Sucking Sherbert Lemons

by Michael Carson

  “Edmund Rudge!” repeated the Headmaster in his quietest, thinnest tones that boded least good. “Where did you go after you left school yesterday?”

  “Home, sir.”

  “Eventually you went home. Where did you go on your way home, Edmund Rudge?”

  Silence.

  “I’m waiting, Edmund Rudge. The whole school is waiting. Where did you go on your way home?”

  “Nowhere, sir!” Eddie’s voice wobbled.

  “ ‘Nowhere, sir!’ Well let me tell you, Edmund Rudge, that you did go somewhere on your way home. You went to St Michael’s Church. Is that not true?”

  “Yes,” replied Eddie in a whisper.

  “I did not hear you, Edmund Rudge!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “And what did you do in St Michael’s Church?”

  “I said the Rosary, sir.”

  The school, including some of the younger members of staff, laughed at the unlikelihood of this. Not one boy, even on the wildest shores of his fantasies, could envisage Eddie Rudge on his knees saying the Rosary at St Michael’s on a late February evening.

  “Nothing else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, that is strange indeed. Who else was in St Michael’s

  Church with you, Edmund Rudge?”

  “Nobody, sir. The church was empty, sir.”

  “Ah, there you are wrong, Edmund Rudge. You may have thought the church was empty but in fact it was not empty. The curate, Father Richardson, was in the church at the time.”

  Every eye in the Hall was on Eddie Rudge. Benson could see that Eddie’s whole body was shaking. What could he have done?

  “Father Richardson saw you in St Michael’s. Would you like to tell the school what you did at St Michael’s, apart from saying the Rosary?”

  Eddie Rudge was silent.

  “I will tell everyone, so. There is at the back of the church a noticeboard. On the noticeboard there is an advertisement for the Annual Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. At the bottom of this notice there is a space for parishioners who are interested in going on the holy pilgrimage to write their names or, indeed, the names of their crippled loved ones, who would like to avail themselves of the pilgrimage. Now, would you care to tell us what you did?”

  Eddie Rudge hung his head and was silent.

  The Headmaster paused and then reached into his pocket, producing a piece of paper which he unfolded and held out in front of the school. Another silence, and then he spoke in a loud voice:

  “This is the advertisement for the Annual Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes on which the devout parishioners of St Michael’s were to have written their names. Indeed several have already done so. However, below the names of these good people, a poison pen has been at work. YOUR poison pen, Edmund Rudge! Am I right or am I not right?”

  Eddie Rudge seemed to stumble as he replied in a whisper, “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m afraid I did not hear you, Edmund Rudge! Please repeat so that everyone can hear you!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Ah, I am right. Now let us see what your poison pen has written on the sheet. M. Mouse, D. Duck, Brother Hooper, Alma Cogan, Wobbles Benson... “

  The whole Hall except for Benson, Brother Hooper and Eddie Rudge, exploded in long gales of laughter, “Silence!” commanded Brother Hooper. Then, when the laughter had died away, he continued, “I suppose you contacted these persons prior to inserting their names on the list?”

  “No, sir.”

  “ ‘No, sir.’ You certainly did not consult me prior to inserting my name on the list. Did you by any chance intend to present the pilgrimage to me as a belated Christmas gift?”

  Brother Hooper paused. Slowly but surely laughter spread around the Hall at his joke, as laughter spread when a dotty and unpredictable Roman emperor cracked a joke and senators who wanted to keep their heads thought it best to crack their cheeks.

  Benson did not laugh, however. He was deeply resentful at Brother Hooper for including his nasty nickname in the list. Had he been Brother Hooper he would have just said ‘Benson’, but Benson had long since despaired of anything approaching sensitivity from Brother Hooper. He had received a couple of digs in the back after the reading of the list and felt mortified. He could not help hoping that Eddie would get a severe beating from Brother Hooper.

  “Come here, Edmund Rudge!”

