Seminary Boy

by Cornwell, John

  My performance as one of the ‘dainty little fairies’ caused some gentle ribbing from priests and boys for several days. It was not personal, I gathered, but part of a tradition of disdain for the girlish and the feminine at Cotton. One of the Big Sixth, a lofty snaggle-toothed fellow with a great thatch of hair, stopped me on Little Bounds to say, ‘You gave your dainty little fairy just the right degree of female silliness and vanity, Fru! Well done! The way you fluttered your eyelids, perfect!’

  It struck me for the first time that girls and women, excluding the nuns, were as absent from our lives as current daily news. I had also noticed the practice of assigning ‘silly’ girls’ names to some of the prettier boys in Saint Thomas’s, the junior section, – such as Priscilla, Matilda, Nancy, Primrose. The fifty or so boys in ‘Toss’s’, as it was known, were segregated from the senior school, Saint Wilfred’s, under the close supervision of Father Denis Manion. Father Manion was a balding, glum-looking priest whose face darkened whenever anybody addressed him. He seemed to acknowledge in the senior section of the college only those boys who had been in his charge in Saint Thomas’s. There was no opportunity for boys in the senior school to speak to the younger, Toss’s, boys and yet they were constantly in our presence, at meals and in church, where they attended morning Mass in the Lady Chapel. One day Peter Gladden said something that surprised and disturbed me.

  Walking on Top Bounds, he said: ‘That kid Appleton in the Lower Third, he’s got a gorgeous little rump like two peaches in a brown paper bag. God! I’d dearly like to give it a smack.’ He said this quite unselfconsciously. Then he changed the subject.

  34

  AT THE END of the month, as the days shortened and grew colder, an old Cottonian called Peter Lees was ordained priest in our sanctuary by Bishop Bright, the auxiliary bishop of the diocese. At the litany to all the saints the priest-to-be lay full-length, face down in the sanctuary. We watched enthralled as his hands were anointed with oil in the form of a cross.

  After the ordination every boy in the college came up to the altar to receive Peter Lees’s individual blessing. Then he came into the refectory at lunchtime to receive three cheers. Led by Father Piercy, Father Owen and the Sixth Form, we sang a moving chant in descant: ‘Ad multos annos…Ad multos annos…’ ‘For many years…For many years…’

  After Saint Cecilia’s we had been counting the days to the departure date for our brief Christmas holiday, which the boys called ‘GH’ – ‘Going Home’. The more homesick ones would mutter to each other: ‘Thirty days to GH…twenty-eight days to GH…’ I had mixed feelings about GH. I had been missing the faces of Mum and Dad and my siblings, and I longed to return home to impress them with stories of life at Cotton, but I was anxious about sharing a bed again with my brother, and I was worried how I should react if my parents started fighting. Could I bring peace to the house by the power of prayer and good example?

  I had been writing home at the allotted time between breakfast and High Mass on Sundays, giving glowing accounts of my activities. Each week I received a letter from Mum, listing illnesses, accidents and money problems, along with a postal order for five shillings. The money she sent each week, a significant sacrifice for her, I placed in a safe box in the bursary to pay for college bills and to buy my return ticket home on the train.

  December came, the weather grew wild. Squalls of wind and rain came riding up the valley. There were times when the gales buffeted the college so strongly on its high, unprotected promontory that the beams of the roofs cracked and groaned. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, as if by a miracle, the weather changed. It was a still, cloudless day of pale sunshine. After working in the drainage ditches I took a bath, cold as usual, and went into church before tea. I was alone, and the light of the setting sun caught the stained-glass image of the Virgin in the Lady Chapel as if it was a pillar of fire. The image was surrounded by glowing symbols of the virtues we recited in her litany: Tower of David, Gate of Heaven, Mystical Rose, House of Gold…Kneeling before the window I felt as if Mary had placed a cloak of serenity and purity around my shoulders. The wind was stirring in the bare branches of the lime trees outside. The feeling of peace was so intense that I believed Our Lady had granted me a special and personal grace on her feast day. I rose from my knees and sat gazing at the window as darkness gathered. The church was very still and the sanctuary lamp shone brightly. As I sat entranced, I heard the door of the church swinging on its hinges. The sound of slow dragged footsteps approached. Eventually the figure of the very old nun, Mother Saint Thomas, came into view supported on a stick. I had seen her at High Mass on Sundays, bent almost double. She paused to look at me for a moment where I knelt in the twilight, and smiled sweetly. Then she installed herself in a pew where she began to whisper her beads. I had seen her often, but we had never exchanged a word.

