Bad Catholics (3 page)

‘Hello Mac,' she called along the corridor, smiling. ‘Are you well?'

‘Fuck off.'

‘Did you have a good day?'

‘Bastard.'

‘Where's Norah? You know Norah can come in with you.'

Mac's mad eyes glared at her, then he turned and went out to return moments later with a brown and white terrier as filthy as himself.

‘Enjoy your cup of tea,' she said to his back as he pushed through the door into the dining room.

Philomena wedged the dining room door open then headed off towards the toilets. As soon as she could detect the smell of the disinfectant she called, ‘Jimmy, it's later than I realised. Leave that and get to the front door. The night shift is coming on.'

Jimmy didn't answer. He just put the mop he was using back into its bucket, collected the other reeking bucket and mop from one of the toilet cubicles and took them to the nearby handyman's store. He poured the foul water into the low sink, put the empty buckets on the stone floor, and left the mops in the sink.

There was a chair with a newspaper on it by the foot of the stairs next to the front door. Jimmy picked up the newspaper and sat down. From that position he could see most of the dining room and hear what was going on. Philomena was behind the tea urn at the counter talking to Mrs Amhurst, who was setting mugs out.

Mac sat at a table with a mug cupped in his hands. On the floor beside him, Norah looked up at him with simple and total devotion.

‘Does Norah want anything, Mac?' Mrs Amhurst called. But Mac, in what was left of his mind, was far away. ‘I'll get her a saucer of milk, shall I?' she added.

She poured some milk into a saucer, came from behind the counter, and set the milk down in front of the terrier, who immediately began to drink. She patted the filthy animal gently, then went to the kitchen to wash her hands.

Philomena's right, thought Jimmy, Mrs Amhurst is amazing, bloody amazing. Her appearance perfectly described her, a sixty-something lady who lacked for nothing financially. But she had a way of looking at people and responding directly to them. Maybe it was something to do with the eyes, she always looked at your eyes. And she listened, it was as if she was really interested. She was more popular with the regulars than Philomena or Janine, even though Janine had all the charm and vivacity of a young American as well as considerable good looks.

The front door opened and a young addict sidled in, glanced at Jimmy, and hurried into the dining room. Jimmy smiled at him as he passed. The smile was forced, a requirement placed on him by Philomena. It convinced no one and was not intended to. He wasn't like Mrs Amhurst. He looked at people's clothes first, noticed how they walked or stood, listened to the way they spoke as much as what they said. He looked into their eyes last, if at all. He automatically judged them ‘no problem', ‘problem', ‘big problem', or ‘not sure'. It was the ‘not sure' ones he watched with the greatest care. It was the ‘not sures' he disliked most of all, but then, there weren't many people he did like.

Philomena came out of the dining room drying her hands on a tea towel. Behind her he could see Mrs Amhurst pouring tea for the addict and talking cheerfully.

‘A slow start tonight.'

He nodded. Philomena was one he did like. It was a harmless indulgence he allowed himself.

‘But it'll pick up. There's too many out there in need of this place for any night to be really quiet.'

‘That's a fact, Sister.'

‘It's good to have you here, Jimmy. I feel much better about Lucy and Janine with you here. Money and good looks are a terrible responsibility in a place like this.'

‘I knew you had good looks, but I never knew you had money. If you hadn't taken vows, I might have done something about it.'

Philomena laughed.

‘Go on, you. I never had money and I never had looks and I never missed either. I never saw the one bring joy or the other last.'

‘But you worry about that pair and not yourself? Couldn't you come to a bit of harm as well, or is The Man Upstairs looking after you?'

‘I'll be all right. If you've done time in Idi Amin's Uganda, Paddington isn't so bad. And maybe I am being looked after by The One Upstairs, and if so, I think She's doing a good job.'

At that moment the front door crashed open and a drunk staggered into the hall. Jimmy was up and had him face hard against the wall with an arm twisted up behind his back before Philomena had moved.

‘Easy Jimmy, easy. It's only Freddo.'

