Skippy Dies: A Novel

That night, for the first time in months, the construction work has stopped. The silence is so pristine as to be almost uncanny: Howard feels a light-headedness as he opens his books.

The boys had been quiet on their way back to the station. At first he was afraid he had depressed them, but as the train led them out of the city back along the coast, they emerged from their private reveries with questions:

‘So, like, Seabrook students back then, would all of them have been fighting in the war?’

‘Well, like you they had parents who were paying a lot of money for their education. So I’d guess that most would have graduated before they joined up. But plenty volunteered after that, I’m sure.’

‘And did they get shot?’

‘In some cases, I imagine.’

‘Wow, I wonder if their ghosts haunt the school.’

‘Duh, their ghosts haunt the battlefield, you spasmo.’

‘Oh sorry, I forgot to consult the world-renowned ghost expert, who knows everything about where ghosts go to haunt people.’

‘If you were interested –’ Howard intervening gently ‘– I’m sure you could find out who joined up and what happened to them.’

‘How?’

‘Why don’t I look into it, and we can talk about it next class.’

He had shepherded them to Seabrook’s double-doors and then done a swift volte-face, not yet ready to confront his fate – imagining, as he walked to his car, a hooked finger tugging down a louvre of Venetian blind in an upstairs window… Tonight, though, spirits lifted by the boys’ interest, he wonders if the situation is as bleak as all that. Isn’t it possible that, with the right spin, the story of William Molloy might snag the Automator too? A tale of Seabrook spirit elaborated onto the world stage; a former great, let slip by history, rediscovered by his schoolmates of a century later – wouldn’t that be perfect material for, say, a 140th anniversary celebration? Perfect enough for the Acting Principal to overlook Howard’s unorthodox (brilliantly unorthodox?) methodology, and allow him to continue, with his formerly recalcitrant class, his groundbreaking work?

The car park the following morning is crowded with company cars. Today is the first day of the annual milk round, in which representatives of various strands of Big Business – Seabrook fathers and old boys, for the most part – come in and speak one-to-one with final-year students. It was just such an interview, a decade earlier, that had set Howard on the road to London. He can still see Ryan Connolly’s dad leaned back in his chair, expanding at length on the futures market and the fortunes to be made there, while on the other side of the table the young Howard thought deeply about Ryan Connolly’s car, Ryan Connolly’s enormous house with swimming pool, the exotic-sounding holidays to Disney World, St Tropez, Antibes, which Ryan Connolly and Ryan Connolly’s dad and Ryan Connolly’s incredibly hot mum went on every year.

He’s in the staffroom, boiling the kettle for tea, when he realizes that Brother Jonas has materialized beside him. ‘You gave me a fright,’ he jokes, clutching his chest. The little man does not return his smile, merely gazes at Howard a moment with those infinitely deep, melting-chocolate eyes. Then he chants, in his soft musical voice, ‘Greg would like to see you now.’ With that, like a spirit guide, he glides away, not looking back to see if Howard is following.

A group of sixth-years loiter by the entrance to the Senior Rec Room, where tables and chairs have been set out for the milk round interviews. They are wearing suits – the school encourages a professional approach to the proceedings – of the same tastefully muted tones as the expensive marques in the car park. The change of wardrobe emboldens them; they lean against the door jamb, pronouncing on various topics with careless waves of the hand, the future that has been laid out for them at last being revealed. Howard nods cursorily as he passes them, and they nod back, looking him up and down, perhaps noticing for the first time the less than fresh cut of his own attire.

Howard enters the office to find the Automator behind his desk, staring intensely at a framed photograph of his boys. Following Howard in and closing the door, Brother Jonas installs himself in the corner, from which he shimmers discreetly like a piece of corporate art. The aquarium bubbles gently.

‘You wanted to see me, Greg?’ Howard says at last.

‘I wouldn’t say that, Howard. No, that’s not how I’d put it at all.’ The Automator sets down the photograph, runs a hand over his haggard face. ‘Howard, do you know how many messages I had waiting for me when I came in this morning? Take a guess.’

Howard is starting to experience a familiar sinking feeling. ‘I don’t know, Greg. Eight?’

‘Eight.’ The Automator smiles ruefully. ‘Eight. I wish it were eight. Eight we might have been able to deal with. The answer is twenty-nine. Twenty-nine messages, all of them pertaining to your little exodus. None of them, just so we’re clear, telling me what an excellent idea it was.’

