The Dead School (24 page)

A few weeks later, they gave him the boot as he expected. Dear Mr Dudgeon – here is the money we owe you – please get out of Irish education and don’t bother
coming back. He wrote to Cissie and explained what had happened as best he could. She begged him to come home and in a way it would have been good if he could have, but when love’s gone into
the grave, there’s not much you can do, is there? In the end he just wrote her a short note to say goodbye and left for London the following day.

When Raphael heard of the department’s decision he ought to have been overjoyed. By right there ought to have been cheering and dancing in Madeira Gardens for weeks on end. I mean it was
his dream come true, wasn’t it – at last getting rid of Dudgeon who had caused him nothing but trouble from the day he walked in the door. Unfortunately, however, that wasn’t the
way it was, it most definitely was not – for as far as trouble was concerned, poor old Raphael had seen nothing yet.

Pat Hourican fell in the pond and drowned. His little coffin rested on trestles in the cold gloom of the chapel. His mother in her mantilla clutched the coffin. She asked why
did her boy have to die. No one could answer her because they didn’t know. Her screeching tore at everybody’s heart. Especially Raphael Bell’s.

Some time after the funeral he had a dream. This was the first time he’d had it but one thing he could be sure of, it wouldn’t be the last. A dream of an old story he had told to his
class so many years before, the story of Dominic the little Christian boy. He was a holy boy, the holiest boy in the world. All the boys should try and be like him, their master told them.
‘Always try and be like little Dominic in every way you can,’ he said. The master loved telling that story because he knew all the boys liked listening to it. You could hear a pin drop
as he stood by the window staring out at the chestnut tree with the sun in its leaves, his voice lowered as he began:

It was a dark time for the Christians. The city of Rome was full of spies. Shadows scuttled. The sky was overcast. No one knew what was going to happen next. Deep in the catacombs the hunted
Christians huddled together, their murmured prayers echoing in the cold stillness. Late that night the message came through. A poor Christian man was dying on the far side of the city. It was
imperative that the Holy Eucharist be brought to him before he breathed his last. But how was this to be done? No Christian was safe. To venture out would have been folly in the extreme. This was
when Little Dominic stepped forward to eagerly volunteer. The assembled followers of Christ listened in admiration and awe as this little follower proudly declared, ‘I will go. I will take
the Body of Christ to the poor sick man.’ His round fresh face shone with youthfulness and trust.

There was much debate among the elders. Eventually however they decided they had little option. They would accept the boy’s gallant offer to carry the Eucharist, that he ought indeed to be
the Messenger of Christ. Before his departure they asked of him, ‘What will you do if you are confronted by the enemies of Christ?’ He thrust out his chest and proudly said, ‘I
will never deny the Lord Jesus the son of God because He is Our Lord and Master.’ With not a little sadness in their hearts the elders watched as he slipped out silently into the rainwashed
streets of Rome. To the north, angry clouds glowered in the sky and his little heart was pounding as he made his way across the city. He felt the cold silver of the Pyx, the sacred box in which the
Son of God was secure against his skin. Only minutes from his destination he looked up to see a centurion flanked by militia. They challenged him and he ran until he found himself in a blind alley.
A phalanx of men appeared as if out of nowhere, their hands hovering just over the hilts of their short flat swords. The shadow of the centurion fell across him. What was it about the centurion he
felt he knew? The answer eluded him although it skirted tantalizingly about the recesses of his mind. ‘What have you beneath your cloak, boy?’ boomed the centurion’s voice.
‘Nothing, sir,’ he replied and felt nothing then until he realized a short flat sword had been drawn and thrust into his stomach, not once but three times. As he swayed across the
muddied cobble, he saw the glint of the rolling silver box, trapped finally beneath a sandalled foot. The words in his mind seemed so sad yet so reasonable. ‘Why does it have to be like
this?’ As he lay there blood streaming from the gaping wound in his stomach the centurion stood above him fingering the silver box. Little Dominic looked up and tried to say,
‘Centurion, why did you kill me?’ but when his eyes met the soldier’s and he saw that they were those of Raphael Bell, he could not help but weep.

As did the headmaster when he awoke in the night, the only sound that of his heaving chest and the whole world outside the window in darkness deep as the darkest well, whispering his name softly
again and again.

About a month after the sad death of little Pat Hourican, Father Stokes looked out the window of the presbytery and saw Nessa Bell climbing the steps, in tears.

Making his wife cry wasn’t the only bad thing Raphael did around that time. Once he put their cat Setanta halfway across the room with a kick. Almost as soon as he had
done it he said he was sorry. Indeed he tried to catch the cat to apologize, but the terrified animal went away under the table and he couldn’t get at it. Then Raphael tried to soft-soap
Nessa but she just screamed at him to go away. The sad thing is that he really was sorry because he loved Setanta, or at least he had until recently.

Raphael didn’t know what to think as he sat there by the dying fire rubbing his eyes and taking swigs out of the small bottle of whiskey he now brought home with him every night after
visiting the Harcourt Hotel. If he said it once he said it a dozen times – ‘I’m sorry, Setanta. I’m sorry, Setanta.’ He was especially sorry because he was thinking of
the days when he would never in a million years have done such a thing, of the day when he first got the little cat, as frisky a wee kitten as ever you clapped eyes on. No sooner was he out of his
wicker basket than he was off tumbling across the grass and making wild swings at midges and insects to beat the band. What a laugh Raphael and Mrs McCaffrey had had at that!

Mrs McCaffrey was a lovely woman. Her son Joseph was a great little footballer in his day. It was him who had told Raphael about the litter. When he heard that Master Bell was on the lookout for
a pet he was nearly wet himself and his hand shot into the air as he cried, ‘Teacher! Teacher! My mammy has kittens!’

Which was exactly how it all happened. He smiled as he thought of Joseph, and Mrs McCaffrey standing there on the lawn with her arms folded saying, ‘I wonder what we’ll call him,
Master Bell?’

‘With energy the like of that,’ said Raphael, ‘there’s only one thing we can call him – Setanta!’

The boy beamed because he knew exactly what Raphael was talking about. But Mrs McCaffrey looked puzzled. ‘Setanta, Master Bell? Now there’s a funny name!’ Raphael shook his
head and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. He removed his wire-framed spectacles and shone them with his starched white handkerchief. Then he coughed lightly and, drumming his fingers on the
lapels of his silver-tweed sports jacket, he continued, ‘This little fellow here will tell you – won’t you, Joseph? What we’ve been doing all week in history class. Back in
ancient times in Ireland, Mrs McCaffrey, there was as fine a band of men who roamed the hills and dales and they went by the name of the Red Branch Knights. Now around that time there was a youth
called Setanta and his prowess both in the sporting arena and on the battlefield was legendary. Mrs McCaffrey, he could hit a hurley ball so hard into the sky that it would travel a hundred miles
and do you know what he would do then?’

Mrs McCaffrey shook her head, deeply impressed by the breadth of the master’s knowledge.

Raphael paused and contemplated the toes of his shoes. He drew a deep breath, ‘What would he do, Joseph?’

‘Catch it coming down, Master.’

‘Now there’s the scholar for you!’ beamed Raphael.

Mrs McCaffrey’s eyes moistened. The kitten continued to leap and bound through the air. Then putting her arm around her son’s shoulders, she said, ‘I hope he’ll be happy
with you, Master Bell. I know he’ll be happy with you – little Setanta.’

Raphael extended his hand and she clasped it warmly.

‘It’s a present, Master. For all you’ve done for our Joseph. You’re a credit to the school. All the mammies and daddies say it. You have made St Anthony’s what it
is today.’

Raphael lowered his head and thanked her for her kind comments. ‘We do our best, Mrs McCaffrey. It’s all any of us can do.’

Mrs McCaffrey looked into his eyes and, as if reaching for words which were beyond her grasp, she said, ‘God bless you, Master Bell,’ then she and Joseph made their way to the main
road where her husband was sitting in the car waiting for them.

