Skippy Dies: A Novel

by Paul Murray

  And then from Carl’s pocket comes a merry electronic jingling. Carl stops where he is, fist frozen mid-air. The jingling continues – people laugh, it’s that BETHani song, ‘3Wishes’. Dropping Skippy to the ground, Carl takes out the phone. ‘Hello?’ he says, and walks away towards the trees.

  Ruprecht bumbles forward and wordlessly helps Skippy to his feet, and in a rapidly cooling froth of sweat he waits – fists still clenched, every inch of him trembling, not looking at any of the spectators who ten seconds ago were screaming for his blood – while Carl marches back and forth with the phone beneath the laurels. He speaks in a low voice through gritted teeth; after a moment, with a sour ‘All right’, he tosses the phone to the ground. This time there is no smile as he stalks back towards them – even the onlookers back away involuntarily, and Skippy discovers he has a whole other register of fear –

  ‘Fight!’

  – and instantly they’re back in the blender, the whirl of screams, the hate-masks, through which the white-shirted figure of Carl thunders, moving so fast it’s like there are a dozen of him, coming at Skippy from every direction, the fists lightning-quick, every time a little closer, whistling through the air bare millimetres away, as Skippy ducks, wriggles, dodges, with every last ounce of energy he has, for what seems like hours but is probably only a handful of seconds –

  And then he stumbles, one ankle sliding away from him.

  It all seems to happen quite slowly.

  Carl raises his two fists like a hammer, high over his head –

  Skippy’s just standing there, tottering –

  and everyone bellows because they know that as soon as he’s hit he’s toast, and that’s when the real fun starts –

  As the fists come down he swings out blindly –

  he doesn’t know whether it’s meant as a punch or a block –

  but it connects with Carl’s jaw:

  the impact shoots back through his bones and up his arms; Carl’s head snaps sideways –

  and he goes down –

  and he doesn’t get up.

  Nothing happens for a long moment; it’s as if all sound has been sucked out of the world. And then everyone is cheering! Maniacal, incredulous, ecstatic cheering, as if this is the first time in their lives they have truly cheered – laughing and whooping and jumping up and down, like the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s house lands on the Witch, the same people who a second ago were roaring at Carl to pull Skippy’s guts out. Skippy might have found this odd, but he’s too dazed to think about anything, and now he’s swamped by his friends.

  ‘A glass jaw,’ Niall marvels, ‘who’d’ve thought it?’

  ‘It was the move he did,’ Mario explains. ‘The Italian karate move, didn’t you see it?’

  It seems as if the only person not celebrating – other than Damien Lawlor, who is sunk on his heels, whispering ashen-faced to himself, ‘I’m ruined…’ – is Skippy himself. Instead he’s gazing at the spot of gravel occupied only a moment ago by Carl’s fallen body. Where’d he go?

  ‘Legged it,’ Niall pronounces.

  ‘He’d better leg it,’ Ruprecht comments darkly.

  ‘Come on, Skip.’ Mario takes him by the arm. ‘We should clean you up before you go see your lady. You have a limited amount to work with at the best of times.’

  ‘Make way for the champ!’ cries Geoff, clearing a path to the Tower.

  And ten minutes later – hair tamed, teeth brushed, irremediably shredded school jumper exchanged for a clean hoodie – Skippy’s leaving it again, pedalling Niall’s bike uphill towards the gate. The rain has cleared and the clouds given way to a sunset that blushes deep and fiery, lush pinks and warm reds piled on top of each other in a breathy rushed jumble like a heart in love; and as he weaves out weightlessly into the traffic, leaving their final words of advice – ‘Full hardcore sex!’ ‘Just don’t puke on her!’ – to disappear into the evening, the euphoria blossoms inside him at last, and with every yard travelled, continues, star-like, to grow. The grave canopies of the trees overhead merge with the incoming dusk; the dual carriageway hooshes by him, its tall streetlamps seeming to sing through the twilight; the chain and wheels hum at his feet, the chocolates swing from their bag on the handlebars, as he turns down her road, past the old stone houses with their ivy veils, to arrive at her gates; and there, at the end of the driveway, just as he imagined it, she is – in the lamplight, on the doorstep, laughing like he’s just told the greatest joke in the world.

  In the beginning he has to keep pinching himself to remind himself this is actually happening: it seems unreal, like one of those Kinder ads where everyone’s been dubbed into another language.

  ‘You’re here!’ she exclaims, holding her arms out to him. Her eye catches on the bruise on his temple as she leans in to kiss him, but she doesn’t say anything about it. ‘My parents are dying to meet you,’ she says instead, and taking his hand she leads him inside. They go down a hall full of paintings to an airy kitchen with a huge domed skylight, where a tall, slightly fierce-looking woman in a black dress is chopping courgettes. Skippy wipes his palms on his trousers, ready to shake hands, but Lori breezes right by her, through a glass door: ‘Hey, Mom, look who’s here!’

  The woman stretched out on the divan is the image of Lori: the same magnetic green eyes, the same carbon-black hair. ‘Oh my goodness!’ she lays down her magazine and swings her bare feet onto the tiles. ‘So this is the boy! This is the famous –’

  ‘Daniel,’ Lori says.

  ‘Daniel,’ Lori’s mum repeats. ‘Well, you’re very welcome to our home, Daniel.’

  ‘Thank you for having me,’ Skippy mumbles, and then, remembering, ‘I brought some chocolates.’ He hands Lori the box, which in the cathedral-like conservatory looks downright microscopic; nevertheless, both women make exactly the same Ohhhh sound.

  ‘He’s adorable,’ Lori’s mum pronounces, skating her fingertips over Skippy’s cheeks.

  ‘Can we have some OJ?’ Lori asks.

  ‘Of course, sweetie,’ her mum says, and calls through the door to the other woman, ‘Lilya, fetch the kids some juice, would you?’ then kneels down on the floor in front of Skippy so her perfume swims up his nose and it becomes nearly impossible not to look down her top. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you,’ she says in a fake whisper. ‘I knew there had to be a boy on the scene. Though Lori’d deny it till the cows came home.’

  ‘Mom,’ Lori groans.

  ‘You may find it hard to believe, young lady, but I was actually a girl myself once. I know the tricks.’

  ‘Mom, go and do some Pilates or something,’ Lori pleads, moving towards the kitchen.

  ‘All right, all right…’ She resists her daughter for long enough to fix Skippy with an appraising eye and declare again, ‘Oh he’s just too adorable,’ before disappearing, laughing, back to her divan.

  ‘Sorry, I should have warned you,’ Lori says. ‘My mom is like the world’s biggest flirt.’ She reaches for one of two glasses of Sunny D that have appeared on the counter along with a big plate of chocolate-chip cookies, and shines Skippy a lighthouse-beam smile. ‘Come on, I’ll give you the tour.’

  The house is endless. Every room gives way to another even bigger, each one an Aladdin’s cave of screens and sculptures and stereo equipment. Following after Lori, half-listening to her chatter, Skippy feels happy but strange, like a shadow that’s won some competition and been invited for one day to be an actual person and not just a fuzzy shape on the ground – ‘And this is my room,’ she says.

  He snaps out of his reverie. Holy shit! It’s true! They’re in her bedroom! The walls are pink and covered with girl-type posters – two horses nuzzling each other, the Sad Sam dog, a boy-cherub stealing a kiss from a girl-cherub, BETHani in an almost-but-not-completely-see-through swimsuit, and again, in a picture cut out of a magazine, hand in hand with her boyfriend, the guy from Four to the Floor. On the dresser is a photograph of Lori, the beautiful mother and a ma
n who must be Lori’s dad, kind of like if GI Joe was made of wood and wore a suit, the three of them looking so perfect together, like the example picture that comes with the frame.

  ‘Let’s watch TV!’ she says. There’s a television in here but she’s already going down the stairs to one of the living rooms, where she sits on the sofa about two feet away from him, the cat cradled in her lap and her pop-socked feet dug comfortably under a cushion. The Simpsons is on. Skippy wonders if he was supposed to have kissed her upstairs. She didn’t act like she was expecting him to. So should he kiss her now? She does seem quite interested in the programme. Bollocks, maybe it’s not a date! Maybe they are friends!

  ‘So are you still swimming?’ she asks him during the ad break.

  He tells her about the swim meet coming up this weekend.

  ‘Wow, that’s so exciting,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding. (Hit by runaway hotdog cart, trip over cat, catch chickenpox, water shortage → all pools empty everywhere.) ‘It’s the semi-finals?’

  ‘Cool.’ She scratches her nose thoughtfully. ‘So you didn’t quit?’

  ‘Quit?’

  ‘Yeah, when I was talking to you the night of the dance, you said you wanted to quit it.’

  ‘Oh –’ when I was talking to you the night of the dance??!! ‘– um, well, it’s quite hard work, I suppose. Like, we have to get up at half six to train, and stuff. So it’s hard work, that’s what I meant.’

  ‘You told me you hated it,’ she says.

  ‘I hated it?’

  She nods, her eyes fixed on his.

  ‘Yeah…’ he says vaguely. ‘Yeah, sometimes I feel a bit like that.’

  ‘Why would you do something you hate?’

  ‘Well, I suppose my parents are excited about it, so…’

  ‘They don’t want you to do something you hate, do they?’

  ‘No, but…’ The Game, even here! It rises up monolithic out of the floor like a staring tombstone: caught in its shadow he trails off, sitting there dumbly, miserably, wishing she’d stop looking at him – then the door opens and the tall man from the photograph comes in.

  ‘Daddy!’ Lori cries, and leaps up from the couch.

  ‘There’s my princess!’ The man puts down his shopping bags so he can lift her up and swing her. ‘And who do we have here?’ he says, looking at Skippy scrunched up on the couch.

  ‘This is my friend Daniel,’ Lori says.

  ‘Aha… so this is the man who’s been keeping you out till all hours,’ her dad says. ‘Well, well. Gavin Wakeham.’ He lopes round to crush Skippy’s hand in his and peer at him interrogatively.

  ‘Daniel’s in Seabrook,’ Lori tells her dad.

  ‘Is he?’ The man brightens at this. ‘I’m an old Blue-and-Gold myself! Class of ’82. Tell me, Daniel, how’s Des Furlong? He back yet?’

  ‘No, he’s still sick,’ Skippy says. ‘Mr Costigan is in charge.’

  ‘Greg Costigan! I was in school with that bastard. What do you make of him, Daniel? Talks a lot of shite, doesn’t he? Actually, tell him I said that, will you? Tell him Gavin Wakeham says he talks a lot of shite, will you do that for me?’ His big face looks down at Skippy avariciously, like a hungry monster that has discovered a plate of bonbons. Skippy doesn’t know what to say. ‘Good man, he’s true to his school!’ Lori’s dad guffaws, slapping his back. ‘Matter of fact, Greg is a good friend of mine. Still see him for the odd pint up at the rugby club. You play yourself, Dan?’

  ‘Daniel’s on the swimming team,’ Lori says, snuggled under his arm. ‘They’ve got a big race coming up. They’re in the semi-finals.’

  ‘Is that so? And who’s coaching you? It’s not still Brother Connolly, is it? Brother Fondle-me, we used to call him.’

  ‘Mr Roche does it now,’ Skippy says.

  ‘Ah yes, Tom Roche, of course. Tragic story. You know it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Skippy says, but Lori’s dad starts telling him anyway. ‘Probably the best winger of his generation. Could have walked on to the international team. Walked on to it, if it wasn’t for what happened. And now I hear the other fellow’s back in Seabrook too, the one who let him take the drop for him, what’s his name again…?’

  ‘Daddy, what did you buy?’ Lori tugs at his elbow.

  Gazing into her upturned face, he brightens again. ‘Just some bits and pieces for the gym.’

