The Dead School Read online

  For Margot, Katie and Ellen

  Contents

  Hello There

  Love in the Grave

  Wee Cup of Tay

  Sunday Mornings

  The Detective

  The Fishing Stand

  Little Chubbies

  Me Like Spheets

  Eggs and Hairy Bacon

  Reaping Race

  She Lived Beside the Anner

  Head Altar Boy

  The Latin Teacher

  Out in the Fields

  Stranger

  God Save Ireland

  Tripping Over Himself With Brains

  Head Prefect

  Bye Bye Love

  He Said Nothing

  St Patrick’s Training College

  The Philosophy of Education

  Conker Men

  Chirpy Chirpy

  A Fading Voice

  Midnight Cowboy

  The Dutch Catechism

  Snowmen

  Zero’s

  Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

  Horslips

  The Scarecrow

  Tell Me I’m Dreaming

  Two Happy Men

  Visiting the Sick

  The Eucharistic Congress 1932

  Valediction

  Chin Up, Chest Out

  A Visit From the Monsignor

  The Interview

  Brothers

  Sundays

  The Souls of New-born Babes

  Headless

  A Phantasmagorical Galleon

  The Scaredy Cat

  Ave Maria

  Scones for Father Des

  The King of All Headmasters

  A Single Word Whispered

  Maolseachlainn

  Why Me?

  Laurel and Hardy

  Rathmines

  Cup

  In Loco Parentis

  Bra

  Peyton Place

  The Walton Programme

  Bomb

  Atrocities

  Horses with Melting Eyes

  A Groovy Way of Thinking

  A Letter of Complaint

  Trouble for Dudgy

  Evans

  Frogspawn

  Mammies

  Sandwiches

  Snowflakes

  Reclaim the Night

  Bombshell

  O

  Love in the Grave II

  Environmental Studies

  Horslips Are Playing in the Stadium

  Psst

  Our News

  Chilli

  Eyes

  Surprises

  Marion!

  The Abortionist Walks

  Waterworld

  Old Friends

  A Walk in the Park

  Burgerland

  The Plan

  Patrick Kavanagh

  Boot

  Little Dominic

  Setanta

  Whispers

  No Nothing

  The Flower-Seller

  Last Breath

  Early Retirement

  White Punks On Dope

  Dust

  Resignation

  A Baldy Old Scarecrow

  Flowers for Nessa

  The Dead School Opens

  Days

  Two Naked People

  Security Man

  Still-room Assistant

  High Dudgeon

  Picnic

  The Dummy

  Bray Head

  Fever

  Bell’s History Lesson

  Head in a Box

  Rathole

  Maths Lesson

  Break Time

  Army Surplus Greatcoat

  Oceans of the World

  Our Lady

  Cop

  School of Rubbish

  Sweetbriar Lawns

  Goo Goo

  Options

  Wee Hughie

  Disco of Dreams

  Tonight’s Story

  The Night Stalker

  A Knock at the Door

  Maggots

  Happy Birthday, Thomas!

  The Dead School

  Love

  Slán Leat

  You Don’t Really Like ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’, Do You?

  Hello There

  Boys and girls and I hope you are all well. The story I have for you this morning is all about two teachers and the things they got up to in the days gone by. It begins in the year of Our Lord 1956 in a maternity hospital in Ireland when a wee fat chubby lad by the name of Malachy fell out of Cissie who was married to Packie Dudgeon the biggest bollocks in the town. At first he was a happy-go-lucky little fellow who liked nothing better than to ride around on the scooter his father had made for him, shouting ‘Hello there!’ and ‘Not a bad day now!’ to all his neighbours, but it wasn’t long before he quit that carry-on. As Alec and the lads who worked the trawlers said one day, ‘Would you look at Dudgeon, the auld stupid walk of him. It wouldn’t take long to fix that. A good root up the hole and we’d soon see how much he’d walk.’ Of course there were times when Malachy felt like shouting back something like ‘Ah shut your mouths’ or ‘What business is it of yours anyway?’, maybe. But like everybody else he knew that wouldn’t be a good idea. It wouldn’t be a good idea at all. So anytime they said something to him he just nodded his head. If they had said ‘Jesus Christ was a murdering bastard, wasn’t he?’, he would have replied ‘That’s right’. He didn’t want to. Of course he didn’t. But that was the way it was.

