‘Yes, sir.’
‘Please come with me now to my office.’
On the way to his office Mr Donnelly is silent but, once inside, he soon begins speaking in a loud rush. He sits behind his desk, and I sit in the chair nearest the window so I can look outside. I don’t want to look at his big red face and his fingers so long and fat they can barely fit inside the holes to dial a phone number.
‘Terrible bitter weather,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say, as I look out the window.
I don’t want to talk to him. I only want to know why he has called me in. He moves his chair in closer to his desk.
‘How are you getting on?’
‘Fine. Not a bother, sir.’
‘How old are you now, John?’
‘Twelve in July.’
‘Is there anything you need?’
He opens his desk drawer and rummages through his supply of stationery.
‘Do you have enough pens and pencils?’
‘Plenty, sir.’
He sighs.
‘Sit up straight.’
I look at the watch on his wrist.
‘Don’t sit on the edge of the seat like that. Now move back and sit up. That’s much better now. That’s right.’
I know what he really wants to talk about. He wants to talk about my body. He did the same thing last year. It was only a matter of time. I wish I had the strength to stop him. He is worthless, after all, an ugly man with red hair and a red beard. But I move in my chair just the way he tells me to.
‘Listen to me, now, young man. You struggled with your Irish last term. Why is that? You’re too bright to fall behind.’
I look at Mr Donnelly’s red hair and I don’t tell him the truth — that I use Irish lessons to read the Guinness Book. I tell him that I don’t like Irish because it’s hard to do well at something you don’t like. I feel a bit light-headed and I hold on to the seat to stop myself from moving.
‘So,’ says Mr Donnelly. ‘That’s a bit of a chicken and egg. And which comes first we’ll never know. So that doesn’t really help explain the nature of the problem, but we might as well move along and you can tell me what subjects you do like.’
‘I like history,’ I say, wondering what causes red hair and whether it is because of Mr Donnelly that I am angry around people with red hair.
‘Why do you like history?’ asks Mr Donnelly, his arms folded across his chest.
I sit as far back and as straight up as I can in the wooden chair and I remember the day last summer, when I was watching a film at the cinema in Wexford. There was a red-haired boy sitting alone in front of me and I took my shoes off and put my feet up on the seat near his face.
When the boy turned around and asked me to get my feet down, I didn’t respond or look at him, and I left one foot where it was, on the seat back, near the boy’s face. When he turned again and told me that my feet stank and asked me to move them, I didn’t answer and left my feet where they were.
‘I like history,’ I tell Mr Donnelly, making up my answer as I go along, ‘because it’s about knowing facts and stories. Like that King Charles the First was beheaded.’
Mr Donnelly stares at me and shakes his head. ‘It’s like hearing a voice calling up from the bottom of a well,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘it is.’
But I realise I have made a mistake: Mr Donnelly is talking about me. He means that the sound of my voice is deep for a young boy’s and that it is like somebody calling up a deep hole.
‘You’re very tall, John,’ Mr Donnelly goes on. ‘You’re the height of the senior boys. If you were performing like you are growing we might be able to consider putting you up a class so you would not stand out like a sore thumb. You’re doing well in most classes, very well in some, but quite poorly in Irish. So you’re not really ready to go up, except in height, if you get my drift.’
I don’t want to talk about my height. ‘I already fit in, sir, and Brendan is in class with me. I don’t want to go up.’
‘Well, that’s not an option, as I’ve just finished saying. Not unless you can get your act together with the Irish.’
‘OK, sir.’
I get out of my seat.
‘Sit down, John. I’ve some questions I need to ask you. Sit down there like a good boy and concentrate on our purpose today.’
I sit down and he watches me so closely it is as though he has the right to me and can do what he likes with me.
‘Now,’ he continues, looking at my whole body one more time, looking me up and down, all the way down and all the way up again, ‘do you feel well? How is your body holding up?’
I open my mouth but all I can feel is thickness in my throat.
‘Don’t be shy, now.’
I shrug, feel beaten. I am nothing. Even an animal can move if it wants to get out of the way of something.
‘Have you had any strange or unwanted activity below the waist?’
I shake my head, too fast. I must look like a fool. But I should not care what I look like to him.
‘Do you have any questions about what your body has been doing?’
‘No!’ I say. My voice is shaking.
‘Have you been to the doctor recently?’
‘Yes.’
‘What height does the doctor say you will become?’
I am dizzy with embarrassment. ‘I have to go to the toilet, sir. Can I come back after I’ve been to the toilet?’
‘When you come back, I’ll give you a brand new eraser, and a few new exercise books. Nothing like new stationery for a fresh start in your lessons. Would you like that?’
I don’t answer. I open the door and run down the corridor to the boys’ toilet and I wonder what’s wrong with a man like Mr Donnelly. He likes to abuse me with his badgering but he can’t stand to have me hate him. And so, at the end of a session of beating me with his opinions he almost always offers a parting gift or kind word, something free and nice for me; always just short of an apology for his ugly manners.
I don’t go back to his office.
At home, I go to the kitchen and find my mother there, with a book on her lap and Crito by her feet.
‘Mammy, Mr Donnelly made me come to his office and he talked to me about my height and all.’
She nods and moves her chair out from the table. ‘Sorry, John. I meant to tell you.’
‘Meant to tell me what?’
I stand next to her and fold my arms across my chest.
‘I asked him to have a word with you. He rang to ask me how you were getting on and one thing led to another.’
‘Why would you do that? I don’t even need help and it’s none of his business!’
Without meaning to, without knowing, without planning to, I have moved forward and my legs are pressed hard against my mother’s chair and I am looming over her. She looks up into my face and I can see my reflection in her eyes.
‘There’s no need to suffocate me,’ she says, her voice weak and small.
I move away and stand by my usual chair and feel its wooden back under my hands. I’m shaking and my teeth scrape together.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘But I don’t know why you made me talk to him. He offended me and treated me like a circus freak and looked me up and down.’
She smiles. ‘He does the same to me and sometimes he even licks his chops. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have suggested it. I’m sorry.’
‘But why did you think he should talk to me? Do you think something is wrong with me?’
‘At the time, it seemed a harmless enough idea. I wondered if you might like a good heart-to-heart with a grown man about the things you’re going through. Early adolescence can be a difficult time.’
‘Isn’t that what Da’s for?’
‘Yes, he’s here for that, too. But I worry you won’t talk to your da even if you need to’
‘I will if I want to.’