Beck

by Mal Peet

  “Here we are, then, lads. Canada! A new life! And fresh air. You’ll be glad of that, I dare say. Eh? So let’s line up for disembarkation. Single file. Let’s be having you. That’s it.”

  Mitchell produced a purse from his pocket. Moving down the line, he gave each little immigrant a silver Canadian dime.

  “Something for a rainy day, eh? Keep it somewhere safe. Not in a pocket with a hole in it, mind.”

  Beck examined his coin. On one side there was a bearded man; he assumed it was Captain Rennick. On the other side, some leaves. After a moment’s thought, he bent and shoved it into his sock, where it nestled below his anklebone and against the leather of his boot. None of the boys thanked Mitchell, who was unsurprised; he knew they had little experience of generosity and scant practice at gratitude.

  “Right then, lads. Here we go. Follow me and stay together. We’ll get you sorted as soon as we’re ashore.”

  From the top of the passenger gangway, Beck looked down at the group of adults who were clearly waiting to greet them. The women all wore hats like soft upended basins, long dark coats, and facial expressions suggesting that greeting orphans was not something they took much pleasure in. The two men wore gray suits, black hats, and clerical collars. Descending, Beck’s stomach clenched. He farted, damply.

  Mitchell shepherded the boys into a cluster on the jetty then shook hands with the reception committee. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. Beck heard him speak the names of dead Jimmy and Joe. The grown-ups nodded solemnly. The younger of the two priests clasped his hands together and lowered his head. Mitchell took a pencil from his breast pocket and spoke again. The grown-ups gathered more closely around him.

  This was Canada, then, Beck thought. It was not that different from Liverpool. It was as if the ship had gone full circle. A colorless sky. The same smells: smoke, tar, rot, salt, fish, oil. The same sounds: gulls croaking, beasts groaning, men shouting, water slupping, wind grieving its way through webs of rope.

  He sat, fook this, on his kit bag. The coin in his sock felt warmer than his skin. He must have dozed, because the next thing was that he was looking up at the faces of the two priests and Mr. Mitchell’s hand was on his head.

  “And this sleepyhead is Beck. He’s a grand lad, all things considered.”

  The clerics glanced at each other. The older one pulled the corners of his mouth down in a humorous grimace and rolled his eyes. The younger one said, “Welcome to Canada, Beck. I’m Brother Duncan and this is Brother John. We’ll be looking after you the while.”

  Braemar, the Christian Brotherhood’s receiving home on Rue Berri, was the biggest house Beck had ever seen. He had never seen a house with trees around it. Houses and trees, according to his understanding of things, had no business with each other. Where there was one, there wasn’t the other. But Braemar had a huge tree — a great tower spreading dark green arms — between it and the street. And a row of wispy, witchy trees, misted with pale-green leaves, beside it. And bushes like huge green boulders in front of it. The house was (although Beck’s imagination lacked the language for such a comparison) like an elephant trying to hide in, or feed on, shadows. It frightened him. He didn’t want to climb the short flight of steps up to its doors of dark glass. But he did because no other option was available.

  The doors opened onto a porch with stained-glass side windows that drenched the drab little newcomers in multicolored light. Brother John unlocked an inner door and ushered the boys into a dim, green-carpeted hall. Ahead of them, a wide staircase uncoiled its banister up into darkness. From high on the wall to the left, a carved Christ loomed down from his cross. To the right, a weeping but smiling Blessed Virgin gazed up at the top of the elaborate frame that contained her. Her tears were so realistic that Beck thought they would be wet to his touch, if he were tall enough to reach them.

  To the right of the staircase, a passageway receded into an undefined distance. Some way along it, a door opened and another priest emerged. He leaned against the frame of the door and folded his arms. His hair, which was white, was at odds with his face, which was youthful. His eyes were a little too large for his face and were moist and slightly elongated. Combined with his lack of chin, they gave him the appearance of a kindly rabbit. And they focused on Beck.

  He said, “Well, Brother Duncan, what have we here?”

  “Allow me to introduce, Brother Robert, the new recipients of our grace. They are, in ascending order of height, though not necessarily age, Patrick Rice, Joseph Kennedy, Frederick Treacher, William Brownlow, and Beck.”