  Unless, that is, your name happened to be Raphael Bell, or should I say Mister Raphael Bell, God’s gift to Irish education, who not only would have known exactly what to do with foul-mouthed young curs who would come out with the like of that but would have been on them in a flash and thought nothing of beating them senseless, giving it to them each and every one of them until they went down on their knees and begged for mercy. Oh yes, he’d have sorted them out all right, the dirty little ill-bred pups, for that’s all they were, and when he was finished with them, it would be a long time before they’d ever call Our Lord names again, or anybody else for that matter! And when his work was done, he’d compose himself once more, and then, with a twirl of his umbrella, stride off into the evening sunset – The Master! – the one and only Raphael Bell, pedagogue par excellence, sum-teacher, spelling corrector, guardian of peace and of morals, his hairless dome shining as off he went, proud as punch, another good day’s work behind him, and what a happy day it would have been if only Malachy Dudgeon could have been like him. If only he hadn’t been old Skittery Doodle HalfWit Bollocks afraid of his own shadow, running around the town thinking about love being in the grave and all that stupid old rubbish that used to come into his head – how different my little tale might have been then, boys and girls! How different it all might have been then!

  Love in the Grave

  But no, he had to be just stupid old Malachy Bubblehead, didn’t he, flashing his big bright eyes and driving his poor old ma daft with all his questions. ‘Questions, questions, questions – that’s all I ever hear out of you, Malachy Dudgeon,’ Cissie would say. ‘Do you know what it is – you have me astray in the head! Astray in the head you have me, you little rascal, and that’s a fact!’ Whenever she said that she always threw her eyes up to heaven as if she didn’t know what she was going to do about it at all at all, but Malachy knew well she didn’t mean it. She was only codding. Or ‘acting the jinnet’ as his da called it. ‘Man, dear, but your mother’s an awful woman for acting the jinnet,’ he’d say. ‘I never seen the like of her in all my born days, our Malachy.’ Malachy liked the way he ran his fingers through his curly red hair and smiled when he said it, sort of like he was proud that she was his wife and nobody else’s. One night after he came home from the
Marine Hotel with a few bottles of Guinness, he said to Malachy, ‘I’ll never forget the day I walked up the aisle with your mother. She was the most beautiful girl in this town, our Malachy.’ Sometimes he would go on repeating it to himself under his breath – ‘the most beautiful girl in the town’. Every night before he went to sleep, young Malachy would smile to himself as he thought of those days long before he was born, with his ma and da coming striding up the aisle as proud as punch and everybody throwing flowers and confetti and saying happily, ‘Don’t they look terrific?’ and ‘God – isn’t she a picture?’, instead of ‘I wonder is Jemmy Brady going to give her a rub of the relic tonight?’

  Which was all Malachy seemed to hear these days. Particularly from Alec and Company. If there was one man in the town they liked talking about, it was Jemmy the cowman. ‘Jemmy Brady,’ they’d say. ‘Bloody Jemmy Brady! What a cunt!’

  Hardly a day went past but Malachy would hear someone shouting, ‘Hey! Dudgeon! Where the hell do you think you’re going? Get over here till we talk to you!’ They would never start on about Jemmy straight away of course. They liked to leave that part till last because, as Alec said, it was ‘More crack’. Which was why they went on about the masters above in the school and how he was getting along and all the rest of it. ‘So – tell us then,’ they said, ‘how are you getting on up there?’ ‘Fine, thank you,’ Malachy would say, and whenever they heard that, they thought it was just about the best thing since sliced bread. ‘Fine, thank you!’ they repeated. ‘Fuckingwell fine, thank you!’ Then they went into fits of laughter. ‘Sweet mother of Christ,’ said Alec with the tears nearly rolling down his face. Then came the bit about Jemmy and the boatshed. ‘Do you know what I’m going to tell you?’ said one of them as he lit a cigarette. ‘I was coming past the step this morning and I went over to take a look in and what did I see, only the bould Jemmy standing there. Standing there I swear to Christ, naked as the day he was born and him with the baldy lad in his fist. I mean – would you credit that? Would you credit that now boys? Would you, Alec?’

