Millions (2 page)

In the afternoon, for some reason, I decided to do a St Roch. I forbore all temptation to speak during Numeracy Hour – didn’t put my hand up, didn’t answer a tables question even when pointed at. When Mr Quinn asked me if I was OK, I was tempted to reply, but I just nodded my head instead. I wasn’t contributing to the class, but I was being excellent in a different, less obvious way.

I kept this up all the way home. Dad had left instructions fixed to the fridge door with a
Clangers
magnet:

I enjoyed being called dear.

When Dad came home, we had the pie, followed by five pieces of fruit and a pint of water each to hydrate our livers. When they were completely hydrated, we did our homework and he sat with us. I still didn’t say a word, but then the phone rang and I accidentally answered it. I don’t know how St Roch kept it up for ten years, although admittedly he had it easier living in a time before phones. Anyway, it was Mr Quinn. My teacher actually rang our actual house. How excellent is that!

Later Dad came and sat on the end of the bed and said, ‘You’re a bit quiet today. Cat got your tongue?’

I shook my head.

‘I heard you were quiet in school too.’

I nodded.

‘Anything you want to tell me?’

Shook again.

‘Right. Well, time for bed.’

He’d nearly closed the door when the temptation to speak finally overwhelmed me. I said, ‘What did Mr Quinn want?’

‘Well you know, a chat really. It was him who was telling me about how quiet you were.’

‘He said thank you to me three times, so I must have been fairly excellent. Did he say I was excellent?’

‘He said . . . Yes, he said you were excellent.’ He ruffled my hair. ‘One of the customers was telling me about this place today. It’s called the Snowdrome. You can toboggan or have a go at skiing. Fancy it?’

I wasn’t sure.

‘For being excellent. As a reward.’

‘OK, then.’

‘OK. So we’ll go straight from school tomorrow, because you’re excellent.’

The Snowdrome was quality completely. It’s real snow inside, made of ice crystals from a big blower. They give you a special snowsuit to wear when you’re in there. You’re not supposed to have two people on a toboggan, but Anthony explained to the man that our mum was dead and he let us do what we liked. We went down twice two together, once on our bellies and three times backwards.

In school next morning, everyone was interested to hear all about it. I explained how the ice blower worked and was giving a demonstration of backward-tobogganing when I smashed into Mr Quinn, who was coming in through the door.

‘Watch it! Watch it!’ he yelled as he dropped all our workbooks.

I helped him pick them up. I saw my own, the one about St Anne. It had a note stuck inside, which he took out and pocketed as he gave me back the book.

‘What d’you think you’re playing at, lad?’

‘The Snowdrome, sir. We went. It was good.’

He suddenly looked all cheery. He said, ‘Well, you could write about that for today’s Literacy Hour, couldn’t you? Give an exciting description of all the fun you had. No patron saint of Snowdromes, I bet.’

The truth is, there is always a patron saint. As St Clare of Assisi (1194 –1253) once said to me, ‘Saints are like television. They’re everywhere. But you need an aerial.’

Anthony can’t believe I’ve got this far without mentioning European Monetary Union.

Anthony said goodbye to the old pound nearly every day. On the way home from school, he used to run like mad to the middle of the footbridge, then wait there till a train went roaring by beneath us. Then he’d wave and yell until it was out of sight, just like the Railway Children, shouting, ‘Goodbye! Goodbye, old pounds!’

He made it sound like every single ten-pound note was a personal friend. Sometimes you’d think he was going to cry. ‘Just think,’ he’d say, ‘500-odd years of history, up in smoke.’

Other times, he’d seem quite happy about it. ‘Just think,’ he’d say, ‘come Christmas we’ll be able to spend the same money from Galway to Greece.’

Every night before we went to bed, the three of us dropped any small coins we had into a big whisky bottle at the foot of the stairs. On the way to bed, Anthony would nearly weep as he dropped his five pees in. On the way to breakfast, he’d stroke the bottle happily and say, ‘Amazing how fast it mounts up.’

Personally, I think, so what? Money’s just a thing and things change. That’s what I’ve found. One minute something’s really there, right next to you, and you can cuddle up to it. The next it just melts away, like a Malteser.

To be architectural about it, I found the new house disappointing.

I remember Cromarty Close when it was made of string. Dad took us to a big field near the railway, all overgrown with brambles and nettles. A man with a checked shirt and a clipboard led us to a place where the brambles had been cleared and the grass cut short. It was criss-crossed with avenues of string. He pointed down one and said, ‘Dogger.’ Then he walked to the corner of the next one and said, ‘Finisterre.’ Then he pointed off to the left and said, ‘Cromarty’.

‘What d’you think?’ Dad said. ‘Want to move here?’

I said, ‘Yes, please!’ very enthusiastically.

So we did.

Actually, my enthusiasm was because of a misunderstanding. I thought he was suggesting we live in the field, with the string. A lot of saints have lived in unusual houses. St Ursula ( 4th century) lived on a ship with 11,000 holy companions. St Simeon (390–459) tried to avoid the temptations of the world by living on top of a three-metre column. When sightseers started coming to stare at him, he moved to a ten-metre column so he wouldn’t hear them. And when they just started shouting (in 449), he moved to a twenty-metre column, where he ended his days in peaceful contemplation.

