Skippy Dies: A Novel

The boys have finally given up on Miss McIntyre returning. Coke cans and paper are tossed in the bin with everything else; hairspray and deodorant are deployed with abandon; the Chinese government builds what it wants, untroubled by the pupils of Seabrook College.

If only Howard could move on so easily. Instead he is tormented by her day and night – purring at him from the moonlit deck of an ocean cruiser, through a garland of muscular arms; winking at him from a four-poster bed, where she lies entwined with her faceless fiancé. Sometimes his jealousy comes dressed up as outrage – how could she lie to him like that? How could she lie to herself like that? – and alone in the dark he will clench his fists, inveighing against her on the deck of her imaginary ship; other times he aches for her so badly he is scarcely able to bear it.

But simultaneously he’s beset by memories. Independently of him, his mind has started filling in the Halley-shaped blanks. He’ll be reading in the kitchen in the small hours, and realize that he is waiting for her to come through the door – can almost see her, in her pyjamas, rubbing her eyes and asking him what he’s doing, forgetting to listen to the answer as she gets sucked into an investigation of the contents of the fridge. At the cooker scrambling eggs; crossing the living room to straddle him as he watches TV; lost in some corporate website with a cigarette and a dogged expression; brushing her teeth in the mirror while he shaves – soon the house is haunted by a thousand different ghosts of her, with a million infinitesimal details in attendance, things he’d never noticed himself noticing. They don’t come with an agenda, or an emotional soundtrack; they don’t pluck at his heartstrings, or elicit any reaction that he can identify definitively as love, or loss; they are simply there, profusely and exhaustingly there.

Farley says the whole thing reminds him of a joke.

‘That’s great, Farley. That’s exactly what I need.’

‘I can’t help what it reminds me of, can I? Now do you want to hear it or not?’

Howard makes a gesture of resignation.

‘Okay then. Man walks into a bar, and sees a guy sitting two stools down has the smallest head he’s ever seen. Body’s perfectly normal, but his head is no bigger than a cue ball. He tries not to stare but after a few minutes he can’t stand it any longer so he goes down to the guy and says, “Look, I’m sorry if this seems rude, but would you mind telling me what happened to your head?” The tiny-headed guy in this little tinny high-pitched voice tells him that many years ago, back in the Second World War, he’d served in the Navy. “My ship got torpedoed and every one of my shipmates drowned,” he says. “I should’ve drowned too, only as I sank to the bottom I felt hands around me, pulling me upwards. When I came to, I was lying on a rock in the middle of the ocean, being given mouth-to-mouth by a beautiful mermaid. I realized she’d saved my life and I asked her how I could repay her. She said she didn’t want anything. ‘There must be something I can do for you,’ I said. ‘No,’ she said, but she was so moved by my gratitude that she decided to give me three wishes. Well, all I really wanted was to be back home, out of the damn war. I told her and she snapped her fingers and next thing you know we’re just off the shore, and I can see my own house waiting for me. ‘What next?’ she said. ‘You’ve done so much for me, it’s hard to ask for anything more,’ I said. ‘But maybe some cash, just enough to tide me over?’ She snapped her fingers and suddenly my pockets were spilling over with money. ‘Done,’ she says, ‘you will never want again. And for your third wish?’ Well, I thought long and hard,” says the soldier, “as I floated there beside her. Finally I said, ‘I don’t want to seem forward. But not only have you saved my life, brought me home from the war, and made me rich beyond my wildest dreams – you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. I know you’re going to return to the ocean, and I’m going back to the land, and we’re never going to see each other again. But before that happens, what I would like more than anything else in the world is just once to make love to you. That’s my third and final wish.’ The mermaid looked sad. ‘I’m afraid that is the one wish I cannot grant,’ she said, ‘for I am a mermaid, and you are a man, and to know each other carnally is impossible.’ ‘Really?’ I said. She nodded regretfully. I thought about it for a moment. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘how about a little head?’” ’

A few seconds elapse before Howard realizes he’s finished. ‘That’s it?’ he demands. ‘So I’m like the idiot with the tiny head, is that it?’

‘It reminded me, that’s all,’ Farley protests. ‘Because, you know, be careful what you wish for.’

‘I didn’t wish for this, did I? I didn’t wish for Aurelie McIntyre to have a fiancé and hang me out to dry, why the fuck would I wish for that?’

‘I don’t know, Howard. Why would you?’

Now the door opens and Howard slouches down behind his newspaper as Tom hefts himself in. Every November, when the anniversary of the accident in the quarry comes round, a gloom descends over the coach; this year, more than ever before, it seems Howard can sense his rage mounting, cracks appearing in the noble sportsmanlike façade, until it’s as if he is inside Tom’s mind, sharing that furious urge to launch his wrecked body at Howard and beat him until Howard is as mangled as he is. Sometimes he wishes he’d do it, get it over with.

‘How’s Tom?’ Farley hails him.

The coach grunts as he passes the sofa, heads for his pigeonhole.

‘Something on your mind?’ Farley asks innocently, as Howard’s stomach does somersaults.

‘Busy day,’ Tom returns unwillingly. ‘Trying to finalize the arrangements for the swimming trip. Ten boys, nearest hotel only has four rooms.’

‘Pile ’em all into bed with you,’ Farley suggests. ‘Keep you all warm on these cold winter nights.’

‘That’s hilarious,’ Tom says tonelessly. ‘That’s very, very funny.’ Envelopes tucked into his back pocket, he limps out through the door again.

‘Someday,’ Howard says, lowering the paper again, ‘that guy is going to snap. And I’m the one he’s going to snap at.’

‘Howard, I swear to God, you’ve got an imagination like Stephen King,’ Farley says.

‘Then why has he been looking at me all week like for two pins he’d disembowel me?’

‘Because you’re a paranoid man with too much time on your hands. Too much time and a tiny, tiny little head.’