by M. J. Hyland
‘Do you agree?’
‘I agree,’ I say.
I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m sick of the way he changes in the middle of a conversation. He can do what he likes from now on. I know what I want to do.
‘Time for the news,’ he says. ‘Shall we watch it together?’
* * *
We watch the news together, in silence. There’s a policeman on the news and he says: ‘The suspect allegedly tore at the victim’s night skirt and asked her to undress but the female did not comply with this alleged request and the evildoer’s intentions were quite clear.’
Without looking at me, my father says, ‘I love the way the guards talk. They’re always trying to sound intelligent and end up sounding brain-damaged.’
‘I s’pose,’ I say.
‘You suppose, not you s’pose.’
Crito jumps onto my father’s lap and my father pushes her off. ‘I’ve had just about enough of that cat’s dander,’ he says.
‘What’s dander?’ I ask.
‘The stuff that gets up my nose. I hate stuff that gets up my nose.’
He laughs then, like a madman, and gets up to take a cigarette out of the box kept on the mantelpiece. He sucks at the cigarette as though it is a burning sweet, as though he has to get to the end of it as quickly as possible to receive his reward. He rarely talks while he smokes. He prefers to squint and look at the fire. Let him. I leave.
My mother still hasn’t come downstairs and it’s nearly nine o’clock. I go to the kitchen and fry another six sausages and I bring them up to her with some bread and a bottle of tomato sauce.
She’s sitting up in bed, wearing a cardigan over her pink shop coat.
‘Room service!’ I say. I put the plate on her bed and she laughs.
‘Six sausages! You sausage!’
‘Do you want them?’
‘No, you have them. I’m too tired to eat.’
‘Are you going to sleep now?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s Da been?’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday and today.’
‘Working. He’s got himself some odd jobs.’
‘Does that mean everything is normal again with Granny?’
‘It will be soon,’ she says. She closes her eyes.
‘Will you turn off the light on your way out.’
I didn’t know that I was on my way out.
She turns over and doesn’t look at me. The room smells of farts.
I feel embarrassed for her.
17
My father doesn’t come downstairs for breakfast. I ask my mother where he is and she wipes her hand along the side of my face. ‘He went on the early bus to Wexford to talk to his old boss.’
‘Again?’
‘He’s still trying to sort out a few things,’ she says.
‘But it’s three years since he stopped working,’ I say.
My granny lowers a rasher into her mouth the way a zookeeper lowers a piece of fish into the mouth of a sea lion. ‘He’s doing the things a man does,’ she says. ‘He’s getting his nose out of the books and he’s getting off his bony backside.’
My mother stands up and goes to the window. She’s counting to ten to control her temper the way she taught me; I can see the fingers of her left hand tapping out the numbers on her thigh. She’s wearing pink lipstick, a long pink woollen skirt, a white blouse and her hair is out. She looks beautiful and she knows I’m staring and does nothing to stop me. When she’s finished counting she comes back to the table and smiles at me.
‘Another lovely day,’ she says. ‘Fine and fresh and crisp.’
‘Who wants a game of backgammon?’ asks Granny. ‘John?’
‘There’s not enough time.’
‘You’ve got ten minutes. How about a few quick hands of blackjack then?’
‘OK.’
My mother starts whistling and Granny gets the cards from the dresser and deals.
On the way to school I think about last night’s dream in which Ripley found out about my gift for lie detection. I was living with him in his big house in America and it was as though I was his son.
I could see every one of his small, crooked teeth. I said, ‘Even though you have small and crooked and buck teeth you are still famous,’ and he smiled and put his arm around me and we walked together down his driveway towards his convertible sports car.
Because I can’t do an American accent very well, not even in dreams, Ripley had to mumble when he spoke to me, and because he was mumbling I couldn’t exactly understand what he was saying, but I felt sure he was telling me that I’d be famous one day soon.
There was only one bad part in the dream. The roof of Ripley’s car was made of cardboard and, as we drove along the highway together, the cardboard buckled and warped and seemed to want to break off.
