Seminary Boy. John Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ berth,’ said Father McCartie, pointing to a bed beneath one of the windows.

      This place was called ‘Little Dorm’, he told me, so as to distinguish it from ‘Middle Dorm’ and ‘Top Dorm’. There was no talking in the dormitory for any reason, he added. I was wondering why he had not asked me about my journey, or where I had come from. I had an impression of vast chilly space beyond the windows, which looked out across the valley to a pine ridge barely visible in the dusk, and I was aware of the distance I had come from home. It was all so different from what I had imagined. Aylesford and its birdsong, its summer fragrance, bell-ringing, tranquil routines and friendly friars, could not be more different from this cold, unadorned place. I thought of Mum and her protective presence, despite her unpredictable moods.

      After I had finished unpacking Father McCartie picked up the two books I had brought from home: The Imitation of Christ, and the new Roman missal. Returning them, he said: ‘Take them into church…Now bring your washbag and towel down to the wash places.’

      Leading the way, he paused by the statue of Saint Joseph. ‘That was given by the parents of a boy who died of peritonitis within two days of his arrival at Cotton,’ he said almost in a whisper. ‘He died fifty years ago.’

      We proceeded down to the cloisters and descended again to a whitewashed cavern smelling of ancient damp. There were lines of wash bowls and pegs, all numbered. ‘Your number is ninety-two,’ said the priest, pointing out my bowl and peg.

      I said: ‘Thank you, Father.’

      ‘No, you call us “sir”,’ he corrected me once more.

      As we returned to the cloister, he explained that the college was founded two hundred years earlier during the penal times, when it was a crime to be a Catholic priest in England. ‘The priests of this college,’ he said, ‘dressed in lay clothes and were addressed as “sir” to hide their true identity. We’ve carried on the tradition of being called “sir”.’

      I felt quelled, and it seemed strange that he asked me nothing about myself. Perhaps, I thought, he already knew everything that was to be known about me.

      The building was echoing with the raucous clangour of a bell. Somewhere on a higher floor there was a sound of scraping of feet, and a man’s voice praying, followed by a roared response. The stone stairs reverberated as a host of boys came into view walking in silence towards the cloisters where they took their places in parallel lines, hands behind their backs. They were dressed in black suits, black ties and white shirts. The toecaps of their shoes were highly polished.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