Unspoken

by Gerard Stembridge

  No one else in 2A was collected after school. Francis would be really embarrassed if his mam waited for him at the gate. Did Ian Barry mind? He didn’t seem to. From the way he acted in school he didn’t seem to mind about anything, even when other boys said bad things about him and made sure he heard. He just bounced along smiling, his curls hopping. Francis had already talked to lots of boys in his new class and he didn’t know why he wasn’t able to start talking to Ian Barry, but he just couldn’t do it. That’s why it was so surprising when it happened the other way around and Ian Barry talked to him.

  During sos Francis had been looking at Brother Hagan, thinking how glad he was that he hadn’t ended up in his class, 2E. Brother Hagan was the scariest-looking brother. Hedgehog, everyone called him, because his head was shaved around the sides and the thick black hair on top stood up. Every day, for the whole sos, he marched his class around the yard like soldiers: Clé, Deas, Clé, Deas, Clé! They were not allowed to play at all, just Clé, Deas, Clé! Suddenly, Ian Barry’s face was right in front of Francis, asking him something and he didn’t know what to say because he had never read the book he was showing him and he didn’t even know what the question meant: ‘Do you prefer the Five Find-outers to the Famous Five?’ Francis wanted to lie. He wanted to show off in front of Ian Barry. He felt his face go red. Then he said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh. But you like reading, don’t you?’

  How did Ian Barry know that? What else did he know about him?

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You’re the best in our class at reading. In my old school I used to be the best at reading but you’re better than me.’

  Francis remembered that the day before, when Mr Finucane asked boys to read from Aesop’s Fables out loud, he had let Francis read much longer than anyone else and said ‘ana-mhaith’ when he finished. That was why Ian Barry thought he was a good reader.

  ‘I thought I preferred the Famous Five until I started reading this. My daddy bought it for me in Dublin. I only started it yesterday and I’m up to page ninety-four already. Do you want to read it? I’ll give you a loan of it when I’m finished.’

  Francis said, ‘Yes, OK.’ and Ian Barry smiled at him. Then the bell rang and they had to go back to class, but after school he came over to him again and they walked together towards the big gate. Ian Barry started telling Francis all about the Five Find-outers, Larry and Daisy and Pip and Bets and Fatty especially, who was the cleverest, and his dog Buster and Mr Goon the policeman who was really stupid and funny. But when they were near the gate Ian suddenly said goodbye, see you Monday and ran off. Francis saw the same woman waiting. She kissed him and took his hand. Ian didn’t look back as they walked away.

  Because Francis had liked Francis and Clare: Saints of Assisi, so much, he had been thinking of getting another Vision Book from the library. There was one about St Francis Xavier called Francis of the Seven Seas, and St Anthony and the Christ Child, and Saint Ignatius and the Company of Jesus. But after talking to Ian Barry, he’d decided to borrow The Mystery of the Pantomime Cat instead. If he got it on Saturday he could read most of it before school on Monday and talk to Ian Barry about it.

  ‘Here it is. Plenty of Enid Blyton there to keep you going.’

  Francis looked to where the nice woman was pointing. There was a shelf full of books by Enid Blyton. She must be an amazing writer to write so many. Had Ian Barry read all of them? If he had, Francis would never catch up. The nice library woman picked up The Mystery of the Pantomime Cat.

  ‘Will I stamp this one for you?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  *

