Skippy Dies: A Novel

It’s tomorrow. Skippy’s bare-legged at the edge of the pool, chlorine and earliness stinging his eyes. Outside the morning is a grey fuzz, the first shapes just beginning to emerge from it. On either side of Skippy, boys are lined up, their white Seabrook College swimming caps making them look like clones with the school crest stamped on their bald heads. Then the whistle, and before his mind even realizes, his body’s thrown itself forward and into the water. Instantly a thousand blue hands reach for him, seize him, pulling him down – he catches his breath, fights them off, scrabbles his way to the surface –

Breaking through, he emerges into a commotion of colour and noise – the yellow plastic roof, the crash and foam of the other swimmers, an arm, a goggled head thrown sideways, Coach like a gnarled tree trunk bending over the water, clapping his hands and shouting Let’s go let’s go and in the lanes around Skippy the boys like disobedient reflections stealing ahead, disappearing behind their wakes. Everyone hurtling for the wall! But the water grapples against him, the bottom of the pool is magnetic and it’s tugging him down again, down to where…

The whistle goes. Garret Dennehy comes in first, right behind him Siddartha Niland. In the seconds after, the others slide up alongside them, lean back against the wall, gasping, lifting off their goggles. Skippy’s still back in the middle of the pool.

‘Come on, Daniel, for Christ’s sake, you’re like an old granny walking in the park!’

Three times a week, at 7 a.m., training for one hour. Count yourself lucky, the Senior team trains every morning and Saturdays too. Breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, crawl, back and forth through the blue chemicals; repetitions on the tiles, crunches and squats, till every muscle is burning.

‘Being a great athlete is not just about natural ability,’ Coach likes to shout, pacing up and down along the poolside as you squirm through your sets. ‘It’s about discipline, and it’s about commitment.’ So if you miss a session, you’d better have a good excuse.

Afterwards, the team huddles shivering by the doorway of the changing room, hands pressed under armpits. When you get out of the water the air feels cold and nothingy. Your arm moves and it moves against nothing. You speak and the words disappear instantly.

Coach wraps and unwraps the cord of the whistle around his hand, everyone gathered round him like the Apostles with Jesus in old paintings. If you look closely you can see how his body’s all twisted up even when he’s standing still. ‘You lads did good work on Saturday. But we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. The next meet is on 15 November. That might sound like a long way away. All the more reason for us to work hard and keep our momentum going. I want to see us in the semi-finals.’ He tosses his head towards the changing room. ‘Okay, off you go.’

The showers never feel like they’re making you clean. The tiles are lined with scuzz, the footbath half-full of brackish water; hair shivers in grey clumps in the grating, like drowned mermaids.

‘You swam like a turd today, Juster,’ Siddartha says. ‘What’s the story? Were you up late last night bumming Van Doren?’

Skippy mumbles something about pulling a muscle at the meet.

Siddartha wrinkles up his nose, sticks his upper teeth over his lip and makes the kangaroo noise: ‘Tcch-tcch-tcch, I think I pulled a muscle at the meet. Well, you’d better speed up. Just because you fluked through on Saturday doesn’t mean you’ve got a right to a permanent place on the team.’

‘Don’t mind him,’ Ronan Joyce says, when Siddartha turns round. ‘Dickhead.’

But Skippy doesn’t mind him: the pill he took when he woke up takes care of that. The sleepy feeling threads through him, wrapping around him like a blanket. Noises, images, the things people say, come to him all broken up and slowed down; the needly water of the shower, hitting his body, turning from cold to hot, he hardly notices, nor when he steps out again into the freezing changing room.

Ruprecht and the others are already eating by the time he gets to the Refectory. Monstro is behind the counter, ladling scrambled eggs like some kind of giant infection from a steel vat. The food in the Ref is always gross, the cheapest stuff they can get. Today even the toast is burnt.

Crowd-cheering noises from Geoff as he sits down. ‘This is very exciting, sports fans – we’ve just been joined by champion swimmer Daniel Juster, direct from his gruelling training regime! How are you feeling today, champ?’

‘Sleepy.’

A chorus of baa’s proceeds from a far corner as Muiris de Bhaldraithe, Seabrook’s biggest bogger and self-alleged lynchpin of the clandestine Real IRA Juniors, Dublin Brigade, enters the room. Scccrrrrcccchh, scccrrrrcccchhh, Ruprecht meticulously scrapes the burnt from his toast.

‘ “Sleepy.” That’s top athlete Daniel “Skippy” Juster, ladies and gentlemen.’

