Week Three

Monday

It was a grey and bleak prospect that met the eyes of John O’Driscoll as he gazed out of his window the following morning. Rats scurried forlornly amidst the detritus of the cash and carry and a dog nosing around across the road wore the same air of weary resignation. Upon arrival at school, O’Driscoll learned that Father Kennedy would be away on parish business for a couple of days, allowing him some respite before the dreaded moment when he would have to face his nemesis. His thoughts turned once more to the events of the day before and he wondered how on Earth he had allowed himself to get into such a ridiculous situation. After all, other people didn’t feel the need to impersonate celebrities of stage and screen to disguise their voices from priests. If they did, Saturday mornings might present a strange aspect, with cries of “It’s the way I tell ‘em!” or, “Come here, there’s more!” emanating from behind the confessional curtain.

Duffy had cried with laughter when details the disaster had been relayed to him and had forthwith bestowed on his friend the title, “Wor Johnny.” And O’Driscoll hardly dared think what Karen would think of him when the reason for the disturbance was explained to her, which it surely would be. Now, as he stood at the back of the staff room, his usual Monday morning feelings of depression intensified a thousand fold, and he cursed the day he had ever entered a confessional box.

Mr. Barnet began briefing by reminding staff that the two exchange students would be beginning their first full day of lessons. “Mrs. Goodwin and her husband very kindly showed them some of the sights of London over the weekend and as we speak, the girls in the office are giving them tea and stickies, can’t beat tea and stickies to set you up for the day! John, you’re teaching them first, so could you pick them up at the end of tutor time and show them where to go? I’ll pop in to the lesson for a bit and see how they’re settling in.”

The prospect of having the head in his classroom and looking on while he was teaching immediately set alarm bells ringing in O’Driscoll’s mind. He had been told by a colleague who claimed to have heard it from “someone in the know” that, with redundancies from within the ranks of the temporary staff almost certain to be a necessity, the leadership of the school would be watching the staff concerned like hawks during the remainder of the term. A series of outstanding lessons or a notable extra-curricular accomplishment might be enough to tip the balance favourably in a close race, while on the other hand, a blunder might turn out to be the nail in the coffin of the unfortunate perpetrator’s Saint Catherine’s career. So the fact that within the next few minutes the Head would be in his classroom observing one of his lessons caused O’Driscoll’s heart to drop into his boots as he frantically tried to recall what he had planned for the double period.

He collected the lads and introduced them to their new classmates before beginning the Citizenship lesson. By a miracle of scheduling, Prudence would be spending the whole day going through an induction process with one of the Assistant Heads, so at least he wouldn’t have to worry about her. Mr. Barnett had already taken a position at the back of the class and O’Driscoll was horrified to see he was holding in his hand an object whose presence in the classroom had come to strike fear into the hearts of all but the most self-assured practitioners - a clipboard. Trying to keep his voice strong and quaver free and affecting an air of nonchalance that he had a feeling wasn’t fooling the Head for a minute, O’Driscoll introduced the lesson by recapping what the class had covered so far. The week before, he had introduced the class to Karl Marx and, as often happens, the idea of collectivization and the eradication of private property, when explained in simple terms, appealed greatly to the minds of the young.

“So that means,” said a boy called Mathew thoughtfully, “that if I wanted to borrow my brother’s bike, he wouldn’t be able to stop me because it wouldn’t be his anymore, it would be shared property.” It looked as if 6J were ready to embark on the road to a socialist utopia, until O’Driscoll gently reminded Mathew that his brother would likewise be able to freely access his collection of James Bond videos and as the implications of this became clear, there was a sudden braking of the ideological vehicle.

Until now, the exchange students had not contributed, so, aware of the twin threats posed by Mr. Barnett and his clipboard as they sat at the back of the room, O’Driscoll asked Brett what the views of American children were on communism. It was the first time the “c” word had been used and it produced a remarkable effect on Brett. “Is that what you’ve been talking about the whole time, communism?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered O’Driscoll, kicking himself for not having made the link more explicit during his introduction. He risked a glance in the direction of his leader and saw to his horror that the Head was scribbling furiously. “Most of the governments that followed Marxist principles were communist,” he said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice, “we did cover that last week, didn’t we, class?” but his appeal elicited no response and the class continued to gaze at their teacher with the blank, incurious expressions that a field of cows might wear as a tractor passed by in the lane.

Brett paused for a moment, presumably to marshal his thoughts. “My pop told me Europe was full of communists,” he began. “He says it’s bad enough at home with that douche bag Clinton in charge, but he said you guys had it even worse.”

“Thank you, Brett” said O’Driscoll hastily and, feeling that he might be on safer ground with the French lad, asked Henri if he would like to make a contribution from his own country’s perspective.

“My father, ‘e follow philosophy of Leon Trotsky,” came the reply. “’E believe in principles of syndicalism, worker council make decision for everyone and this produce society that is most fair and most egalitarian.”

Taken aback somewhat by this answer, O’Driscoll debated whether to develop the point and show how effortlessly he could extend his teaching to cater for gifted and talented pupils, but he only had a vague idea what syndicalism actually was, so he decided to play safe by asking for any final thoughts on the main topic. At this point, an earnest boy called Francis put his hand up and said, “I think communism was a good idea, it just didn’t quite work out.” O’Driscoll had rarely heard the great social and political experiment summarized with such economy and recalling the huge tracts of analysis he himself had to plough through on the subject, he couldn’t help thinking that if the message:

“Dear Karl,

It was a good idea, it just didn’t quite work out.

Best wishes,

Francis Hernandez, aged 91/2”

was chiseled onto a certain gravestone in Highgate, the lives of countless future undergraduates might be rendered a mite less tiresome.

He was about to embark on what he hoped would be an amusing but informative summing up of Marxism in the twentieth century when, with a smile, the Head bade him farewell and took his leave. Risking a glimpse at the clipboard as his leader passed, O’Driscoll was able to make out that a series of entries had been made on the page. “Sausages, Lincolnshire, thick,” said the first one and underneath it were two more that read, “Bacon, middle, smoked,” and “Bathroom cleaner, lemon, scented.” Mr. Barnett passed by before O’Driscoll could make out what the other inscriptions were and a moment later, the door had shut behind the departing Head and O’Driscoll breathed a sigh of relief as he found himself alone with the class once more.

