The boys were standing in silence, hands joined. Near the double doors there was a table where three nuns stood with ladles poised over enamel serving pans. After Father McCartie said grace we sat down while boys assigned to be servers queued in front of the nuns. Each boy received a portion of beans and a hunk of bread. They fell hungrily on the food, eating at speed. After several minutes there was a sharp rap as Father McCartie struck the serving table, and the boys began to talk all at once.
James said: ‘Did you have a pleasant journey?’ No sooner had I answered and begun to tell James about my home parish than Father McCartie rapped on the table again and the boys fell silent and stood up, heads bowed for the grace.
Outside the refectory, James took me down to a room in the basement. It was cold and dimly lit, with stone flags and pine benches. Boys sat around talking quietly in groups, occasionally laughing. James was intent on being kind to me. ‘On weekdays,’ he explained, ‘we have Rosary after supper, which you can say either in church or in the cloister. I rarely come in here. I usually go to the library which is above the refectory.’ James seemed unusually self-controlled and serious. I decided that I liked him.
‘Do you like reading?’ he asked. ‘What are you reading?’ When I said that I was reading The Imitation of Christ, he reacted with surprise. Slipping his hand into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a slim black copy of the Imitation with red edging, identical to my own. ‘I read it at odd moments of the day, and carry it everywhere,’ he said. ‘But it’s spiritual reading, isn’t it? One could hardly count it as one’s normal reading.’
At the clangour of bells, James said that we would not be allowed to speak until breakfast the next day. I should just follow him. ‘Watch out,’ he said grimly. ‘You’ll be beaten by Leo if you’re caught talking, and so will anybody you’re caught talking to.’ Leo, he explained, was Father McCartie’s nickname.
Boys were hurrying down the cloisters to the staircase leading to basement level where they took off their jackets and ties to wash in cold water and brush their teeth. I was still brushing my teeth when an older boy told me brusquely to get a move on. James was waiting to accompany me to the dormitory.
About sixty boys were lodged in Little Dorm; they changed into their pyjamas with a uniform set of modest stratagems. They went down on their knees to pray silently for a few moments before getting into bed. I was still undressing when the lights flashed off and on. I nevertheless went on to my knees to pray.
I thanked God for a safe journey and asked for his protection through the night. After a prayer to my guardian angel (‘O my good angel, whom God has appointed to be my Guardian…’), I was the last to get into bed, where I lay shivering for several minutes. The sheets felt damp and the mattress was as lumpy as a sack of potatoes, but it was the first time I had slept in a bed to myself since my brother Terry had returned from evacuation.
Father McCartie appeared by a doorway situated at the top of a wooden stairway which looked to be a laundry shoot. After a while he began to walk along the lines of beds looking at each of the boys in turn; he had taken off his noisy crêpe-soled shoes and was in bedroom slippers. Then the dormitory was plunged in darkness and silence. How comforting it would have been, I thought, had the priest wished us goodnight and blessed us.
The air, carried on a stiff breeze through the dormer windows, was cold on my face. Soon I made out the night sky through the window above my bed. A scattering of stars sailed between the clouds. I could hear the wind in the trees, then, gradually, in the far distance, the sound of a motorbike taking the steep climb up from Oakamoor, constantly changing gear before surging forward; eventually the sound grew fainter and merged with the rustling of the treetops. I wondered what the family were doing back in London. Dad and my brother Terry were probably listening to the radio, perhaps a cheerful dance number played by the Palm Court orchestra. Sister Maureen the convent-school girl would be doing her homework, while Mum was washing dishes at the sink. My younger brothers would be fast asleep in their single bed, lying end to end.
I lay awake until the breathing of the boys about me became regular. I was dozing off, when I was surprised by the sight of a black figure in the darkness moving silently along the dormitory. I guessed that it was Father McCartie. For an age, it seemed, I could see him standing in silence at the doorway halfway down the dormitory. Eventually he left. As I dozed, I was again conscious of the great spaces beyond the windows and the garret roofs. I felt the wild presence of the woods and hills which were to be my new home.
THE NAKED DORMITORY lights were switched on and a senior boy passed at a run, whacking the ends of the iron bedsteads with a heavy book and shouting: ‘Up!’ It was still dark outside and there was a stiff wind and spots of rain whipping through the dormitory windows. Boys were leaping from their beds, throwing back the bedding for airing; going down on their knees to pray. As it was a weekday, they were donning grey flannel trousers and casting over their shoulders black or navy blazers or sombre tweed jackets in readiness to depart for the wash places. I was the last out, struggling with fingers too stiff with cold to keep up. James, who was several beds down from me, was waiting and gestured for me to follow.
He saw me through my ablutions before leading the way to church where we were the last to take our places in the pews. The boys were kneeling with their shoulders hunched, heads bowed in private prayer. A bell rang and the Mass celebrant and two servers appeared on the sanctuary. I looked at my watch and saw that it was only seven o’clock. The sun was rising, revealing the magnificent detail of the stained-glass window above the high altar – an image of the enthroned Christ the King surrounded by angels and saints. I had grown used to being the only boy at dawn worship in the church at home; it was strange to be kneeling with so many youths at a time of the day that had been special for me and Father Cooney alone.
While the boys concentrated on the main community Mass there was a constant ringing of small bells, muttered Latin, and a flurry of rituals at the side altars of the church as priests came and went with servers to say their private Masses. But the activity died down after the community Mass ended. The last of the priests had returned with his server to the sacristy, and the church was silent.
The period of thanksgiving after Mass seemed interminable. My stomach was churning with hunger, my knees were giving way, and I had a headache and a full bladder. The discomfort was all the worse as I had no idea how long it would last. I felt humbled by the youths around me who seemed controlled and patient in their apparent contemplation.
Father McCartie’s rap at last signalled us to leave the church in ranks for the refectory. Breakfast, eaten in a few gulps by most boys, was porridge (grey, salty, lumpy and made without milk), hunks of dry bread and plastic mugs of tea. James accompanied me to the dormitory where we made our beds in silence, Father McCartie lurking in the background. Descending the stairs, James said we were free until the beginning of lessons so he would give me a tour.
The central focus of the array of college buildings was the façade of the mansion he called the ‘old hall’ where the priests had their rooms and refectory. Before it was a sweep of lawn and a grand cedar of Lebanon. At the back of the old hall was an ugly extension where the nuns lived. James explained that they did our laundry, cooking and cleaning. ‘We call them the witches,’ he said with a contrite smile. ‘They have taken a vow of silence. But the sister matron speaks to us.’
Attached to the old hall were two stone Victorian elevations at right angles to each other, which housed the boys’ refectory, libraries, dormitories, classrooms and