  35

  THE WEEK BEFORE Christmas we sat end-of-term examinations. A tense hush descended over the college. A day after the last exam the results were pinned on the noticeboard outside the refectory. My marks were average, even in Latin, and I rushed into chapel to give thanks to Saint Joseph of Cupertino. That afternoon I saw Father Browne for my last session of spiritual direction. He gave me a Christmas card with the legend in black: ‘Puer natus est nobis: Filius datus est nobis.’ ‘A child is born unto us: a son is given unto us.’ The words were printed beneath the Gregorian chant Introit of the third Mass of Christmas Day. He counselled me to pray even more during my holiday than during the term, to attend Mass and Communion every day. He told me about the need to practise ‘custody of the eyes’. On returning home I would be surrounded by lewd and suggestive images in advertisements, newspapers and magazines, as well as the sight of women who failed to dress with due modesty. ‘We can control what we see,’ he said. ‘We can refuse to dwell on images that do not give glory to God.’

  The following day was a holiday and much of the morning was spent packing our trunks and suitcases. I spent an hour in church before lunch and I saw other boys coming in to say private prayers, including Derek, James, Peter Gladden and Oliver Stack.

  That afternoon we were allowed to talk in the dormitories, and we sat and lay on our beds gossiping. Father McCartie was nowhere to be seen. In the evening there was Vespers and Solemn Benediction celebrated by Father Doran. I felt especially devout as we recited the prayer known as the ‘Divine Praises’:

  Blessed be God.

  Blessed be His Holy Name.

  Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man…

  Then Father Doran intoned the Te Deum followed by the Litany of the Saints. It was the last service of the year. As we walked in ranks to our supper we were conscious of enticing cooking smells coming from the kitchen and I caught a glimpse of the nuns through the open baize door. Amidst clouds of steam they were placing haunches of roast meat on to silver salvers as they prepared a Christmas feast for the profs.

  After our own austere supper, just two ginger biscuits and an orange, Father Piercy, who was in possession of what looked like a glass of port, showed a film comedy, Passport to Pimlico, and we went up to the dormitories afterwards in a state of restrained excitement. Father McCartie did not put in an appearance. Some of the boys talked and laughed for a long time in the darkness, before falling asleep.

  I lay awake, tense with anticipation at the idea of returning to the Peel. I grew tired, rehearsing all the things I wanted to tell Mum and my siblings. Before I nodded off I felt somebody’s breath on my face, and a disembodied voice said: ‘Fru, it’s me!’

  It was Charles. ‘Have a lovely Christmas, Fru, and don’t eat too much Christmas pudding.’ Then he felt my face with gentle fingers and plucked my cheek before disappearing in the darkness. I lay awake for a long time, thinking about Charles, my heart pounding.

  When the lights came on in the morning, it was five o’clock, and most of the boys were dressed. Charles had already gone. Carrying overnight bags (our heavy luggage was due to be sent to our destinati
ons by lorry and rail), James and Derek and I set off for the station at Oakamoor in the freezing air before dawn under a hard starlit sky. There had been a light fall of snow and the moon was brilliant above the tops of the pine plantation across the valley. A group of older boys, tenors and basses in the choir, caught us up and overtook us. They were singing the carol ‘In Dulce Jubilo’, their voices carrying down the valley and re-echoing back to us.

  The steep and wild country around Oakamoor and neighbouring Alton gave way to a tamer landscape by the time the train reached Uttoxeter. It was dawn when we arrived at the industrial outskirts of Derby. Here the London boys including Derek and O’Rourke, together with James, who lived near Reading, boarded the express train bound for Saint Pancras. Standing on the platform I watched young women coming and going, transfixed by their legs in sheer stockings and made-up faces. What strange narcissistic creatures they seemed after so many weeks without so much as a glimpse of a woman save for our well-covered ‘witches’.