It was a battle wearied John O’Driscoll who finally fought his way through to the end of that particular Monday. He had yet to face Father Kennedy and he was unable to decide whether to find the priest and try to explain his actions of the previous day or just leave it and hope that the incident would fade away. And then there was Karen - although she had not been in the vicinity when the incident had happened, surely word would have gotten back to her. Should he see her and try and explain or leave it and trust to luck? Putting both decisions off until later, he made his way to Monday’s after school meeting, which Mr. Barnet had promised staff he would keep as short as possible.

The Head led off with some routine matters before reminding the group that Brett’s father, together with a small delegation from the American school’s governing body, would be visiting Saint Catherine’s the following Thursday and staying over for the weekend. This would give them the opportunity to watch the staff revue which was to take place in the church hall the following Sunday afternoon. The revue was a Saint Catherine’s tradition in which staff dressed up in costume to sing, dance, perform comedy routines and otherwise make fools of themselves and it was very popular with the pupils.

It was also the one occasion during the year when Father Kennedy came down from his ecclesiastical pedestal and showed his human side by dressing up in a clown’s costume and performing in front of the children. The arrival on stage of a hideously made-up Father Kennedy had, on more than one occasion, prompted a spontaneous stampede from the ranks of the infant pews and every year, there was talk of a staff delegation approaching their spiritual leader and suggesting a modification of his appearance for future events. But Father Kennedy in a cassock exerted the same terrible mesmerism on the staff as Father Kennedy in a clown costume did on the pupils, so the idea never proceeded beyond that initial discussion.

“The event should give our American cousins a chance to observe the school in its wider pastoral role,” finished Mr. Barnet. “And, as I said last week, if this pilot scheme is a success, there is an excellent prospect of the whole show being expanded in future years, with opportunities for our staff to cross the big pond and visit the school over there.”

With a final reminder to his colleagues to “pull all the stops out when the brass hats arrive,” Mr. Barnet called an end to the meeting and his colleagues drifted gratefully away. O’Driscoll and Duffy met on the way out to make arrangements for later that evening it was Faith’s birthday and a gathering was planned in an Indian restaurant in South Ealing. As they left the building, the well-known façade of The North Star could be glimpsed tantalizingly in the distance and a keen observer might have noticed both of them casting surreptitious glances in its direction. A short period of silence was broken by Duffy’s opening gambit of “Warm weather for the time of year.”

“It certainly is!” answered O’Driscoll. “Did you manage to get a cup of tea before the meeting?”

“You must be joking, I’m parched!”

There was another longer pause while Duffy fingered his collar and swallowed extravagantly. “If we just had the one,” he ventured finally, “we could still drive, and there’d be loads of time to get showered and changed before the meal.”

“What time are we meeting them?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“Eight o’clock! That’s hours away, come on we’ve got loads of time, just one quick pint and no harm done.”

And so it was that at the unusual hour of 4.15 on a Monday afternoon, Duffy and O’Driscoll came to be occupying their usual corner of The North Star with pints of Stella in front of them. The sense of having somehow subverted the normal order of things made the illicit lager taste even sweeter, and all too soon the two were looking regretfully at their empty glasses.

“Is it one pint or two you can have without being over the limit,” asked Duffy, adding, “didn’t they change it recently?”

“No, I don’t think so, it’s still eighty gills.”

“It’s not gills, you idiot, that’s a measurement of spirits. If you had eighty gills in your system, you’d be dead from alcohol poisoning...” he paused for a moment, “... or I suppose you might be addressing a religious meeting in Ealing Town Hall.”

“Ha, bloody ha.”

“No, it’s milligrams, eighty milligrams of something in your something.”

There was a pause before O’Driscoll said, “Eighty is quite a high figure if you think of it, so I’m sure we’d be all right to have one more.”

The third pint took even less discussion, for midway through the second, O’Driscoll remembered they were drinking Stella, which was a more powerful lager than the standard strength one they had been using to make their calculations. Seeking clarification from the landlord, they were both told they were definitely over the limit and if they wanted to go out on the piss on a Monday night, why didn’t they just get on with it and leave him in peace. Retiring to the corner, they worked out a complicated arrangement in which a single cab would make multiple journeys between Southall and Hayes before decanting two squeaky clean teachers in Ealing well ahead of the eight o’clock deadline.

It was the sense of having problem solved so effectively that now allowed a fatal relaxation to occur, for when Duffy glanced at the hands of his watch he realized, with a thrill of horror, that they were pointing to a quarter to eight. Turning to O’Driscoll, he asked with some asperity whether it was because he (O’Driscoll) was such a fucking idiot that it was always left to him (Duffy) to organize everything? O’Driscoll replied with equal warmth that it had been he (O’Driscoll) who had worked out the taxi schedule while he (Duffy) had been busy making eyes at the barmaid with the nose stud, and that, anyway it was his Duffy’s girlfriend’s birthday do, so it wasn’t his (O’Driscoll’s) job to act as a nursemaid. This exchange resulted in both parties working all angst from their systems most satisfactorily, and it only remained to perform emergency ablutions in the pub toilet, put half a packet of O’Driscoll’s extra strong mints sideways into their mouths and jump a taxi for the ten minute journey to the restaurant.

As he sat down near Rocky and Sweeney, O’Driscoll could hear Duffy explaining to Faith that because he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her by giving her a birthday present in front of everyone, he had left it at home so he could present it to her in the much more intimate setting of the candlelit dinner he had booked for them on the following night. A moment later, Micky entered hand-in-hand with Maureen, and while Maureen commenced the round of air-kissing among the girls that would last at least five minutes, Micky spotted his friends and moved towards them. As he approached the table, however, a waft of scented air preceded him and O’Driscoll and Rocky exchanged glances before Rocky cleared his throat with elaborate care and said, “I don’t quite know how to say this, Mick, and please don’t be offended, but are you by any chance wearing perfume?”

“It’s not perfume, you cheeky bastard, it’s aftershave!”

“Are you sure it’s not perfume, it smells a lot like perfume to me?”

“It’s not perfume. I keep telling you, it’s aftershave!”

“What do they call it, this aftershave that smells like perfume?”

There was a short silence before Micky ventured, “Paco Rabanne?” He paused again and then repeated, this time with more confidence, “Paco Rabanne. Yes that’s it, Maureen bought it for me.”

Examining Quinn more closely, O’Driscoll noticed several other changes. Gone were the battered Wrangler jeans and tattered Ben Sherman shirt he usually wore, and in their place he was attired in a green linen shirt and trousers of a material not immediately identifiable.

“You’re looking very smart, Michael.” said Rocky. “I haven’t seen you in that outfit before.”

