by Paul Murray
A glazed Christmas-coloured distance away, Mario in the door of the game shop, making an Is it her? face at Skippy. Skippy yanks his face into the shape of a smile and waves him back.
‘Anyway – well, your Mr Roche was quite taken aback by that, obviously. But he said it explained a lot, in terms of your attitude lately. He said it was clear you’d been under a lot of strain. But he also said – and I agree with him – that the very worst thing to do would be to let that strain stop you from doing the thing you love.’
Skippy just nods. Disbelief all that is keeping him upright: the blood that whomps through his head, as stars whiz back and forth through the mall, through the bodies of the shoppers, which fade into negatives behind the bright streaks.
‘He says – he seems to me like a good man, a really decent man, he was a very promising rugby player, did you know that? Anyway, he – he knows all about missing chances, that’s how he put it to me. And whatever about chances and potential and all that – swimming’s what you love, Dan. It’s what you’ve always loved. God, I was telling him how we’d put you in the pool when you were only a year old, and you’d steam about like a, like a dolphin!’ Dad laughs to himself. Then he stops. ‘I know you’re worried about Mum, sport. Maybe it’s impossible to carry on a normal life while this is going on. But you know how much she wanted to come to the race tomorrow, you know how hard she’d been working to get herself strong enough to see you. If she thought for one second that you’d had to stop because of her, that after all this preparation you’d quit because of her… well, that would break her heart, sport, it really would.’
Oh Jesus.
‘I’m not putting any pressure on you. Whatever decision you make I’ll support that, and your coach will too. He’s not going to mention this to anyone in the school, he won’t talk to you about it either unless you want to. But he wanted you to know that if you did change your mind, if you did, there’s still a space for you on the bus.’
‘You’re not going to come.’ Knowing the answer in advance.
‘We can’t, Danno. I know I promised we would, and I feel terrible. But Dr Gulbenkian’s saying it might be unwise. Just at the minute he says he couldn’t advise it. And I don’t… I don’t want to be away from the house right now. I’m sorry, sport, I really am. But you don’t need me to have fun, right?’
‘Was that her? Was it Lori?’ they ask when he comes back into the shop.
He shakes his head. ‘Just my dad wanting to wish me luck for tomorrow.’
‘Champs don’t need luck!’ Geoff Sproke declares.
Soon they are leaving, zagging down the escalators. A man in a top hat and white gloves reluctantly gives them sample chocolates from a silver platter. At the sliding doors, carollers are gathered, swaying arm-in-arm and singing, ‘Winter Wonderland’.
‘Help fight cancer!’ One of their number, a young man in glasses and a green anorak, thrusts a bucket under Skippy’s nose; then, ‘Sorry,’ he says, and takes it away again.
Back at school, the bad feeling grows and grows. The pills call to you from under the pillow. Speeding out of control, Skip? The brakes are right here! Wouldn’t you like to be Danielbot again? Cool as a cucumber?
You try Lori’s phone but it goes straight through to voicemail.
‘Has she called you yet, Skippy?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, well, maybe she’s out of credit.’
‘Here we go again,’ Dennis says tartly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Dennis keeps mum, looks out the window.
‘She’s going to call,’ you say.
His schedule so falls as to leave Father Green’s Fridays free of classes after two o’clock; typically, he will spend this time in his office, attending to various administrative duties that arise from his charitable work. This afternoon has been passed on the phone to the biscuit factory, trying to confirm a donation for this year’s Christmas hampers. The company has always given generously in the past; now, however, the man with whom Father Green is used to dealing has moved on, and his replacement – younger, bored-sounding – insists that charitable donations come under PR, which has been ‘outsourced’ to another company. So Father Green calls this other company, where he speaks to a woman who does not understand what he wants. Is it T-shirts? TV coverage? Celebrity endorsements? It is simply a donation of biscuits to be delivered to households in poor areas, Father Green tells her. Oh no, that would be a decision for the biscuit company itself, she tells him, and, after tapping at her keyboard, she gives him the name of the man he spoke to earlier.
