The Star Factory

by Ciaran Carson

  Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the White Ant

  BARRACK STREET II

  We were constantly interrogated, since much of our routine learning was by rote. Rote did not end with primary school alphabets and tables, for it entered into full plethora mode in grammar school. We learned lists of Latin, French and Irish words, together with their proper conjugations and declensions, their voices, tenses and moods; we sang names, dates, places, populations; we got poems, songs and recitations off by heart. We were expected to enumerate and name the angels’ hierarchies, and know the function of the sacred vessels and accessories:

  For the celebration of Holy Mass the priest needs two Sacred vessels – the Paten and the Chalice. The Paten is a small plate of gold or gilded silver, on which is placed the Host. The Chalice, also made of precious metal, contains the Wine. The Host is made of pure wheat flour and is baked between two irons. The Wine is unadulterated juice of the grape naturally fermented.

  In preparation for Mass the priest places on the cup of the Chalice a small Linen Cloth. It is used to wipe the Chalice before the Wine is put into it, and to wipe it again after Communion. This cloth is called the Purificator.

  Over the Purificator the priest places the Paten, on the top of which he puts the Pall – a small square of stiff linen which prevents dust or other impurities from falling into the Chalice during Mass.

  Completely covering the Chalice is the Chalice Veil. It is a square of silk, fashioned of the same material and having the same colour as the vestments the priest wears.

  On the Veil is placed the Burse in which is carried the Corporal. The Corporal is a linen cloth, approximately a foot square, that serves as a small tablecloth on which the Sacred Vessels rest during Mass.

  The Ciborium is a vessel made of precious metal. It is usually larger than the Chalice and is covered with a lid. In it are kept the Sacred hosts reserved for Communion.

  For exposition of the Blessed Sacrament the Monstrance is used. It is made of precious metal and is designed to hold the Blessed Sacrament in public view for the adoration and to be raised in blessing the Faithful. It contains the Lunette, a crescent-shaped device of gold or silver used for holding the Host in an upright position.1

  All subjects had a greater or lesser degree of this liturgical exactitude. There were correct answers to everything, and they were inculcated by the universal administration of pain. Some eccentrics wielded canes and yardsticks as their ruler of choice; most preferred straps, which were custom-built to each master’s specifications. Some liked a broad, flat implement, more full of sound than fury; veterans of a meaner temperament deployed thin, whippy, licorice-black sticks of leather, which left a scarlet weal on your palm or the veins of your wrist. Sometimes these expertly- stitched weapons contained a line of brass thrupenny bits – about three or four shillings’ worth, depending on length – to give them gravitas and sting. They made a sound like stet. The paradoxical Mr X maintained a fine strap of Wildean green, which came into play only when sarcasm had failed, and then but languidly. Brother Y rubbed dubbin into his to preserve its whiplash flexibility; Z treated his with Vaseline.

  Different techniques and subtle disciplines were brought to bear on us, from the erratic, head-high flail of the novice, to the short instructive snap of the wrist-expert. The dapper little Mr M was one of the latter, who had honed his skills to exquisite degrees by the exercise of golf and callisthenics. As a History teacher, whose lessons consisted mainly of questions, Mr M’s paradigm of education was a popular games show of the time, Double Your Money. Here, the contestants were required to answer initially simple questions: after getting the first right, they won, say, £5; if they got the second, £10, and so on, in a double-or-quits routine; as the questions got progressively more difficult, the contestant would hover between greed and prudence, egged both ways by a vociferous audience, as he provided them with vicarious thrills. Small fortunes were won and lost. Mr M fancied himself as an impresario of quiz, and his version of the show, Double Your Slaps, put a new twist on the concept of reward. In this rubric of negative morality, a wrong answer elicited a stroke of the black strap. The boy under the spotlight could then opt to take his leather frisson there and then – stet – or defer it, and go on to ‘double his slaps’, in the hope that, by correctly answering just one question, his accumulated debt (or earnings) would be absolved.