“Maureen gave it to me as an early birthday present.”

“Very nice, but not your usual style, Mick,” offered O’Driscoll.

“No,” conceded Quinn. “Maureen said I looked as if I could do with a makeover, so she went out and got the whole lot from Paul Smith.”

“What, she borrowed them?”

“Paul Smith’s not a person, you twat, it’s a shop, there’s one in Covent Garden.”

“Thank you for putting me straight on that,” said Rocky. “And by the way, could I ask, if I’m not being too presumptuous, how long you have known Paul Smith was not a person but a shop in Covent Garden?”

“Since Maureen told me yesterday,” answered Quinn with a grin. “I know it’s not my usual get up,” he continued, lowering his voice, “but it keeps her happy and costs me nothing, so what the hell.”

“What material those trousers are made from?” asked Rocky, peering at the garments in question.

“Moleskin,” answered Quinn.

“Moleskin!” exploded O’Driscoll, who had spent the last few days immersed in a sea of small furry animals. “Fucking moleskin! Quinny, it’s bad enough turning up dressed like a character from The Wind in the Willows, but if you start twitching your nose and talking about messing about in boats, I won’t be responsible for my actions! And I’m certainly not letting you crash at my place wearing trousers like that, there might be talk.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’ll be crashing at your place for a while,” said Quinn. “I’m going to be staying at Maureen’s for a bit.”

“Yeah, and we know which bit!”

“No, seriously,” said Quinn, “I’m... er... moving in to Maureen’s place... that is... I’m moving in with Maureen.” Aware that his words had caused his friends to put their glasses down and exchange looks of amazement, he hurried on, “Just for a bit, like... to see how things go.”

“Sorry Michael, I must be a bit on the slow side, tonight,” said Rocky, “but I could have sworn I just heard you say you were moving in with Maureen.”

“Well, just for a bit, like,” repeated Quinn, the note of forced joviality causing his voice to go up an octave, “just to see how things go. Her flat mate moved out a couple of weeks ago so she said why didn’t I move in for a bit and see how things went. She said we’ll see how things go and... and... she’s not going to even charge me rent ... and ... we’ll see how things go, and ... well, you can’t say fairer than that.” He began to pick his nose with an air of nonchalance that didn’t fool his friends for a moment.

“I know she does a nice breakfast, Mick,” said Sweeney, “but I was wondering whether you thought the whole thing might be a bit... premature?”

“Premature!” repeated Quinn indignantly. “There’s nothing wrong in that department, I can assure you...” His voice trailed off. “Oh, I see... premature...” His brow furrowed for a second and he gave his arse a ruminatory scratch. “Well, you could say that, I suppose, but as far as I can see it’s a shot to nothing. I’m not paying any rent, so I can’t lose out whatever happens.” His brow cleared and a look of reminiscence overtook his face. “And after what she did to me last night...”

“And I assume we’re not talking black and white pudding here.”

“To be honest, it was more black and blue by the time she’d finished!”

“Well, good luck to you both, anyway,” said Rocky and there was a chorus of agreement. “She’s a brave girl, she must be if she’s happy to share a toilet with your arse.”

“Right, who wants a beer?” said Micky, clearly anxious to change the subject. “I’ll go and see if I can drum up some service.” Soon the food arrived and O’Driscoll found himself tucking into a lamb vindaloo, which he knew would play havoc with his constitution the next day. By the time he finished his curry and had another couple of beers, he was in the mood for mischief. Noticing Rock’s mobile telephone lying on the table, he nudged Micky and whispered, “Come on, let’s make a phone call.”

Rocky, who worked in I.T., was the possessor of a mobile phone, a great big clunking thing which he took everywhere with him because it was a condition of his employment that he be on call to deal with any unexpected systems problems. Although hardworking and conscientious, Rocky resented taking calls when he was away from the workplace and his friends had become accustomed to the sudden ring of Rocky’s phone triggering a convulsive start and a querulous response along the lines of, “What do the bastards want now and why can’t they leave a hardworking man to have a quiet evening with his mates?!”

It was not long before one of his friends (no one was sure who it was, although many claimed credit for it) had a brainwave and soon no night out was complete without a small delegation creeping off and calling Rocky’s mobile from the nearest payphone. Tonight was no different and on at least four occasions, the large clunking phone began to ring, causing its owner to leap into the air and swear violently. Those watching made mental notes, like judges at a talent contest, of the scores they would later award his reaction, while behind Rocky in the foyer area, O’Driscoll and Quinn could be observed holding up the restaurant payphone and representing the action of laughter in an elaborate mime.

What time the party broke up it would have been difficult for O’Driscoll to say. All he knew was it was an inauspicious start to a week in which he had only that morning promised himself he was going to reduce his alcohol intake drastically, take up running and clean up his act. Never mind, he reflected to himself as he arrived home, he had got the devil out of his system early this week, and it would be easier to ignore his seductive whisperings in the days to come. Pouring himself a final nightcap, he offered a silent toast to his friend for accomplishing the not inconsiderable feat of turning up to his own girlfriend’s birthday party late, pissed, unwashed and presentless and somehow managing to get away with it. A few minutes later the glass slipped from his fingers and red wine began to trickle gently down into the body of the sofa, and on that note John O’Driscoll drifted into sleep and into another day.

Tuesday

The moment he woke up, O’Driscoll’s insides told him that he was in for a challenging day. His bowels had turned to water, but the combination of vindaloo and lager in industrial quantities had produced a more sinister liquidity than the common or garden one typically triggered by the prospect of facing Father Kennedy and his morning ablutions were of a protracted and painful nature.

Upon arrival at school, he decided to skip briefing and spend the time in his classroom preparing for the day ahead, but as he entered the corridor a familiar figure rolled into view and bade him good morning. Prudence, for it was she, asked whether he had had a pleasant Monday and upon receiving an affirmative grunt in reply, went on to say that she herself had had a most interesting day learning all about the business of the school and wasn’t there a lot to remember but she supposed that everyone found it confusing at the beginning and it probably all became easier once one gained a little experience and she was so looking forward to seeing the little ones again and did he think that they had missed her, she had certainly missed them, and she didn’t want to be premature but she thought that she had made just a little impression on them and did he think she had made an impression on them and she couldn’t wait to get started because today was the day she was finally going to teach them and she had spent the whole weekend preparing a themed cross curricular multi-cultural project involving the Beatrix Potter characters and didn’t he think it was a much more, well, exciting way of bringing the curriculum to the youngsters and wasn’t it a privilege to be able to have a part in developing those wonderful little minds and had he noticed that funny smell again, it was a bit like a mixture of garlic and petrol?

