The Anatomy School

by Bernard Maclaverty

  ‘It’s less I want to see,’ said Kavanagh. ‘Jesus, Blaise. Where’d you get this stuff?’ Blaise shrugged. Martin unbolted the door.

  ‘Where are you going, Martin?’ said Kavanagh. Martin handed Kavanagh what pictures they had looked at. Kavanagh put them back in the envelope.

  ‘After those I need another smoke.’ Martin couldn’t get out of the confined space until Kavanagh moved. Kavanagh looked down at the remaining couple of photos he hadn’t looked at. A girl squatting over a basin and she was looking straight at the camera and grinning. Whatever was coming out of her was in droplets.

  ‘Fuckin hell,’ he said and screwed them up and threw them into the toilet.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Blaise made to try and retrieve the pictures but thought better of it. There were brown streaks in the toilet bowl. His lips pursed in disgust as he bent over. Kavanagh reached out and pulled the chain. The toilet flushed with a roar.

  ‘That was my property,’ Blaise said.

  ‘You can have it,’ said Kavanagh. He handed the envelope with the pictures to Blaise. Martin swung the door inwards and Kavanagh pushed Blaise out into the crowd. They eased themselves out after him and struggled through the mob who were clamouring for a look. When Martin got back to the washbasins he lit his last cigarette.

  ‘I was saving this one for the afternoon.’ He crushed the packet and threw it away. Kavanagh shook his head.

  ‘You couldn’t even use that stuff for a wank.’

  Blaise put his shoulder down and bored his way out through the crowd, pursued by guys still shouting for a look.

  10. Days of Inquisition

  In the afternoon during a double period of Physics the door opened and Condor came in. He spoke in whispers to Cousteau, who looked suddenly solemn and turned to face the boys.

  ‘The Dean of Discipline would like a word.’

  ‘Has he rumbled us?’ said Kavanagh over his shoulder to Martin. Martin swallowed. The negatives in his inside pocket were burning into his ribs. The Dean stood in front of the class and eyed each boy briefly before saying anything. His head moved as he took in each row. He really did look like he had some terrible news for them. Like the Kennedy assassination. When he began to speak he addressed his words to the floor.

  ‘I have been teaching — oh for twenty years now — I’ve been around boys for that length of time — and longer, if you count my own boyhood. And I enjoy it. Thoroughly. I like boys. I have the utmost respect for them. They make me proud to be associated with them. But sometimes something happens to … make me doubt. And when I have doubts about something as basic as my admiration for young men it is a very serious matter indeed. Something is going on in this school — a Catholic grammar school — which is worrying me deeply. I am distressed — and when I get like that, alarm bells should sound. Because I know I will pursue a matter of such magnitude to the ends of the earth.’ Martin didn’t dare move. He wanted to say to Kavanagh that the game was up but Condor knew every trick in the book, the hand to hide the mouth. He could hear the slightest whisper. Martin was quaking but wanted somehow to communicate it to Kavanagh. It occurred to him to write something on the page in front of him for Kavanagh to see — something like he knows. But Condor would be down on top of him like a ton of bricks: what is it Brennan is choosing to write just at the moment when I most want his attention? It was crazy. And what exactly do I know? So Martin just sat and stared down at the desk top.

  ‘I will leave no stone unturned. No matter what kind of vermin scuttle out from under it. I want to see every senior boy in my room. One at a time. Alphabetical order. Brennan — you’re first.’ Shit the bed. Condor didn’t turn away from him, but kept staring at him. He swung the classroom door open and gestured with his arm to usher Martin out. Martin walked down the aisle between the desks and out into the corridor. There was no opportunity to get the negatives to Kavanagh.

  They walked the length of the corridor in silence. Condor was half a step behind him. His soutane swished as he strode along. Martin thought he could maybe drop back and stash the negatives behind a radiator. He touched them in his inside blazer pocket but at that moment Condor said,

  ‘Put an inch to your step, Brennan. We haven’t got all day.’ As they climbed the stairs Condor moved ahead of him. Could he drop the negatives over the banisters without him noticing? If he was seen doing it, then it was all over. What are those? Let’s have a closer look. He might as well jump over the banisters after them. Head first. Fall with a squish on to the terrazzo floor.

