Laurel and Hardy
‘I can’t believe it,’ Marion cried down the phone when Malachy said he had got the job. ‘What was it like? Tell me what it was like?’
He could hardly talk himself he was so excited. ‘Oh, it was just this old baldy guy and some priest called Stokes. You want to hear the questions they asked me. Do you think the teacher has a moral responsibility to his pupils and the community? How important do you think neat dress is for the teacher? Man, it was priceless! Anything they asked me I said sure. If they’d asked me did I think the teacher should work twenty-four hours a day I’d have said – absolutely. Such an amount of bullshit! But I got it! I think, says the sky pilot at the end of it, that this is the man for us! Man, you want to see those two guys, they’re something else!’
That night in the pub he told them the whole story. Raphael looking at him over the rims of his big thick glasses and trying to put the wind up him with stories of how hard teaching was in the old days. ‘The pair of them,’ laughed Malachy as he shoved another pint down him, ‘Laurel and fucking Hardy.’
Rathmines
Rathmines is a suburb to the south of Dublin city, regarded as something of a Latin Quarter. Students and self-styled bohemians abound. Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes flutter in the breeze. There is a huge clock with Roman numerals. Weekends the place goes crazy as the plateglass smashes and the discos thump. Young people reckon it’s the place to be. Parties erupt at the drop of a hat. Rathmines is the East Village of Dublin. Or so Malachy and Marion thought. Not that it made a blind bit of difference what they thought, considering the way their lives were about to go. But of course they didn’t know that then. How would they when they were still madly in love, twining on the floor almost every night until they could hardly walk.
Which was the way it was destined to go for the next four or five months anyway. Before his life started to fall apart and Malachy began to realize just how beautiful those first few months together had actually been, as it slowly became clear that Marion, even though it was the last thing in the world she herself wanted, couldn’t bring herself to love him any more.
Cup
The first sign that there was trouble ahead came the day Malachy took Mr Boylan’s cup. Mr Boylan taught sixth class and didn’t like people taking his cup. It was a white one with two blue rings and he had had it for twelve years and did not like anyone touching it never mind taking it. Malachy didn’t know that of course. He thought you could take any old cup. He thought you could could just walk over to the cup-tray and help yourself to the first cup that took your fancy. But you couldn’t of course. You most certainly could not. Which he knew now all right because Mr Boylan was glaring at him like someone possessed. He didn’t have to say anything. He didn’t say, ‘That’s my cup! Give me back my cup you unmannerly wretch! That’s my cup! I’ve had it for twelve years and you, you ignorant little upstart, you come in and you take it for yourself right there in front of my nose! Well – you’ll not! You won’t! You just wait and see! You might do that in that so-called college you’ve just come out of – but you won’t do it here! I’ll soon see that you won’t! And the rest of the staff too! That’s not the way we do things here – as you will soon find out, my impertinent friend!’
He didn’t have to say any of that. He didn’t have to because the look said it all. When it dawned on Malachy what he’d done, he went all red. He stuttered a bit as he washed it and put it back on the tray. He could see that no one else liked him taking Mr Boylan’s cup either. But once he had put it back, everything settled down a bit and got sort of back to normal. Mr Keenan licked some crumbs off his lips and said, ‘The forecast’s good for the weekend.’
Mr Boylan replied, ‘That’s something anyhow.’
Mr Keenan shook his head and said, ‘Would you believe it, I was hardly in the door of the classroom and Corcoran was out of his seat again. He cannot get it into his head!’
‘Who are you telling?’ frowned Mr Boylan as he sipped his tea.
Then the door opened and in came Mr Malone who taught fifth class. He was wearing a safari jacket and you could see Spiderman looking out over the top pocket.
‘I’ll break his back,’ he snapped, ‘if I catch him up on those windows again!’
‘Is it McCreesh?’ asked Mr Boylan.
‘Cassidy! Cassidy! Who else! I swear to God I’ll not be held responsible!’
He ran his fingers through his curly hair and rinsed out his cup.
‘A cur! For that’s all he is!’ he hissed again.
