by Clare Flynn
Clem was sitting on the stone steps at the front of the reformatory, trying to play cat’s cradle. Every time she got past four or five of the stages she went wrong. She kept trying, getting increasingly frustrated with her own ineptitude. Whenever she thought at last she’d got it, as soon as she pulled her hands apart, the string fell loose and she was back to the beginning. It was no good. She would have to ask Tommy Kelly to show her again. She’d have to find a time when Marian wouldn’t see her talking to him. Marian always got angry if Clementina went anywhere near the boys, reminding her of their badness, that they were destined to go to hell; how they were common and badly brought up. Clem just felt sorry for them, with their big, sad eyes, threadbare uniforms and scabbed knees. She was particularly sorry for Tommy, but she knew he’d be angry if she ever showed the slightest hint of pity for him. He was proud, defiant and frequently on the punishment roster for his acts of insubordination.
The first time she’d spoken to him, she’d been walking along the boundary that separated the school grounds from the surrounding farmland, dragging a long stick aimlessly through the hedgerow. She heard an angry shout and a word that she knew to be bad even though she didn’t know what it meant. She stopped and walked back a couple of steps, poking her stick into the depths of the hedge.
‘Leave off will you? That were nearly me eye you just poked out.’
She looked into the thicket and saw two big blue eyes staring back at her.
‘Why are you sitting in the middle of a hedge?’
‘None of your damn business.’
‘Shouldn’t say that word. You’ll have to tell it in confession now.’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘I want to save you all those extra Hail Marys. I think a word as bad as that must be worth at least fifty.’
‘Don’t care. Now buzz off.’
‘What are you hiding for?'
‘I’m waiting till dark then I’m going to run away.’
‘That’s daft. No one ever escapes. They’ll catch you and lock you up.’
‘That’s why I’m runnin’ away. Just done two days in’t dark cell and I’m never going back there again.’
‘Why did they put you in the dark cell?’
‘I talked back to Brother Bellamy, when he were giving me the stick for pulling another lad’s hair.’
Clementina considered his words for a moment, then sat down on the grass in front of the hedge, crossing her legs neatly and pulling her gown down over her shoes to make sure he couldn’t get a glimpse of her bloomers.
She folded her arms. ‘You need a plan. Otherwise they’ll catch you and put you straight back in the dark cell and that doesn’t sound very nice at all.’
‘It’s not. I’m not going back. Never. I’ll kill meself first.’
‘You can’t do that because it’s a mortal sin and you’ll definitely go to hell and burn for ever and that will be much worse than the dark cell, won’t it?’
‘S’pose so,’ he conceded.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘Twelve.’
‘I’m older than you. I’m thirteen,’ she said. ‘So you should listen to my advice and experience.’
‘You’re Mr Brennan’s lass, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I’m Clementina Brennan. And who are you?’
‘Tommy Kelly.’
‘What did you do to get sent here, Tommy?’
‘Stole a handkerchief. One month in prison and four years here. I’ve done two of them.’
‘Didn’t you know it’s a sin to steal?’
‘Course I did.’
‘So why did you do it then?’ She tilted her head on one side and tried to see his face through the dense foliage of the hedge, but all she could make out was the brightness of his eyes in the darkness.
‘The little ‘uns was hungry and there was nowt to eat in the ‘ouse.’
‘Didn’t your father provide for you?’
‘Dead.’ His voice betrayed no sentiment. Just a bald statement of the fact.
‘I’ve got lots of dead people in my family too,’ she said. ‘My two brothers died before I was born, then my mama fell down the stairs and broke her neck. And then my sisters died. Not my biggest sister. She’s Mr Vickers’s wife. But all the others died not long after we moved here.’
‘How did they die?’ he asked.
‘They got sick. Ursula and Jane died of consumption and then Alice got pneumonia. I hope I don’t die next. Marian, that’s Mrs Vickers to you, says I have to keep away from the infirmary and I’m not supposed to talk to any of the boys. So we have to make sure no one sees us.’
‘Do you miss them?’
‘Yes. It’s lonely. Now I’ve no one to play with. Is your mother dead too?’
‘In the nick. She were caught stealing herself. Week before me.’
Clementina absorbed the weight of what the boy said, nonplussed for a moment. ‘You should have gone to the church. I’m sure a priest would have helped you out.’
The boy snorted. ‘Yeah. And put us all in the workhouse.’
‘Who’s looking after the children now?’
‘Dunno. In the workhouse after all I ‘spect.’
‘Mmm. Which rather proves my point. Crime doesn’t pay. You’d have been better off trusting in God and the church to take care of you. Look at you now. All on your own locked up here. Do you think your mother knows where you are?’
‘Dunno. Look, Miss, I wish you’d stop talking and get on yer way. You’re going to give me away, sitting there like that talking to a hedge.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. Not until you come out and go back inside. It’s almost time for Benediction and then supper. They’ll notice if you’re not there. Anyway you’d be better off having supper before you go or you’ll be hungry.’
‘I won’t. I stole some stale bread from the kitchen.’