  Outside his door Condor reached into his pocket and produced his bunch of keys. His shoes made squeaking noises on the lino. He selected the key with the yellow cover and as he reached to unlock the door he leaned towards Martin and sniffed. Martin stepped back.

  ‘You’re a smoker, Brennan?’

  ‘No, Father.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. I can smell it a mile away. Didn’t I punish you in this very room for it.’

  ‘I’ve given up, Father.’ The only thing Martin was glad about was that he hadn’t any cigarette evidence on him. The priest opened the door with a clash and swish of his keys. He pocketed them and switched on the light.

  ‘You’re the photography man, I believe.’

  ‘In Hobbies, Father.’ Condor sat down in the office chair behind his desk. Martin stood facing him. He had to keep a tight grip on his bowels again. The bastard knew. He felt what was inside himself turn liquid. Condor swayed in the chair. With his weight it gave off little ticking and clinking noises, like a spring being compressed.

  ‘Inspection time,’ the priest said.

  Oh fuck — how did he find out? Somehow or other he knew. Had Blaise turned informer? Martin turned out his blazer pockets. A hanky, none too clean, a book of paper matches.

  ‘So you’ve given up?’

  ‘It’s just a book of matches.’

  ‘I’m not after smokers today. It’s more serious than that. What’s in the trousers?’ Martin put his hands into his trouser pockets. There was the chink of change. He pulled out some copper and silver coins and there — fucking hell — in the middle of his hand was the Yale key to the store. He set the handful of stuff on the desk. Condor scrutinised it briefly. The key looked like every other Yale key in the country. The priest then waved a finger at his pockets. Martin pulled out the linings. He knew where the toilet was but that would give everything away. Showing he was shit scared. Knowing where the crapper was, beyond the bedroom.

  ‘Fine,’ said Condor. Martin scraped together the key and his coins and repocketed them. ‘What about the inside pocket?’ Martin tapped it vaguely. He’d been grassed, right down to which pocket. ‘Anything in there?’ Martin shrugged, kept a tight hold of his muscles. Condor got to his feet as if he was actually going to search him.

  ‘Just some negatives — I developed them this morning, Father.’ He was trying to keep the shake out of his voice. At the same time sucking his sphincter in.

  ‘Negatives! Let’s have a look.’

  Martin drew the folded jotter pages from his inside pocket and set them on the desk. His knees were trembling but not so much that they could be seen. Condor leaned forward. He unfolded one page and saw the celluloid strips. He reached to pick up the top one.

  ‘By the edges, Father.’

  ‘I know.’ He sounded irritated. He lifted the strip, his fingers on each side of the sprocket holes and held it up to the light of the window. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Pages of a book.’

  ‘What book?’

  ‘A thing on Macbeth — by Caroline Spurgeon. An essay.’ Condor stared at him with a baleful look of disbelief. ‘It was a library book — which had to be left back.’ Condor sat down again. His chair made noises, at the redistribution of weight. He looked away from Martin’s face and picked up another strip — clear rectangles with black indecipherable squares. He doesn’t know. He fucking doesn’t know what he’s looking at. He hasn’t a clue. Condor shuffled among t
he negatives, opened the second folded page and saw negatives that were different. He leaned forward.

  ‘What are these?’

  ‘Just snaps. Messing, Father.’ Condor switched on his desk lamp and held the black strip close to the bulb. He stared at the dark faces.

  ‘Who of?’

  ‘Kavanagh. Foley.’

  ‘Are you friends with the new boy?’

  ‘A bit. Not really. He hasn’t been here very long.’

  ‘Who’s the third one?’ Condor was tilting his head this way and that trying to make out what he was seeing.

  ‘That’s me. I’m in some of them. The camera has a self-timer button.’