Making a mental note to double his normal dosage of extra strong mints, O’Driscoll looked at the small figure bouncing before him and considered his response. He knew that part of the mentoring role he had agreed to undertake involved Mr. Barnett doing a lesson observation on Prudence after the first week or two, to see how much of a positive effect O’Druscoll’s input had on her practice. At the time, he thought little of it but now, in light of the scrutiny the temporary teachers themselves were said to be under, he was uncomfortably aware that Prudence’s teaching might hold the key to his future at Saint Catherine’s. It was not a comforting thought and, as he regarded the rotund figure capering about in front of him, his heart dropped into his boots.

“Er... do you remember on Friday we talked about what we’d do this week,” he began, speaking slowly and patiently, “and we agreed that during lesson three and four you would do some differentiated phonics work, followed by a writing task based on the family histories the children have been working on.”

The two great orbs that were Prudence’s eyes regarded him with something like reproach. “I know we said that’s what I’d do but I couldn’t help looking at the Peter Rabbit stories again over the weekend and I got so excited and I’m sure the children will enjoy it much more than silly old phonics and I’ve done lots of preparation and it will be the best thing they’ve ever done and they’ll remember it for the rest of their lives.” She began to jump up and down clapping her hands and making little squealing sounds. “Oh, please say yes, John. Please...”

“Prudence, I did make a promise to Mr. Barnet that I would help to make your placement a successful one,” said O’Driscoll, trying to speak in slow and measured terms. “And I do think it would be... unwise to try that particular approach with 5R until you’ve got to know them a little better.” She gave him a crestfallen look and he went on, “There’ll be plenty of time to try your project out in the future. Now, do you want to go through the lesson plan before the kids come in, there won’t be time during lessons one and two, and I’ve got to see that ed. psych. at eleven o’clock?”

“So you won’t actually be with me during lesson three and four?” asked Prudence and if O’Driscoll hadn’t been suffering quite so much from the previous night’s depredations, he might have detected a gleam in her eye as she spoke.

“I’ll be there for the first ten minutes to see you safely started but then I’ll have to go,” he replied. “I don’t know how long the meeting will last, but I’ll be straight back. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

“I’m not worried now,” answered Prudence, and a more observant watcher might have observed the same glint in her eye as she spoke.

At the duly appointed time, and having overseen Prudence as she set the class a phonics activity, O’Driscoll made his way to the conference room to discuss the challenging behaviour of a child in his class which had led to a referral to the learning support team. Having agreed with the educational psychologist a home/school programme to address the child’s needs, he made his way back towards the Year Five and Six corridor, looking at his watch as he did so and registering that he had been out of class for no more than twenty minutes. As he turned into the corridor, he could hear voices coming from 5R’s room, and he slowed down so he could get an idea of how the children were behaving now that Prudence was, for the first time, alone with them in the classroom.

The first thing he heard was a female voice declaiming, “I’m Jemima Puddlefuck, I’m Jemima Puddlefuck!” to the sound of laughter and exaggerated intakes of breath.

“Oo-er!” There was a long drawn out exclamation of mock horror from another female voice. “Miss Poo, Miss Poo, did you hear what she said?”

“Yes darling, I did, but I’m sure it was just a slip of the tongue,” cooed the voice of Prudence.

“If she’s Jemima Puddlefuck, then I’m Peter Shaggit,” said a deeper male voice which O’Driscoll recognized as belonging to Joe Cahill, and this generated another chorus of loud and ribald laughter.

Upon opening the door and entering the room, the first sight that met his eyes was the figure of Prudence, her face half-covered by a cardboard mask, bouncing along one of the aisles in a series of exaggerated hops. She was surrounded by a crowd of raucous, laughing children, some of whom were egging her on with whoops and shouts. His arrival was the signal for a magical transformation, with serried rows of little faces instantaneously replacing what had earlier been a scene of chaos.

“Oh, hello, John... er ... Mr. O’Driscoll,” said Prudence, smiling sweetly. “After you left, we had a discussion and the class decided to vote on whether to keep doing boring old phonics or try something different.” She smiled proudly. “Do you know there wasn’t one child who didn’t vote against boring old phonics, that’s what we’ve agreed to call them, by the way, and, well, I’m sure you can see how much we were all enjoying ourselves.” Manfully resisting the temptation to tear his colleague limb from limb, O’Driscoll gently but firmly reminded her of the requirements of the National Curriculum and the remainder of the lesson passed off without incident.

Walking towards the staff room, O’Driscoll suddenly caught sight of the figure of Father Kennedy in the distance. He was still a long way off and deep in conversation with Sister Bernadette, but there was no doubt that if he continued on his present course, he would pass O’Driscoll in the corridor. It would be the first time they had met since the confessional calamity of the previous Sunday and O’Driscoll had spent the days since wondering if he should try to broach the subject with the priest. The trouble was he could think of no set of circumstances that would explain why anyone would feel the need to masquerade as Paul Gascoigne while partaking of a holy sacrament.

As his nemesis approached, still deep in conversation with Sister Bernadette, O’Driscoll looked wildly around, but seeing no obvious escape route, deciding he would just have to try and brazen it out. He began strolling casually down the corridor but the nearer he got to Kennedy, the more conscious he became that his body seemed to have taken on a life of its own, for he was progressing in a series of elongated loping strides that John Cleese himself might have struggled to emulate, while his arms had begun to swing like great hairy pendulums. Taking a deep breath, he stopped and, taking the plastic wallet containing his afternoon’s lesson plans out of his pocket, began to examine the pages with studied concentration.

As the two approached, he decided to give the pose just the right note of relaxed unconcern by leaning negligently against the wall, but unfortunately he had chosen to execute the manoeuvre outside an open classroom with the result that he shot sideways through the door and crashed into a set of lockers in the entrance lobby. By the time he had extricated himself from the jumble of student possessions, Sister Bernadette and Father Kennedy were almost upon him. He snatched a look at them as they passed, and caught sight of Sister Bernadette’s face wearing its usual benign but sober expression. Kennedy, on the other hand, gave him a glare that would have sent a whole cathedral full of first communicants running for their lives, and his nostril hairs danced a manic fandango of disapproval, but other than that, he said nothing and passed on his way, leaving O’Driscoll clinging weakly to the wall and reflecting that at least the meeting he had been so dreading had passed.