  A simple mathematical calculation shows that after seven consecutive wrongs, or failures to respond, a boy would be entitled to sixty-four slaps, which number reminds us of the parable of the chessboard, whereby the brilliant sculptor, or architect, is asked to name his fee, and specifies one grain of rice to be placed on one square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on, and the Emperor looks at him as if he wasn’t all there and says, are you sure, but the builder says, go on, I’ll be content with that; and by the time the whole board is covered, the bits of multiplied rice exceed the number of atoms in the known universe. And some contestants did rack up some astronomically impressive numbers; here, a catch occurred, for the time that M might spend in dealing out this vast sentence had to be reduced, pragmatically; otherwise, there would be no time for the show, and nothing would get taught. M’s solution to the problem had a simple, sporting beauty, in which his rules of barter operated to make a golf ball worth six slaps, or a generous dozen, when he was in good form; and he would knock a few digits off the sum of punishment to bring it down to a reasonable number of balls a boy could afford to buy. In a theatrical aside, he would suggest that Smithfield Market was an ideal venue for such purchases, where a clutch of second-hand balls could be had for a few pennies.

  A neutral observer might admire M’s method, encompassing, as it did, a wealth of disciplines: Behavioural Science, Law, Civics, Algebra, Black Market Economics, Physical Education, and Ostensible History; Reeling and Writhing might also be included in this Wonderland, or was it Through the Looking Glass? Perhaps it is not surprising that this holistic philosophy should extend beyond the confines of the classroom; but in retrospect, the manner of its proclamation seems distinctly odd.

  At 68 Divis Street – I have just confirmed it in the 1948 Directory – was Gribbin, Jas., Bootmaker, who maintained a sideline as Manufacturer of Straps for the Discerning Educator. Here, not being able to afford the elaborately stitched, custom-built items, we would purchase lengths of half-inch-thick bootsole leather, and fashion our own instruments of punishment, and consent to beat each other, in a mirror image of our betters. It was a version of conkers, in which the strap was one conker, and your opponent’s hand the other –

  Iddy iddy onker

  My first conker

  Iddy iddy ack

  My first smack

  – and the winner was the one who could take the most smacks. I have buried this experience so far in the back of my mind that I used to attribute it to false memory syndrome; but I have met other victims of that era, and they confirm it. Sometimes I get a glimpse of a freezing yard – the concrete arena like a bottle – crammed with boys slipping, falling over one another – or hunkered at a game of marbles – leap-frogging – chained to one another – then unravelling in knots along magnetic force-fields – playing hand-ball at gable walls – falling off low walls – the odd boy or two draped over iron railings, morosely sucking their spikes – then isolated pairs of strap-holders, pursuing their grave rituals of domination – the sound of one hand clapping in the throng.

  Meanwhile, boys bursting with testosterone lounged in the cramped open-air urinals, squeezing their pimples, puffing and inhaling furtive cigarette smoke, in a bonding mechanism generally ignored by the authorities. A peer, lately returned from France, would produce a blue talismanic pack of Gitanes; one was passed around like a drug, and we would gasp at its authoritative strength, as if choked in smog, or the musk of scented French girls. Then some son of a publican or bookmaker, exerting his high status, would up the ante with a beautiful hinged box of Rameses II, distributed by Stephano Bros
., Philadelphia PA., ‘manufactured from the mildest superfine quality selected YENIDGE TURKISH TOBACCO, and from the best rice paper; made in proper Egyptian style – EGYPTIAN CIGARETTES, TURKISH TOBACCO.’ I am smoking one right now, by way of an experiment in time, as it scorches my tongue and wafts its sudden fug of burning socks and horse-dung into the kitchen where I write. Now I’ve just stubbed it out – it’s still smouldering – I remember something that I haven’t thought about or visualized for years, my father’s Vatican souvenir glass ashtray, which was a miniature of the great piazza of St Peter’s and its huge basilica:

  VATICAN, The. The official residence of the pope at Rome, so named from being built on the lower slope of the Vatican Hill; figuratively, the name is used to signify the papal power and influence and, by extension, the whole Church. In addition to the papal apartments, those of the palatine prelates, officials, and staff, the apartments of state and the chapels (the Sistine, Pauline, papal private, of the Swiss Guards, etc.), the palace itself includes the chief library of the world, the archives of the Roman Church, five museums of antiquities, two picture-galleries, and a polyglot printing-press; an astronomical observatory is attached. The apartments of state, etc., have been described as the most stately and least luxurious of any mansion of the world; the rest of the palace is one vast workshop. Since 1929 the palace with its gardens and other immediate surroundings has been recognized as a sovereign state.2

  Vatican, surely, must have something to do with vates, as defined by the OED: ‘1. A poet or bard, esp. one who is divinely inspired; a prophet. 2. One of the classes of the old Gaulish druids. Hence Vatic, ical, adjs. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a prophet or seer; prophetic, inspired.’ Naturally that seer reminds us of the Holy See, which, though it derives from sedes, a seat, suggests a holy alliance of vision and authority; the Jesuits, I understand, still maintain a state-of-the-art or art-of-the-state observatory on the Vatican Hill, whereby they reconcile the sidereal universe, post-Galileo, to the primum mobile of divine intention. So the Vatican is a kind of Star Factory, whose telescope picks up the music of the spheres, broadcasting it urbi et orbi, with all its polyglotal organ stops pulled out.

  At this point in time, it seems to me that flicking ash on to the glass piazza, or grinding cigarette-butts into it, would reek of sacrilege; I see the confraternities and consororities of pilgrims crushed into it from all the diocesan angles of the globe, babbling panic-stricken in their multitude of tongues, as the glowing red giant nose of the UFO descends on them like a precursor of Apocalypse. Yet, it could be argued that the Vatican cendrier had a sacramental function, as ash reminds us of our own mortality, and Wednesdays of incense: it was a small, heavy, pocket icon, a memento mori. Smudged and spotted, it resembled X-ray images of cancered, nicotined lungs, or classroom posters of the soul, dotted with mortal-black and ash-grey-venial stubs of sin.

  I roll up and light an Old Holborn cigarette to bring me back to school in Barrack Street:

  A dillar, a dollar

  A ten o’clock scholar

  What makes you come so soon

  You used to come at ten o’clock

  And now you come at noon

  – and indeed, there is something paradoxical about school time and its division into periods of forty minutes, reminding us of the Forty Days of Lent; of the number of days of the Flood; of years of the Israelites’ wandering; of the days of the fast of Elias; of Moses on Sinai and of Our Lord in the desert; of Quadragesima; of quarantine; of the Forty Hours’ Prayer, ‘the solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament for the space of forty hours, more or less, being the time our Lord lay in the tomb, continuous adoration being maintained by relays of watchers’. It is no wonder that school periods sometimes took an age, or that, cancelling our presences within it, we would absent ourselves from the system. Playing truant, we went on the beak or the hike or the bunk; we miched, or mitched; we bobbed and fagged off; jigged and jouked; played the nick and the kipp and the lag; we went wagging it; we went plunking, skiving, sagging, ticking, twagging school; we skipped and hopped and dodged and scarpered, as we took French leave and exited into the city, to explore its yawning avenues and dark arcades.

  1 The Sunday Missal for All Sundays and the Principal Feasts of the Year.

  2 The Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary.

  SMITHFIELD

  It was great to get lost in Smithfield.

  No inhabitant of Belfast needs any description of the general aspect of Smithfield. It seems a storehouse, or rather salehouse, for all the nondescript wares which can be collected from whatever quarter. How such heterogeneous articles contrived to come together in one and the same place, and set themselves down there, side by side, in truce and amity, is a problem which it perplexes the mind to solve. One would think of the ‘rudis indigestaque moles’, but that, after all, it is not quite a chaos of formless things – only a glorious disorder of things of some shape and name, but such as no one, perhaps, ever saw before, or ever will except in Smithfield, brought together within so limited a compass. It might seem as if there had been a design to surprise the passer-by, by the strangeness of the contrasts and combinations, such as we might see in a huge kaleidoscope – only substituting ugliness for beauty; or, as if all the warehouses and shops in the town had poured out all their refuse contents into this one common repository and receptacle. It is easy, however, to see that a singular social medley must be found collected and associated within the precincts of Smithfield. Honest industry, on whatever scale it is pursued, is worthy of all honour; and the merchandise of this place is not without its advantages to a numerous class, both of traders and purchasers. It is reported very currently, however, that many goods find their way into this mart by other than the established means of honourable traffic; and I have known some friends who have had the pleasure of finding there, and buying back, their property, after it had unaccountably disappeared from their houses or their tables.

