The Dead School (32 page)

Bosco was pointing at an elephant he had discovered behind the magic door. ‘Look, Gráinne!’ he squeaked. ‘It’s an elephant! I love elephants!’ Gráinne
smiled and said, ‘Gosh Bosco! It’s a big elephant – isn’t it!’

When Marion came back with the coffee, she asked him what he had been up to in London. How it all started he did not know, but once he began he couldn’t stop himself. He was working with
this band and that band, sure he was, roadie for this outfit, and roadie for that outfit. You might have heard of them, Marion, they’ve got a really good sound. By the time he was finished he
must have named every band in London. Then he wiped his forehead with his sleeve and said, ‘So – how’s Paddy? His outfit still doing well? The Strangers?’

When he said that she curled her hand around the cup and looked at him. ‘Paddy?’ she said. ‘Paddy Meehan? God, Malachy, – it must be nearly three years since I saw
him.’

She had only just said that when the key turned in the door and he looked up. ‘Malachy,’ Marion said, ‘this is Eamonn. He teaches in St Michael’s in Lucan. Eamonn –
do you know St Anthony’s? Malachy used to teach there. Before he went to London. We used to know each other at college.’

Malachy shook his hand and Eamonn smiled warmly. ‘Malachy’s in the music business now,’ Marion went on. ‘He got sense and gave up the teaching.’

‘A wise man, Malachy,’ Eamonn said, as he went over to the Moses basket. ‘I swear to God there’s times I’d swing for some of those fellows in my class. They had my
heart scalded today, Marion, and that’s a fact.’ He picked up the baby and cooed to it.

‘It’s well for you, that’s all I can say,’ he continued. ‘If we could afford it, we’d be out of it in a shot, wouldn’t we, Marion?’

‘Oh, now,’ she said. ‘You can say that again.’

‘But sure someone has to pay the bills. Isn’t that right? Hmm? Isn’t that right, baba?’

They talked a little bit more after that but it was too hard for Malachy and he wanted to go. For a split second, their eyes met and he had to look away. Being there was too much for him and he
knew that if he stayed any longer he would make a fool of himself.

Standing together in the hallway was probably the hardest of all. She was so close to him. He could see now that she looked no different, and that even though her hair was shorter and she looked
a bit tired, she was the same Marion all right, the same Marion she had always been and he wanted to say I’ve got something for you, Marion, do you remember this – look! Chirpy Chirpy
Cheep Cheep – do you remember? He wanted to say that more than anything but he didn’t and when the moment passed, it was too late.

She smiled as they said goodbye. ‘It was so good of you to call, Malachy. If you’re ever back in Dublin – you’ll call, won’t you?’ He nodded and then walked
away.

He wanted to cry out ‘Marion!’ and run back to the house and hammer on the door until she came out to him. That would look swell, wouldn’t it? So he didn’t. He just kept
walking until he could walk no more. Then he sat down on a park bench and took out the tattered record. He stared at it, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, wondering what it would have been like
if he had been able to give it to her, and wondering just how big a bollocks you can be as he dropped it into a litter bin and headed off into the city to catch the bus that would take him home to
Cissie.

As he was going past the harbour, Malachy half-expected a wallop of a prawn on the back of the neck or Alec and the trawlermen to let rip with a few choice nuggets such as,
‘Hey! Dudgeon! Just where do you think you’re going? Get over here the fuck out of that till we talk to you! Where have you been hiding yourself, you cheeky little bubblefaced cunt! Off
without as much as a word to anyone! Are you looking to get yourself a row of arseholes up your back – is that it? Well – come on! Where were you? Out with it!’ But of course he
didn’t get a wallop of any prawn or a tirade of abuse either for Alec and his fishy buddies were nowhere to be seen. They were all long since married or dead or fucked off to other towns to
annoy somebody else and no more cared about old Puffy-Head in his bargain-bin shades than they did about the man in the moon. Or Cissie either for that matter, for the sunny Sunday mornings when
she said her prayers to Jemmy Brady’s baldy lad were about as important now as a dog having a shite on the street. Yes indeed, there would be no more Jane Russell impersonations for her
I’m afraid, and one look at her would tell you that, with not a tooth left in her head and her face sunken in now like an old rotten apple you’d find on the dump. In fact Malachy had to
walk up and down the ward five or six times before he even recognized her. She wasn’t up to much in the head department either. When he stood by the bed, she looked at him all right but that,
as he soon realized, was about as good as it was going to get. All he could manage to get out of her was ‘Goo goo’.