The school bell rings for the beginning of class: Howard twitches automatically at the door – ‘It’s taken care of,’ the Automator says leadenly. He rolls his chair back from the desk and in the same dull voice says, ‘Tell me, Howard – it’s not going to make any difference, of course, but just for my own enlightenment – tell me what you thought you were doing, taking your class off the premises without permission?’

‘I wanted to bring them to the museum, Greg. I know it was unorthodox, but I really felt they’d benefit. And they did genuinely seem to get a lot out of it.’

‘I don’t doubt that,’ the Automator says. ‘Teacher wigs out, pulls them out of class to wander around the city for the day, I’m sure they had a gay old time. But you see I’m trying to run a school here, Howard. I’m trying to run a school, not a circus.’ Howard realizes the Acting Principal’s hands are trembling. Suddenly he is very thankful for the brother’s presence.

‘Greg, I really am sorry I didn’t tell you. It was a snap decision and in retrospect I suppose I may have made the wrong call. But in order to complete this module we’ve been working on, I honestly believed that the class needed to see some actual historical evidence.’

‘Oh, is that so?’ The Automator folds his hands on his stomach. ‘That’s very interesting, Howard, because what I’m hearing is that you didn’t see any actual historical evidence. What I’m hearing is that you took them to a park in the middle of Junkieville, where you proceeded to tell them about some dismal massacre from a hundred years ago that does not feature on the Junior Cert History course. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, but – but the thing is, Greg, they really understood it. I mean they really connected with it?’

‘Why the hell would we want them to connect with it?’ the Automator exclaims, vein in his temple throbbing double-time. ‘Why would any parent in his right mind want the teacher of his children bringing them to an inner-city graveyard to tell them horror stories? Any more than he’d want him telling them that history is… is –’ he seizes a page from the desk ‘– “an immense panorama of futility and anarchy”. Did you use those words, Howard? Were those your words?’

‘I think it was TS Eli–’

‘I don’t care if it was Ronald McDonald! Do you think parents pay ten grand a year so their kids can learn about futility and anarchy? Take a look at the curriculum. Do you see futility and anarchy on it anywhere? Do you?’

Before Howard can reply, the Automator has steamrolled on. ‘I’ve been doing a little historical investigation of my own,’ he says, producing a ring-binder crammed with slight, fastidious handwriting – whose? ‘See what other interesting things the boys have been learning in your class, such as… oh yes, here’s a good one, “If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.” That’s great, Howard! Our fathers lied! I don’t see any problem with that, do you? I can’t see any issues of, of authority or discipline arising out of that one, no. Our fathers lied, why not? And our mothers are prostitutes? And here’s how to crack the lock on the drinks cabinet? And then we have Mr Graves –’ He brandishes a copy of Goodbye to All That – a carefully laminated copy. Howard closes his eyes. Jeekers. ‘Are you aware that in the first part of this book, the author details a homosexual affair he has with a boy in his boarding school? Do you think that’s the kind of material that a teacher should be presenting to impressionable young men in a Christian school? Or do you think that because Father Furlong isn’t in charge, the rules no long apply? Is that how you see it, Howard? Everybody’s swinging, anything goes?’ He’s on his feet now, face an apocalyptic red. ‘And meanwhile you’ve fallen about a million miles behind your own class plan! My God, Howard, I thought we’d been through this! I thought I told you, no more war! Teach what’s in the damn book!’

‘And what if there’s nothing in the book?’ Howard, beginning to lose his temper, raises his voice.

‘What?’ the Automator shouts back, as if they’re standing at either end of a wind tunnel.

‘What if there’s nothing in the book, what if the book is empty?’

‘Empty, Howard?’ He’s got the history book here too, he picks it up and riffles through the pages. ‘Doesn’t look empty to me. Looks like it’s full of history. Full of it.’

‘Don’t we have a responsibility to give both sides of the story? To make some gesture towards the truth?’

‘You have a responsibility to teach what you’re paid to teach! I don’t care if it’s the history of tic-tac-toe, if it’s on the curriculum you go in there and you teach it, and you teach it in such a way that there’s an outside chance a tiny fragment of it will remain alive in those boys’ brains, so that they can dredge it up and repeat it in the state exams!’

‘I see, so it doesn’t matter if I’m perpetuating lies, then. It doesn’t matter that your curriculum leaves out forty thousand dead men, including alumni of this very school. That to you is an acceptable version of history, and a cover-up is an appropriate thing to teach the boys –’

‘A cover-up?’ the Automator repeats incredulously, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘A cover-up?’

