The Anatomy School

by Bernard Maclaverty

  His mother had invited the usual people that night. ‘The fine and flawless Mary Lawless,’ as she called herself, was there. Once Martin had substituted the word ‘fat’ for ‘fine’ and his mother had ate the head off him.

  ‘What an awful thing to say. Anyway she’s not fat. It’s hormonal.’

  Martin’s job was to bring in the supper his mother had left ready on two trays. Then he would be allowed a cup of tea and something to eat.

  ‘Wasn’t that an appalling tragedy today,’ said Nurse Gilliland.

  ‘I went past about a half an hour afterwards,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘I’m not right yet. I can’t get it out of my head.’

  ‘A double tragedy.’

  ‘Merciful hour!’

  ‘Was it the seventy-seven or an Antrim Road bus?’

  ‘The seventy-seven.’

  ‘Be a terrible shock for the poor driver as well.’

  ‘We just have to accept such things with a heavy heart,’ said Father Farquharson.

  ‘But He knows what He’s doing,’ said Mrs Brennan, ‘the Good Lord.’

  ‘He’s crossing your path and asking you how you like it.’

  ‘Some of His decisions may seem hard but …’

  ‘He knows what He’s about.’

  ‘It’s a terrible pity all the same. Two young lives.’

  ‘Were they Catholics?’

  ‘I believe not.’

  ‘All the same …’

  ‘We must all have the patience of Job,’ said Father Farquharson. ‘How much can you take before you turn your face away from Me? That’s what the Lord is asking.’

  ‘It’s always your face — isn’t that so true, Father? Never anything else. Your face.’

  ‘Where the soul is. In the eyes.’

  ‘The face is the soul of the body.’

  ‘Look in a person’s eyes hard enough and you’ll see the soul. I’m not far wrong, am I, Father?’

  ‘Indeed you are not.’

  ‘You’d have to look pretty hard into the eyes of the young ones today, before you’d find any enthusiasm for religion,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘How many young ones would you see doing the Nine Fridays? What ever happened to sanctity?’

  ‘There’s more than that has disappeared, if you ask me. They take everything for granted nowadays. Clothes, food — money itself …’

  ‘Stop any girl on the street and ask her if she can darn and she’ll look at you as if you had two heads.’

  ‘Time was …’

  ‘Excuse me, constable. Ask her can she make soup from a bone.’

  ‘It just goes to show.’

  ‘That was a great boy came in here one day. A friend of Martin’s. Going to be a doctor. Knew all about soup mix.’

  ‘And if they lose a button off a wee jacket or something the whole thing goes in the bin.’ They all nodded.

  ‘When did you last see a young one wearing a “wee jacket”? I ask you.’

  ‘If you ask them what a thimble is they think it’s something you hunt for. They only know it as a parlour game.’

  ‘Catch yourself on, dear. They wouldn’t even know what a parlour game was.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. It’s disco, disco and more disco.’

  ‘Houl yer wheesht.’

  ‘Now that you mention it,’ said Father Farquharson, ‘even parlour sounds very old fashioned.’

  ‘I really hate the way the world is changing. All the old values. The old ways.’

  ‘They have no conception of what it is to leave a clean plate.’

  ‘I’ve seen young ones leave what would’ve done me a week,’ said Mary Lawless.

  ‘Aye, with the knife and fork crossed over it.’ Mrs Brennan shot meaningful glances at Martin when she said certain things. ‘Not side by side to show they were finished — oh no, table manners are too good for this generation. How’s a hostess supposed to know when anyone’s finished, eh? A young one could starve waiting for the next course because he didn’t know how to put his knife and fork down properly. If you talked about a place setting to young ones nowadays they’d just look at you.’

  ‘It just goes to show.’

  ‘And God preserve me from pen holders. They’re on the increase.’ Mrs Brennan’s face went sullen with a kind of passion. ‘Why can’t people hold a knife the way God meant you to hold it and not like a pen. It’s so cissy — especially when men do it.’

  ‘A woman looking cissy is all right, because she’s a woman.’

