Patrick McCabe - The Butcher Boy

Every day after that off we'd tramp to the bogs with Bubble at the head throwing big cheery smiles at the people of the town standing there gawping after us like we'd marched through the streets without our trousers. The women whispered there they go the poor orphans. I had a mind to turn round and shout hey fuckface I'm no orphan but then I remembered I was studying hard to get the Francie Brady Not a Bad Bastard Any More Diploma at the end of the year so I clammed up and gave her a sad, ashamed look instead. As soon as we got out into the open countryside Bubble relaxed and started swinging his arms and singing Michael Row The Boat Ashore and the bogmen sang Alleloo-yah! all delighted trying to get Bubble to look at them. They said to me isn't Father such and such great. I forget his real name now but it was Bubble they were talking about. Oh yes I said he's an absolutely wonderful singer. Yes, said the bogs, he's my favourite priest in the whole school. Then off they'd go trying to get up to the front to talk to him. But Bubble was all right. I liked the way he always gripped the sleeve of his soutane as he jaunted on alleloooo-ya!, with a red country face on him like a Beauty of Bath apple from all the walking. We'd dig all day long and Bubble would tell us stories about the old days when he was young and the English were killing everybody and the old people used to tell stories around the fire and you were lucky if you got one slice of soda bread to feed the whole family. But what harm did it do us? That's right, says one of the bogmen, being killed did nobody any harm. For fuck's sake!

Ah no I was talking about the soda bread says Bubble ha ha. There's nothing like a nice big slice of soda bread Father I said, wiping my brow and heeling a few sods onto the stack. He paused for a minute and licked his lips. He looked at me with his eyes all misty. Running with butter he said. Now you said it Father, I said and went back to my work, whistling away. I could see the bogmen giving me dirty looks because I was talking to Bubble. I smiled at them. Do you know what a good big slice of soda bread is good for I was going to say. Oh we know, they'd say. For making hardy men out of young country fellows like ourselves? No, for driving up your big bogman arses I'd say. But I didn't say it at all. I just smiled again and made out I had a pain in my back. Gosh, my dear fellows, I said, this is hard work indeed. The look on their boggy faces. They didn't know what to say. Oo-er, yes, they said, or something like that. As if they could pretend they were posh, the dirty bog-trotters!

One day Bubble took me up to his study and said to me: I'm glad you're learning manners.

Yes Father, I said.

Then what does he do he goes all misty-eyed again and stares off out the window making a speech about all the boys who had passed through the school in his time there. I've seen them come and go he said, since the first day I came in here as a fresh young curate myself. I remember that day well, Francis, it was all so new to me then. Then he starts into another story about tyres burning the day of his ordination and his mother weeping with happiness. Ah, yes, he said, shaking his head and away off into some other story. Ah yes but I wasn't listening to a word he said I was too busy watching a Flash Bar wrapper that was flapping about over the ambulatory and thinking to myself I wouldn't mind sinking my choppers into a Flash Bar right this minute. In we'd go with a half crown to the shop. Thirty Flash Bars please. Eh? your man would say. Then off we'd go hardly able to walk with all these bars and eat the whole lot one after the other out the railway lines, me and Joe. Big strings of toffee and a beard of chocolate all over your face. Bubble was on about your man who had founded the school. That's his picture there he said. He had a big breeze block of a head and a pair of eyebrows like two slugs trying to stand up. I wouldn't have fancied a scrap with him. You could tell he was a bogman too. It was him founded the school for bogmen with bony arses then was it, I said. I did like fuck. When the speech was over Bubble smiled again and said it was nice to talk to you Francie, keep up the good work, Oh yes, I thought to myself, I certainly will, after all I have to walk out of here with that Francie Brady Not a Bad Bastard any more Diploma, Father Bubble.

After that they put me serving Mass. What a laugh that was. Me and Father Sullivan up before the birds getting into all these starchy togs inside in the sacristy, they'd freeze the goolies off you. Black as pitch outside and not a soul stirring. I'd carry the cruets and stuff and off we'd go me and Father Sullivan like two big whispers moving along the corridor to the chapel rustle rustle. Domine, exaudi orationem meam, he'd say with the hands outspread. I was supposed to say Et clamor meus ad te veniat. Et fucky wucky ticky tocky that was what I said instead. But it didn't matter as long as you muttered something. Father Sull never listened anyway. They said he wasn't right since he was on the missions. I don't know what happened some Balubas put him in a pot or something and ever since he'd been walking round with a face on him the colour of stir about never slept a wink roaming around the corridors at night in his soft shoes all you'd see at the window was this yellow face looking out.

It was around that time I started the long walks and the holy voices. Bubble says to me what are you doing going on all these long walks down to the low field by yourself?

I told him I thought Our Lady was talking to me. I read that in a book about this holy Italian boy. He was out in a field looking after the sheep next thing what does he hear only this soft voice coming out of nowhere you are my chosen messenger the world is going to end and all this. One minute he's an Italian bogman with nothing on him only one of his father's coats the next he's a famous priest going round the world writing books and being carried around in a sedan chair saying the Queen of Angels chose me. Well I thought – you've had your turn Father Italian Sheep man so fuck off now about your business here comes Francie Brady hello Our Lady I said. Well Francie she says how's things. Not so bad I said.

Lord be praised, said Bubble and I thought he was going to take off into heaven on the spot. I could feel his eyes on me as I floated down to the low field.

I knelt on the soggy turf for penance. I looked up and there she was over by the handball alley. I wasn't sure what to say to her ah its yourself or did you have a nice trip or something like that. I didn't know so I said nothing at all. She had some voice, that Blessed Virgin Mary. You could listen to it all night. It was like all the softest women in the world mixed up in a huge big baking bowl and there you have Our Lady at the end of it.

She had a rosary entwined around her pearly white hands and she said that it gladdened her that I had chosen to be good.

I said no problem, Our Lady.

I told Father Sullivan all about it and he said I had unlocked something very precious.

The next day I got talking to a few more, St Joseph and the Angel Gabriel and a few others I don't know the name of. The more the merrier. I went through Father Sullivan's books and found out dozens of the fuckers. St Barnabas, St Philomena. We could have had six matches going at once in the low field there was that many.

The bogmen were raging. I don't see why she's appearing to you, they said, what's so special about you?

I told them to fuck off, what did they think she had nothing better to do than appear to a bunch of mucksavage bastards like them.

It was hard to beat that old sacristy and the chapel in the mornings, the twirl of candle smoke and the secret echo of the pews, all the sounds of the morning not born right yet.