  Slowly Eddie walked to the front of the Hall and then up the steps on to the stage. He stumbled while climbing the steps and the school laughed. A look from the Headmaster at once returned the Hall to silence.

  Brother Hooper reached into his deep pocket and produced from it a leather strap about two feet long. The strap was black and so thick that it was almost rigid. It was of Irish manufacture and was elaborately stitched along its length. The grip was narrower than the rest of it, two bites having been taken out so that the hand fitted snugly.

  This was the king of straps and Benson had never seen it close to. But he had heard about it from those who had: how the boy to be punished was ushered into the Headmaster’s office; how the Headmaster went over to a chest of drawers below a huge crucifix and removed the strap; how it caused a totally different sensation of pain to all the other straps in use at St Bede’s, a feeling that hands had swollen to twice their original size and that within the swollen mass, the bar of an electric fire had been inserted and switched on.

  “Hold out your right hand, Edmund Rudge! And do not move it!”

  Eddie did so. The Headmaster held the strap out in front of him, measuring the distance between himself and Eddie’s outstretched hand, and nudged the hand to the left. Eddie, smaller by far than the Headmaster, looked at his hand as if it were something that did not belong to him. Then he gazed up at the strap as it was raised into the air, waggled grotesquely at the zenith of the movement, and descended with a sickening smack upon his fingers, palm and wrist. He yelped and hid the hand under his arm, doing a little hopping dance upon the spot. But Brother Hooper gestured with the waggling black strap and Eddie put out his hand again. Again the Headmaster judged the inflamed hand into position and raised the strap above his head. The strap descended but Eddie withdrew his shaking arm slightly and the blow caught only his fingers and set Brother Hooper off balance and he had to step forward a pace. This angered him and he seized Eddie’s hand and hit it again and again. Eddie’s hand became the only still part of him, as a chicken’s neck at killing time is its only point of stillness. The rest of Eddie squirmed and jerked. He cried out and appealed for clemency but Brother Hooper took no notice of him.

  Benson and many of the other boys looked at their hands.

  “Other hand!”

  “Please, sir!”

  “Other hand!”

  Eddie retreated three paces from Brother Hooper and said something to him which Benson could not hear.

  “Other hand!” shouted Brother Hooper.

  Eddie held out his other hand, but only then did he shuffle back towards the Headmaster. This time he held still as the strap descended four times. Then he stood in front of him looking very small and cold. He buried both hands in his armpits and shook.

  Brother Hooper put the strap back into his deep pocket. “You will go to the presbytery of St Michael’s this afternoon and you will apologise to Father Richardson. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now go and sit down!”

  Eddie came back down the Hall, moving hunched through the silence, and sat down next to Benson.

  “Are you all right, Eddie?” whispered Benson.

  “The fucking fucker!” said Eddie Rudge.

  Benson asked Jesus to forgive Eddie and give him a chance to change his ways before it was too late. He wanted to tell him not to fill his heart full of hate, but to forgive as he hoped to be forgiven. However, the time was not propit
ious, as the Headmaster had resumed his place behind the lectern.

  “And now I want to tell you boys about an altogether more pleasant matter. You may have heard that Brother Kay, the Brothers’ Vocations Director, is visiting the school today to talk to those boys who are of an age when the Lord may call you to follow Him. A Brother’s life is not an easy one to follow, but the Church is crying out for labourers to work in His vineyard, and your country is just as much a missionary area as Africa. When I was a boy about the same age as some of you, I beard the Call. I thought then that I would love to serve the Lord by going out to Africa and teaching the heathen. But, as you see, I was not called upon to venture so far. I pray that some of you will feel the Call to serve God as a Brother and help to bring up good Catholic youth by becoming a teacher. Listen to Brother Kay with an open heart, boys. Listen to the voice inside you, and, if you hear God talking to you, it may well be that He wants you to be a Brother. Now let us pray that nobody who hears the Call will ignore it.”

