Skippy Dies: A Novel

The car park has been decked out with blue-and-gold fairy lights – nice touch, Trudy’s idea. From the top of the steps to the Sports Hall, Acting Principal Greg Costigan watches the guests arrive, proceeding from their cars in dinner jackets and long elegant gowns, the yard’s schoolday soundtrack of high-pitched expletives replaced with a stately, dignified murmur. They can see him too, framed in the glowing threshold of the Hall, waiting to greet them like, he supposes, the captain, the captain of a ship. The good ship Seabrook.

Looking out on all this magnificence and decorum, the word that comes unavoidably to mind is vindicated. Greg would be the first to admit it has not exactly been plain sailing here in the SS Seabrook these last few months. The Juster episode, discipline issues, poor rugby performances – in uncertain times like these, most men in his position would have been inclined to keep their heads down, weather the storm, not attempt a high-profile, high-risk venture like this. But Greg is not the kind of Acting Principal who shrinks from adversity. A bold gesture was what was needed to stop the rot – something big and showy and extravagant, to rally the shareholders and generally boost confidence. Because a school, as well as being like a ship, is also like a market, and when the market is confident it doesn’t actually matter what small technical hitches might be going on behind the scenes.

And, thus far at least, that decision has been one hundred per cent borne out and vindicated. An atmosphere of excellence, the kind that cannot be bought, pervades the hall tonight. Sprinkled in among the parents – it’s a full house, by the way, bearing out and vindicating his decision re ticket pricing – is a sort of Best of Seabrook, some of the leading lights of the last thirty years: sportsmen, captains of industry, media personalities, basically the cream of Irish society. A hell of a turnout, and a testimony to that special bond Seabrook creates – as Greg explains to Frank Hart, class of ’68, scrum-half for Ireland 1971–78, now in property development and a millionaire several times over. ‘Doesn’t matter whether you graduated five years ago or fifty-five. You’ll always be part of the family. In today’s modern world, that’s a rare and precious thing.’

‘Father Furlong coming tonight?’ Hart inquires.

‘I wish, Frank, I wish. Because in a way this night is for him, a tribute to him and his predecessors and the great gift of education they have given to so many generations of Irish boys. Unfortunately, he’s not yet well enough to leave the hospital, which is a real shame.’

‘Leaves the stage clear for you, though,’ quips Hart.

Greg laughs artificially. ‘Those would be some hard shoes to fill,’ he says.

Of course, Frank Hart is totally right; this 140th Anniversary Concert marks the changing of the guard. Surely by now even the Paracletes must recognize their time is up. You can’t get away with hiding behind a crucifix these days: whoever steps into Desmond Furlong’s small and somewhat effeminate shoes will have to be able to reckon with the realities of twenty-first-century life. Could Desmond Furlong have organized a 140th Anniversary Concert to be broadcast live to the whole country? Let alone faced down a potential scandal that might have destroyed the entire school? Somehow Greg thinks sitting in a traditional African chair watching fish swim around might not have been quite enough this time. And the Paracletes know it.

So this is in some ways a sad occasion – he segues in his imagination into a kind of acceptance speech, delivered to a hall much the size of this one, similarly filled with notables – marking as it does the passing of an era. But in other ways it is a joyful one: because it proves that although the Paracletes may be gone, for all intents and purposes, their values will live on. Maybe the men upholding them will wear a suit and tie instead of a dog collar; maybe they will carry a laptop instead of a Bible, and maybe ‘common business model’, not ‘God’, will be the name of the bridge they use to bring communities together. But although appearances may change, the values themselves remain the same – the Seabrook values of faith, decency, various others.

Yes indeed, as he surveys the scene – the towering sound system, the radio engineer at work behind the desk, the first (of two) cameramen panning over the audience, the majestic banners and pennants (actually sourced outside the school at the last minute, the Art Department’s offerings having been disappointingly slip-shod – frayed hems, uneven lettering, misspelling of ‘Christ’ as ‘Chrit’, etc.), the audience members perusing with interest the gold-trimmed, white-and-blue envelopes left on their seats, which contain exciting news of a forthcoming Seabrook-affiliated credit card – Greg is thinking that tonight will have done him no harm at all, no harm at all. Now he only has to keep his eyes peeled and make sure nothing goes –

‘Ha ha, look what the cat dragged in –’ in an instant Greg has slipped through the crowd to pounce on the rumpled figure arguing with the ticket-checker on the door. ‘Howard, fantastic to see you, what can I do for you?’

Howard blinks up at him, mouth ajar. ‘Uh, yeah, I wanted to come and see the show…?’

‘He doesn’t have a ticket,’ the boy on the door says sullenly.

‘Oh, gee, that’s a real shame, because – Jesus Christ, Howard, what the hell happened to your hand?’ The erstwhile history teacher’s hand is swathed in about a quarter-mile of not very clean bandage. He starts babbling something about an accident incurred while cooking a Chinese stir-fry, addressing himself to Greg’s midriff.