When he mentioned this to the nurse, she said it was a miracle she could speak at all, considering she’d been left lying for three days on a cold kitchen floor before anyone came near her.
It wasn’t as if the nurse was trying to blame him or anything. She was just stating a fact.

He had been sitting there for about an hour when the hairdresser came along. She said she was in charge of all the girls’ hair. ‘My name is Vera,’ she said. ‘Have
hair-dryer, will travel!’ She leaned in and tweaked Cissie’s cheek. ‘Isn’t that right, Cissie? Isn’t that right, you old divil you!’

Cissie looked up at her and said, ‘Goo goo.’

Vera scrunched up her face and tweaked her again. ‘I’ll goo goo you!’ she said. ‘I’ll goo goo you now, Mrs Dudgeon, you and your goo goo!’ She chuckled as she
squeezed Malachy’s arm. ‘Do you hear her, Mr Dudgeon!’ she said. ‘Oh now – the laughs we have with her!’

‘Goo goo,’ said Cissie again as the hairdresser swung a bag off her shoulder and got to work on her.

‘A wee bit of pink here to perk you up, Mrs – what do you think of that? Now doesn’t that look better! It does surely! God but you’re a picture!’ She scooped out a
handful of face cream and said to Malachy, ‘I like to put a bit of make-up on them too. Sure it works wonders. Especially on her nibs here. Isn’t that right, Cissie? H’ho but
I’d say she was the right wee rascal when she was young – were you, Cissie? Indeed and you were surely. Had all the boys’ hearts broke! Man, but you’re the divil! You
needn’t think you’ll fool me! Come on now – sit up out of that. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be raring to go. Oh, they think some of the lassies in here,
butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, but that’s where they’ve got youse all fooled! Am I right, Cissie? Would you look at her! Do you see her laughing! Lord, but you’re a
terror! She knows what I’m on about all right! I see you! I see you, Cissie! Quit your old tricks now! Quit that, I’m telling you! You’re the girl has the eye for the men and
don’t think I don’t know it! You’d be off to the dance in a shot if you were let! Wouldn’t you, Cissie? Wouldn’t you? Go on – tell the truth! You can tell
Vera!’

‘Goo goo,’ Cissie said.

Vera hit her thigh a slap.

‘Do you hear her!’ she yelped. ‘God, but she’s a ticket!’

By the looks of things, the party was only starting in St Dympna’s Women’s Ward. The patient in the next bed was having herself a great laugh. Her name was Nan and her poor old
relatives were out of their minds with worry about her. Not that there was any point in them worrying for anyone could see there was nothing they could do with her, worry or no worry. ‘Fuck
off!’ was all she would say. ‘Fuck off!’ and ‘Ba!’ Every time her daughter tried to get her to say her prayers, she took the rosary beads off her and fired them across
the ward. Then she laughed again and croaked: ‘Fuck off!’ and ‘Ba!’ The daughter looked over at Malachy and fiddled with her fingers. ‘She used to be the holiest woman
in the town before this came on her,’ she said absently, her eyes moistening. For a while after she said nothing and then, ‘What are we going to do?’ The husband spoke then,
although he himself seemed unaware of it. He wanted to know who was going to win the big game on Sunday – Dublin or Cork? Malachy said he reckoned Dublin. ‘I’d say Dublin
too,’ the husband said. You could see he was on the verge of tears as well. That broke Nan’s heart. Of course it did. Which was why she was sticking her fingers down her throat to make
herself sick. ‘Get a cloth! Get a cloth!’ cried her daughter hysterically. Nan thought that was the best yet. She chuckled away as she rubbed the sick into her bodice. Then an alarm
went off and an army of nurses went charging down the corridor. Finally Vera finished up. ‘Would you look at that!’ she cried. ‘Elizabeth Taylor wouldn’t be in it, Mr
Dudgeon – I’m telling you! Cissie, you’re a picture!’