Scccrrrrcccchh, scccrrrrcccchhh, scccrrrrcccchhh, goes Ruprecht’s toast. Skippy stares into his breakfast as if it’s appeared out of nowhere.

‘I could probably be a top athlete if I wanted to,’ Mario puts in carelessly. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to.’

‘Oh yeah, Mario, that’s why,’ Dennis says.

‘Up yours, Hoey, that is why. For your information, this summer two different Premiership teams rang me up to offer me trials.’

‘The Premiership of masturbating,’ Dennis says.

‘If there was a Premiership of masturbating, you would be David Beckham,’ Niall adds.

Seizing an imaginary microphone, Dennis adopts a limp Estuary accent: ‘Masturbating’s changed a lot since I were a lad, Brian. In my day, we masturbated for the sheer love of it. Day and night we did it, all the kids on our estate, masturbating on the old waste ground, masturbating up against the wall of the house… I remember me mam coming out and shouting, “Stop that masturbating and come in for your tea! You’ll never amount to anything if all you think about is masturbating!” Masturbating crazy we were. Your young masturbators today, though, it’s all about the money, it’s all about agents and endorsements. Sometimes I worry that the masturbating’s in danger of being squeezed out altogether.’

‘Hey, Skip, what was the hotel like on Saturday?’ Geoff asks. ‘Did you have a minibar?’

‘No.’

‘Was there a hot tub?’

Scccrrrrcccchh! Scccrrrrcccchhh! Scccrrrrcccchhh!

‘Jesus, Ruprecht, what the hell are you doing?’ Skippy rounds on him.

‘Burnt toast is a carcinogen,’ Ruprecht replies placidly, continuing his excoriation.

‘A what?’ says Geoff.

‘It gives you cancer.’

‘Toast gives you cancer?’ Mario says.

‘Giving us cancer would actually be a step up for this place,’ Dennis says, looking around splenetically at the Ref.

‘Car-SIN-oh-jen,’ Geoff repeats slowly.

Scccrrrrccccccrrrrcccchhh, goes the knife on the bread, then Skippy grabs Ruprecht’s plump wrist. He looks up in surprise.

‘It’s annoying,’ Skippy says, embarrassed.

The bell goes. Potato-Head Tomms rises and claps his hands for them all to carry their trays over to the trolleys. ‘I just have to get something from my locker,’ Skippy tells the others. It’s 8.42, the corridors are full of puffy-eyed boys in coats, hurrying to check-in. News of Saturday’s swim meet has spread: as he makes his way against the tide to the basement steps, people he’s never spoken to are nodding to him in acknowledgement; others punch him on the arm or stop to say congratulations.

‘Hey, well done on the other night, Juster.’

‘Here, heard about your race. Nice one, man.’

‘Good job, Juster, when’s the semi-final?’

If you’re used to people looking past or through or most often over you then the attention is pretty strange. Now two guys from the low streams, Darren Boyce and someone else whose name Skippy isn’t even sure of, break free from the shoals to approach him. Darren is smiling and holding out his arms – then at the last minute he shoves his friend so he clatters into Skippy and sends him crashing into the wall; they laugh and move off in the other direction.

He picks himself up. The toast-sound echoing through his head again, Scccrrrcccchh, scccrrrrcccchhh, scccrrrrcccchhh. The pill’s already wearing off! Shh, I know, calm down!

Down the steps through the waves of bodies. When he came back from summer holidays this year the boys had changed. Suddenly everyone was tall and gangling and talking about drinking and sperm. Walking among them is like being in a BO-smelling forest.

The basement is crammed with narrow aisles of lockers. They remind Skippy of coffins, cheap wooden coffins with combination locks. To one side there’s a patched pool table, on which Gary Toolan is crisply, blondly annihilating Edward ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, while Noddy the janitor looks on, leaning on his broom, cackling approvingly. A few doors up from Skippy, a small group has gathered furtively around Simon Mooney’s locker, indicating the presence of contraband.

‘Atomizers. Black Holes. Fifth Dimensions. Sizzlers,’ Simon Mooney is reciting, poring over a plastic bag. ‘Then we have rockets, bangers – these are like the loudest bangers you’ve ever heard.’

‘What’s this one?’ Diarmuid Coveney points.

‘Don’t touch.’ Simon whisks the bag primly out of reach and reopens it at a safer distance. ‘That, my friend, is the infamous Spider Bomb. Eight individual fireworks in one.’

There is a murmur of awe and appreciation. ‘Where d’you get them?’ Dewey Fortune asks.

‘My dad bought them in the North. He goes up there all the time on business.’

‘Wow – do you think he could get me some?’ Vaughan Brady suggests breathlessly.

