The Hard Life Read online

  –I think it is very hard, I said. Couldn’t she call to see him here and have another Brother present, like they do in jails when there is a warder present on visiting day?

  –Well, that’s the queer comparison, I’ll warrant. Indeed, this house may be a jail of a kind but the chains are of purest eighteen-carat finest gold which the holy brothers like to kiss on their bended knees.

  The door opened silently and an elderly stout man with a sad face glided in. He smiled primly and gave us an odd handshake, keeping his elbow bent and holding the extended hand against his breast.

  –Isn’t that the lovely morning, Mr Collopy, he said hoarsely.

  –It is, thank God, Brother Gaskett, Mr Collopy replied as we all sat down. Need I tell you why I brought this young ruffian along?

  –Well, it wasn’t to teach him how to play cards.

  –You are right there, Brother. His name is Finbarr.

  –Well now, look at that! That is a beautiful name, one that is honoured by the Church. I presume you would like us to try to extend Finbarr’s knowledge?

  –That is a nice way of putting it, Brother Gaskett. I think they will have to be very big extensions because damn the thing he knows but low songs from the pantomimes, come-all-ye’s by Cathal McGarvey, and his prayers. I suppose you’ll take him in, Brother?

  –Of course I will. Certainly, I will teach him everything from the three Rs to Euclid and Aristophanes and the tongue of the Gael. We will give him a thorough grounding in the Faith and, with God’s help, if one day he should feel like joining the Order, there will always be a place for him in this humble establishment. After he has been trained, of course.

  The tail-end of that speech certainly startled me, even to tempting me to put in some sort of caveat. I did not like it even as a joke, nor the greasy Brother making it.

  –I … I think that could wait a bit, Brother Gaskett, I stammered.

  He laughed mirthlessly.

  –Ah but of course, Finbarr. One thing at a time.

  Then he and Mr Collopy indulged in some muttered consultation jaw to jaw, and the latter got up to leave. I also rose but he made a gesture.

  –We’ll stay where we are now, he said. Brother Gaskett thinks you might start right away. Always better to take the bull by the horns.

  Though not quite unexpected, this rather shocked me.

  –But, I said in a loud voice, I have no lunch … no broken biscuits.

  –Never mind, Brother Gaskett said, we will give you a half-day to begin with.

  That is how I entered the sinister portals of Synge Street School. Soon I was to get to know the instrument known as ‘the leather’. It is not, as one would imagine, a strap of the kind used on bags. It is a number of such straps sewn together to form a thing of great thickness that is nearly as rigid as a club but just sufficiently flexible to prevent the breaking of the bones of the hand. Blows of it, particularly if directed (as often they deliberately were) to the top of the thumb or wrist, conferred immediate paralysis followed by agony as the blood tried to get back to the afflicted part. Later I was to learn from the brother a certain routine of prophylaxis he had devised but it worked only partly.

  Neither of us found out what Mr Collopy’s reason was for sending us to different schools. The brother thought it was to prevent us ‘cogging’, or copying each other’s home exercises, of which we were given an immense programme to get through every night. This was scarcely correct, for an elaborate system for ‘cogging’ already existed in each school itself, for those who arrived early in the morning. My own feeling was that the move was prompted by Mr Collopy’s innate craftiness and the general principle of divide et impera.

  4

  AND still the years kept rolling on, and uneventfully enough, thank God. I was now about eleven, the brother sixteen and convinced he was a fully grown man.

  One day in spring about half-three I was trudging wearily home from school at Synge Street. I was on the remote, or canal side of the roadway near home. I happened to glance up at the house when about fifty yards away and, turned to cold stone, stopped dead in my tracks. My heart thumped wildly against my ribs and my eyes fell to the ground. I blessed myself. Timidly I looked up again. Yes!

  To the left of the house entrance and perhaps fifteen yards from it a tallish tree stood in the front garden. Head and shoulders above the tree but not quite near it was the brother. I stared at the apparition in the manner fascinated animals are reputed to stare at deadly snakes about to strike. He began waving his arms in a sickening way, and the next prospect I had of him was his back. He was returning towards the house and he was walking on air! Now thoroughly scared, I thought of Another who had walked on water. I again looked away helplessly, and after a little time painfully stumbled into the house. I must have looked very pale but went in and said nothing.

  Mr Collopy was not in his usual chair at the range. Annie—we had now learned to drop the ‘Miss’—placed potatoes and big plate of stew before me. I thought it would be well to affect a casual manner.

  –Where’s Mr Collopy? I asked.

  She nodded towards the back room.

  –He’s inside, she said. I don’t know what father’s at. He’s in there with a tape taking measurements. I’m afraid poor Mrs Crotty’s getting worse. She had Dr Blenner-hassett again this morning. God look down on us all!

  Mrs Crotty was certainly sick. She had taken to the bed two months before and insisted that the door between her bedroom and the kitchen should be always left slightly ajar so that her cries, often faint, could be heard either by Mr Collopy or Annie. Neither myself nor the brother ever entered the room but all the same I had accidentally seen her on several occasions. This was when she was coming down the stairs leaning on Mr Collopy and clutching the banister with one frail hand, her robe or nightdress of fantastic shape and colour and a frightening pallor on her spent face.

  –I’m afraid she is pretty sick, I said.

  –Seemingly.

  I finished with a cup of tea, then casually left the kitchen and went upstairs, my heart again making its excitement known. I entered the bedroom.

  The brother, his back to me, was bending over a table examining some small metal objects. He looked up and nodded abstractedly.

  –Do you mind, I said nervously, do you mind answering a question?

  –What question? I have got a great bit of gear here.

  –Listen to the question. When I was coming in a while back, did I see you walking on the air?

  He turned again to stare at me and then laughed loudly.

  –Well, by damn, he chuckled, I suppose you did, in a manner of speaking.

  –What do you mean?

  –Your question is interesting. Did it look well?

  –If you want to know, it looked unnatural and if you are taking advantage of a power not of God, if you are dealing in godless things of darkness, I would strongly advise you to see Father Fahrt, because these things will lead to no good.

  Here he sniggered,

  –Have a look out of the window, he said.

  I went and did so very gingerly. Between the sill and a stout branch near the top of the tree stretched a very taut wire, which I now saw came in at the base of the closed window and was anchored with some tightening device to the leg of the bed, which was in against the wall.

  –My God Almighty! I exclaimed.

  –Isn’t it good?

  –A bloody wire-walker, by cripes!

  –I got the stuff from Jem out of the Queen’s. There’s nothing at all to it. If I rigged the wire across this room tomorrow and only a foot from the floor, you’d walk it yourself with very little practice. What’s the difference? What’s the difference if you’re an inch or a mile up? The only trouble is what they call psychological. It’s a new word but I know what it means. The balancing part of it is child’s play, and the trick is to put all idea of height out of your mind. It looks dangerous, of course, but there’s money in that sort of danger. Safe danger.


  –What happens if you fall and break your neck?

  –Did you ever hear of Blondin? He died in his bed at the age of seventy-three, and fifty years ago he walked on a wire across Niagara Falls, one hundred and sixty feet above the roaring water. And several times—carrying a man on his back, stopping to fry eggs, a great man altogether. And didn’t he appear once in Belfast?

  –I think you are going off your head.

  –I’m going to make money, for I have … certain schemes, certain very important schemes. Look what I have here. A printing machine. I got it from one of the lads at Westland Row, who stole it from his uncle. It’s simple to operate, though it’s old.

  But I could not detach my mind from that wire.

  –So you’re to be the Blondin of Dublin?

  –Well, why not?

  –Niagara is too far away, of course. I suppose you’ll sling a wire over the Liffey?

  He started, threw down some metal thing, and turned to me wide-eyed.

  –Well, sweet God, he said, you have certainly said something. You have certainly said something. Sling a wire over the Liffey? The Masked Daredevil from Mount Street! There’s a fortune there—a fortune! Lord save us, why didn’t I think of it?

  –I was only joking, for goodness’ sake.

  –Joking? I hope you’ll keep on joking like that. I’ll see Father Fahrt about this.

  –To bless you before you risk your life?

  –Balls! I’ll need an organizer, a manager. Father Fahrt knows a lot of those young teachers and I’ll get him to put me on to one of them. They’re a sporty crowd. Do you remember Frank Corkey, N.T.? He was in this house once, a spoilt Jesuit. That man would blow up the walls of Jerusalem for two quid. He’d be the very man.

  –And get sacked from his school for helping a young madman to kill himself?

  –I’ll get him. You wait and see.

  That ended that day’s surprising disputation. I was secretly amused at the idea of the brother getting on to Father Fahrt about organizing a walk across the Liffey on a tight-wire, with Mr Collopy sprawled in his cane armchair a few feet away listening to the appeal. I had heard of earthquakes and the devastation attending them. Here surely would be a terrible upheaval.

  But once more I reckoned without the brother. Without saying a word he slipped off one day up to 35, Lower Leeson Street and saw Father Fahrt privately. He said so when he returned that evening, looking slightly daunted.

  –The holy friar, he said, won’t hear of it. Asked did I think I was a cornerboy or had I no respect for my family. Public pranks is what he called walking the high wire. Threatened to tell ould Collopy if I didn’t put the idea out of my head. Asked me to promise. I promised, of course. But I’ll find Corkey on my own and we’ll make a damn fine day of it, believe you me. Had I no respect for my family, ah? What family?

  –No Jesuit likes being mistaken for a Barnum, I pointed out.

  Rather bitterly he said: You’ll hear more about this.

  I felt sure I would.

  5

  IT had become evident to me that one of the brother’s schemes was in operation, for a considerable stream of letters addressed to him began to arrive at the house, and he had become more secretive than ever. I refused to give him the satisfaction of asking him what he had been up to. I will tell all about that later but just now I wish to give an account of the sort of evening we had in our kitchen, not once but very many times, and the type of talk that went on. As usual, the subject under discussion was never named.

  The brother and myself were at the table, struggling through that wretched homework, cursing Wordsworth and Euclid and Christian Doctrine and all similar scourges of youth. Mr Collopy was slumped in his cane armchair, the steel-rimmed glasses far down his nose. In an easy chair opposite was Father Kurt Fahrt who was a very tall man, thin, ascetic, grey-haired, blue about the jaws with a neck so slender that there would be room, so to speak, for two of them inside his priestly collar. On the edge of the range, handy to the reach of those philosophers, was a glass. On the floor beside Mr Collopy’s chair was what was known as ‘the crock’. It was in fact a squat earthenware container, having an ear on each side, in which the Kilbeggan Distillery marketed its wares. The Irish words for whiskey—UisgeBeatha—were burnt into its face. This vessel was, of course, opaque and therefore mysterious; one could not tell how empty or full it was, nor how much Mr Collopy had been drinking. The door of Mrs Crotty’s bedroom was, as usual, very slightly ajar.

  –What the devil ails you, Father, Mr Collopy asked almost irritably.

  –Oh it’s nothing much, Collopy, Father Fahrt said.

  –But heavens above, this scrabbling and scratching—

  –Forgive me. I have a touch of psoriasis about the back and chest.

  –The sore what?

  –Psoriasis. A little skin ailment.

  –Lord save us, I thought you said you had sore eyes. Is there any question of scabs or that class of thing?

  –Oh not at all. I am taking treatment. An ointment containing stuff known as chrysarobin.

  –Well, this sore-whatever-it-is causes itching?

  Father Fahrt laughed softly.

  –Sometimes it feels more like etching, he smiled.

  –The man for that is sulphur. Sulphur is one of the great sovereign remedies of the world. Bedamn but a friend of mine uses a lot of sulphur even in his garden.

  Here Father Fahrt unconsciously scratched himself.

  –Let us forget about such trivial things, he said, and thank God it is not something serious. So you’re getting worked up again about your plan?

  –It’s a shame, Father, Mr Collopy said warmly. It’s a bloody shame and that’s what it is.

  –Well, Collopy, what are we for in this world? We are here to suffer. We must sanctify ourselves. That’s what suffering is for.

  –Do you know, Father, Mr Collopy said testily, I am getting a bit sick in my intesteens at all this talk of yours about suffering. You seem to be very fond of suffering when other people do it. What would you do if you had the same situation in your own house?

  –In my own house I would do what my Superior instructs me to do. My Order is really an army. We are under orders.

  –Give me your glass, Your Holiness.

  –Not much now, Collopy.

  There was a small silence here that seemed portentous, though I did not raise my head to look.

  –Father, said Mr Collopy at last, you would go off your bloody head if you had the same situation in your own house. You would make a show of yourself. You would tell Father Superior to go to hell, lep out the front door and bugger off down to Stephen’s Green. Oh, I’m up to ye saints. Well up to ye. Do you not think that women have enough suffering, as you call it, bringing babbies into the world? And why do they do that? Is it because they’re mad to sanctify themselves? Well faith no! It’s because the husband is one great torch ablaze with the fires of lust!

  –Collopy, please, Father Fahrt said in mild remonstrance. That attitude is quite wrong. Procreation is the right of a married man. Indeed it is his duty for the greater glory of God. It is a duty enjoined by the sacrament of marriage.

  –Oh is that so, Mr Collopy said loudly, is that so indeed. To bring unfortunate new bosthoons into this vale of tears for more of this suffering of yours, ah? Another woman maybe. Sweet Lord!

  –Now, now, Collopy.

  –Tell me this, Father. Would you say it’s natural for a woman to have children?

  –Provided she is married in a union blessed by the Church—yes. Most natural and most desirable. It is a holy thing to raise children to the greater glory of God. Your catechism will tell you that. The celibate and priestly state is the holiest of all but the station of the married man is not ignoble. And of course the modest married woman is the handmaid of the Lord.

  –Very good, Mr Collopy said warmly. Then tell me this. Is the other business natural?

  –Certainly. Our bodies are sacred temples. It is a fu
nction.

  –Very well. What name have you for the dirty ignoramuses who more or less ban that function?

  –It is, ah, thoughtlessness, Father Fahrt said in his mildest voice. Perhaps if a strong hint were dropped …

  –If a hint were dropped, Mr Collopy exploded. If a hint were dropped! Well the dear knows I think you are trying to destroy my temper, Father, and put me out of my wits and make an unfortunate shaughraun out of me. If a hint were dropped, my hat and parsley! Right well you know that I have the trotters wore off me going up the stairs of that filthy Corporation begging them, telling them, ordering them to do something. I have shown you copies of the letters I have sent to that booby the Lord Mayor. That’s one man that knows all about chains, anyhow. What result have I got? Nothing at all but abuse from cornerboys and jacks in office.

  –Has it ever entered your head, Collopy, that perhaps you are not the most tactful of men?

  –Tact, is it? Is that the latest? Give me your glass.

  Another pause for decantation and recollection.

  –What I would like to do, Mr Collopy said sententiously, is write and publish a long storybook about your theories in favour of suffering. Damn the thing you know about suffering yourself. Only people of no experience have theories. Of course you are only spewing out what you were taught in the holy schools. ‘By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou mourn.’ Oh the grand old Catholic Church has always had great praise for sufferers.

  –That phrase you quoted was inaccurate, Collopy.

  –Well, am I supposed to be a deacon or a Bible scholar or what? You won’t find Quakers or swaddlers coming out with any of this guff about suffering. They treat their employees right, they have proper accommodation for them, they know how to make plenty of money honestly and they are as holy—every man-jack of them—as any blooming Jesuit or the Pope of Rome himself.

  –Let us leave the Holy Father out of this dispute, whatever about humble members of my Society, Father Fahrt said piously.