The Dead School (21 page)

She hugged his arm as they turned into O’Connell Street. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. Man, it was just like the old days. ‘Let’s go up to
Stephen’s Green,’ she said and so off they headed.

Everything was OK now as they sat watching the ducks. The bad times were over at last. They sat there together as happy as they had ever been looking at the old ducks swimming away. ‘They
love their bread,’ said an old woman in a rain hood as she chucked half a loaf onto the water. ‘They go mad without their bread.’

‘They do,’ said Marion as she blushed a bit then laughed.

‘They do,’ said Malachy.

‘I never seen anything like ducks for bread,’ said the woman.

Part of him wanted to cry out, ‘Please, Marion!’

The late afternoon sky was the colour of lead.

He loved the way she ate yogurt. She licked it off her fingers and made sure to get any of it that slid around underneath the spoon. She always ate yogurt when she was watching
TV. She brought her knees up to her chest and puckered up her nose at the best parts of the programme. Tonight she was watching
Coronation Street
and he was sitting beside her but he was no
more interested in
Coronation Street
than the man in the moon. He was too busy thinking about Chinatown and the day they’d just spent together. A few times he stroked her hair without
thinking and she said, ‘Oh, please – I can’t concentrate!’

He knew what she meant. It can be irritating trying to watch something when someone is distracting you. So he went into the kitchen and sat down in the armchair to read for a while, but suddenly
he wanted to go back into the sitting room and ask Marion if she still loved him. He was on the verge of it but then he said to himself no –
don’t!
When she came in he was just
standing there staring into space. He didn’t even realize he had just stood to attention. Who did he think she was – Mr Bell? ‘What are you doing, Malachy?’ she said
breezily. ‘You look like you’re going to go for a crap in your trousers or something.’

He gave her a big grin. ‘Oh, you know!’ he said. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

‘Is there any pickle left?’ she asked. ‘I really fancy a sandwich.’

She hummed to herself as she opened the fridge door and it was just then that he wanted to hold her and say, ‘Please help me, Marion, I think there’s something wrong’ but all
he said was ‘Yes, Marion, there is.’ Meaning the pickle, of course.

But it didn’t matter because when he looked again she was gone.

What time it was when he woke up he didn’t know. His eyelids shot open like sprung trapdoors. The broken alarm was going hell for leather outside. He was all sweaty
again. He wanted to take his vest off but he was afraid to get out of the bed. He was afraid if he didn’t get back to sleep he would start thinking about Stephen Webb. In the end that
didn’t matter, really, because when he rubbed his eyes again Stephen was standing there beside him with his hand up and a smirk on his face. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. Malachy
swung round so that his face was level with Webb’s. ‘What do you want?’

Stephen’s eyes twinkled and he smiled, ‘The lead on my pencil is broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir.
It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir.’

The moon shone on Marion’s locket as her chest rose and fell. Malachy had to admit that it took him a long time to pick up the courage but in the end he did and when he turned over he saw
that yes she was awake too, just lying there in the dark with her eyes open, not eyes that were happy at last because the bad times were all over, but eyes that were glistening and wet with tears,
thinking about the way it had once been between them.

And would be that way again for he would see to it. So what if they had had an argument before he went off to school that morning? A fucking argument wasn’t the end of
the world. It wasn’t as if other people didn’t have them. No, he was right on top of it now, after tonight there was going to be nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about at all.
From now on he was going to wise up. To hell with Bell and his fucking school. Why should he be stuck in a poxy flat night after night worrying himself sick over nothing, almost losing everything
he had in the process. Just as well he had come to his senses in time. Marion was going to get some surprise when she saw him.

He was standing in the rain across the road from the Project. The late-night gigs they were running had become a huge success. The rain was really pouring down now but that didn’t matter.
The rain could pour down all it liked for all he cared. The only thing he was going to care about from now on was Marion. She’d be out any minute. He could hardly contain himself. What a
surprise it was going to be! No more frogspawn, Marion, he’d say. Tonight or any night. And would she be glad to hear that! At last, she’d say – at long last.

