Smile

  —So, I said.—Any chance you’ll let us off the homework tonight, Brother? To celebrate the departure of les canards.

  —That’s ducks, yeh fuckin’ eejit, Moonshine whispered.

  No one laughed. They knew I’d gone too far. They waited for Murphy to charge down to my desk, forehead first.

  I smiled at the Brother; I grinned.

  He looked at me, then away. He stared at nothing – at the wall beside the broken statue of the Blessed Virgin. She had a hole in her back but the Brothers didn’t know that. She’d fallen from her perch when Willo Gaffney had dragged the teachers’ desk over to her during a free class. He’d climbed up and taken his langer out, to make her give him a blowjob. She fell off, sideways. We caught her, all of us, but Muldowney’s knee had gone through her back.

  Murphy stared at the wall, then spoke.

  —Take down the homework.

  No one pleaded with him. No one spoke. The bell went.

  He left.

  * * *

  We got off for Easter a week later and, the first French class after the holidays, a woman walked into the room.

  —Jesus.

  —A woman.

  —Une femme.

  —Say no more, squire.

  —Une femme jolie.

  —Bleedin’ hell.

  It was unbelievable. Literally unbelievable. A woman had walked in from the world outside. The real world. We saw women all the time; our lives were full of women and girls. But this was the first time a woman had come into the school. The cleaners didn’t count. We never saw the cleaners. Moonshine’s mother was a cleaner but he was always home before she went up to the school.

  The woman walked in. She put a bag on the desk.

  —She’s a teacher!

  —Where’s Murphy?

  —Dead.

  —Is Brother Murphy dead, Miss?

  —Non.

  She was French or she was pretending to be French.

  —Is he sick?

  —Non.

  —Is he gone?

  —Oui.

  Jesus.

  —Why, Miss?

  —Silence, please.

  They shut up for a bit and stared at her. I knew what had happened before they did. I’d got rid of Murphy. I was going to claim it. I expelled the fuckin’ zombie. I didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but I knew it had. I’d smiled back at him and he’d panicked; I’d pushed him out of the school. He was never coming back.

  It wasn’t the end of the school year; there were seven weeks to go. The Brothers were always moved during the summer holidays. The ones who were too violent or the ones who put their hands on boys’ necks and left them there. The ones who stood at the classroom window and said nothing for forty minutes. They’d be gone, or some of them would, and there’d be a few different old zombies and one or two younger, mad-looking fuckers walking around the walls of the yard when we went back in September. But this was different. It couldn’t wait till the summer.

  I could see Murphy’s suitcase. I could see him in the back of the Brothers’ minivan, after dark, lying on the floor so he wouldn’t be seen as it skidded out onto the road and they smuggled him to safety.

  Something had definitely happened.

  They were all staring at the woman. She was at the board and she was holding a bit of chalk. I could tell, she didn’t want to turn her back. But she’d have to, if she was going to write her name on the board. That was what they always did, the new teachers.

  She was going to have to do it.

  It was first thing in the morning. This must have been the first class she’d walked into. The Head Brother hadn’t come in to introduce her. He always did that with the new teachers and the temporary ones. He’d come in and warn us. He’d once grabbed Doc and battered him at the front of the room, because he’d said that Doc was smirking. He’d been telling us who the new teacher was and he’d grabbed a hold of Doc before he’d finished and pulled him out from his desk. The Head Brother’s hands were huge and he’d hit Doc four times on the head with one of them, and shoved him, kind of thrown him, back onto his desk.

  —That’s how we deal with go-boys in this school, a Bhráthair, he’d told the new Brother, and us.—Some of these gentlemen think they’re in Butlin’s.

  But he didn’t come in with the new teacher this time. He didn’t want to face us. He didn’t want to answer questions, even though no one would have asked any. He didn’t want to see the faces or the glee. The woman was looking at more than thirty boys – I forget the exact number – looking back at her. She’d probably had it all planned in her head, how she’d write her name, then get us all to introduce ourselves in French. She might have taught in a different school, in France. But this was the first time she’d been stuck in a room like this one. The room was savage, even when it was empty.

  She wanted to run. She wanted to get up on the ledge and climb in behind the Blessed Virgin. She’d climb into the hole in the Virgin’s back.

  I heard something. A zip. The low groan a zip made when it was being opened slowly. Sometimes silence was louder than noise. The silence thumped the sides of my head. It hammered me and the whole room.

  I looked to the side. I didn’t see properly but I saw enough – the looks on other faces, shock, joy, absolute fuckin’ terror – to know. Just behind me, across the narrow aisle, Kenny Peters had his cock out, under the desk.

  I’m not like that, I wanted to tell her. I’m not like that at all.

  I’d smile at her. I’d welcome her to Ireland. I’d carry her bag to the bus stop. I shuffled forward a bit and rode the desk.

  3

  —What are you up to these days? he asked.