He spent an uneventful afternoon teaching, and as he killed time doing some marking ahead of five-a-side football, he reflected that he hadn’t had an opportunity to speak to Karen since the confessional catastrophe, and worse than that, it had been at least two days since he’d had a chance to indulge in a daydream or fantasy. Did this mean his infatuation was diminishing, he wondered, wishing there was some database that provided such information and making a mental note to put some proper daydreaming space into his future planning.

His marking completed, O’Driscoll made a detour to his flat to pick up his kit and then headed off to five-a-side football. It happened that on that particular night, the pitch was available only between the hours of six and seven o’clock, leaving the players showered, changed and on the streets at the dangerously early hour of seven-thirty. They repaired to the nearest pub and an unknown number of rounds later and with closing time approaching, a consensus emerged that the Indian food of the previous evening had lit a gastronomic torch that would benefit from the oxygen of further indulgence. That was why at just after midnight, O’Driscoll found himself sitting down to his second consecutive late night lamb vindaloo, and by the time he arrived home, his system was experiencing the warm glow of today that precedes the hot fires of tomorrow.

Wednesday

It was a considerably chastened John O’Driscoll who finally appeared in the staff room at eight-thirty, his body having suffered another painful and protracted introduction to the day. The head began morning briefing by reading an extract from the current edition of The Catholic Herald.

Staff and governors from St. Catherine’s primary school shared details of the community work they do in the parish during a recent public meeting at Ealing Town Hall. Parish Priest Father Kennedy led the meeting and was supported by Sister Bernadette Mahon, and there were also eloquent contributions from younger members of staff including Sophia Gillespie, John Driscoll and Caron Black.

O’Driscoll caught Karen’s eye across the room and mimed the action of slamming a glass down and then drinking from it and she put a hand in front of her face as she stifled a laugh. He took her smile as an indication that she had either not observed the fiasco in the church on Sunday or did not hold him responsible for it. Either way, her manner was a positive sign and he took it as a good omen for the future.

Briefing was fairly uneventful apart from the news that there had been an outbreak of hostilities between Brett and his Year Six classmates during afternoon school. “Bit of argey-bargy between young Michael O’Brien and the American sprog,” said the Head. “By all accounts, it involved some rather... colourful language and Miss Gillespie had them sent down to me. I put ‘em both on a fizzer which means they’ll be kept in at break, but other than that, I don’t want to make a big thing of it, not with Brett’s father and the other Americans coming in a few day. After all, we don’t want to jeopardize the special relationship after so many years.” With a chuckle at his own wit and a tweak of his left moustache, the Head brought the meeting to an end.

As O’Driscoll headed for his classroom, his insides fizzing with tiny, vindaloo infused eruptions, he contemplated the day ahead without enthusiasm. Approaching the door, his heart sank as he realized that, for the second day running, Prudence had deprived him of the few minutes’ grace that he would normally enjoy before the arrival of his tutor group. Her great owlish eyes blinked rapidly as he entered and she immediately launched into a new monologue or to be more accurate, a continuation of the last one. Wasn’t it a lovely day, she said, and she couldn’t wait to get started and she didn’t want to spoil their friendship but she was a little cross with him for making her return to boring old phonics the day before when it had all been going so well and the children had been expressing themselves naturally and creatively and that was the way children learnt best when they said what came from the heart and not parroting what came out of stuffy textbooks and now she had gained some experience in the classroom, surely he wouldn’t mind if she introduced a little bit more of Beatrix Potter when she took 5R after break that morning and did he think he was sickening for something as he was looking a little bit peaky and had he noticed that funny smell in the air again?

Grinding his teeth with the effort of trying not to kill her there and then, O’Driscoll reminded her that as part of the history syllabus, she was committed to teaching 5R about the Nordic invaders who had terrorized the English countryside more than a thousand years before. He was beginning to understand how the English villagers must have felt if the Norsemen’s invasion was anything like the one Prudence had perpetrated on him. Having gently but firmly ejected her from his room by sending her to the library to find the relevant set of textbooks (they were actually in his cupboard, but he was worried for his sanity and her life expectancy if she remained in his classroom a minute longer) he headed back to the staff room to grab a much-needed coffee. As he passed Sister Bernadette’s office, he heard his name being called and when he entered, found the nun sitting with the telephone in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. “Ah, John,” she said, “I wonder if you could give me some elucidation on a word I don’t recognize?”

“Of course, Sister, if I can,” he replied.

“Could you tell me,” she said referring to the piece of paper in her hand, “what a douche bag is?”

There was a pause while O’Driscoll cursed with all his heart the fates that had sent him past the Deputy Head’s office at that precise moment. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish in a bag while his face contorted itself into a succession of its most manic masks.

“A parent has telephoned to say Brett Donnelly used the word as a term of abuse addressed at her child,” went on Sister Bernadette, who, concentrating on the piece of paper in her hand, was oblivious to O’Driscoll’s frantic gurning. “It is not a word that I am familiar with, but when I asked the parent if she knew what it meant, she would only tell me that it is something that American women use.” Raising her eyes from the paper in front of her, she asked, “Are you able to enlighten me, John?”

O’Driscoll had been frantically wondering whether one of the strategies he had considered in the confessional box, that of fainting, might serve muster in the present situation and had already started the process of swaying that would precede a graceful descent to the floor, when he suddenly had a brainwave. Screwing his features up into an expression suggestive of deep thought, he replied, “A douche bag is, I believe, somewhere where American women keep lipstick and rouge and... er... things like that.”

Sister Bernadette brightened. “So, it is what we in Britain would call a make-up bag?” she said.

“Absolutely, Sister!” replied a relieved O’Driscoll. “You’ve hit the nail on the head!”

“So if the word is used as a term of abuse to a boy,” went on Sister Bernadette, “it is rather as if in the old days, one called someone a sissy. Would you agree, John?”

“Absolutely, Sister!” replied O’Driscoll, who was prepared to agree with anything if it would only get him out of the room.

“In that case, I think, even in these times of political correctness, we can treat it fairly leniently. Do you agree?”

“Absolutely, Sister!”

Making good his escape, O’Driscoll again cursed the fates that had conspired against him. After all, how many times did Duffy find himself having to define an intimate item of female accoutrement to an elderly member of a religious order?

Brett’s use of the term “douche bag” had had the same effect on his Year Six classmates as it had on Sister Bernadette and, not wishing to appear ignorant of what was clearly a choice term of abuse, a delegation hurried to the school library in search of a definition. But the dictionary they consulted offered little other than a rather mystifying reference to “intimate irrigation” and the boys returned to the playground none the wiser, where they were met by a triumphant Brett.

