Skippy Dies (44 page)

‘Oh…’ Howard bows his head solemnly, trying to think of an appropriate platitude.

‘I wouldn’t give up on him yet, though. If Desmond Furlong goes down, you can bet it’s not going to be without one heck of
a fight.’ He raises his chin, looks sternly into the middle distance. ‘In the jungle there are many animals, Howard. Macaws,
parakeets, flamingos, those are just the birds. Then you’ve got your rhinos, orang-utans, tapirs, various kinds of reptile,
you name it. But there is only one beast that gets to be called the King of the Jungle, and that beast is the lion. Lion doesn’t
get where he is by grubbing for ants or swinging from tree to tree. He lives life on his own terms. He sticks to his guns.
When he acts, it’s with one hundred per cent
decisiveness and self-belief. That’s why year after year, when the animals get together to crown their king, they always pick
the lion. Because it’s those values that mark out a leader, not how good you are at sucking sap out of a tree trunk or using
sonar to navigate at night. Desmond Furlong was just such a lion.’ He pauses. ‘What do you think, Howard? Too much?’

Howard, in spite of his best efforts, can only goggle, like a man in a bell jar.

‘You’re right – Trudy, cut that whole lion part, it’s too much.’ Trudy assiduously takes a red pen to a printout sitting on
her desk. ‘But I’ll tell you this, Howard, whatever else happens, this Father Desmond Furlong Memorial Concert is going to
give the Old Man exactly the send-off he deserves. We’re having the auditions day after tomorrow, though we’ve preselected
most of the acts, obviously.’

Howard is confused. ‘This is a different concert to the 140th…?’

‘No, Howard, one and the same, except that now it’s doubly momentous, in that it not only marks a milestone anniversary in
the school’s history, but also commemorates the passing of one of its leading lights. The Father Desmond Furlong Memorial
Concert, it has a ring to it, don’t you think? Gives it that extra touch of gravitas.’

‘But he isn’t actually dead yet,’ Howard establishes as delicately as he can.

‘No, he’s not. No sir, those doctors have another think coming if they believe they’ve got some shrinking violet on their
hands here.’

‘So by the time the concert comes round… does that not mean he may actually still…’

‘Well, in that case we’ll have all the more reason to celebrate, won’t we? Unfortunately, Howard, that is not likely at all,
not at all, I’m afraid, according to the latest prognosis. At this point he needs a miracle, poor man. That reminds me, though,
how are you getting on with those programme notes? Real surfeit of riches, once you dive into those school records, isn’t
there?’

‘Oh – absolutely,’ Howard says, picturing the empty notepad sitting under his library books at home. ‘Yes, it’s really coming
together…’

‘That’s outstanding, Howard, knew I could count on you. Now, you said there was something you wanted to ask me?’

‘Oh yes… I’m thinking of taking my second-years on a class trip to the museum…’

‘Oh really?’ the Automator turning away again to part the louvres of the blind. ‘A class trip, eh?’

‘Yes, we’re doing the First World War at the moment and for a while now I’ve been thinking it would be good for the boys to
see some of the uniforms and guns and so on. It’s not really treated in the textbook, you see, so this would be a way to bring
it to life a little, as opposed to being just dead facts on a page…’

‘It’s not treated in the textbook?’

‘Not in any depth, no. Hard to believe, I know, but it actually does the whole war in half a page, and it doesn’t mention
Ireland’s involvement at all. A field trip would be a way of engaging the boys on a personal level, to show them what their
counterparts of ninety years ago would have experienced – actually, I’m sure there were Seabrook boys who went to the Front,
we could ev–’

‘Yesyesyes,’ the Automator interjects, in what sounds like a distinctly minor tone. ‘I have to say, Howard, departures from
the textbook always set alarm bells going in my head. These
dead facts on a page
, as you call them, are the same ones that your class are going to have to reproduce in their exam papers next year. Engaging
the boys is all well and good, but your job first and foremost is to get those facts off the page and into their brains by
any means necessary. Not to start confusing them with a whole slew of new facts.’

‘I do feel that this is something they’d find particularly beneficial, Greg –’

‘Of course you do, but where does it end? Heck of a lot of facts out there, Howard, heck of a lot of history. You wanted to
put all that history in one book, it’d be the size of a warehouse and take
you a thousand years to read, by which time of course a thousand more years of history would’ve elapsed. Until they invent,
first of all, a history-supercomputer that can fit the whole thing on a single chip, and then some way of downloading the
information directly into your brain, we have to be selective about what areas we’re going to concentrate on, you see what
I’m driving at here?’

