Skippy Dies: A Novel

The School Board sits in conclave for almost three hours before Brother Jonas knocks on the door of his fourth-year class and summons Howard to the Acting Principal’s office.

Tom’s is the only face not to turn his way when he enters. As well as Father Green, the Automator and Father Boland, the school president – one of those sleek, silver-haired, ageless men who manage to connote prestige and power without ever having expressed a single memorable thought – there are two men Howard does not know. One is a priest, small and gaunt, with a foxy, Jesuitical cast of features and a mobile jaw that works constantly, as though chewing some indigestible foodstuff; the other, an innocuous balding man in rimless glasses, perhaps forty. Brother Jonas hovers by the door; Trudy, the only woman in the room, brandishes her pen and minute-pad expectantly.

‘Well, before anything else, let’s make sure we’re all reading from the same page here,’ the Automator announces heavily. ‘Howard, do you have anything you want to add, subtract or modify, with regard to the statement you made this morning?’

Seven pairs of eyes bore into him. ‘No,’ Howard says.

‘Because these are very serious allegations you’re making,’ the Automator warns.

‘They aren’t allegations, Greg. I passed on to you exactly what Tom… what was said to me by Mr Roche last night.’

This meets with a cold silence; the silver-haired president permits himself a slight shake of the head. Howard flushes. ‘Are you suggesting I shouldn’t have passed it on? Are you suggesting I should have listened to him confess a crime and then clapped him on the shoulder and sent him home right as rain, is that it?’

‘No one’s suggesting anything, Howard,’ the Automator snaps. ‘Let’s all try to keep a professional attitude here.’ Eyes closed, he massages his temples a moment, then says, ‘Okay. Let’s go over this one more time. Trudy?’

Rising from her chair, Trudy arranges her papers and reads, in a clear, neutral voice, Howard’s account of his adventure of last night: how at some time between eleven and twelve he had opened the door to find Mr Roche there in an agitated state; how Mr Roche told him, after he’d brought him in and made him tea, that the night of the junior swimming team’s meet in Thurles, Daniel Juster had come to his hotel room suffering from pains in his leg; how after Mr Roche had treated him manually for cramps the boy became upset and told him that his mother, who had been supposed to attend the meet, was extremely ill; how Juster had grown more and more distressed until Mr Roche made the decision to give him a sedative in the form of painkillers that he carried to treat his spine injury. Shortly afterwards the boy lost consciousness from the effects of the painkillers, at which point Mr Roche sexually molested him.

‘ “Apart from a panic attack on the bus back to Seabrook the following day, for which he gave him another sedative, Mr Roche told me that the boy showed no signs of being aware of what had happened. But then last Wednesday, three days before the junior team’s semi-final meet in Ballinasloe, Juster wrote him a letter telling him he was leaving the swimming team. Mr Roche grew alarmed. He contacted Juster’s father and persuaded him to discourage the boy from quitting. Juster’s mother’s health was precarious and he knew the boy was afraid of doing or saying anything that might upset her. His father called Juster and at that point the boy agreed to go along to the meet. Shortly afterwards, however, he overdosed on painkillers.’” Trudy, as she concludes, cannot resist raising her lowered eyes for a swift left-right sweep, with the satisfaction of a pupil who has performed her lesson well.

‘You’re happy with that?’ the Automator puts to Howard.

‘I’m not happy with it…’ Howard mutters. The Automator switches to his neighbour. ‘Tom?’

Tom says nothing; a tear slides like a raindrop down his stony cheek. There is a collective sighing and creak of chairs. The little foxy man takes a fob from his pocket, fogs the glass with his breath and buffs it with his cuff, aspirating, ‘Dear, dear, dear.’

The Automator folds his brow in his hand. Emerging blinking, he says, ‘Jesus Christ, Tom, were you planning to do it again? Were you bringing him down there to do it again?’

‘No!’ Tom blurts. ‘No.’ He does not look up. ‘I wanted to show him that it was all right. That was why I wanted him to go. If this time it was all right… it might be as if… the last time never…’ He dissolves into sobs. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen,’ he gurgles. ‘I loved that boy. I love all my boys.’

The Automator considers this impassively, his mouth a tight line. Then, turning to the table at large, he says, ‘Well, look, we need to decide what the hell we’re going to do here.’ There is a general susurrus of papers and trouser legs. ‘I’m not a man of the cloth, I don’t have a direct line to God, so it could be I’m all wrong about this. But what I’m thinking is that there is not much to be gained by taking it to the next level.’

‘By the next level, you mean turning it over to the police?’ Father Green clarifies in his arch manner. At the word, Tom lets out a moan and reburies his face in his hands.

