The Dead School (13 page)

That night he thanked Jesus and his Blessed Mother for his good fortune. He was so lucky to be alive. He knew that. In the school, his boys loved him even more now. Any time Father Stokes met
him, he had a twinkle in his eye too, for he knew a lot more than he was letting on.

The following summer they went up to Belfast together and Raphael marvelled at the accents and the sights that were to be seen. She clasped his hand in hers as they wandered
together through Ann Street on a Saturday night, with the smell of fried steak wafting on the warm air as the fruit-sellers peddled their wares in sharp-edged tongues and the excited cries of
children lifted to the sky as the carousel circled in a coloured blur. What a night that was. Out of nowhere leaped a melodeon player, confronting them with demands for money and the sad relic of
what had once been a respectable march melody. ‘Here,’ smiled Nessa as she opened her purse and took out a sixpenny piece. ‘More,’ as she said later with a wry grin,
‘in pity than in payment.’ A grizzled woman caught hold of Raphael by the coat sleeve and waved a card of collar studs and tie pins in front of his face. ‘There!’ she cried.
‘These’ll dazzle your eyes for you! Surprised are you, Mister? I’ll bet you are! Six simulated gold tie-pins and six gent’s studs. A tanner for the lot – what do you
say?’

A tanner indeed it was as they pressed onward through a crowd gathered to hear ‘Springtime in the Rockies’ being played by a dirty-faced youth on a saw.

‘He’s good,’ murmured Raphael as the boy astonished all about him with his performance, his grubby cap filling up with coppers. ‘In all my living days I never seen the
like of this Belfast,’ said Raphael as he put his arm about her shoulder, and as if to prove his point found himself almost eyeball to eyeball with a tiny man in a battered stovepipe hat who
shoved a doll-sized trapeze artist complete with swing into his hand and shouted, ‘Get your somersaulting wee men here!’ and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, twirled what
looked like a giant green worm in front of his nose, exhorting him to not miss this, the last opportunity he might ever have to treat his lady friend to a ‘Wriggly snake in Ann Street’,
and what could the schoolmaster do but agree, as he pocketed the painted rubber toy, thinking to himself what a surprise that would give his pupils on Monday morning.

After the Royal Cinema where they spent two whole hours laughing themselves sick at the lunatic carry-on of the Marx Brothers, it was into the Genoa Café to treat themselves to a pair of
ices topped with cherries, and as Nessa mushed up hers with her spoon, he caught her looking at him out of the corner of her eye and if he had been the happiest man on earth earlier on when they
were watching Harpo and Groucho wrecking half of New York, well now he didn’t know what he was.

Sometimes now he didn’t even notice the boys at the back of the classroom, talking. That was because he was writing ‘I love you’ in his letters to Nessa.

The day of their marriage was a truly joyous occasion. Partly of course because the service was being celebrated by Father Des but also because Paschal O’Dowd had managed
to make it and had had a great day along with all of Nessa’s relatives who were wonderful people. They made it the party of a lifetime. When Raphael took the floor and recited ‘Wee
Hughie’ in what can only be described as a ramshackle Ulster accent, it nearly brought the house down. But not nearly as much as Nessa when she got up and sang ‘Ave Maria’. Nobody
had ever heard anything like it. When it was over, Raphael had to look away from her, he was so overcome by emotion. There was a part of him that wanted to die there on the spot and he understood
why. Because he realized that as long as he lived, he could never, possibly, be as happy again.

At least not until that night when they lay together in bed and he ran his fingers through her long, blonde hair, her body warm against his. The moon shone on her ivory-pale face and Raphael was
so overwrought, the words he wanted to say got all clogged up in his throat. But it didn’t matter. She said them instead. ‘I love you,’ she said and her lovely soft fingers traced
a line across his cheek as delicately as a webstrand falling through the air.

Father Des was a regular visitor to the house in Madeira Gardens. There he’d be, coming up the road with his jacket over his shoulder, already licking his lips at the
prospect of some of Nessa’s scones – for boy could she bake scones!

