Skippy Dies (68 page)

‘Maybe it would help if the school could be seen to be more mindful of Juster’s… of his death.’

‘Mindful?’ the Automator repeats, as if Howard has broken into Swahili.

‘Just show, you know, that we care about it. That we’re not just sweeping it under the carpet.’

‘
Ob
viously we care, Howard. That’s obvious to anyone. What are you saying, we should all go into the forest in our boxer shorts
and sit in a circle and cry? We should build a monument to Juster in the quadrangle, is that it? Jesus Christ, it’s not enough
that this kid ruins what should have been a milestone year? That he sends our 140th Anniversary Concert down the crapper?
Now we all have to stay depressed till June?’

Howard reflects his gaze primly. ‘It’s perhaps a question of ethos,’ he pronounces deadpan.

The Automator glares at him then turns away to shuffle some papers on his desk. ‘That’s all well and good, Howard, but I’ve
got a school to run. We need to find some way to boost morale, get the show back on the…’ He tails off; a new light flickers
at the back of his eyes. ‘Wait a second. Wait just one second.’

That afternoon, at a special assembly for second-years, the Automator announces that the 140th Anniversary Concert – in limbo
after the recent tragedy – will go ahead after all. As a mark of respect, however, and in a spirit of commemoration, a percentage
of the proceeds from the event will now be going towards the refurbishment of Daniel Juster’s beloved swimming pool.

‘It was really Howard’s idea,’ the Automator explains afterwards. ‘And you know it makes sense whatever way you look at it.’
On the one hand, it gives the boys a chance to do something for their friend; on the other, it gets the concert up and running
again, and
also lends it that extra touch of gravitas, which it can definitely use now that it appears Father Furlong is going to pull
through, in fact in some ways they were quite fortunate to have had Juster in the wings, so to speak, not to be crass about
it but you take his meaning. The Automator’s hope is that the revamped concert will revitalize the moribund student body.
‘Give them something to get excited about. Take their minds off all this gloom.’

It seems to Howard that it will take a lot more than a Christmas concert to rouse the boys out of their present despond; he
is surely not the only one hoping that Greg has bitten off more than he can chew. But the Acting Principal has a plan. He
spends the day after the announcement sequestered in his office, making phone calls; the day after that, at a second special
assembly, he delivers the news that RTÉ has agreed to broadcast live radio coverage of the event.

‘Historic occasion like that in the country’s most prestigious school, why wouldn’t they want to broadcast us?’ the Automator
jokes afterwards, as his staff congratulate him on this coup. ‘Course, it didn’t hurt to have a couple of alums out there
in Montrose, ready to twist the right arms.’

It appears the Automator knows the boys better than Howard gave him credit for. News of the concert – or, more specifically,
the live radio coverage of it – creates a buzz on the corridors that hasn’t been heard for months. Any grievances the boys
had are forgotten, the air of introversion and menace dissipates as quickly and mysteriously as it arrived; even students
with no stake in the event (an ever-dwindling number, as the Automator invents a phalanx of new positions in Concert PR (stuffing
envelopes) and Concert Tech Assist (sweeping the floor of the Sports Hall)) get caught up in the excitement. ‘A rising tide
lifts all boats, Howard,’ the Automator comments approvingly. ‘That’s simple economics.’ The halls resound once more with
rehearsing instruments, and it begins to look like ‘the Show’, as the Automator has taken to calling it, will not only turn
the school’s
annus horribilis
around, but silence the Acting Principal’s enemies for good.

And then, with eight days remaining until the curtain rises, the concert’s musical director, Father Connie Laughton, arrives
at the Automator’s door in tears.

A dainty man of a nervous disposition, Father Laughton detests discord above all things. He always climbs down before seriously
disagreeing with anyone; he can’t dismiss the most disruptive student from his class without feeling sorry twenty seconds
later and racing down the corridor to summon him back. As a result, his music appreciation courses are notoriously anarchic
– in fact they make anarchy look like a slow day at the library – and yet, at the same time, they are marked by a kind of
goodwill, and the priest always seems happy there, in the midst of the melee, humming along to a Field larghetto or a Chopin
mazurka while paper planes, pencil cases, books and larger objects fly through the air around him.

