But they wouldn’t. It even got to the stage where the flower-sellers in Grafton Street were talking about him. He was going past the woman who sold the roses outside the newsagents one day and heard her saying, ‘That’s him – that’s Bell. He let a young boy die.’ This saddened him. Of course it did. But he understood. He didn’t blame her, or any of the other women who were talking about him. He knew they would have stood by him if Stokes had shown some leadership.
‘By Christ, she wouldn’t have tried that carry-on with the pair of us in the old days, Father, I can tell you!’ he said to himself one night as he pulled off his socks. ‘We’d have been more than a match for the likes of her!’
Last Breath
Raphael was delighted with himself. This time she had gone too far. This time he would shut her up once and for all. What did she think he was – mad? That he would allow her to get away with the like of this!
As soon as he heard about it, he summoned Father Stokes to the office. He paced the floor with his hands behind his back and tried his best to remain calm. Then he turned to the priest and said, ‘What I have to say I will keep brief and to the point. There will be no change in school policy. The children will continue to attend Friday evening sodality as they have always done. Rosaries and prayer books as before. I reiterate – there will be no change.’ He coughed politely and looked away as he said softly, ‘I take it I can rely on your support, Father.’
Father Stokes ran his countryman’s weathered fingers through his shock of white hair and screwed up his face as if in pain. He faltered as he spoke, then began anew. ‘It may be unnecessary in this day and age,’ he said. ‘The children don’t have the same interest now, I mean. In any case, a majority on the Parents’ Committee have voted against it, so in all honesty, Raphael, there isn’t really an awful lot we could do even if we wanted to. I see your point of course, and I’m all for it – but sometimes maybe it’s better to just let sleeping dogs lie. And after all, the Parents’ Committee have done an awful lot for the school—’
Raphael stared at the face of his old friend and in the silence that ensued thought of the Phoenix Park on that day when a million people fell to their knees, of a summer garden where a young priest laughed with a scone in his hand and as the words came to his lips, knew in his heart in that instant that this was the last effort he was ever going to make. ‘Please, Father . . .’ he pleaded.
‘I’m sorry,’ replied the elderly clergyman as he lowered his head.
If you can single out a specific day upon which the school Raphael loved so much, and to which he had devoted most of the forty-three years of his teaching career, drew its last breath, then it was indeed this particular day in May 1976, exactly two months after the death of Pat Hourican, as he knew now only too well, his hand trembling on the wheel as he drove all the way across the city to the Harcourt Hotel to spend the day with the barman who was a former pupil, drinking himself once more into a giddy, explosive stupor.
Early Retirement
Not that there’s anything wrong with drink, mind you, for there is no better way of enjoying oneself than having a few glasses of an evening but it can’t be denied that over-indulgence does have its drawbacks, particularly if you are prone to hearing the odd few whispers, because what it tends to do is make them louder. And louder. It does nothing for your ability to judge a situation either, as was the case with Raphael one day when he was on his way home to Madeira Gardens and happened to catch a glimpse of Father Stokes leaving by the back door. Thanks to the cumulative effect of God knows how many whiskies over God knows how long, he went and got it into his head that the purpose of the clergyman’s visit had been to talk about him, indeed not only that but to plot and scheme about him with his wife Nessa. Once something like that starts, it doesn’t take long for it to gather steam, and by the time he had turned the key in the door, he was more than convinced that they too were both in league against him. The more he thought about it, the more he came to realize just how dire his predicament now was.
Only a couple of days earlier, Stokes had called to the school and started stuttering and stammering about the Thompson boy, going on about his parents being up in arms and how they had to take him to the hospital. Raphael had felt like laughing in his face there and then. He felt like laughing and saying to him, ‘What – his parents are up in arms, are they? I’m afraid you must be mistaken, Father! The parents in this school would never cause a fuss! Oh, no! Not in a million years! It must be someplace else you’re thinking of!’ Indeed, he was on the verge of saying this, or something very similiar, when would you believe it, Stokes started to mutter something behind his hand.
