Binding_13_Boys of Tommen

by Chloe Walsh

  Darren was gay and our father couldn’t cope with it.

  He blamed my brother's sexual orientation on an incident in the past, and nothing anyone said could get it through to our father that being gay wasn’t a choice.

  Darren was born gay, the same way Joey was born straight and I was born empty.

  He was who he was and it broke my heart that he wasn’t accepted in his own home.

  Living with a homophobic father was torture for my brother.

  I hated Dad for that, more than I hated him for all the other terrible things he had done through the years.

  My father's intolerance and blatant discriminating behavior towards his own son was by far the vilest of his traits.

  When Darren took a year out from hurling to concentrate on his leaving cert, our father had hit the roof. Months of heated arguments and physical altercations had resulted in a huge blow out where Darren packed his bags, walked out the door, and never came back.

  Five years had passed since that night, and aside from the annual Christmas card in the post, none of us had seen or heard from him.

  We didn’t even have a phone number or address for him.

  He as good as vanished.

  After that, all of the pressure our father had put on Darren was switched onto the youngers boys – who were, in our father's eyes, his normal sons.

  When he wasn’t down at the pub or the bookies, our father was dragging the boys off to training and matches.

  He focused all of his attention on them.

  I was of no use to him, what with being a girl and all that.

  I wasn’t good at sports and I didn’t excel at school or any club activity.

  In my father's eyes, I was just a mouth to feed until eighteen.

  That wasn’t something I had come up with either. Dad told me this on countless occasions.

  After the fifth or sixth time, I grew immune to the words.

  He had no interest in me, and I had no interest in trying to live up to some irrational expectation of his. I would never be a boy, and there was no point in trying to please a man whose mind was back in the fifties.

  I'd long since grown tired of begging for love from a man who, in his own words, never wanted me.

  The pressure he put on Joey concerned me though, and it was the reason I felt so much guilt every time he had to come to my aid.

  He was in sixth year, his final year of secondary school, and had his own stuff going on: with GAA, his part-time job at the petrol station, the leaving cert, and his girlfriend, Aoife.

  I knew that when I hurt, Joey hurt too. I didn’t want to be a burden around his neck, someone he was constantly having to look out for, but it had been that way since as far back as I could remember.

  To be honest, I couldn’t stand to look at the disappointment in my brother's eyes another minute in that school. Passing him in the hallways, knowing that when he looked at me, his expression caved.

  To be fair, the teachers at BCS had tried to protect me from the lynch mob, and the guidance teacher at BCS, Mrs. Falvy, even organized fortnightly counselling sessions with a school psychologist throughout second year until funding was cut.

  Mam had managed to scrape together the money for me to see a private counsellor, but at €80 per session, and having to censor my thoughts at my mother's request, I'd only seen her five times before lying to my mother and telling her that I felt better.

  I didn’t feel better.

  I never felt better.

  I just couldn’t bear to watch my mother struggle.

  I despised being a financial burden on her, so I sucked it up, slapped on a smile, and continued to walk into hell every day.

  But the bullying never stopped.

  Nothing stopped.

  Until one day, it did.

  The week before Christmas break last month – just three weeks after a similar incident with the same group of girls – I had come home in floods of tears, with my school jumper ripped down the front and my nose stuffed with tissue paper to stem the bleeding from the hiding I'd taken at the hands of a group of fifth year girls, who'd vehemently suggested that I had tried to get with one of their boyfriends.

  It was a boldface lie, considering I never laid eyes on the boy they accused me of trying to seduce, and another in a long line of pathetic excuses to beat me up.

  That was the day I stopped.

  I stopped lying.

  I stopped pretending.

  I just stopped.

  That day wasn’t just my breaking point, it was Joey's, too. He’d followed me into the house with a week's suspension under his belt for beating the living daylights out of Ciara Maloney, my main tormentor's, brother.

  Our mother had taken one look at me and pulled me out of the school.

  Going against my father's wishes, who thought I needed to toughen up, Mam went to the local credit union and took out a loan to pay the admission fees for Tommen College, the private, fee-paying secondary school based fifteen miles north of Ballylaggin.

  While I worried for my mother, I knew that if I had to walk through the doors of that school one more time, I would not be walking back out.

  I had hit my limit.

  The prospect of a better life, a happier life, was dangled in front of my face and I had grabbed it with both hands.

  And even though I feared the backlash from the kids on my council estate for attending a private school, I knew it couldn’t be worse than the shit I had endured in the school I was leaving behind.

  Besides, Claire Biggs and Lizzie Young, the two the girls I'd been friends with at primary school, would be in my class at Tommen College – the principal, Mr. Twomey, had assured me of that when my mother and I had met with him during the Christmas holidays to enroll.

  Both Mam and Joey encouraged me with relentless support, with Mam taking extra cleaning shifts at the hospital to pay for my books and new uniform which included a blazer.

  Before Tommen College, the only blazers I'd ever seen were the ones men wore at mass on a Sunday, never on teenagers, and now it would be part of my daily wardrobe.

