to.
I’ll be killed, I said.
Go on.
I won’t.
So she walked me to the door of the classroom and told the head brother I’d been missing because my father was sick.
*
Maisie would suddenly appear in my room at dawn.
Get up for school you, she’d say.
Una and myself ate in the dining room alone. Miriam was in the shop. Una watched me from Town Hall Street to make sure I’d gone through the gate. The brother I feared was waiting for me in singing class. I turned to speak to someone behind me and he busted my eardrum and bloodied my nose. Maisie was outraged. I walked round the Brothers’ like a zombie. They kicked football in the yard and I sat in the Jack’s reading the Beano and the Classic comics.
I kept hearing things that weren’t there. This sudden screech would shoot through my skull. Sometimes there were thunderings. Other times a sort of drone. Then a sort of bewildering silence as if you were there in the world alone. The echo of the blow persisted for weeks. The brother knew he’d done wrong and tried to be nice to me. When he’d arrive to take his place behind me at choir practice in the cathedral he’d flash a confused adult smile. His lower lip would tremble. Father A. B. McGrath pushed a bright-stockinged foot down on the pedal of the organ. We sang down into the empty church.
The silence descended. The deafness from the blow came back. We were all singing but I heard nothing. Then as if someone had pressed a button back the voices returned.
*
After school I went up to the handball alley and played there with Eamon Smith and Dag Carroll and the bus-drivers and Irish soldiers and house painters till night fell. Una would come up to collect me and Mr Smith would say, Let him have just one more game. Just one more, Una. In the dusk we could hardly see the ball. Your hand toughened. The palm was like leather. You learned how to skim the walls. How to let the ball swerve off your cupped hand so that it made no sound.
On Saturday mornings I was in the alley on the Barrack Hill by ten, came down for my dinner at one, was back by two and stayed till eight, maybe nine.
Instead of dreaming of Finea before I slept I began to dream of games of handball. In dreams I made perfect serves that stayed flush to the left-hand wall, or ran round the corner of the back wall and fell dead. I took butts with a neat underhand that left the soldiers astonished. I picked shots out of the air and killed them. I knocked balls on the hop dead. Then one morning I woke and came across the landing and met my father on the three steps.
Blessed God, he said and he took me in his arms. I thought I’d never see you again.
He dabbed his lips with a handkerchief. My mother in a canary-yellow outfit stood by a case in the hall. Her eyes were running. She took off an ostrich hat that Lady Ashton Smith, a cousin of the queen, had bought her.
Were you good? she asked me.
I was, I said.
Una stood silently by.
Was he?
Yes, lied Una.
My mother put on her working clothes and went into the kitchen. My father and I walked up to the garden and sat under the ivy on a seat he’d made.
I was sick, he said.
He put an arm over my shoulder. His face was thin and blue.
I’ll soon be playing for Cavan town in handball, I said.
Good man, he said.
*
That night Maisie told what had happened to me at school. She said something should be done about it.
Go up, she said to my father, and complain.
He was reluctant.
It might do more harm than good, he said.
If you don’t go, said Maisie, I will. Surgeon Maloney saw his ear, she persisted, and said it was a terrible thing to do to a child.
All right, he said.
The following morning my mother put his ten packet of Players on the breakfast table as usual, he smoked his first fag and broke into a terrible fit of coughing. Then he walked me to school. He smoked another fag on the incline and broke into another fit of coughing. We entered the school yard together. Everyone stopped
I’ll be killed, I said.
Go on.
I won’t.
So she walked me to the door of the classroom and told the head brother I’d been missing because my father was sick.
*
Maisie would suddenly appear in my room at dawn.
Get up for school you, she’d say.
Una and myself ate in the dining room alone. Miriam was in the shop. Una watched me from Town Hall Street to make sure I’d gone through the gate. The brother I feared was waiting for me in singing class. I turned to speak to someone behind me and he busted my eardrum and bloodied my nose. Maisie was outraged. I walked round the Brothers’ like a zombie. They kicked football in the yard and I sat in the Jack’s reading the Beano and the Classic comics.
I kept hearing things that weren’t there. This sudden screech would shoot through my skull. Sometimes there were thunderings. Other times a sort of drone. Then a sort of bewildering silence as if you were there in the world alone. The echo of the blow persisted for weeks. The brother knew he’d done wrong and tried to be nice to me. When he’d arrive to take his place behind me at choir practice in the cathedral he’d flash a confused adult smile. His lower lip would tremble. Father A. B. McGrath pushed a bright-stockinged foot down on the pedal of the organ. We sang down into the empty church.
The silence descended. The deafness from the blow came back. We were all singing but I heard nothing. Then as if someone had pressed a button back the voices returned.
*
After school I went up to the handball alley and played there with Eamon Smith and Dag Carroll and the bus-drivers and Irish soldiers and house painters till night fell. Una would come up to collect me and Mr Smith would say, Let him have just one more game. Just one more, Una. In the dusk we could hardly see the ball. Your hand toughened. The palm was like leather. You learned how to skim the walls. How to let the ball swerve off your cupped hand so that it made no sound.
On Saturday mornings I was in the alley on the Barrack Hill by ten, came down for my dinner at one, was back by two and stayed till eight, maybe nine.
Instead of dreaming of Finea before I slept I began to dream of games of handball. In dreams I made perfect serves that stayed flush to the left-hand wall, or ran round the corner of the back wall and fell dead. I took butts with a neat underhand that left the soldiers astonished. I picked shots out of the air and killed them. I knocked balls on the hop dead. Then one morning I woke and came across the landing and met my father on the three steps.
Blessed God, he said and he took me in his arms. I thought I’d never see you again.
He dabbed his lips with a handkerchief. My mother in a canary-yellow outfit stood by a case in the hall. Her eyes were running. She took off an ostrich hat that Lady Ashton Smith, a cousin of the queen, had bought her.
Were you good? she asked me.
I was, I said.
Una stood silently by.
Was he?
Yes, lied Una.
My mother put on her working clothes and went into the kitchen. My father and I walked up to the garden and sat under the ivy on a seat he’d made.
I was sick, he said.
He put an arm over my shoulder. His face was thin and blue.
I’ll soon be playing for Cavan town in handball, I said.
Good man, he said.
*
That night Maisie told what had happened to me at school. She said something should be done about it.
Go up, she said to my father, and complain.
He was reluctant.
It might do more harm than good, he said.
If you don’t go, said Maisie, I will. Surgeon Maloney saw his ear, she persisted, and said it was a terrible thing to do to a child.
All right, he said.
The following morning my mother put his ten packet of Players on the breakfast table as usual, he smoked his first fag and broke into a terrible fit of coughing. Then he walked me to school. He smoked another fag on the incline and broke into another fit of coughing. We entered the school yard together. Everyone stopped
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