Please Don't Make Me Go

by Fenton, John

  I looked at Bernie’s bruised leg and then scanned the yard for a glimpse of Sean Cuddy. I saw him clumsily kicking a ball against the chapel wall with a few of his friends. He was a stocky sixteen-year-old Irish boy with an unruly mop of curly hair and an acne-scarred face with a few wispy hairs protruding from his chin. I had seen him fight before and I wasn’t too impressed. He was definitely very strong and afraid of nothing but he was also cumbersome and clumsy. He’ll do, I thought. I have to start somewhere, so why not him? I reached out for the roll-up and puffed in another mouthful of smoke and handed the butt back to Bernie. I said, ‘He’ll do nicely. Just wait and see.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Bernie said. ‘Who’ll do nicely?’

  Brother Michael blew his whistle loudly and we slowly made our way to our places of work. My mind was racing. I had made a big decision and I knew that it would take all my courage and then some to follow it through. I needed to stay focused and keep reminding myself why I was doing it. My courage came from an unlikely source. I thought of Alan Breck Stewart and all of the Clansmen who fought at Culloden. They must have known fear but it didn’t stop them fighting and dying for what they believed in. I was better off than them as I wasn’t facing death.

  That evening, I filed into the dining room for tea. I had planned how I would fight Cuddy and my nerves were jangling. I sought out his table with my eyes and saw that he was facing forwards, three tables in front of mine. All of the tables seated four people. In the centre of each table was a large metal teapot, which one of the boys would carry to the front of the hall to fill up from a tea urn situated on the dining-room counter.

  I picked up the pot on my table and walked towards the front of the room. As I was about to walk past Cuddy’s table I swung the teapot hard into his face. ‘That’s for Bernie’s leg, you ugly cunt,’ I yelled loudly.

  Cuddy surprised me by jumping out of his chair and grabbing me in a bear hug that virtually squeezed all the breath out of my body. I could see a large lump on his forehead where the teapot had hit and knew that I had done him some damage. His face was close to mine and I could smell his stale breath as he strained to squeeze me even tighter. I didn’t know what to do to get out of his grip so I got his nose between my teeth and bit down hard. A loud yell of ‘You bastard!’ burst from his mouth before he let go of me and shoved me backwards and straight into the arms of the approaching Brother Arnold.

  Brother Arnold put his knee in my back and pulled me backwards onto the floor. His right foot crashed into my ribs and made me double up in pain. He kicked me again in the centre of my back. It felt as though I’d been hit by lightning as a quivering shock ran through my body. He then lifted me up by my hair and crashed the flat of his hand into my unprotected face. I could taste the blood from my nose as it streamed down over my lips. He shoved me towards the dining-room door.

  ‘It’s Brother De Montfort for you. I saw you hit Cuddy with the teapot and heard you call him an cunt. I’m sure Brother De Montfort will be delighted to hear about this.’

  Brother De Montfort sat at his desk with his eyes shut as he listened to Brother Arnold relate what had happened in the dining room. When Arnold had finished he opened his eyes and looked at me impassively.

  ‘You have been here nearly fifteen months, Fenton, and still you haven’t learnt that fighting will not be tolerated under any circumstances. I had hoped that your previous visit to me for fighting would have taught you not to do it again.’ He stood up slowly and turned to look at the picture of the Blessed Virgin. He blessed himself and then turned back to face me.

  ‘I hope sincerely that this visit to the small dormitory will be your last and that you will have learnt your lesson.’ He looked at Brother Arnold. ‘Could you fetch Brother Ambrose for me, Brother, and tell him to come directly to the small dormitory.’

  I suppose I had known this was inevitable but I’d been hoping that Cuddy would get caned as well. It was unfortunate that Brother Arnold had seen me initiating the attack. My heart started racing and my mouth was dry in anticipation of the pain I knew was coming my way shortly.

  Brother De Montfort ushered me out of his office and up the wooden staircase to the small dormitory. He took out a pair of boxing shorts from a cupboard, placed them on a bed and said quietly, ‘Get undressed and put on the shorts. You know the procedure, you’ve been here before.’