Raphael would have him spotted just as soon as he turned the corner. ‘There he is – the man himself!’ he’d shout and Nessa would look up from the rock garden and shade
her eyes as she smiled and waved. Then it would be into the politics of the day and what they were going to do with this rascal McKeever in third class and that terrier O’Callaghan in fifth
class and how much money they were going to need for the new playground extension and would the numbers go up next year so they could get a new teacher and who was going to win the match on Sunday
as John Field came lilting out the open window and Nessa arrived with a tray of scones and a pot of hot strong tea and Father Des, as usual, made on to be the most suprised man in the whole of
Ireland. ‘Nessa!’ he’d say, ‘where do you think you’re going with all this?’

Then, off they’d doze, the butterflies waltzing in the weighted air as passers-by stopped to gaze in wonder at the garden and its riot of colour which took the sight from your eyes. At the
bottom of the pond, a constellation of pennies tossed in admiration. The wooden sails of a windmill turning. Sweetpea climbing skyward on a trellis. And out there by her beloved rock garden come
rain or come shine was Mrs Nessa Bell, née Conroy.

‘That woman,’ said Father Des as he licked his lips and crossed his palms over his black-clad tummy, ‘is a wonder.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ replied Raphael and lay back on the rug beneath the hot burning sun.

How Raphael did it the other headmasters did not know and would have given anything to be able to find out. Everyone knew that the inspectors considered St Anthony’s to
be something of a light upon the hill as far as primary education in Dublin, and indeed in Ireland, was concerned. Anytime you met the parents from that school, they were falling over themselves
telling you how good it was. And, of course, if that wasn’t enough for Raphael Bell, he had to go and win the Junior Schools’ Football Championship three years in a row. Not to mention
his own class broadcasting on Radio Eireann, singing to the whole of Ireland if you don’t mind! It wasn’t fair! Why should St Anthony’s get everything?

The teachers didn’t say that, of course. They were much too professional to do that. But they thought it all right. Sometimes things got so bad that they wanted to burn the school down. St
Anthony’s that is. Yes – burn it down! No, blow it up! Who cared what the hell you did with it, as long as everybody stopped going on about the dump being the best school in Dublin and
that big lanky galoot Bell being the King of All Headmasters.

It was well past ten by the time they all got home. Young Phibbs and Carson were out for the count. Their eyes were hanging out of their heads. ‘Wakey! Wakey!’
cried Father Des, tugging their ears. All the other boys laughed when the two red-cheeked lads woke up with a start. Nessa was standing in the doorway watching proudly as they clambered out of the
cars. She hugged a few of the little fellows. ‘You were wonderful,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you a credit, the whole lot of you! Singing on the wireless!’

Father Des stayed behind after all the boys had been collected by their mammies and daddies and Raphael and himself helped themselves to a little Jameson whiskey as they went over all the events
of the long day. ‘Panis Angelicus,’ said Father Des. ‘That song would melt the hardest heart.’

‘And after Count John, you would be hard pressed to find it sung better than those lads did today, Father,’ said Raphael.

‘You never spoke a truer word in your life,’ said Father Des, swirling the whiskey in his glass as his eyes shone with pride.

That night Raphael stroked Nessa’s hair and whispered a single word into her ear. The bold Count McCormack was behind that too, for the word he spoke was, ‘Macushla.’

‘Macushla,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘Macushla, my darling. The one I love more than any other in the world.’

Yes, the happiest days that were ever known were lived by Raphael and his beautiful wife way back when the sun shone on the garden, the little boys sang for Jesus and each and
every other night they offered up the rosary for the conversion of Russia and all the pagan peoples of the world and then repaired to bed to join together in a pure and wholesome union which they
prayed to Jesus would result in a special gift being granted to them; a little boy called Maolseachlainn perhaps, whose tumbling golden curls would be the envy of all and to whom his daddy would
tell stories of the hated Black and Tans and the Eucharistic Congress and a day in Belfast with the gentlest creature in the world.

Or perhaps that gift might be a red-cheeked smiling girl called Brigid who they would say was so like her mother and who would tend the garden and plant little flowers all of her own and look at
you with twinkling eyes that would melt your heart and the world would be so wonderful, it would be like all those beautiful marvellous things which had already happened taking place all over
again, like a brilliant light that bathed the world and made you want to cry: ‘I love my little boy! I love my little girl! They have made the world live all over again!’