“You don’t even know what a douche bag is,” he taunted them. “Fancy not knowing what a douche bag is, ya bunch of limey douche bags!”

Backed thus into a corner, they were left with little choice other than to have a stab at a definition. “We do know what a douche bag is,” announced Michael O’Brien, putting as much authority into his voice as possible. “It’s ... er...,” he suddenly remembered the words in the dictionary and had an inspiration, “it’s something to do with geography!” As he finished speaking, though, he knew this shot in the dark had been well wide of the mark and it was a long time before he was able to forget the howls of derisive laughter that followed him around for the remainder of the day.

With Prudence primed to begin 5R’s double history lesson about the Vikings on her own, O’Driscoll had agreed join her towards the end of lesson four. The class had been underway for only a few minutes when he was driven from the adjoining room where he was teaching by the sounds of pandemonium emanating from 5R’s classroom. On opening the door, the first thing that he saw was a boy in a cardboard rabbit mask wringing the neck of a boy in a cardboard duck mask, while all around the room, small children dressed as small animals were engaged in similar life or death struggles. In one corner, a label with the printed inscription, “Rabbits’ Social Area,” had been Blu-tack’d to the wall and under it three boys in rabbit masks had mounted three girls in rabbit masks and were simulating the act of sexual union with a realism that belied their years.

Behind them, O’Driscoll could see a boy in a Jeremy Rabbit mask swinging his bag around his head like a modern-day Eric Bloodaxe, while in another corner, Johnny Town-Mouse was operating a policy of slash and burn that would have satisfied the most demonic pillager. In the eye of this Hogarthian hurricane stood Prudence Pugh with a serene, almost seraphic expression on her face. It took a little longer to restore order this time, and it was lunchtime before an uneasy silence finally descended on the battlefield. As the dismissed 5R moved towards the door, Joe Cahill stopped in front of Prudence and, wearing an expression of beguiling innocence, said, “We were just saying, er... Prue, how we haven’t enjoyed a lesson so much for ages.”

Putting her hand on Joe’s head and smiling indulgently, Prudence answered, “Thank you, little man.” The action caused a dangerous gleam to appear in Joe’s eye, but it was extinguished in an instant and he filed dutifully out after the other children.

Prudence turned to O’Driscoll as the last pupils left. “You see, John,” she said, “how their little minds soak up knowledge when they have the opportunity to express themselves naturally, rather than just regurgitating boring old history, that’s what we’ve agreed to call it, by the way. I feel that my teaching methods, if applied across the curriculum, could benefit the school and I’m a little disappointed that you haven’t been as supportive as you could have been.” At that moment, perhaps fortuitously, Mrs. Goodwin arrived to say Prudence was wanted on the telephone and, firing off a final volley of reproachful blinks from behind her spectacles, she trundled off.

It was at the end of the day that O’Driscoll was able to sit Prudence down and try to explain the concept of the National Curriculum and the statutory requirement to follow it in the classroom. “So you see,” he finished, “all of us have to stick to what the curriculum says when we deliver lessons because that’s what will be assessed at the end of the year.” He concluded by saying that in order for that class not to fall behind, she would have to re-teach the lesson the following day, only this time sticking to the themes in the Key Stage Two programme of study, “Invaders and Settlers”, and not those suggested by the works of Mrs. Potter. He offered to sit down with her and jointly plan what she would teach, and with some reluctance, she agreed, although she did express disapproval over the acts of violence meted out by the Vikings, particularly their lack of respect towards women.

O’Driscoll had another problem and it revolved around whether to introduce the class to an English king from the Viking period who rejoiced in the name, “Cnut the Great.” He couldn’t help feeling that asking Prudence to introduce this name to the children offered too many hostages to fortune. It would be a simple matter for the fertile minds of Joe Cahill and his colleagues to rearrange the letter and word order to produce an alternative version of the name and apply it to their new teacher. After what had gone before, O’Driscoll counseled Prudence in the gravest terms not to use the name, “Cnut the Great,” and she agreed, asking whether she could leaven the diet of “boring old kings,” with just a little element of roleplay. O’Driscoll was now so worn out that, other than wearily reminding her it was easier to exercise authority when classroom activities were more tightly controlled, he did not protest.

There was a drink on at The North Star that evening to say goodbye to one of Faith’s friends who was going abroad, and in the same scenario that had been played out a couple of nights prior, Micky and Maureen made their individual ways to fraternize with their nearest and dearest. Micky was tonight wearing a pair of linen trousers, topped by a paisley shirt, while an expensive-looking pair of brogues adorned his feet.

“You been borrowing clothes off that Smith bloke again, Michael?” asked O’Driscoll but Quinn failed to reply and his friends couldn’t help noticing that there was a restive air about the great man.

“What’s up, Mick?” asked Sweeney.

“I’m hungry,” replied Quinn.

“Well, get something from the bar.”

“I can’t, I’ve just come from having dinner at Maureen’s.”

“It’s not Maureen’s anymore, remember - you live there,” said Rocky.

“Whatever,” replied Quinn and there was a plaintive note to his voice.

“Anyway, how come you’re hungry?” asked O’Driscoll. “Didn’t she feed you?”

“She fed me all right,” answered Quinn. “It was what she fed me on!”

“What was it?” asked his friends, interest now thoroughly aroused.

Wearing the air of a barrister bringing forward a damning piece of evidence, Quinn enunciated one word, “Couscous!”

“Couscous?”

“Couscous!” There was a pause while his friends looked at one another before Rocky asked, “What is couscous, exactly?”

Micky gave this question consideration and scratched around in his unruly red hair before answering, “It’s hard to say, really. I know lots of things it’s not, but it’s harder to say what it actually is.”

“Semolina!” announced Sweeney. “I read somewhere that it’s a bit like semolina.”

Micky farted thoughtfully and then, clearly unwilling to take the irrevocable step of ruling out semolina, replied, “It could be something like that, I suppose.” As he spoke, he hitched his trousers up, but tonight the action was carried out with the air of resignation with which an ancient mariner, trapped at sea for days without sustenance, might have hiked up his canvas slops. “Couscous!” he said once more and it was clear that first, magnificent post-coital fry-up was but a distant memory.

