Read Online The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read by Susan Hill - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Susan Hill
Ads: Link
of sulphur and incense. Mary and the saints. The plaster statues weeping paint blood and the red holes on the plaster feet, the open, wounded heart. His own white shirt and black bow tie on elastic and the mesh of marks on his knees from pressing into the altar carpet at his First Communion. His mother’s face behind the short black veil. Father O’Connell’s mumbling voice on the other side of the confessional box. Angels. Words.
‘Who made you?’
‘God made me.’
‘Why did God make you?’
‘God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world and to be happy with him for ever in the next.’
He was walking faster and faster, banging his feet hard onto the pavement as he went up the steep hill towards the Bracken, working himself up into a boiling of fear. But more than the fear ever could be was the anger that filled up the black cave, blotting out everything else there and growing until he thought his head would burst.
The way it happened might have been expected. Charlie’s mouth had always got the better of him; none of them could have counted the number of times one of the fathers had said, ‘Your tongue will be the death of you, Charlie Coghlan,’ though never thinking it could actually come true. There were just the kept-behinds, the raw knuckles from the ruler and burning red legs from the strap, and he never learned, never thought before he came out with something, nor ever seemed to put the cause and the punishment together to make two. Mick had given up on him long before.
It had been quick.
‘Twenty-seven point four multiplied by nine.’ The yellow-stained forefinger had stabbed at Charlie, who was silent, slumped down in his seat. The priest had come round. Mick, in the desk behind, caught the swish of the black habit.
‘Twenty-seven point four by nine.’ He had taken hold of Charlie’s ear hard between the yellowed fingers. He had long fingernails, which Mick thought a man should not have.
‘Geddoff, bugger you.’ Charlie had wrenched hishead away and Mick’s heart had stopped like a lift with the ropes severed. Then the classroom exploded.
After the beating, the punishment had gone on for the rest of the week. Every night, he was kept in and on the Friday longer than ever. Mick waited more than an hour before going to find him.
The school joined up to the presbytery, with gardens in between crossed by paths where the priests walked, holding the black book up to their faces saying the office. At the back was the kitchen garden, the sheds, the sagging wire netting around the chicken house.
‘Uh.’
‘I’m looking for my brother.’
‘Uh.’
The fat bald brother who kept the bees and potatoes and hens was toothless and deaf, more difficult to understand even than Sluggy. He knew what Mick wanted though, always knew.
Mick followed him. Once he turned and his white moon face held a terrible sadness. He knew why in the shed. The brother had piled up crates to sit Charlie down on, and another for him to rest his foot. The foot was red, the whole of it, and on the floorwere a wet scarlet sock and plimsoll. Charlie had his arms tight round his chest, as if to hold himself together, and he was rocking to and fro and making an odd little mewling noise.
‘Uh.’
The fork had gone right through his foot. The brother had pulled it out and brought him in from where Charlie had been digging, put him here and fetched a bucket of water.
‘I didn’t know,’ Mick said. ‘How could I?’
Charlie went on holding himself together, rocking to and fro, to and fro, inside the sour-smelling chicken shed, with the slats of dusty light falling onto his hands and the egg crates and the scarlet sock and plimsoll.
It had taken Mick more than an hour to get him home somehow, and Charlie another four days to die, in terror and maddening fever from the poison that blackened his foot, blowing it up to three times its size, then racing up through him like the tide, drowning him.
Mick
‘Who made you?’
‘God made me.’
‘Why did God make you?’
‘God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world and to be happy with him for ever in the next.’
He was walking faster and faster, banging his feet hard onto the pavement as he went up the steep hill towards the Bracken, working himself up into a boiling of fear. But more than the fear ever could be was the anger that filled up the black cave, blotting out everything else there and growing until he thought his head would burst.
The way it happened might have been expected. Charlie’s mouth had always got the better of him; none of them could have counted the number of times one of the fathers had said, ‘Your tongue will be the death of you, Charlie Coghlan,’ though never thinking it could actually come true. There were just the kept-behinds, the raw knuckles from the ruler and burning red legs from the strap, and he never learned, never thought before he came out with something, nor ever seemed to put the cause and the punishment together to make two. Mick had given up on him long before.
It had been quick.
‘Twenty-seven point four multiplied by nine.’ The yellow-stained forefinger had stabbed at Charlie, who was silent, slumped down in his seat. The priest had come round. Mick, in the desk behind, caught the swish of the black habit.
‘Twenty-seven point four by nine.’ He had taken hold of Charlie’s ear hard between the yellowed fingers. He had long fingernails, which Mick thought a man should not have.
‘Geddoff, bugger you.’ Charlie had wrenched hishead away and Mick’s heart had stopped like a lift with the ropes severed. Then the classroom exploded.
After the beating, the punishment had gone on for the rest of the week. Every night, he was kept in and on the Friday longer than ever. Mick waited more than an hour before going to find him.
The school joined up to the presbytery, with gardens in between crossed by paths where the priests walked, holding the black book up to their faces saying the office. At the back was the kitchen garden, the sheds, the sagging wire netting around the chicken house.
‘Uh.’
‘I’m looking for my brother.’
‘Uh.’
The fat bald brother who kept the bees and potatoes and hens was toothless and deaf, more difficult to understand even than Sluggy. He knew what Mick wanted though, always knew.
Mick followed him. Once he turned and his white moon face held a terrible sadness. He knew why in the shed. The brother had piled up crates to sit Charlie down on, and another for him to rest his foot. The foot was red, the whole of it, and on the floorwere a wet scarlet sock and plimsoll. Charlie had his arms tight round his chest, as if to hold himself together, and he was rocking to and fro and making an odd little mewling noise.
‘Uh.’
The fork had gone right through his foot. The brother had pulled it out and brought him in from where Charlie had been digging, put him here and fetched a bucket of water.
‘I didn’t know,’ Mick said. ‘How could I?’
Charlie went on holding himself together, rocking to and fro, to and fro, inside the sour-smelling chicken shed, with the slats of dusty light falling onto his hands and the egg crates and the scarlet sock and plimsoll.
It had taken Mick more than an hour to get him home somehow, and Charlie another four days to die, in terror and maddening fever from the poison that blackened his foot, blowing it up to three times its size, then racing up through him like the tide, drowning him.
Mick
Similar Books