  Staring out of the window, waiting for the train to depart from Derby station, I watched a girl come out on to the platform. She stood close to our carriage. She was about sixteen and had large dark eyes in a pale elfin face. She was slight of build and wore a well-cut navy blue coat and neat black shoes. Her dark lustrous hair was cut short and parted in the centre of her head. She seemed to me the most beautiful, delicate creature I had ever seen, and I was surprised by my sudden sense of wonder. I thought: ‘I shall never forget this girl and this moment for as long as I live.’

  I looked at James, who was sitting opposite. He had seen the girl, but now he had his nose in his Imitation of Christ and I felt a pang of guilt. The whistle blew and the train eased away, but the girl’s image remained in my mind’s eye.

  36

  MUM MET ME on the platform at Saint Pancras station and squeezed me fiercely, marvelling at how much I had grown. ‘Quite the young man,’ she said. I felt breathless on seeing her very own lips, her very own eyes, and hearing her distinctive voice. But her strong arms and the softness of her breasts filled me with sudden alarm as she embraced me hard with an overpowering whiff of dried lavender.

  As we rode on the bus back to Ilford, at the front of the upper deck as usual, she regaled me with stories of her new job as a night-nursing orderly at Wanstead hospital. There were tales of laying out dead bodies; disagreements with ward sisters. She looked straight ahead, reliving her dramas, as we lurched along the scruffy streets of Bow, Stratford and Manor Park. I was saddened by the sight of so many drab, damp people hurrying about their worldly activities in the rain, oblivious of God. Secretly I uttered a word of praise to Jesus, and begged Mary for her help. But I was annoyed that Mum had no questions for me; that I was sitting in silence while she told one story after another.

  The family was gathered for tea in the living room which had been decorated with holly and coloured paper chains. There was a Christmas tree standing in a bucket bound with red and green crêpe paper. Dad, in his work overalls, blinked and put out his cheek for a kiss; my younger brothers stared. My sister, looking elegant, her hair perfectly coiffed, said: ‘Who’s this good-looking chap!’ My older brother was out doing last-minute Christmas shopping.

  There was a surprise visitor, sitting in Dad’s chair – Grandma Cornwell, my Jewish grandmother. Since Granddad’s death she had been spending Christmas in turns with each of her sons. She was an overweight bespectacled lady dressed in black, with pure white hair done up in a bun under a black straw hat. Looking a little confused, she said in her pronounced cockney: ‘Bin to collidge there, Jack, ‘ave yer?’

  Eventually Terry, who was now working at Plessey’s electronics factory, turned up with two laden shopping bags. He gave me a nod, and said sniffily: ‘All right? Nice journey? Mmmm…Got to see to this.’ Then he disappeared up to the boys’ bedroom to wrap his Christmas presents. Terry was as private and well-ordered as ever.

  In the crowded living room, surrounded by cockney voices, I sensed a tension pervading the household. I felt vulnerable, and my spirits, so high that morning, had plunged.

  37

  LATE ON CHRISTMAS EVE we walked to the Camp for an early first Mass of Christmas celebrated by Father Cooney. The arrangement relieved the growing numbers at midnight Mass in Saint Augustine’s. When I arrived Father Cooney was vested, eyes fast shut in an area beyond a makeshift curtain that served as a sacristy. Two other servers were already in cassocks and cottas. When he opened his eyes he inclined his head gravely in my direction and whispered: ‘Wisswiss…’

  By the light of hissing gas lamps Father Cooney prayed the Introit of the first Mass of Christmas Day in Latin that I could understand now without the translation: ‘Dominus dixit ad me: Filus meus es tu, ego hodie genui te.’ ‘The Lord hath said to me: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.’

  I had hoped to engage Father Cooney in conversation about Cotton at the end of Mass, but he fixed me with a stern eye and merely said: ‘Ah well, wisswiss…A happy and a holy Christmas to you and all your family!’

  Miss Racine, who was standing in wait for me, crowed with delight as she took both my hands in hers, telling me how delighted she was to see me and how I must come to visit her.