  Leaving the local secondary school in the middle of my junior cert year – an important exam year – had caused a huge rift in our family, with my father furious to be spending thousands of euros on an education that was free in the public school just down the road.

  When I tried to explain to my father that school wasn’t as easy for me as it was for his precious GAA-star son, he shut me down, refusing to hear me out, and letting me know in no uncertain terms that he would not support me attending a glorified rugby prep-school with a bunch of stuck up, privileged clowns.

  I could still recall the words "Get off your high horse, girl," and "Tis far from rugby and prep schools you were reared," not to mention my favorite, "You'll never fit in with those cunts," coming out of my father's mouth.

  I wanted to scream at him "you won't be paying for it!" since Dad hadn't worked a day since I was seven, fending for the family was left to my mother, but I valued my ability to walk too much.

  My father didn’t get it, but then again, I had a feeling the man had never been subjected to bullying a day in his whole life. If there was bullying to be done, Teddy Lynch was the one doing it.

  God knows he bullied Mam around enough.

  Because of my father's outrage at my schooling, I had spent most of my winter break holed up in my bedroom and trying to stay out of his way.

  Being the only girl in a family with five brothers, I had my own room. Joey had his own room, too, though his was much bigger than mine, having shared it with Darren until he moved out. Tadhg and Ollie shared another larger bedroom, with Sean and my parents residing in the largest of the bedrooms.

  Even though it was only the box room at the front of the house, with barely any room to swing a cat, I appreciated the privacy that my own bedroom door – with a lock – gave me.

  Contrary to the four bedrooms upstairs, our house was tiny, with a sitting room, kitchen,
and one bathroom for the entire family. It was a semi-d, and situated at the edge of Elk's Terrace, the largest council estate in Ballylaggin.

  The area was rough and riddled with crime and I avoided it all by hiding in my room.

  My tiny bedroom was my sanctuary in a house – and street –full of bustle and madness, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever.

  My privacy was on borrowed time because Mam was pregnant again.

  If she had a girl, I would lose my sanctuary.

  "Shan!" Banging erupted on the other side of the bathroom door, dragging me from my impervious thoughts. "Hurry up, will ya! I'm bursting for a piss."

  "Two minutes, Joey," I called back, then continued my assessment of my appearance. "You can do this," I whispered to myself. "You can absolutely do this, Shannon."

  The banging resumed so I hastily dried my hands on the towel hanging on the rack and unlocked the door, eyes landing on my brother who was standing in nothing but a pair of black boxers, scratching his chest.

  His eyes widened when he took in my appearance, the sleepy expression on his face turning alert and surprised. He was sporting a roaster of a black eye from the hurling match he'd played in at the weekend, but it didn’t seem to worry a hair of his handsome head.

  "You look…." My brother's voice trailed off as he gave me that brotherly appraisal. I braced myself for the jokes he would inevitably make at my expense, but they never came. "Lovely," he said instead, pale green eyes warm and full of unspoken worry. "The uniform suits you, Shan."

  "Do you think it'll be okay?" I kept my voice low so I didn’t wake the rest of our family.

  Mam had worked a double shift yesterday and she and Dad were both sleeping. I could hear my father's loud snoring coming from behind their closed bedroom door, and the younger boys would have to be dragged from their mattresses later for school.

  As per usual, it was just Joey and me.

  The two amigos.

  "Do you think I'll fit in, Joey?" I asked, voicing my concerns aloud. I could do that with Joey. He was the only one in our family I felt I could talk to and confide in. I looked down at my uniform and shrugged helplessly.

  His eyes burned with unspoken emotion as he stared down at me, and I knew he was up this early not because he was desperate to use the bathroom, but because he wanted to see me off on my first day.

  It was 6:15 in the morning.

  Like Tommen College, BCS didn’t start until 9:05am, but I had a bus to catch and the only one passing through the area was at 6:45am.

  It was the first bus run of the day leaving Ballylaggin, but it was the only one that passed the school in time. Mam worked most mornings and Dad was still refusing to take me.

  When I asked Dad about taking me to school last night, he had told me that if I'd get off my high horse and go back to Ballylaggin Community School like Joey and every other kid on our street, I wouldn’t need a lift to school.

  "I'm so fucking proud of you, Shan," Joey said in a voice that was thick with emotion. "You don’t even realize how brave you are." Clearing his throat a couple of times, he added, "Hang on – I've got something for you." With that, he padded across the narrow landing and into his bedroom, returning less than a minute later. "Here," he muttered, fisting a couple of €5 notes into my hand.

  "Joey, no!" I immediately rebuffed the notion of taking his hard-earned money. He didn’t make much at the petrol station to begin with, and money was hard to come by in our family, so taking ten euro from my brother was unimaginable. "I can't–"

  "Take the money, Shannon. It's only a tenner," he instructed, giving me a no-nonsense expression. "I know Nanny gave you the bus money, but just have something in your pocket. I don’t know how shit works in that place, but I don’t want you going in there without a few quid."

  I swallowed the lump of emotion fighting its way up my throat and squeezed out, "Are you sure?"

