Chapter 2 - The Execution
The peal of the school-bell was still echoing from the hills as I burst through the school gates and ran flat-strap for home brimming with excitement. I knew The Secret and I was going to have a week off from school.
It was a twenty-minute canter from the school to home but I was so excited I hardly broke a sweat. Once home though, I had a long wait ahead of me. My mother worked most evenings at the local club and normally left the house at six o’clock. As soon as she was out the door I bolted straight down the hallway and into my bedroom eager to put Nicky’s plan into action.
I was so excited at the prospect of some time away from school that I danced as I crossed my bedroom floor. I hummed as I climbed onto my bed and I sang as I threw open the window.
The cold air hammered into the room and tore the breath from my lungs causing me to take an involuntary step backwards.
Bloody hell! It was freezing!
This pleased me enormously and I laughed from the sheer joy of it. Dancing and capering about on my pillow for a few seconds I let the frigid air play across my quickly freezing skin. A wind was getting up. It was from the west, straight off the snow. That meant it was going to get even colder.
This was excellent!
Situated under the window my bed was at such a height that I could stand exactly in the middle of the window frame. You beauty! This was going to work. I took a deep breath and then turning, leapt down from the bed and began to take off all my clothes.
I undressed, the cold knifing through me like a razor. It would have been enough to stop most people there and then but my resolve was strong. I refused to be shaken. There was far too much at stake. I was driven. I had a goal and had accepted that there needed to be some large sacrifices in order to achieve it.
The whole situation along with the discomfort that came from standing naked and trembling in that frigid air caused me inexplicably to think of something Mr McDonald had said.
Mr McDonald was the man the nuns brought in from ‘outside’ to coach the football teams at school. This happened because the consensus was that since the nuns were women they obviously weren’t capable of doing it themselves.
Sister Vincent vociferously debated this point at every opportunity. She was a sports nut and often played tip-footy with the boys at lunchtime. Pulling her habit up through the broad belt at her waist so it hung only to her knees she would fly across the playground in enthusiastic pursuit of whoever had the ball. Her excess habit hung in flaccid loops around her middle and flapped about as she ran which gave the impression that she was some sort of bizarre tumbleweed with arms and legs.
Sister Vincent loved all sports. She kept a small transistor radio with a white earplug lead in her desk and throughout the summer months she would surreptitiously listen to the cricket as she taught the fourth-class.
Sister Vincent strongly believed that she had what was needed to coach the football teams regardless of her sex and vocational calling but because she was a nun, and a woman to boot, the opportunity to try was denied her. As a result Sister Vincent decided to hate Mr McDonald and was openly hostile towards him.
This was strange because in all other respects she was a nice person even for a nun. In fact she was the nicest of all the nuns at St. Joseph’s and the only one that actually seemed to like boys. Most of the nuns hated us to varying degrees and did little to disguise the fact.
Mr McDonald was a short, squat, oily little man who communicated mostly through a series of catch-cries and proverbs. He was Scottish and he always wore a long, grey trench-coat regardless of the weather. He would call out a bevy of strange expressions from the sidelines as we ran around training. He peppered us with his peculiar brand of barroom sapience which, because of his thick Scottish brogue and his habit of rolling his 'Rs' to the point of agony, remained mostly incomprehensible. He didn’t so much speak the language as chew it thoroughly and then spit it out. It took weeks for us to figure out what the man was saying.
Gradually we came to understand the accent but often, the meaning behind the words continued to elude us. They were wonderful little couplets and included such droplets of wisdom as; “All tings good t’ ken, are harrd t’ learn!” “Gaet stook in yerr wee gomerils!” “Be tooff lads! Tooff! Bearrr in yerr minds; th’ anvil fearrs nay blow!” “Allus give a hunnrren-n-ten perrrcent lads! Rr‘member ... don’t fall aforre yerr push’t!”
He had a million of them and we heard them all over the course of the football season. So much so they stuck in our heads and for a bit of light relief we often threw a few of his more repeatable ones at each other throughout the course of our normal day.
In this, Nicky shone. He was an excellent mimic and he dressed these sayings up beautifully with a remarkably accurate impersonation of Mr McDonald. He would stand there, feet spread well apart, leaning forward at an almost impossible angle. He would throw his head back, raise his forefinger to the sky and let fly with a plethora of McDonaldisms. “Av’ ye coom t’ fish or t’ cut bait?” and “Fust deserrrve, n’ then desirre.” And Nicky’s personal favourite which he delivered with even more relish and enjoyment than the others; “Use yerrr enemies’ hand terr ketch th’ snake, lads!” He always kept this little treasure until last and finished it off by bringing his finger down from the heavens, lining it up at the side of his face and tapping himself squarely on the side of the nose while nodding sagely to the group before him which by now were rolling on the floor holding their sides and screaming with laughter.
I suppose Mr McDonald thought that he was instilling a sense of purpose and direction in a bunch of aimless kids who wanted to play football. But we could never figure out a particular couplet’s relevance to whatever situation was currently at hand.
But now, as I stood there naked and shivering from the cold in the middle of my bedroom floor, one of Mr McDonald’s most oft said sayings popped into my head. It was one of his favourites but I had never been able to comprehend its relevance.
Until now.
No pain—no gain!
Suddenly I knew not only what the phrase meant but in what context it applied. Of course if you wanted something badly enough you had to work hard to get it even if it hurt. It was so obvious.
No pain—no gain!
I rolled the words around in my mouth a few times as I stood there shivering on the rug and then spoke them out loud. I liked the way they sounded as they echoed around in the frigid air of my small bedroom and I realised that they applied most aptly on this night.
I stepped across to the bedroom door. The cold wrapped around me like an icy shroud and I could almost hear the goose-bumps appearing on my skin. My teeth chattered and I tried to stop myself from thinking about how much worse it was all going to get a few minutes from now.
I stuck my head out into the hallway and looked around. The coast was clear.
Taking a breath I made a run for the bathroom. Luckily it was just across the hall, a matter of only a few metres so there was little chance of discovery. Even so, I decided I’d best be careful. It would only take one of my brothers or sisters to step into the hallway at the wrong time to ruin everything.
The hard tiled floor of the bathroom was cold beneath my feet and I hopped from one foot to the other as my shaking fingers fumbled a match from the box kept there on the windowsill to light the old water heater.
This was normally a frightening task since this old water-heater was notoriously cantankerous and would not light before sufficient gas had built up in its belly. On almost every occasion however, too much gas would collect inside it before it could ignite meaning that when it did finally catch, it exploded with the force of a decent sized bomb. The possibility of copping a third-degree burn was real and bath-time normally found me cowering hunched and naked in the hallway while mum lit the heater for me.
On this day though, I had no choice. If I wanted this to work I had to grit my teeth and do it myself.
I turned on the gas and struck
the match and then holding it between the tips of two trembling fingers, closed my eyes tight and shoved it into the access hole in the side of the heater. For a long second there was nothing and I was about to open my eyes for a look when the thing suddenly lit.
The bang shook the whole back of the house and an enormous rush of heat enveloped my body. In the cold of the bathroom it felt lovely but I knew there was a good chance that I had just burned myself badly and was now turning into a giant blister.
I had heard a story once about a man caught in a burning house who had received severe burns to his hands and arms as he fought his way out. He said later that at the time he had felt no pain at all. With this in mind I quickly turned and looked in the mirror.
I couldn’t see any obvious burns or charring of the skin and it took only a second to convince myself that I didn’t need my eyebrows anyway. They were a small but worthy sacrifice to make for the greater good. The end result would be worth it.
After all; no pain—no gain!
I climbed into the tub and stood under the shower enjoying its delicious heat. I turned the cold water down as low as I dared without scalding myself and allowed the steaming water to cascade onto my head and run in thick warming sheets down my body.
I had made the water so hot that in less than a minute the interior of the bathroom was a solid block of steam and the walls ran with condensation. I turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub.
I found that if I squinted hard I could just make out my reflection in the mirror. I grinned. I was as red as a tomato. You beauty, I thought. It’s working. Everything was going according to plan. Now for the final stage.
I didn’t want to cool down at all and so decided not to take the time to use a towel. After opening the door a crack and checking to see if the hallway was clear, I zipped back to my room.
It was as if a big pillow of steam carried me swiftly across the hallway and deposited me gently outside my bedroom. I opened the door and skipped inside.
The frigid blast from the open window stopped me in my tracks and for a second I worried that my heart would seize up from the shock of it. I’d also heard of that sort of thing happening. But I paused only for a second. The promise of time off from school was enough to drive me on.
Dripping wet I ran across the room, leapt onto my bed and moved as far into the open window as I could go. The cold here seemed even worse and my teeth chattered with such vigour I was sure they would break. The wind ripped through me as I stood there on the end of my bed holding on to the edges of the window frame. I had a brief moment of indecision when I realised that I was still very wet from the shower. The water was running down my legs and soaking into my mattress but once again the thought of a week off from school obliterated any misgivings.
But the cold was much worse than I imagined it would be and the first dents in my resolve began to shape themselves. Was this really going to work? Nicky’s grand plan had seemed so logical and foolproof when he had outlined it at lunchtime but standing here now trying desperately hard not to die from exposure, I was suddenly not so certain. Surely Nicky had not been having me on.
Nicky’s idea had come from something Mr McDonald had bellowed at us a few weeks earlier at footy training. Interspersed among the normal glut of proverbs and adages he hurled about with abandon was the occasional valuable bit of information. You only needed to recognise its worth at the time. On this particular occasion, Nicky did.
We had just finished our session and were preparing to go home when Mr McDonald let fly with yet another of his droplets of perpetual wisdom.
“Allrright lads, now lessen oop. Make surre y’ allus puts a joomper on afterr yerr trrainin’ or playin’ sport rr‘garrdless of how hot and sweaty yerr may be.”
“Why is that Mr McDonald?” This from the full-back.
Mr McDonald smiled. He liked to be asked questions like this. It made him feel important.
“Because when y’ roon aroon’t, yer gaet all hot and sweaty like. The porres in yerr skin open rright up like, like manholes, an’ t'ey lets in all th’ coold airr an’ yerr ketch a chill. And frrom that yerr’ll ketch a bad cold n’ surely die.”
I had heard him say it at the time but was busy getting my kit together so I had completely missed the significance. But Nicky hadn’t. Something in that sharp little salesman’s brain took that innocuous piece of information and stowed it away for future use.
Earlier in the day when Nicky had outlined his idea to me he had quoted Mr McDonald word for word. He had made it all sound so logical. It came down to one simple thing; you would catch a bad cold and have time off from school if you cooled yourself down too quickly after you'd heated yourself up. Nicky pointed out that it didn’t take a genius to see that heating yourself up under the shower and cooling yourself quickly would achieve the same result. And that was why I was now standing naked on my bed in the open window dripping water onto my mattress.
Running through it all again did the trick. The misgivings and doubts wilted and disappeared. I was feeling confident again. This would work. It was logical. All I needed was hot and cold. The shower supplied the heat. Good old Mother Nature supplied the cold.
Our town was not too far from the snowfields and when the westerlies blew as they were tonight, the temperature plummeted. It was barely above freezing point out there tonight and with good use of the scalding shower, I had heated myself up good and proper.
But the cold! Oh, God, the cold! I wondered if I could stick it out.
I looked at my old bedside alarm clock. Three minutes. I groaned. I had put up with this pain and discomfort for only three minutes! It felt like a lifetime. Still, three minutes wasn’t too bad I thought as I leapt off the bed and shivered my way across the floor to the doorway. I figured it was the first few minutes that were the most important anyway; the rest was just for insurance.
The hallway was clear and I scooted into the bathroom and started the water heater again. This time the price was my fringe. I promised myself it'd be worthwhile.
After all; no pain—no gain!
It was harder to drag myself up onto the bed this time. The cold, vicious and insidious, permeated every square inch of me and I began to lose all feeling.
This time I lasted only two minutes. I tumbled back down from the bed, dragged myself across the room. Not giving two hoots as to whether the hallway was clear or not I blundered into the bathroom for another confrontation with the water heater.
