You know my mother.
The girl stood beside his desk. She was one of those big-eyed kids. She’d always look a bit like a kid. By the time she was thirty-five, she’d be a strange-looking kid.
—You know my mother, she said again.
Now, though, she was one of those lovely kids. She’d stopped, hesitated, on her way past his desk to the door. The last out. She’d probably made sure of that. It was her first full day in the secondary school.
He finished what he was doing. Searching for a red Biro at the bottom of his bag. And he looked at her.
—Is that right? he said.
—Yeah.
He looked for her mother in the kid’s face.
Big eyes. He stopped looking. He could feel the sweat on his forehead.
—Who is she? he said.
—Amanda Collins, she said.
—Amanda Collins?
—Yeah. Do you remember her?
—I do, yeah.
But he didn’t.
—How is she?
—She’s grand, said the kid.
—Good.
—She says they all fancied you.
She wasn’t the first. The last five or six years, kids had been stopping at his desk. Their first day, their big news. You knew my ma or my da.
This was killing him.
It was getting harder. Getting through the day, the nine class periods. It was the first week in September.
She was still there. He’d have to say something. Silence wouldn’t work.
—It’s hard to imagine, he said. Isn’t it?
—Yeah.
He looked at her. He laughed—relief. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. Even as he heard himself say it. Like some seedy old man, flirting or something.
She laughed, too. A lovely kid. Open. Like her mother must have been. Why he’d loved teaching, when he started, and for a long time.
He didn’t drink in the day. His head was telling him he should, something quick, to swallow the headache. But he didn’t. He never had, and he never would. There was no flask or bottle in his bag. No quick dash down to the local. Too many parents, too much self-respect.
He used to like it, kids stopping for a chat. What groups are you into, sir? Our cat’s after having kittens. D’you want one, sir? Things like that. He used to write down the best of them.
It didn’t really happen now. Kids didn’t stop. He wrote down nothing.
The kid here was going.
—See you tomorrow, sir.
He looked at his timetable. It was open, on his desk.
—Yes, he said. Tomorrow. Bye.
—Bye.
She left the door open. A lovely kid. He’d smile every time she walked in, for the next six years.
He went to the door. He used to stand there between classes and watch the world go by. All those tall and tiny children. More than a thousand of them on the move. He could have named most of them. He shut the door.
Things changed. It wasn’t just him. He wasn’t denying anything: his heart wasn’t in it. He wished he was somewhere else. But there weren’t as many students now; the area outside was changing. The corridor wasn’t as packed as it had been when he’d started, twenty-three years before.
He looked again at the timetable. He sat down. He had to bring the page closer to his eyes. He didn’t have a class now; he was free till eleven o’clock.
It wasn’t just him. Something had happened. A kid stopping at the desk, a boy or a girl, had become something to be wary of, almost to dread. They’d been given talks, in the staff room, on the telltale signs—the eyes, marks, cuts. He was probably the only member of the staff left who hadn’t been told an abuse story. He’d expected it to happen. For a long time. He’d felt left out when it didn’t. He’d even been ready to make up something, when a gang of the teachers had gone for an impromptu pint after work. The urge to tell, to get back his status as one of the nice teachers. But he’d been wise; he’d kept his mouth shut.
He looked at the timetable again. He had two classes left to lunchtime, and another two after. That wasn’t too bad. He looked at his watch. The headache was starting to lift. He’d be better in the next class; he’d get up and move around. He’d be Robin Williams for half an hour, in “Dead Poets Society.” One of those “Seize the day” classes. The way he used to be, all day. He’d even said it once. Seize the day, boys and girls. They’d cheered.
He had an abuse story of his own. He’d been in first year, like the big-eyed kid who’d just left. A few months in the new school, he knew hardly anyone. He’d been sent to the Christian Brothers and he still hadn’t got used to them. They were strange men, sometimes funny, but savage and unpredictable. The lay teachers were as bad. If he listened, he could hear shouting or crying, someone being hit, in another part of the building. The noises were always hanging there. Once, he remembered, a boy in the room next door was thrown against the classroom wall, and he watched the blackboard on his side of the wall come off its hinges and fall to the wooden floor. They’d laughed. They’d all laughed. They’d laughed at everything.
