The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [21]
In the high-ceilinged refectory the Brothers sat around the long pine table, each in his appointed arse-shined chair. The paltry light that struggled through the high stained-glass windows cast an unhealthy green pall over the room. “It’s a miracle, that’s what it is!” beamed Brother Tobin to wide indifference.
“It’s those yahoos we let in from the flats, I tell you. We should never have let the Department of Education foist them on us,” whispered Brother Kennedy.
“They wouldn’t dare!” hissed Brother Boland, appalled that anyone in the school would attempt such an outrage as sabotage.
“Well, the laboratory wall didn’t collapse by itself. And what about the slates off the roof on the first day back? Answer me that!” countered Brother Kennedy.
Brother Boland opened his mouth to speak but allowed nothing more than a glottal stop to emerge when he saw Widower Frawley enter the refectory with the soup trolley. It was not right to speak of brotherly affairs in front of civilians.
Widower Frawley pushed the trolley around the long narrow table and ladled soup into the bowls whether there was anyone sitting in front of them or not. It wasn’t for the likes of him to wonder whether particular Brothers were late or if they were not coming to lunch. If they didn’t turn up he would just put it back in the pot, skin and all, and Mrs. McCurtin could use it as the base for the next day’s soup.
When the squeaking of the trolley wheels and the clumsy scuffing of Widower Frawley’s slippers receded into the kitchen, Brother Boland resumed. “It’s not the boys. It’s something else. Something other,” he whispered darkly. He had no words for the tension he could sense in the walls, in the doorways. He could hear it in the creak of the stairs. He could almost smell it in the corridors. There was a tiredness, a sadness vibrating inside things. It was humming to him alone. He could not explain it to them. He shook his head in frustration, set his dentures on his side plate, and began slurping at his soup.
“Are you sure it isn’t a miracle? Imagine! BLESSED Saorseach O’Rahilly!” enthused Brother Tobin. He, like so many of the Brothers, yearned for a miracle to push O’Rahilly along the road to sainthood.
“Go away with you now, you and your miracles!” scoffed Brother Kennedy.
Brother Boland glanced nervously around the table. He noted with curiosity the empty places of Brothers Cox, Loughlin, and Mulligan. He did not know that they were otherwise engaged in trying to beat a vocation out of Brian Egan.
Brother Tobin gobbled down his stew, took a couple of mouthfuls of warm custard, and ran upstairs for a very hurried Grace After Meals.
“Calm down, child, can’t you?” hissed Brother Loughlin, his voice choked to creepy strangeness by the attempt to sound concerned.
Still sobbing and trembling and on the edge of hyper-ventilation, Egan sat on the chair in front of the Brother’s desk.
“You’ve had a fall, a bit of a fright,” said Brother Cox softly.
“You pushed me!” choked Egan. “You tried to feel me balls!”
“I don’t know what you think happened on the stairs, Mr. Egan, but I don’t think that is the type of talk you want going around the school about you now, is it?” asked Brother Loughlin.
Egan looked up at him through his red eyes.
“And I certainly don’t think you want to discuss this filthy talk with your mother and father, do you?”
“But … but …”
Sensing that he had Egan on the back foot, Brother Loughlin pressed home: “And you know what the other boys will say, don’t you? They’ll say you were asking for it. They’ll say you started it. They’ll say that it was wishful thinking on your part. They’ll say that it is you who are a little suspect. I think you would find things here very difficult if such rumors were to get out.”
Egan half heard Brother Loughlin’s words as if from the bottom of a dusty well shaft. Clearer to him were the images they conjured up: the sly comments in the toilets, the graffiti that would begin to appear in the bicycle sheds and the handball alleys and slowly creep through the whole school. The more