  Brother Ambrose arrived just as I finished putting on the shorts. He carried the same bundle of canes as last time. I watched as he selected a long thin cane from the bundle and tested its flexibility by bending it in half and letting it spring back. He swished it noisily in imaginary swipes and flexed his shoulders in preparation. I closed my eyes tightly and concentrated on an image of Jesus being scourged by the Romans. I was determined to make no noise and not to move this time. I kept repeating in my mind, Remember Jesus. Remember Culloden. Remember Jesus. Remember Culloden.

  I heard De Montfort say, ‘Touch the floor’ and I bent forward, keeping my eyes shut.

  The first slash of the cane brought an explosion of lights to my brain and excruciating pain to the whole of my body.

  I took an involuntary step forward with my left foot then stepped back into place with gritty determination. Every instinct wanted to let out a scream of anguish but I wouldn’t allow myself. Remember Jesus. Remember Culloden. Remember Jesus. Remember Culloden.

  De Montfort’s voice penetrated my private thoughts. ‘Stand up, Fenton.’

  I stood up slowly and opened my eyes.

  De Montfort was staring at me. ‘Why do I get the impression that this is some sort of test for you? You will not win. I will break this defiance.’ He pointed. ‘Touch the floor.’

  Remember Jesus. Remember Culloden. Remember Jesus. Remember Culloden. I shut my eyes tightly again. I was concentrating so hard I never heard the swishing of the cane. Once again the excruciating pain and the desire to scream overwhelmed me and I knew if I opened my eyes, tears would pour out. I forced myself to stand up. Slowly, reluctantly, I opened my eyes and looked at the face of evil. De Montfort stared back at me. I shut out everything he was saying to me. Brother Arnold was standing by the open dormitory door, looking at me in triumph. The bastard was enjoying my pain and humiliation. I no longer felt the pain after that. I could only feel the deep hatred I had in my heart for the sadistic arsehole standing by the door.

  Four more times I touched my toes and four more times I stood up and stared at Arnold. He didn’t realise he was helping me through my punishment. While he was there I felt nothing but hatred. The caning meant nothing to me. Showing no pain to Arnold was all that mattered. I was surprised when it was all over to find that I had urinated on the floor. I hadn’t even felt it.

  When I returned to the recreation room Bernie was waiting for me. He shook his head. ‘I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw you hit Cuddy. Jesus, John, have you gone nuts? Cuddy told me he’s going to smash you to bits.’

  ‘That’s what he thinks,’ I said. ‘They can’t cane me again for fighting but they can cane that prick.’ I looked around the recreation room until I spotted him. He was sitting on one of the benches, staring at me.

  I walked purposely over to where he was sitting and the idiot didn’t even stand up so I kicked him hard. Cuddy let out a roar and jumped off the bench to try and land on me. I moved easily out of his way. He ran at me and I grabbed his neck with my left arm and pulled his head under my arm. Both of his arms were flailing wildly as tried to hit me with his huge hands but he soon gave this up and put both his arms around my waist and started to squeeze. I thrust my right hand into his face and tried to poke him in the eye. He struggled like crazy and I was being tossed around like a rag doll but I still had a firm grip on his head.

  Arms were pulling us apart and I was forced to let go of Cuddy’s head. Tom Banks had hold of me and Brother Michael had hold of Cuddy. We were both marched to De Montfort’s office. I knew what was coming so I wasn’t worried. They couldn’t ca
ne me again as it would do too much damage, so they would deduct a quarter of a day off my holiday. Cuddy would get caned and that suited me down to the ground.

  I returned from De Montfort’s office with a smile on my face. It had gone exactly as I thought it would. De Montfort had screamed a lot of abuse at me and I had shut it out by thinking of Cuddy getting caned. I had made my decision to bring the bullying to an end and nothing was going to stop me now. I knew there was a long way to go before it would end completely but I was prepared for that. If I had to fight Cuddy ten times it wouldn’t matter. He would get fed up before me. I had a temper and I couldn’t just walk away from arguments the way Bernie did. Besides, I was doing what Mum had told me to.

