My trousers had cloth patches on the back that were hanging off. My mother noticed my partly exposed rear end and let out a holy scream. “Ah, for God’s sake, look at ya! You’ll be sent away for sure if you walk around like that!”
“The stitches came out yesterday,” I said.
“Take them off right now!”
I climbed out of the second-hand trousers and stood half-naked on the floor. My mother threw a dishcloth at me and went looking for a needle and thread. I wrapped the dishcloth around the lower part of my body and spent the next ten minutes trying to identify the odour that was coming from it.
After finding a needle and thread, my mother sat down. “Christ almighty, what’s to become of us?” she kept repeating as she tried to thread the needle. “Here, do this for me, will ya?” She passed the needle and thread to me. I quickly threaded the needle and handed it back to her.
The patches on my trousers were sewn back on again and within minutes my mother and I were on our way to Dublin Castle where my future might depend on how the patches on my second-hand trousers held up.
My mother and I walked into the big grey building where hundreds of years of Irish history had been played out and joined up with others who were in the same sad situation as I was. The corridor we walked along seemed too imposing a place for the crime of talking back to a schoolteacher. In this same building in years past people were ordered to be hanged, executed, flogged and deported for disobeying English law in Ireland. With Ireland now in charge of its own affairs it was, at least on some scale, duplicating what England had done to it years earlier.
As my mother and I got closer to the room where my case was to be heard, I could hear mothers crying. Some were screaming. Their sons had been ordered to report to the police office at the far end of the hall and be sent to a reformatory school. Fear engulfed me again. I was frightened and began to shake and cry.
“Ah, Ma, help me. Don’t let me go. Don’t let me go, Ma. Help me. Save me, Ma. I’m afraid.” I held onto my mother’s hand so tightly I almost broke her fingers.
“I’m your mother and I’ll stand by you, son,” she said as we walked the last few yards toward the hearing room.
We entered a cold room with long wooden benches in front of a table that was on a raised platform. Three men were sitting at the table.
Before we could sit down my name was called out. “Gabriel Walsh?”
My mother remained standing. “We’re here, sir,” she said.
“Is he with you?” she was asked by one of the men as if he couldn’t see me.
“Me son is here, sir,” my mother responded.
“Step up, boy,” the man said.
I was holding my mother’s hand so tight I couldn’t let go of it.
“Go up, son,” she said while she tried to detach herself from me.
I walked to the table and looked up at the three men. My mouth opened and my eyes closed and my heart raced.
“You’re a problem at school. Are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, sir!” the man bellowed back at me. “The Brother states you don’t learn and you don’t care. And you don’t attend. Is that true?”
I was so frightened standing in front of the three men I didn’t know that I was alive. I was a heartbeat away from fainting on the floor in front of them.
“I’m afraid,” I said. It was the only thing I could say. I kept repeating it. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid. I’m afraid.” I kept saying it until I was interrupted.
“Afraid of what?” one of the men asked me.
I looked up at the man but I couldn’t answer him.
My mother then came up to me and held my hand. “Tell the nice man what you’re afraid of, son,” she said.
I was happy my mother was holding my hand but I still couldn’t answer the man’s question.
“What are you afraid of?” the man asked me again.
“He’s afraid to admit he kicked the Christian Brother if you ask me,” one of the three men said.
“Isn’t that some kind of carryin’ on?” the man sitting in the centre said to my mother.
“He meant no harm, sir,” my mother responded.
The pain of thinking about Daingean forced my mouth open but prevented me from opening my eyes. My future was looking as bleak as my present. I wished a silent suicide upon myself but I didn’t know how to die. Outside in the corridor the cries of mothers who were separated from their children could still be heard. Then, as if to detract from the sad and painful wails, the senior-looking man looked directly at me and raised his voice.
“This fella is not learnin’ a ha’purt in school. He’s giving the Brother a lot of back talk and isn’t in any way disciplined. Daingean will be the proper place for him.”
When the man mentioned “Daingean” my mother’s face went white. I exchanged a fearful look with her and went so numb I didn’t know if I fainted or not. My mother then walked up to the man behind the bench and looked directly at him. She began to talk with the conviction of a saint or a martyr.
“Me son will change. I promise and pray that to you. He’s a good boy but his father has been no help to him. His father hasn’t been able to earn a penny in years and he’s been back and forth to England searchin’ for a bit of labourin’ work. Gabriel couldn’t do his school lessons ’cos the free books were gone so he had no books to look at and we couldn’t afford him a pen or pencil. No boy can be expected to learn with that kind of drawback. I’ve prayed and I’ve done me best and I ask you not to send him to Daingean.” She then leaned forward and raised her right hand, with her rosary beads clutched in it. “Look! Look how worn out me rosary beads are from constant prayin’!” She placed the small wooden crucifix over her heart and pleaded with the panel not to send me away. “It won’t be long till he can get himself a job and earn a few shillin’s. After that he’ll be a great help to all of us at home. Give him another chance, I beg ya!”
‘Daingean’ was written all over their faces.
As I watched my mother plead for me I remained choked with fear.
