Skippy Dies (70 page)

‘Yeah,’ Howard says, feeling his cheeks flame.

‘Although things do change, I suppose…’ The old man runs his hands over the cloth of the uniform again. ‘Anyway, it’ll be
a great story for your boys.’

Howard makes an indistinct sound. As a matter of fact, he has already decided that he will not tell the boys about the uniform.
It would mean nothing to them; there is nothing to be gained from exposing it to their indifference. Slattery is surprised
to hear this – even, Howard thinks, a little offended. ‘I thought they’d enjoyed studying the war…?’

Howard had thought so too; but recent events have brought home to him just how greatly he’d misjudged them. Every day he watches
them yammer to each other about the revived concert, swarm obliviously around the empty seat in the centre of the room, the
events of – what, three weeks ago? long vanished from their memories, and eventually he understands that they simply do not
have the capacity to relate to the past, their own or anyone else’s. They live in a continuous sugar-rushed present, in which
remembering is a chore left to computers, like tidying your room is a chore left for the Third World maid. If the war briefly
caught their imagination, it was only as another arena of violence and gore, no different from their DVDs and video games,
the movie clips of car accidents and mutilations that they swap like football stickers. He doesn’t blame them for it, the
mistake was his.

The old man swirls the ice in his drink. ‘I wouldn’t write them off just yet, Howard. In my experience, when you can show
them something tangible, bring them out of the classroom so to speak,
it can have quite an amazing effect. Even a recalcitrant class, they can really surprise you.’

‘They’ve already surprised me,’ Howard says curtly, and then, ‘I just don’t think this is something they care about, Jim.
I don’t know what they care about, frankly. Apart from maybe getting on TV.’

‘Well, you have to teach them to care, don’t you?’ Slattery says. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’

Howard does not respond to this, other than to wonder how the old man can have stayed so sentimental for so long. Does he
simply not see the boys, is that it? Does he not hear what they say?

He takes Slattery’s books with him; when he gets home, he checks the photograph of Molloy in the company history against a
team picture in one of the old school annuals he’s been going through for his programme notes. There he is, grinning from
the centre row, carefully lacquered hair giving him a brawny, equine look, the same man that appears in the portraits of the
Pals, as if he had simply hopped from one book to the other, ready to charge the Turkish trenches on Chocolate Hill just as
he charged Port Quentin in Lansdowne Road. How could he have known what lay ahead of him? Catastrophic defeat, pointless obliteration,
disappearance from history, that’s not the fate you expect for a Seabrook boy –

Thinking this brings back Juster again, that empty seat in the classroom like a tile missing from a mosaic. He studies the
photograph in the book again. Is he imagining it, or can he see a family resemblance there, between Molloy and his great-grandson?
Over the generations the set mouth has grown uncertain, reticent, the blue eyes dazed, as if the genes themselves had never
recovered from the disintegration of Suvla Bay and its aftermath, as if some infinitesimal but vital part had got lost in
the churn of time. And yet it seems that Daniel Juster, or the man he might have become, is
there
, gazing out of the soldier’s face like a reflection on glass; and gazing back in the candlelit living room, Howard finds
the
hairs on his arms and neck stand up. The uniform floats on its hanger; alone in the candlelit room Howard is suffused by a
curious sense of
convergence
, as if he’s been appointed as one terminal of a mysterious circuit.

Maybe Slattery was right, is what he’s thinking. Maybe this is what the boys need to wake them up; maybe this is a way of
bringing Daniel back into the classroom, and forcing them to see him. Two ghosts, briefly rescued from oblivion; a small act
of reclamation, a chance to make amends.

Next morning he goes in early to get to the photocopier; he’s in the staffroom, collating pictures of pre-war rugby teams,
when the Automator comes in. Crossing swiftly to the armchair where Tom sits reading the sports section of the
Irish Times
, ‘Quick word?’ he says.

Tom looks up blankly. ‘Sure, Greg, do you want to go…?’ He motions at the door.

‘Actually, perhaps you won’t mind me sharing this with the others,’ the Automator replies, taking from his jacket an envelope
emblazoned with the Paraclete crest. It is from the Congregation’s headquarters in Rome; the letter inside, which the Automator
reads aloud, announces that Tom has been selected to teach in Mary Immaculate School, Mauritius. Tom lets out a whoop; the
Automator, laughing, claps him on the back.

