The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [68]
“Ah, ye are useless. Ye remember nothing! If they came in the night and swapped yer parents for Protestant doppelgängers ye’d never even notice. Ye need to be on yer guard against them. They’ll sneak up on you and before you know it, you’ll be keeping all your old twine neatly bundled up and taking unnecessary pride in shining your shoes.
“What do we look for? What are the three key signs?”
The boys remained silent and did a passable show of appearing interested in the answer, though the main preoccupation was that there was only one more class after this until lunchtime.
“The yellah skin, the eyes too close together, and the quarter-past-nine feet. What are they?”
“The yellah skin, the eyes too close together, and the quarter-past-nine feet,” droned the boys in mimicking chorus. Finbar joined in leadenly, recognizing here some firmly held precepts of his mother’s.
“Good! Now what do we do when we see a Protestant?”
Again the boys remained impassive and silent.
“I’d have an easier time training chickens to ride bicycles! What we do when we see a Protestant coming is we cross the street and turn the back part of our scapulars to them. Are you all wearing your scapulars?”
“Yes, Brother,” they lied. No one but the most overmothered wore them. They scratched and got caught in your navel and the string would burn your neck if you had to walk fast or run. Finbar had thrown his into the back of his wardrobe after the first week of school. Anyway, no one believed that a medallion of the Blessed Virgin Mary hanging down your back and a leather pouch with a picture of Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly hanging down your front could really afford much protection against the type of things they most needed protection from, such as the gangs in Markiewicz Mansions and the Brothers themselves. People with sallow skin, close-set eyes, and splayed feet in clean shoes who kept old twine and did not venerate the Blessed Virgin were not really that much of a threat when it came down to it.
Just as Brother Mulligan was about to launch into how to tell a souper (one who came from a family that had betrayed their true faith and converted to Protestantism in order to get charity soup during the famine and thus doubly suspect) from a Protestant of older stock, there was a sharp knocking at the door.
“Good morning, Brother Mulligan. We have come to relieve you. This is Brother Moody,” clipped Mr. Pollock as he entered.
“Now, you boys,” said Mr. Pollock, abruptly turning his attention from Mulligan to the class, “this is Brother Moody. He has been seconded to us from Drumgloom Industrial School to replace Brother Kennedy who will be resting for the remainder of the school year, and I can tell you that Brother Moody will be standing for no nonsense.”
Mr. Pollock had no need to point that out to them. They had spotted it from the very first moment. Moody was young, far younger than any of the Brothers in the school. He couldn’t have been more than thirty and he had that look. Finbar had seen it before on the younger Brothers in Cork. It was that blue shave, that raw, overly close shaved look to the face that lasted all day and bespoke a vicious temper and an indefatigable capacity for punishment. They could not do a blackout on him. They could not tire him out by having him beat them. He came from Drumgloom, a name that sent a shudder through even Lynch.
“Well, Brother Moody, we’ll leave you to take over,” grinned Mr. Pollock evilly, and ushered the puzzled Brother Mulligan out the door in front of him.
Brother Moody accompanied them to the door and bid them goodbye with a smile that died into absolute menace when he turned to face the boys.
* * *
“Don’t dare answer me back again, you little brat!”
Finbar sat down stunned. He’d barely managed to stand up before Brother Moody had smacked him across the face with the leather strap. All Finbar had said was that there was a glare and he couldn’t see the part