  “Beck? Has he no Christian name?”

  “He was, apparently, baptized in the name of Ignatius, but he answers only to ‘Beck.’”

  Sullen, talked about, Beck thought he heard a child crying from another room. The priest called Brother Robert moved into the hall, closing the door behind him. The crying stopped.

  “Well, boys, welcome to Braemar. We’ve never met, of course, but I already know two things about you. The first is that you are wondering where in the name of God you are. What kind of place this is. The second is that you have endured a long journey and are tired and hungry. Am I right?”

  The ensuing silence was gravid. Beck broke its waters.

  “Yeah. I’m bloody starvin’.”

  Brother John said, “Beck! In this house we don’t —”

  But Brother Robert, smiling, silenced his colleague by raising his hand. Still smiling, he went to a dark little table at the foot of the crucified Christ and picked up a small brass bell. He jangled it, and everything changed. Overhead, footsteps gathered like muffled thunder. A dozen boys descended and collided at the foot of the stairs. They paused briefly to consider the newcomers, then, cowed by the lifted eyebrows of Brother Robert, filed down the gloomy passage that suddenly ended in a blaze of light into which they jostled and disappeared.

  “Time for tea,” Brother Robert said. “Hang your coats up. Leave your bags. We’ll settle you later.”

  The Braemar kitchen, Beck thought, was a sort of miracle. It was enormous. And warm. And smelled breadily wonderful. He found himself standing close to one end of a long table with chairs and plates and mugs ranged down its length. On the table, at intervals, there were loaves, platters of sliced cheese, and glass dishes of purple jam. The boys from upstairs stood silently along either side of the table. Looking up, Beck saw that a long wooden rack was suspended from the ceiling; from it, laundered shirts stretched their arms down toward the feast like hungering ghosts.

  A stove was built into a sort of brick cavern at the far end of the room; on it, a fat black kettle pouted steam. A fourth priest — stout, with stubble-shadowed jowls — lifted it from the heat and emptied it into a half-gallon teapot.

  “Right then, you newcomers,” he said. “Find yourselves a place. No, no! Don’t sit. Stand, like the others. As soon as Brother Robert comes we’ll be saying a grace. Then you can get stuck in.”

  Beck slid a look at the boy beside him. Billy’s throat was working like mad, swallowing saliva. So much food. And so close at hand.

  The door opened and Brother Robert entered. His hand rested on the fair and fuzzy head of a pale child whose eyes were pinkish and swollen. The priest pushed him forward, gently.

  “Go to your place, Alfred, my dear. There’s a good boy.”

  Alfred went to the chair opposite Beck’s. He kept his eyes lowered. He snuffled, once.

  Brothers Robert, John, and Duncan took up position in front of the tall dresser that occupied the space between the two windows.

  Brother Robert said, “If you would do the honors, Brother Michaelis?”

  The jowly priest stood at the head of the table. He waited until the hungry boys put their hands together and lowered their heads. Then, at some length, he thanked God for the gifts hereupon this table.

  “Amen,” the boys raggedly chorused.

  “Be seated.”

  Beck sat quick as a rat. He’d assessed the bread, counted
the cheese slices, estimated the jam by spoonfuls per head. He’d lived on charity long enough to know the rules: eat fast, get most, remember the taste later. Don’t be the first to grab, though. They like to punish you for that. The punishment for hunger is hunger. He watched the others. Little Pat Rice leaned toward the food as though he could live on the smell of it alone, but no one else moved. No one spoke. Vital moments passed.

  Beck thought, What the fook now?

  Brother Michaelis brought the huge teapot to the table and set it down. “Now, then,” he said, tracking his smile around the table, “who’ll be Mother? How about you, Victor? You’ve the good strong arms for the job.”

  Victor was an older and remarkably ugly boy. His hair was bristles on a knackered broom. He lacked front teeth and his arms were too long for his sleeves. His wrists could have been knees on a normal person.

  He said, “Aw, Farver. No’ me agin. I done it —”

  “Victor!” Brother Robert cracked the name like a whip. Then smiled.