‘Oh no. Silly boy. You’ll be for it now.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Look. I have a plan. Give me the bread and I’ll take it back to the kitchen when cook’s not looking. If anyone sees me I’ll just say I was going to feed the birds. You can run round now and wash your face and be in chapel in time for Benediction and no one will be any the wiser. You can have my apple.'
She fumbled in the pocket of her apron and pulled out an apple, polishing it on her skirt before holding it out towards the hedge. There was silence. She reached into the pocket again and pulled out a toffee.
‘Tell you what, Tommy, as I quite like you, I’m going to give you this toffee too. I’d been saving it to eat on Sunday, but I’ll let you have it instead.’
The offer was too tempting to ignore. The boy burst through the hedge, knocking Clementina backwards onto the grass as he grabbed the fruit and the sweet. Before she could scramble to her feet he was running off in the direction of the wash house.
After that first encounter, Clementina spent time with Tommy whenever she thought there was no risk of being observed. He appeared to shun the company of the other boys and avoided them during the two brief periods of recreation they enjoyed each day. The pair would meet under a large elm tree at the side of the school buildings, away from the main lawned area where the other boys usually kicked around a battered old football or played tag. With endless patience he demonstrated how to perform the cat’s cradle, but all his efforts were in vain as, unless he stood over her barking instructions, she was unable to replicate the process alone. With more success, he showed her how to whittle a stick. He worked every day trimming pieces of wood for the production of matches – one of the industries the boys were being trained in. While match-making, carpentry and farming were the principal trades of the reformatory, the work undertaken was more akin to exploitation than an apprenticeship, to prepare the boys for rehabilitation into the world after their sentences. As far as Tommy was concerned, cutting match wood was better than working on the farm as it kept him dry, if not warm, and meant he had access to tools and the opportunity to indulge his pass
ion for carving small wooden animals. Clementina became equally adept under his tutelage, her small fingers flying as she chipped the wood away to reveal the strange and beautiful creatures that lay sleeping within. Her works were always fantastical – mythical creatures with plumes, scales, horns and tails – while Tommy’s were accurate and perfectly executed common animals and birds.
Clem knew Marian would be horrified if she were to find out that her sister was consorting with one of the inmates. She doubted her father would care. He treated the boys kindly, if absently, avoiding the judgemental approach of his son-in-law and most of the brothers.
The growing bond between Clementina and Tommy was forged in mutual loneliness, curiosity about the natural world and a shared sense of somehow being out of place, here in this ugly collection of buildings in the midst of nowhere.
It was Easter Monday, two years after Clementina befriended Tommy. In recognition of the Easter festival, the boys were permitted extra recreation and the headmaster decided a cricket match would be a good way to mark the day. The work in the fields and workshops was scheduled to end an hour early and the boys assembled on the lawn behind the main building.
It was a hot day and the air was heavy. Clem had slipped away and found a shady spot under a large elm tree safe from the eyes of her sister. She lay on her stomach in the grass and settled down to watch the game.
It was to be a match between the boys and the lay staff – not a fair contest, as the latter were better fed and enjoyed more comforts than the inmates. The boys were plagued with chest infections and coughs, all were undernourished and often sleep-deprived. The work they had to do, labouring on the farm or working in the match factory, book bindery and tailor shop, was arduous and frequently rewarded with beatings when their output was judged below par.
Clem knew Tommy was excited. He loved any form of physical sport and was fast on his feet. On top of this he had only another few days to go before his sentence would be over. She didn’t know what she’d do when he was gone. While she’d graduated from cat’s cradle long ago, the pair continued to seek each other out and would sit on the grass behind the elm tree, talking about what the future held for each of them.
As she watched the game she grew drowsy. Easter was late this year and the afternoon was warm and the atmosphere soporific. She sat up, leaning her back against the trunk of the tree as Tommy took up position at the crease. He smashed the ball with such impact that it went straight over the improvised boundary. Fifteen minutes later he’d scored almost forty runs. After a conversation between the staff, her father stepped up to bowl. Clem had never seen him play cricket before. She was afraid he was going to be an embarrassment. He paused, polishing the ball, narrowing his eyes as he scoped out his target, then began his run up to the wicket. He moved with a grace she hadn’t expected, hair flopping into his eyes, his movement to the crease fast and powerful. Tommy struck out at the first ball but it was too fast for him. He hit it but it bounced off the bat and rolled straight towards one of the fielders. No runs. Jack readied himself for the next ball. This time he served it with his arm parallel to the ground. It flew through the air like a shot from a cannon.
Clem thought at first it was too high and readied herself to witness her father’s humiliation. But the ball didn’t pass over Tommy’s shoulder as she’d expected. There was a loud thwack. Tommy was on the ground. Flat on his back. For a moment there was silence. The world was frozen. Then people were running towards the boy, bending over him, trying to raise him up.
Clem got up. She ran across the lawn, holding her skirts above her ankles so she wouldn’t trip, uncaring of who might see. She pushed her way through the crowd of boys and masters standing mute around her friend. He was lying on his back, the impact captured in a glassy-eyed look of shock, a bloody gash above one of the surprised eyes.
‘Tommy, Tommy! Can you hear me, Tommy? Speak to me. It’s Clem.’
