by Peter Twohig
The whole class was loaded into buses and Sister Malachi got on and told us to fork over our permission forms. Naturally, the kids were all so scared they just did as they were told — that’s what prisoners do. But I was so terrified I only knew one thing: if I forked over, I was going to be tortured. The way I looked at it: no permission, no torture. Right there, I crumpled up my form, shoved it into my mouth, and started chewing like there was no tomorrow. Tom was watching me with a big smile on his face and, catching on, did the same thing himself. By the time the Nazi torture nun reached our seat, we were chewing for all we were worth, though I’m here to tell you that the forms the Royal Dental Hospital issue would probably not taste good even if they were boiled for two hours then dipped in chocolate.
Of course the kids down our end of the bus went crazy, being always ready for an opportunity to dob in the Blayney twins. So Sister made us continue to chew, then to swallow, by smacking us over the ear every few seconds. Then calm as you like she went back to her seat.
At the hospital, a bloke with a white coat came out and collected all the forms.
‘Sister,’ says he, ‘we’re two short.’
‘Oh no we’re not,’ says she, and points to our stomachs, she being one of those nuns who is short on words but long on actions.
‘We have a rule for youngsters who pull that old stunt,’ says the white Nazi. He pauses and leans forward as if he is going to tell us a ghost story, then says, ‘They go first.’
Tom put up a fight, but was overpowered and dragged away by the Death Squad. I, who did not put up a fight, the strength having left me altogether, was dragged away just on the off-chance that I might. I thought I was never going to see Tom again, and I cried all the way to the dentist chair. I admit it.
The tram carried on to Parkville and did a few twists and turns, and I got off at the Melbourne General Cemetery. At the cemetery I went to the office and told them what I wanted and I was given a rough map and the bloke marked the spot for me. I found Tom’s grave. It had a bunch of fresh flowers on it, with no label or card or anything. I wondered who might have put them there, and felt guilty all over again because I hadn’t thought of it myself. But some of the graves nearby had flowers on them, so I visited them, and looked at the details, and as soon as I came across a grave that wasn’t for a kid, I took the flowers back to Tom. I knew he wouldn’t mind, as he was always pinching things.
There was nothing to do, no one to do it with, and nothing to say. I had come all this way, and on the inside, I felt as if I had caught a case of death from one of the graves. I wondered if Tom had turned into a ghost or a zombie. I think he would have preferred to be a zombie, so he could scare the living daylights out of bad people like coppers and kidnappers — not nuns, because everyone knows that nuns aren’t scared of anything, not even blood and guts.
I didn’t want to leave him there, but I had to go. It was as hot as Hell, and there was no shade, and the whole place was not the sort of place you’d want to be buried in, if you were a kid. So I left, feeling that the both of us had been badly short-changed.
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever come back. It didn’t feel as though Tom was there. It felt more like he was at Rooney Park, or the Tea Tree Paddock, or our secret place that used to be on our roof. It felt like he was with me, but just not there. So I went back the way I’d come, and when the tram went past the Dental Hospital, I looked the other way. Bugger ’em.
At Lonsdale Street I got off and walked down to St Frank’s Church. I had to see a man about a dog. No, that’s not true: I had to go to Confession. Whereas most churches were dishing out the Sacrament of Penance only one or two hours a week, St Frank’s was open for business all day every day, mainly due to a general lack of self-control in Melbourne’s Catholic community, many of whom had gone over to the DLP, and could no longer look their own dogs in the eye, to say nothing of their children.
St Frank’s was one of those churches that looked like what I imagined the inside of Noah’s Ark must have looked like. It had a lot of wood all over the place, and it had ribs like a boat, except they were on the ceiling, if you see what I mean. Anyway, as soon as I walked into the cool gloom I realised that all churches smell the same: damn good. It must be the holiness, I thought to myself. Holiness is a top smell. I gave it eight, but to be honest, I was overrating it a tiny bit on purpose, because I wanted God to be happy with me before I even got into the starting gate, and there were starting gates — confessional boxes — all around the walls. And I could tell by the little red starters’ lights on them that the Blessed Sacrament Fathers were doing a brisk trade in forgiveness that day.