  Victor stood up and hefted the teapot. He carried it first over to the dresser, where he filled the priests’ cups. His arms trembled with the effort of not sloshing the saucers. Then he went along the table, muttering abuse while he poured. Meanwhile, Brother Michaelis, using the longest knife Beck had ever seen, very swiftly cut the loaves into slices. To Beck’s expert eye, the slices were of exactly the same thickness.

  At last these tedious rituals were over. Seventeen pairs of hands lunged.

  Brother Michaelis joined his colleagues. He sipped his tea then raised his comedic eyebrows.

  “Well, now,” he murmured with a small nod in Beck’s direction, “un petit chocolat, eh? A first, I think?”

  BECK AND JOE and Pat and Fred and Billy followed Brother Robert up the soft-carpeted stairs.

  “So, boys, are you well fed? Good. You’ll have had a hard journey. I know, because I’ve done it myself a few times now. Back and forth to the old country. You’ll be wanting to get out of those clothes, too. Because, to be quite frank, you smell like a pack of polecats.”

  At the landing he paused, backlit by ruddy light from the tall window, and turned to look down at them.

  “Over the years, hundreds of boys have passed through this house. I cannot swear that all have departed pure in spirit, but all have departed clean in body. Here at Braemar, we do insist on producing a hygienic boy. Come.”

  The landing gave onto a corridor, closed doors on either side — one, open, facing them at the far end, spilling light.

  It was a large room unlike any that Beck had seen. Its main features were warmth and an enormous roll-top bathtub resting on four iron paws. At one end of this phenomenon a brass pillar grew from the floor culminating in a pair of fat taps that spewed water. Wisps of steam wreathed the oil lamp standing on the windowsill. The window was tall and blade-shaped, like in a church, and shuttered. Once-white towels hung from hooks. On the tiled floor, a rug with a squirming pattern of reds and browns and muted blues. Just inside the door and below the window, two armchairs upholstered like the rug. A smell in the room that was both sweet and as stale as snuffed candles. Brother John, now in shirtsleeves and a white apron, leaned over the bath, dabbling his fingers in the water. He turned off the taps and straightened when the boys came in.

  “Right, young sirs. You’ve a treat in store. So, clothes off.” He lifted the lid from a zinc tub. “Put everything in here.”

  Brother Robert sat in one of the armchairs and lit a cigarette. The boys stood, unmoving, uncertain.

  “Sharpish, now,” Brother John said. “The water’s cooling. Don’t be shy. You’ve nothing to show that we’ve not seen before. Isn’t that so, Brother Robert?”

  From behind his veil of mist and smoke the kindly rabbit said, “I should be most surprised if they had.”

  The boys undressed. Little Pat fumbled it, and, sighing theatrically, Brother John stooped to help him with the buttons. Naked, Beck and Billy covered their genitals with their hands. Pat put his thumb in his mouth. A silent stillness in the steamy room while the priests perused the children.

  Then Brother John said, quietly, “Good. Into the bath then.”

  Beck said, “Aller us together?”

  Brother Robert chuckled. “Oh, there’s plenty of room. This is the leviathan of baths. We’ve known it swallow ten boys at a go, never mind five. Have we not, Brother John?”

  “Indeed we have. At a squeeze.”

  The bath was so high-sided that Pat needed a helping hand to get in. None of the boys had previously experienced immersion in warm water. Billy sat at the curved end of the bath with his gob open and his eyes shut like a dreamer, clutching the sides. Fred and Joe stayed on their knees, trying not to get wet. Beck sat below the taps, enrapt, watching his submerged body become strange, feeling the heat soak into him. Pat howled when the water rose to his thin neck, and struggled upright. Beck yanked him back down.

  “Is aw right, Pat. Hush. Yer’ll never drown in here.”

  Brother John beamed down at them, his face flushed pink above the swell of his apron, an ingot of yellow soap in his hand.

  “Isn’t that nice? You just enjoy it. A little taste of heaven, is a hot bath. Now, I’m going to lather your heads. Keep your eyes shut while I’m about it, or they’ll sting like the devil. I’ll start with you, Chocolat.”