‘It would just be a half-day trip,’ Howard points out. ‘If we left at lunchtime we’d be back here by four o’clock.’

‘Things can happen between lunchtime and four o’clock,’ the Automator pronounces ominously. ‘I can’t help remembering what
happened the last time I left you alone in charge of a group of second-years. That’s not the type of scene I want replicated
on the streets of our nation’s capital.’

Howard, notwithstanding that he came up with the idea of the field trip purely as a pretext for asking the Automator about
Aurelie, feels his choler rise. ‘I think you’re being a little unfair, Greg,’ struggling to keep his tone polite. ‘That was
a freak incident. These are good boys, and I have a decent rapport with them.’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Addressing the question to the dusk, ‘That Slippy kid’s in your second-year class, isn’t he?’

‘Daniel Juster?’

‘That’s right – how’s he doing these days?’

‘Good as gold. I’ve had no trouble with him whatever.’

‘I’ll bet,’ the Automator says softly, peering through the blind like a predator waiting for his prey to step into his trap.

‘I really think you’ve got the wrong impression of him, Greg. He’s a very bright boy. A little shy, that’s all.’

‘Mm.’ The Automator sounds unconvinced. ‘Howard, come over here a second, would you? Something I’d like to show you.’

Obediently Howard leaves his chair, and Trudy scoots out of his way so he can join the Acting Principal at the window. Below
them, through the narrow aperture of the blind, the twilit yard is deserted save for a sprinkling of cars and, Howard sees
now, a single, diminutive figure standing on his own among the shadows. In his grey jumper and slacks he has almost entirely
disappeared
into the monochrome background, but now, as Howard watches, he pivots his upper body to one side and then, like a spring,
uncoils, letting fly something from his hand. It travels only a short distance before wobbling dismally to the ground, where
it scrapes to a halt with an ugly skittering noise that Howard realizes has been present on the periphery of his consciousness
for some time.

‘Know who that is, Howard?’

‘Difficult to tell,’ Howard says evasively.

‘It’s Juster, Howard. He’s been out there this last half-hour.’ They watch the boy trudge over to the object where it has
landed, then throw it back in the direction it came. It fares even worse this time, veering off to the right and rolling away
into the bushes, to an audible epithet of dismay from the lone figure outside.

‘Any idea what he might be doing?’

‘Looks like he’s playing frisbee.’

‘He’s playing frisbee
by himself
, Howard. He’s playing frisbee by himself, in the dark. You ever played frisbee by yourself in the dark?’

‘It does look like he needs the practice.’

‘Howard, this may seem like a big joke to you. But damn it, you can’t look out that window and tell me that’s normal behaviour.
Even watching him is giving me the creeps. Now you’re telling me you want to let him loose in the city? My God, there’s no
knowing what kind of stunt he might pull.’ He turns back to the window. ‘Look at him, Howard. He’s up to something. But what?
What’s going on inside that head?’ This provokes a thought – ‘Trudy, wasn’t Al Foley supposed to be profiling that kid for
us? Damn it, how long can it take for a man to have his ears drained?’

‘He should be back in the next couple of days, Greg,’ Trudy says.

‘Well, as soon as he is, I want Juster as a top priority.’ He turns round to his underling, staring gloomily at the dusk,
and claps him on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, Howard. Just can’t do it. Still, I appreciate your initiative. Next time maybe we’ll
be able to come to an
arrangement. But in the meantime let’s not have any more disparagement of the textbook, all right? Textbook’s on your side.
It’s like a map. Stray from the map, take a wrong turn, you’re in Injun territory, friend. Those kids’ll smell it on you in
a second and they will take you out, Howard. They will take you out.’ He hits him a hearty giddy-up slap on the arm. ‘Now,
why don’t you get yourself on home? Little lady must be wondering where you are.’

Howard is so demoralized that he almost leaves without asking the very question he came in for. Then in the doorway it returns
to him. ‘Finian Ó Dálaigh’s back,’ he says, in a warbling burlesque of nonchalance.

The Automator relinquishes the window, still aglow. ‘He sure is. See the size of the stone they took out of him? Doctor said
it was the biggest one he’d ever seen. I’ll tell you what, though, Finian Ó Dálaigh could have a cannonball in there, still
wouldn’t keep him away from that blackboard. He’s a Seabrook man through and through.’

