The Butcher Boy (10 page)

Every day after that off we'd tramp to the bogs with Bubble at the head throwing big cheery smiles at the people of the town standing there gawping after us like we'd marched through the streets without our trousers. The women whispered there they go the poor orphans. I had a mind to turn round and shout hey fuckface I'm no orphan but then I remembered I was studying hard to get the
Francie Brady Not a Bad Bastard Any More Diploma
at the end of the year so I clammed up and gave her a sad, ashamed look instead. As soon as we got out into the open countryside Bubble relaxed and started swinging his arms and singing
Michael Row The Boat Ashore
and the bogmen sang
Alleloo-yah!
all delighted trying to get Bubble to look at them. They said to me isn't Father such and such great. I forget his real name now but it was Bubble they were talking about. Oh yes I said he's an absolutely wonderful singer. Yes, said the bogs, he's my favourite priest in the whole school. Then off they'd go trying to get up to the front to talk to him. But Bubble was all right. I liked the way he always gripped the sleeve of his soutane as he jaunted on alleloooo-ya!, with a red country face on him like a Beauty of Bath apple from all the walking. We'd dig all day long and Bubble would tell us stories about the old days when he was young and the English were killing everybody and the old people used to tell stories around the fire and you were lucky if you got one slice of soda bread to feed the whole family. But what harm did it do us? That's right, says one of the bogmen, being killed did nobody any harm. For fuck's sake!

Ah no I was talking about the soda bread says Bubble ha ha. There's nothing like a nice big slice of soda bread Father I said, wiping my brow and heeling a few sods onto the stack. He paused for a minute and licked his lips. He looked at me with his eyes all misty. Running with butter he said. Now you said it Father, I said and went back to my work, whistling away. I could see the bogmen giving me dirty looks because I was talking to Bubble. I smiled at them. Do you know what a good big slice of soda bread is good for I was going to say. Oh we know, they'd say. For making hardy men out of young country fellows like ourselves? No, for driving up your big bogman arses I'd say. But I didn't say it at all. I just smiled again and made out I had a pain in my back.
Gosh, my dear fellows,
I said, this is hard work indeed. The look on their boggy faces. They didn't know what to say. Oo-er, yes, they said, or something like that. As if they could pretend they were posh, the dirty bog-trotters!

One day Bubble took me up to his study and said to me: I'm glad you're learning manners.

Yes Father, I said.

Then what does he do he goes all misty-eyed again and stares off out the window making a speech about all the boys who had passed through the school in his time there. I've seen them come and go he said, since the first day I came in here as a fresh young curate myself. I remember that day well, Francis, it was all so new to me then. Then he starts into another story about tyres burning the day of his ordination and his mother weeping with happiness. Ah, yes, he said, shaking his head and away off into some other story. Ah yes but I wasn't listening to a word he said I was too busy watching a Flash Bar wrapper that was flapping about over the ambulatory and thinking to myself I wouldn't mind sinking my choppers into a Flash Bar right this minute. In we'd go with a half crown to the shop. Thirty Flash Bars please. Eh? your man would say. Then off we'd go hardly able to walk with all these bars and eat the whole lot one after the other out the railway lines, me and Joe. Big strings of toffee and a beard of chocolate all over your face. Bubble was on about your man who had founded the school. That's his picture there he said. He had a big breeze block of a head and a pair of eyebrows like two slugs trying to stand up. I wouldn't have fancied a scrap with him. You could tell he was a bogman too. It was him founded the school for bogmen with bony arses then was it, I said. I did like fuck. When the speech was over Bubble smiled again and said it was nice to talk to you Francie, keep up the good work, Oh yes, I thought to myself, I certainly will, after all I have to walk out of here with that Francie Brady Not a Bad Bastard any more Diploma, Father Bubble.