‘The brother was the very same,’ said Mr Boylan just as Mr Bell came in. Mr Bell took off his glasses and shone them with a great sheet of a handkerchief. His cheeks were reddish-purple as he replaced his spectacles and bellowed, ‘I told him! I told him not to go near the pipes but do you think he’d listen? I didn’t hear you! I didn’t hear you, Master Bell, he says! Well, by God boy, I said, if I ever catch you up on them pipes again it’ll be straight up to that office as fast as your legs can carry you and we’ll see how much you’ll hear then. We’ll see how much you’ll hear then!’
He shook his head and fiddled with the jangling bunch of keys in his hand then all of a sudden turned to Malachy and cried, ‘There you are! I was wondering if I could have a word with you in the office?’
The next thing Malachy knew, the door was closing behind the headmaster and Mr Boylan was staring into his tupperware box with a sort of grin on his face because he knew that Mr Bell was cross over something. You always knew that he was cross by the kind of voice he used. And he was cross now. Mr Boylan wasn’t annoyed that he was cross or anything like that. He was happy actually. Very happy in fact. That was why he looked over at Malachy and said with his eyes, ‘You see? Now you see, don’t you? None of this would have happened if you hadn’t taken my cup.’
In Loco Parentis
Behind the door hung a map of Ireland and upon the wall stood the Pope blessing the multitude in St Peter’s Square. Above the window, a St Brigid’s Cross fashioned from rushes and beside it the charcoal heads of the seven men who had taken on the might of the British Empire and struck for Ireland’s freedom. And looking down over all, little St Anthony standing on his plinth with two chipped fingers upraised and sadness in his eyes as Mr Bell shone his glasses and looked away from Malachy. There was a slight tremor in his right arm which he steadied by gripping the edge of the table between his finger and thumb. It seemed an age before he spoke. Just what the hell is going on? Malachy thought suddenly. Why is he calling me up here like a bloody seven-year-old? He received his answer almost immediately. ‘I am sorry to have to say this but it is my duty to tell you that there have been a number of complaints from parents.’
Malachy was dumbstruck. The headmaster continued, ‘I want you to know that it gives me no pleasure to say this and I would much rather it did not have to be said at all. But now that these complaints have come before me it is my responsibility to deal with them. Quite frankly, some of the parents are concerned about your, how shall I put it . . .’
He faltered in mid-sentence and turned his back on Malachy and stared off out across the playground with his fingers laced behind his back, gathering his thoughts. A lone seagull was battling with a breadwrapper beside the toilets. He cleared his throat as he turned, ‘The way you dress yourself,’ he continued. ‘Many of them find it – inappropriate. And, I am sorry to have to say, so do I. At the interview you did indicate that you felt these things were important. I can only conclude that you did not mean what you said. I appreciate that certain standards may not apply in other schools. That these days there is a flexible attitude to matters such as this. I can only be honest with you and say that I fully understand the parents’ views.’ He paused and said, almost in a whisper, ‘St Anthony’s has always upheld the highest standards. That is why, Mr Dudgeon, they continue to send their children to us year after year. It is important that we maintain those standards.’
He said nothing for a long time and t
hen told Malachy that he was genuinely sorry he had to say these things. He too had been a young teacher once, believe it or not. He knew what it was like. ‘We are in loco parentis here, Mr Dudgeon,’ he went on. ‘We have duties. A relaxed attitude may be perfectly fine in college. But not here. Children need consistency. Firmness. They need someone they can look up to. Do you understand me?’
This was the test, of course. If Malachy had really been Joe Buck or Benny or any of these crazy guys whose antics he spent most of his college days aping trying to impress Marion, he would have grinned from ear to ear and drawled laconically, ‘Hell – you are quite a guy, ain’t you, Mr Bell? You sure are one hell of a crazy guy. You know who you’re talking to here?’ But, as he knew more than anyone, he wasn’t Joe Buck, was he? He was Malachy Dudgeon, that’s who he was, son of Packie the biggest bollocks in the town. Which explained unequivocally why it was that he stood there like he had gone and pissed in his trousers. He could hardly hear the headmaster as he began again, ‘Oh – and another thing. I should tell you that Mr Boylan had that class last year and Mr Keenan before him and they really have been excellent all the way through the school. Don’t spoil it, Mr Dudgeon. All it takes is a firm hand. You’ll get no thanks for being lax with kiddies, believe me.’