Howard shakes his head in wordless admiration, then, as if in afterthought, ‘So, will Aurelie McIntyre be coming back this
side of Christmas, or…?’

‘Haven’t spoken to her about it yet, Howard, she’s still on holiday to the best of my knowledge. That business at the Hop
seems to have shaken her up quite a bit. She asked to extend her break. I agreed. I was just happy she didn’t file for trauma.’

‘So she’s still away?’ Howard leaping for this unexpected lifeline.

‘I believe so, yes. Apparently what happened was that her fiancé sprung a surprise cruise on her. When she called me they’d
just pulled into the Seychelles.’

The universe silently crumbles around Howard. ‘Her fiancé?’ he repeats, barely audible even to himself.

‘Yes, he’d popped the question just the night before. Sounds like quite a production. Woman like that, guess you’d better
be ready to spend some money.’ He chuckles to himself. ‘Not that he’s
short of it, by the sounds of it. You know him, Howard? Clongowes man, played on their Cup team in his day. Working up in
Accenture, doing pretty well, year or two younger than yourself?’

‘No, I haven’t met him,’ the dust of Howard’s dreams swirling round him, clogging his throat.

‘Anyhow, now that Finian’s back there’s no real need for her here,’ the Automator continues somewhere in the distance. ‘She
might come back, do a couple of hours here and there, extracurricular stuff, the environment, so forth. More likely she’ll
go back into banking, that’s where I’d put my money. That’s where most people put their money, am I right?’ He shakes his
head. ‘Boy oh boy, though. The size of that gallstone. Try teaching with one of those rattling around your spleen, Howard.
But he kept soldiering on. I practically had to strap him down to get him to the hospital…’

Howard makes his exit from the office with small, agonized steps, as if it is he who has just emerged from Intensive Care,
wound still gaping in his side.

‘So what are you going to do on your date, Skippy?’

‘I don’t know… maybe play frisbee for a while, before it gets dark? And then watch a DVD or something?’

‘That is the wrong answer,’ Mario says severely. ‘There is only one reason you are going to this house, and that is for full
sex with a girl. Do you think the Italian national team of 1982 stopped to play frisbee on their way to winning the World
Cup? Do you think Einstein took a break to watch a DVD when he was inventing his famous theory of relatives?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, I will tell you, they didn’t. Focus on your objective. Full hardcore sex. Frisbee or whatever can come after that.’

‘I can’t believe you’re going to her house,’ Dennis says. ‘It just seems wrong somehow.’

‘Well, she asked me.’

‘I know that, it’s just, you know,
you
, and
her
– it just, doesn’t it seem wrong somehow?’ addressing this to the others. ‘Like sort of implausible?’

‘Maybe a tiny bit,’ Geoff concedes.

‘Like, what about Carl?’

‘What does Carl have to do with it?’

‘Hmm, well, he practically put you in a coma just for sending her some gay Japanese poem. What do you think he’ll do if he
finds out you’ve gone to her house? He’ll rip your head off.’

‘That’s true.’ Geoff frowns. ‘He probably will rip your head off, Skip.’

‘He’ll rip your head off and piss down your neckhole,’ Dennis elaborates. ‘And
then
he’ll get physical.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with him,’ Skippy says. ‘Anyway, how
would he even know about it?’ At this Dennis, who has spent much of the day asking people whether this whole Skippy and Lori
thing doesn’t seem really weird, and how it must be a real slap in the face for Carl, clams up abruptly and then goes off
to look for Ruprecht.

Ever since his irradiation on the night of the experiment, Dennis has thrown himself into his new-found admiration of and
support for Ruprecht with a gusto that those who know him find almost eerie. He fetches Ruprecht doughnuts when they are working
late in the lab, he listens to Ruprecht’s long rambles about maths – he even tows the line in Quartet rehearsals, playing
only the notes he is told to, Ruprecht having edited these down by about half.

He has also played a key role in the attempt to smuggle the pod into the girls’ school. This afternoon, Niall’s sister came
through with the map of St Brigid’s, and now the plan – which Ruprecht has codenamed ‘Operation Condor’, in preference, thanks
all the same, to Mario’s ‘Operation Mound’, and Dennis’s ‘Operation Immaculate Penetration’ – shifts into the next gear.