Before leaving me, Father Doran turned to say: ‘I’ll be watching you closely, Cornwell. And I shall be informing your good bishop of your progress.’
‘Now let me see! Cornwell!’ said Father Gavin with a radiant grin. ‘Frumentum Bene! That’s “corn” and “well” in Latin! I suppose we’d better shorten it to Fru. Yes, I like Fru. You look like a Fru. I take it you have no Latin. No Latin at all, eh, Fru!’
With this he gingerly extracted from his shelves a slim book, grinning back at me conspiratorially as he did so. ‘This, Fru,’ he said, as if he were a magician producing a tender live animal from a hat, ‘is called a Latin primer. And you are going to become well acquainted with its contents, otherwise your bottom is going to become acquainted with that stick there on the bookshelf.’ His face was bright red now, his shoulders heaving with laughter. ‘Not to worry, Fru,’ he said. ‘Only joking, eh! But my stick is there to make sure you behave in class, eh!’
I decided that I liked his joviality even if I did not care for his joke.
Placing the book in my hands he said in a low murmur, his small mouth fighting against the compulsion to smile: ‘Take it away with you, Fru. In spare moments acquaint yourself with the first ten pages in preparation for the treat of our first lesson.’ Before dismissing me, he produced a timetable, specially devised, he said, so that I could catch up with my class year, which was known as the lower fourth.
THE MORNING PASSED in abrupt initiations and lessons, punctuated by an unrelenting routine of church visits and religious rituals. I was shown my desk, a capacious box with an oak lid, situated in the lower fourth’s area of the study place, a room which ran the length of one of the stone wings and contained more than a hundred such desks. I was summoned to ‘the bursary’, a room stacked with bars of soap, stationery and clothing, where Father William Browne, a sad-looking overweight priest, issued me with sports gear. I was told to attend ‘the dispensary’ where the matron prodded and poked me all over. When she had finished inspecting my tongue and poking my ribs she murmured: ‘Ah well! Let’s be thankful for small mercies.’
Lunch, which followed the visit of the whole college to the Blessed Sacrament, was a dish of tasteless greasy mincemeat, which the boys called ‘slosh’, accompanied by boiled blemished potatoes, which they called ‘chots’. Within minutes of lunch ending, a bell rang and the boys were hurrying to the dungeon wash places to change into sports gear for a cross-country run. Being under fourteen I was assigned to the ‘easy’ three-mile course.
We streamed up a footpath between drystone walls, greenedged with age, heading for the summit of the valley. I stumbled along, buffeted by a stiff wind. Ahead was a wood of stunted trees; to our right miles of uplands dappled in sunlight to the horizon. To the left was a view of barren hills, their soft green sides broken with outcrops of rock. I was breathless, my legs failing. James hung back, looking sympathetic. We were now the very last of the runners, and the rear was taken up by an older boy who prodded me forward gently with soft little punches in the small of my back. At length we were running on level terrain. Silent woods alternated with swampy open land and we were up to our ankles in the black brackish water that lay below the turf. We clambered over yet another drystone wall and plunged into a pig farm where we were up to our shins in stinking swill and mud.
The college was below, nestling around the church steeple. By the time James and I reached the wash places, most of the boys had doused themselves in cold water and changed back into their day clothes.
The lesson schedule on that first afternoon introduced me to Father Gavin’s special class for Latin beginners. My attention kept wandering to the foliage of the trees at the head of the valley while the lesson unfolded quickly and confusingly with explosions of laughter, jokes and Latin nicknames as Father Gavin drove us on, attempting to explain the mysteries of conjugations and declensions.
Afterwards we were guided to Dr Warner’s remedial class for Greek beginners. Dr Warner was dressed in an ancient grey suit patched with poorly sewn strips of black leather. His face was sallow and faded, his bald pate deeply wrinkled. After setting the others an exercise on the board, he came to sit next to me. Sighing a little as if weary to the heart, he showed me how to form the Greek letters of the alphabet. He smelt of boot polish and his breath was rancid. As I attempted to copy the letters by myself, he hummed a monotonous little tune: ‘Alpha…beta…gamma…delta…’
James met me on Little Bounds to take me in to afternoon tea. He said that Dr Warner was known as Lazarus, or Laz, but his real first name was Leslie. Laz Warner, James said, was a deacon who had studied for the priesthood at the Venerable English College, the seminary for England and Wales in Rome.
On the day before his ordination he decided that he was not worthy to be a priest after all. But his diaconate status had left him committed to celibacy. He came to Cotton where he had remained ever since. Laz was a man of immense learning, said James, but he and his strangely patched suit were unfortunately the butt of many jokes. ‘He is,’ said James, ‘like an old bridegroom who changed his mind on his wedding day.’
AS MY FIRST week passed, the rhythm of the day, punctuated by a huge jangling bell rung by the school captain, settled into a routine of classes, study periods, manual labour, runs, drill and hurried meals. But religious devotions dominated: meditation before the early morning Mass; Low Mass celebrated every day of the week, followed by private thanksgiving; with High Mass in addition on Sundays and feast days. There was a homily, known as ‘conference’, after High Mass; prayers before and after each lesson, and Angelus recited twice daily. There was grace before and after every meal, community prayers before lunch, spiritual reading after tea, Rosary after supper, and night prayers before bed on weekdays; Compline on Sunday evenings. Confessions could be heard each evening after supper. There was private spiritual direction on Thursday afternoons when confessions were also available. Many boys spent time in church during their scarce leisure periods.
On my second day, coming out of the refectory after tea, I was accosted by Father Anthony Owen. He was a stiff-necked man in middle age with thinning sandy hair and remarkably bowed legs, hence his nickname, ‘Bowie Owen’. He understood, he said, that I could read music and wanted to test my voice for the choir. We walked to the choir practice room where there was an upright piano.
After taking me through several scales, he said: ‘You’ll make an excellent alto, but open it out! Let yourself go!’ Choir practice, he said, was every day after tea. ‘But there are advantages, Cornwell. Outings, special treats.’
Suddenly the door was flung open and boys of all ages began to enter. Father Owen distributed music sheets for Mozart’s ‘Missa Brevis’. The youngest boys jostled in friendly horseplay while the older ones – the tenors and basses – affected a sense of disdain.
Father Owen, standing at the piano, took each of the four voices separately. Then he turned to face us as he conducted us in harmony with minimal gestures, closing his forefingers and thumbs at the dying fall of a bar in a gentle pinching gesture. At one point, looking at me directly, he put his hand to his ear as if to indicate: ‘Let it out!’ When we had finished the Gloria, he bowed and implored us not to be late for practice the next day.
As