After that they put me serving Mass. What a laugh that was. Me and Father Sullivan up before the birds getting into all these starchy togs inside in the sacristy, they'd freeze the goolies off you. Black as pitch outside and not a soul stirring. I'd carry the cruets and stuff and off we'd go me and Father Sullivan like two big whispers moving along the corridor to the chapel rustle rustle. Domine, exaudi orationem meam, he'd say with the hands outspread. I was supposed to say Et clamor meus ad te veniat. Et fucky wucky ticky tocky that was what I said instead. But it didn't matter as long as you muttered something. Father Sull never listened anyway. They said he wasn't right since he was on the missions. I don't know what happened some Balubas put him in a pot or something and ever since he'd been walking round with a face on him the colour of stir about never slept a wink roaming around the corridors at night in his soft shoes all you'd see at the window was this yellow face looking out.

It was around that time I started the long walks and the holy voices. Bubble says to me what are you doing going on all these long walks down to the low field by yourself?

I told him I thought Our Lady was talking to me. I read that in a book about this holy Italian boy. He was out in a field looking after the sheep next thing what does he hear only this soft voice coming out of nowhere you are my chosen messenger the world is going to end and all this. One minute he's an Italian bogman with nothing on him only one of his father's coats the next he's a famous priest going round the world writing books and being carried around in a sedan chair saying the Queen of Angels chose me. Well I thought -- you've had your turn Father Italian Sheep man so fuck off now about your business here comes Francie Brady hello Our Lady I said. Well Francie she says how's things. Not so bad I said.

Lord be praised, said Bubble and I thought he was going to take off into heaven on the spot. I could feel his eyes on me as I floated down to the low field.

I knelt on the soggy turf for penance. I looked up and there she was over by the handball alley. I wasn't sure what to say to her ah its yourself or did you have a nice trip or something like that. I didn't know so I said nothing at all. She had some voice, that Blessed Virgin Mary. You could listen to it all night. It was like all the softest women in the world mixed up in a huge big baking bowl and there you have Our Lady at the end of it.

She had a rosary entwined around her pearly white hands and she said that it gladdened her that I had chosen to be good.

I said no problem, Our Lady.

I told Father Sullivan all about it and he said I had unlocked something very precious.

The next day I got talking to a few more, St Joseph and the Angel Gabriel and a few others I don't know the name of. The more the merrier. I went through Father Sullivan's books and found out dozens of the fuckers. St Barnabas, St Philomena. We could have had six matches going at once in the low field there was that many.

The bogmen were raging. I don't see why she's appearing to you, they said, what's so special about you?

I told them to fuck off, what did they think she had nothing better to do than appear to a bunch of mucksavage bastards like them.

It was hard to beat that old sacristy and the chapel in the mornings, the twirl of candle smoke and the secret echo of the pews, all the sounds of the morning not born right yet.