She dropped on her knees beside him. She felt someone’s hands on her shoulders trying to pull her back, but she shrugged them off. Still the same glassy, vacant look of surprise in her friend’s eyes. She remembered that look. She’d seen it when she witnessed her mother’s body lying at the bottom of the staircase. The realisation hit her like a hammer blow, just as the cricket ball had struck him. Tommy was gone. Clem gave a cry of pain that was so loud, so shrill, that everyone stepped back. Then she flung herself across the boy’s inert body, convulsed by sobbing.
‘Tommy, Tommy. Don’t die.’ She began to shake him. ‘Please wake up, Tommy. Please…you can’t be dead. Not now. You’re going home next week. You’re getting out of this place. Please, please, Tommy! Speak to me!’ She clung to him, her head buried in his chest, where her tears and snot dampened his dirty threadbare shirt.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Clementina? Get up at once. Get off that filthy boy. You should be ashamed.’ Marian’s voice was cold. She grabbed at her sister’s collar and dragged her off the dead boy’s body, giving her a shake as she did so.
Clementina jerked away from Marian’s hold and ran across the lawn towards the gate that led to the open fields behind the reformatory.
‘Come back at once, Clementina. Do you hear me? Come back at once.’
Jack Brennan laid a hand on his elder daughter’s arm. ‘Leave her be.’
‘But she’s making a holy show of herself. What will people think?’
‘That she’s unhappy I suppose? That she’s shocked.’
Marian looked at him with contempt. ‘Unhappy about a boy? An inmate? A horrible little criminal? Did you know they were friends?’
Jack shook his head.
‘Of course you didn’t. You don’t know anything, do you? You’re that wrapped up in yourself. You’ve let that child run wild. If it weren’t for Malcolm and me, she’d never get any moral guidance, let alone go to Mass. I don’t understand you, Father. What kind of man are you?’
Jack closed his eyes, then bent down and lifted the body of Tommy Kelly into his arms and carried him towards the school buildings, past the shocked and silent boys and his stunned colleagues.
They brought Clem home that night. They’d found her lying shivering in a dry ditch. Her eyes were red raw and she refused to speak. No one could penetrate her silence. When Jack opened the door, she walked past him without even looking at him.
He leaned forward to touch her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Clemmie. I’m so sorry.’
She pulled away from him and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t understand how God had let it happen. Just when Tommy was at last to be free of this horrible place. Just when he was about to start a new life, find his brothers and sisters and maybe his mother.
Her own father had killed him. She blamed him. She hated him.
Clem stopped eating. Jack, normally oblivious to domestic matters, was keenly aware that she was refusing to eat. He was desperate for her to wake up one morning and be once again the sunny-natured little girl he loved so much. After a week, Marian intervened. Her threats to force-feed her sister were conveyed so categorically that Clem decided it was easier to comply than to engage in protracted warfare. She ate as little as possible, but enough to avoid giving Marian cause to speak to her. Instead she began a process of silent compliance – doing the bare minimum to avoid having to account for her actions or lack of them.
36
The Dormitory
Tommy Kelly’s death was entered in the principal’s log book as an accident. The death certificate from the local doctor said the same. Just another boy to add to the reformatory’s roll call of deaths. What did it matter if it were death by poorly aimed cricket ball, or by cholera or tuberculosis? It was the twelfth mortality already that year.
The day after Tommy died, when work was supposed to resume after the short Easter break, his fellow inmates were angry. While not popular – he was too much of a loner for that – Tommy had been respected by his peers, not leas
t for his stoical attitude to the frequent punishments meted out to him, especially by Brother Charles. Rumours began to circulate that Mr Brennan had deliberately struck him down to eliminate the boys’ strongest player from the game. Their anger took the form of a refusal to return to work.
Jack was on duty in the dining room when they staged their revolt. The bell rang to summon them to the workplace and instead the boys stayed in their places and began to thump the top of the tables in unison. Jack looked about him, not knowing what to do. He tried to reason with them but his voice could not be heard above the clamour.
One of the boys called out, ‘Killer Jack!’ The rest of them took up the cry, repeating the epithet in a rhythmic chant.
Jack couldn’t disagree with what they were saying. He was a killer. He didn’t know how it happened. How he had managed to wield the ball with such force? How had he aimed it so badly. He wanted to wind the clock back and bowl the ball again. He’d do it underarm this time instead of trying to be clever. Better still he’d refuse to bowl at all. Now he had two accidental deaths on his conscience – this young boy’s as well as Mary Ellen’s. Why was God testing him in this way? Hadn’t he suffered enough all these years? Just as he’d found some kind of peace here at the reformatory his life was shattered again.
Sensing weakness and smelling victory, the clamour of the boys grew louder. Jack stood transfixed, unable to move, unable to respond, as the shouting drowned out his thoughts. He put his hands over his ears to shut out the noise.
‘What’s going on here? Silence! Immediately!’ The voice of Malcolm Vickers cut through the din and the boys shut up at once. He was accompanied by Brother Charles and both of them turned their eyes to Jack, who was standing with his hands clamped over his ears.