‘No I didn’t.’
‘You did. Why did you do that? Why are you so cruel?’
‘What?’ she says. ‘What did I do?’
We watch from our desks as Mr Roche goes to the blackboard and stands with his arms folded across his chest. His arms rise up and down with his heavy breathing. ‘Let’s return to our spelling,’ he says.
As Mr Roche lowers himself into his chair, Kate turns to Brendan and whispers something that makes him laugh. Mr Roche gets to his feet and leaves the classroom without speaking. We hear him rummaging in the cupboard in the corridor and, when he returns, he is carrying a coal bucket filled with water. He clears a space on the floor near the front of the classroom, a foot from his desk, and puts the bucket down.
‘Kate Breslin, get down there on your knees and drink like a dog.’
‘What?’
‘Get down here on your hands and knees and drink from this bucket.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I won’t.’
‘Do it now, or I will do it for you.’
‘You must be mad,’ she says. ‘I won’t do it.’
Mr Roche rushes to her desk, clutches her hair, drags her by the scalp, pushes her to the floor and holds her head over the bucket of black, sooty water.
‘Do you know what your evil does to the world? Do you understand nothing about cause and effect? Do you think evil springs from nothing?’
She is silent. He pushes her face into the water. ‘Drink,’ he says.
She drinks and, when he is satisfied, he pulls her head out of the bucket. Water trickles down her neck and blackens her shirt at the back, like blood.
I think it is over when she begins to cry, but he kneels down and holds her bottom in one hand and, with the other, presses on the back of her neck, pushing her down again, her face in the water.
Kate moans and, at last, he stops.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Now stand up at the back of the classroom.’
She moves to the back wall and he gives her his jumper so she can mop herself up. She holds the jumper to cover her face.
‘It’s the likes of you who make the men that rape,’ he says. ‘At every school in the country, the killers and madmen are made by bullies like you.’
Kate sobs.
‘Please don’t do any more,’ she says. ‘I’m really sorry. I need to go to the toilet.’
But Mr Roche hasn’t finished.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’
‘Please, sir, let me go home. I’m sorry.’
He folds his arms and stares at her.
We all sit and wait. It’s three o’clock and the home bell has rung. We should be leaving. But nobody stirs, and it is quiet enough to hear stomachs churning. Nobody speaks when the teachers and the other children pass by our classroom to get their coats. Mr Roche stands by the door and smiles and waves at them.
Mr Donnelly walks by at ten past three, and Mr Roche tells him we are taking a test and won’t go home until the last pupil has finished. Mr Donnelly looks in, sees that nobody is writing, opens his mouth, but doesn’t speak. He looks at his watch, then leaves.
Nobody is able to move. We are turned to face the back of the room and we watch Kate, who watches Mr Roche. Then it happens: at fifteen minutes past three, Kate wets herself.
It is as though I am the one doing the wetting. The urine that runs down her legs and forms a pool on the floor belongs to me. I can feel the urine on my own legs and the wet heat of piss in my own socks. When Mr Roche goes to her and puts his hand on her shoulder, it is I who feels the comfort of his touch.
‘Clean yourself up,’ he says. ‘The rest of you go home.’
I stand by my desk and wait until everybody has left the classroom. He comes to me and takes my hand. ‘You’d better go home now, too,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I smile weakly.
‘You’ve no reason not to hold your head up high, John Egan,’ he says. ‘Hold it high for me and show me what you look like when you are proud.’
And, even though Kate is crying and watching, I hold my chin up.
‘Not that high,’ he says. ‘Like this.’
And he puts his hands on my face and puts it where he wants it.
‘Like this. You are strong and you should look strong.’
And when he lifts my chin up he stares at me and I get a surprising and nice feeling in my stomach.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you, Mr Roche.’
‘Go now,’ he says. ‘I’ll look after Kate.’
When I get home the cottage is quiet and there are no lights on. I think, at first, that nobody is home, but when I go to the living room I find the door won’t open. Somebody has pushed a chair under the handle. My heart thumps too hard and hurts my chest. I can hear low voices behind the door. I push, but it will not open. I call out, ‘Who’s there?’
My mother answers. ‘We’re having a bit of a talk, John. We’ll be out in a minute.’
‘Can’t I come in?’ I ask.
‘Just hold your horses,’ says my father, and I turn away and go to my room.
My nose tingles the way it does when I trip over and fall, the same tingling that happens on the way down to the ground. I need to go to the toilet but when I get there no urine comes out. I go to my room, close the door and reach under my mattress to make sure The Gol of Seil is still there. It is. And I check the money I took from Granny’s purse. It is still there.
I have put a hair in the first page of The Gol of Seil so that I’ll know if anybody has moved it, and I have put the money carefully under the mattress between two pieces of cardboard with a line marked with a black biro on the bottom piece of cardboard where the first note should be. Nothing has been moved. Still, I worry.
At half six, my mother comes in.
‘I’m sorry the door was locked, John. Your granny wanted to talk about some very private things.’
‘That’s all right,’ I say.
‘There’s nothing to worry about, John.’
‘I’m grand,’ I say. ‘I’m not worried.’
‘We’re having stew for tea. Will you come and help me with the carrots?’
‘OK.’
I don’t need to know what the talk was about.
21
Kate is not at school the next day, and Mr Roche behaves as though nothing has happened. He makes us laugh with stories of Dublin, and he explains how fractions work.
I look carefully and closely at him all day. I pay attention to everything he does, the way he speaks, the words he uses, what he does with his hands and how he holds the chalk and a pen. He looks at me, too.
He doesn’t smile or wink at me, but that’s because he should be carefuclass="underline" nobody should know that what he did yesterday was done for me. It would be wrong to make it obvious.
I’m happy on the way home and I follow the path I have made. But, after a while, walking doesn’t seem right for the mood I’m in and I pretend I’m running the marathon for Ireland in the Olympic games.
When I get to the doll stuck up the tree, I think, for the first time, that she looks comfortable, as though the branch is an arm holding itself up for her so that she can have a better view of the world.
But my happy mood does not last.
When I arrive home, my mother and father are waiting by the car. The engine is running and there are six suitcases on the gravel driveway. One of the suitcases — the small, blue, cardboard one — is mine.
I wonder if we might be taking a surprise holiday in a caravan park, the kind of holiday my father so often promises.
My grandmother’s car is at the side of the house, instead of in the front drive, and this change in the usual order of things tells me that something has happened to her, and that something other than a surprise holiday is about to happen to me.
‘We’re going to Dublin for a few days,’ says my father.