  Beck felt a drench of hot water and the hard rub of the soap on his scalp, then the priest’s fingers working over his head like a blind man’s investigation. He resisted the deliciousness of it, clamped his eyes tight against the sudden burning memory of his mother. Then a great slosh of water and he was awake again, eyes burning, gasping.

  Brother John moved on to Pat, who sobbed and spat throughout the whole business. Billy sat upright with his face tucked tight as a cat’s arse while Brother John did him. Beck thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t.

  Brother John dropped a threadbare face flannel onto each boy. “Now wash. Tip to toe and everywhere in between. Face and in the ears. Don’t forget your downstairs bits, fore and aft. Then legs and feet and between the toes. Off you go.”

  He went to a tall black cupboard and withdrew from it a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He poured Brother Robert a measure and then another for himself, which he took to the other chair and settled himself. Brother Robert lit another cigarette without taking his eyes from the boys in the bath.

  Beck had no words for what he felt. Delight might have been one of them, but he’d never had occasion to need it or know it. Trepidation, another. Sister Francesca, that ugly bitch, had many times told him that he was going to get into hot water. But he never had been until now. He squeezed the flannel on his shoulders and felt the lovely trickles of heat go down his back. He worked the flannel over himself. He pushed his toes into Pat’s slatty little ribs and laughed when Pat flinched and sputtered.

  “Enjoying yourself, Chocolat? Beck?”

  He looked through the steam at the smiling priest. “Yeah. I’m well enough, ta.”

  “Excellent. Now, I want you all to sit and soak while you listen to what I’m going to tell you. You may not understand everything I say, but I want you to remember it because you will understand when you are older.” Brother Robert paused to sip whiskey and draw on his cigarette.

  “You are now at the point at which your old lives end and your new lives begin. This bath is the baptism that marks that change. It washes away the shame and hardship that has been the story of your lives so far. You will leave this house cleansed, ready to start afresh. From here, you will be sent to new homes. You will become members of families. Families who will care for you, adopt you as their sons. Most will be farmers who need your help. Yes, your help. I know that you are city boys who wouldn’t know one end of a plow from the other. But you will learn. You will learn skills; you will become men who will shape the destiny of this young and magnificent country.”

  Brother Robert rested his cigarette in the cut-glass ashtray on the arm of hi
s chair while he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “I cannot say exactly when you will leave us to embark on these great adventures. You may be with us for weeks or months. But here is the important thing. While you are with us, you must forget the past. You will not be returning to that misery. And you must not worry about the future, even though it might frighten you. You have had the great good fortune to find yourselves, for now, in a place of safety. I and my fellow Brothers are inspired by the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Our duty is to love boys such as yourselves. My years of service have taught me that you are unlikely to know what love is and ignorant of the forms it might take. So let us teach you, just as we feed and care for you. And when you leave here, take the experience of love with you. Keep it in a secret place in your hearts, just as you have kept Mr. Mitchell’s dimes concealed in your clothes.”

  Fook, Beck thought, and turned to look at the metal bin.

  Brother John laughed. “Don’t worry, Chocolat. We’re not going to take your hidden treasure from you. It’ll be in your pocket when you leave. Now then, all good things come to an end, so out you get. There are other boys waiting on their bath.”

  He handed them each a towel then went to the black cupboard from which he took five folded white nightshirts. Dry, more or less, the boys put them on. Pat’s reached to the floor. Billy’s, Fred’s, and Joe’s came to their ankles. Beck’s stopped just below his knees.

  “You have become angels,” Brother Robert said, studying them. “Now, down to the kitchen with you for hot milk. Then bed. One of us will come to your rooms to supervise your prayers.”

  At the doorway, Beck turned. Brother Robert had removed his jacket and was unfastening his clerical collar. “Go,” he said.

  Later, Beck and Billy were taken to a bedroom on the second floor. There were four beds; the other two were occupied by ugly Victor and a younger boy.

  When prayers were over and Brother Duncan had left, when his footfalls had retreated downstairs, Beck said, “Aw right here, lads, then, is it? Yer get a feed like that every day an’ that? We landed on our feet, or what?”