It takes a moment for Howard to understand that what he is witnessing is an act, put on for the benefit of the onlookers.
He is struck by how convincing they are – Tom flushed and starry-eyed, the Automator with a paternal arm over his shoulder,
nothing veiled or calculating detectable in their expressions. It’s as if, for them, their lie has already replaced the truth;
and now, while he watches, that lie crystallizes outwards, inscribes itself in reality with the help of his unwitting peers,
as they crowd around to pump Tom’s hand.

‘So you’re
leaving
us…’

‘Yeah, it was a hard decision, but…’

‘I’d say it nearly killed you. Mauritius, no less!’

‘You won’t have to put up with this shite over there.’ ‘Ricky’ Ross, the economics teacher, gestures humorously at the lugubrious
Irish weather outside.

‘No, though it has its own problems, of course…’

‘And what about us? How will Seabrook go on without you?’

‘What about the
Ferry
? They’ll have to close down!’

‘We didn’t even know you were thinking of leaving.’ Misses Birchall and McSorley are quite overcome. ‘You never told us, you
bold boy.’

‘Yeah, well, it was all a bit out of the blue. Greg told me this position had come up, and I decided to go for it. Seabrook’s
where my heart is, obviously, but, you know…’

‘Tom felt like they needed him more over there,’ the Automator contributes judiciously. ‘They haven’t got it easy, those poor
kids.’

‘Will you be teaching or coaching?’ Pat Farrell asks.

‘A bit of teaching, English and whatever else they’ll let me near. But mostly I’ll be training the rugby team. They’ve a decent
enough programme out there – is it Father McGowran set it up, Greg?’

‘That’s right, Tom. Father Mike’s been doing some really Trojan work, getting that school into shape. But he can’t do it all
on his own. And God knows he can’t kick a rugby ball to save his life!’

They laugh. Then delicately, Ó Dálaigh, ‘So, back on the rugby pitch, eh?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Been a while, all the same.’

‘It’s time,’ Tom says, and gives them that disarming, lopsided smile. ‘Got to face up to the past eventually, don’t you?’

‘You do. You do.’ This sentiment pleases his congratulators. Howard feels like his head is about to explode: he makes for
the door, but gets entangled in the crowd and finds himself redirected towards Tom. Up close, the coach seems taller than
before, virile, vital, as if his ruptured spine had miraculously healed itself; his blameless eyes fall serenely on Howard,
who by comparison feels like a ghost, can almost hear his bones rattle as he shakes Tom’s hand. ‘Congratulations,’ he says
mechanically.

‘Thanks, Howard. Thanks.’ In that heartfelt, manly grasp,
Howard is suddenly overcome by nausea. He springs away to the toilet and throws up weak tea.

Walking down to the Annexe later on, he is buttonholed by Farley. ‘Heard the news?’ Farley asks, matching step with him.

‘About Tom, you mean?’

‘He’s got the right idea,’ Farley says. ‘I’ve been thinking about doing something like that lately.’

Howard feels like a piece of driftwood afloat on some tempestuous sea of irony. ‘Go to Mauritius?’

‘Go somewhere they might actually need me. Somewhere I could make a difference. I don’t think I’d have to travel that far.’

Howard has been avoiding Farley lately, but from a distance he’s seen a change come over his friend, a morbid, directionless
anger. ‘They need you here, Farley. Everyone needs a good teacher, rich or poor.’

‘These kids don’t,’ Farley says. ‘Why would they? They’re set up for life, and they know it.’

‘It’s not their fault their parents have money.’

‘Of course it’s not their fault. Nothing is anybody’s fault,’ Farley replies, deadpan. ‘It’s not just the boys, Howard. It’s
this whole place, the hypocrisy of it.’

As if on cue, Father Green sails by – affecting not to see them, keeping his gaze fixed on some imaginary point over their
heads, like a missionary posted to the last days of Sodom, determined to ignore the temporal murk.

‘Walking around as if nothing ever happened,’ Farley says darkly. ‘It’s sick.’

‘We don’t know that he had anything to do with it.’

‘We can join the dots, can’t we?’