  And Brother Hooper prayed, “O Lord, You who said: ‘The man who loves father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,’ grant that from among the group of Your servants here assembled there may be some who will hear Your Call, so that, through their labour in Thy vineyard, they will produce a harvest of souls who will fill the Great Barn of heaven with Thy praise for ever and ever...”

  “Amen,” responded the school.

  “The fucking fucker!” repeated Eddie Rudge.

  “Dismiss!”

  The school dismissed row by row. Nobody spoke, for the Headmaster continued to stare down at them. It was not until Benson and his classmates were safely round the corner and into the long corridor that a chattering began, at first tenuous but growing in intensity the farther from the Hall they went.

  Just before the end of the corridor the growing hubbub quite suddenly dropped to nothing. The cause of this change was the presence of a small podgy Brother in a black suit who was standing next to Brother McNulty outside 3 Alpha. An overstuffed brown briefcase lay at his feet. He wore thick, rimless spectacles which Benson had always associated with piety. He had often wished he could fail his yearly eyesight examination in order to possess a pair – but he never managed to get enough letters wrong.

  This would be Brother Kay. He was chatting with Brother McNulty but was not looking at him. Instead he gazed at the passing line of boys, smiling and nodding to them as they passed.

  Benson said, “Good morning, Brothers!” as he passed, and was rewarded with his very own smile and nod from Brother Kay. It cheered Benson, warmed him up, after the cold half-hour in the Hall.

  At last he turned the corner and entered 3B’s classroom, where all the boys except Mellon, Drury and Vincent Latos were gathered around Eddie Rudge, who stood by the door, his hands around the hot pipe of a radiator. This was believed to lessen the pain in strapped hands. Benson could hear Eddie uttering further colourful expletives to describe the behaviour of Brother Hooper, but he took no notice of him and went straight to his place at the back of the class. There he shook hands with Vincent, said hello to the two boys in front. Then he sat down, opened his desk and studied the timetable that he had attached to the inside of the lid with drawing pins.

  Period 1: PT. Well that isn’t a problem; it’s started to rain. That meant the class would have library reading. Period 2: English. I’m ready for that. Then he stared at the next two squares: Double Maths. Double Maths!

  He felt glum when he contemplated the one-and-a-half hours of unintelligible shapes and opaque problems with which Brother Wood filled the time. He imagined the young, unsmiling Brother, dark, almost Spanish-looking, with a jaw like Dan Dare and an Irish accent that Benson’s ear could often not cut, going round the class to check homework, lashing out whenever he was displeased. But it would not happen. The Vocations Brother would save the day!

  Benson’s thoughts were confirmed by Drury, who turned round and said, “He’ll go to Alpha first, then A, then us. That’s how it was last year. It looks like he’ll definitely be here for Maths – what we’ve got to do is keep him here with lots of good questions.”

  “Yes,” agreed Benson, “that’s what we have to do.” One of his special talents was the ability to ask lots of questions. “But you’d better tell the rest of the class to have lots of questions prepared.”

  Drury and Mellon spread the instruction.

  Then Vincent Latos tapped Benson on the shoulder and said, “Where your lunch? Is in bag on floor. No good. Grime will go inside.”

  Benson thanked Vincent. He took his lunch out of his satchel and placed it in the corner of his desk. Then he worried the piles of books into shape, arranged his pencils in order from longest to shortest, and, receiving a smile of approval from Vincent, closed his desk.

  A few minutes later, ‘Such’ Atherton, came into the classroom dressed in his navy-blue tracksuit and grey plimsolls.

  “Get out your library books,” Such told the class.

  Benson got out his Robinson Crusoe and looked at Such’s cauliflower ears. They definitely added to his appearance, Benson thought. If he had cauliflower ears the rough boys from Sir William Grout’s would think twice before they barged him and threw his cap into the trees.