  ‘More stuff for the gym?’

  ‘Just a couple of things.’

  ‘Mom’s going to kill you.’

  ‘Aha,’ smugly, ‘not so, because I’ve already taken care of that.’ He draws a smaller bag out of the larger and shakes it at her.

  ‘And what about me?’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair if everyone got something except me.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, in that case.’

  ‘Let me look in the bag.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘Let me look – Daddy!’ She lunges for the bag, he hoists it out of her reach, matador-style, and Skippy takes a step backwards as the two of them become one giggling, wrestling mess. The woman from the kitchen appears in the doorway. She pauses there a moment, shooting a brief, expressionless glance at Skippy on the far side of the tussling couple; then, in a vampiric monotone, she announces, ‘Dinner is served.’ Lori’s dad and Lori split, gasping and emitting little leftover fragments of laughter.

  ‘Okay, Lilya, thank you,’ her dad says. ‘There, you little madam, though you don’t deserve it…’

  He tosses Lori a shopping bag with a pair of lips on the side, and she lights up as she takes out a plastic case. ‘Oh, thank you, Daddy!’

  ‘Without make-up she looks like the back end of a bus,’ her dad winks at Skippy; and then sternly, to Lori, ‘But you can only wear it on special occasions, when your mum and I say you can, okay?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy.’ She nods earnestly, taking his hand and trotting alongside him into the dining room, with Skippy following behind.

  They sit down at the table while the black-clad woman silently lays plates before them. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ Lori’s mum says. ‘I can’t think of the last time we all sat down for a meal together.’

  ‘Daddy’s always working,’ Lori tells Skippy.

  ‘Someone has to pay for all this, don’t they?’ Lori’s dad says, through a mouthful of food. ‘You girls seem to think it just drops out of the sky.’ Lori and her mum make identical eye-rolling motions. ‘So what kind of racket’s your dad in, Daniel?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your dad, what does he do?’

  ‘Oh – he’s an engineer.’

  ‘How about your mum? Is she working too?’ Across the table his tanned arms flex as he saws into his chop,

  ‘She’s a Montessori teacher. Well, not right now, but…’

  ‘That’s great. And how are you enjoying school?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Skippy says.

  ‘Daniel’s one of the smartest boys in his year,’ Lori says.

  ‘Good for you,’ her dad says. ‘So what kind of career do you see yourself in, Daniel?’

  Lori’s mum, laughing, lays down her fork with a clink on the plate. ‘Gavin, give the boy a chance to eat his food!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lori’s dad says. ‘We’re simply having a conversation, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re interrogating him. In a minute he’ll start burning your feet with cigarettes,’ Lori’s mum twinkles at Skippy.

  ‘I’m simply trying to find out a little bit about him,’ Lori’s dad rejoins. ‘God forbid I should want to try and find out a little bit about the boy my daughter’s been out roaming the streets with for the last month –’

  ‘I wasn’t roaming the streets,’ Lori says, flushing.

  ‘Well, you weren’t watching Buff y at Janine’s, were you?’

  Wait a second – what?

  ‘Leave her alone, Gavin,’ her mom reproves.

  ‘I just think it’d be nice to have
some idea what your own child –’

  ‘We’ve been through all this – oh, now look.’

  Lori’s head is bowed, and jerks with sobs.

  ‘Oh sweetheart… sweetie, I didn’t mean…’ He extends his hand across the table, lays it in Lori’s sparkling black hair. She doesn’t respond; a tear splashes down into her half-eaten meal.

  ‘Oh God,’ he says heavily. ‘Look, I honestly don’t see what the fuss is about. Myself and Dan are getting along famously, aren’t we, Dan?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Skippy. There is a tense silence, filled only by Lori’s snuffles. He clears his throat. ‘Actually, I think I’d like to design video games. When I grow up?’

  ‘Video games?’ Lori’s dad says.

  ‘Or else be a scientist, you know like the kind that discover the cures for diseases?’

  ‘What kind of console do you have? Nintendo or Xbox?’