Another half-hour went by. He was beginning to have second thoughts about his carefully thought-out surprise plan when the punters began to file out through the open doors. His heart leaped when
he saw her. Laughter rippled out into the night. She was laughing at something Paddy Meehan was saying. He pushed his curly mane back from his face as they came down the steps. Paddy flicked a
cigarette away in a tail of sparks and she laughed as he put his arm around her. When you dread something it’s a sort of relief when it happens. When he looked again he couldn’t see
Marion because Paddy was in the way. You think you know how someone feels but until it happens to you you really don’t know anything at all and it was only at that moment Malachy realized
once and for all just how Packie had felt. When he looked again they were standing by a white sports car and she was smoothing back her hair from her eyes. Paddy helped her into the car and then
climbed in after her. For a long time afterwards Malachy just stood there in the pouring rain, frozen. By the time he started to walk, the place was deserted and the Project Arts Centre locked and
shuttered.

So that wasn’t very nice was it, no indeed it wasn’t, no one was saying it was and of course obviously it would be hard to know quite what to do about it but there
must have been a better way – attacking her was not the thing. As I suppose he knew. But knowing made no difference. After a good eight whiskies in Martin Coyningham’s pub, he went
right ahead and did it. One word borrowed another and soon they were at it hammer and tongs. ‘What do you want me to be?’ he snapped at her. ‘A fucking rock star? Would you like
me better then, would you?’ He was trembling as he stood there in the kitchen facing her.

Her voice was shaking too. ‘Leave him out of it. You have no right to bring him into it. He’s just a friend!’

‘A friend. Some fucking friend. You think I’m stupid – wrapped round him outside the Project like a fucking tramp – ’

As soon as he had said it, he knew it was wrong. Very wrong. She went pale. ‘What did you say?’

He wanted to take it back. He would have given anything to be able to take it back. But he couldn’t. It was too late.

‘I asked you a question, Malachy,’ she said. ‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You followed us, didn’t you? That’s what you did – you followed us!’

‘I didn’t have to follow anyone! I’m not blind, Marion! I’m not fucking blind!’

‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’d do that. How could you do a thing like that, Malachy?’

‘I told you – I didn’t follow you! I didn’t have to fucking follow you! You were open enough about it!’

‘Jesus Christ! Will you stop it! Shut up, Malachy!’

‘What the fuck do you expect me to do? What am I supposed to think? How long has this been going on? How long have you been deceiving me? How could you do it, Marion? How could you do it
on me!’

All of a sudden, she looked away and said, ‘I’m sorry, Malachy.’

The way she said it, you could have knocked him over with a feather. He just stood there staring at her with his mouth open. ‘Marion!’ was all he could manage to say.

‘I never wanted to deceive you. I swear to God I never wanted to do that,’ she said, and then it all came out. He didn’t want it to. He didn’t want her to tell him these
things that he was terrified he’d hear. That ever since they’d started working, things hadn’t been the same. Maybe they’d been a bit hasty in moving in together, she
said.

His head was buzzing and he knew that if he didn’t do something now, he was finished. But he didn’t know what it was he could do.

She went into the bathroom to get a towel for her eyes. When she came back, Malachy was still standing exactly where she’d left him. Still trying to get some words to come to his lips. But
they wouldn’t come. Why would they not come when there were so many things he had to say? He wanted to ask her if it wasn’t too late could they try again? He would forget about the
school and Bell and everything else. It would be all OK then, just like it had always been. They could put all that behind them and start again. He knew they could. You didn’t love one
another the way they did then stand back and watch what you had being destroyed like this in front of you. You couldn’t. As if it mattered, for in the end, the only word he could manage to
get out was ‘Marion!’, and it was so faint and weak and pathetic you could barely hear it.

Not that it made any difference because she’d left the room and all you could hear was the sound of her sobbing in the bedroom and outside the whole world going on about its business.