  At seven-thirty that night, in the Royal Marine Hotel, the Minister for Education made a speech that succeeded in surprising an entire roomful of journalists. Only one had been honoured with any kind of prior warning. Indicating the script in his hand, Dom had whispered to Hanley before dinner began. ‘I’m following your advice, by the way. Thank you in advance. Oh and don’t worry about taking notes. I’ll give you this copy when I’ve finished.’ There was a smirk and a giddiness about him that convinced Hanley that the Minister was about to announce something sensational and, though he had no idea what the speech contained nor which of his wise words had prompted it, Dom’s whisper had made him feel part of a very great secret. Intimating to everyone else in the room that he was thus privileged was not a difficult task, even in so limited a time-frame. By the time dessert was served, Hanley had moved through the fair, gliding from table to table, visited the gents, hovered at the bar and, by means of winks and whispered phrases heavy with import, such as, ‘Go easy on the sauce until after the speech. You’re going to need a clear head.’ ‘I hope your lads can make space on tomorrow’s front page. You’ll be looking for it.’ ‘Let’s just say it involves a rabbit and a hat.’ ‘You know our Dom. The surprise would be if he didn’t surprise us,’ he succeeded in raising anticipation amongst his colleagues for what was to come, while at the same time amplifying his own reputation as the man with inside knowledge. Several who wrote for the Sunday papers even thought it worthwhile to step out and phone their offices to warn the night editors that something particularly newsworthy might be arriving later on. Like Hanley, these correspondents implied that they knew more than they were willing to say at that moment.

  Quite early on in the Minister’s speech, it became clear that what he was about to say would indeed be a big story. By the time he spoke his final sentence and received what, by journalists’ standards, was unusually sustained and heartfelt applause, several reporters were hurrying to commandeer a phone, gather their thoughts and file a story they were now certain would be the Sunday morning front-page lead. Back in the function room, Hanley, applauding with the rest, felt like a cat who had got not only the cream but the keys to the creamery. Accepting admiring glances from those colleagues who he permitted to catch his eye, he congratulated himself for being the one to have nurtured this Minister and given him the spriod, the balls to get up on his hind legs in such a forum and speak, over the heads of the cabinet and the government and the Dáil, directly to the people. Announcing policy in this way was unprecedented and brave. That the policy should be so far-seeing and radical was the capper, as far as Hanley was concerned. Though several years younger than Dom, his pride in him at that moment was paternal.

  The Minister’s announcement would be the first thing Charles Mitchell would tell the country on the TV news the following day, it would be the front-page lead in every Sunday paper and on Monday in every daily paper. There would be editorials, all favourable. In the week following, the main topic of conversation would be this daring new plan for Free Education. As the applause finally ended and Dom sat down, he understood very well what he had done. With one speech, one idea, one political act, he had placed himself right at the centre of things. But it was not possible for him, at this moment, to predict his fate. What events would unfold? Who would emerge as friend or enemy? His hands tingled, his brain swirled like rip-tide at Lahinch, his heart was a galloping drunk, knocking over tables, crashing to the ground. Boom de boom de boom de boom de! The words lying silent on the pages, still crushed in his hands, could never convey the intoxication of the experience; hearing himself speak them, sensing the receptiveness of his audience. It would never be possible to recreate the hush that crept, cautious as a black cat, through the room or how, as word followed word, whispered comments and coughs and clinks simply evaporated, until only breath-held attentiveness remained, with Dom as the fulcrum. He loved it.

  ‘I am fortunate in entering office when there is a consciousness as never before of the vital part education must play in the future of a nation, not just for economic and technological advancement, but in the making of the social man, the complete person. Ireland is unshackling itself gently from the chains of the past. Education will pay a key role in deciding what our future will be.

  ‘But in this special year of 1966, this year in which we honour the teachers and poets who fought to esta
blish our independence, seventeen thousand children who finished primary school in June will receive no further education. Seventeen thousand. One third of the school population. And it is not just this year but every year that so many of our young citizens are condemned to a life of unskilled labour or unemployment or emigration. And we all know that the principal reason for this is not because further education will not be of benefit, nor because there is a lack of desire for it. It is because so many of our people cannot afford it.

  ‘This is a dark stain on the national conscience.

