The Dead School (31 page)

Raphael chucked the bottle at the wall and it broke into pieces. He howled until tears came into his eyes. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought there was a wolf living in
Madeira Gardens. Then he went one better and knocked things off sideboards and pictures off walls. As if the place, after almost two years as his own private educational establishment, wasn’t
bad enough. But this time he really excelled himself. When he was finished, the place was a complete and utter wreck. There was even jam on the wall where he had fired the jar at it.
‘That’s it, Evans!’ he bawled. ‘Forward with Evans! Rob the poor! Fiddle the taxes! Divorce your wives! Blow up your neighbours! Melt babies’ eyes! Torture animals!
Laugh at your teachers! Go on – do it, Evans! Laugh at me! Go on!’

By the time he had finished all that, he thought his head was going to crack in two like a coconut. He wasn’t able for any more. He wasn’t able for a little baby who came floating
down the stairs with a face as pale as flour, who pulled his cheeks right back over his ears to bare a gummy grin and whispered ‘I’m Maolseachlainn’ and floated off back up the
stairs again. He wasn’t able for the woman whose gentle hand brushed his stomach in a boarding house in the long ago. He wasn’t able for the happy freckled face of Paschal O’Dowd
as he stood under a laburnum tree in the grounds of St Patrick’s Training College or the words he spoke, ‘Will we ever meet again, Raphael?’, and he wasn’t able for the
sight of his father broken in a summer field with gushes of blood pouring from his chest as a Black and Tan soldier with a smoking revolver stood over him triumphantly as his pitiful screams
scattered the crows from the treetops.

No, he wasn’t able for any of it and that was why he sank to his knees and began to chuckle because when something is so sad that you will never have the tears to do it justice, what else
can you do? And that was what he did, just knelt there with his whole body heaving, tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks as Terry cried, ‘OK, folks! We’d like to continue now with
a little number from Racey called Some Girls! Yes – some will and some won’t but right here on the
Terry Krash Show
– everybody does! Here we go!’

Behind Raphael, the disembodied plaster head of Our Lady stared impassively at the ceiling. Beside her in the cracked glass of a framed photo, Nessa Bell, née Conroy, with a belted
suitcase at her knee, smiled towards the future.

Which, as it happens, was exactly what Malachy was doing the night he came home and to his amazement found a cop standing on his doorstep. Yes, smiling towards the future he
was, for he had decided once and for all to get himself together and stop all this fucking around. So, what was he going to do – dope the rest of his life away? Rot in fucking Stoke Newington
with days turning into weeks and weeks into months and before you knew where you were you were an old fucking man! Was he going to go on like that for ever? ‘I don’t think so!’ he
said. ‘No fucking way, man!’ He was on top of the situation. This time he was right on top of it. Which explained why he came on so cocky and officious to his visitor. ‘And may I
ask what I can do for you, officer?’ Yeah, this was the new Malachy Dudgeon, the 1979 model. He felt like a million dollars. At least until the cop said, ‘Are you Malachy
Dudgeon?’ and then, ‘I’m afraid your mother is dying.’ After that, there wasn’t quite so much cool coming-on. He just stood there staring like an imbecile. He looked
like he was about to say, ‘You’re joking!’ to the cop, who wasn’t joking at all. Anyway, it didn’t matter now. The cop was gone. Out of nowhere her face came to
Malachy and he started to laugh. ‘Well, how about that! Cissie’s gone and screwed it up again! I hope you’ve got your boathouse story ready because they’re going to be
asking you a lot of questions, Cissie baby!’ By the time he was finished, he felt great. He was on top of the world. So Cissie was dying. Big deal. Who gave a shit? That’s her problem,
man. ‘Whee hoo!’ he cried as he strolled off into the neon-lit night.

Like fuck he did, standing there shaking like a leaf. That was the way he had always thought it was going to be. But then – you think a lot of things, don’t you?