The church was chockers with sinful Melburnians getting their sooty souls made snow white again, and I felt in the mood to join them. I reckoned that if I had to go one more day with the twisted guilty feeling inside me I’d scream. I was pretty sure I had done, or at least thought, a lot of bad things, which is why I was feeling so awful. According to the whole range of nuns and priests I had come across in my miserably short life, it is pretty much impossible if you are a kid to have any kind of feelings without them being sinful. And I had been having a cartload of feelings about all kinds of things apart from not having saved Tom: especially stuffing my face at the open day while Flame Boy was hungry. Then there was Josephine Thompson. But really, Mona De Coney.
I needed to get my soul clean so that I could carry out my mission. So off I went to a confessional that had FR BURKE on the door. I thought to myself that a priest who was probably related to a famous explorer would be just the thing for a young explorer-detective-superhero type like myself.
I watched the people as they came out of the confessional to see if they were okay, because Sister Bernadette always said you could tell if a person was truly penitent by the look on their dial — you know, whether they were holy-looking or just plain relieved that the horrible ordeal was over, which meant that they had been pulling God’s leg wholesale.
I thought these people were looking reasonably penitent, and one lady actually was crying, which I took as a good sign. So in I went.
‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has only been four days since my last Confession, because I’m one of the altar boys down at St Felix’s and Father makes us go to Confession every time we make a mistake, and I’m always making —’
‘For God’s sake, will you shut tup and tell me whoy it is yo’re here, young man.’
Oh, God, an Irishman, I thought. Probably just had a sherbet or two as well.
‘Well, Father, lately I’ve been having a hard time. See, our house burnt down, and now everyone is looking for this kid’ — I felt a need to keep names, addresses and so on to myself ‘— who might have started the fire, and that’s because he —’
‘Is this Confession going somewhere, or have you got something wrong wit’ your brain, son?’
I swallowed. He had touched on a delicate subject, but I didn’t want to go into that just then. I decided to give him a throwaway sin, which is one that you confess when you want to stall for time, or when you want to build up to something serious, both of which were the case.
‘I pinched a fireman’s helmet.’
‘You ort to be ashamed of yourself. But Oy’ll give you absolution on condition that you return it. Is that it, then?’
Time to come clean.
‘My brother died about a year ago — he was my twin. You see, I miss him a lot, and I was frightened because —’
‘Is dis goin’ t’ tehk long? It’s just dat Oy have a lot of real sinners to attend to.’
‘I do have a real sin, Father.’
‘Will, ote wit’ it, den.’
‘Oy, I mean, I … I … my brother … Tom, he died. And I couldn’t help him. I let him die. I should have tried harder. I should have helped him more.’
‘Will Oy’m sorry t’ hear about yor brother; it’s a croyin’ shame, that’s what it is. But not a sin.’
‘Well, there’s this girl —’
/>
‘Oy see. And have you touched each other?’
‘Um, not yet.’
‘See that you don’t.’
‘And, see, there’s this other kid.’
‘A boy?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘So have you touched him?’
‘No, Father. I’m not even sure if I like him.’
‘Just remember, you can’t get into trouble with boys.’
‘Yes, but —’
‘Look, this is the busiest chorch in Melbourne, and we have all toypes of desperate criminals — murderers and d’ loik — coming here seeking Our Blessed Lord’s forgiveness; and all yo’re doing is wasting moy time, to say nottin’ of the Lord’s. So get tout.’
‘Did you say murderers, Father?’
‘And worse.’
‘Firebugs?’
‘Boy the dozen.’
I looked at the door.
‘Jesus.’