At first, Raphael didn’t know what he was saying and to be honest with you, cared less, but then he heard it all right. Stokes was mumbling about ‘early retirement’. At the age of sixty-three, Raphael was due to retire in two years anyway and here was this idiot of a priest blathering on about ‘early retirement’! Was he mad in the head or what? Did he really think he would agree to that? He couldn’t even begin to think what it would be like to be retired, much less two years before your time! The more he thought about it, the more infuriated he became. The cheek of him to even dare suggest such a thing. Because of the likes of Thompson! Tick tick tick went the right eye nerve. ‘Get out!’ snapped Raphael. He slapped his open hand down on the desk. ‘Get out of my office!’ Stokes was nearly bent double as he crept out of the office! You should have seen the look on his face!
But sneaking out of the house behind his back – that was a much more serious development. He couldn’t believe that he would stoop to this level. Trying to turn a man’s wife against him – it was unbelievable!
What was even more unbelievable however was that he appeared to have succeeded because when he confronted Nessa she denied everything. She was not in league with Stokes, she said. She didn’t know what he was talking about. She was just worried, she said. That was all – worried. Raphael looked at her and for a split second wondered who she was. ‘You’re telling lies,’ he said through thin lips. When she began to cry, he was on the verge of melting when it dawned on him that what he was witnessing was another ploy. He had seen such behaviour in the classroom hundreds of times. To think he had almost fallen for it! ‘It will be a long time before you or any of your duplicitous colleagues ever force me to do anything against my will!’ he said tersely. Before he left the room to go to his study, he turned and said, ‘I deeply regret what you have done here today, Nessa. I want you to know that.’
If Nessa and Raphael had spent many happy days together, then they seemed a long time ago, now. A long time ago because he had discovered that his wife was no different to the rest of them and because he knew that the disease, now that it had one day rotted, would soon begin to spread rapidly to all the other days they had ever known.
Not that he cared. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He could face his maker with a clear conscience – which was more than most of them could do. Isn’t that right, Stokes? Do you hear me, Evans? Isn’t that right – mm? Oh but it is, you see! Early retirement! Oh Stokes you fool! You silly silly fool!
White Punks On Dope
Which in all honesty now is not the best of behaviour for a man who is supposed to be guiding little children through life but bad as it was, it was nothing to what old Bubblehead was getting up to, sitting on his big backside in a busted armchair in Shepherd’s Bush, London, and sucking huge drags out of a telegraph pole of a joint. Of course it’s hard to believe, but let me tell you this, if it’s hard for us it was twice as hard for him! I mean, one minute there you are, Mr Bollocks-Face Frogspawn Wouldn’t-Say-Boo-To-A-Goose-Couldn’t-Keep-His-Girlfriend Dudgeon, off every morning with your head down to St Anthony’s School for crazy baldy bastards and the next there you are in a squat full of loopers and headbangers who wouldn’t know a day’s work if it kicked them in the goolies. There was Chico the Head and Mad Peter from Kerry with his head nodding like a cloth donkey in the back of a car.
In the fire, half the furniture, and over the mantelpiece a great big painted eye with the words, ‘You are the You’, whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. Not that Bubblehead cared, he was too busy puffing and shouting, ‘Fuck frogspawn!’
Thanks to his old buddy Kevin Connolly he had wound up here. ‘It’s a cool place,’ he had said. ‘They’ll look after you there.’
