The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [16]
Brother Kennedy contemplated the group. He walked right up to Finbar, his eyes gleaming malevolently. “Go to Brother Loughlin and ask him for the extra leather,” he hissed, and frog-marched Finbar to the door. “And no delaying or I’ll have your guts for garters.”
Finbar stood outside Mrs. Broderick’s office and tapped lightly on the door frame.
“What is it you want?” Mrs. Broderick lifted her head and brought the full force of her cold, empty stare to bear on him.
“Ehm, Brother Kennedy sent me to, ehm, get a leather, the extra leather.”
“Brother Loughlin is in the monastery.” She pointed across the yard with her twiglike fingers and offered no further explanation.
“But, but—”
“No buts, young man. You were sent to Brother Loughlin and to Brother Loughlin you will go. I’m sure he’ll have some words of advice for you.”
Finbar walked heavily across the yard and past the downstairs lab. He edged in the door, and just beyond the corridor that led to the back lab he saw the big double door to the monastery. He pushed it open carefully and was assaulted immediately by the smell. The predominant odor was one of floor wax, but within it were tinges of old cabbage, sweat, and whatever toxic thing Mrs. McCurtin, the housekeeper, used to polish the brasses. Finbar breathed as shallowly as his mounting unease would let him. His shoes squeaked on the polished floor. The silence around him seemed to be weighing the moment, gauging when the best time would be to pounce and devour him.
Finbar glanced down the dim corridor toward the end, where there seemed to be some kind of atrium presided over by an altar to Our Lady of Indefinite Duration, a sort of theological by-product of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and much beloved of the Brotherhood. He had no idea where he was going but the atrium seemed to promise more light than any of the other options and certainly the stairs to his left did not seem at all inviting.
He tiptoed down the corridor to minimize the squeaking of his shoes. He froze when he heard the soft sounds behind him. It sounded like a small bird trapped in a cardboard box. He pressed himself against the wall; his mind blanked. The weird fluttering stopped. The subsequent silence was if anything more eerie. Almost on the edge of hearing, Finbar noticed a light rustling sound. He slid back along the corridor toward the bottom of the stairs. Through the banisters he saw a shape on the stairs hugging the wall.
Finbar watched aghast as Brother Boland whispered and cooed to the wall while he ran his hands lovingly over the mortar between the large granite stones. He inched back from the stairs as quietly as he could.
“You, boy! What are you doing there?”
Finbar spun round to see Loughlin striding down the corridor toward him. Behind him he heard Brother Boland flutter back up the stairs on his feet of ashes.
“Brother Kennedy sent me for the extra leather.”
Loughlin slowed his pace to a menacing stalk and it was then that Finbar saw Father Fury coming out of what was presumably the refectory and fidgeting down the corridor toward Brother Loughlin. Father Fury moved in short, angular motions with more energy than seemed necessary. He had the wiry build of a lightweight boxer and his thin lips pursed at regular intervals, the only animation in his narrow, suspicious face. He looked like a bad-tempered, constipated ferret.
“Ah, Father Fury. You finished your tea. Good. Just in time. I have here before me one of our specimens who seems to be hell-bent on ending up in a reformatory. Brother Kennedy sent him for the extra leather.”
Father Fury nodded solemnly at this news: “I saw many of his ilk when I was chaplain here, Brother Loughlin.”
“You did indeed, but you stood for no nonsense. And how are the boys at Saint Bodhrán’s?”
“No better, no worse. Deaf or blind or both.”
“I’m sure that keeps them out of trouble.”
“You’d think it would. They find their own ways of devilment.”
Brother Loughlin nodded understandingly and