Cissie stared straight ahead with glass eyes as Vera put the final touches to her face mask and crinkle-cut coiffure. She wiped a smudge off one of her rouge spots with her thumb and stood back
beaming, hands on her hips. ‘Now! There’s not a bother on you!’ she declared as she started gathering up her bits and bobs. Grinning, she swung the bag over her shoulder and shook
Malachy’s hand. ‘Well – I’ll be off! No rest for the wicked as they say! You be good now, Cissie Dudgeon! You be good now, you little divil you! Ha ha! God, but she’s
a character!’ Then off she went, singing.

‘Please pray with us,’ pleaded Nan’s daughter. ‘Pray with us like you used to long ago.’ But Nan had no intention of praying. Instead she hit her daughter a slap
across the face. Then she tried to get the rosary off her again. That was too much and the daughter just lost it and broke down. As her body shuddered and the tears rolled down her cheeks her
husband comforted her as best he could. Cissie looked over at Malachy and said, ‘Goo goo.’ ‘Goo goo,’ she said again. ‘Goo goo.’

Before he left, Malachy got a message that the consultant wanted to see him. He told him at first they had thought his mother would be dead in a matter of weeks. Now, he said, things
didn’t look quite so bad, although it was more than likely Cissie Dudgeon would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

Now the big question for Raphael in so far as killing the headmaster went was not so much when as how. I mean the last thing you wanted were the lads becoming hysterical and
shouting and screaming, ‘Our Master’s dead! Our Master’s dead!’ or going mad running off out into the street or any of that. Indeed, he didn’t want to make it too hard
on himself either. ‘After all – I’m an old man, lads,’ he said to the boys as he wiped a tear from his eye. He thought of his options and wrote them all down on the
blackboard under the heading:
Various Options
. 1. Poison – weed killer 2. Wrists 3. Carbon monoxide – car 4. House – petrol 5. Rope 6. Drowning

Drowning was supposed to be the best of the lot, but you couldn’t believe that. That might be another lie. He thought about it so much he started to shake. He pulled himself together. The
best thing to do was go out and get more Jameson, then come back and think about it again. He put his coat on and asked the boys would they be all right until he got back. They said they would. He
was proud of his boys. Sad that soon everything would be all over and they would never see each other again. ‘Ah but sure there you are,’ he said to himself as he hunched up into his
coat and went off out the door.

This time he made sure to get a couple of bottles of sherry as well, which he got stuck into straight away as soon as he came back. Of course it was a little bit extravagant
but sure what odds – it wasn’t every day you closed the Dead School. ‘Isn’t that right, boys?’ he said, and put the bottle of Amicardo to his lips. ‘Have one on
me!’ called Paschal O’Dowd. ‘I will to be sure, Paschal!’ the master cried. To start the ball rolling, Raphael himself got up and performed a recitation. He stood up on his
desk and cleared his throat and then launched into the poem he had recited for his mammy and daddy all those years ago in the little cottage in Cork, with his Uncle Joe watching, puffing his pipe
as proud as punch of the best young nephew in the whole wide world. ‘Good man yourself!’ he said. ‘I’ll be giving you a go on my horses on account of this – you need
have no fear of that!’ And would Raphael blush!

But now, it was full steam ahead as his boys looked adoringly on and he stuck out his chin and he stuck out his chest, declaiming with great gusto:

Everything was going great guns altogether until he forgot the fourth verse and then would you believe for the love of God was it any wonder the boys laughed – he went and
tumbled off the desk with the sherry and the whole lot round him and lay there with his legs in the air like an eejit going, ‘Wait a minute – I think I have it now! I’m nearly
sure I have it now, boys!’