  ‘Aye it’s strange right enough,’ said Nurse Gilliland. ‘But it’s not how you eat that does the damage it’s how much you eat. You can have too much as well as too little.’

  ‘I can’t have big feeds at night,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘No offence meant, Mrs Brennan. But they put me off my sleep. You’re lying there, with your eyes wide open and your guts digesting away for all they’re worth. Everything’s slooshing about and you feel like you’d swallowed a swimming pool.’

  Nurse Gilliland took a small hanky from up her sleeve and wiped the tip of her nose.

  ‘Oh don’t tell me about it,’ she said. ‘The scalding water-brash coming up the back of your throat. You’d be far better off, getting up and being sick. Getting it over with.’

  ‘Christmas Day is the worst,’ said Martin’s mother. ‘Remember that Christmas, Martin? Instead of doing the dishes, me having to lie flat on my back on the floor for two solid hours — before I could even get a belch up. It was like a ball of hard air in me here —’ she knocked just below her throat with her knuckles. ‘I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘Good times, right enough,’ said Father Farquharson. ‘We should all be thankful for such full and plenty. Holy smoke, it wasn’t always that way. So how is our growing boy getting on, our final-year scholar?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Martin.

  ‘I hope you’re working hard?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Natura vacuum abhorret.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘Isn’t that marvellous,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘The two of you, sitting there, conversing away in Latin.’

  ‘He’s for the priesthood, Mrs Brennan,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘Nothing surer.’

  3. Lunch Time

  It had rained all morning. At lunch time the sun came out and Martin and Kavanagh went down to the shops. In the chippy the older woman called over her shoulder.

  ‘Isobel, somebody out here for you.’ The fat girl in the white overalls came out from the back and, seeing Kavanagh, blushed. But she came, scowling a bit at the older woman, to serve at the counter.

  When he got his order from her Kavanagh said, ‘Thanks Isobel.’ Outside he said, ‘Her social skills must be improving.’

  The boys ate a bag of chips each, sauntering along the road.

  ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the Irish News,’ said Martin. ‘But there’s been nothing in it yet. About the bones of Henry Joy.’

  ‘Blaise was taking the piss.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. If it had been real it would have been in the paper. Condor phones up the Irish News — they check it out. It’s bollicks and they don’t print. Condor has egg all over his face. He’ll get even, one of these days.’

  The streets were still wet but the sky was blue. When he had finished Kavanagh bundled up his papers and threw them in a waste bin.

  ‘Very responsible,’ said Martin. Kavanagh washed his hands in the wet of a privet hedge and tried to dry them on the back of Martin’s blazer. But Martin saw it coming and managed to run away. He made a ball of his own papers and drop-kicked it on to the waste ground.

  ‘Fuckin lovely,’ said Kavanagh. ‘That’s really lovely behaviour.’ He stood drying his hands on the back of his trousers.

  ‘What do we do now?’ said Martin.

  ‘We gather up your fuckin rubbish.’

  ‘It’s a waste ground. A place for waste — you won’t be able to find mine because there’s so much other friggin stuff.’

  ‘Come on, let’s
go back in — go up round the track?’

  They walked up the driveway and through the main corridor to the back of the school. They passed the Wee Field, a muddy football pitch covered in fine black ash which, when you fell on it, tore the knees to bloodied shreds. The goalposts were H shaped for Gaelic games. They once were white but now were covered in brown moons and half-moons where the ball had hit the woodwork. The pitch was so frequently used that the goal mouths had become dished. When it rained these depressions filled with water. The midfield was black mud peppered with stud marks. The school had both a Gaelic football fifteen and a hurling fifteen. The idea of a soccer team was frowned upon by the school authorities as being too British.

  At the top of the Wee Field were two handball alleys back to back, built of grey, rain-soaked concrete. Kavanagh called the game ‘poor man’s squash’. No racquets required. Very few people ever played it. The alleys were a leftover from another era. Anyone who did play it developed specially toughened hands — and a caning was less of a problem to them.

  ‘Would Brian be back yet?’