  ‘Apart from certain exclusive establishments, the general run of secondary schools charge fees of around thirty pounds a year for each pupil. It is not, on the face of it, an exorbitant sum. However, when the necessary extra costs for books and equipment are added, then forty-five pounds a year at least is needed to keep a child in secondary school. When, as in so many Irish families, there are four or more children, all at school-going age, then these annual costs can multiply to something more like two hundred pounds. This, in a family whose total income might not be much more than a thousand a year, becomes an intolerable burden. What choice does a hard-working parent have in such circumstances? Especially when the alternative is that their child, instead of being a cost to the family, can leave school to find some sort of menial job and actually bring money into the home. But in our society it is the weakest who will always go to the wall. Without education, these children will not have the necessary tools to prosper in the future.

  ‘We must also acknowledge that while there are many parents who are happy to endure privation so that their children receive the education they perhaps did not, there are also some who, having never experienced the positive effects of education themselves, see no value in it for their own family. But should the children suffer because of such a view?

  ‘I think it is one of the greatest tragedies of our history since independence that we have not found the means to check this terrible loss to the national potential for economic and cultural advancement.

  ‘I believe this is a situation that needs to be tackled with all speed and determination. The world of tomorrow will give scant attention to the uneducated and we will be judged by future generations on what we did for the children of our time.

  ‘What we need, and what I want, is to remove for ever the financial barrier to further education. I want every child in this state to have the opportunity to pursue education to, at the very least, Intermediate Certificate and, preferably, to Leaving Certificate level.

  ‘I want free secondary school education.

  ‘In considering how to achieve this, it has been important for me to find the simplest, speediest and most effective means and so, tonight, I wish to announce a new scheme for free education which will operate as follows. From the beginning of the next school year, September 1967, I will be requesting secondary schools to abandon fees. In return, these schools will receive from the state an agreed sum of money for every pupil they enrol. There will be no means test involved. All parents who want their child to continue in education simply have to send them to a school that has opted for my scheme.

  It is my fervent wish that the vast majority, if not all, of the schools in the state will avail themselves of the opportunity presented by this scheme and that, by the end of this decade, every child in the state and as a consequence, the state itself, will enjoy the benefits of free education.’

  Eighteen: September 13th

  The smoke from five pipes scented the air of the cabinet room. Six other ministers were lighting up cigarettes as Dom sat and took a large sheaf of papers from his briefcase. These, he planned to tell the meeting later, were a sample of the letters and telegrams he had received enthusing about his new scheme. Considerably less than half of the impressive pile were as he claimed, but Dom hoped that by showing what appeared to be huge popular support for his initiative it might offset some of the tornado of criticism he was nervously anticipating. Jesus! If his fellow ministers could see his shuddering heart it would make a liar of his calm, smiling face. In the perfumed smog drifting around the table it was hard enough even to see faces. The raw truth was that there was little Dom could do to influence how the discussion would go. It was all up to Lemass; how he decided to manage things. The letter he’d sent Dom yesterday and copied to the Department of Finance had given no hint that An Taoiseach had known anything about the matter beforehand. Very laudable scheme. Very bad idea to have announced it without first bringing it to cabinet. Very serious situation. Did that mean he was going to sit back and let Dom be flayed alive?

  Lemass did not bother to pretend there was anything else of importance on the agenda. Straight away he invited reaction to Dom’s speech. There was no pause or delay. Mick was in like flynn, apoplectic: ‘What… what… what… what was the Minister thinking of, giving out money like snuff at a wake? We… we… we can only spend what we have. Would Dom like us to… to… to raise more taxes to pay for his flights of fancy?’

  Erskine was less aggressive but his tendentiousness really got Dom’s goat.

  ‘It is a long tradition that policy is made by cabinet, not by individual ministers. I don’t think it can ever be correct to depart from such an honourable practice. It is, in my considered view, a retrograde development. Think about it, Dom, if all of us around this table today acted this way, then Government would simply collapse. You see the principle I am attempting –’

  Dom pretended to listen with interest, thinking blah blah blah and had difficulty hiding a smirk when Neil, every inch the no nonsense Northerner, ruthlessly cut across Erskine’s painfully kind reprimand. Unsheathing the pipe from his mouth, he jabbed it malevolently in Dom’s direction.

