‘I’m being sent for Guidance Counselling.’ Skippy studies the card. ‘With Father Foley.’
At the name, hands are cupped and brought to ears. ‘Father Who?’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Speak up there, young man!’
‘Why are they sending me for Counselling?’
‘They’ve found you out, Skippy,’ Dennis taunts, wiggling his fingers in his face. ‘They know.’
‘Could be they suspect about Condor,’ Ruprecht frowns. ‘Skippy, if anyone asks, I was with you all night, helping you with your maths. Keep calm. They can’t prove anything.’
Can’t they? All through German class his worry mounts. Have they found out about him and Lori? Maybe they don’t like people having girlfriends? He sends her a text just to say hi, but she doesn’t reply.
‘Nicht makes a verb negative,’ the teacher says. ‘Ich brauche nicht, I do not need. Ich liebe nicht, I do not love. Let’s look at the textbook. Was hast du heute nicht gekauft, Uwe? Ich habe ein Schnitzel für meine Mutter nicht gekauft. What did you not buy today, Uwe? I did not buy a Schnitzel for my mother.’
‘I’ve got a Schnitzel for his mother.’
‘Mario, your Schnitzel wouldn’t feed a mouse.’
I do not go I do not eat I do not see I do not hear
He raises his hand, presents the chit to be excused.
Father Ignatius Foley sits with a pen braced horizontally between his index fingertips, contemplating the youth bunched on the other side of his desk. After protracted and unpleasant ear surgery, he has returned from convalescence to find a stack of emergency cases awaiting his attention, and this lad is top of the heap. A pale fellow of slight build, he looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; in his file, however, you will find Attitudinal Problems, Inattention, Disruptive Tendencies, Vomiting in Class and Playing Frisbee Alone. Trouble comes in every shape and size – when you’ve been counselling youngsters for as long as Ignatius Foley, you’ll know that.
‘Do you know why you’re here, boy?’ Father Foley gives him the full benefit of his stentorian baritone voice. The boy shrinks a bit, stares at his thumbs, mumbles something. Father Foley’s eyes narrow. He knows all right. There’s a wiliness beneath that guileless countenance, the look of someone who’ll try and wriggle around the rules. Well, he won’t find much wriggle room in here.
But first the folded hands, the kindly, avuncular smile. Put him at his ease. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Daniel. No one’s “out to get you”. Your Acting Principal has simply noticed a dip in your grades recently, and asked me to take a look to see if I can help.’ Father Foley rises from his chair. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me in your own words why you think your grades have gone down.’
As the boy launches into the usual prevaricatory flim-flam, Father Foley, slowly circumnavigating the room, peers into the file again. The case is somewhat unusual; this boy does not seem one of the baffled imbeciles that typically washes up in his office. His marks are excellent, or rather were excellent until quite recently – you could almost pinpoint the day they began their steep decline. Father Foley’s got a hunch, and when you’ve been in this business for as long as he has, you learn to trust your hunches.
‘Drugs!’ Spinning around, he jabs a finger in the boy’s face, who, caught off guard, jumps in his seat.
‘I want you to look at me,’ Father Foley commands, ‘and tell me if you’ve encountered any of the following substances.’ The boy nods timorously. Father Foley reads from the Department of Education leaflet. ‘Cannabis, also known as ganja, hash, hash joints.’ He peers at the boy. Nothing. ‘Marijuana, grass, weed, mary-jane.’ No. ‘Speed, whiz, Billy Whiz, crank. Ketamin, Special K.’ What in God’s name is Special K doing here? ‘Cocaine, coke, Charlie, snort, blow. Heroin, horse, shit, junk, China White, the White Lady.’
If there were something there, Father Foley would find it, be it merely a twitch, a blink, a bead of sweat that gave the game away. This boy has no reaction to any of the drugs on the checklist. Still, Father Foley has the distinct sense that he is withholding something. But what?
Returning to his desk, casting about the room for inspiration, he lights on a framed picture from his missionary days – his younger self on an airstrip in the desert, intrepid, golden-locked, with his arm around a black whose name he forgets. That plane in the background Father Foley had actually flown, the pilot letting him take the joystick as they soared over the mountains with their vital consignment of Bibles. He smiles fondly at his handsome avatar; and then his eyes shift from the picture to the cotton buds next to it and his smile fades as he is swamped by unpleasant memories of the last two weeks, being poked and prodded by little Oriental nurses, yapping to each other in whatever it was – poke, poke! do they think everybody’s ears are the same? Can they not appreciate that some men have unusually complicated ear structures?
But then his eyes flick back to the plane. Flying. This business of the lone frisbee-playing. It had left Father Foley with a bad taste in his mouth when he first encountered it in the report; now he thinks he knows why. Coughing gruffly: ‘Tell me, Daniel… have you begun to… feel anything lately?’
He sees the boy’s lips, after a moment of deliberation, begin to move. Did he say thoughts? It sounded like he said something about thoughts. Well, well. The pieces begin to fall into place. The disappeared ambition, the blank stare, the sociopathic attitude, the constant twitching – Puberty, we meet again.
‘Daniel,’ he begins, ‘you have entered that stage of life when you leave childish things behind and enter manhood. This can be a bewildering experience, what with changes in your body, hair appearing in unexpected places, growth spurts, and so forth. Adult sexuality, while one of the most precious gifts bestowed upon us by our Maker, brings with it great responsibility. For when abused, it can plunge a man into mortal danger. I am speaking of impure acts.
‘These acts may present themselves at first quite innocently. Something to fill an idle moment, perhaps introduced to you by a friend. But believe you me, there is nothing innocent about them. It is a slippery slope, a slippery slope indeed. I have seen good, upstanding men brought to their knees by these disgusting activities. Not merely falling grades. I am speaking of shame, disgrace, exile. Decent families’ names blackened for generations. Most deadly of all, the risk to your immortal soul.’
From the boy’s saucer-eyed stare, Father Foley knows he is on the right track.
‘Fortunately, God, in his wisdom, has supplied us with the means to avoid these deadly traps of the spirit, in the form of the wonderful gift of sport. Mens sana in corpore sano, as the Romans had it. You don’t build an empire like the Roman Empire without knowing a thing or two. Of course, they wouldn’t have known about rugby, but I think we can assume that if the sport had been invented then, they would have been playing it night and day. It’s amazing how many of life’s problems simply disappear after a rousing game of rugby.’ He steeples his fingers, gazes at the boy benignly. ‘You don’t play rugby, do you, Daniel,’ he says. The boy shakes his head. Textbook case, absolutely tex– wait, he’s saying something. Good God, child, you’ll never get anywhere speaking into your chest like that. What is it? ‘Winning? Well, yes, here in Seabrook we’ve had our fair share of trophies. But I like to say, it’s not the win– what? Women? That’s absolutely the last thing you should be thinking about, take my advice and just stay away –’
That isn’t it either, though. The boy is gesticulating and gurning, he is barking out the same word again and ag– oh, wait, swimming, that’s what it is. He’s on the swimming team. No – more dumbshow and protestation – no, he isn’t on the swimming team.