Skippy Dies: A Novel

The first thing that strikes a visitor to the Seabrook staffroom is the predominance of beige. Beige armchairs, beige curtains, beige walls; where it’s not beige it’s buff, or fawn, or tan, or manila. Isn’t beige the Greeks’ or someone’s colour of death? Howard is fairly certain it is, or if it isn’t it ought to be.

Three years have passed since he could accurately describe himself as a visitor to the staffroom, but the surreality of being here, amidst these figures of terror or hilarity from his youth – these imagos, these caricatures, now ambling around him, saying good morning, making tea, acting as if they were normal people – still descends on him from time to time. For a long while he found himself expecting them to give him homework, and being surprised, unpleasantly, when instead they would tell him about their lives. But every day it feels more ordinary, which he finds more unpleasant still.

Before he started teaching, he never would have guessed how much the staffroom resembled the rest of the school. The same cliquishness applies in here as it does among the boys, the same territoriality: that divan belongs to Miss Davy, Ms Ni Riain and the witch-faced German instructor; that table to Mr Ó Dálaigh and his Gaelgoir cronies; the high chairs by the window are reserved for Miss Birchall and Miss McSorley, the bluestocking spinsters, currently slumming it over a women’s magazine; God help you if you use someone else’s mug, or mistakenly take a yoghurt from the fridge that isn’t yours.

A good portion of the staff are old boys. Policy is to hire alumni whenever possible, even at the expense of more talented teachers, in order to ‘protect the ethos’ of the school, whatever that may be. It seems to Howard like a raw deal for the students, but it’s the only reason he got the job, so he doesn’t complain. For some teachers, Seabrook is the only world they have known; the female staff can only partially offset the atmosphere of clubbiness, if not downright infantilism, that this creates.

As for that female staff. A stringent policy is in effect here too. The Paraclete Fathers view women and womankind with a certain amount of unease. While recognizing their great contribution to society and the furtherance of the species generally, the order would be quite happy for the fairer sex to continue to do so elsewhere; the presence of a girls’ school right next door has long been lamented by the order as a particularly cruel twist of fate. Of course, the profession being mostly composed of women, some incidence of female teachers at Seabrook is inevitable; it is only by a painstaking filtering process that Father Furlong, the school principal, has mitigated the inherent dangers of this tendency, assembling a staff that even a fourteen-year-old boy would have difficulty construing as sexual entities. Most are comfortably into their fifties, and it is debatable whether they were setting hearts alight even in their heyday, if they had a heyday.

The dearth of eye candy in the staffroom doesn’t do much to brighten the atmosphere, which on a rainy morning, after a fight with your significant other, can seem singularly lethargic, or even, why not, deathly. Ambitious teachers go on to deanships – each year has its own dean, and each dean his own office; the denizens of the staffroom are the career mid-rankers, doing the same thing for twenty years, happy to run out the clock. How dismal and old they seem, even the ones who are not old; how hidebound, how cut off from the world.

‘Good morning, Howard,’ Farley chimes, crashing through the door.

‘Morning.’ Howard looks up grudgingly from his essays.

‘Good morning, Farley,’ chirrup Misses Birchall and McSorley from their perch by the window.

‘Good morning, ladies,’ Farley returns.

‘Ooh, ask him,’ Miss McSorley prompts her companion.

‘Ask me what?’ Farley says.

‘We’re doing a questionnaire,’ Miss Birchall informs him. ‘ “Are you a kidult?” ’

‘Am I a what?’

She tilts back her head and peers down through her glasses at the magazine. ‘ “The twenty-first century is the age of the kidult – adults who shun responsibility, and instead spend their lives in the pursuit of expensive thrills.” ’

‘I’m flattered you should ask me,’ Farley says. ‘No, really.’

‘ “Question one,” ’ Miss Birchall reads. ‘ “Are you single? If in a relationship, do you have children?” You’re not in a relationship, are you, Farley?’

‘He’s never in a relationship,’ Miss McSorley contributes. ‘He only likes one-night stands.’

‘ “Question two,” ’ Miss Birchall reads over Farley’s protests. ‘ “Which of the following do you own: Sony PSP, Nintendo Game-boy, iPod, Vespa or other classic scooter –” ’

‘I don’t own any of those things,’ Farley says.

‘But you’d like to,’ Miss McSorley suggests.

‘Oh sure, I’d like to,’ Farley says. ‘If I had any money I’d own them.’

‘The problem is that we don’t get paid enough to be kidults,’ Howard says.

‘We aspire to be kidults,’ Farley says. ‘How’s that?’

He excuses himself from the rest of the questionnaire on the grounds that he is in urgent need of a cup of coffee after his second-year Biology class. Since September, Farley’s been teaching the seven characteristics of life, and as they approach the class on reproduction, the boys have become increasingly agitated. ‘They’re concentrating so hard I can practically hear it. Today I accidentally mentioned wombs. It was like letting a drop of blood fall into a tank of piranhas.’