He hangs up the phone, checks his watch. Twenty past three. Classes will be over soon.
Jerome.
Switching on the kettle, he sits down to open a drawer of correspondence.
I can hear your heartbeat, Jerome. When is the last time it beat this fast?
Old ladies’ handwriting, pitifully frail. Reaching across the desk for his reading glasses.
In Africa?
The kettle has boiled. He pours the water into a cup, places the bag in the water, watches the umber clouds billow forth.
He knows your desire, Jerome. He trembles whenever you look at him. So uncommonly beautiful, so desperate for love.
Spooning out the bag, pouring a little milk, just a splash, from the small carton.
You will show him how to pack the hampers, how each object must be arranged. He will kneel here, working quietly while you read through the accounts. Then, absently, you start to stroke his hair. He makes no protest or complaint. Instead his head slowly comes to rest against your thigh, you see his eyelashes flutter closed – then you fuck him in his little rosebud, over this desk, you fuck him!
The cup overturning, tea pooling on the varnish, devouring the letters of his parishioners –
Ha ha ha ha!
And the air is filled by that burning wind, that roiling stew of carnality: animal sweat, the fetor of unwashed loins, white eyes rolling at you while black arms hammer languorously at the walls of the church, that tiny outpost of decency, so laughably flimsy in the relentless heat –
How you missed it, Jerome. The voice, that Old Familiar, so close now its words and his own thoughts are almost indistinguishable. Why deny what is in your heart! Why deny yourself life?
The heat! He feels it now, again, as if he were in Hell already! Waves of it, beating in through the metal walls of his hut, all night long, dreams and desert melted into one overpowering carousel, sweat soaking the bedclothes and he with the cold blade to his flesh, tears in his eyes as he implored God for the strength to do it, to rid himself once and for all of this ever-flourishing root of wickedness, this lightning rod for all that is unholy –
But you did not.
He did not – could not!
Because you knew the truth.
He could only flee Africa, batten the door on those memories, those flames of desire and their quenching! And every day since he has heard it rattling!
Open it, Jerome.
Has he not prayed for it to be silent? Has he not prayed to be cleansed? Has he not begged God to show him the light, to lead him to goodness? And yet there is only desire, temptation, the Devil, gleaming at him from every grain of sand, calling from every pair of plump, incarnadine lips, and Christ not once, not the faintest glow of a presence, not the vaguest adumbration in a dream, not once in nearly seventy years!
You knew that there was no one watching.
How is a man to win that battle? Where is he to find the strength?
The hour arrives, Jerome. This is my last gift to you. Once more, to feel a body touching yours. Love. And after that, perhaps, peace.
In the corridor he hears a bell, doors opening, a thousand youthful footsteps rushing free.
Trudging back down the hall towards the priest’s office, every Loriless step like getting cut up into shreds. You take out your phone. It gazes back at you blank and placid. You imagine being with her and telling her wh
at Dad said, maybe telling her everything, her saying kind things, wise things. It’s just a swim meet, Daniel, no biggie. Hey D, don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. You imagine her being with you, a bandage over a wound.
WHERE ARE YOU?
You write the text and then delete it, you’ve already left two voice-mails, there are rules about these things, you don’t want to seem desperate. But you are desperate! And the unsent message bounces around inside you agonizingly,
WHERE ARE YOU WHERE ARE YOU?
like a scalding ping-pong ball. You descend the steps into the basement, past Ruprecht’s laboratory. Silence from the priest’s door. Then, weirdly, as if just for a second you had X-ray vision, it’s like you see him waiting on the other side, a praying mantis poised there motionless. You unlock your phone again. Fuck it anyway! Type in the message and send it,
WHERE ARE YOU?
You knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ the voice returns.
You enter to find Father Green sitting at his desk, a china cup poised primly at his lips and a small black missal between his fingers. ‘Ah yes, Daniel, very good,’ he says. ‘Close the door, would you? It’s just the two of us today.’