  ‘Let’s call it what it was. A solo run. It’s been tried before, God knows and it’ll be tried again. And smartly done, to give you your due, Dom. The question is: should you be let get away with it? The answer is: not this time, my friend.’

  When George spoke, his tone was, as usual, all sweet reason and concern.

  ‘Obviously the policy, in itself, has merit and, if brought to cabinet for discussion in the first instance, might well have met with all our approval…’

  There was a word to describe George. What was it again? It was on the tip of Dom’s tongue.

  ‘… Ironically, because he chose to bypass cabinet, Dom has made it less likely that his scheme will ever go ahead.’

  Oleaginous, that was the word. Dom found Frank’s loud honest rage refreshing by comparison.

  ‘Look, it’s as simple as this. We can’t have policy made on the hoof, especially by way of a bunch of journalists, of all people! If you want my opinion, there’s only one way to nip this in the bud. You have to go out on the plinth, Dom, and tell those same journalists that your speech was intended to reflect your personal view and nothing else. Of course, you’d love if at some future date, when it’s appropriate, the government might consider your scheme. Sorry if the speech gave the wrong impression. And so on.’

  Dom, appreciating the weight of Frank’s influence in cabinet, realised that this was a moment of extreme danger. What if others rowed in behind this specific suggestion? As everyone paused, puffed and considered, Dom looked towards Lemass at the far end of the cabinet table. So far An Taoiseach had just listened, let them all rage on. But if he didn’t intervene now the mood of the room might well be to make Dom recant, let him look foolish and politically inept.

  Lemass, with no discernible expression on his face or in his voice, turned to Jack and asked, ‘What’s the view in Finance?’

  With those words Dom heard the soft plash! of a lifeline thrown into choppy waters. He realised that Lemass was deliberately shifting the focus away from Frank’s proposal, knowing that while placid Jack would certainly report dismay from on high in the department, these complaints, filtered through his mellow Cork sing-song voice, would sound more like sorrow than anger, a crestfallen shake of the head rather than Frank’s Götterdämmerung. Dom sympathi
sed with Jack in this situation. The poor eejit and his harmless wife had flown back to Dublin on Sunday, from what was presumably a restful little holiday in Turkey, to see headlines announcing a new government policy he knew nothing about; a scheme that would probably cost his department millions. If Dom was in his place he’d be shoving a red hot poker up the offending arse and refusing to remove it until the culprit begged for forgiveness and promised never to speak out of turn again. But soft Jack was not a man for that kind of response. Certainly he relayed his department’s strong view that controlling budgetary policy would not be possible if ministers announced enormous expenditures like this without prior discussion, yet the lilt in his voice seemed to suck the poison out of the attack. Listening to him was like taking tea in the Bishop’s parlour on a winter evening, when the dreary complacence of the episcopal monologue conspired with the gathering dark and the heat of a great log fire to enervate the listener.

  As Dom noted how, with every soft sentence, Jack was lowering the temperature of the discussion, he tried to get Charlie’s attention and signal that now was the time to begin the fightback, but the lizard eyes were focused unblinkingly on the Minister for Finance. A cold, hard thought slapped Dom on the cheek. Was Charlie not going to speak up for him? Was he hoping he would fail? Jealousy? The farmers were riding him hard and his stock was the lowest it had been since he first became Minister, whereas, if the Free Education scheme went through, then Dom would be cock of the walk. That had become clear these last few days: the headlines, the gushing editorials, the telegrams. This morning, when Dom swanned into Leinster House, there may not have been a smile and a well done from everyone, but, certainly, every eye flicked admiringly in his direction as he passed. Charlie would be preternaturally aware of all this, and enraged by it. Obviously he’d never speak out directly against his friend Dom – would he? – but why had he not spoken at all so far?