Skippy Dies: A Novel

by Paul Murray

  And somehow her hologram comes to life here, the frail image detaching itself from the surface of the water, the pale hand rising outward to touch his cheek…

  Wait, to touch his cheek?

  Aftershock jolts through him where he sits on the dorm-room floor, sparking icily down his arms to pulse in his fingertips.

  What just happened?

  GOODBYE, DJED. GOOD LUCK. The princess is already serenely back on the water, surveying him from her swirl of floating golden hair. He gathers himself as best he can, closes his mouth, grips the controller once more; her long sad eyes hold his a moment; then slowly she dissolves, into the darkness.

  The very next moment there is a knock at the door. Head spinning, Skippy goes to answer it.

  Coach is standing there, filling the doorway.

  Daniel, he says. Just wanted a quick word.

  His face is not angry, it does not have any expression. In his hand is a piece of white folded paper.

  Can I come in?

  From the Rec Room the pock, pock of the table-tennis table and a rerun of Saved by the Bell on TV. Then the door closes with Coach on the inside.

  He is too big for the room, it looks wrong. His head revolves slowly to take in the beds, the desks, the books, the computer. Through his eyes everything must look small and breakable, toy things in a child’s game.

  You weren’t at training this morning, Coach says.

  Skippy looks at the floor.

  You can’t afford to be missing sessions this close to the meet, Daniel. We only have two more days to prepare. Were you not feeling well? Was that it? Were you sick?

  Floor floor floor floor.

  Coach’s body creaks and rearranges. I got this today, Daniel. The sound of paper unfolding, like the blade of a guillotine coming down.

  Dear Mr Roche, I regret to tell you that because of personal reasons I will no longer be able to come to swimming training or to go to meets. I apologize for any inconvenience, yours sincerely, Daniel Juster.

  The paper folds closed again. Coach’s fingers press and re-press it along the seams, back and forth.

  Did you write this letter, Daniel?

  I’m not angry at you. Frankly I’m more confused than anything. But did you write it?

  Okay, unless you say otherwise right now I’m going to assume you wrote this letter.

  Okay. Well, at least we’ve established that much. Now the question becomes why. Why, Daniel? After so much preparation, after all that work? With only three days to go till the race? Why would you do this to your team-mates? Why would you do it to yourself? I mean the sheer –

  Sorry, I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not angry, I just, you can understand, can’t you, how frustrating it is for me, for one of my best athletes to drop out at the last minute without so much as an explanation?

  Footsteps patter up the hall outside; Coach turns and waits till they go by. Then he sees the X on the calendar. That cross there, that’s to mark the day of the meet?

  When you wrote that up there, you were intending to come to the meet. That wasn’t so long ago. Okay, what we need to establish is what happened between then and now for you to want to write this letter.

  I need an explanation, Daniel. If this is your decision I’ll respect that, but you have to give me some kind of explanation. You owe me that much, at least.

  These ‘personal reasons’ you mention, can you tell me what they are?

  It’s me, Daniel, it’s Coach. I’m your friend, remember. You can talk to me.

  What’s on your mind, fella? Are you finding the training too much, is that it? Is it too much pressure on top of your studies?

  Are the other boys bullying you? Siddartha and Garret?

  Is something wrong at home?

  Is it your mum?

  Daniel, if there is something seriously the matter then I think you should tell me. Bottling things up inside won’t do you any good. I’m worried about you.

  Is it me?

  Daniel, I have to tell you that I’m getting pretty sick of this silent treatment. I’m getting pretty, pretty flipping sick of it.

  Are you even listening to me?

  Is it something that happened in Thurles?

  Is that what it is?

  What happened there, Daniel?

  What is it you think happened?

  The seconds go by, you think how can they just keep going by, but they do, and you are still here, the two of you in this tiny room, second by second by second –

  The phone yips and vibrates on the table.

  Leave that!

  <>

  Put it down. Coach’s face bone-white.

  Skippy puts the phone down.

  Daniel – flexing and unflexing his fingers – if you don’t want to talk I can’t make you. But I think you’re making a serious mistake here, a mistake that you will come to regret. So here’s what I propose we do. I propose that we rip up this letter –

  Rip, rip, rip, the long triangles flutter to the floor.