Jimmy moved back slightly and Freddo promptly vomited.

‘Oh, God, sit him outside, then come in and clear that up will you? Some of our best nights started quiet.'

Jimmy took Freddo outside and sat him on the floor in the alley with his back resting against the wall. He was in no state to worry about the cold. Jimmy poked him hard in the leg. ‘Don't come in again till you're fit.'

Freddo nodded without looking up, rolled sideways, and went to sleep. Jimmy went back inside, closed the front door, and headed to the store room. This job meant cleaning one of the buckets and mops he had left there. He pulled on a pair of bright yellow Marigold gloves and, as he tried to clean the shit out of the mop head under the running tap, pondered on how Philomena took it all in her stride and never seemed to sit in judgement on the trash she dealt with. Maybe she was genuinely good, holy even.

As Jimmy put the mop down and reached for the Jeyes Fluid it was not the odour of sanctity that he felt was clinging to him. This was his third week as general odd job man and ‘security' at Bart's. It was not what he had been used to but the work was easy. Some of the clients might be violent but never in any professional way, so they presented no real problem. He rinsed out the sink and poured some of the whitish fluid into it. Not hard work, but no one could say it was pleasant.

He put the mop into the bucket, half filled it with water, and hoped they and he smelled more of Jeyes Fluid than anything else, then set off back to his next little assignment. He looked at the floor as he came back to the hallway. Someone had walked straight through the vomit and trailed it into the dining room.

‘What the hell am I doing here?' he said to himself. But he knew exactly what he was doing here. Exactly.

Kilburn, June 1956

The group of three girls ran to where Jimmy was standing in the playground. They formed a line in front of him and chanted:

‘Jimmy Costello, he can't dance,

Because he's got no underpants.

Jimmy Costello, he can't sing,

Because he hasn't got a thing.'

The last word was almost shouted so there could be no doubt what the ‘thing' he didn't have was. Having finished their performance, they giggled and ran off to another part of the playground to annoy some other boy.

Jimmy was eleven and in his last year of primary school. Next term he would go to the secondary modern. Hardly anyone from his school ever passed the eleven-plus exam, at least, not often. This year Terry Prosser had been the only one, the first in a long time.

Another boy came out of the mass of noisy children and stood beside him.

‘What you doing, Jimmy?'

It was Kevin. Kevin was a thief. That wasn't so bad though, because everyone knew Kevin was a thief so no one gave him a chance to steal anything. Jimmy disliked Kevin, not because he was a thief but because he was stupid. He was always trying to show off but had nothing to show off about. He loved to swear and show how bad his language could be but he had no imagination so he simply parroted the strings of obscenities which everyone knew, even if they didn't use them in school. He often tried to become aggressive but anyone who stood up to him, even a bold infant, could face him down. He was poor and he was dirty. At his First Communion he had been brought by his grandma and he had been wearing black pumps with a hole in one toe where the dirty grey sock showed through. He often tried to talk to Jimmy because Jimmy frequently stood alone in the playground. Kevin also tried to talk to him because he was one of the very few people who didn't humiliate or reject him as a matter of course. Sometimes, if Kevin was lucky, Jimmy would even talk to him for a bit.

‘Do you want to do something?'

‘Like what?'

A sly look came into Kevin's eyes.

‘Let's go and shit on the floor in the toilets.' Jimmy recoiled.

‘What?'

‘We could leave shit on the floor.' Then Kevin had a better idea. ‘Or we could wipe it on the walls.'

He was grinning with enthusiasm. Jimmy was appalled. In his own home no one swore, ever. He had once said fart, and his mother had been visibly shocked, not angry, but shocked. Gently, with sadness, she had explained to him how a home was a place where the family were just that, family. You didn't bring the dirt of the streets in on your boots, your tongue, or your mind. Everyone had to make sure the home was a place where the nastiness of the outside world didn't intrude. You couldn't always get away from that nastiness, but there were places where you didn't bring the dirt from outside in with you. Church was one and home was another, they were both sacred places.

