The Life Business by John Grant Page B

use the pub's lavs.
    They tried to get the
school chaplain, a.k.a. Commander Sparrow, to stay behind, but he
was having none of it.
    After this discovery,
you'd have expected we boys to be more relaxed about the after-dark
curfew the officers had imposed upon us, but no. Except for
essential excretory excursions, our curious schoolboy sense of
honour kept us inside the huts at night – oh, and except for the
occasional brave soul who dared slip out for a ciggy; for some
reason that was allowable within our code of ethics.
    ~
    I think it was the
Monday after our first weekend at Magilligan that I woke in the
middle of the night and realized I was going to have to go out. No
question of using the latrines, of course – not even at three in
the morning when the place was deserted. Think how much worse it
would be if someone else did stumble in upon you. You'd be
like the last two people left alive in all the world, with nowhere
else to look.
    Guts wrestling, I slid
off my bunk and groped through my kit bag for the embarrassingly
girlie flashlight my mother had given me for the trip. There was
enough moonlight coming in through the grimy windows for me to see
my way to the door, but I'd need the torch once I was outside
because otherwise I'd be risking a sprained ankle among the
treacherous half-swamps of the point.
    "What the fuck're
you—?" said a voice.
    "Sssh."
    "Piss off, then,
Greenham."
    Springs creaked as
whoever it was turned over and went back to sleep.
    I crept outside and
leaned against the hut wall as I got my feet into the gymshoes I'd
brought with me from my kit bag. Away in the distance I could hear
the waters of Lough Foyle dallying with the beach and, closer by,
the stream was holding a whispered argument with itself as it
negotiated the rocks in its bed. Other than that there was a sort
of claustrophobic emptiness pressing in upon me from all sides.
Above, there was a three-quarter moon and more stars than God ever
knew to count.
    Shoes on, I moved
swiftly across the little misshapen square compound formed by the
sides of the huts and the bus, which was occasionally used to take
us out for longer expeditions but most of the time just sat there
looking as if it were reading its newspaper and smoking its
cigarette and hoping no one would ask it to do anything.
    Sometimes at nights
we'd hear sounds through the metal walls of the hut and tell each
other there were wolves and bears still at large in Ireland.
    This didn't seem so
very funny now.
    Once I was outside the
compound I clicked on my torch. The latrine shed was off to my left
and I had to make at least some pantomime of heading in its
direction in case a master stuck his head out of a window behind me
and asked me where the hell I thought I was going. After a few tens
of yards I abandoned the pretence and turned instead towards the
coast. The nearer you got to the water the softer and sandier the
ground got, and the easier it was to scoop out a hole to crap into,
then cover up your poop afterwards.
    Away from the
buildings, I felt like I was moving through a tunnel, the two
concentric ellipses of the torch's light bouncing along the rough
ground in front of me. The clamour in my guts was growing ( Those
damned liquorice allsorts...! ) and I broke into a jog, whatever
the dangers of potholes underfoot.
    When I reckoned I was
far enough from base camp, I bent over, checked quickly that I
hadn't chosen a spot someone else had used before me, and scrabbled
at the ground. Soon I was able to pull back a divot of grass and
toss it to one side. I was standing in what I think is called a
sinkhole, a place where a circle of ground seems to have dropped a
few feet below the level of the rest. The terrain around Magilligan
Point was full of them.
    I tugged down my
pyjama trousers, then on second thoughts pulled them right off and
tossed them aside.
    Moments later I was
feeling much easier about life.
    I wiped myself
thoroughly using the bog roll I'd brought, covered