  Revd W. M. O’Hanlon, Walks among the Poor of Belfast, 1853

  That Smithfield, and the Smithfield of my memory, are no more.

  Now mostly absorbed in the Castlecourt complex, this was a rectangular square between Castle Lane, Millfield, North Street and Royal Avenue. It was laid out in July 1788 in an area at the end of Berry Street known as ‘The Rails’, to replace the markets held till then in the High Street. It may have been named after the London meat market, but there is a record of John Gregg leasing ‘grazing for two cows’ at ‘Smith’s Field’ in the early 18c. The Smithfield of popular memory was a quadrangle of small shops containing three covered arcades of junk stalls, mostly built in 1848, but the central area was built up and roofed over by the Borough Surveyor in 1884. This treasure trove of old books, old pictures, old radio components, mostly elderly dealers, and customers of all ages and classes, was destroyed by fire-bombs on 6 May 1974. Despite the prompt provision of portakabins to bring the traders back, Smithfield had lost its stock as well as its atmosphere, and it never recovered … Four workers burnt to death in a fire at the Lucifer Match Factory here in 1882.

  Marcus Patton, Central Belfast: An Historical Gazeteer, 1993

  I visited Smithfield the morning after the 1974 blaze. It looked like a minor Dresden, with only the stone piers of its gates still standing; yet I was reminded of how difficult it is to burn books, for reams of them survived among the smouldering ruins, their margins charred, but the dense compact volumes of their interiors still intact. As children, we used to observe the same post-bonfire phenomenon, when all that remained of sofas were their cobra springs, and even books that had been wholly burned retained, like carbon-paper flimsies, their pages of ash, until someone poked them with a stick and a wind blew them away in whispered nothings; I still wonder how the book-burning emperors maintained their censor illusions, when relics, shards and signatures of books must have been retrieved from the pyres by lovers and disciples, who, in the aftermath, would slip them to each other in the undergrounds of samizdat, and memo
rize their bits of text; and, where two or three of them were gathered in an upstairs room, or in the gloom of a catacomb, they would stitch their remembered episodes together, pretending to make a quilt for a wedding or a funeral; and the temporal authorities could not suppress the stories of this collective phoenix.

  Concurrently to writing this, I had been reading Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading, and at this moment, 7.15 p.m. on 8 April 1997, about thirty minutes have passed since I opened his book at page 304 and was smitten by a pleasant shock of déjà vu: here is reproduced a favourite photograph of mine, which I first saw when it (or, to be precise, the left-hand half of it) appeared on the front cover of the London Review of Books. (I can’t, here and now, give you the issue, since it’s pinned to the display-board in my office, in Stranmillis Road; I see it in my mind’s eye, as I write, and feel curiously bilocated). The image, to me, is emblematic of Smithfield. Manguel writes:

  And sometimes, when the stars are kind, we read with an intake of breath, with a shudder, as if someone or something had ‘walked over our grave’, as if a memory had suddenly been rescued from a place deep within us – the recognition of something we never knew was there, or of something we vaguely felt as a flicker or a shadow, whose ghostly form rises and passes back into us before we can see what it is, leaving us older and wiser.

  This reading has an image. A photograph taken in 1940, during the bombing of London in the Second World War, shows the remains of a caved-in library. Through the torn roof can be seen ghostly buildings outside, and in the centre of the store is a heap of beams and crippled furniture. But the shelves on the walls have held fast, and the books lined up along them seem unharmed. Three men are standing amidst the rubble: one, as if hesitant about which book to choose, is apparently reading the titles on the spines; another, wearing glasses, is reaching for a volume; the third is reading, holding an open book in his hands.