Seminary Boy Page 6

  The seminarians of my imagination had been pale and pious, slow of movement, gentle-eyed. These boys were fresh and open-faced, their ears red as if with the cold and the fresh air, their shoulders squared like boy soldiers. Some of the older ones had the tough appearance of farm boys or young building labourers; I had the impression that their eyes were bright, as if with a kind of inner excitation.

  Father McCartie led me down the ranks and positioned me between boys who appeared to be the same age as myself. At a signal from the priest we moved forward slowly in step along the terrazzo-floored cloister like a regiment of young undertakers. Many of the boys had metal studs on their shoes giving their precise marching the sound of a metallic drum roll. We passed into a gallery I would come to know as the ‘clock cloister’, because of the presence of a tall grandfather clock. The walls were lined with pictures, including one prominently large print of a youth whose naked body had been punctured bloodily with arrows (this, I learnt later, was a copy of Botticelli’s Saint Sebastian, the early Christian boy-martyr). There was a pervasive smell in the gallery, of wood polish, burnt toast and lingering coffee fumes.

  Finally we passed through double doors into the church where our footsteps echoed on the patterned tiles and the cool air was heavy with the smell of incense and candle grease. The ceiling disappeared into the darkness high above. There were simple stone columns, unadorned side altars, and a Lady chapel at the end of a side aisle beyond a wooden screen. The boys took their places in plain pine pews on either side of the main aisle; beyond the altar rails was a spacious sanctuary with choir-stalls, an organ, and a stone high altar in the distance overlooked by a massive east window gleaming in the darkness. The boys were kneeling, ramrod straight; the kneelers were made of hard wood. The boy next to me, a youth with pale limp hair, high colouring in his cheeks, and National Health spectacles, took my missal and found me the page for Sunday Compline.

  A procession of boys entered the sanctuary, filing into the choir-stalls, followed by a priest wearing a white-and-gold cope. He was tall and ruddy, and walked casually without a hint of devotion. He bowed at the foot of the altar and intoned in Latin the beginning of Compline, the office of prayers at the end of the day.

  The ritual appeals to God for his protection as night falls: ‘May the dreams and phantasms of the night recede; keep the enemy at bay, lest our bodies become polluted.’ At the Salve Regina the boys’ voices soared up to the high rafters: ‘To you we sigh, groaning, and weeping in this vale of tears…’ I was conscious of the wild valley in its remote and rugged setting in the darkness outside, deepening the sense of strangeness. Then it struck me that unless I begged to be allowed home the very next day, I had no other choice but to throw myself completely on the person of Jesus. I stole a look around me. My companions knelt with their faces buried in their hands in prayerful recollection.

  After the celebrant and the choir processed off the sanctuary we began to leave the pews in strict order, starting with the front row. Towards the rear of the church there were six or seven priests. One older than the rest, bespectacled and with fair receding hair swept back, was scrutinising each of us in turn. I guessed that this was the Very Reverend Wilfred Doran, the superior of the house and headmaster. His face betrayed no emotion, neither severity nor kindliness. Father McCartie knelt on the opposite side of the aisle. He too was watching each boy in turn with those dark eyes through heavy black horn-rims. The others were reading their breviaries.

  At the end of the cloisters we passed through a set of double doors into an oak-floored refectory and the warm atmosphere of cooked food. Someone touched me on the shoulder: it was the boy who had knelt next to me in church. He was about the same height as me, his wrists protruding a long way out from his black sleeves. He held his head submissively to one side. ‘My name is James Rolle. I’ve been deputed to look after you,’ he said with a reassuring smile. ‘Welcome to Cotton.’ He placed me next to him in the middle of one of the rows of tables.

  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.

  22

  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 wash places. A cloister with Gothic vaulting ran through one of the wings. The most recently built section of the college was a square rose brick structure known as Saint Thomas’s where the most junior boys, aged eleven to thirteen, had their dormitories under the supervision of a wraith-like balding priest called Father Manion.

  James showed me the library, which smelt of beeswax floor polish. There were deep windows with views of the valley and an expanse of tall shelves. A few boys were sitting at the tables reading. Through a far door was another library with oak panelling and stained-glass windows which, James whispered to me, was the sixth form library. He pointed out a periodicals table with several magazines from other schools and seminaries on display. A single copy of the Illustrated London News lay on the table. ‘There are no newspapers,’ he said, ‘and we’re not allowed to listen to the radio.’

  He explained that from among the boys in the final two years at Cotton were recruited the college monitors, house captains and their deputies: they were known as the Big Sixth and had the power to have boys punished by sending them to the Prefect of Discipline or the Prefect of Studies. The teaching staff priests, he said, were known as ‘the profs’.