There was one of the brothers, Brother Flynn. Latin and Civics. He’d stand at the front of the room and smile and rub his big hands. But he could just as easily bring the hands down on someone’s face, one onto each ear. The front desk was a death sentence. But, really, Flynn was all right. He was the only teacher who used their first names. He didn’t go mad when he saw the names of English football teams on the covers of their books and copies. Flynn was a laugh.
But Flynn liked him. He’d smile at him when he was testing their Latin vocabulary. The others noticed.
—Smile back and he won’t give us any homework.
—Lay off.
—Go on, yeh queer.
—Fuck off.
Flynn patted his shoulder one day as he was going past. He wanted to cry. He wanted to get out the window, drop to the ground, run into the sea across the road. He knew the others were looking. He knew they’d be waiting to get him when the bell went and Flynn left the room. He hated Flynn and he needed him to stay.
It had only lasted for a while. He got to know a few of the other lads. They went on the same bus home; he made them laugh. They knew he was sound, and soon the stuff about Flynn became a joke. He was one of them now, so he wasn’t a queer. Flynn still smiled and it didn’t matter.
Then he was sick. One morning, he felt hot. His forehead, his whole face, was suddenly wet with sweat. He put his hand up.
—Brother!
He was going to puke. Flynn must have noticed, must have seen the color dropping off his face. He opened the door.
—Quick, quick!
Flynn was standing outside when he came back out of the toilet. He smiled at him. He said he’d drive him home. He told Flynn that his mother wouldn’t be there; she went to his granny’s on Mondays, two buses across the city.
Flynn took him over to the house where all the brothers lived, beside the school. He’d never been in the house before. He’d never really been near it. It was a rule that never had to be remembered: don’t go near the brothers’ house. Water dripped from the roof of the porch onto the red and black tiles.
—Mind you don’t slip, said Flynn.
He remembered shivering, remembered feeling the cold on his skin.
Flynn opened the front door. He followed him into the hall. The same red and black tiles.
—Shut the door.
He pushed the front door closed. The lock was colossal, a big black box screwed right into the wood.
Flynn kept walking. He stood for a while, then followed him. Flynn’s black shoes on the tiles, and his own shoes—they were the only noises. The house was empty. He’d seen the housekeeper once, a woman much older than his mother, walking toward the brothers’ house with a net shopping bag full of apples. But she wasn’t there now. He could tell: something about the cold—the house had been empty for hours.
Flynn pulled open a door. He disappeared behind it, then came back out, backward. He was dragging something. It was a fold-up bed, on casters. The casters squealed across the tiles. Flynn dragged the bed across the hall, to another door. He stayed where he was. Flynn was still going backward, pulling the bed, looking at him.
—Come on, he said.
He didn’t move. He remembered that. He remembered the slow terror, in his legs.
—Come on, said Flynn. Quick now.
He watched, stayed at the door, as Flynn unfolded the bed. He heard him grunt as he pushed the two sides down. It was the dining room, or something. Flynn pushed the bed against the long table.
—There you are. Lie down.
Flynn walked across to the window. He heard him pull the curtains. It didn’t make the room much darker. He sat down on the bed. It moved a bit, on the casters. He took off his shoes. He stood up again. He could hear Flynn’s feet. He pulled back the gray blanket. The mattress was bare, and striped.
He lay down. He felt the bed move under him again, just a bit, an inch. He pulled the blanket over his chest. The room got darker. Flynn was standing in front of the light coming from the hall.
—How’s the tummy now?
—All right, Brother.
—Are you going to be sick again, d’you think?
—No, Brother.
He felt the blanket being pulled away from him, but he couldn’t see Flynn’s hands. Then he saw Flynn’s face, close to his own. He was leaning over him. The blanket was gone. Then it was back; he felt it land on his legs, his waist, his chest. He felt Flynn’s hands at his neck. He could feel Flynn’s knuckles, on his chin. Flynn was holding the blanket. He was tucking it under his neck. He was looking down at him. He was smiling.
