by Paul Murray
‘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.
Geoff, Ruprecht and Jeekers are trailing wordlessly down the corridor on the way to Science when Dennis steps out from behind a pillar.
‘Not so fast, there, losers,’ he says.
‘What do you want?’ Geoff replies.
‘I want my five euro.’ Dennis waves a chaotic-looking ledger at him. ‘From you, and you, and from fatty here.’ He rocks back on his heels expectantly. Niall, reeking of cigarette smoke, leers at them from over his shoulder.
‘I don’t owe you anything, asshat,’ Geoff says.
‘Oh you don’t, don’t you?’ Dennis says airily. ‘The small matter of the Nervous Breakdown Leaderboard doesn’t ring any bells?’
‘What?’
‘Allow me to refresh your memory,’ Dennis says, opening the ledger with a flourish. ‘Here we are… Geoff Sproke, ninth September, sum of five euro on Brother Jonas to crack up first. Jeekers Prendergast, September eleven, unlucky for some, predicts Lurch, five euro. Ruprecht Von Blowjob, same date, five euro on Kipper Slattery – bad choice, Blowjob, the old ones never go under, not when their pension’s in sight. Anyhow, you all lose, so cough up.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Howard the Coward,’ Dennis snaps, gesturing exasperatedly back down the stairs. ‘He’s lost it. He’s the first to go. None of you guessed him. So now it’s time to pay up.’
‘What do you mean, he’s lost it?’
‘His mind, you idiot. Why do you think he wasn’t in class today?’
‘I don’t know, maybe he’s out sick?’
‘He’s not out sick, his car’s in the car park. They’re not letting him teach because he’s gone mad.’
‘He didn’t seem mad to me,’ Geoff objects.
‘Uh, kidnapping us from school to bring us to a museum with nothing in it? Then making us stand around in a freezing park listening to a load of stuff that isn’t even in the book?’
‘So what?’
‘So, what more do you want, him to skateboard through the Annexe in his mother’s wedding dress? Give me five euro.’
Geoff and the others continue to resist, but then Simon Mooney comes along and asks if they’ve heard that Howard the Coward’s got the boot.
‘This morning, the Automator hauled him up to the office first thing. Jason Rycroft heard Bitchface Moore saying it to Felcher.’
‘Holy shit,’ says Geoff. Jeekers, on hearing this news, looks deeply unhappy and guilty, even more so than usual.
‘I rest my case,’ Dennis says.
‘What case?’ Simon Mooney wants to know.
‘Glad you asked me that, Moonbuggy, because I believe you owe me the sum of five euro. As for you, gentlemen, will that be cash or cash?’
‘Get bent,’ Geoff says defiantly, and makes to move on. Dennis lunges after him.
‘Give me my money!’ he demands.
‘No way!’ Geoff yells back, and there is a crackle of that pure enmity that can only exist between former friends.
‘Give me it,’ Dennis repeats warningly.
‘You’re just going to spend it on cigarettes!’
‘So? You’re just going to spend it on polyhedral dice for role-playing, or should I say, role-gaying.’
‘At least role-playing doesn’t give you cancer!’ Geoff shouts, tugging his arm free of Dennis’s pincer-grip.
‘Role-playing is worse than cancer!’ Dennis shouts back, and it seems like the dispute is going to devolve yet again into blows, when from the window Simon Mooney cries out, ‘Oh my God!’
They turn to see him gazing out dumbstruck. ‘It’s her…’ he croons. Quarrel temporarily suspended
, they flock to his side. Simon’s right, it is her; and for a single sighing moment, the boys are reunited in memories of a better time.
‘Remember the day she wore that blue top, and you could sort of see her nipples?’
‘Remember how she used to suck the top of her pen?’
‘I wonder what she’s doing here?’
‘Do you think she’s coming back?’
‘Hey look, it’s Howard…’
‘He’s talking to her!’
‘Maybe he’s going to run away with her,’ Geoff surmises. ‘Maybe he told the Automator to sit on it and now she’s come to pick him up and they’re going off to live on like a desert island.’
‘Fat chance,’ Dennis says.
‘He used to have the horn for her,’ Geoff points out.
‘Newsflash, Geoff, having the horn for someone does not mean they’re going to get jiggy with you. Haven’t you heard? There’s an asymmetry in the universe.’ This last accompanied by a snide sidelong glance at Ruprecht, who does not react.
‘I don’t care,’ Geoff says. ‘Come on, Howard! Run away with her!’
Consumed by the urge to make a speedy exit, Howard walks right by without seeing her. Typical perversity of fate: it’s probably the first time in the last six weeks he hasn’t been thinking of her, hasn’t been half-hoping she might appear. He is maladroitly attempting to balance a stack of books while fishing his car key from his pocket, when he hears her voice behind him, cool as the breeze: ‘Well, well, so we meet again.’
She looks, if it’s possible, even more beautiful than before – although maybe it’s not possible, maybe it’s just that that level of beauty is too bright to be fully retained in the memory, any more than you can photograph the sun – dressed in a man’s white shirt in which her perfection appears so simply and ineffably that it seems to present an answer to any question or doubt anyone might ever have had about anything, so quietly overwhelming that Howard forgets he hates her, instead is suffused with joy, thankfulness, relief, at least until he realizes that the man’s white shirt probably belongs to her fiancé.
‘Been a while,’ she says, evidently unphased by his failure to reply.
‘What are you doing here?’ No sooner has he said it than the dreadful thought occurs to him that the Automator has drafted her in to replace him, invoking so many layers of irony he thinks his brain might short-circuit; but she tells him that she’s come to speak to the sixth-years about careers in investment banking, and also to have a word with Greg about the school’s portfolio. She pushes back a tress of golden hair. ‘How have you been, Howard?’
How has he been? Can she seriously be asking him that, after taking a hatchet to his life? Apparently she can. Her ocean-blue eyes await him with limitless concern; backlit by the sun, the contours of her face seem to glow, as though she is turning into light. And Howard can’t actually see a ring on her finger. Could it be that Fate isn’t quite done with him? Has she reappeared just in time to ride away with him into the sunset, or to present herself as a sunset for him to ride away into? Could it be that by some miracle everything might still turn out all right?
‘I’ve been better,’ he says gruffly. ‘We’ve had a time of it here lately. You heard about Daniel Juster?’
‘God, yes, it was horrible.’ Lowering her voice she says, ‘That awful priest… what are they going to do?’
‘Nothing,’ he says, shrivelling interiorly at the question. ‘They decided not to do anything.’
She considers this. ‘Probably wise,’ she says judiciously.
‘How about you? Anything new?’
‘Oh, you know…’ Her eyes dance over the brutal brick façade of the Annexe. ‘Nothing, really. Working. It’s okay. A little boring. It’s nice to be back here. I forgot how much I enjoyed playing teacher.’
‘Ever tempted to come back?’ he says, leaving a double-meaning there should she choose to pick it up.
She laughs melodiously. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I’m not like you, Howard, I don’t have a vocation for it.’
‘The boys liked you.’
‘They liked staring at my tits,’ she says. ‘That’s not the same thing.’
‘I liked you.’
‘Mmm.’ She shields her eyes with her hand, turns her gaze onto the car park, the wintery trees. ‘Hard to believe it’s almost Christmas already. Time just goes, doesn’t it? Faster and faster. Next thing you know we’ll all be in a nursing home.’
Howard is getting increasingly frustrated with this conversation. Are they just going to keep going like this, being nice and charming and polite? ‘You know,’ he says, ‘we never got a chance to talk.’
‘Talk?’
‘I meant to get your number, after…’ He trails off; she gazes keenly into one eye, then the other, as if he’s raving. ‘I left my girlfriend,’ he blurts.
‘Oh, Howard. I’m so sorry. She sounded so nice.’
‘Jesus Christ…’ He turns his back on her momentarily so he can gnash his teeth, clench and unclench his fists. ‘Are you really doing this? Do you really expect me just to forget everything?’
‘Forget what?’
‘Oh, so you do, so you are, okay.’
‘I don’t understand what it is you want me to say.’
‘I want you to act like what happened between us happened!’ Howard shouts.
