The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [110]
Scully stood awkwardly in the hall behind Finbar. “Eh, maybe I should go home.”
“You will do no such thing, young man! You’ll have something to eat and then Finbar’s father will take you home,” commanded Mrs. Sullivan, and steered Scully into the parlor and onto the other armchair.
“Sheila, do you need anything?”
The young woman met Mrs. Sullivan’s eyes for a moment and then shook her head: “I’m grand, thanks.”
“Finbar, get your friend something to drink. There’s some of that orange squash in the fridge.”
“His name is Francis, Ma. Francis Scully.”
Finbar went into the kitchen and opened the tall cup-board to get some glasses. From the parlor he heard Spud Murphy’s voice but could not make out the words. Then he heard his father laugh nervously: “I’m bloody glad! I wouldn’t let him go back to that kip of a school even if it hadn’t fallen down. Finbar, come in here! You have to meet your niece. She’s awake now. And bring a bottle of stout in from the shed for Mr. Murphy! And see if there are any biscuits in the tin for your friend Francis here.”
Finbar glanced at his reflection in the scullery window.
“Fin, I hid the biscuits behind the tea caddy,” called Declan’s voice from the parlor.
Finbar smiled at his reflection and felt a comforting sense of crowdedness seep through him as the tiny chuckling of the baby and the warm murmur of voices from the parlor wafted over him like the soft mizzle of a summer shower.
38
One lone crow sat in the dead tree that stood over the gatehouse of Drumgloom Industrial School. It seemed to be waiting and listening for something. Its tiny black eyes darted in the direction of the Victorian hulk of Drumgloom itself. The bird stretched its wings, cawed harshly at the dying light of the day, and opened its beak wide. All fall! All fall! it seemed to cry.
“Sooner or later we will find the culprit,” declaimed Brother Benedict MacAeongus, Principal of Drumgloom, as he strode toward the grand staircase of the erstwhile mental asylum. “Make no mistake about that. You know who you are. You can make it easier on yourself and own up now and take the chance to be a man about it, or we can punish you all until we find who it was. It is no skin off my nose. I can stay here all night if I have to!”
All along one side of the stairs and along the corridors knelt boys dressed only in their underpants. Their arms were outstretched parallel to the floor and in each hand they held ball bearings the size of large apples.
With his leather MacAeongus tapped one of the boys at the elbow: “Arms straight! This is your personal cross!”
He passed on up the stairs and along the corridor to the dormitories of the youngest boys, some of them little older than seven.
“Stop quivering, boy!”
Before MacAeongus had a chance to further berate the child, there was the sound he had been waiting for, the heavy clunk of a ball bearing dropped on the bare floorboards.
“Just what do you think you’re at, you disobedient little cur?” he shouted as he hurried in the direction of the offending noise.
In his haste he brushed against another boy’s out-stretched arm, causing the ball bearing to roll out of his upturned palm.
“You clumsy little bastard!” screeched MacAeongus, and hit the boy a stinging blow on the ear with his leather.
Near the head of the stairs MacAeongus saw a hand reaching into the middle of the corridor to lift its fallen ball bearing. He picked up his pace and arrived just in time to place his foot on the boy’s hand.
“Maher! The cripple from Werburgh Street who says he was sent here for no reason! I might have known! Well, boy, is that an admission of guilt for the hall window or did you just drop the ball?”
“I just dropped the ball, Brother. Me arm was—”
“I’ll tell you what your arm was, me bucko! Lazy, that’s what it was. Banjaxed legs and