-in for him.’

  ‘No this was a bit before his time. He stood on a pillar as penance. For most of his life.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘I kid you not. He said mass up there. People flocked to see him.’

  ‘Did he come down for a crap?’

  ‘Holy men sublimate it.’

  ‘Remember the joke about the oul boy in hospital shitting himself and trying to save face — rolling it up and flicking it round the ward to get rid of it.’

  ‘This is a total non-sequitur.’

  ‘And he offers everybody a ciggie. If they’re anything like your Maltesers you can smoke them yourself.’

  ‘What has that to do with anything?’ said Blaise.

  ‘A boy on top of such a pillar,’ said Kavanagh, ‘would be well placed to commit suicide.’

  ‘God is the Great Lie,’ said Blaise, ‘and we are the generation who found it out.’

  ‘You don’t believe in God?’ said Martin.

  ‘You grasp things so quickly,’ said Blaise. He turned to Kavanagh. ‘The whole of religion is balanced on a pin point.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That it’s true. And it’s obviously not.’

  ‘How can you prove that?’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘I don’t have to prove or disprove anything. Nor explain anything. I have no evidence there is a God. I have no evidence of an afterlife.’

  ‘What about geniuses like Thomas Aquinas and … and …’

  ‘It was the thinking of the time. I mean every genius in the world accepted that things fell at different speeds according to their weight until Galileo came along. Then he said, no — let’s drop a couple of things off the leaning tower of Pisa.’

  ‘And what about the scriptures?’ said Martin.

  Blaise gave a dismissive slow shrug then said, ‘It’s the believers who have all the explaining to do. Science is about evidence and repeatability. Except when it comes to God. Then you apply a completely different set of rules.’ Kavanagh seemed wary about launching into a full-scale argument. Martin knew he couldn’t win against Blaise. Nobody said anything for a while.

  ‘Fuck theology,’ Blaise said, ‘we need to think of a way to get into that store room.’

  ‘Which?’ Blaise looked at Martin and raised his eyebrow.

  ‘And then what?’ asked Kavanagh.

  ‘Then we’d go to work on how to open the envelope without anybody finding out,’ said Martin.

  ‘I’ve already done that. Last night Condor took study …’

  ‘Condor!’

  ‘… and he walked up and down all night reading the breviary. He had a bunch of papers and stuff sitting on his desk and I spotted the Greek and Latin past papers. In their original envelopes. So when his back was turned I borrowed one.’

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘Ya bastard …’

  ‘It’s a water-based gum. So we could easily steam open the bottom of the envelope — not the top, it would be too easily noticed. Get a paper out, maybe get Martin here to photograph it. And we all pass with superb results.’

  ‘This is a bit …’

  ‘What?’ said Blaise.

  ‘A bit fuckin tricky,’ said Martin. ‘Morally speaking.’

  ‘Kavanagh?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Kavanagh. ‘I agree. It doesn’t seem entirely fair.’

  ‘These exams are set and examined by Englishmen,’ said Blaise. ‘British men from the North of Ireland — it’s total fuckin cultural imperialism — all they do is ape the English system. Any Irishman worth his salt would fuck these exams up the bum, if he could.’

  ‘What a weird line of logic.’

  ‘Imagine what would happen if you did really well,’ said Blaise. ‘Top marks would take you where?’

  ‘Into Oxford or Cambridge—’

  ‘The home of the British establishment.’

  ‘We’re at a Catholic school in Ireland but its aspirations are to be an English public school.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve been to one.’

  ‘I cannot help the way I speak. No more than you can. The way you think is far more important — although in your case, Martin, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference.’

  ‘How do you figure we’re like an English public school?’

  ‘We are not like it. Far from it. We are only trying to be like it. Out of sheer fuckin envy. That English teacher what’s-his-name raves about authors like Hardy and Evelyn Waugh and Rupert Brooke — stands the village clock at ten to three? They think they’re creating an Enid Blyton world.’

  ‘Don’t you dare say anything bad about our Enid,’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘We study Latin and Greek. You told me about learning that Cromwell sonnet. Right wing, establishment values. The whole aim of the school is to get one or two people into Oxford or fucking Cambridge. The rest can become Christian gentlemen in the lower reaches of the Northern Ireland Civil Service or Catholic teachers.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ said Martin. ‘My Great-Aunt Annie said If you work hard at school, son, you’ll get a job in out of the weather. The ideal job, according to her, was to get something behind a post office counter.’

  ‘For you, Martin, she was over-ambitious.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘The establishment have a built-in advantage. All we’re doing is correcting the imbalance. The establishment have made us feel this way — given us a conscience — to stop us beating them. They want to hold on to the power. The justification is that equality of opportunity does not exist. There are guys at public school, guys with extra tuition, gu
ys whose da doesn’t get drunk and beat the fuck out of them.’

  ‘That’s crap and you know it.’

  ‘Take the Qualifying — the eleven-plus for fucksake — to this day in the North of Ireland if you’re not a success at eleven years of age you’re a failure for life. Getting a look at the exam papers beforehand just evens things out a bit. Some of us are smart enough and responsible enough to be able to make up our own rules. Having more money is a way of cheating. I am born with more money than you — therefore I can have more things than you. And it follows I will have more power than you. What idiot says the system is fair? Learning to survive it is more important. What we’re doing is exploring an alternative way of passing — a way that requires every bit as much intelligence. And a few other qualities as well. Are you game?’

  6. An Afternoon in the Waterworks

  Martin had to stoop to get through the door into the room where the final-year Religious Knowledge classes took place. It was a drab room full of empty cupboards in the oldest part of the school, up a winding back stair. The windows were of grey ribbed glass because they overlooked part of the convent next door. The class was taken by Father Barry, the Spiritual Director. He was quite young, not long ordained. He wore a black soutane and shoulder cape. The Roman collar he wore exposed just an inch of white and it reminded Martin of a baby’s single tooth.

  They heard his footsteps on the stairway before he ducked into the room and recited the first part of the Hail Mary. The class recited their part. He apologised for being late — he was a little breathless for having come up the stairs at speed. They could see that whatever had kept him late had annoyed him. He paced slowly up and down in front of the class. His hands were joined behind his back. Kavanagh said, ‘It’s OK Father you can be as late as you like.’

  Father Barry didn’t smile — as he usually would have — but began, ‘You are going to have to leave here and go out to face the world very soon. Most of you will get a job of some sort. And this time next year you’ll be working among people of other faiths, other beliefs. It ill behoves us to ignore this fact.’ He sat down, put his head back and looked at the ceiling. ‘We should be able to defend our Catholic faith. To die for it, if need be. To defend it — not aggressively but quietly and with dignity. So in our last term here we are going to examine some basic tenets of Catholicism with a view to defending them against attack. This will necessarily expose some of you to arguments against our religion which you may not have previously heard. But you’re big enough and ugly enough.’ He smiled at his own joke. ‘Do you think you’d win an argument with a Presbyterian who knew his Bible inside out? Do you know what you’d say to an agnostic? Do you even know what an agnostic is?’ He stared down at his polished shoes while he waited for an answer. He pushed his horn-rimmed specs higher on his nose with his finger. ‘Would you have any difficulty, Mr Kavanagh?’ Kavanagh moved in his seat, as if to speak but nothing came out. ‘How confident would you be, Mr Brennan? In a coffee bar perhaps — getting into a debate. Would you be able to acquit yourself well?’