‘You could feed my entire second-year class to a tank of piranhas and they wouldn’t even notice,’ Howard says morosely. ‘They’d snooze right through.’

‘That’s History. This is Biology. These kids are fourteen. Biology courses through their veins. Biology and marketing.’ Farley shunts a pile of newspapers off the couch and sits down. ‘I’m not exaggerating. They’ve been like this since the first day of term.’

‘Surely they know all of that stuff already. They’ve got broadband at home. They probably know more about sex than I do.’

‘They want to hear it from an adult,’ Farley picks up a photocopy of today’s crossword from the table and with a biro begins meticulously blacking out the white squares. ‘They want to hear it confirmed officially that for all our talk, the adult world and their subterranean sex-obsessed porno-world are basically the same, and no matter what else we try to teach them about kings or molecules or trade models or whatever, civilization ultimately boils down to the same frenzied attempt to hump people. That the world, in short, is teenaged. It’s quite a frightening admission to have to make. It feels like a capitulation into anarchy, frankly.’

He returns the crossword, now a single square of blackness, to the table, and leans back Byronically on the couch. ‘This isn’t how I imagined the teaching life, Howard. I saw myself naming the planets for apple-cheeked sixteen-year-old girls. Watching their hearts awaken, taking them aside and gently talking them out of the crushes they have on me. “The boys my age are such dorks, Mr Farley.” “I know it seems like that now. But you’re young and you’re going to meet some wonderful, wonderful men.” Finding poems on my desk every morning. And underwear. Poems and underwear. That’s what I thought life was all about. Look at me now. A failed kidult.’

Farley likes to make lugubrious speeches of this nature, but he does not in reality share Howard’s sentiments vis-à-vis deathliness; on the contrary, he genuinely seems to enjoy ‘the teaching life’ – enjoys the noisy egoism of the boys, the cut and thrust of the classroom. Howard finds this baffling. Working in a secondary school is like being trapped with a thousand billboards, each one shouting for your attention, but, when you look, with no idea what it is they want to tell you. Still, it could be worse. The state-run school not half a mile away caters to the children of St Patrick’s Villas, the run-down complex of flats behind the more easterly of the shopping malls; horror stories regularly emerge about teachers pelted with eggs, threatened with sawn-off shotguns, coming into class to find the blackboard covered in spit, or shit, or jism. ‘At least we’re not in Anthony’s,’ the Seabrook staff console each other on bad days. ‘There are always vacancies at St Anthony’s,’ the management jokingly-but-not-really tell staff when they complain.

The door opens and Jim Slattery, the English teacher, bustles in to a flurry of good-mornings.

‘Good morning, Jim,’ chime Misses Birchall and McSorley.

‘Good morning, ladies.’ Slattery shakes rain from his anorak and removes his bicycle clips. ‘Good morning, Farley. Good morning, Howard.’

‘Good morning, Jim,’ Farley returns. Howard grunts perfunctorily.

‘Pleasant enough day out there,’ Slattery remarks, as he does every morning it’s not actually raining fire, and makes a beeline for the kettle.

‘Kipper’ Slattery: as re deathliness, Exhibit A. Another old boy, he has taught at Seabrook for decades – in fact he is wearing the same jacket this morning that he did in Farley and Howard’s schooldays, an eye-searing, headache-inducing houndstooth that reminds Howard of a Bridget Riley painting. He is an amiable, shambling man, with shaggy eyebrows that bristle from his forehead like two Yetis about to hurl themselves from a cliff, and has never lacked enthusiasm for his subject, which he communicates in long, rambling sentences that very few of his students have ever had the tenacity or will to disentangle; instead, by and large, they take the opportunity to sleep – hence his nickname.

‘Speaking of frenzied attempts to hump people,’ Farley remembers, ‘did you decide what you’re going to do about Aurelie?’

Howard frowns at him, then glances about in case anyone has heard. The Misses, however, are occupied in their horoscopes; Slattery is drying his feet with a paper towel while waiting for his tea to draw. ‘Well, I wasn’t planning on “doing” anything,’ he says, in a low voice.

‘Really? Because yesterday you sounded quite het up.’

‘I just thought it was a very unprofessional thing to say on her part, that’s all.’ Howard scowls at his shoes.

‘Right.’

‘It’s just not the way you speak to a work colleague. And this whole business of not telling me her name, it’s so juvenile. It’s not like she’s even all that hot. She’s got a highly inflated sense of her own worth, if you ask me.’

‘Good morning, Aurelie,’ the Misses chant; Howard’s head snaps up to see her at the coat-rack, divesting herself of a modish olive-green raincoat.

‘We were just talking about you,’ Farley says.

‘I know,’ she says. Beneath the raincoat is a pencil-line tweed skirt and a delicate cream sweater that exposes clavicles like parts of some impossibly graceful musical instrument. Howard can’t help staring: it’s as if she’s walked into his memory and chosen her outfit from the wardrobe of all the preppy golden-haired princesses he yearned for hopelessly across the malls and churches of his youth.

