The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [91]
“So, how’s the work coming along?” shouted Loughlin up at McDermott’s legs and arse at the top of the ladder. The rest of him was out of sight inside the hole in the oratory ceiling.
“Fine,” answered McDermott’s muffled voice. Some of the joists were quite rotten but he was certainly not mentioning that.
Before Loughlin could make any more comments he was silenced by a dull thump and resultant explosion of dust that blew out from the hole in the ceiling. McDermott almost fell off the ladder and clambered down spluttering and coughing and covered in sooty black filth.
“Holy Mother of …”
This time the rumble was louder and longer and the oratory was completely filled with soot and dust that billowed out from the hole in the ceiling.
“Merciful hour, what on earth is going on now?” cried Loughlin fearfully as he felt the floor shudder and jerk under his feet.
“Go on in there and ask your father if he would have a match for a weary traveler,” the stranger had said. Brother Comiskey had gone inside to get his father. When his father saw Michael Collins at the gate he had erupted with laughter. Brother Comiskey remembered how Michael Collins had patted him on the head and gave him a penny still warm from his pocket. He could still hear the two men’s voices talking low into the small hours of the morning.
Brother Comiskey was so lost in himself that he failed to notice the bare bulb over his head start to swing in a tiny arc unnatural to light fixtures on dry land. His wizened hands picked and pulled nervously at his white hair.
Brother Talbot closed his eyes and mused on his calling to the Brotherhood. “Be good, son, and make us proud. This is all for the best. You’ll get a proper education this way. The Holy Ghost will help you.” Talbot could see his mother standing at the gate of their small farm, his eight younger brothers and sisters clustered in the doorway of the small cottage. His father must have been somewhere inside. Byrne, the carter, had cleared his throat impatiently and spat onto the ground. He’d muttered darkly about missing the train to Thurles. Brother Talbot had stood up on the cart and waved to his mother until she and the gate and the farm disappeared out of sight behind the brow of Mish Hill. He was thirteen. He did not see his mother again until she was laid out for her wake.
“Ah, Christ! Where did I leave those damned glasses? I can’t find me slippers without them!” Brother McGovern patted the blanket on his cot searching for the glasses that sat atop his bald head. Without their aid he stood no chance of apprehending the unusual bulging of the ceiling above his door.
Moira Brady was the only girl Brother Garvey had ever loved. When she ran away with that British Army officer he never recovered. He still remembered the day he’d made the driver stop that bus in Longford and had run down the street thinking he’d seen her. He had been nearly forty then and was still not sure what had possessed him to join the Brothers.
He sat on his straight-backed chair and sighed heavily. A tear ran from his one good eye and trickled down his unshaven cheek. He was completely unaware that the only thing holding up the ceiling was the closed door in the overburdened load-bearing wall between his cell and the corridor.
“Our Lady of Indefinite Duration, pray for us sinners who have recourse unto thee,” mumbled Brother O’Toole softly as he lit another candle at the tiny makeshift altar beside his bed. Unable to kneel, he braced himself in veneration on his walking sticks and stooped nearer the floor than usual. A pious man, being confined to his cell with only Father Flynn’s communion visits for spiritual sustenance had left him hungering for more. He had therefore fashioned himself a little straw statue of Our Lady of Indefinite Duration and surrounded it with homemade earwax candles. His whispered prayers were just loud enough to obscure the ominous creaking of joists above his head.
That little pup Sheridan. Oh yes, he had seen through Sheridan all right. Spotted him as a wrong one from the start. And wasn’t he