When I told Ripley I was worried about the roof, he turned to look at me and his teeth were suddenly straight and big. He didn’t look like himself any more. I woke up then, and blamed the last part, the bad part of my dream, on the noises in the hallway outside my room; the noises of my father and Granny arguing.
At twenty past nine, Mr Donnelly comes into our classroom. For a few minutes he tidies things on Miss Collins’ desk, takes things out of her top stationery drawer and puts them back in. Then he speaks.
‘Miss Collins is sick and while she’s getting better you’ll have a new teacher who will be starting today – as soon as he can get here. The new teacher is a nice man from Dublin. His name is Mr Roche and he will be your substitute until Miss Collins is made better and back on her feet.’
Now he stuffs his hands in his pockets.
I stop listening and look out the window.
Mr Donnelly tells us to play outside. ‘And pray for Miss Collins until your new teacher arrives.’
It is another clear day and the sun is out. I walk down by the edge of the playing field and run a stick along the fence. I don’t look back at the school building or to see what Brendan and Kate are doing.
I see Joseph with his horse on the other side of the fence near the road. He’s with another man. I go up to the gate to say hello.
Joseph’s friend says, ‘Would you like a ride on my horse? His name is Zorro.’
I don’t know Joseph’s friend’s name, but he is friendly and shorter and fatter than Joseph. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Yes, please.’
I go out through the fence and Joseph’s friend helps me on. This horse is sick, and covered in sores, but it is too late to say I don’t want to ride. When I climb on, I can feel his ribs against my calves.
I’m riding along by the edge of the road, with Joseph and Joseph’s friend chatting and joking, and I feel like the world belongs to me. I don’t feel nervous and I don’t mind that Brendan and Kate are playing together without me. I don’t care that I am like Osmond, playing on my own. At least when I talk to myself I do it quietly without waving my hands about and nobody can see my lips moving.
I get hungry after a while. ‘I better go back now,’ I say. ‘I better eat my lunch.’
I get down from Zorro and look at him. I want to stare into his eyes the way I do with Joseph’s horse, Neddy. But Zorro doesn’t want to stare and he turns his face away. I suddenly feel nervous again, and I wonder if it’s because I can only see one of Zorro’s eyes and I don’t know what the other eye is doing.
‘Thanks Joseph,’ I say. ‘Bye now.’
‘Bye now young John,’ says Joseph’s friend.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask him.
‘Joseph. Same as him.’
‘So long,’ I say. ‘I’ll say hello to Granny for you.’
‘Yes. Bye now.’
‘Be good, so.’
I sit on the bench under Mr Donnelly’s office window feeling happy and begin to eat my jam sandwich. I should have given the Josephs some biscuits and I look up to see if they are still out by the gate.
I see Kate. She is comi
ng towards me, pulling Brendan’s jacket. ‘Come on, Brendan,’ she says. ‘Let’s get his sandwich.’
Kate looks around after she shouts at me. She wants to be watched. Brendan looks down at his feet, and leans in close to Kate, as though for warmth, or in case he falls. And he puts his hand over his nose, the way he does when he’s embarrassed.
Kate stands over me. ‘Have you wet your pants today?’
I put a crust into my mouth and try to chew, but it feels as big and dry as a sock. I push it between my bottom lip and my teeth but the piece of crust gets stuck there.
‘Pants-wetter! I’m talking to you!’ she says.
My penis tingles as though somebody has touched it. I squeeze my thighs together.
‘Get his sandwich off him,’ she says as she grabs Brendan by the jacket. ‘Kick him in the kneecap. Get both his kneecaps.’
Brendan kicks my knee and I let him. I could fight back, but I won’t. I will act as though they don’t exist. I will watch Brendan as though he were a picture on the television.
After he has kicked me, he staggers and needs to step back to get his balance. And because I don’t react he seems confused. He looks down at his shoe.