‘You Godless heathen blasphemer! You’ll apologise to me and to the Lord, or Oy’ll come in there and give you the rounds of the chorch!’
‘I’m sorry, Father.’
‘Now, for wasting my time you can say three Hail Marys. For taking Our Blessed Lord’s name in vain, you can go straight down to the altar and receive the Blessed Sacrament. And don’t forget the helmet. Ego te absolvo …’
As he muttered his part of the deal in Latin I repeated the ‘O my God I am very sorry’ prayer out loud. Finally we dead-heated in the dark.
‘Now get tout.’
Outside, I went down to the altar, wondering how many of the people in the church were actually murderers and firebugs, and keeping my eyes peeled for Mr Kavanagh’s duck-like head. At the altar, I knelt at the rail and waited for the priest to turn up with his altar boy, who was actually another priest, as they had more priests living there than you could kick gravel at. As they stopped in front of me the priest began to whisper his little Communion prayer, which I knew in both Latin and English from my years on the altar. However, I was still thinking of the words I knew he had just spoken from the altar:
‘Domine, non sum dignus …’
Lord, I am not worthy.
He waited for me to take Communion, but I froze. I felt as though to do so would be more than a white lie. This would be a biggy.
‘For God’s sake, stick your tongue out,’ said the priest.
Still I froze.
Suddenly there was a sharp smack across the side of my head from behind. My tongue shot out and I was given Communion, and the two Blessed Sacrament fathers moved on, as if nothing surprised them.
Without a word, Father Burke — it was he — dragged me to the side door, in front of half the hardened criminals and firebugs in Melbourne, and thrust me out into the heat and glare of the city, where I finally wilted, still unforgiven.
17 Ghosts in the head
The city is a small place, measured in tram trips, and I should know, as Tom and I made a kind of hobby out of taking trams here and there, usually without paying.
We did this by spinning yarns, and we got pretty good at it too. On the few occasions when we were asked for money, we said: ‘Our father is out of work,’ which wasn’t true, but usually worked. If it didn’t, we’d say: ‘A bloke bailed us up and pinched our money,’ which did sometimes happen. (Though if it did we only had to say to anyone who tried to do us over: ‘Our grandfather is Archie Taggerty, so I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.’ Unless the bloke had no brains at all, he would then say: ‘Sorry, son; didn’t know. No harm done, eh? Give my best to Archie. Or maybe not, eh? Here’s two bob for you. Get yourselves an ice-cream.’ We could probably get more by mentioning Blarney Barney, but we didn’t want to scare anyone to death, just make them squirm.)
The fact is we always kept a few bob hidden in our socks, as advised by Granddad, so we could pay our way if we felt like it.
But the city is not a small place when you’re walking, and that’s what I did after I was thrown out of St Frank’s.
I had ghosts in my head. I heard Granddad say that once to Aunty Queenie, when he thought no one could hear him, and now I knew what he meant. I don’t know what kind of ghosts he was talking about, probably the ghost of Nanna, who was soft and lovely, and would probably make a rotten ghost, but a pretty nice fairy, not that I believed in them anymore — it’s just a way of speaking of people. When I mentioned it to Mum, she just sighed and shook the scone like Mr Squiggle, only in slow motion, so I knew I was onto buried treasure.
‘Is it Nanna Taggerty, Mum? Is that who the ghost is?’
‘Nanna Taggerty’s not a ghost; she’s in Heaven.’
I decided to bring up a matter that Barney mentioned to me once, but in such a way that Mum wouldn’t go troppo at me.
‘Barney told me that Granddad once killed a bloke … when he was a boxer.’
‘You can forget that kind of talk, for a start. I never want to hear you mention that again, d’ya hear?’
Crikey!
‘My lips are sealed.’
‘Who taught you that?’
‘Television.’
‘Bloody television.’
I wouldn’t have put it like that, but mums have a way of making mistakes over the simplest of things, and that was a good example. Mud was another one. And dogs.
