Creatures of the Earth by John McGahern Page B

farm? he asks, and more to silence my own memory than the low chatter of the children I force, ‘Come on now, get on with your reading,’ but after they grow silent, to covertly read my real mood, the chatter grows loud again.
    â€˜You have listened to all that I’ve said?’ I’d been asked once too.
    â€˜Yes, Brother,’ I’d answered.
    â€˜Do you think you could spend your life as a Christian Brother?’
    â€˜I’m not sure, Brother.’
    â€˜Do you think your parents would have any objection?’
    â€˜I don’t know, Brother.’
    â€˜What do you say we go and have a little talk with them after I’ve seen the rest of the boys?’
    It was finished then, my mother’s face had lighted when he drove me home. ‘It’d be an honour to have a Christian Brother in the family.’ ‘He’ll get a free education too, the best there is’; and that August I was in the train with the single ticket, fear ofthe unknown rooms and people. My brother inherited the bare acres in my place, and married, and with the same strength as she had driven me away he put her in a back room with the old furniture of her marriage while his new wife reigned amid the new furniture of the best rooms. Now each summer I take her to her usual small hotel at the sea, and I walk by her side on the sand saying, ‘Yes and yes and yes’ to her complaints about my brother and his wife, until she tires herself into relief and changes, ‘Do you think should I go to the baths after lunch?’ ‘Go to the baths, it’ll do your arthritis good.’
    â€˜I think I’ll go, then.’
    I want to ask her why she wanted the acres for my brother, why she pushed me away, but I don’t ask. I walk by her side on the sand and echo her life with ‘Yes and yes and yes,’ for it is all a wheel.
    A light tap comes on the classroom window, a gesture of spread hands that he is finished, and I take the children in. Two of the boys have been set apart, with their school-bags.
    â€˜I’m driving John and Jim to their houses. We’ll talk over everything with their parents.’
    â€˜I hope it’ll be all right.’
    â€˜We’ll see that everything is made clear. Thank you for your help.’
    After the shaking of hands I turn to the board but I do not want to teach.
    â€˜Open your English books and copy page forty-one in your best handwriting.’
    I stand at the window while the nibs scrape. Certainly nothing I’ve ever done resembles so closely the shape of my life as my leaving of the Holy Brothers. Having neither the resolution to stay on nor the courage to leave, the year before Final Vows I took to bed and refused to get up.
    â€˜The doctor says you’re in perfect health. That there’s nothing the matter with you,’ old Cogger, the boss, had tried to reason. ‘So why can’t you get up when we are even shortstaffed in the school?’
    â€˜I can’t get up.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with you that you can’t get up?’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜If you don’t get up I have no option but to report you to General Headquarters.’
    I did not get up, he had no option, and the result was an order for my dismissal, but as quietly as possible so as not to scandalize my brothers in JC or the good people of the town. Old Cogger showed me the letter. I was to get a suit of clothes, underwear, railway ticket and one pound. It revived me immediately. I told him the underwear I had would do and he raised the one pound to five.
    The next hurdle was how to get my fit in clothes in a small town without causing scandal. Old Cogger dithered till the day before I had to leave, but at nightfall brought home two likely fits. I picked one, and packed it, and off we set by bus for Limerick, to all appearances two Christian Brothers going on some ordinary business, but old Cogger would come back alone. We