  – and we just carry on where we left off. You come to training tomorrow, you race in the meet on Saturday as we’ve planned for months, and after that, when we’ve a bit of breathing space, then we can hash out any difficulties you might have.

  What do you say to that, Daniel?

  Can I take that silence as a yes?

  Painfully bending his knees so he can squat down and look up to you: Look, buddy, I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I guess it must be pretty serious if it’s making you do this. But whatever happens, I hope you’ll still feel able to – I hope you know you can confide in me, anything you might find… hard to tell someone else.

  Blink, blink –

  Okay. Coach’s head sinks a moment then rises as his body rises upwards. Okay.

  The door closes behind him. Trillions of particles fizz up into Skippy’s head, his shirt clings to his back ice-cold and soaking as if he’d just been swimming in the Arctic – as if he’d swum a thousand miles, every muscle utterly empty. The pills beneath the pillow, obsolete, on the wall Ruprecht’s moon map, a million places to visit. And then:

  Lori?

  Hey, DJ, I was just calling you.

  I know, sorry, I had to talk to one of my teachers. What are you doing?

  Just hanging out. In the background the happy sound of Lori’s house, TV voices, warm rooms with open doors. It’s Daniel, he hears her say to someone. My dad says you should come over again next week, she says, returning to the mouthpiece. He’s got more boring stories from his schooldays for you. What you doing there?

  Nothing. Oh, but here, guess what, I quit the swim team.

  You did? When?

  Today. Just now.

  Oh, yay! Oh, Daniel, I’m so happy. It didn’t seem like you were having any fun.

  I wasn’t. I just needed someone to tell me.

  I’m glad I could tell you.

  I’m glad you could too.

  So do you still want to meet up Friday? she says.

  Definitely!

  Great!

  Bay of Rainbows Bay of Love Bay of Harmony! He has already forgotten all about Coach, he is way away on the moon! Lake of Happiness Lake of Hope Lake of Joy – he closes his eyes, he bounds weightlessly over the silver night –

  The boys have finally given up on Miss McIntyre returning. Coke cans and paper are tossed in the bin with everything else; hairspray and deodorant are deployed with abandon; the Chinese government builds what it wants, untroubled by the pupils of Seabrook College.

  If only Howard could move on so easily. Instead he is tormented by her day and night – purring at him from the moonlit deck of an ocean cruiser, through a garland of muscular arms; winking at him from a four-poster bed, where she lies entwined with her faceless fiancé. Sometimes his jealousy comes dressed up as outrage – how could she lie to him like that? How could she lie to herself like that? – and alone in the dark he will clench his fists, inveighing against her on the deck of her imaginary sh
ip; other times he aches for her so badly he is scarcely able to bear it.

  But simultaneously he’s beset by memories. Independently of him, his mind has started filling in the Halley-shaped blanks. He’ll be reading in the kitchen in the small hours, and realize that he is waiting for her to come through the door – can almost see her, in her pyjamas, rubbing her eyes and asking him what he’s doing, forgetting to listen to the answer as she gets sucked into an investigation of the contents of the fridge. At the cooker scrambling eggs; crossing the living room to straddle him as he watches TV; lost in some corporate website with a cigarette and a dogged expression; brushing her teeth in the mirror while he shaves – soon the house is haunted by a thousand different ghosts of her, with a million infinitesimal details in attendance, things he’d never noticed himself noticing. They don’t come with an agenda, or an emotional soundtrack; they don’t pluck at his heartstrings, or elicit any reaction that he can identify definitively as love, or loss; they are simply there, profusely and exhaustingly there.

  Farley says the whole thing reminds him of a joke.

  ‘That’s great, Farley. That’s exactly what I need.’

  ‘I can’t help what it reminds me of, can I? Now do you want to hear it or not?’

  Howard makes a gesture of resignation.

