When Patrick tells them the priest used to tie his left hand behind his back so he would be forced to pick up a pencil with his right, they look at him, eyes like saucers, mouths wide open, small minds trying to grasp the barbarity of it; if he had told them that Santa Claus did not exist, they could not have been more stunned.
“Was it not really sore, Grandpa?” Katie asks.
He nods.
“Why did the priest do it?” Matthew says.
“He wanted me to use my right hand, son.”
“Why?”
“Well… you weren’t supposed to – they didn’t want you to write with your left hand.”
“But I write with my left hand.”
“I know, son, and that’s fine. You’re a good writer.”
“Would Father Kelly tie my hand behind my back if he saw me writing with my left hand?”
“No… No, he wouldn’t. Not now. Using your left hand is fine.”
“Was it only in the olden days they didn’t like it, Grandpa?”
He smiles and nods again. “That’s right, Katie. Not golden, just olden…”
He doesn’t know why he has told them this now. He’s not even sure what brought the image back, but the sound of his grandchildren arguing as they wrote out their Christmas lists for Santa, Katie lecturing Matthew over his messy handwriting in that condescending big sister manner of hers awoke something that had lain so deep for so long he wonders now if it really happened. He picks up Matthew’s pen from the table and clutches it in his hand – his right hand – and he remembers.
It was him and Denis Farrell.
“Touched by the devil, the pair of you,” Father Davis spat at the frightened youngsters. “I’ll coax it out of you or I’ll beat it out of you. It’s up to you which it’ll be.”
He towered over them, still clutching the stainless steel ruler he’d used to strike each boy’s knuckles when he discovered them using the ‘wrong’ hand to hold the pencil. He demanded their school ties, which each boy nervously loosened and presented to the priest, while the rest of the class sat in terrified silence. Starting with Denis, Father Davis took the boy’s left arm and bound it to the back of the chair, using the tie.
“Now it’s your turn, Kinsella.”
Patrick glanced at Denis as Father Davis grabbed his arm roughly and thrust it behind his back. His friend was biting his bottom lip, hoping the pain would stop the tears. Patrick could feel the smooth material against his skin, tightening his arm to the back of the chair and he grimaced in pain. He wouldn’t cry. Crying was for girls.
“Now, pick up your pencil and write this down in your best handwriting,” Father Davis ordered them. The pencil felt funny in Patrick’s right hand, unnatural even, but he did not protest. He could hear Father Davis’ voice again. “‘I must write with my right and not with my left’…NOW!”
The priest slammed his fist down on Patrick’s desk, startling the whole class. Patrick began writing, or trying to, but the words weren’t forming on the white page, now speckled with teardrops. The pencil didn’t fit properly between his fingers; they couldn’t guide it to recreate the letters he knew so well. He wanted to see his best handwriting appear before his eyes, sensed, somehow, that it was essential in order to appease Father Davis, but no matter how hard he tried or how intensely he concentrated, the words refused to form.
He knew he could do it. His mum told him he was a neat and tidy writer. Even Father Gallagher had complimented him in class last year but Father Davis was different. Praise was reserved for the Almighty.
“Is that the best you can do?” Father Davis towered over them, glaring down at the tops of their bowed heads, stray specks of his furious spit dropping on to Patrick’s jotter. The priest snatched the book off the desk and held it up by the tips of his thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled piece of clothing.
“Eight-years-old and this is your best handwriting? What a sorry specimen you are, Kinsella, and you too, Farrell. The devil has certainly got his clutches into you two.”
He threw the jotter angrily at Patrick, and then made the sign of the cross. “Almighty Father, give me the strength to do your work and save these boys from the evil one.”
Father Davis strode to the front of the class and stood before his desk, hands clasped tightly together as if in deep prayer for the salvation of their souls. No-one moved or dared utter a sound. Even Patrick’s tears fell in silence.
“Both of you, out here now.” Father Davis’ order was quiet, but coated in menace. Patrick and Denis glanced at each other before they tried to stand up, but, with their left arms still tied to the chair, it was an awkward action. The priest frowned.
“Someone help them. Donnelly! Untie them.”
Arms free, Patrick and Denis shuffled to the front of the class. Patrick’s left arm felt numb and he tried to shake it back into life. He noticed Denis doing the same thing. Father Davis had disappeared behind his desk and Patrick knew what was coming. The priest stood holding the black tawse up for all to see as if he were displaying the chalice after consecrating the wine at Mass. It was an unbending piece of leather that Father Davis referred to as ‘Penance’.
You could receive Penance for all manner of ‘offence’ – talking during lessons, getting a sum wrong, leaning back on your chair, not reading out in class clearly; Joe Mulgrew got it once for coughing. Stumbling over any of the words of the Rosary or, heaven forbid, forgetting even the tiniest part of the Catechism would result in the severest Penance possible. Hands had bled in this class as a result of such infractions. Now it was the turn of Patrick and Denis.
“Hold out your hand,” the priest ordered both boys. “Not that one! Your other hand.”
Patrick trembled; all the way up his extended left arm to the tips of his fingers he shook. Automatically, he clutched his arm at the elbow with his right hand to steady it but his fingers still trembled. Father Davis brought Penance down swiftly on his hand, the flesh tingling with the force, though Patrick barely had time to register the impact before Penance came crashing down upon him again and again. On the third strike he let out a cry and doubled over, thrusting his hands between his thighs and then rubbing the left with the right in a futile attempt to dull the pain throbbing in his palm, while the stinging sound of Penance being delivered to Denis echoed through his mind…
“Why are you crying, Grandpa?”
Katie’s voice, soft and concerned, startles him. He smiles at her as he takes off his glasses and rubs his watery eyes.
“Your Grandpa’s just being silly.”
“I don’t like it when you’re sad.”
“I’m fine, darling. Just a bad wee dream I remembered.”
She studies his face for a moment, vibrant blue eyes taking in every contour, every crack of his skin before she locks on to his eyes and they stare at each other until he blinks and looks away. She sits up beside him, ordering Matthew to bring her the notepad which lies opened on the table, her half completed Christmas list visible to Patrick as he dries his tears. Her brother complies without protest, which is unusual in itself, and then places himself on the other side of his Grandpa.
Katie finds a clean page then picks up the pen that has lain in Patrick’s right hand. She smiles at him, this wise, gentle nine-year-old, as she takes his left hand and places the pen in it, forcing him to hold it as if he is going to write. A look of terror washes across his face but Katie squeezes his hand, guiding it and the pencil towards the notepad.
More tears trickles down his face as the tip of the pen touches the pure, unblemished paper. Nothing moves for a few seconds. Patrick can feel his hand, his whole arm shaking, but the warmth and steadiness of Katie’s palm comforts and calms him. Slowly, she moves his hand and a blue mark appears on the page. Her brother lets out a gasp as the line gets bigger and bigger as the pen glides across the paper until it reaches the bottom and falls off the edge.
Then she moves Patrick’s hand back to the centre of the page and slowly, precisely, guides it over the paper, taking each letter at a time until the word ‘GRANDPA’ stares up at him.
You can email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or tweet me @PaulTheHunted
