The Automator relents. ‘You’re probably right, Howard. Probably just ate a bad burger. Still, no point taking chances. That’s why I’d like you to have a word with him.’
‘Me?’ Howard’s heart sinks for the second time in five minutes.
‘Ordinarily, I’d send him for a session with the guidance counsellor, but Father Foley’s out this week having his ears drained. It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good handle on him, and I know the boys relate to you –’
‘I don’t think they do,’ Howard interjects quickly.
‘Of course they do. Young man like you, they see you as someone they can confide in, sort of a big brother figure. It doesn’t have to be anything formal. Just a quick chat. Take his temperature. If he’s got some sort of issue, set him straight. Probably nothing. Still, best to make sure. Vomiting in the classroom is definitely not something we want catching on. Time and a place for vomiting, and the classroom is not it. Think you could teach a class, Howard, with kids vomiting everywhere?’
‘No,’ Howard admits sullenly. ‘Though the way I hear it, it’s Father Green you should be talking to, not Juster.’
‘Mmm.’ The Automator withdraws into his thoughts a moment, spinning a fountain pen through his fingers. ‘Things can get a little close to the knuckle in Jerome’s classes, it’s true.’ Again he pauses, the chair creaking as he shifts his weight backwards; addressing himself to the portrait of his predecessor, he says, ‘To be frank, Howard, could be the best thing for everyone if the Paracletes started taking more of a back seat. No disrespect to any of them, but the truth is that in educational terms they’re outmoded technology. And having them around makes the parents anxious. Not their fault, of course. But pick up a newspaper, every day you see some new horror story, and mud sticks, that’s the tragedy of it.’
It’s true: for ten years or more, a relentless stream of scandals – secret mistresses, embezzlement and, to a degree still almost incomprehensible, child abuse – has eroded the power the Church once wielded over the country almost to nothing. The Paraclete Fathers remain one of the few orders to remain untouched by disgrace – in fact, thanks to their role in one of the top private schools at a time of spectacular wealth creation and even more spectacular conspicuous consumption, they have retained a certain cachet. Nonetheless, once-simple things, such as dropping a child home from choir practice, have been thoroughly removed from the priests’ gift.
‘Flipside of a strong brand is that you have to protect it,’ the Automator says, swivelling back to Howard. ‘You have to be vigilant against ideas or values that are contrary to what the brand is about. This is a precarious time for Seabrook, Howard. That’s why I want to be certain everyone’s singing from the same hymn sheet. We need to make sure, now more than ever, that everything we do, down to the last detail, is being done the Seabrook way.’
‘Okay,’ Howard stammers.
‘Look forward to hearing your feedback on our friend, Howard. And I’m glad we had this little talk. If things pan out the way I think they will, I’m seeing big things for you here.’
‘Thanks,’ Howard says, getting to his feet. He wonders if he’s supposed to shake hands; but the Automator has already directed his attention elsewhere.
‘Bye, Howard,’ Trudy looks up at him for one demure moment as he trudges out of the office, and makes a tick on her clipboard.
Carl and Barry spend their whole lunchtime down in the junior school playground, trying to find more pills. It is total bullshit. You ask the kids a question and they just look at you, it’s like they speak a different language down here that over the summer Carl and Barry have forgotten. And all of them act mental, so you can’t tell which ones might have prescriptions. After half an hour, Barry’s got exactly one pill, which might just be a mint. He’s really angry. Carl wishes he had not thrown away their pills! He doesn’t remember now why he did it, he doesn’t know why he does things sometimes. He thinks about Lollipop waiting for him this evening and him not coming.
Now the bell goes and the kids run back inside in one big swarmy yell. ‘Fuck it,’ Barry says, and he and Carl begin the trudge back over the rugby pitches towards the senior school. But then they see something.
The boy’s name is Oscar. Last year he was in third class, four below Carl and Barry, but he was already famous for the trouble he got into. Not just messing in class – weird shit, like getting stuck in ventilation shafts, eating chalk, pretending he was an animal and yelping down the corridors. Now, walking along with his bag trailing in the grass behind him, you can see him talking to himself, the fingers of his hands flashing out again and again like little pink explosions. Then he stops, and looks up, and gulps. That’s because Carl and Barry are blocking his way.
‘Hello there,’ Barry says.
‘Hello,’ Oscar answers in a small voice.
Barry tells Oscar politely that he and Carl are doing a science experiment in the senior school using these pills. But they have run out! He shows Oscar the sweets they have brought for anyone who can help them find new pills. Even before he can finish, Oscar is jumping up and down, shouting, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’
‘Shh,’ Barry says, looking over his shoulder. ‘Come this way a second.’ They bring Oscar behind one of the big trees. ‘Do you have them with you?’ Barry says. ‘In your schoolbag?’
‘No,’ Oscar says. ‘My mum gives me them in the morning.’
‘In the morning?’ Barry asks.
‘After my Shreddies,’ Oscar says. ‘But I know where she keeps them! I can reach them if I stand on a chair.’
He is all ready to run off and get them right now! But Barry tells him to wait till after school. ‘You go home and bring us back as many pills as you can. Don’t take them all or your mum will notice. We’ll wait for you over there in the mud-piles, okay? And we’ll give you this whole bag of sweets.’
Oscar nods in excitement. Then he says, ‘I have a friend who gets pills too.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Barry says. ‘Bring him too. But make sure you come as quick as you can. It’s urgent.’
The kid runs off, his schoolbag bumping along the ground after him. Barry’s eyes are shining with cleverness. ‘Back in business,’ he says.
At 3.45 Carl and Barry go down to the mud-piles, through the trees along the side of the pitches so no one sees them. Trucks dumped the piles here two summers ago, a whole string of them from the long-jump sandpit right up to the back wall of the school. Carl and Barry’s class used to play War on Terror on them every lunchtime until a boy from fifth class split his head open and his parents took the school to court. Now no one is allowed to play on them, or even run in the yard any more.
Oscar waits for them in the very last of the mounds. Another even twitchier boy is with him. Oscar says his name is Rory, his face is a weird fizzy white that reminds Carl of the drink his mom drinks for her stomach. Between them they have twenty-four pills. But there is a problem.
‘We don’t want sweets,’ Oscar says.
‘What?’ Barry says.
‘We don’t want them,’ Oscar says.
‘But you made a deal,’ Barry says.
Oscar just shrugs. Behind him the chalky sick-looking kid folds his arms.
‘Look,’ Barry says, ‘look at all the sweets we have.’ He holds the bag open for them to see. ‘Mars Bars, Sugar Bombs, Gorgo Bars, Stingrays, Milky Moos, Cola Bottles…’
The kids don’t say anything. They know it’s a shit deal. In junior school all anyone does is make trades, for football stickers, lunches, computer games, whatever, you know when someone’s trying to rip you off. Above the black ridge, light is bleeding out of the sky. Carl thinks they should just grab the kids and take the pills from them. But Barry has explained to him already that what they want to establish here is an ONGOING RELATIONSHIP. If you TAKE the pills today, what will you do tomorrow? (Ever since last night when Carl threw away the pills, Barry’s been speaking to him in a SLOW, CAREFUL voice, the same way Carl’s remedial maths teacher does when she’s telling him, Now say if you want to save for a new bike that costs two hundred euro, and you put a hundred euro in the bank, and the RATE OF INTEREST is ten per cent, then it would take you… Carl, it would take you…?)