The Dead School

by Patrick McCabe

  That night, he didn’t sleep a wink. He kept thinking of the young boy sitting there at the back of the class, third from the left with his head down and his tongue out as he clasped the wooden pen in his right hand, working away like a little beaver. He was a great little fellow. How many nines in seven hundred and thirty eight, Donal? Eighty-two, sir. Excellent. Very good indeed. If you were all like Donal, you pack of lazy scoundrels!

  Another night, he dreamed about him. Donal was sitting in that same desk, dragging a razor blade up and down his arm. He looked up at Raphael with his eyes still wild and his scraggy mane of hair worse than ever. Then he just went on drawing ragged bloody lines along his arm as if the headmaster wasn’t in the room.

  The Walton Programme

  There was nothing Raphael and Father Des liked better than The Walton Programme. Every Saturday afternoon the priest would drop by and he’d have a cup of tea and a scone and listen to the bold Leo Maguire introducing the ballads of long ago with, ‘This is the Walton programme, your weekly reminder of the grace and beauty that lie in our heritage of Irish song – the songs our fathers loved.’ One day they played ‘God Save Ireland’ and Raphael nearly hit the roof. ‘Man but I love that programme,’ he’d say. Sometimes Nessa joined them. But she was more for John Field and the classical stuff.

  When they played the songs of old, it was hard not to think of the reaping race and the day they carried his father shoulder high across the fields. It was hard for him to stop his eyes misting over when he thought of all those good times that were gone. But when they played ‘The Boys of the Old Brigade’ and ‘The Rifles of the IRA’ he smiled again. Smiled because he was proud. The Black and Tans had tried to make his father bend the knee but he wouldn’t and didn’t because his name was Bell. A proud and noble soldier who died a noble death in an Irish field beneath an Irish sky.

  ‘What would we do without it every Saturday?’ said Father Des one day as he was leaving, ‘Leo Maguire and The Walton Programme.’

  ‘And now it’s time for Charlie McGee with “The Homes of Donegal”,’ laughed Raphael as he got up out of his chair and added, ‘Are you sure you won’t stay for another drop of tea, Father?’

  ‘No,’ replied Father Stokes. ‘I’d be as well get back to my duties for if the boss hears I was gadding about here again he’ll have my life.’

  ‘No rest for the wicked,’ chirped Raphael as he led him to the door.

  ‘Goodbye, Nessa!’ called the priest as he pulled on his overcoat. ‘See you next Saturday!’

  Raphael noticed that Nessa’s gladioli were coming on great as he hummed the programme’s signature tune absent-mindedly to himself and smiled at a neighbour who was waving from across the road.

  Bomb

  A young boy went into a shop, two years after Neil Armstrong came back from his travels. ‘I want two penny chews, a packet of wine gums and a bottle of lemonade please,’ he said and was blown to bits. Raphael read about it in the paper. The shopkeeper got blown up too. There was a photograph of them both with sheets over them. You could see the young fellow’s shoes and socks. Underneath the photo it said the IRA had done it. Raphael went crazy. He said they couldn’t have done it. He said to Nessa, ‘They couldn’t have!’ But when he mentioned it to Father Des, the priest replied, ‘Oh, they did it all right. It was on the news. There’s no question about it.’

  After that, Raphael just stood there because he couldn’t think of anything to say. He just stood there scraping the top of his index finger with his thumbnail.

  Atrocities

  Raphael was telling the boys the story his uncle Joe had told him about the day his daddy went off to blow up the British soldiers. They hid the bomb in a culvert and went off up the fields to watch and wait for the convoy. They waited for over an hour and then glory be to God what happened, didn’t a couple of little lads like yourselves come along and start playing right beside the culvert where they had put the bomb. And the convoy about to arrive at any minute! But do you know what they did, boys? Do you know what those men did? They called the whole thing off. They called it off right there and then and went home. And do you know why, boys? Because those men would not stoop so low as to kill children. Do you understand me, boys? Do you understand me!

  With one voice, the boys replied, ‘Yes!’ and Raphael stood before them, as he always did now when he had read of some new atrocity in the papers, which seemed to be practically ever other day now, with the eyes in his head nearly as wild as young Coyle’s, or should I say old Coyle’s, because of course young Coyle was dead wasn’t he or at least the young boy he had once known, and all the big plans he had for himself, and Raphael too, no more than dust blown away by the breeze.

  Horses with Melting Eyes

  Which was deeply troubling of course, just as the dream about Uncle Joe’s horses was, the night Raphael woke up with the sweat hopping off him crying, ‘Nessa! Nessa!’

  It was a strange dream into which Uncle Joe had come once more, inviting young Raphael – that is, the Raphael of the old pre-St Martin’s altar-boy days – over to his house to help him look after his beloved horses. When he said it, little Raphael nearly had a heart attack on the spot and pleaded with his daddy who had never ever looked so happy and alive and smiling as on that sunny day in the dream. ‘Oh, please! Please let me go with Uncle Joe to help look after his horses!’ When his daddy saw how excited he was, a twinkle came into his eyes and he started teasing Raphael saying, ‘Oh, no, I don’t know now. We’ll have to ask your mother about this!’ But then Evelyn hit him a sort of pretend slap on the arm and said to him, ‘Would you go away out of that, Mattie Bell, and not be teasing the child. Of course you can go, our Raphael!’

  Well, what a happy day that was with Uncle Joe chucking the reins and sucking his pipe and the blue smoke floating in the air as the pony trot-trotted along and Uncle Joe whistled a little tune and said, ‘Wait till you see the new fellow I have, Raphael! Sounder Man: a lovely shiny black coat on him and as good a horse as ever I paid money for.’

  Raphael smiled. He liked the way his Uncle Joe talked about his horses. He loved them you see. That was why he talked like that about them, calling them by their first names as if they were his children. Once Raphael heard his father saying, ‘If a wife got half the attention he gives them horses, she’d be made up.’ Uncle Joe knew he said things like that, but he didn’t mind. ‘I have no time to be tricking about with women, Mattie,’ he said, ‘I have enough to do looking after these beauties of mine.’

  And was he right about that for if ever horses were beauties, these were. Their manes combed to perfection, their flanks glistening and polished as they stood erect and stately in their spotless stalls. At least until the night the scream came and Raphael shot up in his bed to hear Uncle Joe thundering down the stairs and crying hysterically, ‘My horses! My horses!’

  By the time they got out into the yard, it was already too late. The flames were leaping into the sky and the pitiful neighing of horses who knew they were going to die shrieked out into the night. Uncle Joe was wandering around in circles crying, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’ You could feel the heat on your face. Tiny stars of soot went floating by. The roof caved in with a crash. ‘What are we going to do?’ wept Uncle Joe, still turning round in circles. Raphael tried to say something but found that he was suddenly, inexplicably mute. The head of a horse appeared in the half-door. Its eyes gleamed silver. They gleamed silver for a split second and then they were gone. Literally gone because they dribbled down its face like water. Raphael prayed, oh, please, God because he could not bear to think of them all inside with their shiny eyes melting in their heads and their flesh burning up, cooking away like meat on the stove as they helplessly pawed the air with their hooves. It was hard to believe it but Uncle Joe was laughing now. He was looking over at Raphael and pointing to the stables, repeating, ‘Meat! Cooked meat – can you believe it?’ He’d mutter for a bit, then start laughing again, going on a
bout cooked meat and melting eyes. He shook Raphael. ‘My beautiful horses – can you believe this is how they ended up? Can you believe it? Dear, oh, dear!’

  When the burning was over, it was hard to know which was worse, the piercing silence which followed, or the relentless choking pleas of dying beasts. Raphael didn’t know what to do, where to go or where to look and was still rooted to the spot five minutes later when he looked up and saw a man in a mask emerging from the charred shell. He was like something from another world as he walked towards them humming a tune and stood in front of them saying, ‘Well – what do you think of my handiwork? Impressive, eh?’

  What made Raphael go cold all over was the fact that he recognized the voice. It had a pretty bad effect on Uncle Joe too because he just stood there with his lip hanging and trying to get his tongue around words that wriggled like eels in his mouth. He was still stuttering and stammering when the mask came off and Raphael found himself looking into the eyes of his own father. One of the eyes winked as he said, ‘Well – what do you think, Raphael? Not bad, eh?’ A coil of smoke rose slowly and a lump of masonry fell to earth. Mattie smiled then winked again. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I have something for you.’

  He put his hand in his pocket and extended his closed fist to his son. ‘Close your eyes and open them again to see what the good Lord will send you!’ he said and so petrified was Raphael, he did exactly that. And why he found a piece of burnt meat sitting in his hand when he opened his eyes again. Mattie was laughing his head off now. His laughter was even louder than the death-cries of the horses. ‘Cooked fucking horse!’ he shouted.

  Raphael had never heard his father cursing before. That was how he knew it wasn’t his father. Somehow Mattie knew what he was thinking and that made him laugh even more. ‘Oh, but I am your father,’ he taunted. ‘I’m your father all right and I always will be, for ever and ever, little Raphael, my boy!’

  When Raphael looked again he had the mask back on and all you could see were two dead eyes staring out through the slits in the black wool. Behind him all was quiet now except for Uncle Joe laughing and muttering to himself, ‘First you have horses and then you have none! First you have horses and then you have none!’

  When Nessa awoke she was astonished to find her husband shouting into her face, ‘My father never hurt horses! My father never hurt horses!’ she tried to calm him down. It took her a long time, mind, for he was in quite a state. He kept complaining of a pain in his head and there was sweat all over him. She made him a cup of hot cocoa and they sat in the kitchen together until the fever or whatever it was had passed. Then they went back to bed and he hugged her like a baby.

  Another night he dreamed of the Black and Tans and his father in the field. The Black and Tan had a gun in his father’s mouth. ‘You murderer! You fucking murderer!’ he was snarling. ‘You and your murdering Shinner mates crippled my best friend! You blew his legs off! He can’t walk, you bastard! He can’t even shit by himself! And you did it!’ Raphael waited for his daddy to say, ‘No!’ To cry out, ‘It’s a lie!’ But he never did. All he did was smile at the Black and Tan. All he did was smile and the smile didn’t mean, ‘No, I didn’t. You’ve got it all wrong!’