The men behind the bench looked at each other and then back at me and my mother. Dublin, of course, had many oddball characters and some who might have even defied reason but my mother’s performance had to be up there with the best and oddest of them.
A member of the board looked directly at my mother. “He’d be as well off in a reformatory. By our Divine Saviour, he’d learn there. This lad is bold, very bold. In my opinion, if he’s not checked now it will be too late in a year or two. If he’s let loose he won’t know how to read or write. I’ve seen it all before. You’ll be proud of him when he’s released in a coupla years.”
My mother put her crucifix to her lips and made the Sign of the Cross with it. She then raised her eyes to Heaven and took off as if she was transported. She called upon all the souls of every saint in Heaven – foreign or otherwise – as if she knew them personally. Molly knew many prayers and she knew how to pray as if she wrote the words to them. She recited acts of contrition and spat out an encyclopaedia of hymns that dealt with every dimension of forgiveness. I’m sure the school board members had never experienced anything like what they saw that day. Two members of the panel simultaneously blessed themselves. They appeared to be rethinking their rubber-stamped decision.
A miracle happened. My mother saved me from the persecution and agony of the reformatory school. Her sorrowful presence and her ability to call upon saints and angels as well as deceased bishops and popes convinced the inconvincible. Dressed in her old clothes and with stockings hanging around her ankles, Molly won the day. I was saved. All the thoughts and feelings of embarrassment I had previously felt for and about my mother vanished rapidly. She was now my saviour and, with the sense and avalanche of joy of not being sent and condemned to Daingean, I felt so light I could fly.
After a moment or two a board member told my mother to have me leave the Christian Brothers’ School and
go to the Model School, a non-religious-order school, closer to home.
* * *
A week later I was enrolled in a school where the teachers didn’t wear black. It was a Catholic school run by teachers who wore regular clothes and who went home to their families when the school day ended. Compared to the Christian Brothers’ school the Model School was like a holiday home.
Nevertheless every Friday at about eleven in the morning we’d leave the classroom and assemble outside on the street to be marched to a chapel that was not too far away. It was about a ten-minute walk. For the first two years I was an obedient pupil and marched with my schoolmates to the church so that the local priest could hear our confessions. We marched in unison and in a straight line – a parade of boys marching to take our souls to the laundry. For most of us it was a celebration.
One morning close to my last few months in the school, I decided I didn’t need to confess to nothing all over again. The morning started with the usual ritual. A whistle blew and the march began. As we marched towards the church to confess our sins we passed a big public house. The stench of Guinness and whiskey coming from the place cut through the air like a dirty bed-sheet drying on a clothesline. This wonderful sunny morning I was feeling freer than I had felt in a very long time. As I marched by the pub I noticed that the door of the place was wide open. Without giving it too much thought I slipped from the confessional line and walked into the pub as if I was a regular customer. Inside the pub a few men were sitting at the bar. They were talking out loud but I couldn’t tell if they were talking to each other or to the big pints of Guinness that were in front of them.
When the long confessional line had passed, I stepped out of the pub and walked home very slowly. Before I got to my house I decided I’d better visit the Oblates Church to get as holy as I could before I went home. I didn’t want my mother to know I had skipped the confessional line. If she knew I had, she’d believe I was afraid to confess to some sin I had committed. Any kind of sin on my white soul would be a one-way ticket to hell with the Devil as my landlord for eternity. If I came home looking holy after a visit to the statue of the Virgin who had her wedding ring in her crown, my mother might not ask any questions.
There were several statues of Our Lady outside the church but I knew the one Father Divine was in love with was the one that overlooked the churchyard, the one that now had a massive gold crown on her head and a great big halo. She was there up on her big high pedestal over the gate, day and night, in all kinds of weather, with her eyes cast up to Heaven as if she had no interest in the rest of us moving around down below. She didn’t move or blink or fart or want to go to the bathroom or anything like that.
I wanted to tell the statue that my mother’s wedding ring was on her head. As I looked up at it, Father Divine’s voice was ringing in my ears. “The Holy Mother of God would be eternally grateful if you could donate this ring to her crown, Mrs. Walsh. I know she’d look down on you and anoint you. If you do, it would be placed in her crown with other gold rings from other women and wives in the parish.” I tried to spot my mother’s wedding ring but I wasn’t able to. I couldn’t see any rings on the crown, only big stars all around it. Maybe the rings the women gave were on top of it? I thought about climbing up on the statue and getting the ring back to give to my father so he could give it to my mother all over again and she would forget that he hadn’t had a job in years and years. Our Lady knew where God was all day long and knew if he was busy or not. He would listen to her at any time and if she heard me praying to her she could put in a good word for me. I wanted her to know that my father was sad and lonely and needed a few shillings. I made up a prayer: “Mother of God! Mother of everybody’s mother! Daughter of God! Sister of God! Sister-in-Law of God! Child of God! Virgin of Heaven and Earth! Help my mother and father to be nice to each other.”