Discord, though: that he cannot abide.

As musical director of Seabrook events for a number of years, Father Laughton is by now largely immune to bad playing. But
what he was subjected to at this morning’s Quartet rehearsal – the egregious timbre, the proliferation of atonalities, the
disregard for even the rudiments of timing – this was something else, this was something, it seemed to his ears,
deliberate
, a calculated and mindful assault on music itself; just to recall it now sets the teacup trembling in his hand. And when
he realized that the perpetrator was none other than Ruprecht Van Doren! Ruprecht, his star student! Ruprecht, the one boy
who actually seemed to
understand
music as he did, to recognize in its symmetry and plentitude a unique interpolation of perfection in our inconstant world!
Well! Knowing the boy had had some difficulties lately, he withheld from comment as long as he could, but eventually – he
was sorry, but he could not bear it, he simply could not bear it. He asked Ruprecht quite politely if he would mind sticking
to the score as Pachelbel had written it.

‘And what did he say?’

‘He told me –’ the priest crimsons at the memory ‘– he told me to
sit on it
.’

‘He told you to
sit on it
? Those were his exact words?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Father Laughton dabs at his forehead fretfully. ‘I don’t see how I can – I can’t
work
with someone with that attitude, I simply can’t.’

‘Of course, Father, I quite understand,’ the Automator concurs. ‘Don’t you worry about it, I’ll take it in hand.’

The Automator has been aware, of course, of the staffroom chatter regarding the former favourite’s sudden decline. Until now,
though, he has stayed his hand. Van Doren’s projected performance in next year’s state exams is calculated to lift the year’s
average by four per cent; he, or his genius, must be allowed a certain leeway.

He invites Ruprecht to his office later that day and over tea and biscuits reminds him just how important the Quartet’s recital
is to the concert. He reflects on the concert itself, a uniquely prestigious and historic event which is, let us not forget,
to be broadcast live on national radio. He attempts bribery, offering to allow Ruprecht to keep his dorm room to himself,
and then threats, ruminating on the positive effects it might have on one of the more troubled students, e.g. Lionel, to be
roomed with one of the very gifted, e.g. Ruprecht. Finally he loses his temper and yells at him for five minutes straight.
This meets with the same response as every other tactic.

‘He wouldn’t even
speak
! Kid sits there like a, like a blancmange –’ The Automator slumps, huffing and puffing over his desk, much as Dr Jekyll might
have while metamorphosing into his fiendish alter ego.

Howard adjusts his collar. ‘Can’t they just play without him?’

‘It’s a quartet, for God’s sake, who ever heard of a quartet with only three musicians? And Van Doren’s the only one with
any talent. Send out the other three as a trio – you’d be better off pumping the audience with sarin gas! Or just whacking
them on the ears with a lump hammer!’ He kicks over his wastebasket, sending paper and apple cores across the floor; Brother
Jonas scuttles from a corner instantly, like a domesticated spider, to tidy them
up. ‘We need Van Doren, Howard. He’s what this whole concert is about – high-quality, timeless entertainment. And damn it
–’ the bloodthirsty eye staring sightlessly at Brother Jonas, who is winkling stray staples from the fibrous turquoise carpet
‘– I’m damned if I’m going to let some little blimp defy me on a whim. No sir – if he wants a war, I’ll give him a war.’

The following lunchtime, the three uneponymous members of the Van Doren Quartet make a pilgrimage to Ruprecht’s room. No one
answers their knock, and the door opens only grudgingly, the way blocked by doughnut boxes, Pepsi bottles, soiled underwear.
Inside they find Ruprecht, on the first day of a three-day internal suspension, lying on his bed with his eyes closed. By
the wardrobe the French horn slumps at a drunken angle, the bell full to the rim with Snickers wrappers. On the floor his
next-door neighbour, Edward ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, sits glued to Ruprecht’s computer screen, watching an enormous purple dildo
being plunged and re-plunged into a carefully depilated vulva.

‘The thing is,’ Geoff Sproke begins, then breaks off: every time he turns his head he is confronted with a giant close-up
shot of a clitoris, it’s very distracting. He coughs deliberately, repositions himself, and tries again. ‘I suppose what we’re
thinking is, we’ve all put a lot of work into this thing, and it seems like a shame to let it go to waste, you know?’

Ruprecht does not know, indeed makes no sign of having heard them. Geoff shakes his head, and turns his gaze to Jeekers, who
steps somewhat diffidently to the fore.

Jeekers finds himself with something of a conflict of interests here. On the one hand, yes, Geoff is right, he has worked
hard for this concert, and he feels that throwing away an opportunity to shine in public – his parents have already bought
tickets for not only themselves but a wide spectrum of relatives – instead of merely on bi-monthly report cards is profligate
in the extreme. On the other, this strange torpor afflicting Ruprecht has been very good to Jeekers. After what seemed a lifetime
labouring in Ruprecht’s expansive shadow – spending hours over-preparing for
every test, hoping for just one minuscule victory, appreciable only to him, only to be trounced, effortlessly, time and time
again – Jeekers is now, officially, Best Boy in the Year, and it tastes every bit as sweet as he expected. The praise of the
Acting Principal, scribbled on the back of his bi-monthly report card; the envious stares of Victor Hero and Kevin ‘What’s’
Wong; the proud voice of Dad, crying out over the dinner table, ‘More carrots! More carrots for the Best Boy!’ – much as he
likes Ruprecht, he does not know that he is ready to give these up just yet.

And so, instead of marshalling the skills he has honed in Debating Club, appealing to Ruprecht’s love of the Arts, reminding
him of the duty people like Jeekers and Ruprecht have to uphold and preserve these finer things from the troglodytes surrounding
them – instead of this, after some procrastinatory throat-clearing, he just says, ‘All of us have parents coming to the concert,
and they’re going to be pretty cross if we’re not playing. I know you’re an orphan, but try to think how it feels for us,
having our parents getting cross with us just because you don’t want to play.’ With that he steps back, and shrugs happily
at Geoff, leaving Ruprecht’s catatonia unstirred.

Geoff, in desperation, fixes an eye on Dennis.

‘What?’ Dennis says.

‘Can’t you say something to him?’

‘Why should I say anything to him? I don’t even want to be in this lame concert. As far as I’m concerned, he’s doing me a
favour.’

‘It’s not just about the concert, though, it’s…’ Geoff falters, sincerity being to Dennis what salt is to slugs. ‘Like, maybe
if you said sorry to him, that might help.’

‘Sorry?’ Dennis is incredulous. ‘For what?’

‘For the whole Optimus Prime thing. And all the stuff you said?’

‘I was trying to help him,’ Dennis argues. ‘I was trying to help him stop being such an asshole.’

Geoff’s mouth sets in a tight line. ‘Well, why did you come up here then?’

Dennis shrugs. He isn’t sure why he came up here. To see Ruprecht in squalor, with the shell of his genius stripped away,
and the grotesque soft squirming larva of his true self revealed to all? To have everything Dennis said over the years gloriously
confirmed, viz., that everything good is fatally flawed, that life is inherently evil, that for those reasons there is no
point trying or caring or hoping? Something along those lines, anyway.

Geoff keeps staring at him; Dennis shrugs again, and leaves the dorm.

In the Rec Room he sits down by himself, smirking to show how unguilty he is feeling. For a little while he watches the table
tennis, then turns to the window. As he looks out something enters the car park below. It is a van, a dark brown van, and
on it is written in gold lettering:

VAN DOREN DRAINAGE

The van pulls up alongside the flowerbeds, and a small unprepossessing man in an ill-fitting suit and a voluminous woman with
a floral hat – both of them somehow familiar – emerge from either side. Dennis watches as they bustle over to the school doors.
A slow, wolfish smile spreads over his chops. ‘Well, well,’ he says to himself. ‘Look who’s back from the Amazon.’

Making the right impression, as Father Foley never tires of telling the boys, is half the battle in any situation. You might
have straight A’s in your Leaving Cert, but walk into the prospective employer’s office with scuffed shoes or an inappropriate
tie and you’ve as good as flushed your chances down the toilet. That is why, even though he had previously washed it only
last night, Father Foley,
understanding the gravity and delicacy of this particular case, took the trouble of washing his hair again this morning, and
spent the quarter-hour prior to the interview arranging it until he judged it exactly right.