Evans was put in charge of playground supervision the day the rumours started on the radio about getting rid of
The Walton Programme
once and for all. It was a good old
programme but was no longer relevant surely. So I’m afraid it’s good luck
Walton Programme
very soon, they said.

As he sat there in his office, Raphael’s cheek jerked a little. Ah well, he sighed, that’s that. No more
Walton Programme
. No more Leo Maguire and no more Tommy Dando with his
Lowry organ. Sure what would you want him for? He’s too silly. Nobody wants silly men with silly organs. Not nowadays. What you want now is Evans. Mrs Evans. Or should I say Miz Evans as she
calls herself. Well excuse me! Miz Evans, chairperson of St Anthony’s Management Board. Miz Evans, Bachelor of Abortion. There she is now walking around the playground with a big smile on
her, laughing and joking with the kiddies – the ones she didn’t abort, that is. They are very nice clothes she is wearing, aren’t they? Very appropriate I would have thought. Red
bell-bottom jeans and beads if you don’t mind. Red bell-bottom trousers and beads, walking aound the playground. Hello, children – my name is Evans. I am an abortionist. Perhaps you
have heard of me? I’ve come to kill your school. Yes indeed I have, that’s all I came here for and you must admit I am doing a very good job. Look – here comes Father Stokes.
He’s my friend now. He’s a priest but he doesn’t care that I killed some babies. He thinks it’s good. He smiles and laughs and jokes with me. That’s because he is my
friend. We’re all friends here now. All except old Baldy over there in the office and sure who cares about him? The days when he had it all his own way are long gone. Did you hear the news?
They’re going to take off the stupid old
Walton Programme
. Well thanks be to God for that! Goodbye and good riddance, that’s what I say to you, Mr Walton, and your bog-trotting
dirges and bogs and stone ditches into the bargain. I suggest now you might start playing some decent songs for a change – such as ‘Babies in the Fire’ and suchlike. That would be
more like it now, I think. Hello there, little Paul. Working hard at your sums? Hello, John. Hello, Michael.

Raphael didn’t realize his hands were all chalk. He just went on turning the stick round and round in his hands as he stared out the office window across the playground.

The last straw came when Evans overruled him on the school journey. Every year Raphael took the boys to Kilmainham Jail to honour the dead who had fallen in the 1916 rebellion.
Where they could read the letters written by the insurgents the night before the executions. Where they could see the bloodstained vest of James Connolly who had been tied to a chair and shot to
death by the British. But this now was not to be, apparently. The Parents’ Committee had deemed it ‘inappropriate’. Evans swung her bag and crossed her legs as she sat before him.
‘We really think the boys would have a much better time at Waterworld.’ Great fun, by all accounts, this Waterworld. Slides and skating rinks and fountains and adventures and fun-packed
excitement of all kinds. It had only just been opened and every child in Dublin was mad to get going there. The way she spoke about it you would be forgiven for thinking she was eight years old
herself. ‘It’s fantastic!’ she said, beaming at him. Raphael said nothing for a long time and then, ‘They’re going to Kilmainham Jail where they always go.’ When
he said that, Evans’s mood changed dramatically. She went sort of grey and her lips tightened. ‘I don’t think so, Mr Bell,’ she said, and stood up. Raphael stood up too. He
could not believe how much he loathed the woman. In that instant he thought of Maolseachlainn, his poor dead boy, and all the infant corpses she had thrown into the fire. She laced her fingers as
she spoke again.

‘What you don’t seem to realize,’ she went on, ‘is that Father Stokes has already agreed to this.’

Raphael paled. ‘Then he has exceeded his authority,’ he said quietly.

‘Ah, Raphael, we don’t want to get on the wrong side of them. You know what parents are like these days. It’s not like it used to be. You step on their toes
and you have the whole lot of them down on top of you. And a lot of them do good work for the school now, it has to be said. Sure we’ll let them go, just this once. What harm can it
do?’

Raphael did not show it but was deeply disappointed as he listened to the priest. It saddened him to think that his old friend would turn around and do this.