Someone keeps writing pedo in Tippex on the priest’s office door. Every morning Noddy scrapes it off, and then by lunchtime
it’s back again.

‘The sooner this school gets the fucking priests out of the picture, the better,’ Farley says. ‘Greg may be a cretin and a
fascist, but at least he doesn’t pretend to be anything else. He doesn’t act
like he’s got some superior moral insight. Just good old-fashioned greed.’

‘Father Green’s done a lot of good things,’ Howard says weakly. ‘If you’re talking about making a difference. He’s probably
the only one in the whole school who actually has.’

‘A power trip, that’s all that is. Junkies and down-and-outs are the only people he can still feel superior to. Though it’s
better he’s hanging around them than the kids.’ He emits a curt, bitter laugh, then stops and shakes his head. ‘It’s not right,
Howard. It’s just not right.’

In his classroom Howard leans heavily on the lectern as the students slouch in. Ruprecht is next to last, making his bloated
way like an ailing dowager. He waits for them to settle as much as they’re going to, then gathers himself together. ‘I have
something special to show you today,’ he says. There is a general snigger. He takes the uniform from the bag.

‘This belonged to an Irish soldier who actually fought in the First World War,’ he says. ‘His name was William Molloy and
he attended this very school – in fact he was Juster’s, he was Daniel Juster’s great-grandfather.’ The name feels wrong, alien
in his mouth, and it produces no effect on the boys; they look on disinterestedly, as they might at an uninspired street-performer
while waiting for their bus.

‘He would have volunteered in 1914, as Lord Kitchener…’

A tittering can be heard at the back of the room; something amusing is evidently occurring outside the window. Howard breaks
off, turns to see Carl Cullen stumbling across the car park towards the school.

‘He’s forgotten he’s suspended,’ someone remarks gleefully. ‘It’s the second time this week.’

‘He’s off his head,’ someone else observes.

Even from this distance, Carl’s eyes are visibly scrambled, and in his stagger Howard, for one freezing instant, foresees
something awful… but he isn’t wearing a jacket, nor has he a bag, so
it’s difficult to see where he might conceal a firearm; anyway, Howard tells himself, that kind of thing only happens in America,
not here, at least not yet… Now a teacher emerges from the school to intercept him. ‘Slattery,’ someone says.

‘Maybe he wants to score some E’s.’

Howard watches the old man grip the boy by the shoulders, lean into his slack face, speak to him softly and briefly, then
spin him 180 degrees and send him on his way.

‘Good thing the Automator didn’t see him,’ Vince Bailey says. ‘He’d get another week’s suspension.’

‘Oh yeah, I’m sure Carl really cares about being suspended,’ Conor O’Malley mocks.

‘Oh right, I forgot you’re his best friend, that knows everything about him.’

‘Fuck yourself, shithead.’

‘All right, all right.’ Howard raps on the lectern. ‘We’ve got work to do here. Now let’s see what this uniform can tell us.’

He holds it up, as if it had some Grail-like power to penetrate the fog of the day. But in the morning light, in the intermittent,
corrosive adolescent gaze, the uniform no longer appears to tell them very much. It no longer feels charged with history,
nor with anything else, save for the smell of mothballs; and when Howard tries to recall that epiphany of last night, the
catharsis he was going to bring about in them – he sees only that little scene in the staffroom: the joy on Tom’s face as
he is handed his escape route; the affection and pride, real, genuine affection and pride on the Automator’s; the staff gathering
round to pass on their congratulations, Howard himself shaking the coach’s hand.

Somebody twangs a rubber band with his teeth, somebody yawns.

Why should they care about the doings of ‘D’ Company? Why should they believe a single thing he tells them, or anything they’re
told within the walls of this school? They know how it goes, they know how it works in places like this – even if they don’t
know they know.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he says.

The boys look back at him desultorily, and suddenly Howard feels like he’s suffocating, like there is nothing breathable left
in the room. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Everybody go and get your coats. We’re getting out of here.’

Nothing happens. Howard claps his hands. ‘Come on, I mean it. Let’s get moving.’ He doesn’t know what he means; he only knows
that he can’t stay in this room a moment longer. Now the general apathy gives way to a nascent stirring of interest, as the
boys realize that, whatever has happened to him, he is serious about this. Bags are lifted, books hastily put away before
he can change his mind.