  ‘I dunno. It’s unlikely.’

  ‘Should we wait on him?’ Kavanagh shrugged.

  ‘Brian’s OK, but he can be a bit of a pain at times,’ he said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Dull. He’s just fucking dull. He’ll become a librarian who plays golf.’

  They walked beyond the handball alleys to the Big Field, a much better grass pitch surrounded by a cheapskate running track. On either side were two walkways screened by lines of trees. At the far end, on top of a grass slope, dominating everything, was the prison wall. Black stone, wet and soaring to some thirty or forty feet. There were watchtowers at each end of the wall with horizontal viewing slits. In the evening, lights came on in the jail and the prisoners could be heard shouting or rattling things against the bars. Somebody was sitting hunched on the grass slope beneath the wall. It was Blaise. He was easily recognisable in his tweed jacket and cream trousers. Where he was sitting was out of bounds. To get there you’d have to step over a low wire fence. Police with machine guns frequently patrolled this area beneath the wall. People said they could have a go at you and say afterwards that you were trying to help a prisoner escape.

  When they came near, Blaise said, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Blaise, you are not allowed in there and if you’re caught several things are liable to happen,’ said Kavanagh. ‘Firstly the cops will blow your fuckin head off. Then the Reverend Head will bite your balls off for giving them the excuse to blow your head off.’

  ‘I take it I’m not supposed to be here, then.’

  ‘I kid you not.’ Blaise leaned back on his elbow and smiled.

  ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘Sometimes you talk like an old lady,’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Martin. ‘What was that word you used the other day?’ Blaise shrugged. ‘You called Ned Kelly it. You said all Latin teachers were …’

  ‘Dumbfucks?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Martin turned to Kavanagh. ‘It’s a great word.’

  ‘Dumbfuck,’ said Kavanagh as if weighing it. He nodded his approval. ‘Nice one. But right now an armed dumbfuck is going to come out of that door and shoot us all if you do not move your arse.’ Blaise rose to his feet, smiling, and put out his hand. Kavanagh took the outstretched hand and steadied Blaise as he sidestepped back over the wire on to the cinder track. Blaise looked down at his feet and toed his shoe into the black ash.

  ‘Where exactly does the Sexual Athlete come?’

  ‘On the ground,’ said Kavanagh. They all laughed.

  ‘Allowed,’ said Blaise. ‘Now that is such a fucking awful word. You’re not allowed on that grass. You’re not allowed out of bounds. And it’s even worse outside a place like this — at home. You’re not allowed out to that time. Picking your nose in public is not allowed. It implies that some fucker is making up rules for us all, that we are all the undercow of somebody else. Inherent in “I don’t allow you” is the master—slave thing. So NEVER allow it to go unchallenged.’

  They began to walk strung out across the track. Blaise sounded like he was wound up.

  ‘I cannot believe that in this day and age censorship still exists,’ he said. ‘In Ireland people are not allowed to read certain things. The Bishops of Ireland read a book and put it on the Index. It’s OK for them — but for us? It’s a way of one set of people saying to another set of people, we’re better than you. And in the North we get it from both fucking sides. Church and State. Did you know that every play that goes on stage here has to be given the OK by the British Lord Chamberlain? And he can ban it, if he likes? Or cut lumps out of it wherever he thinks fit?’

  ‘I’ve never been to a play,’ Martin said.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Blaise. ‘In this provincial hole.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be provincial? It’s a province.’

  ‘A godforsaken backwater where they lock up the swings on a Sunday,’ said Blaise. ‘And what about this dump of a school? Is it like every other fucking Catholic establishment in the North of Ireland? Do you have a debating society?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘An orchestra? A choir? Does the school have a library?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jesus — a school with no library. A chess club?’

  ‘If you don’t like Gaelic football, that’s your lot.’

  ‘What a benighted hole. Is there a place where a fellow could have a smoke?’

  ‘That we can provide.’

  ‘The Reverend Head keeps his eye on this place,’ said Martin. ‘From his room. Through binoculars. He gazes upon us from afar, the bastard.’