‘Good morning, boys. I am sorry to have to tell you this school is a load of rubbish.’ Now that is the last thing you would expect your headmaster to say when he
comes in in the morning, isn’t it? That’s just not the way headmasters go on. If the parents heard about it, there would be war. They would come down and say, ‘Just what is going
on in this so-called school! My Nicholas says that you’re coming in in the morning telling them it’s a load of rubbish. Is this true?’ They would expect Raphael to go all pale in
the face and start stuttering and apologize and say no no no and all this. But that wouldn’t be what he’d say at all. What he’d say would be, ‘Yes! That’s
right!’ and look at them with big eyes the size of plums. Then, God knows what he’d do. He might start shouting ‘Rubbish! Rubbish!’ again, or push them or start laughing
into their faces or hit them over the head with a Jameson bottle. You just didn’t know what he’d do any more. Sometimes, after a few shots, he’d jump up in front of the boys and
go, ‘Don’t move, boy! I see you!’ and then make a joke of it all, saying, ‘Do what you like! Do what you like! I don’t mind! No rules in the School of Rubbish,
I’m afraid!’

The radio played all day long now too. He simply couldn’t be bothered turning it off. Sure why should he – Terry was getting better and better! I’ll tell you what’s wrong
with divorce, says one old fellow, it’s a mortal sin, that’s what’s wrong with it and anyone who practises it will go to hell. Oh really, says another fellow. Oh really, well
I’m sorry to disappoint you but I don’t believe in hell so it would be very hard for me to go somewhere that doesn’t exist, don’t you think? So it doesn’t exist, says
your man, it doesn’t exist, well all I can say is I wonder will you be saying that when you’re lying on your deathbed roaring for the priest with the bedpost in your mouth. Ha ha,
laughs Terry, I haven’t heard that one for a long time, roaring for the priest with the bedpost in your mouth! Well now, that’s a good one! It is indeed, and everyone laughs away.
Raphael as well. He’s laughing the loudest of all. Roaring for a priest! He slams the tongs down on the desk and takes a good big swig. ‘What do you think of that, Mahoney!’ he
barks.

‘It’s good, sir,’ says Mahoney. Raphael grins. ‘Do you think I’ll be got roaring for a priest with the bedpost in my mouth?’ he asks him.

‘Oh, no, sir,’ says Mahoney.

‘Oh, no, sir,’ says Raphael. ‘And why might that be, sir?’

‘Because you are our teacher, sir.’

Raphael laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. ‘Well, man, dear, but you’re the lug, Mahoney! You’re worse than your brother. I’m not your teacher! I
used
to
be your teacher. Say that. I
used
to be your teacher.’

Mahoney lowered his head. ‘You used to be our teacher, sir,’ he said.

Raphael gave the air a poke. ‘That’s right, Mahoney,’ he said. ‘Do you all hear that, boys? Do you all hear that?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the class answered as one.

‘I used to be your teacher. But I’m not any more. And you all know why that is. You know why that is, class?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Say: No, sir, we don’t, sir.’

‘No, sir, we don’t, sir.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you. Because you know what this school is? It’s a rubbish school. It’s even worse than a rubbish school. And you know why that is? Because it’s not
a real school. It’s a good for nothing school! I want my old school back! I don’t want any rubbish schools – do you hear me? Lafferty – are you listening?’

‘Yes, sir!’ cried Lafferty, wheyfaced.

‘Say, I don’t want any rubbish schools!’

‘I don’t want any rubbish schools!’

‘Say it again!’

The class complied.

‘Again!’ he cried.

He made them repeat it until they were blue in the face. Then he opened another bottle and grinned at them. His eyes widened.

‘So why shouldn’t I close it down? It’s mine! I can do what I like with it! Say: I can do what I like with it!’

‘You can do what you like with it!’

‘I know,’ he chuckled. ‘And do you know what I’m going to do?’

The boys didn’t answer. Raphael wiped his Jameson-speckled lips with the sleeve of his dirty white shirt and went over to them. Then he got down on his hunkers and, making sure there was
nobody around only himself and the lads, said in a dead whisper, with the eyes rolling in his head, ‘I’m going to kill the headmaster.’