Compared to that, living in a field full of brambles and string seemed sensible and pleasant. I was looking forward to it. When we came back, all the brambles had gone and there was a sign saying ‘Portland Meadows – exclusive, discreet, innovative’, and four rows of houses with very pointy roofs and funny-shaped windows. Number 7 Cromarty Close is a three-bedroom detached with substantial gardens and solar panels. Anthony said, ‘Detached houses hold their value better and three-bedroom is the configuration most sought after by most buyers. The solar panels are added value.’

Compared to a boat with 11,000 companions, or a twenty-metre marble column, our house seemed a bit unsaintly, so I built myself a hermitage.

Dad decided to get rid of the cardboard boxes. We ripped them open and found all sorts of stuff that we’d forgotten we had. One was full of vases. One was full of bedding. One had the Christmas decorations and a Micro Machines racing circuit inside (we set it up in the boxroom). I found the one with Mum’s dresses in and her make-up.

When they were all empty, I took the boxes down to the railway, slotted them inside each other and there you go, a hermitage. It was tunnel-shaped, with little flaps for looking out. When the trains went by, the whole place shook. If it was dark, the trains lit up the inside for a second. There was a line of holly bushes between the gardens and the track, so the hermitage was nearly invisible from the houses. I took a few things down there – such as my St Francis bookmark and a tube of tinted moisturizer I found – but not much, the whole point being to live a simpler life. Not full-time, obviously, because of school. But whenever I could. I got a bit scratched going through the holly, but that was OK because suffering is good (it’s called mortification).

I got the idea for the hermitage from Rose of Lima (1586–1617), who lived in one at the bottom of her parents’ garden from when she was a little girl. She had multiple and marvellous visions, including those of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Ghost, and visitations from many saints. Personally, I didn’t get any, even though I stayed there until it was really cold.

I went on Google to try and find out why my hermitage wasn’t working and the answer was obvious. Not enough mortification. People like Rose of Lima didn’t just live in hermitages. They fasted for weeks. They went everywhere barefoot. They wore uncomfortable clothes. They scourged themselves.

Some forms of mortification are just not practical. Fasting for seven years, for instance, is not going to happen when your dad is obsessed with everyone eating five pieces of fruit a day. And as for scourging, well, there were no facilities in Portland Meadow. But I did sleep on the floor that night. I waited until I heard Dad’s light go off, then I got out of bed and lay down just under the window. It was uncomfortable, but that’s the point. Then on the way to school the next morning, I let Anthony get ahead of me and slipped my shoes off. It was fine when we were walking across the field – though my socks did get wet. But the path up to the road is made of little bits of gravel. I think one of the builders must have employed someone to sharpen each bit of it before they put it on the ground. It was really, really mortifying. I was greatly tempted to walk on the grass verge, but I resisted. The pavement was easy after that.

I met Mr Quinn at the school gates. He noticed my feet and said, ‘Something wrong with your shoes, Damian?’

I said, ‘Mortifying my flesh, sir.’

I think he was impressed.

During Numeracy Hour Jake came and tapped me on the shoulder and then went, ‘Ow!’

‘Jake, what are you playing at and is it maths?’ asked Mr Quinn.

‘I was going to ask him for a borrow of his ruler, sir, and he’s spiky.’

‘What?’

Now everyone was looking at me.

Jake said, ‘I just touched Damian’s shoulder, sir, and it hurt.’

Mr Quinn came over and touched my shoulder. Then he leaned down and whispered to me to come with him. ‘Just get on with it, the rest of you.’

Out in the corridor, he made me undo my shirt and show me what was inside. On totallysaints.com it tells you about Matt Talbot, who wore chains all the time. Obviously, I couldn’t get any chains as such, so I’d stuffed my shirt with holly from the hermitage.

‘Who did this?’

‘Did it myself, sir.’

‘You’re cut. Take the holly out and I’ll get some plasters.’ When he was putting the plasters on, he said, ‘I want you to come and see me at Home Time. I’m going to give you a letter to take to your dad. You’re not in trouble, but it is important. OK?’

The letter was in a brown envelope. It was quite thick. Dad opened it as soon as I gave it to him. He read it and then put it in his pocket.

Anthony said, ‘What’s it about? Are they going on a trip?’

‘No,’ said Dad. ‘Or. Yeah. Maybe. In a way. Eventually. Go and wash your hands.’

It was my turn to wash up and Anthony’s to put away. Dad was supposed to be doing the floor, but when I came back into the dining room to make sure we hadn’t missed any dishes, he was reading the letter again. He put it away as I came in, but I saw that one of the pages was yellow and it said ‘Special Assessment’. I thought, ‘Special’, that’s pretty good.

I think Dad must’ve stayed up late that night, because I fell asleep in my bed before he came upstairs to brush his teeth. In the middle of the night, I woke from a dream (which I don’t want to talk about), got up and stretched out on the floor under the window again. It was really cold after the warm bed. I couldn’t get to sleep. Suddenly I realized there was someone standing in the doorway. I thought, finally, a vision. But when it came closer, I could see it was just Dad. He bent down and picked me up, whispering, ‘Shhhh, Damian. You’ve fallen out of bed. I’m just going to pop you back in. Don’t wake up.’