‘Have you taken it to a doctor?’ the Acting Principal interrupts.

‘Well, no, not yet,’ Howard says, still avoiding eye contact. He’s up to something, Greg thinks. You spend your day with teenage boys, you learn to detect the signs of a plot pretty quickly.

‘Looks like it needs medical attention. If I were you, I’d take it to a doctor, pronto.’

‘Yes, but…’ Howard mumbles, ‘but I didn’t want to miss the show.’

Greg makes a gesture of frustration with his fist. ‘Well, darn it, Howard, that’s a real shame, because the thing is we’re totally sold out.’

Howard gapes at him helplessly. Waves of booze radiate from him. ‘You couldn’t… I mean…’

There’s no way Greg would let him anywhere near this concert even if he didn’t look like he’d spent the last three days drunk in a ditch. ‘I’d love to, Howard –’ he puts his arm around Howard’s shoulder and steers him out of the way of the real guests, who are beginning to whisper and point ‘– I truly would, but we’re already turning people away here.’

‘It’s just –’ Greg can practically hear the motors in the man’s clogged brain ‘– just after, you know, working on the programme, I sort of, I feel a sort of a personal… personal wish to…’

‘I thoroughly understand that, Howard. I thoroughly understand that.’ Brother Jonas has appeared at his elbow; Greg nods at him meaningfully. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we get you some nice fresh air outside, and we can talk about it there?’

‘Okay,’ Howard says dismally, then checks himself. ‘Or actually, I wonder if I could have a quick word with Tom?’

‘With Tom?’ Greg smiles solicitously. ‘Now what would you have to say to Tom?’

‘Just wanted to wish him luck? For the future?’

‘That’s very kind of you, Howard, and I’ll be happy to pass that message on. We’re just about to start here though, so I think it would be better if –’

‘Okay, but… maybe just a quick…’

‘No, I don’t think that would be a good –’

‘I can see him right over – Tom! T– aagh!’

‘Howard? You all right, Howard?’

‘I – ah – uh –’

‘Just take a second to get your breathing back – that’s it, nice fresh air…’

‘Anything wrong there, Greg?’ calls Oliver Taggart, class of ’82, from the steps of the Hall.

‘Ha ha, Olly, you old son of a gun – no, just a little, a little stage fright, that’s all…’

With Brother Jonas’s help, Greg encourages Howard a little further into the bushy shadows of the Quad. ‘Sorry, buddy, just caught you a little awkwardly, must have accidentally brushed against that hand…’ Howard pants and burbles to himself. The man’s clearly having some kind of meltdown. Could be a good thing. Maybe he’ll go the whole hog, give up teaching and spare Greg a major headache. Damn hard to actually fire somebody these days. ‘How you doing there, feeling better? Tell you what, Howard. I’m sorry you can’t catch it live, but in view of your contribution, I’m going to send you a complimentary DVD of the concert, on the house, what do you say to that?’

Howard gurgles dispiritedly.

‘Attaboy. You take yourself home now and have a nice rest. Brother Jonas will see you to the gate. Enjoy your time off.’

Whatever he had planned, Howard now admits defeat and stumbles off into the night, the brother following a few steps behind. Greg keeps smiling and waving till he’s safely out of sight. Then he tells Gary Toolan on the door to alert him immediately should Howard reappear. What a headcase. Darn it, if there were any justice in the world it would be Howard being sent off to Timbuktu, not Tom Roche.

The upshot of this anyhow is that he misses all but the very end of Tiernan Marsh’s overture. But it goes down a bomb. The MC for the night comes on, Titch Fitzpatrick, a kid with a great attitude and charm by the bucketload, and introduces the next act – it’s Shadowfax, doing Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. Lost in the strutting, spiky rhythms, Greg soon forgets about the unpleasant business with Howard. We don’t need no education… Might surprise his pupils to learn that Greg had his own band once upon a time. Called themselves the Ugly Rumours, used to cover this very song. Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone! And now he’s Acting Principal of a school! Life’s funny that way.

Checking his programme (featuring a brief essay, ‘A Good Bounce of the Ball: 140 years of Seabrook Life’, by Gregory L. Costigan), he sees the Quartet’s up next, doing the Citroën ad. He seeks out Connie Laughton with his eye, and finds him hovering anticipatorily by the edge of the stage, conductor’s baton tucked under his arm. Good to have Van Doren back on-message, for Connie’s sake as much as anyone’s. And the audience’ll lap this up, just you watch. It really is a heck of a line-up. Maybe he should charge an extra fiver for those DVDs.

Titch Fitzpatrick vacates the stage, and Greg smiles expectantly. But as the Quartet emerge, his smile quickly fades to a frown. What the hell’s happened to Van Doren’s horn? And why are the four of them covered in tinfoil?