It bloody near incinerated me this time but I didn’t care. Who needs hair anyway? I was going to get sick. I was going to have a week off from school and for something as special as that you had to make sacrifices.
After all; no pain—no gain!
I squelched my way back up onto the end of my bed and stood there naked and dripping in the window once again. I looked down at my mattress. It was soaked. I would have to sleep at the other end of it tonight. I had decided this would be my last time. Surely three excursions to the shower were enough. I looked forward to being able to wrap myself in a warm towel after my fourth and final hot shower for the night. Then I was going to dress in my warmest pyjamas and curl up beneath a large pile of thick, warm blankets. I looked so forward to it I ached.
It was about then my brain started doing weird things. I became aware of a warm feeling starting deep in my body and moving outward. I began to feel relaxed. This cold wasn’t so bad. I could put up with this.
I also became quite self-aware and for a brief second, experienced one of those flashes you can sometimes have; a sort of mental picture of what you must look like from someone else’s point of view. It was so weird! Like some sort of bizarre snapshot. It showed a dark house with light coming from only one window. Standing framed in that window was a naked twelve-year-old boy dripping water and shivering vigorously from the cold. It must have been exactly what I looked like from the road in front of our house and I must admit it looked pretty strange. At least I’m sure that’s what old Mrs Simps
on would tell mum the next morning. It was her voice that snapped me from my reverie.
“Owen Finnegan! What are you doing there?”
I snapped out of my trance with such force my head hurt. I looked out to the road and died. There were half a dozen women standing in front of our house looking at me. Mrs. Simpson’s 'Walk for Health' group!
Oh hell! I had forgotten all about them. They orbited the neighbourhood on a regular basis and there was little those six pairs of prying eyes saw that wasn’t reported with great gusto to all and sundry by way of the back fence the following day.
I dived off the bed and commando-rolled across the room to snap the light off. Then I scuttled into the gap between my bed and the wardrobe and concentrated on making myself as small as possible. My heart was hammering and I felt sick with embarrassment. I could hear shrieks of laughter coming from the road and I knew with certainty that my life was over. Old Mrs Simpson would tell everybody and that level of embarrassment was nearly always terminal for a twelve-year-old.
But worse still, she would tell Mum who would then have to tell Dad in case he heard about it from someone at work. He was always hearing things of an unsavoury nature about us kids at work and by the time he got home he would be in a right old temper.
The shrieks of laughter faded as the women walked on up the road. When I was sure they were gone I crept out of the small alcove I’d hidden myself in, dragged myself to my feet and after pulling down the window and the blind, turned slowly towards the door.
I trudged across the hall to the bathroom taking absolutely no precautions at all about being seen this time. I didn’t care anymore. Not one bit. My life was over. Mrs Simpson had seen my willy. There was no recovering from something like that.
This time even the water heater seemed to understand how bad things were. It started with the gentle whoosh it was supposed to. I showered quickly, massaging the heat deep into my frozen joints. Then I dried myself with a thick towel and dragged myself back to my room.
I put on my pyjamas and crawled into the bottom of my bed. My pillow was dry but my mattress down at the window end was sopping. If I stretched out, my feet lay in a freezing cold puddle but I barely noticed it. My guts were still churning with the embarrassment of being seen in the nuddy by six of the neighbourhood’s nosiest and most talkative mothers.
I covered my face with my hands and moaned. I was never going to live this down. The only consolation was that when I woke up in the morning I would be so sick with a cold I couldn’t possibly go to school for at least a week.
I brightened as the realisation suddenly sunk in. A week off from school! Not only would I miss the Archbishop’s visit but it would probably be enough time for any queries about why I was dangling my bits and pieces out the front window of our house to blow over.
That would be excellent.
Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad. I smiled. My guts were no longer churning. The embarrassment was fading. Things were starting to look up.
Who knows, maybe my cold would be so serious it would progress into Asian flu. I’d need at least a fortnight off with Asian flu, surely. Or it might turn into whooping cough. That would be great! I wondered how long you’d get off school for whooping cough.
I ran through the whole list of illnesses I could expect to contract and by the time I finally closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, pneumonia was looking like a very welcome possibility.