  ‘Don’t try to blind me with science.’ He lowered the negative and looked at Martin for what seemed ages.

  ‘It just means you can run round and get in the photo yourself.’ Condor continued to stare at him. ‘There’s a wee red light comes on.’ Condor replaced the negative in the folded paper with the others. When he’d examined all the strips he leaned back in the chair. The noise was like the crinkling of silver paper. He reached into the slit of his soutane which led to his pocket. He brought out a clear polythene bag. Inside it was another brown paper bag. There were dark patches of damp or grease on this inner bag. He took it out and set it on the blotter pad on his desk.

  ‘If you are a smoker — which I know you are — you will have been assuaging your craving in the toilet block at morning break — am I right or wrong?’

  ‘I went over at break time, Father. To see some of the boys. The smoke gets on your clothes.’

  ‘So who was smoking then?’ Martin shrugged,

  ‘Didn’t see, Father.’

  ‘Did you see anything else? Was there anything unusual going on?’

  Martin shrugged and shook his head. ‘Was there a rumpus?’

  ‘A what Father?’

  ‘A fight, a squabble?’

  ‘No, Father.’

  Condor pulled open a drawer in his desk. He raked through it, pens, pencils, paper clips until he found a pair of laboratory tweezers. With one hand he reached forward and opened the paper bag. Then with the tweezers he extracted a piece of crumpled toilet roll.

  ‘I was doing my rounds when I came across these. Did you ever see anything of them before?’ He folded back the layers of tissue paper with the tweezers. Inside the toilet roll were two creased and damp black and white photos. The fucking things mustn’t have flushed away. Martin tried to be nonchalant. He leaned forward from his waist.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Condor covered them up with the toilet paper before Martin could see any details. ‘You’ve never seen photos like these before?’

  ‘No, Father. I didn’t see … What are they of?’

  ‘Never mind.’ Condor looked hard at Martin. His eyes moved, all over the boy’s face, testing him for the truth. Martin tried not to flinch, tried not to blush. He found difficulty knowing where to put his eyes. He was so bad at this. He decided the best thing was the most dangerous thing and stared at the toilet paper on the desk as if he was curious about it. Condor bit his lip, then said, ‘If somebody had been flashing these things you would have noticed … wouldn’t you, Brennan?’

  ‘Yes, Father. No, I mean — maybe not.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Father. I don’t know what it’s about.’

  Condor leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. The tone of his voice changed. He was trying to sound, not like a teacher, but like he was Martin’s friend.

  ‘I’m not talking here about … a misdemeanour. I’m talking about something so serious that … I cannot find the words. I’m talking about … the immortal soul. No — I’m talking about more than that. I’m talking about the immortal souls of five hundred and sixty-two boys. Do you get my drift?’

  Martin nodded. But he was trying to look confused, to convince Condor he knew nothing about it.

  ‘It’s not a matter of being an informer. It’s a matter of souls for all eternity.’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Father.’ Using the tweezers the priest began to replace the photos in the brown paper bag again. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t want you to mention this to anybody. You hear me, Brennan?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘But if you get a whisper of anything, I want to know. There’s no reward — just the satisfaction of knowing you’ve done a good thing.’ Condor slid both hands into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. ‘I believe Father Farquharson is a regular visitor at your house?’ Martin nodded. ‘Your mother is a woman on her own — it would be awful for her to find out that you were involved in something like this.’

  ‘But I’m not.’ Condor stared at him for a very long time — so long that Martin began to count into himself: fuck the priest one, fuck the priest two, fuck the priest three …

  ‘Back to class now and send me the next man.’

  Martin looked out the corridor windows as he hurried back to class. A flock of seagulls stood in the centre circle of the Wee Field all facing the handball alleys. A few rose and circled the goalposts. Even through the glass of the window he could hear their mechanical screeching. He wondered how it was going to look when he went back into class. Coyle had been off for a week. If he said, ‘Foley, he wants to see you’, everybody would think he had squealed, everybody would be convinced he’d done the dirty on Blaise.

