The Dead School (26 page)

On the wall, a naked girl on a Harley Davidson rode off into the smoke. As the beercans tumbled and the record sleeves flew all about him, Chico in an Afghan danced crazy on the floor, screaming
into his air-microphone, ‘
White Punks On Dope! White Punks On Dope!
’ And The Tubes gave it all they’d got. ‘It’s not fucking loud enough!’ he shouted as
he fell across the turntable with the tears running down his face. ‘It’s their own heads, you see,’ said the Prince. ‘You gotta remember that. If you remember that,
you’re OK.’ Red-eyed strangers came and went. Malachy looked up and saw an arse in the air. It was Chico’s. ‘Jesus, man, I’m so stoned,’ he said to the girl.
‘Oh, baby,’ she groaned. Malachy took another blast of a joint and started laughing when he saw the Prince looking up at him with melting eyes, saying, ‘Teacher, can I go to the
toilet?’ and then collapsed in a fit of hysterics. Malachy stumbled across the floor with a pain in his head from laughing. ‘Oh Christ!’ moaned Chico. ‘Oh Jesus and his
mother Mary!’

‘Teacher!’ shrieked the Prince. ‘Teacher! Teacher! Me wanna go toilet!’

Malachy handed him the joint. ‘Here, man!’ he said, ‘come on!’

‘Teacher – don’t slap me!’ yelped the Prince.

Then Malachy went and dropped the joint and had to go looking for it in case it set the place on fire. As he crawled around on his hands and knees he said to himself I wonder what she’d
think of this so what do you think of this, Marion babe, out of my head looking for a joint in Shepherd’s Bush, I mean can you believe it Frogspawn Dudgeon out of his head in England, what do
you think of that? Electric Strangers hey Paddy remember me yoo hoo oh fuck me Prince I can’t find it we’re all going to die we’re going to be burnt alive hee hee. No, don’t
worry man it’s going to be all right it’s all in your head as long as you believe that’s all you got to do oh man I’ve got to have some rice I’ve got to have Ambrosia
creamed rice I’ve got to have some hey Malachy look – look at his ass up in the air look at his fucking ass hey ass what are you looking at shut the fuck up Prince oh Chico you
don’t love me any more Malachy he doesn’t love me no more shut up and change the record ‘
White Punks On Dope! White Punks On Dope!
’

‘You wanna know something?’ the Prince said before he hit the sack. ‘You wanna know something I can’t remember what it is.’ He folded again and Malachy had to hold
him up as tears of laughter came down his face making Malachy just as bad as him every time he thought of it, lying there in the camp bed with The Tubes far away and a snapshot of Marion in his
hand as he tried not to think of that day in the park.

And so the weeks went by while every night they cruised the tube, falling down Shaftesbury Avenue after scoring in the George or Trafalgar Square. When Chico got the munchies it was supermarket
time, lots and lots of niceys. The Prince fecked a pair of Ray-Bans and climbed the stage in the Wellington shouting ‘We’re talking Joey Ramone here!’ before they all got fucked
out. Back in the squat, Malachy took the stage on the beer-soaked floor and shouted into the broom handle, ‘Goodnight London! This is Philip Lynott and Thin Lizzy loving you and leaving you
with “The Boys Are Back In Town!” Aw-right!’

‘Thaggew!’ screamed the Prince and cupped the joint in his hands.

What her name was, Malachy never did find out. She just appeared after a party and all Malachy knew was that she was there beside him in the bed. She stroked his cheek and said
soft things in his ear, her breasts warm against his skin. When she asked ‘What’s wrong?’ he didn’t know what to say. He could see her face in the dark and she looked sad.
She pushed her hair back from her eyes and moved in closer to him.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re so tense. Don’t you like me?’

‘It’s not you,’ he said. ‘You’re beautiful.’

She kissed him on the eyes. ‘Then why don’t you like me?’

‘I want someone else,’ wouldn’t have been the right thing. It wouldn’t have done anyone any good. He just looked away, and when he looked again a long time afterwards,
she was asleep.

It was a pity things had to be like that. When he woke up in the morning she was gone and he never saw her again.