At home elaborate language had been developed so that bodily parts or functions, if they had to be referred to at all, were referred to so that no suggestion of the rude or vulgar crept in. Jimmy knew the words others used, how could he not, but he never used them himself. Now, to have it suggested to him that he might go to the toilet on the floor, that was awful. But to touch it, to put it on the walls – he was physically revolted. He walked away from Kevin. Even standing next to him made him feel dirty.

About a quarter of an hour after the end of the lunch playtime, when everyone was back in their classes, the headmistress, Sister Augustine, sent for him. He went to her office, a forbidding doorway at the end of a dark corridor reached by a staircase of grey stone steps. He knocked and entered on her command. She sat behind a large desk. Her office was light, tidy and well-decorated, so different from the rest of the shabby, decaying school. Her expression told him something had happened, clearly not something good. He was glad he knew nothing about it and would not be called on to tell tales on anyone.

‘You are a filthy little boy, Jimmy Costello, a disgrace to the school and a disgrace to your family, and if you were not so close to leaving I should certainly have expelled you.'

He was stunned. He had no idea how he had arrived in such a situation or even what the situation was. Sister Augustine got up, walked around her desk, and stood in front of him.

‘Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.' He didn't pretend.

Suddenly Sister Augustine slapped his face.

Jimmy had not expected that. He knew he would be punished for whatever he was supposed to have done but he had not expected anything so personal. In a way he was glad. That put her in the wrong.

‘That awful mess in the toilets. I will cane you then you will clean it up yourself. No one else should have to clean it up.'

Then she became calm. She took her cane from where it lay on the desk. Jimmy held out his hand. He had never been caned before. His life in school had not been good or bad, it had been anonymous. The cane rose and fell three times. Jimmy winced. It hurt, but the pain somehow didn't seem to go past his wrist. It was a fierce pain, but it all stayed on the palm of his hand. He found that odd and interesting.

‘The other hand,' demanded Sister Augustine. He held out his other hand. It was the same, fiercely painful, but localised. Jimmy lowered his arm and Sister Augustine returned to her chair.

‘I have told the caretaker to put a bucket, mop, scrubbing brush, and disinfectant in the toilets. Go and clean up your mess.'

‘No.'

‘What did you say?'

He knew all about it now. Kevin had carried out his foul joke and blamed him. He didn't mind being caned but he would not go among shit, especially not among Kevin's shit.

‘No.'

‘No one else will clear up your mess, Costello.'

‘It's not my mess.'

‘Don't try to blame anyone else. I know it's your mess.'

‘It's not.'

If asked, he would name Kevin, but he had to be asked. ‘Then why did Terry Prosser tell me it was?' Sister Augustine was playing her trump card. Terry Prosser's word could not be doubted. He was known by all to be as honest as he was clever. Jimmy couldn't understand it.

‘You will clean that toilet and wash it down so the vile mess and smell are removed completely. If you do not do as you are told, I shall write to your parents and not only ask them to remove you, but to remove your sister also.'

To have to leave the school was of no consequence to him. In just over six weeks he would be gone anyway. But his little sister loved the school and all her friends were there. Sister Augustine was using his little sister against him. He also knew that the shame would be massive for his parents, especially for his mother.

If he gave in now, the whole thing would be forgotten by tomorrow. He turned without speaking and left the office. ‘Come back, you rude boy, and apologise.'

Her voice followed him down the corridor but she herself did not.

Jimmy went to the stinking toilet where he saw the ordure wiped across the floor and walls. How had Kevin managed it without taking the awful smell with him into his classroom? It wasn't a skill he wanted for himself but he was impressed that it could be done. There was a bucket of water with a can of disinfectant and a large scrubbing brush on the floor. He took off the disinfectant lid and recoiled, holding the can at arm's length, but at once realised that only such a powerful smell could eradicate Kevin's handiwork. He looked at the label – Jeyes Fluid. It would be a name and smell he would remember. He poured the disinfectant into the water, took up the scrubbing brush, pushed it into the whitish liquid and began to clean.