Teaching
—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. One of
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’d started,
and for a long time afterwards.
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
staffroom, on the telltale signs – the eyes, marks, cuts. He was
probably the only member of 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, and 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 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 head, one onto each ear. The front desk was a death
sentence. But, really, Flynn was alright. 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 in
the room.
It had only lasted for a while. He got to know a
few of the other lads. They got 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 colour 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
towards 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, backwards. He was dragging something. It was a
fold-up bed, on castors. The castors squealed across the tiles.
Flynn dragged the bed across the hall, to another door. He stayed
where he was. Flynn was still going backwards, 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 castors. He took off his shoes.
He stood up again. He could hear Flynn’s feet. He pulled back the
grey 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?
—Alright, 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, colour, 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
colour. There was grey 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 he was. She’d come
to the school four years after he had. He’d kissed her once – he
cringed; he looked at the window.
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 RTE, 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 in the door. There was no one there.
He looked at the timetable. Sixth Year English was next. A double
class, Ordinary level. There were no Honours classes on his
timetable. It was five years since he’d had an Honours 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 colours 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. AA. 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 seen 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 onto 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 programme on RTE, after the News. He was only half
watching, and reading. He looked up at the screen. He recognised
her before he remembered 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,
organised, 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 memorise 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 it. 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.