Someone suggested they should drink Guinness in honour of Faith’s friend and in the twinkling of an eye, several congenial hours had passed and O’Driscoll was looking at a watch that said ten o’clock. He would definitely not end up in that bloody Indian tonight, he promised himself, and if he left after the next drink, he could be home by ten-thirty at the latest with a quiet and alcohol-free evening stretching ahead of him. It will come as no surprise to relate that two hours later, he found himself sitting in a room decorated with flock wallpaper, with a pint of Guinness in front of him, contemplating for the third time in as many days the large, laminated menu of the South Ealing Tandoori.

Thursday

The moment John O’Driscoll’s eyes opened he realized that, after three days of extreme overindulgence, his system was in a bad way. Having ignored the siren call of the vindaloo in favour of a marginally milder Madras the previous night, he had hoped that all would be well when he awoke but in fact the addition of Guinness to the usual pot pourri of vile ingredients sloshing around his insides had produced truly awful consequences within his digestive tract. Three days of alcohol had done nothing for O’Driscoll’s emotional wellbeing either, and the scorpions and spiders of the preceding week had been joined by other sinister visitors. Bats, locusts, weevils, stag beetles, even earwigs scurried or flew into the darkest recesses of his being, leaving his mind at the mercy of fluttery, insubstantial, random half-thoughts.

He considered giving morning briefing a miss but as this would mean facing Prudence Pugh in his classroom, he settled on Mr. Barnett as the lesser of two evils. Briefing was a desultory affair, containing nothing of note other than the introduction of two new temporary teachers, who would be on supply cover until Easter. One of them was a prim-looking lady of uncertain years, the other a dark-haired young man who acknowledged the greetings of the staff with a languid smile.

O’Driscoll left Prudence to finish the Invaders and Settlers lesson in period one, and settled down to work quietly in an empty classroom in the Key Stage Two corridor. No more than twenty minutes passed before what sounded like a stampede of BSE-infected cattle caused him to put his books down, swear softly and go outside to investigate. What met his eyes was the sight of one-half of 5R charging down the corridor in enthusiastic pursuit of the other half, the performance accompanied by a cacophony of whoops and shouts that had doors opening and angry members of staff appearing along the passageway.

It emerged, when the subsequent inquest took place, that Miss Pugh and 5R had decided to present an alternative version of history in which the Viking invaders would be met by a delegation of Anglo-Saxons carrying garlands who would explain that rape and pillage were rather anti-social practices as well as being particularly disrespectful towards women. This part of the roleplay apparently passed off successfully, but it was during the next stage, which was to have Vikings and Anglo-Saxons returning to the village and setting up a Dark Age collective where every individual would be respected regardless of gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, that things started to go wrong. The Vikings had decided to revert to their traditional ways and, led by Joe Cahill, had set about raping and pillaging with gusto.

The Anglo-Saxons had responded with a war-like spirit that their historical counterparts would have done well to emulate and the resulting carnage was what had caused so much commotion in the Key Stage Two corridor. The disturbance had gone down badly with the teachers whose lessons had been interrupted, and one or two had even threatened to take the matter to Mr. Barnet. As a lesson, it could hardly have gone more awry, the one merciful crumb of comfort being that Prudence had resisted the temptation to introduce the pupils to the name, Cnut the Great.

It was after lunch that O’Driscoll got the message calling him to Mr. Barnet’s office and in truth, it was one that he had been expecting. Passing through the outer office, he was met with a breezy, “Come in, young O’Driscoll, and take a pew,” and dutifully entered into the inner sanctum where the Head was waiting.

“Well, well, here we are. And how are you, young John?” asked Mr Barnett, tweaking his right moustache as he opened proceedings.

“Fine, thank you,” lied O’Driscoll, who was physically and psychologically far from well, and hoping Mr. Barnet would get to the point before he started to feel even worse.

“Capital, capital! And how are things in Years Five and Six?”

“Well, as far as I know,” answered O’Driscoll, hedging his bets until he knew where the conversation was heading. It was becoming apparent that under the breezy demeanor, Mr. Barnet was not sure how to proceed, but until he knew what his leader wanted, O’Driscoll was at a loss to help.

“And how is young Prudence’s teaching going?” went on the Head, giving his right handlebar another twirl. “Is it up there in the clouds doing figures of eight and victory rolls, or is it the kind of ground wallah that skulks around at the back of the mess looking for free drinks?” O’Driscoll now realized Mr. Barnet was asking him to comment on Prudence’s teaching, and a truthful answer would have been that far from being a “ground wallah,” it was more of a demented kamikaze attack, hell-bent on annihilating itself and everything in its vicinity. Realizing, however, that it wouldn’t do to share this analogy with the head, he said, “Prudence is a hardworking and dedicated young lady,” and Barnett nodded approvingly as he went on, “and she brings incredible enthusiasm to everything she does.”

“Well said, young O’Driscoll,” replied the head, “but I sense a ‘but’ coming. Is there a ‘but’ coming, young John?”

Every fibre of O’Driscoll was screaming to reply, “She’s barking!” but he knew this would not do, so he tried to think of a form of words that would express his reservations more diplomatically. “It’s just that she is attempting some very ambitious lessons from a limited experience in the classroom,” he said, “and she is reluctant to take advice. We all agree that the courage of one’s convictions is a positive attribute, but,” he went on, rather pleased with the words that were rolling so fluently from his lips, “it should also be tempered with the wisdom to listen.”

“Wise words, young John, wise words,” said the head. “I want my teachers up in the cockpit flying their kites, not skulking around at the back like tail-end Charlies. But,” he went on with a jowly wobble, “they must also be wise enough to take evasive action when a squadron of Messerschmitts comes at them out of nowhere.” O’Driscoll couldn’t help feeling that the comparison between 5R and a Messerschmitt squadron an apt one, considering the blitzkrieg they had inflicted on the Key Stage Two corridor that morning, but forbore to share this thought with his Head and instead, simply nodded.

“Tell you what I’m going to do,” said the Head, lowering his voice. “It’s Thursday now. I’ll let young Prudence have some time off, give the girl a couple of days to get her head straight. Don’t want to dent her confidence, but it does seem as if she might be a bit... vulnerable to some of our more lively sprogs.” He paused to disentangle a small piece of gravy-encrusted matter from his right moustache, it had been cottage pie for lunch. “Then the three of us can sit down on Monday morning and work out a plan to get her teaching back topside. What do you say?”

O’Driscoll’s first instinct was to grab Mr. Barnet and dance a waltz of joy with him, but realizing this might be misinterpreted, he confined himself to agreeing emphatically with the Head’s decision. No Prudence for two whole days! If you included the weekend, that made four days! He left the Head’s office with a song in his heart, reflecting that perhaps there was a God after all and resolving that in future he would communicate with Him in a more respectful dialect than the one he had employed in the confessional.