  Alec scratched his head and said that he would not. Then he said, ‘Oh, now, you have to hand it to him all the same. You have to hand it to the cowman. He’s some operator now, the same boy. When it comes to the women he knows what’s what. Jemmy’s the boy knows what the girls want, eh boys? Indeed and he does surely! He has what they want and he’s ready to give it to them!’

  Jemmy was well known about the place. He drove cattle all over Ireland. Cork, Tipperary, Dublin – you name it, Jemmy drove cattle there. ‘Good man, Jemmy!’ you’d hear the people shouting. ‘There you are now, Jemmy! How’s she cutting?’ As Alec and the lads said – he was like a stray ass. Everybody knew him.

  To tell you the truth, for the first while Malachy hadn’t a bull’s notion what they were on about. Sure he was far too young to be bothered about the like of that. All he knew about in those days was strolling about the town with his mother and going down the harbour and staring off out at the yacht sails bobbing away as she squeezed his hand and said things like ‘Do you know what it is, our Malachy, there’s times I think this is one of the best wee towns in the world’ and ‘There’s nothing I like better than coming down here to have a look at the boats, yourself and myself.’ That was all he knew about in them days. He didn’t know anything about things going wrong and love dying and going away and never coming back again and all that stuff. I mean – how would he? Even if you had told him, it would have seemed ridiculous. But it wasn’t ridiculous of course, as he was soon to find out. It wasn’t ridiculous at all. It was expecting love to stay that was ridiculous.

  After all, you couldn’t expect to have happy hand-squeezes and warm toast feelings and fun and games and laughs all your life. These had to come to an end sometime. Of course they had. And once Malachy began to realize that, he soon started to see what he ought to I suppose, realistically speaking, have seen long ago – that his father knew all about it. Anything there was to know – he knew all right. You could tell by the way he stared into space when he thought you weren’t looking. And by the little bit of a tear you could see just there in the corner of his eye. It wasn’t that much of a tear. Which was just as well – I mean – you didn’t want him to start bawling about it in public! But it did the trick all right. You could see enough to know. Just enough to let you know what was going on.

  One night after it had begun to dawn on him at last the way things really were, Malachy lay on his bed thinking back on that long-ago happy days with them coming proudly up the aisle, saying I love you and marry me and all that. He was sad thinking it. Of course he was. I mean, there would have been something wrong with him if he wasn’t. But he was getting sensible enough now to know that if someone didn’t love someone else, well there wasn’t really an awful lot you could do about it. His father’s face told him that. If you needed convincing, all you had to do was take one look at his face when he thought you weren’t looking. You’d know then all right. Especially with that old shining eye of his.

  Cissie hadn’t set out to hurt his father. He knew that she wasn’t going to do that. Not after having walked up the aisle with him and told him she loved him, which she definitely had once upon a time. No, it was nothing like that. All that had happened was that love had died. It had gone away and wouldn’t be back. Love was in the grave and that was that, like it or lump it. Sure it was sad. Nobody was denying that. Indeed, from where Malachy was lying, it was just about the saddest thing you could get.

  But I mean – what were you supposed to do? Slope about the place muttering to yourself, ‘Love is in the grave and I don’t know what to do. What am I going to do? Oh please, God, what am I going to do now that love is in the grave?’