I stare at him, and he kicks me again, in the other knee, harder this time. Maybe to show he doesn’t need orders from his master. He’s quite strong, so the kick is hard. I look at him. I look at them both as though I don’t care what they do. My face is blank. I put my hands on my knees and the heat from my palms helps the pain. But I show nothing. I’ll say nothing; like the caretaker.
‘Get it now!’ Kate says. ‘Get the sandwich!’
Brendan takes the rest of my jam sandwich and without meaning to says, ‘Thanks.’ He looks confused, as though he wants to change his mind.
I stand up and walk away.
I go back to the classroom and sit and read my geography book. But after a few minutes, when I turn the page, I see that there’s sticky blood on the end of my finger. I’ve been scratching my scalp so much that there is a small hole in the crown of my head. I scratch it at night when I can’t get to sleep and I dig at the hole, sometimes without noticing, until it bleeds. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. The hole doesn’t exactly belong to me.
After lunch, Mr Donnelly orders us back inside. He stands in front of our classroom, but he doesn’t speak. He holds the blackboard duster in his hand and it looks as small as a biscuit. He puts the duster down and, when he tries to stuff his hands into his pockets, only the tips of his red fingers fit and the rest of them poke out, squashed, full of blood and shiny. They are red fingers, just like my father’s, but fatter.
Kate stands up and yells, ‘If the new teacher is so late, he should get the cane!’
The cane is leaning up against the left-hand corner of the blackboard and Mr Donnelly looks at it for a moment before turning to face the window.
I look out the window too, at the playing field, the school gate, and the narrow, tree-lined country road.
It is nearly two o’clock when a man gets out of a taxi at the gate and walks across the field towards us.
He is young – younger than my father – and, although not tall, he looks strong, with black hair to his shoulders. I have never before seen a man with long hair, or a man getting out of a taxi at our school gate.
He looks made of hard materials, steel and iron, not easily broken. Most of the men in our town seem like they are made of sponge cake or leftover turnip, like my uncles, Jack and Tony, who are overweight around the stomach and chin. Their blotchy skin is like turkey stuffing.
Most of the men in our town not only look the same, they act the same too; even my father becomes more like my uncles when he’s with them. But at least my father is more handsome than they are.
The man comes closer and I am full of hope: I have always wanted a smart man for a teacher, a man with mettle and brains, and as I watch him disappear from view I can hardly stop myself smiling.
Mr Donnelly seems confused and wipes the teacher’s desk back and forth with the blackboard duster, as though erasing a mistake.
A minute of silence, and then the man walks through the door and to the front of our classroom. Mr Donnelly puts the duster down and stands next to him.
They speak for a minute or two and then leave the room together. Mr Donnelly ducks his head and shoulders under the doorway and they are gone.
Sister Ursula comes to keep watch. She stands by the blackboard and tells us to read. ‘As quiet as mice,’ she says.
Thirty minutes later, the man returns alone and Sister Ursula leaves without speaking.
‘You’ll call me Mr Roche, not sir,’ he says.
We snicker and fidget and stare.
He walks along by the blackboard.
‘You live in a beautiful town. I bet if you were quiet enough you could hear the boats rub against the pier and the fish burp and the seagulls snore.’
We laugh because Courtown’s sandy beach and Courtown Bay are four miles from Gorey and we cannot hear the seagulls or the boats. This is a lie, a story, told for fun and I like it; I like him.
I watch as Mr Roche moves between our desks, and I can smell him. Perhaps he stood in manure in his walk across the field; it’s the same smell as the farmers who have breakfast at Kylemore’s in town. It doesn’t suit his fancy clothes and posh voice to have this smell on his shoes and I wonder when he’ll notice and clean them.
‘Now, I’m going to have a short quiet chat with every one of you,’ he says and he crouches down at each desk in turn, asking questions in a whisper.
I wait anxiously for my turn, thinking that he’ll soon discover me and know that I’m different. I’ll tell him about my gift.