Simon considers this with a drawn-together mouth, like he’s sucking a sweet. ‘No,’ he says.

‘Well – how about you sell us some of yours?’

‘Hmm…’ Simon does the sweet face again. ‘No.’

‘Why not? You’ve got loads.’

‘Can we at least set a couple of them off now?’

‘Come on, think of what Connie’d do if you let off a banger under his chair.’

‘No.’

‘Well, what did you bring them in for, if you’re not going to set one off?’

Simon shrugs, and then, noticing Carl Cullen and Barry Barnes lurking in the vicinity, hastily stuffs the fireworks back in his locker and snaps shut the lock. The circle reluctantly disband, and head towards the stairs as the final bell goes.

Skippy closes the door of his locker and leans back against the door.

SCRRRRCCCHHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHHHH!

Hot tub? Minibar? Sweat drips down his back, everything’s moving in jumps and rushes, like the moments are connected by waterslides and each time he blinks he’s hurtled out into a new one not knowing where he is –

Shh, take it easy.

– and little particles of memory appearing out of nothing and exploding like fireworks against the inside of his eye, little sparks of images that are gone too quick to see, like dreams are gone the second you realize they’re dreams – but dreams of what? Memories of what?

Shh. Deep breaths.

He takes out the amber tube and swallows a pill with some flat Sprite. Okay. Slowly and calmly he takes the books he will need for the morning’s classes from his locker, and places them in his bag. He is late for Science but he does not hurry. Already things are feeling more normal again, see? The pills moving through you like sleep, like eating ice and feeling your insides freeze. Weird that the cure should just appear like that at the same time as the sickness –

‘Hold it right there!’ Mr Farley exclaims as Skippy comes through the door. He turns to the class. ‘Which of the seven characteristics of life can we see Daniel exhibiting right now?’

Thirty grinning eyes swivel onto him. Skippy stands there like an idiot with his hand on the door. There is some snickering, and some shouted suggestions from the back of the room (‘Excretion?’ ‘Gayness?’) before Mr Farley steps back in. ‘ “Breathing” is the answer. Oh yes, now you all know it. Breathing, or as it’s known scientifically, respiration, is one of the seven characteristics of life. Thank you, Mr Juster, for that very elegant demonstration. You can take a seat now.’ Skippy, blushing, hurries down to his desk beside Ruprecht. ‘Every living thing on the planet breathes,’ Mr Farley continues. ‘However, not everything breathes the same thing, or in the same way. For example, humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, but plants do the opposite. That’s why they’re so important in combating global warming. Aquatic organisms breathe oxygen the same as humans, but they extract it from the water, through gills. Some organisms have both gills and lungs – can anyone tell me what these are called?’

Flubber Cooke puts up his hand. ‘Mermaids?’

‘No,’ Mr Farley says. ‘Anyone else – thank you, Ruprecht, the correct answer is amphibians.’ He turns to chalk it up on the board. ‘The word comes from the Greek amphibios, meaning “double life”. Amphibians, for instance frogs, are organisms that can breathe on land and in water. They’re important in evolutionary terms, because life on Earth began in the sea, so the first vertebrates to crawl out onto the land must have had amphibious tendencies. And each of you has a more recent amphibious past, because babies, when they are in the womb, actually breathe liquid oxygen through gills, just like fish. The presence of gill slits on the foetus, furthermore, is taken by some to be evidence of our aquatic prehistory…’

‘I wonder why they don’t just let you stay amphibious,’ Ruprecht ponders as they rejoin the throng of the corridor after class. ‘So that it’s up to the individual to choose where he wants to live, on the land or in the water.’

‘Regarding the whole mermaids issue, being amphibious would certainly make it easier to have sex with them,’ Mario says.

‘Mermaids don’t have beavers, you clown. Even if you were amphibious you couldn’t have sex with them,’ snaps Dennis.

‘What’s the point of mermaids if you can’t have sex with them?’

‘Well, I suppose the key thing to remember is that mermaids are imaginary,’ Ruprecht notes. ‘Although interestingly, some marine biologists speculate that the legend may have arisen from large aquatic mammals of the sirenian class like dugongs and manatees, which have fish-like bodies but human-like breasts, and nurse their pups on the water’s surface.’

‘Von Blowjob, find a dictionary and look up “interesting”.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ Geoff says, ‘is why did the first fish, like the one who started land animals, suddenly decide one day to just leave the sea? Like, to leave everything he knew, to go flopping around on a land where no one had even evolved yet for him to talk to?’ He shakes his head. ‘He was a brave fish, definitely, and we owe him a lot, for starting life on land and everything? But I think he must have been very depressed.’