The months went by in a blur of The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher. The parties went on long into the night and Malachy and the Prince and Chico rode the tube for Leb
and Paki Black and anything else that was going. Sometimes Malachy would start the chuckling and wonder how the Electric Strangers would like this shit! He slammed a chord on Chico’s
three-string guitar and shouted Bob Marley down. ‘You better watch it, Paddy! You’d better watch your baby, man!’ he cried, then went and knocked over the table with the
Prince’s beer on it. ‘You asshole,’ screamed the Prince. ‘My beer! You’ve spilt my fucking beer! It’s OK, beer. It’s OK. It’s gonna be OK,’ he
said as he lapped it up with his tongue. Bob Marley chugged on as Malachy smiled to himself, because he knew you see, he
knew
when Paddy and Marion and him met again, this time it was gonna
be a whole lot different – a whole new story, man!

That night the boys were back in town big time. All Malachy remembered was standing in Shepherd’s Bush Green in his army coat shouting, ‘Come on now! Back up! Make way for the fruit
machine! Come on – show a little bit of consideration there!’

When he opened his eyes the next morning, he saw Chico and the Prince and the plainclothes cop standing at the bottom of the bed. What could he do only laugh, the Prince with the big mournful
face on him and Chico shivering in his jocks. It was wild!

So what does the cop want, wants to know what they’ve done with the fruit machine, for fuck’s sake! What fruit machine, says Malachy and the cop loses it then – that fruit
machine,
that
fruit machine, he says, that bloody fruit machine! And Malachy looks up to see it beside the fucking bed decked out in his fucking army coat and Chico’s knitted Commando
cap.

So what were you supposed to do? I mean just what were you supposed to do except dance round the kitchen, waving the fucking joints and singing ‘White Punks On Dope’ while the Prince
howled in the corner because he missed his dog Buster back in Ireland.

How long exactly Nessa and his so-called colleague had been plotting against him, Raphael could not say for sure. He had to admit that he was deeply saddened by the way it had
all turned out. Oh he was, there was no denying that. But over time, however, he began to come to terms with it. He had had plenty of knocks in his time oh yes he had and he was damned if he was
going to let this one get the better of him. The worst thing was that it wasn’t just any ordinary old betrayal you see. It was a lot more serious than that – a lot more serious,
I’m afraid. Because what it meant of course was that all the precious moments they had shared together down the years – well they weren’t really anything at all now, were they?
You certainly couldn’t call them precious moments, that was for sure! A better name for them might be something like this: Dust. Because when you examined them that was more or less what they
turned out to be. They were what you would call a big useless pile of dust, of absolutely no use to anybody. A dinner in the Dolphin Hotel after the most exciting All-Ireland Final of all time:
Dust. A play they had attended in the Abbey Theatre, a Saturday afternoon listening to
The Walton Programme
: Dust. A journey to the Ring of Kerry one glorious week in August: a journey to
dust. That was what it was. Oh my head, said Raphael. I have a pain in my head. Why am I always getting pains in my head? It’s not fair. Stokes doesn’t get them – why does he not
get them? Is there anything worse than dust? Yes. Worse than any dust is lies. How could the most beautiful woman who had ever lived tell him lies? How could she have gone and done it?

He drove into town and sat in his usual spot. He drank half a bottle of whiskey and that put him in good humour. The barman wiped the table and said, ‘You seem to be in good form, Mr Bell.
Laughing away there!’ ‘Am I laughing?’ Raphael replied. The barman said ‘You’re an awful man! Don’t you know well you are!’ and Raphael told him to have a
whiskey. ‘Ah sure I will,’ said the barman. And it wasn’t long before the pair of them were laughing away just like Raphael had been earlier on, even if he didn’t realize
it.

The following day, when he was buying the paper, he heard the flower-seller at her mouthing again, only this time worse than ever. ‘There he goes,’ she whispered to the woman beside
her, ‘the child-killer. Young Hourican wasn’t enough for him of course. He had to go and batter young Thompson to a pulp. All I can say is the Department of Education must be stuck,
Mrs. That’s all I can say. Get your roses here! Lovely fresh roses!’