And, man, could you say that again as off they went, cruising the tube all the way to Piccadilly where they were going to get out of their heads, man, out of their brains and that’s a fact because Chico’s just gotten lucky, waving thirty quid OK you assholes so what are we gonna do lie around here blowing this shit I mean you call this dope this is bull-shit man, we’re gonna get ourselves something that’s worth smoking so come on you guys get your ass in gear and move it cos you know why by tonight we are going to be gone, man, and I mean fucking gone! And were they, or what? Chico and Malachy and the Prince of Tangier all the way from Cork, heating Red Leb in a chillum pipe as the beer went streaming down and Philip Lynott blasted ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’. Yeah they were back in town all right and that was where Malachy Dudgeon was going to stay forever man, right here in London Town, smelling of patchouli with his bomber jacket zippered up and his hair so wild and curly bouncing on his shoulders. Already Dublin seemed like a million years ago, since the Prince stood in the doorway and stuck out his hand then dragged him in. ‘They call me the Prince,’ he said. ‘I’m the Prince of Tangier, man, I know things. You wanna know some things, friend of Kevin Connolly’s? The Irish pipers, man, way back. You know what they used to do? Like what I’m saying is, they used to bind their pipes with hemp and like when they’re playing, when they’re playing right, they’re taking in all these fumes, man, so they’re playing right and half the time they’re out of their fucking heads! Out of their heads, man – it’s true! Hey, Malachy, you want to know something? You’re OK. You used to be a teacher, right? They fuck up your head. Their heads are so fucked up, they want to fuck up yours, right?’ ‘Right,’ says Malachy, ‘you got it!’ ‘I know I got it, man, I’m the Prince,’ says the Prince. ‘The Prince – you hear me? They busted me there you know – tried to do my head in. But it’s their own heads they’re doing in. They don’t know that but it is. Oh yeah. Their own heads, man.’
On the wall, a naked girl on a Harley Davidson rode off into the smoke. As the beercans tumbled and the record sleeves flew all about him, Chico in an Afghan danced crazy on the floor, screaming into his air-microphone, ‘White Punks On Dope! White Punks On Dope!’ And The Tubes gave it all they’d got. ‘It’s not fucking loud enough!’ he shouted as he fell across the turntable with the tears running down his face. ‘It’s their own heads, you see,’ said the Prince. ‘You gotta remember that. If you remember that, you’re OK.’ Red-eyed strangers came and went. Malachy looked up and saw an arse in the air. It was Chico’s. ‘Jesus, man, I’m so stoned,’ he said to the girl. ‘Oh, baby,’ she groaned. Malachy took another blast of a joint and started laughing when he saw the Prince looking up at him with melting eyes, saying, ‘Teacher, can I go to the toilet?’ and then collapsed in a fit of hysterics. Malachy stumbled across the floor with a pain in his head from laughing. ‘Oh Christ!’ moaned Chico. ‘Oh Jesus and his mother Mary!’
‘Teacher!’ shrieked the Prince. ‘Teacher! Teacher! Me wanna go toilet!’
Malachy handed him the joint. ‘Here, man!’ he said, ‘come on!’
‘Teacher – don’t slap me!’ yelped the Prince.
Then Malachy went and dropped the joint and had to go looking for it in case it set the place on fire. As he crawled around on his hands and knees he said to himself I wonder what she’d think of this so what do you think of this, Marion babe, out of my head looking for a joint in Shepherd’s Bush, I mean can you believe it Frogspawn Dudgeon out of his head in England, what do you think of that? Electric Strangers hey Paddy remember me yoo hoo oh fuck me Prince I can’t find it we’re all going to die we’re going to be burnt alive hee hee. No, don’t worry man it’s going to be all right it’s all in your head as long as you believe that’s all you got to do oh man I’ve got to have some rice I’ve got to have Ambrosia creamed rice I’ve got to have some hey Malachy look – look at his ass up in the air look at his fucking ass hey ass what are you looking at shut the fuck up Prince oh Chico you don’t love me any more Malachy he doesn’t love me no more shut up and change the record ‘White Punks On Dope! White Punks On Dope!’
‘You wanna know something?’ the Prince said before he hit the sack. ‘You wanna know something I can’t remember what it is.’ He folded again and Malachy had to hold him up as tears of laughter came down his face making Malachy just as bad as him every time he thought of it, lying there in the camp bed with The Tubes far away and a snapshot of Marion in his hand as he tried not to think of that day in the park.
And so the weeks went by while every night they cruised the tube, falling down Shaftesbury Avenue after scoring in the George or Trafalgar Square. When Chico got the munchies it was supermarket time, lots and lots of niceys. The Prince fecked a pair of Ray-Bans and climbed the stage in the Wellington shouting ‘We’re talking Joey Ramone here!’ before they all got fucked out. Back in the squat, Malachy took the stage on the beer-soaked floor and shouted into the broom handle, ‘Goodnight London! This is Philip Lynott and Thin Lizzy loving you and leaving you with “The Boys Are Back In Town!” Aw-right!’
