Och

When she needed to speak of anything but the comings and goings of any ordinary day it was a different matter altogether. For our Ma, drawing an envelope-sized rectangle on her lap with her one good hand had as many meanings as the drying tealeaves on the bottom of her Mum’s cup. If she drew just that and nothing more, it meant often a task we could perform without leaving The Vatican. But if she drew the rectangle and pointed out the window it meant that she needed something done in Carrickfergus, or something from Carrickfergus; it meant, possibly, that she wanted something from or done in Belfast, or something from or done at the church, or something from or done in New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, or something from or done in the bloody Land of Oz. Of an occasion it meant that she wanted something from the shops, a treat, a chocolate bar, stamps. Or it might be that there was a new bishop appointed in some suburb of some backwoods Brazilian town and she wanted to hear of him and his good works, because the TV had made a fuss of this particular gentleman and maybe she’d like a magazine to have read to her describing his good works. That rectangle meant that the Pope himself had signed some declaration about something, and that it affected something in her life somehow. It was important this rectangle, for frig’s sake, and she needed the news, the insight, the gossip there and then. If she drew the rectangle and pointed to the TV it meant that she had heard of good works by Bishop Desmond Tutu, and sure isn’t he a great humanitarian, at least that's what someone had read to her from the magazine she now wanted. Of an occasion it meant that she had learned of bad works attributed to Bishop Len Brennan, and she was laughing out loud but not without some hint of guilt, but sure she'd make up for it by putting an extra shilling in the weekly envelope. The rectangle and the pointing of the finger meant everything. It meant anything. She called me from the kitchen. She drew the rectangle. She pointed out the leaky window.

 “Okay, what is it, Ma? You want something sent? Card? Letter? A bill paid?”

“No,” she replied, blunt and emphatic, leaving me with little doubt that I need not ask those questions again, for frig’s sake, y’eejit.

“Is it a cheque? Do you need to pay something?”

“No.”

“Okay. I need something else, Ma, a bit more here. Is it to do with anyone in here?”

“No.”

“Is it to do with the church?”

“No.”

Every few questions I clarified, just to be sure. “Okay, it’s nothing to do with us, the church, the bank, or money? Yes? That right?”

“No.”

“Right... So… No as in it’s not something to do with them, or no it is something to do with them?”

“Yesths.”

“Right. Okay. Is it a letter?”

“No,” she replied, getting frustrated at my frustration.

“Okay Ma, I have no idea what the hell it is you want.” When at the very edge of giving up on her fruitless task she would swipe her hand in the air and exclaim “Och”. Och was another of the Irishisms I had removed from my vocabulary years previously. That short guttural utterance indicated disappointment, or frustration, and was as cast away an exclamation as those blessed and depressing and pervasive remnants such as “aye”. The modern Irish garnish liberally their language – foreign or domestic – with these ancient tics. Och, in this sense, denoted my mother’s mild anger and her frustration. Swiping her hand and uttering “och” was her way of getting rid of the previous conversation, the useless one that went nowhere, the failed chat that hung in the air between us, limply, benignly. The scrubbing of the air meant “Oh, let’s just forget it” or “Nope. You’re way off there, boyo.” Her good hand sent failed conversations crashing to the ground. 

“Is it the church? The bank? Someone in here? One of your sisters?”

“Yesths! Yesths!”

“Okay, was it the bank? No? Your sisters? The…”

“Yesths! Yesths!”

“Ah, your sisters. Okay, which sister Ma?” Our hearts would sink at the mention of our Ma’s beloved sisters: the guessing was to start again, but this time it would involve people we met only rarely; people whose birthdates were mysteries; women of whose pedigrees and predicaments we remained ignorant due to miles, years of seemingly happy absence, and more than a little indifference to their lives and deaths. Except Aunt Kathleen, whose influence remained. She did say “och” on an occasion or two that I can remember. I probably shuddered.

The stroke left Ma unable to remember the names of her sisters with the exception of Kathleen, so she called all of her sisters “Katleen.” She did the same with my sisters. And my brother. And me. And Aunt Phil. And Aunt Margaret. And Dad. “Katleen” was everyone she had ever known, and anyone she would ever know. Katleen was the name she gave to every face because she had no way of recollecting a name, or a duck, or a bus, or a cat, or of saying any of these with any clarity.

“Which sister, Ma?”

“Och!” Her hand rose, swiping away the notes she sang to the staff, dropping them to the floor like so many dead flies. “It’s Katleen.”

“I thought so. Which Kathleen do you mean? Do you actually mean Kathleen?”

“No.”

“Pauline then, that Kathleen?”

“No.”

“Bernie?”

“No.”

“Sally?”

“No. Oh god, it’th fantathtic.” She felled our benign chat with one swipe.

“Right, okay. So it must be Rosaline then?”

“No.”

“Oh for Jesus sake, Ma! I’ve said them all. Is it Kathleen? Pauline? Bernie? Sally? Or Rosaline for god’s sake?”