Pock, pock, pock: if ping-pong’s your game, Friday night in the Junior Rec Room is where the action’s at its hottest. The table tocks like a clock gone crazy, as reigning champion Odysseas Antopopopolous, in spite of a badly bitten ankle, continues to vanquish all comers.
The weekend exodus of boarders has long since trickled to a halt; of the remnants, some rush in and out of dorm rooms, spraying aftershave haphazardly and hustling each other out into the evening; others have found alternative means of entertainment.
‘Hey, Geoff, here’s you this morning, brushing your teeth.’
‘Hey, look, there I am!’
‘Hey, Victor, here’s Barton Trelawney punching you in the head, remember?’
‘Oh yeah!’
Mario, perched on a bench, is going through the video library on his phone. ‘Geoff, here you are again, taking stuff out of your locker. Hey, Dennis, here’s you telling me to stop filming you.’
‘God damn it, don’t you have any porn on that thing?’
At that moment the door opens and Ruprecht enters the Rec Room, wearing school blazer, cufflinks and generally sparkling from head to toe.
‘Hey, looking good, Blowjob!’
‘Where are you going, Ruprecht? Are you going to ask the nuns out on a date?’
Diffusing a redundant cloud of hairspray over his wiffle, Ruprecht explains the latest variation of Operation Falcon, viz., to go over disguised as himself, Ruprecht Van Doren, explain to the nuns that his science project, i.e. the pod, was thrown over the wall by bullies, and ask if he can please have it back.
‘Not bad,’ Dennis considers. ‘That sounds like it could actually work.’
‘The danger is that they might have seen me escaping through the laundry window,’ Ruprecht says. ‘But it’s a chance I have to take.’ He examines himself in the mirror over the water fountain.
‘Gaylords,’ Darren Boyce fires at the group on his way to the bathroom. As he’s passing out the door, Skippy passes in; that is to say, suddenly he is there, in the doorway, though attended by such a palpable sense of weight it’s hard to imagine him actually moving anywhere, as if he’s subject to some private gravity that makes it impossible to raise his limbs. In his hand, meaninglessly, is a frisbee.
‘Yo, Skipford, how was hamper-packing?’
‘Didn’t let Father Green bum you, did you?’
‘Hope you at least made him buy you dinner first!’
Skippy drags himself over the threshold without reply.
‘Hey, what’s with the frisbee, Skip?’
‘What happened to your date?’
‘She just called.’ Footsteps slooching zombie-like over the linoleum. ‘She can’t come out, she’s sick.’
‘Sick? What’s wrong with her?’
A shrug. ‘She’s got a cough.’
‘Crap.’
‘That sucks.’
‘Maybe you could go up to her house and see her?’
‘She didn’t sound like she wanted me to.’
‘Poh, girls never tell you the truth about what they want you to do,’ Mario states. ‘That is lesson number one in dealing with girls. You should go up there right now and give her a big fat kiss.’
‘Even if you can’t kiss her, you could still feel her boobs?’ Victor Hero suggests.
‘Victor’s right,’ Mario concurs. ‘I’m no doctor, but I don’t think anybody ever got sick from feeling a girl’s boobs.’
‘You’re more likely to get sick from not feeling a girl’s boobs,’ Victor remarks, a little wistfully.
‘Though if you don’t feel like it,’ Geoff says, as Skippy does not seem much cheered by this, ‘you could just stay here? Why don’t you put your name down for table tennis?’
‘Or join me in a game of Russian roulette,’ Dennis offers. ‘I play it with five bullets?’
‘Or hey –’ Mario opening his phone again ‘– check this out, Skip, it’s Geoff brushing his teeth, see? And there’s a seagull on the rugby pitch… and the rugby pitch on its own, without the seagull… and here’s you coming through the door, remember that?’
‘Mario, for God’s sake, that was three minutes ago, of course he remembers.’
