The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [29]
Brother Loughlin watched approvingly as Brother Boland scurried toward the shed, the brassy blur of the bell in his right hand now complemented by the black blur of the leather in his left. From the shed the boys scattered toward their classes, so Brother Loughlin turned his attention back to the main door. There McDermott stood with his ladder leaning up against the wall, waiting for the stream of gray-clad boys to disappear up the stairs and out of his way.
“Put out that cigarette and get to work! This is not some seedy bookie’s shop!” barked Brother Loughlin.
McDermott took one last drag on his cigarette and opened his ladder under the clock with deliberate, exasperating slowness.
“Well?” Brother Loughlin asked the back of McDermott’s ankles once he had ascended the ladder.
“I haven’t even opened the stupid thing yet. Hold yer horses.”
“Come on! Come on, can’t you?”
“Don’t rush me. I shouldn’t even be doing this. This is a job for a—”
There was a loud pop, a fizzle, and McDermott was flung backward in a cloud of cordite-scented smoke, knocking Brother Loughlin to the ground under him.
“Get off me!” Brother Loughlin was none too pleased to have broken McDermott’s fall.
“I’m not touching that thing again. It’s live so it is. You get yourself a proper electrician. There’s something very wrong with that clock. It’s not my job!” McDermott folded up his ladder and rushed off with uncharacteristic speed.
Brother Loughlin stood up and watched him go. “You’ll be ringing the handbell for classes,” he then said to the unmistakable sweaty smell of Brother Boland that had sidled up behind him.
“Very well,” said Boland, and hurried off delightedly.
Brother Loughlin rubbed his hip where he had fallen and ruefully regarded the big clock now hanging by a few wires like some forlorn sea creature. “Bloody electricians! License to print money, that’s all it is! Have the country ruined, so they do!”
Finbar bolted off the bus at the lights and sprinted down the West Circular Road, his schoolbag banging and rattling on his back. After his father’s cross-examination to be sure he knew nothing about Declan’s running away, he was really late. He glanced at his watch: a quarter past nine. Feck! Feck! Feck!
He dashed across the empty yard and up the stairs. His heart pounding, he slowed his pace to try to catch his breath. He could feel his wool vest sticking to his shoulders and the backs of his knees were sweating into the worsted wool trousers.
He paused at the top of the stairs and took one deep breath, then moved in front of the door to see Mr. Pollock writing furiously on the blackboard. After a moment’s hesitation he knocked on the glass pane.
“Tar isteach!” called the teacher without looking across.
Finbar opened the door and walked into the classroom.
Mr. Pollock continued to fill the blackboard and paid no attention to him. Finbar shifted his weight from foot to foot and stared at the teacher’s desk. The leather was already out, sitting curled up on the roll book. Obviously there had been some disciplining done already.
Mr. Pollock finished writing with a wide flourish, tossed the remainder of the chalk into the bin in the corner, and whipped around on his heel to face Finbar. “An tUasal Ó Súilleabháin. Cén t-am é?”
Finbar glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was twenty past nine. “Fiche noiméad tar éis a naoi,” he replied.
“Agus?”
The boy swallowed hard and launched into a reasonably fluent Gaelic explanation of the morning’s events.
Mr. Pollock nodded and waved him to his desk. Finbar sat down relieved. The teacher seemed satisfied both with the explanation and the quality of the Gaelic. Finbar was not sure now which was worse, being leathered or being forced to carry on a conversation in Irish in front of the whole class.
He took out his books and glanced up at the board. “What’s this?” he whispered to Smalley Mullen beside him.
Mullen made no sign that he had been addressed and continued to repeatedly write his name on the lid of the inkwell and then wipe