‘A cover-up, yes, something that, even though it was ninety years ago, still no one wants to talk about –’

‘Jesus Christ, Howard.’ The Automator runs his hand through his hair. ‘This isn’t some kind of giant conspiracy! Parents aren’t ringing me up because they’re worried you’re getting close to the truth! They’re ringing me up because some crackpot teacher popped a gasket and ran off with their children! That’s what people think about, Howard! Reality! Don’t you understand that? Why aren’t my son’s grades better? Will I get my new kitchen in beech or stripped pine? How’s the Algarve for golf this time of year? This – this is the past, Howard. The First World War, the Easter Rising, a bunch of maniacs shooting and speechifying and waving flags, it’s the past! And no one cares about it! The reason they don’t talk about it is that they don’t care!’

‘You have to teach them to care,’ Howard murmurs, remembering.

‘Teach them to care?’ the Automator repeats, as if stupefied. ‘Teach them to – wait, do you think this is some kind of a Dead Poets Society situation we’re in here, is that it? You think that this is some kind of a Dead Poets, where we’re the evil tyrannical school, and you’re, ah – damn it, the man, he was Mork, and he dressed up as the nanny –’

‘Robin Williams?’

‘Correct, that you’re Robin Williams? Is that it, Howard? Because if that’s it, let me just ask you something – whose interests are you serving, spending six weeks on something that’s covered here in the textbook in a single page? Is it really for the boys? Or is it for yourself?’

Burning as he is with righteous anger, this question catches Howard off guard.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ the Automator continues, ‘maybe the book does leave a chunk of stuff out. And maybe in the future someone will dig it up, and make a TV documentary, and there’ll be exhibitions and pull-out newspaper supplements and people all over the country will be talking about it. But when they’re finished talking, Howard, then they’ll go back to their kitchens or their golfing holidays or whatever they were doing before. The “truth”, as you put it, won’t change a goddamn thing. You’re no dummy, though, you know that. This history business is neither here nor there. No, you’re taking some sort of revenge for the Juster business, that’s what this is. You’re coming in here and attempting to derail regular Seabrook life, you’re trying to pollute my boys’ minds and warp their sensibilities because of guilt at what you’ve done. What you’ve done, Howard, you signed that contract, no one held a gun to your head. Well, let me tell you a couple of things, mister. Let me tell you a couple of facts that are true. Fact one, you will fail. You will fail, Howard. Maybe you think that because you know what you know, you’ve got us over a barrel. You think you can bring Seabrook down. But that is not the case, because if you knew anything about history you would know that this school is not a school that loses, and no matter what you try we will not lose against you. You can go to the police, you can breach your contract, you can betray your fellow teacher, you can do all that, Howard, and bring scandal down on this school, but we will survive. We will survive, we will weather the storm, because we are a team, a team with values and beliefs, which is united by those values and beliefs and is strong because of them.

‘And that takes me to fact two, Howard, which is, this school is good. No, it is not perfect, because we live in a world in which nothing is perfect. But this school, if you want a history lesson, has educated generations of Irish children, produced not just doctors, lawyers, businessmen, the men who make the backbone of our society, but also missionaries, aid workers, philanthropists. This school has a great tradition, furthermore, an ongoing tradition of reaching out to the poor and the downtrodden, of this country and of Africa. Who are you to come in here and undermine that? Who are you to come in, understanding nothing, nothing, of how anything works, and try to sabotage the running of this school? A failure, a coward like you? A man who is like a child, who is so enfeebled by his own pathetic fears that he has never, he will never stand up for anything? He will never have the courage to do anything for anyone?’

He sits back, trembling, in his chair, picks up the photograph of his boys again, as if seeking to convince himself there is still good in the world. ‘I’m suspending you with pay until further notice. I need to speak to the school’s solicitor before we take any definitive action, but I would strongly advise you to keep away from Seabrook College until then. Katherine Moore’s going to take your classes in the meantime.’ He looks up dully. ‘Get out of here, Howard. Go home to your wife that loves you.’

Howard rises stolidly and moves for the door without saying goodbye. But something arrests his attention, and he stops. Three bloated blue and gold fish are lazily circumnavigating an otherwise-denuded aquarium. ‘What?’ he says. ‘What happened to the other ones?’

Brother Jonas, who has been poised silently in the corner throughout the conversation, now releases a laugh – a surprisingly profane sound, like air squealing from a balloon. ‘A long way from Japan!’ he says. ‘A long way with no lunch!’

He laughs again; the sound is still ringing in his ears as Howard passes on to the staffroom to clear out his locker.