  ‘Okay then. Man walks into a bar, and sees a guy sitting two stools down has the smallest head he’s ever seen. Body’s perfectly normal, but his head is no bigger than a cue ball. He tries not to stare but after a few minutes he can’t stand it any longer so he goes down to the guy and says, “Look, I’m sorry if this seems rude, but would you mind telling me what happened to your head?” The tiny-headed guy in this little tinny high-pitched voice tells him that many years ago, back in the Second World War, he’d served in the Navy. “My ship got torpedoed and every one of my shipmates drowned,” he says. “I should’ve drowned too, only as I sank to the bottom I felt hands around me, pulling me upwards. When I came to, I was lying on a rock in the middle of the ocean, being given mouth-to-mouth by a beautiful mermaid. I realized she’d saved my life and I asked her how I could repay her. She said she didn’t want anything. ‘There must be something I can do for you,’ I said. ‘No,’ she said, but she was so moved by my gratitude that she decided to give me three wishes. Well, all I really wanted was to be back home, out of the damn war. I told her and she snapped her fingers and next thing you know we’re just off the shore, and I can see my own house waiting for me. ‘What next?’ she said. ‘You’ve done so much for me, it’s hard to ask for anything more,’ I said. ‘But maybe some cash, just enough to tide me over?’ She snapped her fingers and suddenly my pockets were spilling over with money. ‘Done,’ she says, ‘you will never want again. And for your third wish?’ Well, I thought long and hard,” says the soldier, “as I floated there beside her. Finally I said, ‘I don’t want to seem forward. But not only have you saved my life, brought me home from the war, and made me rich beyond my wildest dreams – you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. I know you’re going to return to the ocean, and I’m going back to the land, and we’re never going to see each other again. But before that happens, what I would like more than anything else in the world is just once to make love to you. That’s my third and final wish.’ The mermaid looked sad. ‘I’m afraid that is the one wish I cannot grant,’ she said, ‘for I am a mermaid, and you are a man, and to know each other carnally is impossible.’ ‘Really?’ I said. She nodded regretfully. I thought about it for a moment. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘how about a little head?’” ’

  A few seconds elapse before Howard realizes he’s finished. ‘That’s it?’ he demands. ‘So I’m like the idiot with the tiny head, is that it?’

  ‘It reminded me, that’s all,’ Farley protests. ‘Because, you know, be careful what you wish for.’

  ‘I didn’t wish for this, did I? I didn’t wish for Aurelie McIntyre to have a fiancé and hang me out to dry, why the fuck would I wish for that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Howard. Why would you?’

  Now the door opens and Howard slouches down behind his newspaper as Tom hefts himself in. Every November, when the anniversary of the accident in the quarry comes round, a gloom descends over the coach; this year, more than ever before, it seems Howard can sense his rage mounting, cracks appearing in the noble sportsmanlike façade, until it’s as if he is inside Tom’s mind, sharing that furious urge to launch his wrecked body at Howard and beat him until Howard is as mangled as he is. Sometimes he wishes he’d do it, get it over with.

  ‘How’s Tom?’ Farley hails him.

  The coach grunts as he passes the sofa, heads for his pigeonhole.

  ‘Something on your mind?’ Farley asks innocently, as Howard’s stomach does somersaults.

  ‘Busy day,’ Tom returns unwillingly. ‘Trying to finalize the arrangements for the swimming trip. Ten boys, nearest hotel only has four rooms.’

  ‘Pile ’em all into bed with you,’ Farley suggests. ‘Keep you all warm on these cold winter nights.’

  ‘That’s hilarious,’ Tom says tonelessly. ‘That’s very, very funny.’ Envelopes tucked into his back pocket, he limps out through the door again.

  ‘Someday,’ Howard says, lowering the paper again, ‘that guy is going to snap. And I’m the one he’s going to snap at.’

  ‘Howard, I swear to God, you’ve got an imagination like Stephen King,’ Farley says.

  ‘Then why has he been looking at me all week like for two pins he’d disembowel me?’

  ‘Because you’re a paranoid man with too much time on your hands. Too much time and a tiny, tiny little head.’

  On Thursday morning the programme for the concert goes up on the noticeboard. The Van Doren Quartet are there, to Jeekers’s inordinate relief; he peels away, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  ‘Did we get in?’ Eoin ‘MC Sexecutioner’ Flynn asks anxiously, stuck at the back of the crowd examining the board.

  Patrick ‘Da Knowledge’ Noonan scans the list again, then, scowling, turns away. ‘No.’