Dust and the way things turn to it was still on his mind when he got home from the Harcourt a few nights later. Nessa was sitting in the parlour waiting up for him. She said his dinner was still
warm if he wanted it. It didn’t matter to him if his dinner was warm or not. He didn’t care. All he cared about was getting at the truth, which was why he caught her by the wrists and
looked deep into her eyes and said, ‘Please tell me the truth. That is all I ask. Nessa, my love, that is all I ask.’ Now Nessa was crying. She started to answer, then stopped and
started again. ‘Please tell me!’ cried Raphael. ‘Tell me – can’t you! Tell me Nessa! Tell me!’ ‘Father Des was worried about you, Raphael,’ she
blurted out finally. ‘That was why he was here. He was worried about you – can’t you see? You’re overwrought! Since that dreadful accident you’re not yourself!
Can’t you see that? Please, Raphael – can’t you see that!’

There were tears in her eyes as she reached out to him but he recoiled. ‘Don’t touch me!’ he cried. ‘Don’t touch me, liar! For that’s all you are!’

Then he pulled away and ran off out of the room and upstairs.

If Raphael had slipped a lump hammer out from under his jacket and hit Father Stokes a few times across the face with it, the effect could not have been better. He thought
Raphael was playing some kind of joke on him. At least, that’s what he thought in the beginning. But when the headmaster’s face didn’t move a muscle, he soon realized that it was
far from being a joke. He started to stutter and fumble around for something to say. But ‘I don’t understand, Raphael!’ was all he could manage. Raphael didn’t bother to
reply. His words had been perfectly clear. As well they ought to have been, considering he had been up most of the night preparing them, the most important words of his life, and he wanted to get
them right. He wanted to show Evans and Stokes and all the rest of the turncoats once and for all. He wanted to show them
once and for all
! He wanted to assemble them all in the school
playground and shout the words out right across the city, ‘You want me to slip quietly out the back of the school to which I’ve given my entire life! You want to put me out to grass
like an old horse – is that what you want? I’m an embarrassment to you all am I? I’m an embarrassment to Evans! That’s it, isn’t it? You’re afraid of her!
You’re afraid of her and her takeover friends! It will be all right once you get rid of me won’t it no more trouble no more Thompson but I’m not doing it – that’s
where you’ve all got it wrong! I’m just not doing it and now you see I’ve gone and spoiled your little plot, haven’t I? Oh yes, you had it all worked out. Mr Bell
isn’t with us any more. He’s taken early retirement. But I haven’t you see! And I won’t! I won’t – because I’m resigning! Go on – take my beloved
school! Destroy it! Murder it! Kill it like all the little babies you’ve burnt! Kill it, Evans! Throttle it until it dies at your feet for that’s all you’re good for! And you,
Father! You help her! Go ahead – help her! Hold its head under the water. But not with me! Not with me, my old friend!’

That was the image and those were the words floating around in his mind as he entered the presbytery reception room to make his speech to the blanched priest. He read from the sheet of vellum
paper:

When he had finished, he folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. That was really all he had to say, so before Stokes could open his mouth to say yes, aye or no, he
turned on his heel and walked out the door. As he strode across the school playground, the blood was still crashing in his head and it was only after the little fellow had said it three times that
he realized he was asking could he go to the toilet. Yes, yes, of course, he replied as he curled the toes of his right foot inside his shoe, to help keep him on the ground like an anchor because
he really did feel like he was about to lift off and go sailing away right over the school.

When Nessa heard the news, of course she tried to dissuade him, saying that it wasn’t what he really wanted to do and that it was all because of Pat’s death and all
the other business that had happened after it with young Thompson and so on and what was the point of falling out with everyone, he could retire early and everyone would be happy and he could do
this and he could do that and they could forget all that had happened. Oh could we he said. Yes we could she said. And when she said that, that was enough. Shut up he said, would you mind please
shutting up. He wanted her to shut up because if she had all these things to say, why didn’t she say them before Stokes started coming to the house to help her say them, why couldn’t
she say them then? He looked at her to see if she had an answer. She hadn’t of course so he said if you’ll excuse me I have business to do. Harcourt Hotel business in other words, with
himself and the barman laughing away to their heart’s content. ‘Will you ever forget the time McGinley broke all the ink bottles in the corridor?’ says the barman. ‘Oh,
now,’ says Raphael, ‘will I ever forget it?’