One thing was certain. Neither the fifth-former nor I was coming out of this particular encounter any the richer. As we stood there awaiting judgement in his office, Sammy asked if we had anything to say for ourselves. The man was normally a human laxative where I was concerned, but I was still on my adrenaline high. I knew I could hardly pipe up with, ‘This has easily been my best day here so far!’ so I just shrugged.
Posh-Boy Pob cracked, however, and tried to claim that I had been taunting and bullying him. Sammy turned to me but I offered nothing more than my ‘As if?’ face. For me, for once, whatever punishment would be served seemed well worth the crime.
Sammy studied both of us for what seemed like an age but I had nothing to hide. Eventually, he turned back to his big book of numbers and delivered judgement in a very matter-of-fact manner: ‘If this boy is capable of bullying somebody your size, then perhaps you deserve to be bullied. Now get out of here, the pair of you.’
This left me with a grudging respect for Father Samuel. I mean, he remained for the best part a by-the-book disciplinarian/disciplinary dick/douche-bag, but that felt like the first time I’d seen common sense prevail in that place. And as the years have passed, although I can’t quite qualify this beyond a gut feeling, I’ve come to believe that he was at odds with some of the goings-on at Upholland. I think he did what he believed was best by us in a mean-minded, bureaucratic kind of way but, overwhelmingly, he hid behind the day-to-day economics of running such a big institution: not so much a collaborator, more an anguished passive enabler to the system. I think lots of decent priests found ways and means of distracting themselves from some of the more distasteful realities of Upholland in this way.
Outside Sammy’s office, my bouffant aggressor made it quite clear that our feud was far from over. I offered to go again straight away as my blood was still up, but he strode off with all the camp menace of a semi-beaten piñata donkey. Still, I knew I couldn’t rely on me being able to lose my rag as effectively as I’d done earlier on any other random day. So I called in the big artillery.
I’ll never forget the weekend our Mark accompanied my parents up for a Saturday afternoon visit.
ORWELL’S WORDS WERE MY SILENT LULLABY
There were some pretty rich lay-students at our school, and some quite amazing cars would glide up the driveway on those days: one or two even had those dignitaries’ mini flags on the front. Which is what made my family’s entrance all the more spectacular in our turd-brown Mk II Ford Cortina estate that someone had given my dad because it was cheaper than paying to have it towed away as scrap.
The clutch was knackered, and the handbrake was well on its way out, so Dad had to plan his routes carefully in order to avoid any hill stops. The car was burning oil and would let out big, black clouds through the exhaust as it jerked its way into parking spots like a geriatric clown car.
I never felt any embarrassment over it, though: I was always just too damn pleased to see my folks. It was the most precious few hours in my fortnight. And as decrepit as the car might’ve looked, nothing was cooler than watching my brother Mark climb out of the back dressed in full ‘fuck you’ Mod uniform.
Eat your heart out Harry Potter. Although on closer inspection there was little magic at work behind those imposing stone walls.
At this particular moment, he was my Ace Face. He lifted his shades and gave the building a brilliantly disapproving once-over. He wanted onlookers to be in no doubt about his immediate disdain for the place. After big hugs and hellos with Mum and Dad, I took Mark for a tour of the seminary, knowing he was dead keen on sorting out our bit of business.
‘Right, where’s this gobshite who’s been giving you grief?’
There were a couple of likely places he’d be. We checked there, but no joy. Then, as we walked through the double doors near the refectory, I saw him walking towards us from the far end of the corridor.
He stopped, I pointed. ‘That’s him!’
The gobshite realised immediately what was going on, because I’d told him my brother was going to come down and paste him. He’d scoffed and made naff threats, but had at least not made to hit me again after that day in Sammy’s office. Now, he bolted and our Mark went after him like a whippet.
I gave chase, mad keen to see the carnage for myself, but I couldn’t keep pace. Our Mark was a fast scrum-half, and Moulin Rouge-chops was running like he had the devil on his tail.
Mark came back about twenty minutes later. He’d lost him up in the woods by the golf course. He told me how he’d shouted at the top of his lungs exactly what he was going to do once he did get hold of him. Rag Dolly Anna must’ve heard him, because he never came near me again.
I suppose it was for the best that Mark had to leave it at verbal threats. He was lean and wiry and could punch his weight painfully well. I might’ve been expelled had he actually caught up with his quarry that day (maybe that’s what I was inadvertently after).
Afterwards, we had a smoke around the back of the big trees on the far side of the lake. I didn’t feel the need to put on a brave face in front of our Mark. He was at an age where he felt it absolutely necessary to be anti-Establishment. He was listening to Quadrophenia and brawling every other night, whereas playing Wham’s ‘Bad Boys’ in the common room was my revolutionary highlight. One lad even got carried away enough to smash his mug of hot Bovril off a wall.
We couldn’t hope to compete with the kind of riot enjoyed by the inmates of HMP Strangeways, but it was still a gesture that suggested I was not the only Underlow aggrieved with the regime – not quite a dirty protest, more a meaty liquid remonstration in tribute to George Michael’s determination to say enough was enough. How far short I was falling of my brother’s example was clear evidence of how institutionalised I was becoming.
It wasn’t just Mark who was putting me to shame in rebelliousness terms, either. There was also a fellow inmate’s mum, who was a living legend as far as we were all concerned.
‘Where’s that fucking Father Sammy? I wanna word!’ We could hear her screaming from a mile away. She was the only person who used our private nickname as an official title. Well, she added the ‘fucking’ bit, but we all thought that a bold stroke of genius. Sammy hated the banshee, you could tell. He couldn’t intimidate her, and he certainly couldn’t reason with her. And she wasn’t deterred by the dog collar. She’d call him all sorts.
‘You’re a bully, you poisoned little dwarf, you!’ You could’ve sold tickets for the spectacle, had anyone been brave enough to stand and watch – most students hid around corners but still within earshot. And you were basically within earshot anywhere within the seminary walls. Eventually, Sammy started finding things to do away from his office on those Saturdays.
You had to find fun where you could at Upholland. And we did. It was a survival technique. Plus we were eleven, for God’s sake. I used to try and get all the other lads in my year to meet up after lights out. There were these huge linen cabinets in the centre of the dorm, and two cupboards at either end could easily accommodate six or more of us.
I know it all sounds a bit Dead Poets Society, but without access to a mate’s house whose dad kept a poorly concealed stash of porno films back home, this was the only alternative. We didn’t play Wank on a Biscuit or anything like that – all we had was a baking apple. We’d just sit up whispering – breaking rules and dodging the dorm monitor.
To the rest of the lads this was just a bit of fun, but to me it was essential. I couldn’t sleep at Upholland; I could never just climb into bed and nod off. There was too much time put aside there for contemplation,