Skippy doesn’t contribute to this. That second pill is beginning to seem like a really bad idea. He’s getting a weird feeling, a sort of sleepiness, but not nice sleepiness like earlier – this time it’s pricklier, hotter, with a taste in his mouth. Then he remembers he’s got religion next, and he feels even worse.

Religion class is chaotic at the best of times, but Brother Jonas’s is like a circus where the animals have taken over. The brother is from Africa and has never quite caught on to how things work here; on Dennis’s Nervous Breakdown Leaderboard he’s usually near the top, along with Ms Twanky (Bus. Org.) and Father Laughton, the music teacher. Taking his seat, Skippy notices that Morgan Bellamy, who usually sits at the next desk, is out today. Why does this feel like a bad sign?

‘Who does the world belong to?’ Brother Jonas is asking. He has a voice that is soft and dark and rough like the pads on a dog’s paw, and his sentences go up and down tropically, like music: difficult to understand and easy to make fun of. ‘To whom has God promised the world?’

No answer; the hum of conversation continues as before, but the instant the brother turns to drag the chalk shrieking across the blackboard, everyone jumps out from behind their desks and starts hopping about and flailing their arms. This is a new routine – a kind of a rain dance, performed in absolute silence, at the end of which, when Brother Jonas begins to turn round again, you jump into somebody else’s desk, so that he’s confronted with thirty serene and attentive faces patiently awaiting his words, but all in different places from before. The chalk scrapes and squeaks. Around Skippy, bodies whirl and jig. Skippy, however, stays where he is. Suddenly he is certain jumping around would not be a good plan. Even watching the others makes his stomach lurch.

Now the Brother has finished writing and everybody’s scrambling into their seats.

‘Juster!’ Lionel Bollard, 140 pounds of creatine and ski-tan, is trying to shove him out of his chair. ‘Juster! Move!’

Doggedly, Skippy hangs on. Brother Jonas faces the class again. He begins to speak, then pauses, aware that something is amiss, but not sure what. Lionel has ducked into a desk behind and to the right; Skippy can feel his eyes crawling over him.

‘The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth,’ Brother Jonas pronounces, pointing to the words written on a gradually sloping incline on the blackboard, a caravan of letters going down a hill. ‘We may believe that the world belongs to the merchants, who can purchase it with their wealth. Or to the politicians and the judges, who decide men’s fates. But Jesus tells us that in the end…’

‘Dan-ielllll…’ Lionel starts to sing, ever so softly. ‘DAN-iellll…’

Skippy ignores him. Ignoring is what you are supposed to do with bullies, so they get bored and leave you alone. But the problem in school is they don’t get bored, because whatever else there is to do is more boring still. The chalk squeals over the board again, and boys leap up and cavort like they’re possessed. Skippy’s head spins like a top. Lights are flashing on and off in the corners of his vision. Now Lionel’s right beside him. ‘Daniel,’ he whispers, so low it can barely be heard, like it might just be happening in his imagination. ‘Daniel…’

His eyelids are so heavy, but he knows that if he closes them he’ll get those whirling pits that make you feel even worse.

‘So we must ask ourselves: what is it to be meek? Jesus tells us that whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. The meek man – yes, Dennis?’

‘Yes, I was wondering… roughly how big would a soul be, roughly? I’m thinking, bigger than a contact lens but smaller than a golf ball, would that be about right?’

‘The soul does not have a weight or a size. It is a bodiless manifestation of the eternal world and a most precious gift from the Almighty Father. Now, everyone, please open your books to page thirty-seven – am I meek in my own life?’

‘Daniel… I’ve got a present for you, Daniel…’ Lionel starts hacking up phlegm from the depths of his throat and gurgling it in his mouth.

‘Am I meek in my own life? Do I listen to my teachers, my parents and my spiritual advisors? Am I a – Dennis, is your question about how to be more meek?’

‘Would it be fair to say that Jesus was a zombie? I mean, he came back from the dead, right? So technically, couldn’t you say he was a zombie? I mean, wouldn’t that be the correct term, technically?’

Sweat breaks in waves over Skippy’s zombie flesh. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how often he wipes it away. Every noise in the classroom is amplified: Jason Rycroft’s syncopated pencil-tattoo, Neville Nelligan’s snuffling nose, the escalating, bee-like hummmmmm arising from Martin Anderson, Trevor Hickey and unidentified others, the hideous gurgling of Lionel and above it all inside your head the terrible carcinogenic SCRRRRCCCHHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHHHH –