The next time he met her was in the churchyard of the Pro-Cathedral when High Mass was being concelebrated by Father Stokes and two of his colleagues. It wasn’t easy this time either but at least he didn’t have a cup and saucer rattling away in his hand, showing him up. They talked about the weather and the Mass and how beautiful it had been. When Raphael told her he was hoping to enter his boys in the Belfast Schools Choral Festival again this year, her eyes lit up and she said that she herself was very fond of music. She loved the nocturnes of John Field, she said, and owned just about every song Count John McCormack had ever recorded. ‘Do you know a song called “Macushla”?’ she said shyly. ‘I love it so much.’ When she said that, Raphael almost felt tears come to his eyes, not just because she had said she loved the song Paschal O’Dowd had sung so beautifully all those years ago. It was because he had just at that moment realized he had never talked to a woman like this ever before in his life. Usually his topic was his pupils. Johnny or Pat or Mickey or Tom and how they were getting on in school. In fact the only woman he had ever really talked closely to was his mother. His mother whose mind had now finally been irrevocably lost to her and who, when he visited her in the Cork nursing home, searched in vain for something in his face that might bring the name of Raphael Bell her son back to her once more.
It was only when the young woman had finished talking that he realized the churchyard was empty but for the pair of them. He could not take his eyes off her, her twinkly eyes, her pink cardigan and the white blouse with little forget-me-not flowers on the collar. When she said goodbye, Raphael’s heart was thumping and his head was light all over again. Something was happening to him and he did not know what it was. He was excited in a way he had never been before in his life.
The next day he went into a record shop and bought the nocturnes of John Field. He played them all that evening and for the life of him couldn’t sit still. Even his pupils remarked on it the next day when, having given them six algebra sums to do before dinner, he went and completely forgot all about them and didn’t even correct one of them, which was not like Mr Bell at all!
As indeed the following statement wasn’t either: ‘On account of you being such good lads this past week I’ll let you off homework. What do you have to say to that?’ The boys didn’t know what to say. They were completely dumbfounded! Belly Bell letting you off homework – it was unbelievable! Just unbelievable!
They ran off out the gate that day cheering and when they told their mammies and daddies they couldn’t believe it either. ‘Mr Bell letting you off homework? You’re fibbing aren’t you? Give me a look inside that schoolbag till I see if you’re telling the truth or not!’
But, as the parents found out, they were indeed telling the truth, and the reason they were was as pure and simple and uncomplicated as they come. The weekend before Raphael had been on a trip to the ‘Wee North’ as Father Des called it, with the Literary and Historical Society, all the way to the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim and would you believe it, who was on the bus along with him? When Raphael saw her this time, he nearly fainted right there and then on the spot. But he was getting a little bit cheekier now and wasn’t quite the old beetroot-faced Bell that he had been before and would you believe it, it was no length of time before he was helping her across rocks and taking photographs of seagulls and buying her ice-cream and laughing away and telling her jokes to beat the band.
As he lay on the sand and watched her paddling in a rock pool, her blonde hair tied back with a scarf, he suddenly couldn’t believe what he was doing. He might as well have been standing on a cliff pointing down to the pair of them and saying, ‘Look at that fellow down there in his shirt sleeves with the beautiful young girl. He’s the lucky man, isn’t he? I wonder who he is?’ But you see he wasn’t standing on any cliff. He was lying right there beside her. Beside Nessa Conroy. And not only that but now he was carrying her sandals and taking her small, cool hand as they made their way to the hotel. Out of nowhere came a whiff of her perfume on the salt breeze. They were supposed to be taking notes on the locality. Wandering around noting the age of various buildings and important landmarks. They were taking no notes however. They had forgotten all about buildings and landmarks. When she had her sandals fastened, she tucked her knees up to her chest and as she spoke her voice sort of hypnotized him. He was so busy listening to the sound of it that he only heard half of what she said. She worked in the civil service in Dublin and shared a flat with two nurses on the North Circular Road. ‘Is that right?’ Raphael found himself saying and wondering did she know he was hypnotized. It didn’t matter whether she did or not, for he knew there was nothing he could do about it anyway. She was speaking again now. He loved it. He loved her speaking. He loved it so much. Especially the way she said ‘Och, now,’ and ‘Aye, surely’. He loved that.
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.
Ave Maria
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. Whe
n 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.
Scones for Father Des
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.
The King of All Headmasters
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.
A Single Word Whispered
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.’
Maolseachlainn
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.
Why Me?
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 fro
m 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.
The Dead School Page 10