  Joey nodded, then pulled me in for a hug. "You are going to be grand," he whispered in my ear, hugging me so tight I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince or console. "If someone gives you even the hint of shit, then you text me and I will come over there and burn that fucking school to the ground and every posh, little rugbyhead fucker in it."

  That was a sobering thought.

  "It's going to be fine," I said, this time putting some force into my voice, needing to believe the words. "But I'll be late if I don’t get going and that's so not what I need on my first day."

  Giving my brother one last hug, I shrugged on my coat and grabbed my school bag, shouldering it onto my back, before heading for the staircase.

  "You text me," Joey called out when I was halfway down the steps. "I’m serious, one sniff of crap from anyone and I'll come sort it out for you."

  "I can do this, Joey," I whispered, casting a quick glance to where he was leaning against the bannister, watching me with concerned eyes. "I can."

  "I know you can." His voice was low and pained. "I just…I'm here for you, okay?" he finished with a heavy exhale. "Always here for you."

  This was hard for my brother, I realized, as I watched him wave me off to school like an anxious parent would their firstborn. He was always fighting my battles, always jumping in to defend me and pull me to safety.

  I wanted him to be proud of me, to see me as more than a little girl that needed his constant protection.

  I needed that for myself.

  With renewed determination, I gave him a bright smile and then hurried out of the house to catch my bus.

  2

  Everything has Changed

  Shannon

  When I climbed off my bus, I was relieved to discover that the doors of Tommen College were opened to the students at 7 in the morning, obviously to accommodate the different schedules of the boarders and day walkers.

  I hurried into the building to get out of the weather.

  It was pouring rain outside, and in any other circumstance I might consider it a bad omen, but this was Ireland where it rained an average of 150 to 225 days out of the year.

  It was also early January, typical rain season.

  I discovered that I wasn’t the only early bird to arrive before school hours, noting several students already wandering through the halls and lounging in the lunch hall and common areas.

  Yes, common areas.

  Tommen College had what I could only describe as spacious living rooms for each year.

  To my immense surprise, I discovered that I wasn’t the immediate target for bullies like I had been in every other school I had attended.

  Students whizzed past me, uninterested in my presence, clearly caught up in their own lives.

  I waited, with my heart, in my mouth for a cruel comment or shove to come.

  It didn’t.

  Transferring halfway through the year from the neighboring public school, I had been expecting a tirade of fresh taunts and new enemies.

  But nothing happened.

  Aside from a couple of curious glances, nobody approached me.

  The students at Tommen either didn’t know who I was – or didn’t care.

  Either way, I was clearly off the radar in this school and I loved it.

  Comforted by the sudden cloak of invisibility surrounding me, and feeling more positive than I had in months, I took the time to look around the third-year common area.

  It was a large, bright room with floor to ceiling windows on one side that looked onto a courtyard of buildings. Plaques and photographs of previous students adorned the lemon painted walls. Plush couches and comfy chairs filled the large space, along with a few round tables and matching oak chairs. There was a small kitchenette area in the corner with a kettle, toaster, and microwave.

  Holy crap.

  So, this was what the other side lived like.

  It was like a different world in Tommen College.

  An alternate universe to the one I came from.

  Wow.

  I could bring a few slices of bread and have tea and toast
at school.

  Feeling intimidated, I slipped out and wandered through every hall and corridor trying to get my bearings.

  Studying my timetable, I memorized where every building and wing that I would have a class in was.

  I was feeling pretty confident by the time the bell went at 8:50, signaling fifteen minutes before the start of the school day, and when I was greeted by a familiar voice, I came close to crying with sheer relief.

  "Oh my god! Oh my god!" a tall, curvaceous blonde with a smile the size of a football pitch squealed loudly, drawing mine and everyone else's attention, as she barreled through several groups of students in her bid to reach me.

  I wasn’t nearly prepared for the monster hug I was enveloped in when she reached me, even though I should have expected nothing less from Claire Biggs.

  Being greeted by actual smiling, friendly faces instead of what I was used to was overwhelming for me.

  "Shannon Lynch," Claire half giggled, half choked out, squeezing me tightly. "You're actually here!"

  "I'm here," I agreed with a small laugh, patting her back as I tried and failed to free myself from her lung-crushing embrace. "But I won't be for much longer if you don’t ease up on the squeezing."

  "Oh, crap. Sorry," Claire laughed, immediately taking a step back and releasing me from her death hold. "I forgot you haven't grown since fourth class." She took another step back and looked me over. "Make that third class," she snickered, eyes dancing with mischief.

  This wasn’t a dig; it was an observation and a fact.

  I was exceptionally small for my age, dwarfed even further by my friend's 5'9 frame.

  She was tall, athletically built, and exceptionally beautiful.

  It wasn’t a demure form of beauty either.

  No, it shot out of her face like sun beams.

  Claire was simply dazzling with big, puppy dog brown eyes and ringlets of light blonde curls. She had a sunny disposition and a smile that could warm the coldest of hearts.