It wasn't very long after that that Father Tiddly arrived at the school. But of course that's the joke for he had been there all along. Yes -- Father Sullivan! We were in the sacristy and if there was one thing Father Sull loved to hear it was my stories of the saints in the low field. But there were two saints he adored most of all and they were St Catherine and St Teresa of the Roses who came down from heaven on a cloud of pink flowers. Any time you mentioned them he got all weepy and joined his hands praying. They had never come to the low field at all but he kept asking me about them so I had to make up a few yarns about them and all the things they said to me. I was in the middle of one of these stories when I look up and what's old Sull doing only smoothing my hair back from my eyes and stroking away at my forehead with his pale cold hand. Look at you, he said, my serving boy. Introibo ad Altare Dei I said I don't know why and the next thing what does Sull do only plant this big slobbery wet kiss right on my lips. Then he said please, tell me the story of St Teresa of the Roses again. So I did, all about the petals falling out of the sky and the smell of perfume what was the perfume like he kept saying. I nearly said look Father do you want me to tell the story or not because if you do will you please stop interrupting? But I didn't for you never knew with Father Tiddly he might start crying or anything. When I told the story sweatbeads as big as berries popped out on his forehead and when it was over he started muttering and fumbling around the place going this way and going that way and going nowhere at the same time. It wasn't until the third or fourth time I told this story about the roses that he began the Tiddly Show. I thought it was a great laugh with all the prizes you could win out of it. Are you all right Francis he'd say. Oh I'm grand Father and dropped my eyelids shyly like Our Lady did. Sit up here he said and slapped his knees. So up I went. What does Tiddly do then only take out his mickey and start rubbing it up and down and jogging me on his knee. Then his whole body vibrates and he bends away over I thought he was going to break off in two halves. I'd be in a right fix if that happened. What would Bubble have to say about that? Just what is going on here? Why is one half of Father Sullivan lying over by the bookcase and the other half still in the chair? Have you something to do with this Mr Brady? Back to your old ways are you? I might have known! But it didn't happen like that lucky enough. Tiddly just crumpled up like a paper bag and lay there hiding his eyes and saying no. I told him not to be worrying his head but he wouldn't come out from behind those hands. Sob sob that was old Sull I mean Tiddly. I read a book while I was waiting for him to come out. Once or twice I caught him peeping through the cage of his fingers but he was in again just as quick. What a book that was! Your man going about the streets of Dublin all tied up with chains under his coat and saying I'm sorry Jesus for all the bad things I done. Matt Talbot, that was his name. The things he got up to in that book. He goes out to the butcher's and buys a kipper. Boils it up in the kettle. And then what does he do? Gives the fish to the cat and drinks the water himself all because of his past sins. What a headcase! He used to buy all the timbermen drink in the pub. Oh here comes Talbot, they'd say, now we're right for a few jars. And sure enough Matt would fork out for the lot. Good man Matt they'd say you're a good one. Then the foreman says to Matt: Fuck off Talbot there's no more work for you around this yard. Poor old Matt. Off he goes to the pub and they're all in there drinking. Any chance of a drink says Matt. No, I'm sorry, haven't a bob. Sorry Matt. That's what they all said. So poor old Matt, off he went in the rain and then back to his dingy old room just him and the cat and not a tosser between them. I know what I'll do he says. I'll start sleeping on floorboards and wearing chains. Then God will forgive me for all the drinking and bad things I done. Will you God? Oh yes says God as long as the planks are good and hard. So out with the planks and on with the chains and away goes Matt through the rainy streets until one day he drops down dead and who finds him only the nuns eek sister! Look here's a man its a holy martyr all chains! I was chortling away at this when Tiddly says dear God I'm sorry Francis. I said it was all right have you any fags? I think if I had said you ought to be ashamed of yourself Tiddly would have gone up through the skylight on the spot and pegged himself off the roof. So I said nothing and just sat there with my mickey snoozing on my thigh smoking fags and reading about Matt and all the saints. Blessed Oliver Plunkett! Chopped in quarters! For fuck's sake!

You're my best little girl says Tiddly and went away off spluttering at his desk.

He said he could see the beautiful things of the world shining through my eyes.

Is that where they are now, I said. I told him about the children in the lane and the sky the colour of oranges. I should have kept my mouth shut about them. I was only halfway through and when I looked up there he is with the tears running down his face. He kissed me on the hand over and over. Tell me again tell me about them again -- please Francis! I thought his eyes were going to come right out, plop on the carpet oh for fuck's sake now what what we we going to do -- if Bubble finds these!

He gave me three fags for that was all he had left. I knew he would have give me all the fags in Carroll's factory if he had them. The way he looked at you that old Tiddly with his big sad squiggle of a mouth. It was like the coyote after the road runner has made a complete cod out of him.

But he wasn't that much of a cod. He told Bubble he was almost one hundred per cent sure I had a vocation for the priesthood and he was giving me guidance. Bubble was over the moon. He stopped me in the ambulatory and says: Look at Saint Augustine!

Yes, Father, I said and bowed my head. Yes Father, I said softly, whoever St Augustine was, there was nothing about him in my saint book. If God does call you it is your duty not to be afraid. Remember that we are here at all times. That is what we priests are for after all. We're not ogres Francis! Yes Father I said, I know that. I could feel him staring after me purring away happily to himself as I headed off to the low field to talk to the saints and smoke a fag and get stuck into the packet of Rolo that Tiddly had given me.