The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [5]
No one moved.
“To the hall!” shouted Brother Loughlin. He started down the steps in a wave of cruel blubber, smoothed his eyebrows—apart from his nasal hair the only visible hair on his whole person—and took his leather strap out of the special pocket of his cassock.
Slowly the gray, reluctant sludge of boys began to ooze out of the yard and across the big yard to the hall. Scully, Lynch, and McDonagh fell in with the flow when they saw Brother Loughlin swing his leather and start in on some third years who were leaning against the wall in a manner unbecoming of boys who should be on their way to the hall.
“Jaysus! Bollocks Pollock for form master. What is that for?”
“He’s a complete bastard.”
“It’s cos of the fire in the basement.”
“Can’t prove anything.”
“No. But …”
Scully, Lynch, and McDonagh thus examined their fate as they walked back from the hall. It had been good fun for a bit, pretending not to be able to hear their names called out, answering for other people, calling out that others weren’t coming back this year because they had been taken away by zombie spaceships, but there was no escaping it: they were going to have Pollock as their form master for the rest of the year, which at that moment felt pretty much like the rest of their lives.
“Yeah, and what is Smalley Mullen doing in our class?”
“Don’t know. Maybe we’re the new A class.”
The three of them burst out laughing.
“In ainm an Athair agus an Mhic agus an Spiorad Naomh, Amen.” Mr. Ignatius Pollock, the first lay vice principal in the history of the school, finished blessing himself in the tongue of the Gaels, and the prayer, probably a Hail Mary from what the boys could gather, was done. Mr. Pollock reflexively and pointlessly smoothed his wispy ginger hair over his bald spot, pursed his thin lips, and proceeded to call the roll.
“… McDonagh?”
“Here. I mean, anseo.”
“Mullen?”
“Here, ehm, present, ehm, anseo.”
“O’Connor?”
“Anseo.”
“Rutledge?”
“Here, eh, anseo.”
“Scully?”
“Anseo.”
“Sullivan?”
Who was Sullivan? The only Sullivan anyone knew was Kieran Sullivan and he was in sixth year. There had been no Sullivan in third year with them last year. Mr. Pollock looked up from the roll book.
“Finbar Sullivan? Fionnbarr Ó Súilleabháin?”
Still no answer.
“We go to the trouble of making last-minute arrangements to fit him in and he does not even deign to turn up on the first day,” Pollock complained to no one in particular. From the top pocket of his time-shined suit jacket, he removed a red pen and tut-tutted to himself in disapproval as he marked Finbar Sullivan absent.
He carefully examined the boys before him. Suddenly he spun around and furiously wrote the days of the week across the blackboard: Dé Lúain, Dé Máirt, Dé Céadaoin, Déardaoin, Dé hAoine. Down the side he wrote the times in fifty-minute intervals from nine through half past three.
He turned around and looked inquiringly at the boys, his eyebrows raised.
McDonagh raised his hand. “Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!” he implored breathlessly, as if there were stiff competition to volunteer an answer.
“An tUasal, Mhic Donnacha!” announced Mr. Pollock, and gestured to the boy.
“Irish words, sir,” answered McDonagh with a false enthusiasm you could have bottled. That was McDonagh’s thing. It was a subtle and relatively safe form of disruptiveness, that and being able to faint at will. He was a reasonably good farter too but not one of the best, not up there with Lynch who could play simple tunes out of his arse.
“Ní thuigim,” announced Mr. Pollock.
McDonagh looked crestfallen. He stood up slowly, walked sadly to the door, opened it, went outside, and softly closed it behind him. Mr. Pollock stood rooted to the spot. He was momentarily at a loss. He roused himself, went to the door, and opened it. McDonagh turned and looked at him, his face a caricature of contrition. Mr. Pollock motioned him