  It meant, ‘So what if I did?’

  Raphael did not like those dreams. He did not like them at all. Without Nessa he wouldn’t have known what to do. He might have gone out of his mind.

  A Groovy Way of Thinking

  Which of course wouldn’t have bothered Terry Krash and the rest of them one bit for by the looks of things that was what they were hell bent on doing. It wasn’t enough for him to be on the wireless. Now that he was on both the radio and the television you literally couldn’t move without him squawking at you. The latest was sex before marriage. According to Terry, this was great altogether. He had two girls on the show and they were all for it. ‘Oh, yes,’ one of them said, ‘as far as we’re concerned, marriage is for the birds. We like to play the field, know what I mean? Travel the world and have a good time – that’s our motto! Oh, sure, marriage is OK for other folks maybe – but not for us!’

  Well, well, isn’t it a wonder Terry doesn’t give them a medal, thought Raphael, he’s so excited. ‘Good girls!’ cried Terry. ‘You certainly got a groovy way of thinking!’

  One day Raphael picked up the paper. By all accounts they were having good fun in the midlands. There was a big festival on down there. A motorbike had been thrown through a window. And what was this? An old lady assaulted and beaten? All her money taken? Hmm. And what’s this? The offender gets off with a caution. Raphael knew what he’d have done with him. What he did with Lally all those years before. Then by God we’d see how many old ladies he’d rob. And the same with the murderers who were slaughtering and maiming in the name of Ireland. He knew what he’d do with them too. ‘I’d horsewhip them, Nessa!’ he cried. ‘For that’s all they deserve. Murderers – for that’s what they are, Nessa!’

  Nessa smiled and said they weren’t worth bothering about. When he relaxed he realized that she was right. Then he said, ‘That bloody pain in my head, I can’t seem to shift it.’ Nessa stroked his forehead. ‘Whereabouts is it?’ she asked. He showed her the spot. Just over his eye. She kissed it softly. ‘Oh, Nessa,’ he said and touched her on the arm.

  A Letter of Complaint

  Raphael getting pains in the head was all very well but if he thought that was going to stop Terry Krash and all his buddies then he had another think coming. When he came home for his lunch one day, he switched on the wireless to hear them all laughing about The Walton Programme. They were saying that the songs on it were a load of rubbish. ‘Who wants to hear a bunch of old songs about bogmen sitting by turf fires?’ said one young whippersnapper. ‘What would be your favourite programme then?’ asked Terry. ‘Oh – Pick of the Pops!’ said the whippersnapper. ‘It’s just terrific!’ ‘Indeed it is,’ cried Terry. ‘And now we have our own pick of the pops with the fabulous Roy Wood and Wizzard – take it away, Roy!’

  When he went back to school that afternoon, he told Father Stokes and they decided there and then to act. It wasn’t as if they were furious or anything. They just didn’t see why someone should be allowed to insult the programme over the airwaves. And not only that but be encouraged to do so, which they plainly were. After the school-children had gone the two of them spent well over an hour writing a letter of complaint to RTE radio, which Raphael himself posted on the way home.

  They expected some sort of acknowledgement but none ever came. They might as well have thrown the letter into the river for all the difference it made. This upset Raphael. He had wanted some sort of reply. Someone to say that maybe it had been a bit insulting or at the very least, insensitive. But I’m afraid he’d be waiting a long time if he was expecting a few words of apology from Terry. In fact, not only did they receive no apology but the following week he made another scurrilous remark about the programme. Referring to some outdated appliance, he said that it had, ‘Gone out with the ark – like The Walton Programme!’ Everyone in the studio thought this was the funniest thing out.

  Which I’m afraid Raphael didn’t, as you can imagine. In fact he got quite depressed. Nessa noticed. For quite a while afterwards he was gloomy and withdrawn. He remained in his study much longer than usual – two hours at a stretch was as much as he had ever spent in there and Nessa knew well that he wasn’t correcting homework or preparing lessons all that time. This state of affairs caused her some concern and that was why she mentioned it to Father Stokes. ‘Let me talk to him,’ said the priest, ‘worrying his head about the likes of those people.’ They were pacing the playground together some days later when Father Des said, ‘If you let them annoy you, Raphael, sure what are you doing only playing into their hands?’

  When Raphael had given it some thought, he could see that the priest was indeed right and he began to cheer up considerably. He had more to do with his time than worry about the likes of them. Hadn’t he a school to run, for God’s sake
, a school full of boys whose futures he had to mould and whose characters he had to build, a school which was, and acknowledged as such, a light on the hill, a fortress buffeted by the winds of change and caprice and modish fancy, against which it had, no more than if it had been fortified by walls of concrete three feet thick, always remained firm and resolute, and would have continued doing so until the day the Good Lord decided to call Raphael Bell to his eternal reward, but for the arrival not so very long afterwards of Evans the abortionist and Dudgeon the incompetent who between them took everything he had and with the same callous dedication of a torch-bearing saboteur who had once visited the midnight stables of a dream, burnt all to the ground.