  It was the question I dreaded, and I could have dodged it. I could have stayed at home or gone elsewhere. But I hadn’t. I’d come down to the same pub, Donnelly’s, at the same time in the evening. I’d brought a book with me. I’d left the iPad in the apartment because I knew he’d eventually pick it up and start fucking around with it. The point was, I knew we’d be meeting again and I’d done nothing to avoid it.

  He picked up the book, and lobbed it back on the table.

  —Scoping the opposition? he said.

  He’d come in soon after me – like the first time we’d met. If I’d stayed up at the bar it would have been different. There’d have been the punters coming and going, and Carl the barman. Fitzpatrick would have been distracted. He was constantly shifting and looking around; he’d have got involved in other conversations. But I’d let this happen. I was sitting at the table near the door, where he’d found me the first time.

  I put my hand on the book and pulled it a bit closer to me.

  —No, I said.—Not really.

  —Fuck off now, he said.—It must be dog eat dog, the writing game. With the Amazon and the Kindles and that. Books are fucked, I heard.

  He hadn’t looked at the book cover. Anyone else would have asked if it was any good.

  —Go on, he said.—What are you up to? You creative types – fuckin’ writers. You must always be working on some fuckin’ book – I’d say, are yis?

  He was wearing the shorts I’d seen him in the first time and I thought the shirt might have been the same too. I’d searched for Síle Fitzpatrick on Facebook and I’d found lots of her, dozens of Síle Fitzpatricks. The first one had been a teenager in Tralee. I’d stopped looking.

  —The urge must be there all the time, he said.—Is it? To be writing something or other.

  He knew I’d fall for it.

  —Not really, I said.

  That was true but I loved thinking – even lying – that it wasn’t.

  —Is that right? he said.—Well, I know if it was me. If I was able to write a book – if I had it in me. I’d be churning them out. It’s a fuckin’ gift really, isn’t it? Do you know h
ow many books I read a year?

  —How many?

  —None.

  —None? I said.—At all?

  —Fuckin’ none, he said.—I’m not proud of it.

  But he was.

  —I tell people I’m dyslexic, he said.—But I’m just a shiftless cunt, really.

  He shifted in his chair just as he said ‘shiftless’. He sat forward, then pulled himself back. He held on to one of the chair legs.

  —And the gas thing is, it works. People relax a bit when they think I’m dyslexic. Not that anyone gives much of a shite. But they don’t have to pretend they know a lot. It lets them off the hook or something. And me.

  He coughed.

  —And I’ll tell yeh, he said when he’d finished.—More than a few leg-overs have come my way cos of my fuckin’ dyslexia.

  He burst out laughing. He really did. His face expanded, for a second.

  —So you haven’t read my book, I said.

  —No, I fuckin’ haven’t, he said.

  His head went back; he laughed again. Everything about him was abrupt, a bit violent. But the laughter was different this time; he’d decided to laugh.

  I hadn’t a written a book, although I’d met people who claimed they’d read it. Some of them had even liked it. I knew he wasn’t going to be one of them.

  —What do you do, yourself? I asked him.

  I knew nothing about him, other than the facts that he’d been in my class in school and he had a sister who I’d fancied but couldn’t really remember.

  —I’ll tell you, Victor, he said.—I’m between things.

  He sat up noisily and leaned forward, almost as if he was going to sip the head off my pint.

  —I got out of one thing, he said.—No blood on the floor. And I’m kind of going into another.

  He made it seem like he’d told me something, that he’d given me insider information.

  —What was the thing? I asked him.

  —The writer, he said.—Always digging. For fuck sake, will yeh look at your one.

  His eyes, and half his body, followed a woman who’d just walked in, across the path of light at the door. Her friends, all women, were behind her and they went right past his face as he turned. A scarf – one of those light ones that I’d noticed women wearing all summer – slid across the top of his head.

  —More of them, he said.—Happy days, Victor.

  He didn’t care if they heard. He wanted them to hear. I thought at first that he was trying to avoid my question, but he wasn’t.

  —Where were we? he said.

  He kept staring at the women. He turned in his chair, as if he was thinking about getting up on his knees. The women were all in their early forties, I guessed, old school or college friends on their way home from work or out for the night. The latter, I decided. They weren’t dressed for work. They were all trying hard to look like they hadn’t tried hard. It was my wife’s look.

  —The oul’ MILFs, he said.—You can’t fuckin’ beat them. The bit of madness, the bit of experience.

  He was still staring at them.

  —I was in the building game, Victor, he said, and turned to watch the words hit me.

  He smiled.

  —Do you feel soiled? he asked.

  The fucker knew me.

  —No, I said.—Not at all.

  —We were to blame for fuckin’ everything, he said.—Weren’t we? The builders and the bankers. We brought the whole country to its knees.

  He slapped one of his own knees.

  —But, he said.—I’d say, going back, you were pals – you and your missis, like – I’d say you were buddies with one or two builders. Back in the day. Am I right?

  —One or two, I said.

  That was true. More than one or two. Although we’d thought of them as developers. Adventurers. Warriors. Chancers. We’d known some of the men who’d brought their kids to school in helicopters. The only thing about Fitzpatrick that made him one of those men was his shirt.