  The Cornwells walked in the frosty air past the cemetery filled with dead pets on our way back to the Peel. Dad had stoked up the fire and carved a ham for sandwiches; Grandma was already in bed. Drinking tea with a dash of whisky, excepting the little ones, we sat around the fire and exchanged presents. Terry had bought me a book about battleships; Maureen had bought me a new pen. For each member of the family I had made a set of rosary beads during Father Piercy’s Thursday afternoon handicraft sessions. Terry, cheerful on his alcoholic tea, chuckled as he opened the little box containing the beads. ‘Cripes!’ he said. Then he looked up brightly: ‘Come on then folks, who’s for Rosary?’ It hurt my feelings, but I laughed with the others.

  Eventually we went up to bed. Grandma was already asleep in my sister’s room. My sister was to sleep with Mum, and Dad was to sleep in the boys’ bedroom. I was to share a bed with Terry. The bedroom was intensely cold as there was no heating upstairs. I went down on my knees before getting into bed. Terry, grumbling a little about five people taking all the oxygen out of the air, lay stiff and as far from me as he could. Dad, who slept on a camp bed, was snoring the moment his head rested on the pillow.

  I slept fitfully through what seemed an interminable night. Then, in the early hours before dawn, half-awake, half-dozing, I had a semi-conscious impression that I was stroking my penis which seemed to me in my dream state as hard and smooth as ivory. I had an irrepressible urge to stroke myself and a vivid impression of the girl on Derby station rose before me. Then I felt the pleasurable shock of release.

  Climbing out of bed I padded to the door and into the bathroom, fraught with fear and curiosity. I stood for a long while in the bathroom, puzzling and thinking about the experience, which had been pleasurable in a way, and yet not entirely unexpected. I was thinking of what happened at South Kensington, and the larks of the big boys in the latrines at Saints Peter and Paul. I felt that I had done something forbidden. But what? I had no words for it. And why had the almost tangible presence of that girl been so vivid? Shivering with the cold I washed my hands and climbed back into bed. For a long time I lay curious and anxious. I slept for an hour or so; then I awoke, again needing to go to the bathroom.

  What happened next was a conjunction of chance and for-getfulness. As I opened the door on to the landing, which was lit by a single low-watt bulb, I was greeted by a startling vision. Before me, swaying slightly, stood an ancient woman, half-dressed in a filthy gown which fell off her sallow shoulders exposing her breasts which sagged down on to her stomach, her eyes bloodshot, her mouth open, revealing toothless gums.

  As I screamed, the old woman collapsed on the floor and let out a shriek to match my own. The little ones were screaming, my father was hollering, and Mum rushed out on to the landing.
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  The horrifying vision was just Grandma. She had made her way to the bathroom at the same moment as myself. She was dressed in nothing but her tattered unwashed nightgown and was unrecognisable with her hair down, her false teeth absent, and without her glasses. As Mum picked up the shocked old lady, she yelled at me: ‘You blithering idiot! What did you want to do that for? Spoiling everybody’s Christmas!’

  Overshadowed by my screaming fit, Christmas Day began, earlier than usual, in its time-honoured way. Dad insisted on us all taking a dose of Andrew’s Liver Salts, followed by a mountainous breakfast of fried eggs, bacon and sausages.

  Then I set off for High Mass at Saint Augustine’s on my sister’s bike. I served as an acolyte on the altar, feeling troubled and exhausted, and knelt for a long time making my thanksgiving with a feverish mind. I returned home a long way round so that I could have time to think, turning over again and again the incident in the early hours which had almost been blotted out by my screaming fit. Had I committed a sin? Had I removed myself from God’s grace? Must I confess before going to Holy Communion? Cycling down the length of Claybury Avenue, this much I knew, even at the age of thirteen, that a sin required intention. The problem was recapturing my precise state of mind: was I awake, or asleep? Was the act deliberate? And what was the act?

  I arrived home just as my mother was serving up Christmas lunch, the consequence of weeks of saving and hoarding. Eight of us sat down to plates piled high with turkey, ham, sausages, stuffing, roast potatoes and a pyramid of Brussel sprouts. I heard Terry muttering under his breath out of Mum’s hearing: ‘Where’s Gyp when we need him! How do we get through all this?’ Terry had once been in the habit of slipping Gyp, our much missed sheepdog, handfuls of unwanted food under the table.