The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [3]
As they headed across Cork to the Dublin Road, Finbar peered out the window at all the familiar sights. Off to Dublin! he thought with scorn. A scorn that, ironically, his parents had spent most of his early years inculcating in him. Why the hell were they now taking him from the Real True Capital of the Country all the way to Dirty Dublin where they knew no one? He didn’t want to leave Cork. It was stupid, that’s what it was. It was just fecking stupid and thick. “That’s the why and there’ll be no more talk about it!” was not a reason.
2
Jesus wept! Get away from the window, will you?” shouted Mr. Laverty, the French teacher, as he banged on the frosted staff room window where the two gray shadows were sitting. Reluctantly the two shapes moved away. “Desperate, isn’t it?” he lamented to the crowded but mostly silent staff room. He went to his bag, took out his thermos, and poured himself a quick cup of coffee, then lit a cigarette and stared dejectedly through the dirty glass at the sliver of cloudy sky visible above the monastery. He wrinkled his nose, and his droopy mustache and small rheumy eyes momentarily moved closer together. September already. Where did the summer go? It seemed only a few days ago that they had finished up, looking forward to the long, easy summer.
Now, gazing out through the grubby window, hemmed in by the growing noise of the boys outside and surrounded by the heavy tired sounds of all the other teachers in the staff room, it all seemed so desperately far away and long ago, like something that had happened in someone else’s life.
“Another year in this kip,” he moaned.
“Ah, feck off with ye now, Laverty. The last thing we need is your complaining to add to it,” chided Spud Murphy, the History teacher. Spud flashed a big, crooked, nicotine-stained grin and puffed on the pipe that he hoped would finally help him give up cigarettes this year. His mischievous eyes wrinkled mockingly at Laverty through the cloud of smoke.
“Piss off, Murphy,” snapped Laverty, and winced at the smell of the pipe.
Slowly all in the staff room became aware that it was getting loud, very loud, outside in the yard. The white noise of the boys’ voices seemed to be pressing against the windows like some incredibly heavy fog. It was a weighty, mirthless sound filled with the hollow laughing and horseplay of boys trying to distract themselves from the long-dreaded day that had hung over the latter part of the summer like a toxic mist. It had finally come: the first day back at school.
“What time is it at all? My watch has stopped,” called Laverty.
“Ten to nine,” announced a bronchitic voice from the silence.
“Jaysus, but they’re eager, the little bastards,” replied Laverty, taking a deep, despairing drag of his cigarette.
“Eager, my arse,” huffed Mr. Devlin, the Biology teacher, from the doorway. “They’re just early cos they don’t remember how to be late from last year.” Mr. Devlin popped two more mints into his mouth and breathed on his hand to see if the dead beer smell was still there. He had only intended to have a couple of pints and get to bed early but then the night had spun a little out of control.
“Good morning, gentlemen! Nice of you to turn up on time for once, Mr. Devlin. We hope this is a new leaf,” clipped Mr. Pollock’s angular vice principal’s voice. He was right on Devlin’s heels. “Here are the class lists. To the hall with you now!” He dropped the sheaf of typed pages on the table, whisked around on the ball of his right foot with a mousey squeak of his brothel-creepers, and was gone.
“Poxy creep!” muttered Spud Murphy under his breath.
Mr. Barry, the Chemistry teacher, picked up the lists and started dealing them round the staff room like a stacked tarot deck that contained nothing but death cards.
In the monastery common room, Brother Kennedy pursed his thin cracked lips and ran his hand over his balding skull, smoothing the wisps of white