“Och, no! It’s Katleen! Och!” Her hand rose and erased again, and the pile of flies grew.

“You said it was to do with one of your sisters, Ma.”

“No. No. You’re thithterth!”

“My sisters? Anne-Marie and Martina? Those sisters?”

“Yesths! Your thithterth!”

“Ah, right. Gotcha. What is it?”

Composing herself, and savouring a minor triumph, Ma drew the rectangle on her lap once again, pointed out the intact but still leaky windows and then back to herself.

“O-kay. First off, is it Anne-Marie or Martina?”

“Yesths.”

“Which one, Ma?”

“Katleen.”

“Anne-Marie?”

“No. Oh god… Katleen! Katleen!”

“Right. Okay. What do you need Martina to do?”

“I need…” She had no way of telling me what she needed, so she drew the rectangle. 

“Oh, I don’t know how to thay it, you know? It'th all wight but it'th all wong at the thame time, you know?” As she said that she pointed to her throat and drew a dividing line up her body, from her nave to her chaps, cutting her good-bad body in half with her long index finger. This was her way of saying, “If this damned operation hadn’t given me a bloody stroke and sliced my vocal cords and taken away my ability to think I’d be able to tell you what I want to say, so I bloody well would!”

“I know, Ma, I know. We’ll get there. Is it money?”

“Yesths.”

“Do you need money from the bank?

“No.”

“Do you need to put money in the bank?

“No. Och!”

“Do you want to give someone money?”

“No.”

“Do you need some money now?”

“No. Oh yesths! Yesths! Mawtina… money. Och!” More notes trailed from the air.

“Okay… So you want Martina to do something with money, but you don’t want her to take money from the bank or put money in the bank? Is that right?”

“Yesths.”

“Money, money, money… Is it someone’s birthday? Do you need her to buy a gift?”

“No!” More dead flies.

“Okay Ma, let’s just keep trying here.”

“I can’t thay it, you know. Oh god, it’th fantathtic!” Her hand went to her cheek, and she lay on it heavily, pushing her elbow into the side of her belly. Her head she shook in confused desperation, and she regarded the fire in the hearth with a look of resignation.

“I know Ma, I know. But we’ll get there. Trust me. Do you have to pay for something?”

“Yesths! No. Oh God. Katleen hath to pay thomething!”

“Martina has to pay something? That Kathleen?”

“That'th it! That'th it! Katleen haths to pay thomething! Oh thank god, thank God.” She took my hand, looked me in the eye and said, “I love you, oh god, I love you, I alwayth have and I alwayth will, you know.”

“I know, Ma. Love you too. Right, now we’re cooking with gas, Ma! Let’s keep going. So, what does she have to pay?” She drew the rectangle on her lap once again.

“Do you have to give money to Martina for her to pay this?”

“No.”

“Right, okay. Is she buying you something?”

“No. Thee’th got the money.”

“She has the money, and she knows she has to pay someone the money, I take it?”

“That’th it shon. Sthee hath to pay money to me!”

“Oh, right. Martina has to give you money? Why?”

“For… I gave her…to… Oh god…” Near-dead flies and near-dead notes hung, mingled momentarily, then crashed.

“I can’t thay it, you know. It’th all wight but it’th all wong at the thame time, you know.” She carved from her nave to her chaps again, pointed to her head, spinning her hand at the wrist. I’m confused now, that is what she meant.

“I know Ma. Try to relax. We’re nearly there.”

“I gave her money, and…”

“And you need it back, I take it?”

“That’th it! That’th it. Oh thank god…”

“At last Ma! Told you we’d get there. How much did you lend her?” She drew another rectangle.

“Paper money?”

“Yesths.”

“A five?”

“No.”

“Ten?”

“No.”

“Twenty quid?”

“No.”

“Thirty?”

“No.”

“Okay. Was it more or less than thirty?”

“Lesth. Och!” Flies.

“Ten.”

“No!” Notes. Then flies. She turned her hand at her head.

“Twenty?”

“Lesth than that ath well.”

“Fifteen?”

“Yesths! Yesths!”

“See? We got there. Didn’t I tell you we would? Don’t worry, I’ll give her a nudge about it. She owes you fifteen quid then?” I laughed.

“Thank you, shon. Thank you.”

Friday Fenian Fish

Shortly after that night – a sad night for it saw Una’s last visit with me – I had my third sexual experience, and I knew when I realised what it was, that it had a name in the lavatories and on the sports field and in the quad, and that it was pleasurable and therefore Protestant and sinful and strictly un-Catholic, that it was as close to the habit Mum was hinting at that I had ever been. I remember feeling no guilt about this act, and couldn’t have cared less if God above us was peeking through the sliver gap in the curtains, counting, tallying my sin as He watched. The elders told us He was.