‘That’s exactly what I mean, Father. The plain fact of it is, the boy is dead. There is nothing we can do to change that. If we could turn back time, we would. But we can’t. And at the risk of sounding cynical, I think we have to ask ourselves now how it would serve any of us, and I include in that the boy’s family, to bring the police into this. The benefits, as I see them, are pretty few. On the other hand, the cost, to the school as well as to his family, would be enormous.’

Howard starts. ‘Wait, are you proposing we just brush this under the carpet?’

‘Damn it, Howard, just listen to me for five seconds, can’t you? There’s more to think of here than just some abstract notion of justice. This kind of thing can ruin a school. I’ve seen it happen. Even as it is I’ve got four sets of parents threatening to pull out their kids. This comes out and they’ll leave in their droves. Every boy who’s ever stubbed his toe here’ll be filing a lawsuit. As for the media, they’ll have a field day. They’ve been waiting a lifetime for something like this. We’ll be lucky if we’re left with so much as a blackboard by the end of it. So before you get up on your high horse, you tell me, Howard, who gains, exactly, from dragging this whole thing into the open? Juster’s parents? You think this is going to help them at all? His sick mother? Or the boys, think it’ll be good for them?’

Howard does not reply, just scowls.

‘When these matters arose in the past–’ the foxy, delicate priest, when he speaks, has exactly the voice that Howard would have guessed: high and feminine, dry and friable as tissue-paper ‘– we always found it more satisfactory to handle them in private.’

‘I agree with Father Casey here,’ the Automator says. ‘It seems to me that the best way to deal with this is internally, through our own existing disciplinary channels.’

‘As we started, so shall we go on, is that it?’ Father Green addresses the dapper little man, who only laughs mirthlessly and places a hand on his companion’s knee.

‘Ah, Jerome, if it were up to you who of us would not be clapped in irons?’

Something grotesque about his laughter sets off a trigger inside Howard; while the conversation flows back and forth around him, he stumbles unhearing through it, nauseous and dizzy as if he’s been drugged, until he sees his own hand rising in front of him and hears his voice say, ‘Wait, wait… a boy is dead. Juster is dead. It doesn’t matter what the school has to gain or not gain. We can’t let –’ absurdly, he turns to Tom here ‘– no offence, Tom – but we can’t just let this… go.’

The silver-haired president starts making noises about reviews and hearings and sanctions, but the Automator hushes him with a hand: ‘Howard –’

‘He’s right,’ Father Green interjects.

‘Excuse me, Father, he’s not right – Howard, no one’s saying we’re letting this go. No one’s saying we should forget about Juster. But if Tom goes to trial it’ll be a kangaroo court and you know it. They’ll send him down without a second thought even though the facts are in actuality far from clear –’

‘The facts are perfectly clear, Greg, he made a full confession.’

‘I mean the facts, the circumstances of Daniel Juster’s death. We don’t know what was going through that kid’s mind, we’ll never know. Who of us can say for certain that these events that took place involving Tom were finally and definitively what pushed him over the edge? We know that he had other things bothering him. His sick mother, for instance, and this girl, this business with the girl.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘And the fact of the matter is that these pills that Tom allegedly gave him, there’s a question mark over whether he had any awareness at all of what happened, so setting aside the rights and the wrongs of it, can we genuinely –’

‘Jesus, Greg, he took him into his room and drugged him and abused him, how can you even –’

‘You settle down there!’ the Automator cuts him off. ‘Settle down, mister. Here at Seabrook, we judge a man by the sum of his actions, the sum. In this case we have a man with an unparalleled dedication to this school and to the boys of this school. Does one error of judgement, however grievous, does that cancel out at a stroke all the good he’s done? The good of that care?’

‘An error of judgement?’ Howard says, dumbfounded.

‘That’s right, any one of us –’

‘An error of judgement?’

‘That’s what I said, damn it,’ the Automator bellows, flaring brick-red. ‘You had one of your own, or don’t you remember? Three and a half million pounds down the swanny in under a minute – under a minute! When you came here you were the laughing stock of the City of London! Unemployable! But who took you in? Who took you in when no one else would? This school, that’s who, because we look after our own! That’s what care means!’

‘How the hell –’ Howard on his feet ‘– does losing money compare with physically drugging and abusing –’

‘I’ll tell you how!’ the Automator rising too to tower above him. ‘You take a look at this man, Howard! Before you start laying blame, you take a good look at him! This man was a hero! This man was going to be one of the all-time sporting greats of his country! Instead, he’s a cripple, in constant physical pain, because of you! Because of your cowardice! You talk about justice. If there were any justice, you would have been at the bottom of that quarry, not him!’ This silences Howard all right. Beside the Acting Principal, the president nods ruefully. ‘Any other man, that kind of blow he might have retreated into his shell for ever. Not Tom Roche. Instead he has devoted himself to the education of these boys. I would even argue – you won’t like it, but I would even argue that it’s his very devotion that has led him to make this terrible mistake. But that’s beside the point, which is, when he tried to do the right thing, when he came to you of all people and confessed – when otherwise, no one would ever have found out – you just want to have him strung up! Well, let me tell you, you’re up to your neck in this too!’

