The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [50]
“Do you know what I’m going to ask you though, but?”
“What up with ye now?”
“Was that crack in the ceiling always there? It’s only that I didn’t notice it before earlier.”
“Fucked if I know. Just do them nooks and get it over with,” McDermott snapped, then left.
From the landing he watched the tired gray line of boys that snaked across the yard, their arms straining to keep the statues of O’Rahilly above their heads. The line wound into the monastery and up to the oratory door.
Mr. Pollock strode up the stairs three at a time flailing with his leather to keep the boys in single file. At the oratory door he stood and waited for the bustle to die down. Beaming with centennial pride, the Brothers filed past him into the oratory and took their places in the pews.
“Keep those statues over your heads!” barked Mr. Pollock, and then motioned the first boy on the line to move into the oratory.
The puzzled and exhausted first year stumbled into the room and was stopped by the pudgy hand of Brother Cox.
Brother Cox took the statue from the boy, kissed its feet, and passed it to Brother Boland, who did the same and then passed it to Brother Loughlin, who did the same and then passed it to Father Flynn, who blessed it and passed it to Dermot McDermott, who passed it immediately on to Ray McRae on the ladder, who put it in a nook.
“Now go back to your class and wait there until you are told to go home. The roll will be called so no monkey business,” called Mr. Pollock when each boy came out, dashing any hopes that Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly Day had finally come to an end.
“I’m going to smash mine and get expelled. At least that way I can go home now,” whispered Scully.
“Deadly idea,” agreed Lynch.
Neither of them moved, and when the line in front of them inched up the stairs they reluctantly inched after it.
17
Finbar felt under the doormat and found nothing. He lifted it completely and confirmed the total absence of key. Maybe his mother hadn’t gone into town, though she had sounded very certain that morning.
He lifted the knocker on the letter box and let it drop. He heard feet coming down the stairs and the door was pulled open.
“What the fuck? When did you come back?” he gasped.
“There ye are, ye little shite! Lovely uniform!” jeered Declan.
Finbar gaped at his brother’s beaming face.
Declan turned and walked down the hall, leaving Finbar standing on the doorstep, stunned. “Mam?” he called.
“She’s not here. She went into town,” answered Declan from the kitchen.
Finbar closed the hall door behind him, dropped his bag and blazer in the hall, and went into the scullery where his brother was just taking two slices of bread from under the grill. He looked at the empty breadboard on the table.
“Is that all the bread?” asked Finbar pointedly.
“Looks like it.”
“I’m starving! They didn’t let us have lunch today.”
Declan proceeded to use up the last of the butter on his toast and sat munching at the table while Finbar stared angrily at him.
“Aren’t ye going to ask me where I was?” asked Declan with his mouth full.
“Up yer hole for all I care,” snapped Finbar, and rummaged in the cupboard for the biscuit tin. There were two rubbery stale custard creams. He stuffed them into his mouth, more to make sure that Declan didn’t get them than any real desire to eat stale custard creams.
“There’s no milk,” remarked Declan carelessly.
“You finished that too?” yelled Finbar in exasperated disbelief. The stale biscuits were waking the hunger that he had managed to almost ignore through Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly Day.
“I was hungry, so shut up!”
“You’re in for it when they get home.” Finbar could think of nothing else to say or do and soon found himself outside the front door looking up and down the street for somewhere to go. With sudden decision he strode off toward the park beside the railway.
The moon was poking through the clouds high above the rooftops when Finbar returned home.
“Where the hell were you until now?” shouted Mr. Sullivan