The headmaster squeezed the desk with his finger and thumb. ‘Mr Dudgeon,’ he said, ‘there has never been any trouble whatsoever in this school right from the very first day I left St Anne’s to come here in 1939. I perfectly understand the teething troubles that we must expect all young teachers to encounter. Rest assured I will give you my full support. But I must ask you for your total co-operation in the matters we have just spoken about.’ He cleared his throat once more and smiled, ‘I know we won’t have to have another meeting like this. Thank you, Mr Dudgeon.’
Malachy waited for a minute or two, fiddling with his fingers and looking out the window. Then he realized Bell was waiting for him to leave so he stuttered a barely audible ‘thank you’, then more or less fell out the door into the clattering corridor with its heady aromas of stale urine and sour milk. He stood there for over a minute not knowing what to do with himself. Then he looked up to see Mr Boylan smiling at him as he closed the door of his classroom behind him without so much as uttering a single word.
For the rest of the day, Malachy didn’t know where he was. He might as well have been hit with a hammer. All he could hear was ‘Teacher! Teacher!’ as the little voices of the kiddies went through his head like piercing drills. By the time three-thirty came, he was just about exhausted.
He wasn’t the only one of course, for hardly had he left the room that morning before Raphael slumped into his chair with his head in his hands, desperately trying to ignore the nerve that was beginning to throb over his left eye. Yes, by the looks of things, the son of Packie Dudgeon had taken more out of Mattie and Evelyn Bell’s little fellow than you might have expected, for right at that particular moment he did not seem to be quite the unshakeable tower of strength that he would like you to believe. Of course it might never become common knowledge, and no doubt he would do everything in his power to ensure that it didn’t, but, as he sat there with a blank sheet of paper before him, endeavouring to make a beginning to the task of applying to the Department for Class 4’s visual aid grant, that, I am afraid, is unmistakably how it appeared.
Bra
Not that poor old Malachy should have to take the blame for it all, mind you. There’s no point in letting Terry Krash off the hook. He has to shoulder some of the blame too, you know.
Terry arrived on the scene in 1965, long after little Maolseachlainn was put into the ground never to be seen again. The doctors told Raphael that there would be plenty more Maolseachlainns but there never were. Raphael and Nessa didn’t mind. They loved one another and put their trust in God. He would provide and everything would be OK. They knew it would. Then one night Raphael turned on the wireless and heard a chirpy voice saying, ‘Hello, good evening, come on in! You’re very welcome to the Terry Krash Show, the show that’s different!’ The audience was laughing their heads off. One woman said to Terry ‘You’re shocking!’, but you could tell that she didn’t mean it. What she really meant was that he was great fun. And Terry knew it. That was why he said more cheeky things. The topic tonight was ladies’ underwear. The sort they would wear for their boyfriends or husbands. It was the word ‘bra’ that rooted Raphael to the spot. He felt as if someone had slapped him right aross the face. Every time Terry turned to the women and asked them something, they chuckled like little girls. ‘Sure, what is a bra, only an ordinary old item of clothing – isn’t that right, ladies? There’s no harm in talking about that now, is there? Ah sure not at all!’ They chuckled again. ‘You can’t beat a nice bra on a girl, I always say!’ he laughed. Just the sound of the word made needlepoints of sweat break out all over Raphael’s back. Terry Krash might as well have been shouting, ‘Are you listening out there, Mr Bell? Did you hear it? You didn’t? Very well then, I’ll say it again, just for you! Ha ha! Come on now, everyone! Bra! That’s it! Bra!’
Over an hour passed before Raphael could bring himself to mention it to his wife. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said. Nessa nodded.