  Bernie laughed so much when he saw me I thought his sides would split. Tears were streaming down his face and he clutched his sides as if he had a severe pain. ‘I have never seen anything as funny as Cuddy trying to get you to stop poking his eye out.’ He nearly choked with his laughter. ‘And why did he stay sitting and let you kick him? He really is a stupid arsehole.’

  I found myself laughing along with Bernie. We were still laughing when Liam Donovan came across the room and smacked me in the mouth. Liam Donovan was a good friend of Sean Cuddy and had decided to exact revenge on me. He was sixteen years old and about two inches taller than I was. A groove on his upper lip and nose gave the impression that he had a hare lip but it was just a large scar caused by a cricket ball hitting him in the face. He was no mug and a far more dangerous proposition than Cuddy.

  Just for a few seconds after he hit me, I was unsure what I should do about it. Bernie made my mind up for me by throwing me our weighted money belt. I caught it in my right hand and in the same movement crashed it into Donovan’s face. I knew I had hurt him as soon as it connected. One of the zips on the belt had taken a layer of skin off part of his cheekbone and a lump had already begun to form. I swung the belt to hit him again but he blocked it with his arm. He hit me twice in the face with his right hand and I found myself on the floor. He swung his right foot at my face and I just managed to roll out of its way.

  I was saved from any further punishment by the intervention of Mr Lawson, one of the masters. He pulled Donovan away from me and frogmarched him towards the door. Brother Michael pulled me off the floor and took the money belt out of my hand. He pushed me back towards the door and once again in the direction of De Montfort’s office.

  Brother De Montfort looked down at the pile of nails that came out of the pockets of the money belt. He guessed their approximate weight by holding a pile of them in his hand and then placed them back on the table. He looked up and I could see he was furious. His voice was almost a whisper.

  ‘How is this going to end?’ he asked. ‘Are you intent on killing someone? Do you think that I’m not going to punish you for hitting someone with this weapon?’ He held the money belt up and pushed it angrily towards my face. ‘I’m putting you in isolation until tomorrow. I’ll think of how I am going to deal with you overnight.’ He looked at Brother Michael. ‘Take him up to the isolation room in the surgery and lock him in. I’ll inform Matron why he is there.’

  I spent the night in isolation worrying about what would happen to me in the morning. I would like to have told De Montfort about the bullying that went on in Vincent’s and how often Bernie and I were on the receiving end of some sort of abuse, but I couldn’t. That would have been considered grassing and, in the eyes of the boys, the worst possible offence you could commit. I came to the only decision that was left open to me and that was to keep my mouth shut and take the punishment. But what might it be? I was extremely nervous as I walked into Brother De Montfort’s office in the morning.

  Brother De Montfort wasn’t alone. Standing just behind his chair was Brother Francis and, in the far corner of the room, Father Delaney. My heart began to beat rapidly. I was in deep trouble if Father Delaney was attending. Brother Francis looked at me as if I had just crawled out from under a stone. His nose wrinkled with distaste and his mouth curled into a half sneer. I forced myself to stare at him defiantly. His face reddened under my stare and I knew that he would have enjoyed coming across the room and backhanding me into submission.

  Brother De Montfort opened a drawer in his desk and produced the money belt and nails. He sat silently staring at them for several seconds before scooping them into a metal waste paper bin. They made a hollow clunk as they landed. He placed the bin back into its position by the side of his desk and then gave me his full attention. His face appeared whiter then normal and his blue shaving tinge more pronounced. The Brylcreem plastered thickly on his head gave his hair a resemblance to sleek cat’s fur. He drummed his fingers on his desk, thinking, and then turned to Father Delaney.

  ‘Well, Father,’ he said, ‘would you like to start off the proceedings?’

  Father Delaney took up a position directly in front of me. His dark blue eyes stared into mine and I was forced to look away. ‘I want you to tell me, John, exactly what went on yesterday and why you ended up hitting one of the boys with a weapon?’

  I couldn’t look him in the eyes so I looked at the floor instead. I said quietly, ‘It was just an argument, Father.’