And so boys and girls, after two and a half happy years in Stoke Newington, it was time for Mr Bubblehead to say goodbye to the prostitutes and the druggies and the community
care man next door and the tramp who slept on the stairs and all the little doggies who kept roaming in and out. So he pulled on his army coat and put on his shades. He put the record,
‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’ into its sleeve and, taking one last sad look at his beautiful little home with its camp bed and its rows and rows of sour milk cartons and empty bean cans,
set off down the road to the travel agents to buy a ticket for the big aeroplane home. Of course it’s sad when you have to go back home because someone close to you is ill, especially when
it’s your mother, but then you have to remember there’s always the possibility they’ll get well again, isn’t there? And that’s what Malachy was thinking at about
35,000 feet above the Irish sea. ‘Maybe she’s not so bad,’ he was thinking. ‘Maybe she’ll get well again.’ He felt good thinking that. But, in retrospect, maybe
it wasn’t such a good thing, because the problem with such happy hopeful thoughts is that they lead you on to think of even happier, more hopeful thoughts. Such as looking up your old
girlfriend when you get to Dublin, for example. Not that this didn’t seem like a good idea all the same. At 35,000 feet, it seemed like just about the best idea he could ever think of. Him
standing there with his shades on, going, ‘I like my nose, Mrs Mulwray. I like breathing through it,’ and Marion laughing away. ‘So – how’ve you been?’
she’d say. ‘Oh, fine, you know,’ he’d say. ‘You know how it is. Hanging in there.’ Then, when she saw he had kept the record after all this time – that was
really going to be something!

But to hell with the past. What had herself and Paddy been up to? After a bit of a rap, maybe they could head out on the town. Paddy of course probably knew half the fucking city, so they could
leave it up to him. ‘Where’ll we head, Paddy?’ he’d say. He didn’t care where they went. Any of the clubs would be fine by him. All he knew was that it was gonna be
great to see them again. After all the stupid shit of the old days and everything. That was all long gone. That was history, man. This time around they were friends and that was the way they were
going to stay.

The first thing Malachy did when he landed was hit Grafton Street. The city was looking fantastic. He went into a shop to get some Rizla roll-up papers. ‘I thought the hippies were all
dead,’ snorted a turquoise punk in the doorway as he went in. Malachy didn’t give a shit – he just laughed. He checked to make sure he still had the record in the pocket of his
greatcoat. ‘You must be warm with that coat on you,’ the assistant said but he didn’t hear her because he was gone, off on the trail of Marion and Paddy Meehan.

It wasn’t hard to find her. Her mother gave him the address over the phone. Maybe he should have asked for a bit more information than that but he was so excited at the prospect of seeing
her that he just hung up and away off out the door of the telephone booth to get the bus. All the way out there, he kept checking to see if he had the record and trying out the different things he
was going to say.

‘So – how have you been, Marion?’ ‘How are the band doing, Paddy? Things working out OK?’ ‘So what do you say we head out for a beer?’

By the time they got to 47 Sweetbriar Lawns, he had it all sorted out. ‘Hi there, Marion. Good to see you again.’ That would do it. That was all he needed to say. No need for any
over-elaborate shit. Whatever they had to say, they would get around to it in their own good time. I like my nose, Mrs Mulwray. I like breathing through it. Man it was crazy.

Of course, as soon as the door opened, he didn’t say that at all. He just stood there with his mouth open, half-ready to tear off down the avenue and never be seen again. But that was
understandable, because the last thing he had been expecting was a harassed-looking woman in a powder-pink tracksuit saying, ‘I’m sorry – I was in the middle of something.’
By the time he got himself together, he was flustered and fiddling about with the piece of paper trying to explain how he’d somehow got the wrong address when a strand of strawberry blonde
hair fell down over her eyes and as she pushed it back she said, ‘Malachy.’ When she said that, he went white and he knew it. ‘Please. Please come in, Malachy,’ she said. He
didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t the faintest idea. It wasn’t him but someone outside him who went inside. And who, for at least ten minutes, was nothing so much as a complete
stranger sitting in his place in the armchair. Marion kept talking at ninety miles an hour. She picked things up and put them down again and then the baby started crying in the Moses basket. She
lifted it up, softly stroking the back of its head. ‘It’s going to be all right, baba. It’s going to be all right now. Ssh. Ssh now.’ The television was flickering away in
the corner. Bosco the puppet was on. Pat Hourican liked him. ‘I like Bosco,’ he used to say. ‘He’s my favourite.’

‘I don’t like him,’ Stephen would say. ‘He’s rubbish.’

Bosco laughed away as he clapped his cloth hands. He said he was going to open the magic door. He did. He opened the magic door and went inside.

When she had the baby tucked in, Marion said, ‘I’ll get us a coffee. Would you like a coffee, Malachy?’ He said he would. He didn’t say, ‘Marion’. He
couldn’t bring himself to say her name.

He could feel all these pinheads of sweat breaking out on his forehead and kept wondering could she see them. When she called ‘Malachy – do you take sugar?’ from the kitchen,
for no reason at all, what did he do only stand up. ‘Yes,’ he called, ‘two please,’ and sat back down again.