‘I read all about it in the paper. Apparently it’s going to be on twice a week. They say he’s become very popular, this Krash, whoever he is.’
Raphael couldn’t taste the bread in his mouth. He looked at his fork as if it had stopped being a fork and he didn’t know what it was now. Then he just left it down beside his untouched plate.
That night in bed, he lay awake for hours. He thought of his mother, the lovely Evelyn, now interred in a lonely Cork graveyard, and he thought of his father lying dead in a field as his Black and Tan murderer wiped blood off his hands with a rag.
Peyton Place
But that, of course, although Raphael didn’t realize it, was just the beginning. There were a hell of a lot more than Terry knocking around inside that old wireless and once that bunch got started, it sure was going to be some job trying to stop them. Not that Raphael had any intention of trying. If that was what they wanted to do, it was their own business. Their immortal souls belonged to them and no one else and who was he to try to tell them they were in danger of damning themselves for all eternity or any of the rest of it? They knew that. They knew it only too well. Obviously it saddened him but there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was look after his boys and make sure they were kept on the straight and narrow. The last thing he was going to do was run after the likes of Terry Krash and tell him he was corrupting the youth of the country. Of course he told his boys not to listen to him and have absolutely nothing to do with him. Above all he implored them not to watch his new television show. To have nothing whatsoever to do with it. In fact he went so far as to implore them to have nothing to do with television, full stop. He told them it would poison their young minds. Television was full of false promises and dreams that could never be realized. It promoted a lifestyle that was alien to the Irish people. More and more he had come to see this. On one occasion, in a hotel bar, he had been asked to switch it on, and found himself confronted by a young, very beautiful woman who had not only left her husband for another man but was openly boasting about it. She tossed back her hair and laughed as she described the man with whom she had taken marriage vows as a ‘silly old fool’. As he stared at the screen, the woman slowly faded and he got a pain in his head. He had to go home and lie down. Nessa came into the bedroom and asked him was he all right. ‘Yes. Yes I am of course,’ he replied. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t right at all. When he came back downstairs, he thanked Nessa for the cup of tea she had made him and found himself leafing through the TV pages of the Irish Independent. Another woman looked out at him. A woman wearing heavy eye shadow and a nightdress that barely concealed her body. Directly beneath her, the words, ‘Peyton Place – the sensational, saucy secrets of suburbia.’ He felt sick.
That was why he shouted at
the Clarke boy the following day. Because he knew that if he did not pull himself up, that was the loose sort of filth he would end up watching. ‘You must have respect for yourself, Clarke! Do you hear me? Apply yourself! Sloth has no place in this classroom – in this school! Do you hear what I am saying to you?’
Clarke lowered his head and bit his lip as he valiantly tried to stop the tears that came to his eyes. ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied hoarsely as Raphael licked the chalk and, telling him to go back to his desk, wrote the names of the nine counties of Ulster on the blackboard.
Perhaps the saddest day of Raphael’s life – after Maolseachlainn’s death – was the day he met young Coyle in O’Connell Street. He had been in Marlboro Street ordering some new books and was on his way to Walton’s music shop to purchase the sheet music of ‘Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded?’ which he intended to begin with the class the following week, when a wild-eyed figure appeared out of nowhere with its hand stuck out and saliva literally dribbling from its lips. Raphael’s first inclination was to push past and go on about his business for he was in a hurry anyway, but then something happened. Wild as the youth’s eyes were, something flashed in them and the moment he saw it, Raphael felt the blood drain from his face and it was then that he recognized Donal Coyle. Or what had once been Donal Coyle, for what he saw standing before him bore no resemblance to the happy, bright-eyed little boy who used to do the savings stamps with him on Friday afternoons. Raphael fumbled awkwardly for money and then it dawned on him that Donal Coyle had recognized him too. The youth began to stammer. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and turned away. Raphael could not believe it but there was a smell off him. The straggly beard was dirty and matted. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again as he backed away and by the time Raphael called out, ‘Donal! Donal Coyle! Come back here!’ it was already too late for he had been swallowed up by the teeming crowd.