Skippy Dies: A Novel

by Paul Murray

  And then at the back of a cupboard he finds the camera – the magical summer camera, the one she was reviewing a couple of months ago. With a sense of exhilaration, knowing that it contains actual moving images of her, he switches it on; and moments later, there she is, that day in the kitchen, with a cigarette in her hand and the light falling across her. His heart leaps, watching her shimmer at him from the screen; and then sinks, as the little scene disintegrates, inexplicably and inexorably, into a fight. He plays the clip again with numb fingers, watching their conversation unravel, listening to her tell him to forget it, to put that thing away. Even on the tiny screen the sadness etched into her face is unmistakeable. You did that, Howard.

  Everything clangs like bells inside his head. He switches off the camera and sets it down. He scoops up the photographs and stubs and tickets, but the box slips from his grip and the contents, all those days so carefully misremembered, scatter across the floor like orphans escaped from an ogre’s cellar. He lets out a roar, he bends again to pick them up, but this time manages to scorch his elbow on the candle. Fuck it! Fuck! Grinding his teeth in rage, he flattens his hand and thrusts it palm-down into the flame. He holds it there for as long as he is able, and then for a little while more, until all thoughts have been seared from his head, and then still more. Tears run down his cheeks, lightning bolts flash beneath his eyelids. The pain is astonishing, like a new world underneath this one, raw and vivid and shivering. The air fills with the smell of cooking meat. Finally, with a cry, he pulls his hand away and staggers to the bathroom.

  His whole hand is inert; it feels like an alien substance, a lump of fire or of pure pain grafted onto the end of his arm. When he runs cold water over it, it’s like his whole body has been hit by something – like a knight lanced in a joust, or two waves clashing, matter and antimatter. One forgets quite how painful pain is, how literal and unironic. He stands there sobbing, the water drilling into his flesh, the agony shrill in his ear like an alarm. His mind, however, suspended above the scene, is suddenly crystal-clear.

  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 re
al 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?

  Mom is cleaning the kitchen. She has been cleaning it for hours, down on her knees in her dressing gown. The bucket of stuff smells like it could get you high. I’m going out Carl says. Mom doesn’t hear him.

  Barry is waiting at Ed’s when he gets there, walking up and down like a dog that’s been tied up. A second later the car pulls up and the door swings open.

  Inside everybody’s eyes are red from hash smoke. They’re all laughing and slagging each other like usual but underneath you can feel other things swirl around like sharks. Carl sits in the boot because there’s no room. He watches the Saturday-night streets outside, chippers, billboards, traffic lights, like a huge hand slowly closing around them.

  Across Deano’s knees the sports bag from under the bed.

  In his head a black field, hands rising out of the grass.

  Where is the place? Barry says.

  Not far, Mark says.

  Everybody chewing the inside of their mouths. To distract them Deano asks, if they could have any bird, who would be their number one. I’ll go first. Angelina Jolie, hands fuckin down. Mark says Scarlett. Knoxer says BETHani. Uh, is she legal yet? Deano goes. If she’s old enough to bleed, goes Knoxer. Barry says Beyoncé. But she’s black! Ste says and everyone laughs.

  What about you, head? Deano says.

  Carl wants to say Lori just to say her name. But he doesn’t want to say it in this car. It’s like she’s sand now, magic sand, he has only a little left, and if he takes it out here it will be blown away.

  Well?

  LORILORILORI, goes his brain. He feels like crying. Beyoncé as well, he says.

  Knoxer grunts, Fuck’s sake.

  Stephen? Deano says to Ste. Ste is quiet for a long time. Then he says, Helen of Troy.

  What?

  Who the fuck is Helen of Troy?

  She was Greek, Ste says. They had a war about her. Vietnam? Carl says. No, you spa, Ste says, like a thousand years ago, in Greece.

  That’s stupid, Deano says.

  Why is it stupid?

  Because, you don’t even know what she looked like.

  They had a fuckin war over her. Obviously she must have been pretty fuckin hot.

  Yeah, but it has to be someone alive, Deano says.

  Why? Ste says.

  Because how are you goin to ride her if she’s fuckin dead?

  For fuck’s sake – Ste is getting pissed off – it’s a game, you cunt. It doesn’t matter who we fuckin pick. You think Angelina fuckin Jolie’s going to ride you just cos you picked her? If Angelina Jolie was right here in this fuckin car I bet you a million quid she’d ride fuckin Looney Tunes here before she rode you.

  Deano shuts his mouth tight and looks out the window.

  I’m just sayin, Ste says, if you want to pick the hottest bird, like, you’ve got your Beyoncés and your Angelinas and all them, but the little old lady shufflin off to fuckin bingo night, fifty years ago she could have been sexier than all of them. She could’ve been the sexiest bird of all time. And then, on top of that, there’s all the birds that are dead. Like in history, there must have been millions of amazing rides. But we’ll never even know what they looked like.

  What the fuck are you on about, you gimp? Knoxer says.

  I dunno, Ste says. It just seems sort of unfair.

  Maybe someday someone will invent a time machine and you can go back and ride all the dead birds, Deano says.

  Youse lads are fuckin strang
e, Knoxer says. Then the car stops and everyone goes quiet.

  We’re he-ere, Mark says in a Poltergeist voice.

  They are on an ordinary-looking road lined with ordinary-looking houses. Right in front of the car, though, in the middle of the normal houses, are these gates. They remind Carl of Lori’s gates but they’re not in Foxrock, he doesn’t know where they are. A wall too tall to climb runs from the gates away behind the houses.

  For a minute they sit there in the car, like they’re waiting for something, but Carl doesn’t know what. I can’t do this without a blast, Mark says at last and reaches over Ste’s leg for the glove compartment. Inside there’s a package wrapped in brown paper and a film canister filled with coke. Mark takes a big snort then gives it to Ste, then Deano and Knoxer have some. But Knoxer gives it back to Ste without Carl or Barry having any. He doesn’t look at them, he acts like for a minute he’s forgotten they’re there. Okay, Mark says. He gets out of the car and goes to the intercom. Carl can’t hear what he says. He gets back in the car. They don’t talk, coke frazzles electric through the air. The gates swing open. Mark drives through. The gates close again behind them. He pulls the car up outside a little house that doesn’t look like there’s anyone in it. The others all get out, someone opens the boot. There are no lights, the air has gone dark blue and everyone has turned into shadows. This is fucking weird. A second ago, just on the other side of that wall, they were in the city. Now it’s like they’re in the country. Come on, Mark says with the package in his hand and he disappears instantly into the dark like he’s fallen down a hole.