Raphael glowed with the happiness occasioned by her kindness, thinking about those private little triumphs which made the profession of teaching such a rewarding one. The expression of wonder on
a child’s face as a complex, impenetrable problem suddenly reveals itself as if by magic, the trusting clasp of a child’s hand in the playground, the warm affection and appreciation
which often grew up between parent and teacher, as had happened in this instance. And of which little Setanta was the living proof. Raphael smiled to himself as he watched the yelping ball of fur
spin in the air. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he found himself laughing aloud as he strode briskly across the playground, and breaking into a trot, cried: ‘Setanta! Setanta!
Pish-wish! Pish-wish! Come here to me now like a good boy!’

But what a little devil Setanta was! Could he lay his hands on him? Not on your life! Just when he thought he had him cornered, the scallywag would be away in between his legs and off like a
bullet again. At last, however, the headmaster managed to pen him in between the septic tank and the wall and with one leap, had him bundled under his coat. He was as warm as toast in there, mewing
away like nobody’s business. And the wriggles of him! Raphael was afraid those claws would stick into him and he’d be caught off guard and the last thing he wanted was to have to start
the same thing all over again. So he tapped the squirming shape of the animal gently but firmly and said, ‘Now, no more of your nonsense, Setanta. We’re going home now to get you a warm
bowl of milk. If you’re good that is! There won’t be very much milk if you don’t mind your manners – do you hear me?’

But by that stage they had already reached the car so the master climbed in and, depositing the new addition to the family safely in the back seat, began to whistle ‘My Grandfather’s
Clock’ and turning the key in the dash, chugged off towards home, barely able to contain the excitement he felt at the prospect of his wife’s reaction to the arrival of the surprise
guest.

Which, it has to be said, was a lot better than a kick in the face, and an awful lot better than being left to rot away and die and be eaten by maggots in the Dead School which was exactly what
was in store for little frisky Pish-Wish although of course he didn’t know that yet – how would he?

When Nessa came down the following morning she found her husband still in the chair with the empty bottle in his hand, snoring away like a pig.

Around that time the whispering campaign started. It wasn’t enough for Evans to come along and kill his school stone dead. Perhaps in the beginning that might have been
enough for her, but the death of Pat Hourican had whetted her appetite and now nothing only Raphael’s complete banishment would satisfy her. You could see it in her eyes. And that smirk. Of
course when he put it to Stokes, he denied everything and said that he was only imagining things. But then, what else could he say when he had been in league with them from the start? Actually, the
first time Raphael had heard the words he thought himself that he had imagined them. He was pulling out the school gates when he heard Mrs McCaffrey, the very woman who had given him Setanta, now
thick as thieves with Evans, whispering behind her hand, ‘Whose fault is it then, Pat was killed? It’s
his
school.’ He passed no remarks on that until one day he was buying
cigarettes in the shop around the corner when beyond all shadow of doubt, he heard a woman saying ‘If it was anyone else, he’d have lost his job.’

He didn’t sleep a wink that night or the next night either. When, at 4 a.m., Nessa followed him to the kitchen and asked him what was wrong, he looked up at her with bloodshot eyes and
winced a little. Outside the city slept. She asked him again. ‘Oh there’s nothing wrong with me,’ he replied as he blew the skin off his cocoa.

Things didn’t go really bad however until Thompson started. Raphael might have known. After all – you couldn’t expect much else from the Thompsons could you?
Three of them had been through the school already and, not to put too fine a point on it, they were all as thick as two short planks. No major problem to map out their destiny – the street
corner or the high stool, and that was more or less it. But insolence – in all fairness that had never been a characteristic you could attribute to them. No, that most certainly had come as a
surprise. So much of a surprise in fact that he could not believe it when he came upon the Thompson boy playing with a game of some sort in a corner of the playground. This, despite a notice
clearly displayed for all to see in the corridors and on the front door of the school, ‘All Toys Prohibited In the School Building and Playground.’ What he simply could not believe was
the boy being so engrossed in the infernal game that he did not hear him. He actually had to repeat, ‘Do you hear me, boy?’ before the insolent whelp looked up with the drooping eyes
and gormless expression of all his brothers before him. ‘What is it you have there?’ the teacher asked. ‘It’s a game,’ the boy replied. Mr Bell pushed his index finger
into his collar and said, ‘I am perfectly aware that it is a game! What sort of game?’