‘Me?’

‘I sent you to talk to Juster. This is a troubled boy, I said, go and talk to him, and you came back with diddly-squat!’

‘Was I supposed to hold a gun to his head? Was I supposed to hold a gun to his head, and say, Okay, Juster, start talking –’

‘Daniel,’ Tom mumbles.

‘What’s that?’ The Automator snaps round.

‘He preferred to be called Daniel,’ Tom, tilted forward awkwardly in his chair like a classical sculpture in transit, repeats through a patina of tears and mucus.

The men lapse into a simmering silence.

‘The question is, how difficult would it be to keep the matter internal?’ the foxy priest remarks eventually. ‘From what I hear, the boy’s father doesn’t seem the type to cause trouble.’

‘Is he one of ours?’ the jowly president inquires blandly.

‘Class of ’84,’ the Automator says. ‘Went in for tennis mostly. Pretty decent team back then. Yes, he’s got enough on his plate with the wife’s cancer, I’d say.’

‘Nevertheless, it might be to our benefit to be seen pursuing some definite line of inquiry,’ the foxy priest counsels.

‘Well, he was upset about this girl,’ the president says. ‘Isn’t that the perfect alibi right there?’

‘I don’t want to encourage this Romeo and Juliet claptrap,’ the Automator says. ‘Otherwise they’ll all be at it like lemmings.’

‘The mother might be the angle to take, then,’ the foxy priest says.

‘That’d be my preference. Mum’s dying, boy can’t take it, game over. Press haven’t found out about her yet. We can throw them a few hints, at this end amp up the counselling service, maybe.’ He makes a note on a pad. ‘Well, gentlemen, I think we’re all agreed that the best thing is to sit tight. If Desmond Furlong were here, I’m sure he’d say the same.’ The board members around the table nod donkey-like, with the exception of Father Green, whose head is cocked at a contemplative angle, as if he’s savouring the fragrance of a spring meadow, and the unknown bald man, who catches the Automator’s eye.

‘Oh yes, that’s right…’ He rummages among the papers on his desk and locates a slim sheaf of three or four pages. He holds it out to Howard. ‘This is Vyvyan Wycherley, Howard, old classmate of mine. He and Father Casey here have drawn this up for you to sign.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s your new contract. I’m pleased to offer you a position as Seabrook’s first-ever school archivist. Runs concurrently with your existing teaching duties. Money’s not enormous, but tidy enough all the same. Work the hours you want, whatever particular areas take your fancy…’

Howard flicks dumbly through the pages – job description, salary, and then, near the back, his eye catches on a short paragraph –

‘It’s a confidentiality clause. No doubt you’ll be familiar with these from your days in the City. In signing, you consent by law not to disclose sensitive information pertaining to school affairs, including what we have discussed here today.’

Howard gapes back at him stupidly. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Merely a precaution, Howard, making sure we’ve got all our angles covered. No need to rush into it right away. Take it home with you, think it over. If you want to turn it down, do the honorable thing, I can’t stop you. I’m sure you’ll find a position elsewhere easily enough. Gather there are vacancies in St Anthony’s at the moment. Teacher got stabbed there just last week.’

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, Greg,’ Howard says softly.

‘Like I say, Howard, it’s up to you. Here at Seabrook we take care of each other. Play by the rules, listen to your captain, and we’ll always find a place on the team for you. But if you can’t stick by your school when it has a bad bounce of the ball, why should it stick by you?’

With numb fingers, Howard leafs again through the pages of dense, recondite text till he arrives at the last, where he sees his own name, with a line above it for his signature, and the date already added. He can feel the surreptitious and lowered gazes on him, pressing against him like bodies in a crowded elevator.

In the closeness Father Green’s voice rings out like a bell, in a merry sing-song: ‘And will God be apprised of what has taken place?’

An irritated mutter passes around the table. The priest rephrases his question. ‘I am merely asking, as a matter of protocol, whether on the Last Day, when God demands of us our sins, our confidentiality agreement requires that we keep silent then too?’

‘With all due respect, Father –’ the Automator visibly annoyed ‘– now is not the time.’

‘You are quite right, of course,’ Father Green agrees. ‘I daresay we shall have plenty of opportunity to consider it, when we are condemned to eternal hellfire.’

The quick-eyed, foxy priest turns to him exasperated. ‘Why must you always be so medieval?’

‘Because this is sin!’ The priest’s bony hand pounds on the table so that the teacups in their saucers and the plastic biros jump, and a raging eye roves over the table to fix each of them in turn. ‘It is sin,’ he repeats, ‘a most egregious sin against an innocent child! We may hide it from ourselves with our nice talk of the good of the many. But we cannot hide it from the Lord God!’