Walking Among Birds

by Matthew Hickson

  I’m sure you know the old riddle: what do syntactic independence, transcending existence, the magnitude of a real number, and a 17th century architectural style all have in common? Well, I absolutely don’t know the answer but it’s definitely something to look into. All we need to know is that conversations went into the early hours of the morning, by which time all the boys were dozing off and ended up sleeping in the common room that night.

  “Peter…”

  “Peter…”

  Jack suddenly jolted up from his position on the lounge chair, being vigorously shaken by Tom.

  “I’m not…” he started, but then he paused. What did Tom want to tell Peter that he wouldn’t want to tell Jack? “Yeah…what?”

  “Come with me,” Tom replied.

  Jack loved a good bit of intrigue and so he obliged, being careful not to wake Peter with whom he’d been tangled up with head-to-tail on the lounge chair.

  “Where are we going?” Jack asked, still blurry eyed and disoriented.

  “I need to show you something”

  “Oh, okay,” Jack agreed, being pulled along by the arm by the smaller boy.

  They weaved through corridors until they reached the entrance hall. Jack paused to try and read the time on the great grandfather clock that stood there, but through the shroud of darkness he couldn’t even make out the hands. Out they went through the front door and down towards the lake. It seemed oddly dark outside, like the moon had disappeared from the sky and the stars had decided not to shine.

  “Where are you taking me? It’s freezing, I want to go back.” Jack complained.

  “Just keep walking,” Tom said, dismissing his complaints.

  As they neared the lake, Jack could just make out a solitary silhouette in the darkness. He squinted, trying to make out the broad-shouldered figure. When he stopped squinting, he realised Tom was no longer with him. “Tom?” he whispered, turning around this way and that—no response. He was now all alone in the almost pitch black, the only sentient being he shared the cold darkness with was the man facing the lake, so he decided to continue towards that silhouette. He walked for a long time, never seeming to get any closer, until almost immediately he was right behind him.

  “Hello?” he whispered to the figure. Nothing. “Hello?” he tapped him on the shoulder.

  The figure whipped around and he found himself face to face with Cole, who had a maniacal look on his face and was holding a photo. The image burned into Jack’s brain, he knew it would come back to haunt him: that naked picture of Charmaine.

  “I believe you stole this…” Cole whispered menacingly.

  Jack was about to retort the claim but wasn’t fast enough, receiving a back hand across the cheek which threw him to the ground, then getting kicked and stomped in the gut and on the chest by Cole. It felt like all his ribs were breaking. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Cole grabbed him by his hair and forcibly dunked his head in the icy water of the lake, repeatedly dunking it in and out and then finally holding his head under the water. Jack could feel his lungs desperate for air. “This is it,” he thought, “this is how I go.” A noise of distant bells chimed in his head, getting louder and louder as if they were getting closer and closer. Through the icy water he could make out the hands of a clock spinning wildly—nothing was left to control the hands, nothing to slow time’s unceasing progression towards death and nothingness. The cold water filled his lungs and everything went black.

  “Peter…”

  “Peter…”

  He could hear his brother’s name echoing through the emptiness, what did it mean? Was his brother’s name to be the last he ever heard? Was this what Hell was like?

  CHAPTER VIII

  “I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed

  the topmost steeple, but God declared: ‘Go

  down again—I dwell among the people.’”

  —John Henry Newman

  “Peter…”

  The colour returned as quickly as it had gone and he could see the common room once more, being jolted out of his sleep by the clock chiming eight o’clock. He was sweaty and clammy, but otherwise unscathed.

  “Peter…”

  It was still Tom nudging him awake, but this time he was pretty sure it was real life.

  “Peter…”

  “I’m not…I mean, yeah what do you want, Tom?”

  “Sorry for waking you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Come quickly,” he said. “All my drawings have disappeared from my room.”

  “What on Ear…oh, those drawings. Yes.” Jack looked puzzled for a little while. “And what do you want me to do about that?”

  He looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be present and still asleep or at least dozing where they had fallen the night before…except someone was missing…where was Lorenz? Jack heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and a moment later Lorenz swaggered through the door.

  “Mr. Latan would like to see you in his office, Tom,” Lorenz smirked. All three boys: Tom, Lorenz, and Jack posing as Peter, walked down the stairs and into the deputy’s office.

  “Thomas Steerforth. I cannot even begin to explain how disappointed I am in you,” were Mr. Latan’s first words as Tom sat down in the office. “It is gross inappropriateness to be drawing pictures of another student, especially of the opposite sex, like this.” He flicked through the drawings pointedly one at a time.

  “And Peter…” he was unaware that he was actually addressing Jack “…you knew about it and chose to do nothing?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, I thought it was harmless enough.” Jack answered, trying to imagine what Peter would say in a situation like that. Though to be fair, it is probably very similar to what he himself would have answered.

  “Boys, let me tell you a story. A few years ago, there was a young girl called Wallis who attended St. Scholastica’s. A rather quite good looking young lady, if I might say. She wrote poems. Many, many poems—she was always writing poetry. And then one day, in her absence, her roommate looked through a pile of her poems. They were all about one subject, young Father Culpa. Well, the roommate was aghast and went straight away to tell the headmistress, and rightly so! The last anybody ever saw of Wallis Plinge was of her walking through the gardens that night—a stormy, wet, windy tempestuous night. She was never heard of again.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “What a load of rubbish,” he thought, but he looked across at Tom who seemed to have been put into a worried state by the (at least Jack thought) obviously fabricated story.

  “Anyway,” the deputy headmaster continued, “the point is that Mrs. Culpa…I mean, the Headmistress, would not be the least bit amused at this. I think detention is in order for the two of you. Thomas, I do wish you would clean up your act. Grow up a bit and all that.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Jack looked quizzically. “Did you say Mrs. Culpa?”

  “Yes, quite a slip of the tongue. I meant to say that you’ll be doing detention with Fr. Culpa, this evening, getting the chapel ready for mass tomorrow morning.”

  Lorenz, who had been sitting there the whole time, let out a little smirk. He was back to his old ways after being scolded by Cole, and his determination to bully Tom into an even more miserable position than he was already in was paying off. As the three boys left the office, Jack had a wicked thought—they all thought he was Peter, he was blameless. So he picked up Lorenz around the waist and thrust him out the first-storey window so that he would never cause Tom problems again. And would you believe it—Mr Latan came out of his office cheering Jack on, and Tom high fived Jack and gave him a hug. The end.

  But then he snapped out of his daydream and realised that he could only do the next best thing, so he flipped Lorenz off when his back was turned and they went their separate ways.

  “Do you think he’ll tell Charmaine?” queried Tom.

  “Perhaps. I’m not really sure,” Jack answered, still being Peter.

  Thomas was u
neasy about the notion of Charmaine finding out prematurely. How could she fall in love with him if he didn’t have the chance to tell her first?

  The rest of the morning was difficult. Tom was obviously upset and contemplative, thinking deeply about his next steps. Jack became Jack again at the next opportunity and just hoped that Thomas didn’t mention to the real Peter about the detention that evening, at which point Jack would have to become Peter again. But alas, this book isn’t one of mistaken identities and rumbustious hilarity, so we won’t dwell on that here.

  They sat down for lunch in their usual peer group. Saturday lunch was the lull in food quality for the week because, and this was only a suspicion, money had to be saved for the traditional weekly Sunday hot roast. On Saturdays they were served some mess of sloppy peas and a mystery meat—nobody was really sure what went in to this usual weekend meal, but it was generally assumed to be a mixture of what had been eaten throughout the week, plus whatever was on special at the local supermarket.

  Tom sat in his usual silence eating his stew, brooding on the events of earlier that day and the inconvenience of his crush’s brothers. Lorenz was quite happy with himself and was even more chatty than usual. He kept referencing Charmaine and Cole as if he was trying to rub something in.

  “Ah, lads,” the red-haired reverend had snuck up behind them. “I’m shocked, but a couple of you seem to have detention with me tonight. Surely this must be a mistake, am I right?” he said with that beautifully friendly smile. He looked at a clipboard he was holding in his hand. “Tom and Peter?” he confirmed.

  Peter looked confused. “Oh, no, Father. That must be a mistake.” At which point Jack pressed hard on his foot.

  “No, that’s right,” Jack confirmed. “I’m Peter. I’ll be at detention tonight.”

  “You haven’t even been here a week, you two, and one of you is already getting detentions? Not a good start really. But it’s okay, detention isn’t all that bad. We’re going to mop the entire chapel together,” he grinned sincerely, as if to say he actually did enjoy mopping.

  “What on earth,” Peter began to Jack as they left the dining hall together. “How did you get me a detention?”

  “Relax, Peter. I’m going to do it for you anyway,” Jack answered, trying to avoid the question.

  Peter stopped. “Okay, but seriously, Jack. What have you done?”

  “Do you promise you won’t be mad?”

  “No, I’m not going to promise that. What have you done?”

  “Well, somehow Lorenz found out about Tom’s drawings.”

  “What? You’re an idiot. I trusted you with one small bit of information and you told him just because you have the hots for Charmaine too, and you promised…”

  “I know, I know. Look, I’m sorry. I was frustrated at Tom the other day but changed my mind when he tried to help me with the apple to Cole’s head, but by then it was too late. But…but I have some information you might be interested in?”

  Jack recounted to Peter the story that Mr. Latan had told him, and also how he had accidentally slipped up and called the headmistress “Mrs. Culpa.” They had, after all, noticed a ring on Fr. Culpa’s finger. Could it be that they were married? But he was a Catholic priest—it couldn’t be possible.

  Evening rolled around and the two boys met Fr. Culpa in the Chapel promptly at seven o’clock. They were expecting back-breaking work accompanied perhaps by a sermon on what they had done wrong or in what they had failed to do.

  “Gentlemen!” The priest hollowed as he entered the chapel. “Good evening”.

  “Good evening, Father,” the two boys echoed.

  “Now, we need to get this place ready for the service tomorrow. So many floorboards.” Fr Culpa said nonchalantly, scanning around the chapel as if he hadn’t been there before. “So, Jack, or Peter, whoever you say you are, you can start by vacuuming the floorboards and a little after you start, we’ll start mopping behind you. Tom, you can move the bucket around behind me while I do the mopping. Go and fill that bucket up there.”

  Tom headed off to the scullery to fill up the bucket with hot water.

  “Sir, how did you know I was Jack?”

  “You think I wouldn’t notice that you were in your brother’s place?”

  “I… I guess I didn’t know we looked different at all to other people,” Jack stuttered. “And let me get this straight. You’re going to do the mopping with us?”

  “Well, yes, of course. What good would it do any of us for me to sit back and get you two to do all the work? It’s not that hard anyhow, keeps me fit and all that. It’s an easy yoke to carry, a light burden to bear.”

  The job was not nearly half as hard as the boys expected. With Fr. Culpa helping, it was even almost enjoyable. He liked telling jokes: that one about the penguin, and the one about the French café where the guy orders an egg, and the lentil/chickpea one—all of those sorts of jokes. When he thought they were sick of his chit-chatting, around the time that they started polishing the wooden pews, he let them listen to the radio, but only to CatholicFM, naturally. They were all done and dusted (if you’ll excuse the pun) at half past eight.

  “Isn’t it amazing,” the Father began, “that no matter how dirty something gets, you can always clean it right back up again? It just takes a bit of willpower to recognise the dirt sometimes.”

  “And you’re not mad at us, Father?” Jack asked. “Mr Latan was furious.”

  “Well, Jack, I find it best to seek to understand, not to accuse. Remember when you talk to Mr. Latan you’re talking to someone who thinks Sherlock Holmes is a real estate agency.”

  Jack laughed, “Perhaps we should get detention more often.”

  The boys started on their way back to their rooms, relieved that detention hadn’t been the horrific circumstance that they thought it would be.

  “I can’t believe he was so happy to help,” Jack began. “What a nice guy.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Tom retorted. “James told me that he heard Fr. Culpa had been in prison before he started working here.”

  Jack laughed, which wasn’t the response Tom thought that comment would get. “Oh, you guys are so gullible. You’d believe anything!”

  So they wandered up to their respective rooms and all was well that night.

  CHAPTER IX

  “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;

  the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

  —Plato

  As is always the case, the rest of Sunday after church rushed by in no time at all. I really do think there is some conspiracy of time to make the weekends only a small fraction as long as a single weekday. The twins could hardly believe it, but it was already Monday again, and this meant literature just before dinner. The boys sat through the class which was as boring as ever, so dry and insipid that their distraction led to Jack beginning to tell Peter in hushed whispers about Tom’s comment about prison the night before.

  Mrs Bowen looked up from the copy of the Fitzgerald book she’d been reading from and glared at Jack over the top of her round spectacles.

  “Peter. Jack. If you cannot control your urge to whisper sweet nothings between yourselves then you’ll need to separate.”

  A slight muffled giggle passed around the room at this inference.

  “Please, Miss, we’re listening.” Jack said with a face as if he had just been gravely insulted. “We were just discussing that book you’re reading.”

  “Very well, so you would know the main character’s mother’s name?” The literature teacher asked with a smirk.

  Jack turned to Peter, who mouthed a word to him.

  Jack swivelled confidently back to the teacher. “Butress,” he answered with bravado. “Also known as, I believe, Mrs. Carraway…she lives in the South of France and has to go to a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland…I think.” He continued, getting more and more unsure as he went. Meanwhile, Peter had put his head in his hands in despair.<
br />
  Ms Bowen separated them on the grounds that Jack obviously had no idea what was going on. She had been reading This Side of Paradise and Jack clearly had not been listening.

  So they resorted to what any pairs of adolescents would do when separated part way through a conversation—pass notes between themselves, the first of which caught the eye of Mrs. Bowen. Of course, the note ended up with the teacher, who read it and quickly told them to see her after class.

  “Fr Culpa has been in jail before,” she read out to the two boys now standing before her at the front of the empty classroom. “Now, why would two boys such as yourselves be talking about this?” she asked.

  “Please, Miss, is it true?” Peter responded.

  The old lady sighed. “I’ve known Fr Culpa since he was your age,” she reminisced. “I will tell you, but only to clear up any misinformation you might’ve heard so that you don’t get the wrong idea of him. I hear you’ve been writing down secrets, would you like to write mine down?”

  The twins agreed. They couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this, especially a secret belonging to someone that would probably die soon.

  “SECRET OF MS. T. BOWEN –

  COLLECTED ON MONDAY 13/05/2019

  @ ST. BENEDICT’S COLLEGE.

  ‘This all happened twelve years ago, but it haunts my mind to this very day. I owned a pawn shop that specialised in antiques on a windy little lane in the middle of the city. I had bought the small shop from an elderly couple who had owned it their whole life as a florist, but had decided to retire and sell the shop. I moved into the apartment above the shop—it was my whole life. I had had a fascination with antiques and old items since I was a young girl and decided to follow my dreams, even though I knew the risks and the low success rates of those sorts of businesses.

  I started the shop with a small collection of items. Business was slow but every couple of days someone would come in and meander through the collection. We occasionally had a sale, but nowhere near enough to keep me afloat. I took out loan after loan from the bank until my apartment and the shop was in danger of repossession. I tried so many different methods to arouse interest in my little shop: signs, handing out flyers, newspaper ads. Nothing seemed to increase business noticeably. I was desperate, my life was falling apart around me.