  Mr Atherton had got his nickname long before Benson had arrived at St Bede’s. How he had acquired it was a much-told tale and known to one and all. Apparently, on his first day at the school, young Mr Atherton, fresh out of Training College, had gone into his first class and said, “My name is Mr Atherton and I wish to be known as such.”

  Such played rugby for the county side and had seven children. His wife was called Elizabeth, and Benson’s mum knew Elizabeth’s mum. However, Benson did not feel that Such liked him very much, despite the fact that his mum knew Elizabeth’s mum. Such had often teased Benson about his weight – not the best way of winning the boy’s affection – and had forced Benson down into the scrum far farther than Benson felt he could comfortably go. He had even run on Benson’s heels during cross-country runs, not letting him stop even though he had developed a severe stitch.

  So whenever it rained Benson was glad and relieved. Library reading was infinitely preferable to the pain and humiliation that PT involved.

  As he fiddled to find his place in Robinson Crusoe, Benson idly wondered if he should get out his Maths homework and try to have a go at it – just in case. But, as if intuiting what was going on in Benson’s mind, Such said, “Library reading means library reading,” without looking up from his copy of Teach Yourself Plumbing.

  Benson felt relief at being thus thwarted. He started reading.

  Natives had landed on the island. They had prisoners with them whom they clubbed to death and started cooking. A bolt of peculiar pleasure went through Benson. He fought it. He stopped reading. He could see the scene as clearly as if it were happening in the rain just outside the classroom window. He was none too happy about the natives being killed prior to being eaten. Why did they not have notices pinned to them? But, he reasoned, they probably could not read or write.

  His mind wandered. He wished himself alone with his new story.

  “Jesus, help me! Mary, refuge of sinners, protect me!” pleaded Benson. The devils were returning. Temptation had sneaked up on him and he was yielding. The happiness of a mere two hours ago was ebbing out of him. Devils, like molten Pompeii lava, were spreading over the expiring husk of his virtue.

  He decided to present a moving target to the tempters. Raising his hand he asked permission to change his library book.

  “Finished it, have we?” Such asked.

  “Er ... well... “ replied Benson.

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s about this man who is shipwrecked on an island and meets Man Friday and they live together on the island for ages.”

  “What happens in the end?”

  “Er ...”


  “You didn’t finish it, did you, son?”

  “No, it’s – er – too difficult. I can’t understand a lot of it. And it’s boring, sir!”

  Such sighed. “I used to love Robinson Crusoe when I was your age, Benson. Go on, change it if you have to!”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  And Benson went over to the library cupboard. He knew most of the titles there. Closing his eyes he picked out one at random, but it was a Biggles book and Benson could not abide Biggles. He chose again and found himself holding Short Lives of the Saints. This, he decided, was preordained and he returned to his seat with it.

  He had read the first two pages of the tragically brief life of St Philomena when the bell rang.

  “Get ready for your next class,” said Such over his shoulder as he made for the door.

  But instead of Brother O’Toole, in walked the Vocations Brother, accompanied by Brother McNulty.

  “Good morning, boys!” said the Vocations Brother.

  “Good morning, sir!” replied the class.

  Benson for one was stunned by the premature sight of the Vocations Brother, a full period earlier than expected. It threw everything out. There’d be double Maths for sure now and everything that entailed. Devoutly he wished that he had done his homework like a good boy. He could already see Brother Wood shouting and slapping his way towards him, banging boys’ heads together and knocking on skulls with his hairy knuckles.

  Brother McNulty left the class. Brother Kay, the Vocations Brother, opened up his briefcase and took out of it a thick wad of small cards. These he carried with him to the empty seat next to O’Gorman. He sat on the desk, his feet on the seat, and smiled at the class in general, and then at O’Gorman. O’Gorman, unused to smiles from persons in authority, gazed back at Brother Kay blankly.

  Reverently, Brother Kay handed the wad of cards to O’Gorman and asked him to give one each to every boy in the class.