‘Yes, but he has not seen the film of it.’
‘Benders,’ says Darren Boyce, on his way back from the bathroom.
Close your eyes and the sky is full of burning planes. The night is caused by _________, it grinds its teeth, it scrapes its arms. The air feels like girl’s hair, the moon is an eye rolled back in its head, here is a nice lollipop for you bitch how do you like that you thought you were so great now you better do what I tell you
That’s not what you say, Carl. Janine’s voice in his head, explaining the Plan to him. Say what I tell you to say. Then she’ll do whatever you want
the O like a pink mouth wide open clamped round you tight as a hand sweet and sore at the same time like cuts on your arm the grey roof like craters of the moon the sky whooshing and wobbling like it’s just snorted a big line do you like that you slut do you like the taste how many pills do you want for that
What do you want her to do? You want her to suck your dick?
Like this?
[ ]
Oh my god
The Plan works she meets him wrapped up in a hoodie and scarf I can’t let Daniel see me It’s been so long tell her It’s been so long and then You look so beautiful You look so beautiful she takes your hand her finger traces over the cuts like a tongue Why do you do that Because I am bored you think but instead you say Because I missed you she starts crying
Then tell her I love you
Like this
I love you
last night in Janine’s granny’s greenhouse Is this part of the Plan? a secret part he didn’t care
I love you, Carl, I love you
doggystyle in dirt and plants and empty mini-bottles of gin with Vaseline to stop it hurting It still hurts Well here is something that will hurt more BAM that is what she deserves she puked gin into her granny’s plants afterwards you switched the heaters off so the flowers will die
I love you, you say
Oh Carl!
The Plan works like a dream the zip comes down
I love you too
Ha ha you slut the taste in your mouth is your friend’s asshole you win the prize it’s on its way – you don’t say that
around you the night freezing melting
the gook’s slanty eyes at the end of a long black gun
the O so bright the whole sky burning with napalm
everything smells like petrol and with the sawn-off no with a flamethrower you take out the gook he falls through the door with a burned-off face and then up to the school letting rip in the assembly bodies tumbling eyes crying blood everybody teachers Nurse Barry Mark
Lori Daniel no wait I have a special plan for you she doesn’t know shooting her in the face with the BIGGEST GUN IN THE WORLD–
mmmf Lori’s head pops up from between your legs making a choking noise and she twists about reaching around for her bag dribbling globs of jizz onto your jeans that are Diesel she has a Kleenex in her hand is she just going to spit it out? your left hand zips out and grabs her jaw she wriggles about going mmmf mmmf till finally you hear the gulps and you see her throat go up and down and release her back into the seat to wipe her eyes, sobbing, why did you do that?
Your head so heavy and sleepy now
Why do you have to be such an asshole?
and then she sees the phone in your hand, and freezes, and her green red eyes go wide, What the fuck are you doing?
Nothing, you don’t even look at her
and suddenly like a wildcat she’s lunging over you and screaming at the top of her voice and scrabbling and scraping trying to reach it even though it’s too late ha ha and you push her back and away shouting at her at the top of your voice shut up bitch shut the fuck up ho
‘Hey, someone sent me a video-message!’ Mario exclaims, springing out of his seat. ‘Ha ha, up yours, Hoey, someone’s sent me a video-message! I told you this phone wasn’t a waste of money!’
‘Who’s it from, Mario?’
‘ID withheld,’ Mario reads. ‘Whoever it is, though, he’s got the good stuff. Check this out.’ Four heads gather eagerly around the phone, knocking together like clunky moons.
‘Oh-ho-ho! This is a bit more like it!’
‘What is it? I can’t see.’
‘Yeah, move over, Victor… holy shit, hey Skip, take a look at this.’
The picture is fuzzy and dark, but there at the centre, in a vortex of shadow, a pale, pixellated face may be seen attached to an anonymous penis.
‘Ho, this bitch is really chugging it back.’