  ‘We didn’t?’ Eoin is shocked.

  ‘What did you expect, man?’ Patrick throws up his hands at him. ‘Take a look at the programme, it’s wall-to-wall Whitey!’

  ‘Hey, Skip, what’s that chit with your name on it?’

  ‘What’s what?’ Even standing on tiptoes, Skippy still can’t see the board.

  ‘Hold on…’ Geoff reaches over the collected heads and passes back to Skippy a miniature white envelope with the school crest on it.

  ‘I’m being sent for Guidance Counselling.’ Skippy studies the card. ‘With Father Foley.’

  At the name, hands are cupped and brought to ears. ‘Father Who?’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Speak up there, young man!’

  ‘Why are they sending me for Counselling?’

  ‘They’ve found you out, Skippy,’ Dennis taunts, wiggling his fingers in his face. ‘They know.’

  ‘Could be they suspect about Condor,’ Ruprecht frowns. ‘Skippy, if anyone asks, I was with you all night, helping you with your maths. Keep calm. They can’t prove anything.’

  Can’t they? All through German class his worry mounts. Have they found out about him and Lori? Maybe they don’t like people having girlfriends? He sends her a text just to say hi, but she doesn’t reply.

  ‘Nicht makes a verb negative,’ the teacher says. ‘Ich brauche nicht, I do not need. Ich liebe nicht, I do not love. Let’s look at the textbook. Was hast du heute nicht gekauft, Uwe? Ich habe ein Schnitzel für meine Mutter nicht gekauft. What did you not buy today, Uwe? I did not buy a Schnitzel for my mother.’

  ‘I’ve got a Schnitzel for his mother.’

  ‘Mario, your Schnitzel wouldn’t feed a mouse.’

  I do not go I do not eat I do not see I do not hear

  He raises his hand, presents the chit to be excused.

  Father Ignatius Foley sits with a pen braced horizontally between his index fingertips, contemplating the youth bun
ched on the other side of his desk. After protracted and unpleasant ear surgery, he has returned from convalescence to find a stack of emergency cases awaiting his attention, and this lad is top of the heap. A pale fellow of slight build, he looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; in his file, however, you will find Attitudinal Problems, Inattention, Disruptive Tendencies, Vomiting in Class and Playing Frisbee Alone. Trouble comes in every shape and size – when you’ve been counselling youngsters for as long as Ignatius Foley, you’ll know that.

  ‘Do you know why you’re here, boy?’ Father Foley gives him the full benefit of his stentorian baritone voice. The boy shrinks a bit, stares at his thumbs, mumbles something. Father Foley’s eyes narrow. He knows all right. There’s a wiliness beneath that guileless countenance, the look of someone who’ll try and wriggle around the rules. Well, he won’t find much wriggle room in here.

  But first the folded hands, the kindly, avuncular smile. Put him at his ease. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Daniel. No one’s “out to get you”. Your Acting Principal has simply noticed a dip in your grades recently, and asked me to take a look to see if I can help.’ Father Foley rises from his chair. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me in your own words why you think your grades have gone down.’

  As the boy launches into the usual prevaricatory flim-flam, Father Foley, slowly circumnavigating the room, peers into the file again. The case is somewhat unusual; this boy does not seem one of the baffled imbeciles that typically washes up in his office. His marks are excellent, or rather were excellent until quite recently – you could almost pinpoint the day they began their steep decline. Father Foley’s got a hunch, and when you’ve been in this business for as long as he has, you learn to trust your hunches.

  ‘Drugs!’ Spinning around, he jabs a finger in the boy’s face, who, caught off guard, jumps in his seat.

  ‘I want you to look at me,’ Father Foley commands, ‘and tell me if you’ve encountered any of the following substances.’ The boy nods timorously. Father Foley reads from the Department of Education leaflet. ‘Cannabis, also known as ganja, hash, hash joints.’ He peers at the boy. Nothing. ‘Marijuana, grass, weed, mary-jane.’ No. ‘Speed, whiz, Billy Whiz, crank. Ketamin, Special K.’ What in God’s name is Special K doing here? ‘Cocaine, coke, Charlie, snort, blow. Heroin, horse, shit, junk, China White, the White Lady.’