‘Thaggew!’ screamed the Prince and cupped the joint in his hands.
What her name was, Malachy never did find out. She just appeared after a party and all Malachy knew was that she was there beside him in the bed. She stroked his cheek and said soft things in his ear, her breasts warm against his skin. When she asked ‘What’s wrong?’ he didn’t know what to say. He could see her face in the dark and she looked sad. She pushed her hair back from her eyes and moved in closer to him.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re so tense. Don’t you like me?’
‘It’s not you,’ he said. ‘You’re beautiful.’
She kissed him on the eyes. ‘Then why don’t you like me?’
‘I want someone else,’ wouldn’t have been the right thing. It wouldn’t have done anyone any good. He just looked away, and when he looked again a long time afterwards, she was asleep.
It was a pity things had to be like that. When he woke up in the morning she was gone and he never saw her again.
The months went by in a blur of The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher. The parties went on long into the night and Malachy and the Prince and Chico rode the tube for Leb and Paki Black and anything else that was going. Sometimes Malachy would start the chuckling and wonder how the Electric Strangers would like this shit! He slammed a chord on Chico’s three-string guitar and shouted Bob Marley down. ‘You better watch it, Paddy! You’d better watch your baby, man!’ he cried, then went and knocked over the table with the Prince’s beer on it. ‘You asshole,’ screamed the Prince. ‘My beer! You’ve spilt my fucking beer! It’s OK, beer. It’s OK. It’s gonna be OK,’ he said as he lapped it up with his tongue. Bob Marley chugged on as Malachy smiled to himself, because he knew you see, he knew when Paddy and Marion and him met again, this time it was gonna be a whole lot different – a whole new story, man!
That night the boys were back in town big time. All Malachy remembered was standing in Shepherd’s Bush Green in his army coat shouting, ‘Come on now! Back up! Make way for the fruit machine! Come on – show a little bit of consideration there!’
When he opened his eyes the next morning, he saw Chico and the Prince and the plainclothes cop standing at the bottom of the bed. What could he do only laugh, the Prince with the big mournful face on him and Chico shivering in his jocks. It was wild!
So what does the cop want, wants to know what they’ve done with the fruit machine, for fuck’s sake! What fruit machine, says Malachy and the cop loses it then – that fruit machine, that fruit machine, he says,
that bloody fruit machine! And Malachy looks up to see it beside the fucking bed decked out in his fucking army coat and Chico’s knitted Commando cap.
So what were you supposed to do? I mean just what were you supposed to do except dance round the kitchen, waving the fucking joints and singing ‘White Punks On Dope’ while the Prince howled in the corner because he missed his dog Buster back in Ireland.
Dust
How long exactly Nessa and his so-called colleague had been plotting against him, Raphael could not say for sure. He had to admit that he was deeply saddened by the way it had all turned out. Oh he was, there was no denying that. But over time, however, he began to come to terms with it. He had had plenty of knocks in his time oh yes he had and he was damned if he was going to let this one get the better of him. The worst thing was that it wasn’t just any ordinary old betrayal you see. It was a lot more serious than that – a lot more serious, I’m afraid. Because what it meant of course was that all the precious moments they had shared together down the years – well they weren’t really anything at all now, were they? You certainly couldn’t call them precious moments, that was for sure! A better name for them might be something like this: Dust. Because when you examined them that was more or less what they turned out to be. They were what you would call a big useless pile of dust, of absolutely no use to anybody. A dinner in the Dolphin Hotel after the most exciting All-Ireland Final of all time: Dust. A play they had attended in the Abbey Theatre, a Saturday afternoon listening to The Walton Programme: Dust. A journey to the Ring of Kerry one glorious week in August: a journey to dust. That was what it was. Oh my head, said Raphael. I have a pain in my head. Why am I always getting pains in my head? It’s not fair. Stokes doesn’t get them – why does he not get them? Is there anything worse than dust? Yes. Worse than any dust is lies. How could the most beautiful woman who had ever lived tell him lies? How could she have gone and done it?