  When he opened the door all the heads which were down working came up. All eyes were on him. He could still hear the seagulls in the silence of the classroom. He went up to the teacher and said, ‘Whoever’s next.’ Cousteau consulted his register.

  ‘Coyle.’

  ‘Not here, sir.’

  ‘Foley,’ he said. Blaise got up from a bench at the far side of the class and left the room. Martin slid into his desk. Kavanagh half turned and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘After,’ Martin mouthed. There was only a couple of minutes of the period left. The bell went. Everyone headed outside into the corridor. Kavanagh could hardly wait.

  ‘So what did he want?’

  ‘The dirty photos.’

  Kavanagh whistled.

  ‘Not the exam papers?’

  ‘No but …’

  ‘What does he know?’

  ‘He fuckin had them. Right there. In his pocket. Wrapped in toilet paper — although where he got the fuckin toilet paper I’ve no idea. There’s never any toilet paper over there. They must have floated. Not flushed away.’

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Kavanagh shook his head.

  ‘But you’re not going to believe this. He searched me. Every pocket. And the bastard saw the negatives of the exam papers. But he didn’t fucking know what he was looking at.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Kavanagh was pretending to faint.

  ‘Holding them up to the light.’ Martin mimed the gesture.

  ‘And he didn’t twig?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Which of the dirty ones did he find?’

  ‘I couldn’t see. But I presume they were the ones you threw down the toilet — they were wet. He must have gone diving for them.’

  ‘Cousteau the Second,’ said Kavanagh and whistled. They both headed for the staircase Blaise would come down from Condor’s room.

  ‘Those photos were the pits. Christ, he’ll go spare.’

  ‘Totally ape-shit.’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Things’ll become savager by and by.’

  ‘Can you imagine him finding them, floating face up?’

  ‘Cunt up, more like.’ They both laughed. They became serious again.

  ‘Do you think Blaise will be OK?’ said Martin.

  ‘Yeah — but I’m not so sure about other people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘There were a lot of people around. Everybody saw.’

  ‘But who would tell?’

  ‘Sharkey and his crowd are none too keen on Blaise.’

  ‘But
they wouldn’t squeal.’

  Kavanagh shrugged.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ They sat on a window ledge at the foot of the staircase and waited. Martin stared down at his scuffed shoes. There was a creak on the stairs and they both looked up. Blaise was by himself. He came down, his hand trailing lightly on the banisters. Martin and Kavanagh waited.

  Blaise said, ‘The man’s a complete dumbfuck.’ He turned at the bottom of the stairs. All three headed along the corridor. ‘He threatened me with eternal damnation. Then when that seemed to have no effect he tried the police. Like the way you would threaten a child with a bogeyman. Thought I was behind it — because of my record.’

  ‘Well, he’s right, isn’t he?’

  Blaise ignored Martin.

  ‘I know for sure,’ said Blaise, ‘the last thing he would ever do would be to bring the RUC in here. Can you imagine him doing that? Inviting that crowd of Orange bastards in here to investigate? Giving them the run of the place? That’ll be the day.’

  ‘Did you have any of that dirty stuff on you? Did he search you?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Where did you put it?’

  ‘With the exam papers.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘At lunch time.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Kavanagh.

  ‘Nothing of importance.’

  ‘Did he ask anything about my negatives?’ said Martin.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So he knows nothing.’

  ‘How could he?’

  ‘They might have found the papers were missing.’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ said Blaise. ‘Two dumbfucks under the same roof …’

  ‘Be sure — you’ve got to put the envelopes back tonight.’

  ‘Yeah. He’s right,’ said Kavanagh. ‘We’d all sleep a lot easier in our beds.’

  ‘What else did he say?’ said Martin. Blaise shrugged.

  ‘Are you interested in what I said to him?’ They nodded.

  ‘I said I am innocent of this particular accusation but often, when it comes to the rotten apple in the barrel, I’m proud to be it.’

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘Fuckin liar.’