Boy Number 26

by Tommy Rhattigan

  It turned out we’d been reported by a woman for begging at her door. I felt sure it must have been the old bag with the huge red and blue veined hooter. When she’d opened her front door, she’d taken one look at us before slamming it back in our faces, almost catching her conk in it. And that was the response we’d had from all those people who’d opened their doors to us: a quick once-over and the door in our faces.

  It was difficult to understand how people, well fed and comfortable in their warm houses, could look into the eyes of hungry children and suddenly go blind. But that is what seemed to have happened. For them, it had been all too easy to not see us.

  Back at St Vincent’s, we were not asked to explain our reasons behind running away, nor were we asked if we were hungry or feeling ill. Instead, we were told we were ungrateful, untrustworthy, despicable children with not an ounce of achievement or a brain cell between the four of us. That last part of the comment seemed to cheer up Donkey and he hee-hawed a laugh, which earned him a clout around the face. We knew we were not going to escape without punishment. But I was shocked by the viciousness of the beating dished out to us, because it was Mr Alston on the other end of the cane.

  Of all the staff at St Vincent’s, Mr Alston was the only one I’d had the slightest respect for. Unlike the others, he had never beaten me before this. I had always thought him to be much more tolerant and understanding towards us than all the others put together. But I was wrong. My respect for him vanished the instant he struck the first blow across my bare backside. While the other three cried, I just stood there glaring defiantly up at him and I was sure he could see the hatred in my eyes.

  We were marched down to the communal shower area and made to strip off while Mr Alston and Mr Sweet stood watching us under the cold shower. To feel so small, isolated and insignificant wasn’t anything new to me. I was used to it, if the other three weren’t. It was painful, of course it was. I felt bitter and sad to be treated in such a way, but I was helpless. There was nothing I could do but accept it as the norm.

  After we had showered and dressed in our clean change of clothing, the three of us joined the others as if nothing had happened.

  The Season to be Jolly

  Only two months to go until another Christmas was upon us. There was the usual buzz of excitement in the air, with most of the boys looking forward to going home for their two-week break. Except for me. I wasn’t excited about going home because I wasn’t going home. But I was excited about the prospect of having the whole place to myself again. The only downside was that it was over all too quickly. It didn’t bother me in the least being alone. And though it was a little bit spooky during the night times, once my head was under the covers I was usually okay. I wasn’t that afraid of ghosts, I’d never been hurt by them and I only hid my head because I didn’t want to see any ugly ones that would probably frighten me to death.

  The first Christmas I’d spent on my own wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. On Christmas morning, Sister Ignatius handed me a large orange and an apple, telling me I should be thankful for small mercies, which I was. I hadn’t been expecting anything at all, let alone something from that mean-spirited witch.

  To be honest, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she had ordered me out on the streets to beg for the poor Sisters of Mercy, with the life of poverty they’d have us believe they lived. This would, at least, have filled up the rather boring days for me. However, I’m not sure I would have given her any of my takings – if I’d actually received anything from that town’s tight-fisted community.

  That had been the only direct contact I’d had with Sister Ignatius and the rest of the nuns during that whole Christmas period, which for me was an extra bonus. Perhaps they’d been too busy, purging themselves and praying for absolution from the sins they’d committed throughout the past year, before a new year began.

  Miss Peggy and her friend, who she’d introduced to me as Eileen, were the only two people I’d had any official contact with during that first Christmas. There were people around the place, such as the cleaners, gardeners, and handyman, who had always acknowledged me with the odd hello. But other than that, Miss Peggy was on hand to give me my clean changes of clothing and torture me with her cooking. I’d pretend to her the food was lovely, because I didn’t want to upset her.

  Even though Sister Ignatius hadn’t been visible, I’d had this strange feeling the auld dragon was keeping a beady eye on me, peering around every corner with her piercing gobstopper eyes. My suspicions were justified when I’d caught sight of her ghostly image out of the corner of my eye, her nose pressed right up against one of the stairwell windows as she stared out at me. I pretended not to notice her as I climbed up onto the large tractor tyre, making it roll a few yards before losing my balance and having to jump off it.