  ‘Does that not put the Sexual Athlete off his stroke?’ said Blaise.

  ‘He’s a nocturnal animal, mostly. A creature of the night.’

  The Reverend Head was unusually pale. One of his nicknames was the Moon. When it began to get dark on winter evenings his face could be seen at his study window — almost luminous — looking down at what was going on. He knew every boy in the school by his first name.

  ‘And what does he do if he sees me breaking rules?’

  ‘He bloweth his whistle. Of the referee’s variety.’

  ‘Loudly — so that one is nearly deafened,’ said Kavanagh. ‘One then proceedeth to the Reverend Head’s room.’

  ‘To have one’s balls bitten off,’ said Martin.

  ‘If he is in a good mood he’ll let you off with a severe beating. I kid you not.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a smoke myself,’ said Martin. ‘The safest place is the daffs …’

  ‘The toilets,’ Kavanagh explained to Blaise.

  ‘Or behind the handball alleys where binoculars reacheth not,’ said Martin. They continued walking round the track heading in the opposite direction, but nobody made the decision to turn. ‘You remember you said, never allow the thing to go unchallenged.’ Blaise nodded. ‘Well if we did that — we’d be being the slaves. You’re telling us. And we’re obeying you.’

  ‘Have you been thinking of that all this time?’ said Blaise. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Repartee.’

  ‘What?’ Their shoes were making scuffing noises on the black ash.

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Steady on, chaps.’ Kavanagh put a hand on Martin’s shoulder, then his other hand on Blaise’s. ‘The rain’s gone off. The sky is blue.’ He gave a little bounce on his toes and heaved himself into the air, straightening his arms and putting all his weight on the other boys’ shoulders. Immediately Blaise and Martin knew what was required of them: to walk steadily and keep Kavanagh up there as long as possible. But they managed it only for a few tottering paces before he came down to earth again. ‘Not the best lift I’ve ever had. You need to get more co-ordinated.’ He patted them both on the back.

  ‘Fuck — listen to the finely tuned athlete,’ said Martin. ‘What sort of a name is Blaise?’

  ‘The same sort of a name as Martin.’
<
br />   ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘After a saint. He’s supposed to have saved a child from choking on a fishbone hence all the palaver about sore throats. And according to Jacobus de Voragine he is a defender of dumb animals and diseased creatures — a bit of a Saint Francis. And he’s the patron saint of woolcombers.’

  ‘That’ll teach me to ask questions,’ said Martin.

  ‘How come, Brennan, the other day in Physics, you had the experiment already written up?’

  ‘I’m repeating this year.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I failed last year.’ There was an edge to Martin’s voice. ‘I have to do them all again.’

  ‘Are you stupid?’

  ‘Fuck off. I just didn’t do any work.’

  ‘Sounds familiar.’

  ‘Why are you doing O grade Latin?’

  ‘They recommended it,’ said Blaise, ‘to keep my career options open. Dentistry, Medicine, the Law. Roman soldier. Also I’m good at it.’ He didn’t laugh or anything when he praised himself. ‘These fucking examinations — they’re ridiculous. They make us jump through hoops in order to become expert hoop jumpers. How long have we to go now?’

  ‘About seven weeks,’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘Jesus.’ Martin shivered.

  ‘Is there any way we can narrow the odds?’ said Blaise.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Work. Four or five hours every night. More at weekends.’

  ‘It doesn’t appeal.’

  ‘Past papers are a good way,’ said Kavanagh. ‘You can go over all the past papers, see the patterns, have a stab at what’s going to come up. Cousteau is supposed to be good at spotting questions.’

  ‘I just have to pass,’ said Martin. ‘Jesus, my mother had to pay for me this year. She had to borrow it. I said I’d pay her back but if I fail …’

  ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail,’ said Blaise.

  Martin’s fists were balled up and shoved into his pockets.

  ‘By the skin of my teeth would do,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck you. I have to get the best grades in all my subjects,’ said Kavanagh.

  ‘Is this a personality defect?’ asked Blaise.

  ‘Naw. I want to get into Medicine.’