At Brendan’s desk, Mr Roche crouches down and this time he does not whisper. We can all hear him say, ‘Are you easily influenced, Brendan?’
Brendan shrugs, then Mr Roche puts his mouth against Brendan’s ear.
‘OK, I will,’ Brendan says and then he drops his head and keeps it down, as though looking for an important message written on his desk.
Mr Roche reaches Kate’s desk, but he doesn’t kneel down to whisper in her ear. Instead, he sits on the empty desk behind hers, taps her on the shoulder and says, ‘And who might you be?’
Kate turns to look at him. ‘I’m Kate Breslin,’ she says. ‘I’m an only child from Dublin and my family has taken over a deceased estate.’
‘Well, Kate, I believe you’re the clever one. That must make you feel quite special?’
And then I know it: Mr Donnelly took Mr Roche away to talk about each of us. Now I am sure Mr Roche will realise who I am.
‘Not really,’ says Kate, her voice trembling.
‘Clever or not,’ Mr Roche says, ‘I hope your coffin is airtight.’
He laughs and the whole class laughs with him, because what he has said makes no sense. Even Brendan turns round to show me his laughing teeth.
Mr Roche walks to the front, sits on the edge of the teacher’s desk and smiles directly at me. Although he didn’t come to my desk, I’m sure he knows. I’m sure he will help me.
As soon as I get home, I make a toasted ham sandwich and then I lie on my bed and spend two hours writing another letter to the Guinness Book of Records. I’m confident I’ll get a reply this time.
Dear Guinness Book of Records,
My name is John Egan and I have written to you once before.
I am the boy with the gift of lie detection. I have now read all of the books on the subject available on the East Coast of Ireland and I have tested my talent a few more times since my first letter.
I am even surer that my gift is rare and unusual to say the least.
Please write back to me this time and I will arrange a demonstration for you either in Dublin or in London or wherever it suits you best. I will prove that I can detect lies with 100% accuracy.
John Egan
Age 11
Gorey, Ireland
My mother comes into my room at teatim
e without knocking. ‘Why don’t you knock?’ I say. ‘Don’t I have any privacy?’
She laughs and sits on my bed. ‘Aren’t you a cheeky one? Maybe I did knock and your ears are too full of earwigs to hear.’
She rubs my leg as she speaks.
‘I hate talking about housework, but it’s high time you did some of your chores. Could you please do them without being reminded? You haven’t done the hoovering for a week and you haven’t dusted the mantelpiece either.’
‘Sorry.’
‘All right. You can eat, then. We’re having chops for tea and I’ve made some rhubarb and custard for dessert,’ she says.
And suddenly, even though I haven’t seen my father in two days, I am happy.
18
It’s Friday and I walk to school quickly and get there early so that I can watch Mr Roche prepare his classes at the teacher’s table. I watch him all morning. I like him very much and I especially like his voice.
But then, during second lesson, I realise that I have been holding on too long and I must go to the toilet. I can’t have another accident. I stand and put my hand up and ask to be excused.
Mr Roche comes straight over to me, takes my hand, and leads me into the corridor. I’m embarrassed to be led like this in front of my class, but he looks at me as we walk, and he smiles at me, as though leaving the classroom like this is normal, as though I am his friend.
In the corridor, he asks me to sit under the coat rack and I sit with my head under somebody’s duffel coat, holding on to my urine.
‘Keep it in,’ he says. ‘Just a minute longer.’
I manage to hold on. Then he takes me to the bathroom.
He waits for me and I wait for him to leave. But he stays by the door, looking all the while as I stand with my hand on my zipper.
‘I won’t bite,’ he says. ‘Go ahead.’
I turn away from him and open my fly. I urinate. So little comes out I worry that I’ll soon need to go again.
When I have finished I turn to look at him.
‘Good lad,’ he says.
I walk over to him and he pats me on the back.
‘You’re a good lad,’ he says. ‘You have a very nice way about you.’