  This was a pastime that would keep most of us amused, with us taking it in turns to hop up on the tyre and see how far we could make it roll by walking it along, before falling off it. It was hard to keep your balance and stay on the tyre as it rolled along, but it was great once you had the knack of it. There were only a few boys, besides me, who were able to walk the tyre the full length of the playground, which was some achievement.

  Climbing back up onto the tyre, I made it roll for about 10 yards before losing my balance again. And I bet the witch had put a curse on me, willing me to fall off, so I gazed across and up at the window, letting her know I knew she was there. She’d done likewise, staring back at me, and for a moment we stood with our eyes fixed upon each other, before I blinked, and she suddenly vanished from view. With little else to do throughout the days, I continued practising for hours on end, until eventually the tyre became my legs. And by the time the other lot got back from seeing their mammies and daddies, I’d been able to walk around on the tyre for hours without once losing my balance, which had really annoyed everyone waiting for their turn.

  This year, we were putting on a Christmas show for the local community. Mr Lilly was doing a magic act, whilst Mr Keenan had got together a group of the best singers in the school to do a Black and White Minstrels show. He was also doing the props for it. In fact, Mr Keenan was writing, producing and choreographing the whole thing. I’d asked him if I could lend a hand, but he said he didn’t need anybody’s help, least of all mine. “It seems everything you do is doomed to failure,” he explained.

  “We’ll soon see about that,” was my first thought, as I started to plan out ways to get even with the creep.

  I hated his smug face, which always reminded me of a miserable-looking bulldog, only with long, bushy eyebrows, which he would often preen and twist with his fingertips, bringing them to a point. He knew nothing about me. And whatever he thought he knew was down to what the snitchers in St Vincent’s had told him.

  “Can I do a solo?”

  “So low we can’t hear you!” He laughed at his own feeble joke. “No one is doing a solo,” he snapped. “I might consider letting you and Walters do a duet. But,” (there was always a but) “I don’t want the pair of you attempting to out-sing each other, otherwise I’ll send both of you off the stage. And if you don’t like it, I can always get someone else to do it.”

  “Can we sing ‘The Carnival Is Over’ by The Seekers? It’s my favourite song. Please,” I pleaded.

  “Absolutely not,” he snapped. “I’m picking all of the songs and you’ll know soon enough what they will be.”

  I have no favourite season, but I’d always thought that Christmas was the most miraculous time of the year. It has always amazed me how, when Christmas comes around, the atmosphere takes on a different meaning, with everyone wishing goodwill to everyone else when they don’t mean it. And then there are the year-round, tight-arsed miserable buggers who suddenly become happy. It’s as if, at a certain time in the calendar, an automatic switch inside their brains suddenly flicks on and they suddenly realise ’tis the season to be jolly.

&
nbsp; Unsurprisingly, we didn’t get much in the way of presents at St Vincent’s. Not that I ever expected anything from Santa Claus. What kind of a saint was he supposed to be? He couldn’t even be bothered to fly over our house in Stamford Street, unless it was only to stick his two fingers up at us and yell down, “You’re getting nothing, yah little bastards!” And if the previous year’s gifts at St Vincent’s were anything to go by, I wasn’t going to get too excited about this year’s offerings.

  It’s the thought that counts, so we were told, when we moaned about the crappy presents Santa had brought us. This only proved to us that no thought had gone into them. It wasn’t as if we could even swap the rubbish. We all got the same things: an orange, a pen and a diary. A diary! What the feck did I want with a diary? I was 12 years old. I had no dates to remember, no appointments to keep, no friend’s names and addresses or telephone numbers to write in it. I decided if I got another one this Christmas, which was more than likely, I’d leave it lying around, like I did with last year’s, for someone else to pick up if they felt the need for an extra diary.