  That would look good. That would look good all right when you were going past the harbour and Alec and the lads were standing there waiting for you. He could just imagine it. The cigarette flicking past his face and Alec shouting, ‘Hey! Dudgeon! Get over here to fuck out of that! What’s this I hear about you and this love in the grave business? What are you on about? Are you out of your fucking mind or what? Are you out of your mind? Do you want us to get a hold of you and fuck you into the harbour? Is that what you want? Is that what you want? Do you hear me? Do you hear me, Dudgeon! Because if it is, that’s what you’ll get! That is what you’ll get! Do you hear me! Do you! Do you, you fat little humpy little cunt!’

  But of course he did. Of course Malachy heard him. He heard him loud and clear. Alec didn’t have to worry about that. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything from now on. From now on, everything would be a-OK and anytime they saw him he would make sure to have his head down and a shy little smile on his face that said to them there will be no more trouble from me ever again and if there is I deserve everything I get. He reckoned that would sort things out. That was what they wanted. That would keep them happy. ‘That’s more like it,’ they’d say. ‘No more of this love in the grave bullshit. No more fancy shit-talk in this town! From you or anyone, Dudgeon! You just remember that!’

  It was a trick of course. But he wasn’t going to tell them that. Yes, now that Malachy was growing up fast, he decided that he had better learn some tricks. And this was one of them. ‘I wouldn’t think about love in the grave if it was the last thing on earth,’ his face would say as he went shuffling past. Which was the joke of course because that was just about the only thing he was thinking about now.

  One night he found himself standing by a graveside with the word ‘love’ carved into the granite of the tombstone. He was just standing there, weeping away, when suddenly the earth broke open and his mother and father came bursting up out of it to the sound of organ music. His father was wearing his wedding suit and his mother her wedding veil and dress. They both hugged him and nearly broke his back in the process. ‘We love you,’ they said. It was just about one of the most beautiful things that had happened in a long time. Then he woke up, unfortunately.

  Wee Cup o
f Tay

  There was always a good bit of a laugh to be had down in the hotel. Malachy and Packie would come in and as soon as the door opened, someone would shout, ‘Ah, the bold Packie! Good man yourself there, Packie – what are you having?’ Everyone liked it when he came in and sat down beside them at the bar for then they could talk away and chat about the old times and how it used to be around the town, and have a great laugh altogether when Packie went to the toilet. Best of all was that they were somehow under the impression that Malachy didn’t notice any of this. No sooner would Packie be up off his stool than they’d be off, ‘I hear they were at it in the boathouse again last night’ and ‘Fair fucks to the cowman – he’s the man knows what they want!’ and so on. Then, not a word as soon as they saw him making his way back to the bar. After that there would be great crack altogether. Singing and dancing and yarn-telling and the whole lot. Somebody’d say, ‘Packie – how about you give us a song there? What about “Wee Cup Of Tay”?’ As soon as they said that, he’d be off, thanks to the couple of bottles of Guinness of course, hitting the air little thumps as he sang and everybody clapping as they sang along with him:

  When I am at my work each day in the fields so fresh and green

  I often think of riches and the way things might have been

  But believe me when I tell you when I get home each day

  I’m as happy as a sandboy with my wee cup of tay.

  ‘A wee cup of tay is right!’ they’d say and somebody’d mumble behind their hand, ‘Plenty of tay to be had in Dudgeon’s – if your name is Jemmy Brady anyhow!’

  But sure poor auld Packie didn’t hear that. Not at all. He was far too busy singing and having his Guinness and a bit of a laugh and a song.

  Which was why one night when they were on their way home from the hotel, Packie put his arm around Malachy and said, with that old tear shining in his eye, ‘Son – if I die, promise me one thing. You’ll never forget that I was once on this earth.’ Malachy said that no he wouldn’t forget until the day he died. He wasn’t sure at that particular time if what Packie said was intended as a warning but later on he came to the conclusion that it probably was.

  Not that anything happened for quite some time. No, everything went on pretty much as normal – Cissie saying I love you to Packie when everyone knew it had been kicked into the clay long ago and poor old Packie smiling and saying I love you too.