Those were the thoughts that were going through Raphael’s head as he paced the floor of the hospital waiting room and got himself into a right old state asking himself ‘Will it be
Maolseachlainn?’ and ‘Will it be Brigid? Glory to God will you hurry up nurse!’

Those were the exact words he was saying to himself as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with a big sheet of a handkerchief, when the door opened and the nurse entered, accompanied by the
doctor. Raphael could tell that it was all over and he was so giddy his eyes were as big as golfballs. ‘Well, is it to be Maolseachlainn or Brigid?’ he cried like a young fellow.
‘Neither,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m afraid your son is dead.’

Well, actually he didn’t say that but he might as well have for unless you were blind you could tell by the way he looked at you. Raphael couldn’t believe it. Even though he had
sweated, he had still been so sure. That was why he kept repeating it to himself as they all moved about him like phantom people. Maolseachlainn. Then he would say nothing for a while. Then –
Maolseachlainn again. Maolseachlainn.

So there you are – that certainly took the wind out of Raphael’s sails, boys and girls. And it didn’t help either when he was walking along O’Connell
Street and heard someone shouting, ‘Hee hee – there goes Bell. That soon shut him up!’ For a split second he was sure he had heard it. It sounded like Lally, his defeated
adversary from the handball alley days of long ago. But how on earth could it be? God knows where he was now. Lally belonged to the dim and distant past. He listened again and then realized that he
was imagining things. Of course he was. People didn’t shout at you on the street. It was just because he was upset. That was why it had happened. Because he was upset. Heartbroken.
Heartbroken thinking of Nessa’s tear-stained face. It had been almost raw from crying, that face. Every time he thought of it, he felt like hitting someone. He felt like shouting, ‘Why?
Why? Why me?’

But then of course, when you think about it, why anyone? I mean there are people in the world who have never had anything. Which, I am afraid I have to tell you, was about as much as Raphael was
going to be left with when it was all over, not so much because of the death of little Tumble-Curls Maolseachlainn – which as time went on he reluctantly came to accept – but rather the
one and only Malachy, who some sixteen years later arrived on the doorstep with a great big bright and happy face on him asking for a job. In the best school in Dublin. Which – can you
believe it – he was given! Actually given a job by Mr Raphael Bell, father of the dead Maolseachlainn and husband of Nessa née Conroy Bell. The laugh of it is he thought Malachy was
quite a nice sort of chap. He considered that he had done a very good interview indeed. Which of course he had – being actor of the year, thanks to all that practice with his Joe Buck and
Alfredo Garcia voices. When Raphael turned to Father Des and said, ‘I think this is the man for us,’ he really meant it. So did the priest. He said, ‘Welcome aboard, Mr
Dudgeon,’ as he held out his hand. Malachy was surprised. But not that surprised. He knew he had fooled them up to the two eyes. To have heard him, you’d have thought he was just about
the most dedicated teacher on earth. When he was leaving, Raphael shook his hand and thanked him for coming along for the interview. ‘I look forward to a long and happy association, Mr
Dudgeon,’ he said and went off then as happy as Larry with himself, relieved now that the staffing problems for the coming year were resolved, and not for a moment considering the possibility
that he might find himself at some time in the not-too-distant future once more returning to those two familiar words, ‘Why Me?’ by which time of course it would be quite clear that
what he’d done that fateful day in July 1975 was to employ a person who not only would prove to be a hopeless inadequate where teaching was concerned, but was also going to prove instrumental
– along with a little, unwitting help from the aforementioned Father Stokes – well, in more or less destroying him, I suppose you could say.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Marion cried down the phone when Malachy said he had got the job. ‘What was it like? Tell me what it was like?’

He could hardly talk himself he was so excited. ‘Oh, it was just this old baldy guy and some priest called Stokes. You want to hear the questions they asked me. Do you think the teacher
has a moral responsibility to his pupils and the community? How important do you think neat dress is for the teacher? Man, it was priceless! Anything they asked me I said sure. If they’d
asked me did I think the teacher should work twenty-four hours a day I’d have said – absolutely. Such an amount of bullshit! But I got it! I think, says the sky pilot at the end of it,
that this is the man for us! Man, you want to see those two guys, they’re something else!’