  ‘It must have been some argument for you to go and fetch a weapon and hit a boy across the face with it. You had already had two fights and had been caned by Brother Ambrose, so why did you hit a different boy with a weapon as soon as you returned to the recreation room?’

  I shrugged. ‘It was just an argument, Father. Really. It was just an argument.’

  Brother Francis stepped forward. ‘He’s got an evil streak in him. I’ve said that ever since he arrived in the school. This only proves me right.’

  Father Delaney shook his head vigorously and boomed loudly. ‘No. No. No. I will not accept that. There is more to this story than we’re being told.’

  Brother Francis looked shocked at Father Delaney’s outburst. ‘I have had to discipline this boy on more than one occasion. He hates discipline and is completely anti-authoritarian. He is arrogant and proud and thinks he is a cut above all the rest. Believe me, Father, he is a bad lot.’

  ‘Brother Francis, he is just a young boy.’ Father Delaney’s voice was gentle now. ‘What makes you think he’s arrogant and proud?’

  ‘It’s his whole demeanour.’ Brother Francis stared at me with open dislike. ‘His eyes don’t lie and they show his disrespect for all and sundry. He hides his face in books so that his true feelings are not seen. I’m telling you, Father. He is a bad lot.’

  ‘Can you not see that he is intelligent and in lots of ways he is different from the majority of the boys we get in this school?’ Father Delaney sighed in exasperation. ‘Look at the way he picked up the Latin Mass. In the twelve years I’ve been here we have never had a better or a brighter altar boy. I have spoken to him on many occasions and I know he loves reading. He has read many of what I would call good books. The Count of Monte Cristo, Kidnapped, A Tale of Two Cities, Jamaica Inn – and that’s just a few. No, Brother, he is not a bad lot, he is just an intelligent boy who’s in the wrong kind of school. He should be in a grammar school studying English Literature, not in our school studying bricklaying.’

  Brother De Montfort coughed quietly and brought the discussion to an end. He said, ‘That may be so, but he’s here and we have to deal with the problem. He hit a boy with a weapon and this will not be tolerated. In normal circumstances he would be caned and that would be the end of the matter, but he’s already been caned and I can’t cane him again.’

  ‘Maybe a loss of some holiday,’ Father Delaney suggested. ‘It seems the obvious solution to the problem.’

  ‘I think that’s the only way left open,’ said Brother De Montfort. ‘I think maybe a three-day loss would be about right.’

  Father Delaney nodded in agreement.

  Brother Francis looked at me in disgust. ‘I think he’s getting off too lightly. He’ll think he’s won.’

  I tried to keep my expr
ession blank so that they couldn’t see that I did, in fact, feel as though I had won.

  Father Delaney said, ‘This is not a competition, Brother. There are no winners or losers. I think compassion is the word that springs to mind.’

  ‘Right, Fenton.’ Brother De Montfort turned his attention to me. ‘I am deducting three days off your holidays. You will also polish the whole of the chapel floor and the pews. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Bro,’ I said.

  He stood up. ‘You can go and tell Mr Cornell that you have work to do in the chapel for the next few days.’

  I walked towards the bricklaying hut with a grin on my face. What a result. I would lose three days of my holiday, which I didn’t care about, and I’d get to work in the chapel, which I loved to do. Peter Cornell, the bricklaying tutor, nodded his head when I told him of Brother De Montfort’s punishment and then told me it served me right. I agreed with him and pretended I was unhappy at having to go to the chapel. I made a great pretence of trudging off reluctantly and as soon as I was out of sight I ran as fast as I could to the chapel.

  Chapter 15

  July 1959 was a month of blisteringly hot weather. The brightness of the sun made me squint as I stood in line with the rest of the school. Brother Michael came striding out of the school block and looked critically all around.

  ‘When I blow my whistle,’ he said, ‘I want the entire school to congregate by the chapel wall.’ He blew a long shrill blast on the whistle and watched us as we jostled for position by the wall. He blew the whistle again to attract our attention. ‘The next time I blow the whistle I want everyone to run around the perimeter of the yard until I tell you to stop.’