The Dead School (7 page)

You would be standing by the river when the cherry blossom in full bloom sent out its intoxicating fragrance, where the children on the bank tossed a ball with frantic cries and cabbage-whites
described great figure eights in the weighted air above the sparkling silver waters which slowly but surely started to turn red once again and the limp dead dummy of your father would go floating
past again, downstream in the smoky haze of a dreamy summer.

And there were other dreams, too, of the Black and Tan who had so cruelly done him to death, now swinging from a tree in that same field, pleading for mercy like the British coward he was, as
Raphael in his rebel green gave the order for his men to ‘Execute!’ as he slapped his wrist with the leather gloves and the Tan’s eyes bulged as his neck snapped and somewhere
Mattie smiled a wistful smile, now that he knew old Ireland would be free. All night long those dreams would go on, of a building aflame in Dublin, as it had been during the fateful week of 1916
seven years before, when the first blow was struck against the Saxon tyrant, perfidious Albion, the Commandant-in-Chief Patrick Pearse now calling out to Volunteer Raphael Bell, ‘More
ammunition! Over here, Raphael! Immediately! We’re coming under fire from the Foresters!’ But sadly, despite their valiant efforts, it was only a matter of time and when they were
finally overrun, Raphael, on behalf of his father, defied them to the last and when the judge snapped impatiently, ‘Do you realize your part in this foul rebellion has seen to it that you
will most surely die?’ Raphael clenched his fist and thumped the air, crying ‘God Save Ireland!’ and felt the soul of his dead father enter his body as the bullets of the firing
squad ripped it to shreds.

Those were the names. The names of Our Lady the Mother of God. The Cedar of Lebanon whose pearl-white foot crushed the head of the serpent. A crown of golden stars adorned her
head. At her feet in his surplice and soutane, Raphael each day intoned the words:

The air was heavy with the scent of candle-smoke and incense. He prayed for his mother, that the sadness might leave her.

That the flickering fire would once more return to dance in her eyes.

That the words which he knew she wanted to speak to him would not wither on her lips and her eyes turn again to glass. He prayed that even one old day would return. The day of the reaping race!
Oh! If only it could be!

The Lord works in mysterious ways, the priest whispered to him, proud of him as he watched him pray. ‘Your father would have been a happy man had he lived to see this. His young boy
growing to be a man and the country he loved soon no more to be a province but a nation once again!’ There were tears in the priest’s eyes as he spoke the words.

When in the year 1925, at the age of twelve, Raphael was awarded a scholarship to St Martin’s College, he was sad because he knew his mother would be all alone.
‘Now,’ said Uncle Joe, ‘I have to ask you to be stronger than ever before. You pass up this opportunity, my son, and your father would turn in his grave. Never fear. We’ll
keep a close eye on her. She’ll be a proud woman when you come up that lane the day you finish, Raphael. That’s what you have to think about – the day you come walking proudly up
that lane.’

Uncle Joe stood over him and looked into his eyes. ‘There’s times I look at you and I think to myself you’re the spit of him. And he was one of the bravest men that ever walked
this earth. To see you the way you are now, son – it would have made him a happy man!’

Uncle Joe hugged him then and the next time they saw one another after that was the big day, with Pony Brennan waiting in the trap outside the cottage as Evelyn smoothed the hair back from his
eyes and said, almost in her old, mammy voice, ‘The day you were born I remember Mattie saying – he said you had the face of a scholar. That was what he said the day you were born, our
Raphael.’ She tried to smile but she could smile no more. She cried out, ‘You will write to me, son! Please tell me that you’ll write to me!’

A tear glistened in the corner of Raphael’s eye as he choked, ‘Every day I’ll write to you, every day for five years I’ll write to you!’ and then it was time to go,
Pony chucking the reins as the horses’ hooves clip-clopped in the summer afternoon and bloating with pride because he was the one to drive the scholar to school. ‘I always knew it, me
bucko!’ he cried. ‘I always said that any boy of Mattie Bell’s would be tripping over himself with brains,’ and what could Raphael do when he said that but grin from ear to
ear.