  —Good man, he said.—You know the road outside – if you turn left and go on down to the sea?

  I nodded.

  —You know the big hole in the ground, on the right? Where the row of red-bricks used to be?

  —I know where you mean, I said.

  It was a gap in the houses, hidden behind a wooden hoarding that had buckled and sagged.

  —That was my last hurrah, he said.—Think of me the next time you’re going past that fuckin’ hole.

  —Okay.

  —Good man. I don’t own it any more, of course. I don’t even own this hole.

  He leaned to the side and slapped his backside. The pub stopped till the noise faded.

  He grinned.

  —Sure, fuck it.

  He looked over at the women again.

  —It was good while it lasted.

  He looked at me.

  —I was a millionaire, Victor, he said.—Can you credit that? I never got round to buying the yacht but I had the fuckin’ brochure. I was a phone call away.

  The laugh burst out again. The face blew out, and quickly fell back into place.

  —For fuck sake, he said.

  He coughed, and laughed again.

  —Anyway.

  He looked across at the women again.

  —The blood is up, he said.—D’yeh fancy a slice yourself, Victor?

  My throat was dry. I wasn’t going to give him an answer. I didn’t trust my voice. Yes. No. I wanted to run.

  I stayed where I was.

  He looked at me, and back at the women, and at me.

  —The one on the left, he said.—She’ll do me.

  He settled back into the chair.

  —You’re a lucky man, Victor, he said.

  —Why?

  I knew what was coming.

  He used a thumb to point at the women behind him at the bar.

  —You’ve one of your own at home, he said.

  I said nothing.

  —Haven’t you?

  I looked across at the women. I hoped it might distract him, make him jealous, that he’d go all alpha and block my view or even get up and bring his pint across to the bar. But, if I’m being honest – and I’m still not sure that I am – I welcomed his provocation. It felt close to slagging. I hadn’t been properly slagged since I’d left school. I didn’t like Fitzpatrick and I still couldn’t remember him; I couldn’t picture him in the classroom, sitting beside me or standing at the top of the room, getting slaughtered by a Brother. But there was something about him – an expression, a rhythm – that I recognised and welcomed. It was why I was sitting there.

  —A fine-looking bird, he said.—I never miss her when she’s on. That one she’s in. Operation Transformation, is it?

  —Hit the Ground Running.

  —That’s the one. What age would she be now?

  —Fifty-two, I said.

  —A bit younger than you.

  —Not much.

  —No, no. Fair enough. You’re – what? – the same as meself.

  —Fifty-four.

  —The magic fuckin’ number. We’re getting old, Victor. We’re already fuckin’ old. She’d be made up and that, dolled up for the cameras. Wouldn’t she? They all are, I suppose. They have to be. Am I right?

  —Yes.

  —Still though. A fine-looking bird.

  I thought for a while that he wanted me to thank him.

  —She must’ve been unbelievable back in the day, he said.

  —We’re not together any more, I said.

  There it was. Out.

  —Ah, no, he said.

  I nodded.

  —Ah, I’m sorry, Victor, he said.—I’m sorry now to hear that.

  I felt good and devastated. And excited
. It went way past thinking that I was getting it off my chest. I was announcing something new. It didn’t matter that I was talking to a man I didn’t know or like. It made me strangely giddy. The people who knew were people who hadn’t needed to be told. People who’d lived with us or near us. This was the first time I’d told someone outside the circle, since I’d stepped outside the circle.

  It was done.

  —Are you back home with your mother? he asked.

  I shook my head. I enjoyed shaking it.

  —No, I said.—No. Actually, she’s dead.

  His face got ready before I’d finished speaking.

  —Ah, God – shite. More bad news.

  —Four years ago.

  —I never knew, he said.—Sorry.

  —Thanks, I said.—Yours?

  —Dead these donkey’s years, he said.—Both of them. My da, God rest him, died when I was still in school. D’you remember?

  I tried to – I tried to remember the day, the news, him being called out of the class, like I had been. I tried to remember his father’s funeral. But all I could recall was my own experience, walking out of the school, home; the curtains drawn, my mother crying and smiling, my uncle putting his hand on my shoulder and leaving it there; sitting alone on my bed, freezing; standing at the side of the grave, feeling the ground, the soil, loose beneath me, scared I’d slide or topple in on top of the coffin. My own father had died when I was still in school. I didn’t remind him.

  —Fifth year, he said.

  —Yes, I said.

  I remembered nothing about it. I suspected that there was a lot I couldn’t remember from that time when my father wasn’t well. He’d died when I was in fifth year, same as Fitzpatrick’s – in February. Perhaps it explained why I couldn’t remember Fitzpatrick.

  He looked across at the women. They were still there and – to me – unusual. It was a long time since I’d seen women in a group like that, in a loud, sexy clump.

  —Is your da gone as well? he asked.

  He was still looking at the women.

  —Yes.

  —Before your ma?

  —Yes, I said.

  —Seems natural that way, he said.

  He looked at me.

  —The man before the woman. Do you know what I mean?