‘Howard here is wondering why you won’t let him know your first name,’ Farley says, intuitively dodging to one side so that Howard’s sharp elbow finds only the back of the couch.

Miss McIntyre dips her little finger into a small pot of lip-balm and gazes down appraisingly at Howard. ‘He’s just not allowed,’ she says, smearing translucent gunk on her lips. Howard is embarrassed at how erotic he finds this.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he retorts gruffly. ‘Anyway, I know your name.’

She shrugs.

‘Well, what if I decide that’s what I’m going to call you? What are you going to do then?’

‘I’ll throw you out of class,’ she says expressionlessly. ‘You don’t want that, do you? Not when you’re doing so well.’

Howard, feeling all of thirteen years old, is lost for words. Fortunately the door opens, and her attention is diverted. You can always hear Tom Roche coming: since his accident, his right leg barely moves, so he uses a cane, and with every second step must heft forward his full weight, making his passage sound like a body being dragged. It’s said he’s in constant pain, though he never mentions it.

‘Tombo!’ Farley raises a hand for a high-five that does not arrive.

‘Good morning,’ Tom responds, with deliberate stiffness.

As he passes the sofa, Howard gets a faint whiff of alcohol. ‘Hey, ah, congratulations on the swimming race the other night,’ he calls after him, hearing his own voice girlish and obsequious. ‘Sounds like you really cleaned the place out.’

‘It was a good team performance,’ the taciturn response.

‘Tom’s taken over as coach of the swimming team,’ Howard explains woodenly to Miss McIntyre. ‘There was a big race at the weekend and they swept the boards. First time the team ever won anything.’

‘Tombo’s inspirational,’ Farley adds. ‘The kids’d follow him to the ends of the Earth. Like the Moonies.’

‘It makes such a difference to have someone who inspires you,’ Miss McIntyre says. ‘Like a genuine leader? It’s so rare these days.’

‘Unless he just slipped a little something into their food the night before,’ Farley says. ‘Maybe that’s his secret.’

‘We worked damn hard for that race,’ Tom rejoins from his locker. ‘The boys take it seriously, and we work damn hard.’

‘I know that, Tom. I was joking.’

‘Well, I don’t think it shows a very responsible attitude for a teacher to talk about drug abuse in such a frivolous way.’

‘Would you relax? It was just a joke. Jesus.’

‘Some people around here joke far too much. Excuse me, I have work to do.’ Gritting his teeth Tom jerks himself forward and lurches out the door.

After a moment has elapsed, Miss McIntyre observes, ‘What an interesting man.’

‘Fascinating,’ agrees Farley.

‘He doesn’t seem too fond of you two.’

‘It’s historical,’ Howard says.

‘Howard and Tom and I were in school together,’ Farley says, ‘and it so happened that the two of us were there the night of his accident – he had this terrible accident, I’m sure you must have heard about it?’

She nods slowly. ‘He had some kind of a fall?’

‘It was a bungee jump. Up in Dalkey Quarry, on a Saturday night in November – just this time of year, actually. We were in our final year. Tom was the big sports star – tipped for greatness, just waiting for the call-up to the national team, the rugby team, although tennis, athletics, he was no slouch at those either. The jump ended everything. It took him a year just to walk again.’

‘God,’ Miss McIntyre says softly, her head swinging back to the door he just left through. ‘That’s so sad. And does he… have anyone? To take care of him? Is he married?’

‘No,’ Howard says reluctantly.

‘He’s sort of married to the school,’ Farley says. ‘He’s been here ever since. Teaching civics, helping out with the track and tennis teams. Now he’s coaching swimming.’

‘I see,’ Miss McIntyre says obscurely, still studying the door. Then she rouses, issues them both a brief summary smile. ‘Well. I should get some work done too. I’ll catch you boys later.’

She whisks away, leaving a tantalizing spell of perfume that lingers to torment Howard as the ambient lethargy redescends.

‘Minus fourteen in Minsk yesterday,’ Farley reads from the newspaper. ‘Thirty-three in London… Wow, sixty-seven in Corsica. Maybe we should move to Corsica – what do you say, Howard?’

‘You don’t think she’s into Tom, do you?’ is what Howard says.

‘Who, Aurelie? She just met him.’

‘She seemed interested by him.’

‘I thought you decided she had a highly inflated sense of her own worth. What do you care if she’s interested?’

‘I don’t,’ Howard remembers hurriedly.

‘Are you worried she’ll tell him she doesn’t want to sleep with him too?’ Farley says slyly.

‘No, it’s just…’

‘Maybe she’s planning not to sleep with the whole faculty!’

‘Just let it go, would you?’ Howard snaps.

‘Not-to-be-taken Aurelie,’ Farley chuckles, returning to the weather report.