Sex was not something The Elders of The Vatican discussed, nor were the obvious effects of adolescence, growing hairs, developing breasts, menstruation, whatever. It was easier for us boys than it was for our sisters. We joked with Dad about learning to shave, and Mum would coo admiringly with every obvious drop in the intonation of our voices, having us say over and over the words we dropped on, should we ever have visitors. 

If it had anything to do with maturity or growth or sex then there was to be little or no discussion of it in good Catholic households. The Pope had deemed such talk dirty, something that only Protestants dared address in dark corners; the expectation was that they speak of it only in whispers, and that they restricted this talk to such an extent that they could discuss these matters only with those who shared their faith. For many years a musty book on the teaching of sex in Catholic households lay hidden under two unfolded Irish News broadsheet pages in one of my bedroom drawers. I remember it as about eight pages thick, and dating from the forties or the fifties, perhaps earlier. One day it disappeared. When Martina came running into the crowded living room one winter’s evening, her eyes flooded with tears and her hands flooded with blood, Mum stood up from her Mum’s Chair and ordered her back out of the room. “Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph!” she exclaimed, “Get out! You’re a woman now. Now go and get yourself cleaned up.” That came from the chapter, “The Catholic Guide to the Menstrual Child,” obviously. It was a short chapter indeed, but not as short as “A Seat at The Table? - The Catholic Guide to Interdenominational Relationships,” or the chapter about homosexuality entitled, “Not on My Fucking Watch, Boyo!”

During the years of our puberty our parents developed an easy if clumsy method of getting round any un-Catholic situation that arose in our midst, particularly when those situations appeared before us on the TV. If there was a love scene, or a scene with anything remotely sexual, impure or un-Catholic about it, Dad would turn to Mum and ask, “Annie love, what are you thinking of making for the dinner tomorrow night, then?” Mum would answer, and try to take our attentions from the screen by getting us involved in the what’s-for-dinner distraction.

“I was thinking maybe I could do those nice new spuds with that bit of ham I got at McManus’s the other day, I was thinking. We haven’t had ham in a while, I was thinking, and I think it would be nice for a wee change. What do you think? Maybe with some nice cauliflower too, if they get anything decent into that bloody Crazy Prices down there. Wouldn’t that be nice for a change?” She never answered Dad, and he rarely listened to her answer – he was simply the catalyst for getting the discussion started, and he and he alone could continue to watch the frolicking Protestants in peace, which he did all too often. She addressed her response and her questions to us, her children, those of us staring silently and saucer-eyed at the lascivious scenes playing out on the screen. We waited patiently for the clit-O-rises, whatever they were, wherever they were located, and with such a fabulous name you would surely know one as soon as you saw one, I thought. Since that day in class I had pictured clit-O-rises as something aglow, something beautiful, a secret that was bright and luminescent, a secret that contradicted itself so obvious was this entity. A clit-O-ris, I thought, must be like light in the darkness, a secret, buzzing, scintillating city in a dark, dark desert. Clit-O-rises are like Las Vegas, I thought. Excitement and evil.

“Eamonn! Brendan!” she would shout, “What do you think? Some nice ham for tomorrow’s dinner then, and maybe a bit of cauliflower or something? Wouldn’t that be nice for a change?”

“Uh, yeah. Sounds good,” one of us might grunt, dismissive of the intrusion into our adventures on the sultry edges of Protestantism. Another love scene later and Dad would ask, “And what about the day after that then, love? That’ll be Friday. You could get some nice fish at the market down there on Thursday, couldn’t you?”

“I could too, you know, and I could make some nice chips to go with that, couldn’t I? Wouldn’t that be nice?” She waited for one of us to break our concentration, to turn from the action on the screen.

  “Eamonn! Brendan! For God’s …! Okay... So what do you think of some nice fish and chips with peas this Friday? I’ll buy your favourite smoked fish if they have any down there at the market tomorrow. What do you think boys?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Protestantism in all its sultry excitement was really what we wanted served up that Friday, not another variation on the holy Catholic Friday Fenian Fish-dish.

Another scene, the same question, a different day’s dinner and Mum’s vain attempts at saving the souls of her two sons from the impurities of lingering screen kisses, or tousled hair and a bra strap, or a button opening. It was useless her employing her skilful diversions into the gastronomic schedule of a good Irish Catholic family, for her sons – even in those early days – were too far gone. But it stuck somewhere. Before the credits rolled on a movie portraying a plethora of love scenes, or those various other impurities The Elders felt worthy of posting on their extensive list of Protestant indulgences, we would be sure to know what we would be sitting down to for dinner a week from next Thursday. That following Friday it would be fish. Again. Damn you, God, what with your insistence on fish every Friday and your love of watching young boys and girls explore their nether regions.

Pipe and Drum

July. Every year. The Proud Protestants march in bands around Carrickfergus and beyond in their annual parades to celebrate everything that is Protestant, and, more importantly, everything that will remain Protestant come Hell or high water, you Fenian cunts. They celebrate the Battle of The Boyne – where all poor Ireland’s Catholics’ troubles started – to the great and glorious rule of Queen Elizabeth II, the radiant monarch of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Head of the Commonwealth, God save her and long may she continue to rule over us one and all. Or so it goes. The flags and bunting come out once again, and we watch from behind closed doors as the Proud Protestants display their allegiance to all things Protestant, from the Queen to the Red Hand of Ulster to the Ulster Volunteer Force and The UDA. They celebrate their domination of politics and power, of structure and scripture. 

Flying the flag was a thing of pride, even though many looked as if they had flown and fluttered continuously from the time they adorned the Cherry Walk trampoline and the necks and breasts and backs of the smiling ladies back then, in 1977. Many stayed out year round, and Dad told us that the Proud Protestants should really question their pride in their country and their allegiances if they allowed the flag to stay out like that, to get battered by the erratic weather in Northern Ireland, and shit on by good Fenian pigeons.

“In America and in the Free State they take their flags in every evening at sunset,” he said, “then they fold them like we did in the services and they keep them inside until dawn the following day. Then they get put back up again, clean, brilliant and proud.” He looked into the middle distance. I looked at him, envisioning brilliant shit-free flags in those foreign countries, those Fenian birds to our south holding in their shit until after dusk, or planning one serious evacuation before the alarm clocks clattered across the length and breadth of those honourable lands. Maybe, I thought, maybe those birds saved all their shit for an entire year, completed then a yearly migration to Northern Ireland in preparation for the July fortnight, and then, with undoubted relish and relief and abandon, let it all go over here? I could not help but think that it was not only the Proud Protestants who celebrated the Twelfth Fortnight. I only ever questioned my father inside my own head, but, by the look of some of the flags, this was a distinct possibility. 

The more proud a Proud Protestant you were the earlier you took your flag from under the stairs or out of the shed, and the earlier you adorned your property with its glory. Many were bleached by a year of rain and sun and bird shit, and no-one took a blind bit of notice of yours anyway because it was now nothing more than a part of the everyday red-ish, white-ish, and blue-ish flapping against the white-with-a-little-brown. If others did take notice it was only because the wind had flapped the flag against those jagged stones for so long that it had become little more than a few strands of frayed and filthy material fluttering in the breeze. Even more proud Proud Protestants put up two flags, and the most Proud of Proud Protestants festooned their concrete door shelters with three flags – the Union Jack, the Red Hand of Ulster, and a flag depicting the motto or insignia of the paramilitary army they chose to support, in the main the Ulster Defence Association or the Ulster Volunteer Force. In Carrickfergus the UDA garnered most of the support, as the town remained truly theirs. In a desperation to wear their colours on their sleeves – something that became almost comical – many families would place two flags in their living room windows, crossed like an X in the centre; three flags went on the concrete shelter; bunting festooned the fence and followed up the path to the front door. In many windows there were posters or a 1977 dinner plate depicting the gracious Queen, and, occasionally, under the flag-made X, a vase of orange lilies to complete the window dressing, those flowers wilting and crisping and browning under the searing July sun. The street was red, white, blue, and orange by day; it was red, white, blue and orangey-black by night. The same colours flew in Cherry Walk and Blackthorn Park and Maple Gardens and Oakwood Road and the Woodburn Road, on Ellis Street, up by Windmill, beyond. Way beyond. The plastic bunting and flags flapped in the breeze, making clickety-clacking noises. The older – and apparently more expensive – cloth bunting and flags soiled easily, in days not weeks, but the blessed cloth bunting stayed silent in the breeze, flapping a quiet and dignified celebration. As we grew boys to men the cloth bunting disappeared, replaced there by its twin, the cheap and noisy dirty oul tart of the family.

The more Proud Protestant you were the more flags you flew. The more flags you flew, the more proud a Proud Protestant you were to those you thought might give a flying fuck about such things. The more proud you were the more loyal you were. The more loyal you were the more a true Loyalist you were. The more a true Loyalist you were the more militant you tended to be. The more militant you were the more you hated Catholics. The more you hated Catholics the more Proud Protestant, Loyalist and militant you were, and the more flags you flew. And we grew to know those who would be first to fly their flags and emblems, those who would fly the most. It was those who made their feelings clear to us when we walked by them in the street, those who halted Halt!, and with that those who made us different. 

As Brendan and I varied our routes home through those streets we were invariably proven right, but ensuring we got home safe and that those we met knew little of us being the Proud Fenian Taigs of The Vatican of The Hollies meant that we often took little notice of who was the proudest, reddest, whitest and bluest; who was most loyal, Loyalist or militant. By night the street cracked and whipped and clickety-clacked as the breezes later traced our paths home through the streets and alleyways and passages and garages and back to where we started, all the while breathing life into the streets, fluttering glorious Protestantism.

By the first week of July all the flags were out, and they could be new and pristine or dirty and rain-sodden, because, in the end, it mattered not a jot. They were all of them precious and no-one could take that away, not even those damned full-to-bursting Fenian pigeons. 

Through our window with the heavy curtains with the sliver gaps, through the fireguard, we would watch the flags as the wind waltzed with them up the street and across the roofs and out to sea. The winds made the flags rise and fall, up and down, up and down, all along the street. Outside the window, the zigzagged bunting attached to the nearest streetlight always was plastic. Clickety-clack, clickety clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. We fell asleep to the staccato singing and dancing of flags and wind, the partners tap-dancing from west to east.

The Eleventh of July. Every year. In a twist of time and logic, the Eleventh Night sees the culmination of the glorious Twelfth of July celebrations, and the expectation is that all and sundry will join in the partying. The Hollies filled again with children, drunks, bikes, piss, skipping ropes, couples snogging, footballs. 

The Proud Protestant mothers and fathers still lucky enough to be working would just be starting their traditional two-week holiday, known as the July Fortnight or the Twelfth Fortnight. Many employers and businesses in Northern Ireland shutter their doors for two weeks in July so that the Proud Protestants can enjoy a feast of history and marching bands, choked down with party foods and cheap drink. The culmination of the celebrations is the infamous Eleventh Night. The Proud Fenians stay off the streets that night.

By the Eleventh Night the Proud Protestant mothers and fathers have had the flags out and up, back down, cleaned of Fenian shit, back out again. To fuel the celebrations they fill fridges with beers and ciders, or whatever cheap alcohol the dole cheque would allow a decent Proud Protestant man and his family to enjoy. And cheap beers for the ladies, once the ladies had downed their cheap wines. Drinking wine in The Hollies was like having French-polished furniture in The Vatican: it looked nice, and it provided an illusion of extended pinkie-fingered sophistication, but no visitor ever was to find out the country of origin, the store where you purchased your wine or how much it cost. Receipts were kept out of sight. There was some level of pride to maintain, a decorum to portray, thank you very much.

During the months of June and July, Proud Protestant sons and daughters relieved us of our old and broken furniture by dragging it away to pile it on the traditional Twelfth of July bonfires, known as boneys. 

“Hey mister, we’re collectin’ for the boney. J’wanna give us sumfin for it?”

“Why the hell not?” Dad would say, “It gets rid of junk, doesn’t it? Let ‘em have it.” And thus, to sweaty, dirty, prepubescent urchins we relieved ourselves of the things we needed no more, our junk, and we knew our junk would be added to that pile of junk that might have an effigy of the Pope or a Proud Fenian martyr or the Irish flag burning on top of it in a few hours’ time. It saved Dad from having to get Carrickfergus Council workmen off their arses and into The Hollies, and everyone was on holiday anyway, didn’t you know?, and there was no way you would get anyone doing anything like work during the glorious Twelfth Fortnight.

The Child of The Hollies only collected the junk for the boney. Older boys and young men built the boney. It was okay for us to speak with those collecting the wood, the dirty-faced, ignorant, innocent children, but we avoided those building the bonfires, those who had an inkling about politics, about Fenians, who lived here and there in the town, and what church they attended. Once upon a time we played Halt! with many of them. The older ones never came near number 43 because they knew we lived there, and there was nothing more galling than to be seen fraternising with a Fenian family, even if it was just to add their Catholic fuel to the fire. Talking to Taigs was off limits unless you collected milk money or insurance money. There were times when strangers came seeking donations in support of the Loyalist Prisoners Association: we never gave, but were polite about our refusal. “Sorry, no,” then we’d close the door. Or, “Can you come back later, perhaps? I don’t have any change on me,” was another we used. We smiled and we chatted. They never did come back – either they moved on to another area or they got wise to The Vatican.

There was one boney in the field we knew as the first field, just above The Hollies. They built one on the first field above Blackthorn Park, one further along Oakwood Road, a massive bonfire was built close to a play park down by Crazy Prices, and many dotted the Salt Hills. They were everywhere, and every one of them was a celebration of the burning of something Catholic. The only time a Tricolour – the Irish flag – or an effigy of the Pope lasted more than two minutes in Carrickfergus was when it adorned a boney. In that town, Tricolours were bought only when they were to be burned high above on the Eleventh Night. If you could find one or steal one, all the better.

The residents of Blackthorn Park built a boney in the garages. The paint on the wooden garage doors lay dry, thin, blistered and cracked, the result of the boneys of previous years. Some of the garage doors had burned accidentally, others simply broken apart by the same vulturous children who played in the burned out shells of cars, those whose time was now taken in the search for any wood that would make their boney the biggest, proudest Twelfth of July boney anywhere. Bigger, taller, wider, better, paper, wood, clothes, oil drums, palettes, plastic bags and any Catholic effigy, whether that was the Pope or just any old Taig draped in a Tricolour.

“I’m glad that apple tree is rooted to the spot!” quipped Dad.

By early evening on the eve of the glorious Twelfth of July the streets were clear of Fenians. If The Eleventh was on a Sunday Catholic masses went ahead, and those who promised to remain unbowed in the face of Proud Protestant celebration proudly made their ways to church and back again, leaving home at the usual time, dressed the same as always. Proud Protestants were to see that life went on as normal for Catholics. We did it, we went to church, and we kept our foxes ears on the priest and on the street outside, with the Lambeg marching drums getting louder and the swears getting clearer, and the mob getting nearer.

“Remember always to love your neighbour as yourself,” pleaded Father mCGarry, “Yes, even during times like these when our streets are filled with our neighbours and their beautiful music. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” A polite ripple of laughter.

The faces of the congregation eased into frowns, the anxiety muted but thick in the air. The faces of the congregation spoke a raw truth. What they said was, “What? Go now Father? Are you fucking kidding, Father, god forgive my language? With the mobs outside, their cheering and swearing filling the holy air, the bangs of Lambeg drums louder and louder in the street, filling our ears?” And as the faces spoke their truths the mouths maintained a pretence: “Will we be seeing you in the Parochial Hall for the bingo and the tea next week then, Mrs. McKay? Sure, won’t it be grand to see the parishioners having a nice supper together? Aye, sure it will.” We shuffled out, slowly. Mass could have lasted forever those nights, for all we cared, and the usual rush for the door was never to be seen as the parish mingled a while in hushed and unhurried talk, keeping Mrs. Armstrong busy in the repository longer than usual. Father O’Hagan could have cast us into Hell one hundred times those nights, and we would have come back for more, delaying our exits past the pillars of salt and out through the holy doors. Few souls left before the Lambegs faded into a safe distance, up by the farm on Ellis Street or down by Pete’s Place, our second favourite record store, owned and run by Blind Pete and staffed by him and his mother. Everyone waited until the reassuring green uniformed presence of the RUC was all we could see before Taylor’s shop up the road; or down the road, beyond the curve where Ellis Street blended with Minorca Place, Irish Quarter West and Davy’s Street. Everyone got home quickly. If you had a car you got it, you, and your family home.

Sexy Times in God's School

As O-Level exam time approached the pressure was on to perform well as pupils, and the pressure was on for the Saint Malachy’s authorities to make sure that all the boys who left the blue gates for the last time did well as men, too. They had to address sex, and they did so in the last term of fifth year, before they lost that last chance to teach purity of mind and body to hormonal Catholic schoolboys. Besides them calling it, “a beautiful union of man and woman” in the old Church of The Holy Plaster Shower, sex was never mentioned in the teachings that Fathers McGarry, O’Hagan, and Patton made from on high. But in Saint Malachy’s there was no escaping what needed to be taught. 

My class, Senior 2B, lined up outside the classroom in C Block, waiting for Mr. Ward to arrive for the Religious Education class. A gentle man, he passed out sweets and threw compliments like his brother, also a teacher, spat out venom and launched desks. He was late, and we stood waiting, hoping for a free period, the precious forty-minute periods that were becoming all the more welcome what with the exams darkening our futures.

“Anyone see Ward today?” shouted someone from the back of the line.

“I did, this morning. Haven’t seen him since.”

“Anyone else see him?” The crowd hushed as a priest walked up to the front of the line.

“Is this Senior 2B?” he asked as he put down his briefcase, grasped the door handle, tried turning it, then fumbled for a key that matched the lock. His fingers and his eyes knew only some of those keys – on any ordinary day he should not have been here.

“Yes, Father.”

“Ah, good,” he said, turning the right key in the right lock, “Okay, follow me.” He led us into the classroom and seamlessly into an Our Father and a Hail Mary. In English.

Clasping his hands in the Learned Man’s fashion behind his back – they must surely teach all priests this stance during their years of instruction in the seminaries, I thought – he stared at a point on the back wall, but no particular point. His hips thrust forward and his clasped hands stretched behind him as he rolled heel to toe, toe to heel, heel to toe. 

“Gentlemen, many of you will be leaving us this year and it is as important that you know how to act in a Christian manner outside of these gates as you have been taught how to be a Christian within these gates. Gloria ab Intus boys, remember? Glory from within.” He pointed to the breast pockets of some boys closest to him before pausing momentarily, rolling from heel to toe, toe to heel, belying a certain discomfort.

“You’ll soon all be men, soon, you boys, leaving here, and that means you’ll be doing things like getting jobs, joining the world of work, marrying and maybe even having children one day, if God spares you.” This was one of our Mum’s favourite expressions, “If God spares you.” I began – around this time – to ponder on the petulant and cavalier nature of this god of ours.

“And there are things to learn about being a man in the outside world that can be taught like anything else in this life. Like mathematics, or English, or Gaelic football.” He paused again, rolled from heel to toe, toe to heel, cleared his throat, absently considered the ageing and browning maps of the world adorning the walls, crisp as old Uncle Arthur’s heavy plastic table-cloths.

By then we knew what was coming. This was to be our first sex education class, and there were sniggers, wry laughs, and whispers, and all around the room there were boys nudging each other in the lets-see-what-we-can-teach-this-guy-’cos-he’s-a-fucking-priest style. The priest stared hard at those sniggering, but uttered not a word of admonishment. The serene priestly gaze – the second thing taught in a seminary, I thought – always was enough to quieten and redden the face of any Catholic, regardless of age or life experience or cockiness.

“Okay then, boys. There’s a lot of vulgarity about sex these days, gentlemen, and you will see it on TV all the time, and that vulgarity demeans three of the most beautiful gifts from God himself. Oh yes, you boys, the gift of sex, the gift of love, and the gift of children. You boys have been here for five years now, and you’ll have all heard the ways sex is described out there on that quad, or up at the field, or up by those handball alleys and, God forbid, in the lavatories, haven’t you?

Thirty heads nodded and a few murmured, “Yes, Father.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure you have, as there’re boys in this school with minds in the sewers, I can tell you, with more muck up there than they have grey matter, boys, let me tell you all now, boys lost to proper Catholic thought and teaching and practice and living.” He stabbed the air at the four losses we suffered, ending wide-eyed in a crouch beside his desk, his finger pointing extreme right. Then he swivelled, following his finger extreme left. 

“Now, they use the words they hear on the street, boys, don’t they? Hmm? Don’t they?” He waited for an answer that would never come from thirty boys guilty of exactly he same thing. 

“It’s not smart, you know, and it impresses no one, does it? So... Here’s what we’ll do.” He cracked open the tin in which he kept his chalks. “Go on then, tell me these words, this slang you’ve all heard out there. Go on, don’t be embarrassed. Say whatever you want.” He took the priestly stance, his chin up; heel to toe, toe to heel.

Silence fell. As I looked about me I could see that there were boys whose lips had pursed because in their full mouths they were hiding laughs, or they were hiding one of the quad or lavatorial vulgarities behind their tongues and their teeth. The priest put his open hand to his ear and leaned forward in the I-can’t-hear-you stance. A second, maybe two, passed.

“Come on now, boys,” the priest encouraged gently, “Don’t tell me that the cat’s got your tongue now. Say whatever you want. Pretend, even, pretend that I’m not a priest, that I’m one of your friends. What about that?” More silence.

“Boys! Come on!”

“Cunt! Sorry, cunt, Father!” shouted Keith McMahon from the back of the room, shattering the stillness with a word powerful enough to mark forever this incredible moment, a word so powerful that it let laughs break free from behind clenched teeth. Keith was the type to relish being the first to say the word cunt to a priest, and there was something about him that hinted at the possibility that he had been waiting on this moment all his life. This one moment most probably would be the only time a priest would invite him to do so. In that moment Keith may have become the only person in the whole of Irish Catholic Ireland ever to say that word – the swear word – to a man of the cloth. It was a moment he could be proud of, a first in our lives, a moment for us all to remember. Keith’s name was etched deeply into memories at that moment as the man who dared say cunt to a priest.

“Okay boys, okay. That’s enough.” The priest calmed the class with his hands, allowing us a glimpse up his wide sleeves, to the darkness of his armpits. “Good. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McMahon. Always a popular one that, and usually one of the first words offered.” As he spoke he wrote the word on the blackboard.

“Next?”

“Fanny, Father,” shouted Brendy Lynch, also from the back of the room. Brendy offered a wide and very cheeky smile, his wiry, tallish, and short-and-tight-haired presence the very personification of a controlled mischief.

“Father, boobs is one,” added someone excitedly.

“Cock, Father,” said Keith.

“Father, tits, Father,” said Brendy.

The vulgarities came thicker and faster from the boys as they became comfortable with being as honest as they had ever been told they could be without being punished for it.

“Clit, Father,” shouted Brendy, refusing to let Keith eclipse his own lavatorial vulgarities. Brendy was good: in our first year he was the owner and user of a word I never knew existed, and he let the young, blonde temp teacher, Miss McGuckian, know that, strictly speaking, shit was, in fact, excreta, you know. She agreed, congratulating him on his expansive scatological vocabulary. It certainly was impressive. We all knew urine, and felt proud of that knowledge, but only Brendy Lynch had technical knowledge of number twos.

“Well, now, it’s actually called a clitoris, a clit-O-ris, -O-ris, young man, and we’ll be using the proper term so that the whole class knows what we’re talking about, okay? Okay then, any more?” The three syllables of clitoris he said slowly as he wrote the word on the board, and he pronounced the middle syllable twice into the air, the shape of his lips ensuring that we knew even how to spell the word. 

“Do you know what a clit-O-ris is, by the way?” Silence. A gland in the brain, I thought, or a machine of some sort, something devilish, dark and hidden from all mankind. I knew nothing of the whereabouts of mine, and that concerned me. Not only did I not know the word but I was unable also to reach my hand to feel if my clit-O-ris was okay, and clean, able to be taken into public without embarrassment. In fact, I didn't even know if I could touch it. It was a mystery then, something I knew was maybe part of me, but something unknown, like my middle ear, with all its hammers and anvils.

“Well? You can’t use the word without knowing what it means now, boys, can you?” Silence.

“The clit-O-ris, boys, is part of the female body, and you might be well advised to remember what words mean before you consider using them. You would be well advised of that, wouldn’t you?” He paused, looked at his watch, sighed. I paused, thought about this clit-O-ris thing, sighed.

“Okay, anybody else?” The priest began to sound exasperated, we could all tell: he spoke as only exasperated people alone do, stretching their coming-up-to-my-final-words, like he stretched his “anybody.” He knew there were more words coming his way.

“Is fuck one, Father? Like saying 'fuck me' or 'let’s fuck' or 'do you fancy a fuck big girl?' or…”

“Thank you! Thank you! That’s quite enough young man! You’re only embarrassing yourself, not me, so just you calm yourself down there. But thank you, and well done that man!” He pointed to the wag in the game show host’s exaggerated congratulatory style, all pizzazz and bent-kneed, and I waited for him to announce a prize for that one word, the game’s Magic Word.

“Yes! Thank you! I thought that was never going to show its face today. That’s usually one of the first ones out too, you might be surprised to know, or not...” His voice faded to a sly, comic understatement, and he looked to the class, expecting us to laugh. No-one graced his expectation.

“It took you boys a little time, but you got there eventually.” More finger pointing and failed lightening of the mood. “Anyway, well done that man! Anyone else? Any more? Mr. McMahon? Have you any more for us?”

Keith stayed silent. 

That

She tried to speak, to defend herself, she tried to cower, but another slap would take the words from her mouth. She tried desperately to get away, but he held her arm so tight he bruised often the skin on either side of her elbow. She fought to get her free arm to her thigh, to defend the skin, and she tried to free her other arm from the grip he held. Her body doubled over, her head went near his crotch. She would twist again if that failed, pushing her head against his chest, her body turned into him, doing everything she could do to protect her skin from the blows, trying with all her strength to get her legs as far away from his hands as possible. 

“Who do you think are talking to anyone like that? Huh? You have to learn what respect is, and if this is the only way you’ll ever learn then hell slap it into ya! I’ll not be talked to like you talk to yer mammy, d’ya hear me?”

He never went for her head. He always went for the legs, for the sting and that satisfying popping sound that skin makes on skin when you hit it just right.

She twisted and turned and flayed and tried to beg him to stop, often ripping her clothes as she tried desperately to pull away. The next scream truncated the one previous as it blasted from her mouth, peppering the air with spit and sweat and snot and silence then noise. He found a way around her every time. He would pull her arm down sharply, turning her with the force created. Often he would get his body beside hers, his torso over her back, his left arm around her waist, from above, her body held in position by his left knee. That way she was defenceless – open at the back for a girl with a school skirt on – like he had her over his knee in a standing position. That way both her hands were free, but the grip he had was unbreakable and that was how he liked it, that was the position he wanted. All Martina could do then was tear at his trousers or reach out to Mum if she could see her in the room. Or she would just take it once more.

We did nothing. We could do nothing but stare. He was unstoppable when he was like that. Drunk or sober and spoiling for a fight, Martina or Pepper were going to get it, sure as the sun would rise the next morning over the roofs in Blackthorn Park. 

Every beating lasted a good five minutes, and they never eased. Martina struggled until the end, even if she did accept what was happening, and I knew in my heart that her struggling meant that she never became used to the pain, no matter how often or how hard Dad laid into her. She always fought. When Dad eventually let go she would run screaming and crying from the room, but he always got a slap or two in as she was running through the living room doorway, or at the bottom of the stairs. 

At Night, No Shadows, No Sounds

As the last of the night minutes crept slowly into the first of the day minutes the fear would leave us a little, and we would go to our rooms and play our new singles on the record player, keeping the volume wheel at a tinny 2 or less. With the lights off, the music so low we could barely make out the metallic voice emanating from the single speaker, our father slumbering downstairs, Mum getting ready for bed and the girls already retreated from fear and now dreaming, Brendan and I lay on our beds and watched the street. Four streetlamps illuminated the stretch of the street we could see from the window, but nothing lit up the garages; skewed toe-pointers had sent footballs smashing into the streetlights just once too often for the borough council to replace them. The substation was pitch-black, the longest, darkest parts of the alleys the same. The garages were quiet, the sub-station might quietly hum if the wind was right, the alley-ways were quiet, and the only sounds that late on would be couples walking home from bars, or cars driving past on Woodburn Avenue, or vulturous children picking dry the bones of some old dead car somewhere behind us in Blackthorn Park. We listened and watched until the early day minutes became the early day hours, the tinny voices of Africa Bambataa or Adam Ant our only comfort. We slept when dawn broke.