That was it, all he could remember. He half-expected more to open up—the hand grabbing his neck, holding him down—but it never did. He’d told someone about it once, a woman at a party. He’d stopped where his memory stopped, at the man tucking the blanket under the boy’s chin. He was sitting beside the woman, two kitchen chairs side by side. She looked at him, then told him that he was an apologist for the Catholic Church. She stood up as she said it.
There was something, color, at the corner of his eye. He glanced over at the classroom door. The principal was looking in the window. She waved, and went. He looked down at his desk. What had she seen? His diary was open, so was one of his books. His timetable. His pen was there as well. It was fine. He was working. He felt his face. He’d shaved that morning.
Not that it mattered. It had never mattered, that kind of idiocy, in this school. How you taught, not how you dressed; that was what mattered. It was one of the things he’d loved about the place. But he’d noticed. His beard had changed color. There was gray in it, even a bit of white. He looked like a wino or something if he didn’t shave every second day.
The principal was younger than him. She’d come to the school four years after he had. He’d kissed her once—he cringed now.
He looked at his timetable. It was darker in the room now; it was going to rain. This had been his room for more than twenty years. He knew the light and every noise.
He’d do something about the drinking. He’d give it up. He would—he could. He’d watched a football match the night before, the Champions League, on RTÉ, the whole thing. But he didn’t know who’d played. He remembered nothing. Not a thing. He’d have to read the report in the paper before lunch; the paper was in his bag. Then he’d be able to talk about it, if he talked to anyone. But he’d probably stay in the room. Plan his classes.
He’d stop. The drinking. He wasn’t fooling himself. He knew it was serious.
He’d kissed her. That first year she’d been in the school. After a union meeting.
He smiled. The absurdity. The idea of kissing her now. He looked at the window. There was no one there. He looked at the timetable. Sixth-Year English was next. A double class, Ordinary level. There were no Honors classes on his timetable. It was five years since he’d had an Honors class. Nothing had been said.
These kids were fine. He’d had them last year. But there was no life in them. He’d have sworn it was true. It just wasn’t like it used to be.
He wrote in his diary, “NOVEL.” He’d do the novel with them, a good start to the year. What novel was it? Had they done it already, last year? He looked at his shelf. He knew all the books, the shapes, the colors of the spines; he didn’t have to read the titles. Which one was it?
He’d do something else with them. He’d think of something. He was good at that. Seize the day. The spontaneity. Not with this gang, though. Those days were over. He’d have to have something ready.
He stood up. His knee cracked. Something dry in the joint. He went to the bookshelf.
That was something he definitely remembered, the first time he’d heard his knee crack. It was the last time he’d been with a woman, and sober enough to remember it.
—What was that?!
She’d thought it was an animal or something, under the bed. Gnawing a bone. She’d made him turn on the light. A disaster, the two of them. Squinting—reality. He got off the bed and heard the crack again.
—My knee, he said.
—What?
—The noise, he said. Listen.
He moved again. She heard the crack. She started crying. A disaster.
He still liked the teaching. He hadn’t changed that much. He liked the new kids who were beginning to turn up every year, the sons and daughters of the immigrants. Black kids with Dublin accents. And the East Europeans. Lovely kids. And it reminded him—now, he could feel it—of why he’d loved teaching. Empowerment. He’d loved that word. He’d believed it. Giving power to working-class kids. He could get worked up about poverty, and why he was there in the school. A word like “underclass” could still get him going, the convenience and cynicism of it. Hiding all that social injustice and inequality in a word like that. The working class became the underclass, and their problems became inevitable. His thinking hadn’t changed. When he thought.
He looked at his watch. He had twenty minutes left. There was a tiny crack in the glass, and a line of mist at the crack, under the glass. He’d no idea when that had happened.
There’d been one woman. She’d said it once: she loved the way he thought.