I had a ghost in my head, and he looked just like me. When I stopped at a shop window and looked in, I saw him looking back at me with his hair sticking out, and his bloke’s hat, except that Tom hadn’t had a bloke’s hat, only a battleship-grey baseball cap with the flags of Olympic nations stuck all over it. I ended up with it, but I didn’t have it anymore because I gave it to Granddad, just in case I died, so he’d have something to remember us by. Anyway, the point is, when Tom wasn’t laughing he looked exactly the same as me. That’s how he looked in the shop window.
‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ I said into Myer’s window, which was his favourite.
‘It’s all right; I don’t mind being dead.’
‘How come?’
‘They give you free ice-cream.’
That Tom was a bit of a kidder. But I made a mental note to ask Father Hagen about the ice-cream. I didn’t want to die the way Tom had. I wanted to die while pushing Mona De Coney out of the way of a runaway tram, except that I wouldn’t die, I’d be rewarded with a kiss. But then I realised that I had always wanted to be kissed by Josephine Thompson, and felt guilty all over again. I wondered if I had committed a sin just then. I had discussed this with Barney once.
‘Hey, Barn, according to Father Hagen, practically all my thoughts about just about every girl I ever met or ever will meet, bar Mum and Nanna, are sinful.’
‘Ah yes, the evil, dirty mind of the celibate. That was bound to happen sooner or later. When did he tell you that?’
‘In Confession. I was telling him about Josephine Thompson.’
‘Is this the girlfriend, then?’
‘Um, yeah.’
‘My advice, for what it’s worth: don’t give those blokes the time of day when it comes to the gentler sex; they don’t deserve it. Let them go and get their own girlfriends, eh?’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Next time he asks you about girls tell him you’re rather partial to the boy across the road. That’ll shut him up.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘Glad to hear it. Just do as I say.’
‘Right. Thanks, Barn.’
Barney was doing all right there for a minute, I thought. But he plainly knew nothing about the perils of going to Confession.
So there I was, complete with my own ghost, not that Tom wasn’t a good ghost. I mean, he didn’t give me a hard time. He just kept smiling at me non-stop, like the time he got drunk on Father’s sacramental wine. We knew that Father thought he had none left, and we, the altar boys, had found an unopened bottle, which we decided to knock off. Valentine Popovich went first, and immediately decided it was too strong. Matthew Foster went next, but said it wasn’t as good as
his dad’s, and stopped — I’ve been wondering about that ever since. Tom hopped in like a kid with a mighty thirst, and insisted on drinking twice as much as me. In the end he got the Smile of Doom. We thought it was funny at first, but then we realised that his face was stuck, as if the wind had changed, and he was probably going to be like that for the rest of his life. When we went home we crept in and went straight to Dad, because Mum would have killed us without a second thought. Dad never killed us for any reason, because he had been a boy once, even an altar boy, and he knew that there is a kind of rule that if you are an altar boy you are supposed to knock off the priest’s grog. He just looked at Tom and said: ‘Best you go and have a lie down.’
Tom smiled and winked at him, and pushed off.
Dad turned to me.
‘And what’s your story?’
He was wondering why I wasn’t drunk too, as Tom and I always did the same thing.
‘Tom liked it more.’
‘So where’s mine, then?’
‘Sorry, Dad. Ran out.’
I walked a lot that day, in spite of it being hotter than a ditchdigger’s armpit. After I left Myer’s I went up the street to the museum, which had always been one of my favourite places. I remembered a conversation Raffi and I had with Mrs Radion about the picture of Ron Clarke, on the day I met her.
She had flopped on the couch with a coldy, and wouldn’t have moved if I’d thrown a stick of dynamite at her.
‘I wonder what they did with that Torch,’ I said.
‘It’s in the museum,’ said Mrs Radion. The things adults come out with when their guard is down.
I was stunned. I’d been wondering about that for years, and all the time the answer was just a few streets away, scoffing lager.