  I was about to discover that this Christmas was going to be different from previous ones at St Vincent’s. It was the dreaded maths class and I was trying to learn my times tables, which were written up on the blackboard. I hated maths. In fact, I hated most subjects, barring English and music. I found maths boring and a complete waste of time. Adding numbers, dividing numbers, multiplying numbers, then taking them away – and for what? To know we were getting the right change back from the shopkeeper? Well, I wouldn’t be buying anything from a shopkeeper, so maths wasn’t much use to me.

  Mr Lilly walked into the classroom. All 16 of us immediately jumped to our feet and stood ramrod to attention, just as we had been drilled, with our arms straight and our hands tucked tightly into our sides, with thumbs pointing downwards, like a squadron of boy soldiers. What a terrible prospect – the idea of us fighting a war…

  Mr Lilly threw the briefest of glances in our direction. I was sure I’d caught his eye, before he turned his back on us and had a brief conversation with Mr Marron, who kept glancing over in my direction. This caused me to wonder what I might I have done to deserve his attention. When Lilly left the classroom, we all breathed a heavy sigh of relief and I went back to my sums.

  “Rhattigan!”

  “Sir?”

  “Headmaster’s office.”

  “I haven’t done anything, sir.”

  “That’s nothing new,” Marron retorted, prompting a few sniggers from the other morons. “Pronto!”

  It was odd seeing 15 pairs of bespectacled eyes gawking accusingly at me. Odder still was the fact that every boy in St Vincent’s wore a pair of the round, wire-framed glasses the optician recommended. The lenses of my glasses were no stronger than the window panes I looked through every day. And it was impossible to reflect a death-ray of light through them, so that I could burn ants or flies to death. The lads wearing thick bifocals could incinerate all sorts of things in seconds.

  What a sight they were to behold. Big eyes, little eyes, squinty eyes, frog eyes, cross-eyes! I wondered why the headmaster wanted to see me. I was feeling guilty already.

  Could It Be Magic?

  Making my way up along the corridor in the direction of the headmaster’s office, I came across Brian Walters and Paddy O’Neil sitting outside the dentist’s room. They didn’t seem very happy, and no wonder. We all had previous experiences of our visiting dentist, affectionately known as “The Butcher”. There wasn’t a lad in St Vincent’s place who didn’t have a mouthful of lead fillings.

  As I went to pass the pair of them, Walters stuck out a leg in a feeble attempt to trip me up.

  “Missed, gobshite.” I hopped over his outstretched leg.

  “Your mum’s the biggest whore in Ireland,” he informed me.

  “Who told yah? Yer dad?” I laughed in his face and he jumped to his feet, just as Mr Alston walked into view. I walked off, with the threat of “later” ringing in my ears.

  “Where are you off to?” asked Mr Alston.

  “Headmaster’s office, sir.”

  “What is it this time?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “That’s unusual.”

  There yah feckin’ go. I was guilty if I did something wrong and I was guilty if I did nothing wrong. There was no point in even thinking about defending myself, because it would only make me look guiltier.

  “You’re still very welcome to come and write letters to your brother, you know,” he smiled.

  “I don’t want to write to him any more,” I lied, dropping my gaze and hoping he would get the picture and realise I didn’t want to talk to him.

  “Well, you’d best be off before you get yourself into more trouble,” he sighed.

  I knocked on Mr Lilly’s office door. There was no answer. I knocked again, only louder. But there was still no answer. I was sure the fat German-speaking slob was deliberately keeping me waiting, just for the fun of it. I had a sudden urge to pick up the nearby fire extinguisher and smash it against the office door. That would make him answer.

  “Yes.” Lilly’s voice called out, just in time to save his office door. For the devil of it, I knocked on the door once more. “Yes!” said the voice, more insistently this time. So, I knocked again.

  A couple of seconds later, the door swung violently inwards. “Are you deaf, boy?” snapped the red-faced headmaster, as he glared at me.

  “I didn’t hear, sir.”