When I got to my house my mother was kneeling on the floor and leaning over a chair, with a pair of rosary beads wrapped around her fingers. Her eyes were closed. She looked more peaceful than I had seen her in a long time. I wondered if it was because my father was out of the house. Normally she would name every saint that was ever tortured or burned by the time she finished saying the rosary. A candle was burning near the statue of the Sacred Heart that was strategically placed on the cabinet that held the Sunday plates and dishes. She had just finished scrubbing the floor. A bucket of soapy water was at her right side. Her apron was soaking wet. She had pulled up her skirt a bit to scrub the floor and I could see she was wearing a big pair of thick woollen knickers that reached to her knees and several holes in the knickers had been sewn up with different-coloured thread. Her toes were sticking out of her stockings and the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up to her elbows which were red and sore-looking.
The place looked so clean the entire population of Heaven would have been content to live in it. I sat down by the fire and waited for her to finish. I wondered why my mother and father seemed to be happier people when they were not around each other. The smell of soap was everywhere. The floorboards had been scrubbed and the windows were clean.
At last my mother got to her feet and went to sit on a chair facing out onto the back yard. She didn’t turn around when I walked up to her.
“Why are you home now? Didn’t you go to Confession?” she asked while still gazing out the window.
I could tell my early return didn’t make her happy. I decided to tell her the truth and tell her I didn’t go to Confession because I had nothing to confess, that I hadn’t committed any sins and I didn’t want to be telling the priest in the confessional box a lie. I hesitated and when my mother looked at me I knew what she was thinking.
“I wasn’t feelin’ well, Ma,” I answered and poured myself a cup of tea from the nearby teapot.
“You was supposed to be confessin’ your sins, wasn’t you?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to tell her I didn’t have any sins to confess.
“You ran away, didn’t ya? You ran away from the holy place. I know you did. That’s what you did.” My mother then stood up and reached for the broom that was leaning against the wall.
I told her I went to the church to see if her wedding ring was still in the crown of the Virgin Mary and that I had prayed and prayed. “I said more than twenty prayers, Ma. I talked to the nuns, the priests. I prayed to the statue. I didn’t go to Confession, Ma. I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling good, Ma. I had a stomach ache.” I told her I was sorry for anything I had done wrong.
Molly turned from me as if all her prayers had fallen out of Heaven and onto her head. She seemed smothered with anger. She looked at me and lowered her voice but it seemed louder than ever. For a moment she seemed disconnected to it.
“Ya won’t do what’s good for ya!” she yelled. In a fit of anger she made a swipe at me with the broom.
The handle hit me across the arm. When I put up my hands to prevent another swipe from hitting me, my mother smacked me even harder with the broom-handle. I wanted to cry for my father but he wasn’t home.
“You’re just like your father. There’s no changin’ you either. Not a bit!”
When my mother moved closer to me I closed my eyes, hoping she wouldn’t strike me again but she continued to pursue me around the room, laying into me with the broom. At first I hid under the table but I was still hit by the broom handle.
“Ma, ma, don’t hit me! Don’t. You’re hurtin’ me. Don’t, Ma! Don’t!”
My mother was silent and that frightened me even more. She kept striking me until I began to faint and not know where I was.
Out of nowhere I heard our neighbour Mrs. Fortune yelling from outside our door. “Mrs. Walsh, leave him alone! Stop! Stop it!”
My mother immediately stopped and sat down on a nearby chair. She looked down at me and started to cry.
“I’m sorry, son. Forgive me. Forgive me.”
Mrs. Fortune then came into our house. “What in the name of God are you doing, Missus?” she
yelled at my mother. She reached down to me and saw that my hands and arms were bleeding. She turned back and stared at my mother but said nothing. My mother sat there in silence.
After a minute or two I heard a knock on the hall door. Another neighbour, Mrs. Waters from across the street, wanted to know what was going on as well. Mrs. Fortune put her finger to her lips and Mrs. Waters left.
“I’m goin’ to take that boy down to the hospital,” Mrs. Fortune said to my mother.
“I don’t know what’s come over me, Missus,” my mother said. “I’m not feelin’ well lately. I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t know how I’m going to put a few crumbs on the table. There’s nothin’ in the house. I’ve pawned everythin’.”
As Mrs. Fortune took me by the hand and led me towards the door, my mother stood up and put on her coat. “I’ll take me boy to the hospital.”
Mrs. Fortune slowly walked back out the door. After I washed the blood from my arms and head, my mother took me to Stephen’s Hospital where I had my wrists stitched in two places. When the doctor asked my mother what happened, she told him I fell down the stairs.
* * *
The next day the parish priest, Father Brady, came into the classroom. His face was red and he seemed to be in a hurry. He walked around the classroom with a small bamboo cane in his hand that he kept tapping against his knee. His eyes met mine but I turned away and pretended I didn’t see him. He walked up to the front and whispered something into the teacher’s ear. The teacher then looked back at me and I knew I was in trouble. I’d been spotted. Somebody had seen me skip the confessional line.
“Gabriel Walsh?”
“Yes. Father.”
“Come up here.”
I took the walk up the aisle and stood at the head of the class. The teacher turned his head away from me. That meant something. The priest looked down on me. Then, he turned his face to the class and pursed his lips and, without saying a word to me, he landed his right hand on my face with the force of a boxer. I fell sideways. I was too hurt to cry and too afraid to say anything.
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