‘Howard? You busy, Howard?’
‘Well, actually, I was just about to –’
‘I won’t keep you. Just walk with me a moment, little matter I want to discuss with you. How is everything, Howard? How’s… is it Sally?’
‘Halley,’ Howard glances forlornly at the exit as the Automator leads him away in the opposite direction.
‘Halley, of course. You made an honest woman of her yet? I’m joking, obviously. No pressure from this end. It’s the twenty-first century, school’s not going to judge you for your personal living arrangements. How about work, Howard, how’s that end of things? Into your third year of it now, probably got it pretty well taped at this stage, am I right?’
‘Well –’
‘Fascinating subject, History. Know what I like about it? It’s all written down right there in front of you. Not like Science, where they turn everything on its head every two years. Up is now down. Black is now white. Bananas, that we’ve been saying are good for you, actually give you cancer. History won’t do that. All done and dusted. Case closed. Might not be quite what it used to be, in terms of kids moving to Media Studies, Computer Studies, subjects with more obvious relevance to today. And what is it they say, history teaches us that history teaches us nothing? Makes you wonder what the point of history teachers is, doesn’t it? Ha ha! That’s not my view, though, Howard, don’t look so alarmed. No, as far as I’m concerned, only a fool would write history off, and history teachers like yourself, barring some really major unforeseen circumstances, will always be key members of our faculty here at Seabrook.’
‘Great,’ Howard says. Talking with the Automator has been likened to trying to read a ticker-tape parade; the margin for confusion is not helped by the high velocity at which the Acting Principal is presently moving, forcing Howard into an ignominious trot.
‘History, Howard, that’s what this school was built on, as well as your more obvious foundations, of course – clay, rock, what have you.’ He stops abruptly, so that Howard very nearly crashes into him. ‘Howard, take a look around you. What do you see?’
Dazedly, Howard does as he is told. They are standing in Our Lady’s Hall. There is the Virgin with the starry halo; there are the rugby photographs, the noticeboards, the fluorescent lights. Try as he might, he can perceive nothing out of the ordinary, and at last is forced to answer feebly, ‘Our Lady’s… Hall?’
‘Exactly,’ the Automator says approvingly.
Howard is ashamed to feel a glow of pride.
‘Know when this hall was built? Silly question, you’re the history man, of course you do. Eighteen sixty-five, two years after the school was founded. Another question, Howard. Does this corridor say excellence to you? Does it say, Ireland’s top secondary school for boys?’
Howard takes another look at the hall. The blue-and-white tiles are scuffed and dull, the grubby walls pocked and crumbling, the window-sashes rotted and knotted with generations of cobwebs. On a winter’s day, it could double for a Victorian orphanage. ‘Well…’ he begins, then realizes the Automator has turned on his heel and is power-walking back the way they came. He scurries after him; as he strides, the Automator continues his address, interspersing it with loud directives for the benefit of passing students – ‘Haircut! No running! Are those white socks?’ – more or less indiscriminately, like a Tannoy in some totalitarian state.
‘Once upon a time, Howard, that building was state of the art. Envy of every school in the country. Nowadays it’s an anachronism. Damp classrooms, inadequate light, poor heating. As for the Tower, to call it a death-trap would be paying it a compliment. Times change, that’s the overall point I’m trying to make here. Times change, and you can’t rest on your laurels. Teaching’s a premium service these days. Parents don’t just hand over their children and let you do what you like. They’re looking over your shoulder all the time, and if they suspect they’re not getting full value for money, they’ll whip little Johnny out of here and plonk him into Clongowes before you can say Brian O’Driscoll.’ They have come back through the Annexe, the modern wing of the school, and up the stairs, and are paused now at the open door of the Principal’s office, occupied until recently by Father Furlong. ‘Come on in for a minute, Howard.’ The Automator waves him through. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess, we’re just doing a little rearranging.’
‘So I see…’ Cardboard boxes cover the floor of the old priest’s sanctum sanctorum, some filled with Father Furlong’s possessions, late of these shelves, others with the Automator’s, transported up from his Dean’s office in the old building. ‘Does this mean…?’
‘’Fraid so, Howard, ‘fraid so,’ the Automator sighs. ‘Try to keep it under your hat for now, but the prognosis isn’t good.’
Desmond Furlong’s heart attack in September had taken everyone by surprise. A diminutive, parchment-yellow man, he had cultivated an air of rarefaction that teetered on the brink of actual incorporeality, as if at any moment he might evaporate into a cloud of pure knowledge; physical ailments had always seemed decidedly beneath him. But now he lies in hospital, mortally ill; and while his orrery still rests on the grand cherrywood desk, his photograph still hangs on the office wall (smiling mirthlessly, like a king who has wearied of his crown) and his iridescent fish still shimmer through the gloom of the aquarium on the dresser, his many bookcases today are empty, save for dust and a single stress-busting executive toy like a hastily planted flag.
‘It’s tough,’ the Automator says, placing a consolatory hand on Howard’s shoulder and gazing meditatively into a crate full of Post-its, then stepping aside as a woman staggers in bearing a fresh batch of boxes, which she deposits heavily by the wastepaper basket.
‘Hello, Trudy,’ Howard says.
‘Hello, Howard,’ Trudy replies. Trudy Costigan is the Automator’s wife, a compact blonde who in her St Brigid’s days was voted Best-Looking Girl and Girl Most Likely To, and who shows traces still of her former splendour amid the ravages incurred by the demands of her husband and the five children he has fathered by her (all boys, one a year, as though there is no time to spare – as though, his more paranoid observers whisper, he is raising some sort of army). Since his appointment to Acting Principal, she has also served as the Automator’s unofficial PA, organizing his diary, arranging meetings, answering the phone. She drops things a lot and blushes when he speaks to her, like a secretary fostering a secret crush on her boss; he in turn treats her like a well-meaning but cerebrally ungifted pupil, hustling her, harrying, snapping his fingers.
‘It’s tough,’ he repeats now, directing Howard into a high-backed African chair, another of the sparse group of survivors from the ancien régime, then sitting down on the other side of the desk and making a steeple of his fingers, as Trudy briskly removes from a box and arranges around him a bonsai tree, a pen-set and a framed photograph of their boys in rugby strip. ‘But we can’t let it get us down. That’s not what the Old Man’d want. Got to keep moving forward.’ He leans back in his chair, nodding to himself rhythmically.
A strangely solicitous silence fills the room, which Howard has the growing impression he is expected to fill. ‘Any word on who might take over?’ he obliges.
‘Well, it hasn’t been discussed in any kind of detail yet. Naturally what we’re hoping is that he’ll make a full recovery and get right back in the driving seat. But if he doesn’t…’ The Automator sighs. ‘If he doesn’t, the fear is there simply may not be a Paraclete to fill the position. Numbers are down. The order is ageing. There just aren’t enough priests to go around.’ He lifts the photograph of his children and studies it intently. ‘Lay principal would be a sea change, no question about it. Divisive. Paracletes are going to want one of their own in charge, even if they have to ship him in from Timbuktu. Some of the faculty too, the old guard. But they may not have that option.’ His glance slips sidelong from the photograph to Howard. ‘What about you, Howard? How would you feel about a principal drawn from the ranks? Is that something you could see yourself supporting? Hypothetically?’