  “Get in. And close the door behind you,” he snapped again, moving back inside his office and plonking his fat backside down into his red leather chair, which squeaked under his weight.

  Closing the office door, I made my way over to his desk and stood to attention. He said nothing. It was as if I was completely invisible to him. I watched as he picked up a tea biscuit from the small plate and chomped away at it, getting a few tiny crumbs stuck on his Hitler-style moustache. He then picked up his cup and glugged the remaining coffee in it down his saggy neck.

  “I’ve some good news for you, Rhattigan,” he said, his dark eyes beaming. “You won’t be staying here over the Christmas period.” The shock was sudden and I could feel all the butterflies in the pit of my stomach fly off at once.

  I said nothing and just stared back at him, as he silently studied me. I think he wanted me to beg the question, why? But I wasn’t going to do that. Why couldn’t he just come out with what he had to say, instead of building it up in dribs and drabs, for me to try and second guess him? If I wasn’t staying in this dump, then what dump will I be staying in? I wasn’t going to ask, and so I waited for him to let his secret out.

  “You are going home to your parents for Christmas.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You are.”

  “No, I’m not. I don’t want to.”

  “You don’t have any choice in the matter.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the powers that be believe it’s time to integrate you back where you belong, if that is at all possible,” he said, looking down his nose at me. “I’m sure your parents will have their work cut out.”

  “I don’t have parents.”

  “Well, according to the Social Services reports, you do.”

  Social Services? Who the feck were these faceless people who made all the decisions on my life without ever bothering to ask me how I felt about it? Who were they, these invisible people, who had decided I needed their care and protection and yet had never been to see me, or give me this so-called care and protection?

  Yes. They were there alright to give us their shitty, hand-me-down clothing and the odd tatty old piece of furniture. They were there, banging on our front door, wanting to know why we hadn’t been to school. They were there, tearing my family and our lives apart, on the premise of them knowing what was best for us, the chi
ldren. But where had they been for me since I had been incarcerated inside the walls of this Catholic school, where I was ignored, beaten, abused and used by the very people charged to care and protect me?

  “I hate the Social Services, I hate the Catholic Church, I hate the Nugent Care Society and I hate my parents. And I don’t want to go home to them.” Unusually, Mr Lilly didn’t even bat an eyelid at my outburst.

  “That may be the case. But you’ve no choice in the matter.”

  “I can kill myself.”

  “That would certainly settle matters.” His smug, smiling eyes laughed at me from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. “I see your brother Martin is happy about the arrangements.”

  “Is he going, too?”

  “As far as I am aware.”

  Why didn’t he just say all this in the one go and save me arguing the toss with him? If Martin was going, that changed everything.

  “I take it you’ve decided to live a little longer then? Right, we’re done here. If you are still breathing on 20th December, you are off to your family in Chatham for the holidays.”

  “Is that in Manchester?”

  “It’s in Kent, better known as the Garden of England. Oh, I almost forgot. I’m looking for a magician’s assistant for this year’s Christmas show.”

  “How do yah mean, sir?”

  “I hear you are interested in magic?”

  “I love magic.”

  “That’s settled, then?”

  “Will I be able to do a magic trick?”

  “Well, perhaps I might consider showing you one or two easy ones you could do. But I don’t want you showing every Tom, Dick and Harry how they are done. Magic is a secret and has to remain a secret.”

  “I’m good at keeping secrets, sir.”

  “Well, now you are here.” He suddenly pulled a packet of Players cigarettes from his jacket pocket and took one of them out. Then, moving the coffee cup and plate to one side, he wiped the sleeve of his jacket across the desk, making sure the surface was clean, before laying the fag down on the desk top. “Watch the cigarette carefully,” he said. And I stared down at the fag as he twiddled his fingers just above it, as if summoning up his magical powers, while adding some garbled utterings that could have been German for all I knew. Putting his index finger an inch in front of the cigarette, he moved it across the table towards me, and the fag followed his finger.