But how, oh how could it be so frightening when you thought it was going to be the most wonderful place in the world, with its shadows twice the size of those at home, when you
woke up in the menacing silence of the giant dormitory with its steel beds in military formation and the dean of discipline moving like a ghost among them, hungry for a misdemeanour, many thousands
of miles away now the warm glow of the embers in the kitchen fire, the freckles on the wrinkled hand of Mammy to whom you felt like crying out, ‘Please come to me! I cannot stand it here
without you!’ And without the smell of soda bread, the slow tick of the clock that marked each passing peaceful day and the heavy sighs from the chimney corner that let you know she was
always there. But now she was not! Now there was nothing but the smell of older flesh, the flap of the wind as you walked alone through the vast oppressive grounds with their harsh, enclosing
granite walls and vigilant, looming towers, the strange, impenetrable tongues of the half-boy, half-man students who circled you and triumphantly handed you an ominous warning – ‘Make
no mistake – the first five years are the worst!’

Oh, how you cried those first few months, even for you the intricate codes of Greek and Latin, the brutal symbols of trigonometry and calculus uncompromising in their obstinacy as nightly in the
big study you struggled to best them, at times their icy logic too much for you who wanted only to be there with her and hear that voice again, comforting in your ear as outside the huge night
settled over the fields. And that was why you wrote daily, wrote Dear Mammy I miss you so much the new college is nice there are so many things to do – geometry, Latin and on Wednesdays we
have a half day I am looking forward to Christmas when I will see you again. The school team is in for the Munster Cup. I think we will win. I am having a trial on Friday for the junior team so
here’s hoping D.V. I hope you are well and I will write soon – your loving son, Raphael.

And indeed he did have a trial for the junior team that Friday, Raphael Bell, and became the talk of the whole school with not only his tough, wiry steadfastness in defence, impressive beyond
all expectation, but also, because of his height, his ability in the air, being described as second to none. As the President who trained the team said to him in the dressing rooms after the game,
‘I can tell you are going to do well in St Martin’s. You can tell a lot about a fellow by his performance on the playing field.’

Raphael beamed when he heard that and as the days went by, the puzzles of Pythagoras and Homer and Ovid ceased to be quite so daunting. In the nights the vastness of the dormitory did not seem
so oppressive and soon Raphael was first out of his bed every morning, rubbing himself with a rasping towel, eager to embrace the day that lay ahead of him.

‘I am so happy here,’ he wrote to his mother some months later. ‘I got ninety-five per cent for my history essay and Father Bourke says it was one of the best he has ever had.
Well, that’s about it for now. I have no more news so will end here. Please write soon, your loving son, Raphael.’

On his first visit home that Christmas, he was the talk of the parish in his big suit and his hair combed back like a real scholar and as Uncle Joe pressed a note into his hand, he heard him
say, ‘A few bob for the young fellow who is a credit to his father’s name.’ And when they went to see the horses this time, he found himself on the back of a beautiful black
fellow, clearing ditches with the greatest of ease. ‘I never seen a fellow grew up so quick!’ smiled Uncle Joe as he puffed on his pipe. ‘What a pity himself is not alive this
day!’

It saddened Raphael more than anything to see his mother failing, which undoubtedly she was now. But he vowed to redouble his efforts at college during the coming term to make her prouder than
any mother had ever been of her son.

When he scored two goals and three points and took the team into the Munster Colleges Finals, it came as no surprise to anyone. ‘Bell is the best by far,’ the other juniors said.
‘He scored that point from sixty yards out!’

By the time he reached his third year he had excelled in just about everything. The fresh-faced first years followed him around and wanted to be him. When, at the Halloween party, which took
place in the Big Study in 1928, he strode to the top of the hall and stood still and dignified upon the podium before one hundred and eighty fellow students to sing, ‘God Save Ireland’,
the spirit of his father momentarily passed him by as if it had floated in from the fields to be with him, and together they brought tears to the eyes of everyone there present with the words:

In his fifth year, Raphael was unanimously elected head prefect. Each night he took his place at the desk overlooking the study hall and, checking his watch, signalled to the
mute, respectful assembly that the main study period was to begin. It was his duty to maintain discipline and to ensure that the rules of the study hall were respected at all times and, should
punishment for misdemeanours such as whispering, distracting other boys or interfering with the silence which prevailed in any other manner whatsoever be deemed necessary, then Raphael would
present the offender with a ‘yellow card’ upon which his name would be written, to be presented to the Dean of Discipline after night prayer, and a suitable punishment meted out. It was
generally acknowledged that in the administration of this system, Raphael was ‘tough but fair’.

Even by the way he walked you could tell that Raphael had principles. It was clear to him that students did not respect weakness in a prefect. In any position of authority, be it captain of a
football team or anything else, equivocation or uncertainty was as nothing. If you made a decision you stood by it, no matter what.

An aspect of his character which revealed itself in no uncertain terms when, in his second term as prefect, he encountered the well-known bully Lally, mistreating a junior. Not only mistreating
him in fact but brutally assaulting him and then humiliating him by ducking him in the senior grade toilets. Raphael had chanced upon the incident purely by accident but as he watched it, he paled.
His heart went out to the poor unfortunate youth as Lally’s rough hands manhandled him and a gaggle of coarse compatriots and Lally mocked him mercilessly. It was the first time Lally had
perpetrated so despicable an act, although his reputation was well known. The juniors in fact more or less lived in terror of him. Raphael knew that if he were to report him to the Dean, he would,
possibly, manage to talk his way out of it by giving some muddied alternative version of events and perhaps receive nothing more than six or twelve slaps with the leather. Such he had received on
previous occasions, obviously to no effect.

Which was why Raphael stood up to him there and then and said, ‘Leave the boy alone.’ Lally, like all cowards, appealed to his fellow bullies, scoffing, ‘Well, well, if it
isn’t Mr Suck. Mr suck-up-to-the-priests Bell. Who’s talking to you, Bell?’

Raphael hit him one blow and the blood ran from Lally’s face. The junior freed himself and ran off and Raphael lifted his fist again. Lally swore. ‘You made a mistake hitting me,
Bell!’ he snarled. ‘I’ll fucking creel you!’

Raphael stood his ground. In his mind he saw his mother sitting in the chimney corner and in the same moment his father dying in the fields, as a coward with a smoking gun laughed above his
head. A coward of a Black and Tan with a smoking gun and Lally’s face.

‘Go on, Bell – hit me!’ snapped Lally. ‘Mr Big Head Prefect! You’re too afraid! He’s too fucking afraid!’

Raphael realized that there was really only one thing he could do as already an inquisitive crowd had begun to gather. ‘Meet me in the back handball alley today after dinner. We’ll
see then who’s afraid,’ he said softly.

Lally realized just then what he had let himself in for but it was already too late. ‘Go on, you cunt, you!’ he shouted after Raphael who kept on walking, stiff, upright, with his
head held high.

A junior was dispatched to keep watch for the Dean. There must have been up on one hundred students gathered in the alley that day. Raphael and Lally were stripped to the waist. Cheers rose into
the sky. ‘Bell! Bell! Bell!’ Then, ‘Lally! Lally! Lally!’

Lally was first to strike, a solid blow to Raphael’s left cheek. But Raphael remained steady. A few more blows went wide of the mark. Then Raphael struck home, a fine punch directly on the
nose which began to bleed instantly. Lally was horrified by the impact. He stared in horror at the blood on his hand. Raphael’s next punch hit him on the side of the head and the one after
that, the left eye. Lally, can you believe it, began to cry.

The cheers became deafening. ‘Bell! Bell! Bell!’ A surge of pride ran through Raphael as his father’s cheers merged with those of the red-cheeked, triumphant students. The
Black and Tan cried helplessly with his bottom lip trembling, ‘Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me!’