  We finally emerged into the chill morning air, descending by stone steps known as the Bounds Steps into an area James called Little Bounds, a yard large enough for two tennis courts. Little Bounds formed a kind of level platform or stage looking out over the panorama of the surrounding countryside, bathed that morning in early autumn sunshine. Several boys were staring like prisoners in a cage through the wire fence that bordered the yard. James and I joined them. The high fence marked the boundary, James told me, between the boys’ domain and the lawns and gravel pathways strictly for the use of ‘the profs’.

  Immediately below these gardens a drystone wall bordered the lush meadows, ending abruptly at a wood that descended into the valley. Beyond the closest canopy of the woods, a mile or so away, rose a corresponding series of meadows on the opposing flank of the valley. An ancient stone cottage stood in one of the meadows, a wisp of smoke rising from its chimney. This was the only human habitation visible in the landscape. To the left of the pine wood was a sheer drop and the distant countryside opened out in a succession of gentle shoulders and folds, each softer and more hazy than the last, until the final ridge melted into the skyline. As I stood there my heart leapt with the immensity of the scene and the bracing air.

  James now led the way to a second level by way of a wide sloping path up to the cinder yard he called Top Bounds, where I had been deposited the previous evening. Boys were walking up and down in threes and fours, hands in pockets. James said: ‘Shall we take a few turns?’

  As we walked we were joined by another boy with severe acne and untidy hair who introduced himself as Derek Hanson from Southend, Essex. He too was a seminarian from the diocese of Brentwood. He skipped about a little as he walked, turning towards me, then suddenly turning away. He was describing the eccentricities of his parish priest at home, while occasionally giving vent to nervous ripples of laughter. After one more fit of the giggles he said: ‘Watch out for Father Armishaw.’ Then he blushed and excused himself, hurrying down towards Little Bounds.

  ‘Derek is very nice,’ said James, ‘but he has taken a sort of vow never to talk after mid-morning break.’ James seemed to consider the matter for a few moments. ‘I do think that his behaviour is rather singular,’ he added. It was the first time I had heard the term ‘singular’, and I was not sure what it meant. (I was soon to discover that it was an important watchword in our spiritual lives, meaning any behaviour that was deemed showy.) Then he informed me that ‘Armishaw’ was Father Vincent Armishaw who taught English. ‘He’s a character, a bit ferocious, but he’s not too bad. Derek has a crush on him; and he’s not the only one.’

  23

  AS WE WALKED in Top Bounds a boy came up and asked me to accompany him to Father Doran, the headmaster. His office was situated on a corridor with a highly polished linoleum floor in the old hall. The boy rapped hard on the door. When a muffled voice called out: ‘Come!’ he left me to enter by myself.

  Father Doran, a thin, slightly stooped man in a caped cassock, was leaning on the mantelpiece in a room filled with light from a set of bay windows that went from floor to ceiling. There was a desk covered with papers, and glass-fronted bookcases. The atmosphere of the room was heavy with tob
acco.

  He was busy with a penknife and a pipe, attempting to extract burnt-out tobacco into an ashtray at his elbow. At the same time he occasionally looked down on me with penetrating grey eyes through flashing gold-rimmed spectacles. His ash-fair receding hair was brushed back flat on his head and his thin lips were firmly set in a long pale face. He looked about the same age as my father. He stopped fiddling with his pipe, snatched a cigarette from a Senior Service pack and lit it with an almost petulant movement.

  ‘I prefer to smoke a pipe,’ he said, the cigarette wobbling up and down on his thin lips. ‘But whenever the reverend mother comes in from the sisters’ community, I have to put it down. You see, it’s never done to smoke before the sisters. Then it’s such a business to light it up again.’ He took a deep drag and held the cigarette between his fingers as he blew out a long column of smoke. ‘She’s just been in this morning, wanting to discuss kitchen business and here we go again – down goes the pipe,’ he said. ‘So I think to myself: “Oh bother, I’ll just have a cigarette, it’s much less trouble.”’

  He stopped to inspect me. ‘You don’t smoke, do you, John Cornwell?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Well, just make sure you don’t. In any case, you’ll need to save all your puff for cross-country running, especially when you’re sprinting up and down the valley here.’

  I smiled, but he was observing me without a hint of humour. He began to talk about the history of the school. He told me that Cotton was the oldest Catholic college in England. Most boys were sent here, he said, by the Archbishop of Birmingham, who was the official owner of the school, but there were also a number of students from my own diocese, Brentwood, which had no minor seminary. A minority of the boys, he added, were ‘lay students’ who had not dedicated themselves to the priesthood, and whose parents were therefore paying for their education. ‘You must understand,’ he said with gravity, ‘that your bishop has been put to considerable expense to place you here, and that your fees are paid for out of the charity of the people of your diocese. So you will do your very best to make the most of this opportunity.’ He said that fourteen former pupils of Cotton had been ordained that year. ‘That is your aim,’ he went on. ‘To become a priest…Just keep your sights on that and you can’t go wrong.’