She does not reply, merely purses her lips, as if studying an untrustworthy fuel gauge on a long trip.
‘How could you have a fiancé? What kind of person does that?’ He is still carrying the pile of books from his locker; he deposits them on top of the car, where they totter and spill over the roof. ‘I mean, was anything you said true? Did you feel anything for me at all? Have you even read Robert Graves?’
She doesn’t respond; the angrier he gets, the more serene she becomes, which makes him angrier still.
‘Is this just what you do? Go around making people fall in love with you, and then dropping them, like it doesn’t mean anything? Like nothing leads to anything else? Like it’s all just there to pass the time, me, and those kids in your Geography class you got all het up about recycling and global warming, I mean do you care about any of it? About your job, even? Your fiancé? Do you actually care about anything, or is it all just one big game to you?’
She remains silent, and then impulsively, or with the appearance of impulsivity, she says, ‘We’re not all like you, Howard. Life isn’t black and white for everybody.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I mean, not everybody has the ability you have. The ability to care. You’re lucky, you don’t even realize it but you are.’
‘So let me care about you! If I’m so good at it, why won’t you let me do it, instead of running away?’
‘I don’t mean me. I mean the children.’
‘The children?’
‘The boys. They like you. They listen to what you say. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen it.’
What the fuck? ‘Are you talking about teaching?’ Howard is flabbergasted. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’
‘I’m saying, not everybody gets to do something good. Those kids will grow up to be better people from being in your class. That makes you lucky.’
‘Oh wow, I never thought of it that way,’ Howard says. ‘Now I feel so much better.’
‘You should,’ she says. ‘I’d better go. Goodbye, Howard. I hope everything works out for you.’
‘Wait, wait –’ his head is spinning as if he’d downed a bottle of vodka; laughing, he seizes the strap of her bag ‘– wait, just tell me one thing – what you said at the Hop, remember how you told me that at your own mixer, when you were a kid, no one would dance with you? That was a lie, wasn’t it? Just confirm that for me, that it was just another lie?’
She shoots him a cold ugly look and pulls the strap free of his hand. ‘Have you been listening to a single word I’ve said?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Howard says brightly. ‘Goodbye, so. Good
luck with the sixth-years. I’m sure they’ll be very interested to hear about your work, and all the nice things you can get for making rich old men that little bit richer.’
She steps free of him, holds his gaze a moment. ‘A lot richer,’ she says expressionlessly. ‘They pay me to make them a lot richer.’ With that she turns and walks away, into the school. Howard watches her go, possessed by a strange, hating euphoria; then, as he moves for his car, he chances to look up, and sees, from an upper window of the building, a handful of his second-year class – Mooney, Hoey, Sproke, Van Doren – gazing forlornly down at him, and his brief sense of victory is instantly and thoroughly replaced by a crushing sense of failure. He waves at them limply, and gets into his car without waiting to see if they wave back.
But the past isn’t done with him yet. Howard’s sitting in front of the TV news that night – already on his fourth beer, a fringe benefit of not having a job to go to tomorrow – when he realizes he’s staring at an image of his own house. It appears with its neighbours, a series of gently sloping triangles silhouetted on the crest of the hill, behind the brassy bouffant of a reporter.
He starts; then, with an eerie sense of impending revelation, of a kind that perhaps haunts all inhabitants of the television age, he leans forward and turns up the sound.
The story is about the new Science Park. It seems that, while digging the foundations, engineers unearthed some kind of prehistoric fortress. On the orders of the development company, however, they kept schtum and continued with their work, and apparently the whole thing would have been bulldozed if a disgruntled Turkish labourer, denied his overtime for the fourth week running, hadn’t blown the whistle. ‘Archaeologists are calling it a “find of incalculable value”,’ the reporter says. ‘We put these allegations to the project’s Publicity Director, Guido LaManche.’
‘No,’ Howard says, out loud.
But it is he: Guido LaManche, bestower of wedgies, infamous farter, doughnut-eating champion, pioneer of the bungee jump in Ireland – here he is now in a well-tailored suit, telling the reporter that as far as he can see these commentators are generating much heat but very little light.