He had an address in his wallet. A.A. The address and the times. Alcoholics Anonymous. It was in his jacket, in the inside pocket, ready for whenever he wanted it. Someone had given it to him. A cousin of his. At his uncle’s funeral, at the few drinks after the burial. He didn’t get it at first; he didn’t know what she was doing. He thought she was slipping him her phone number and he was running through the ethics and legality of it, phoning his own cousin, arranging to meet for a date—because she wasn’t a bad-looking woman and, really, he hardly knew her. He hadn’t met her since they were kids. But it hadn’t been her number at all. It was an address for Alcoholics Anonymous, and the meeting times. He’d thought about going, to see if she’d be there. But he hadn’t gone. He hadn’t wanted to; he hadn’t felt the need. Still, he’d held on to the address. He knew it was there.
He looked at his watch. He had thirteen minutes, plenty of time. He’d give them the opening sentence of a story, and get them to continue. That always worked. He’d give them a good one.
He’d come close once, with a woman. Mary. They’d been together for two years. He’d just graduated, started teaching. She was still in her final year. She’d be finished in August, and he knew what would happen then. She’d get a teaching job like his. Their salaries would meet and they’d buy a house and get married. Because her mother would deliver the Great Silence until they did. They laughed about it, the Great Silence, her name for the mother’s war against any urges or opinions that might deflect her children from their proper course: the career, the four-bedroom house, the husband or wife, the happiness that was Southside, Catholic respectability. They laughed but they’d known: the old bitch would win. They’d never admit it, the choices would be theirs—but they’d do it. They’d get the mortgage; it was mad to carry on renting. They’d get married; for tax reasons. In a church; for the laugh. They’d known—he’d known. And he’d done the right thing. He sat beside her and told her it was over. He remembered the elation as he left her in the pub and went back to their flat, to pack. Throwing everything into two bags. Going. There’d been a few phone calls, then that was it. He was alone. He could live.
One night, a few years ago, he’d been watching a current-affairs program on RTÉ, after the news. He was only half-watching, and reading. He looked up at the screen. He recognized her before he knew her name. Mary. She was in some city in Africa and she was talking to people—children and women—who’d been deported from Ireland, interviewing them. In small, dark rooms, or rooms that seemed to be missing walls, that were sliding onto the street.
He watched. She stood on a street that looked like the scene of recent violence and spoke to the camera. There were two men with rifles just behind her. She looked well. She looked great. The report ended.
He had seven minutes. Seize the day, boys and girls. Teaching was a branch of show business. He’d always said it. Grab the kids and bring them with you. Empowerment. He stood at the board. He waited for the idea, the opening sentence that they’d read on their way into the room, the sentence that would have them grabbing their pens and folders from their bags. He hadn’t eaten in days; he wasn’t hungry. But he thought that food, anything, might help with the headache.
But, there was his idea. He wrote it on the board. “He hadn’t eaten in days.” He looked at it.
Six minutes.
He sat down. He was pleased. He was sorted, organized, up to lunchtime. Only nine more months to go. He made himself smile. He was back on track. He opened his diary again, put it beside his timetable. He’d plan ahead. He’d memorize the students’ names. He’d smile at them when they came into the room. He’d chat to them. He’d bring them with him. Empowerment. It was still there; he could feel it, across his chest. He wouldn’t drink today; he’d go straight home. He’d get food on the way. He’d get some new clothes at the weekend. He’d go to a film or a play.
That big-eyed kid, the one who’d told him that he’d known her mother. He wished that kid was his. It was ridiculous—the thought just rolled through him. Brother Flynn—the man’s smile, looking down at him. He wanted to look at someone that way, to smile down at his own child. To be able to do that. Whatever it took, whatever he gave up or didn’t give up.
It was ridiculous.
He stood up. He opened the door. He was ready for the bell. He looked at the board. “He hadn’t eaten in days.” They’d love that. Kidnapping, starvation; the boys would love it. But he had another idea. He went back to the board and picked up the chalk. He wrote under the first sentence, “She hadn’t eaten in days.” That was even better. They could have the choice. He could feel it in him. It was the old feeling, back. The hands would be up, asking him how to spell “anorexia.” He could already feel the buzz, the energy. He’d stay standing, walk among them. He’d smile. He’d laugh.
He looked at his watch.
One minute.
He was fine. ♦
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