His joy was tempered when he remembered tonight was the night of the bring-and-buy sale, which was due to start at eight o’clock, and his heart sank at the prospect of an evening spent shifting videos and books from trestle tables to other trestle tables in an endless loop. Upon leaving the building, he met Duffy, who had agreed to help with the event and between them, they decided one way to compensate for the loss of their Thursday evening - the traditional start of the weekend, really, and a night when they had always gone for a pint - would be to move their usual pub session forward a few hours. This was how they came to be occupying their usual corner of the pub, pints in hand, as the clock struck four.

“No whiskeys,” warned O’Driscoll, remembering the last time they had visited the establishment before a school event, “or Sister Bernadette might end up with another bag of braille.”

They made strenuous, but only partially successful efforts to moderate their alcohol intake but O’Driscoll found the beer actually had a settling effect on a stomach still fizzing from the malevolent combination of Guinness and fiery Indian food. With a quick freshen up in The North Star toilets - an oxymoronic activity if ever there was one - they contrived to time their arrival at school to coincide with the eight o’clock starting time.

The hall was busy with staff and other helpers and the two spent the next half an hour diligently carrying items in and out of the room. During one of his entrances, O’Driscoll bumped into Karen who was coming towards him looking radiant in a dark-fitted top. She smiled and his heart did its familiar somersault but there was no chance to say anything because they were moving in opposite directions. After half an hour of activity, O’Driscoll’s bladder was close to bursting, so he made his way into the Gents only to find that Duffy had got there before him. Greeting his friend, he leaned against the wall of the urinal and sighed with relief as the merciful release of liquid began to empty his bladder. At the same time, he shifted his weight slightly and farted, but instead of the expected discharge of wind, a jet of hot liquid exploded out of his arse and into the folds of his boxer shorts.

He stood rooted to the spot, hoping against hope he had imagined the damp emissions but an exploratory wriggle soon confirmed that his initial impression had been accurate. At the thought of what he had done, his blood ran cold, and a further wriggle confirmed the same lowering of temperature was happening to the emissions in his boxers, producing a most unpleasant sensation. Three days of lager, Guinness and formidably spice-laden Indian food had, perhaps inevitably, resulted in O’Driscoll’s digestive system emitting a howl of existential pain.

Sensing a change in his friend’s demeanour, Duffy quickly ascertained what had happened and sprang into action. Explaining that a similar thing had happened to him a few years before, he suggested that, as the excretions in O’Driscoll’s boxers were liquid and relatively untainted by odour, the best way to deal with them would be for him to sit down and let his body heat dry them away.

“You’re telling me to sit down?” said O’Driscoll, aghast.

“Yes.”

“Just so we’re clear, you’re asking me to sit in my own shit!”

“Yes... well... put like that, I can see why you might not fancy the idea.”

“I should bloody well think not!”

Duffy was insistent that his plan would work, but did warn his friend that after a time, he might find his boxers had become literally stuck to him. On the night it had happened to him, he said, he had returned home full of warmth and bonhomie and forgetful of the earlier accident, had attempted an act of physical intimacy with his then girlfriend, as a result of which it had been weeks before she had spoken to him or allowed him to come anywhere near her.

Meanwhile in the adjacent hall, Sister Bernadette was scanning the room, looking for an additional trestle table to cope with the unexpectedly high volume of books that had come in when she noticed John O’Driscoll enter the room and cross it with a curious stiff-legged gait. Remembering he had recently broke up a fight on the playground, she wondered whether he might have hurt himself and watched as he crossed the room and lowered himself gingerly into a chair, an expression of deep distress appearing on his face as he established contact with the plastic seat. Karen came in at this point carrying a handful of books and Sister Bernadette called to her.

“There don’t seem to be any tables free, Karen, but you could take those books and the others into that little storeroom over there. John,” she went on, “would you be able to give Karen a hand and take the books into the storeroom and put them into some sort of order?”

O’Driscoll rose with alacrity from his seat, stopped abruptly halfway up and then receded slowly into a sitting position.

“Er... sorry Sister, sorry Karen,” he mumbled, a strange expression appearing on his face, “I think I might be feeling a bit... er... faint.”

“Better stay there for a few minutes, then,” said Sister Bernadette.

O’Driscoll’s own feelings, as he sat, literally glued to the surface of the chair, were too deep for words. Here he was, offered the chance to spend time alone with the most beautiful girl in the world, quietly sifting and cataloguing books in an atmosphere of seclusion and intimacy that might have led to who knows what. And why had he had to decline the invitation? Because he had shat himself - that was why! As he gazed disconsolately at the “Toilet” sign on the door, it seemed to offer a final damning verdict, for O’Driscoll worked in an environment whose practitioners habitually used the term as a verb. He was a man of nearly thirty who couldn’t even toilet himself properly.

Friday

With Duffy’s advice having proved well-founded, O’Driscoll avoided further embarrassment and was finally able to make his way home to a much-needed hot soak in the bath. The following morning when he arrived at school, Sister Bernadette made a point of finding him and asking him in a most solicitous way whether he thought he was all right to be at work. He couldn’t help think that the nun was a decent old stick, though of course he would much rather have had such concern expressed by Karen, and when it was announced at briefing that the leaving do scheduled for Saturday evening was definitely on, O’Driscoll’s interest quickened and he wondered whether she was planning to attend.

The only other point of note at briefing was the introduction of the visiting delegation from America, who had arrived the previous evening. There were six of them, school governors of both sexes and they looked a nondescript lot except for Brett’s father, who turned out, like his son, to answer to the name “Brett T. Donnelly”. Mr. Donnelly wore a loud suit and tie, when he introduced the delegation it was with a loud voice, and when he wiped his brow afterwards, it was with a loud handkerchief. As is often the case when teachers observe parents in action, it was easy to see Brett T Donnelly III in the voice and mannerisms of Brett T Donnelly II and staff could be seen exchanging amused glances.

Later in the staff room, O’Driscoll found himself in earshot of Mrs. Goodwin as she brought her audience up to speed with the latest doings of the exchange students. “Reg had great fun with Henri last night. First he showed him Lord Nelson’s statue on the map and made a point of saying it was in Trafalgar Square, then he made a joke about going to Waterloo Station to see another place where we’d given the French a good hiding. “Funny, I’d always thought it was abroad somewhere.” A sound somewhere between a gurgle and a cough from the corner made her pause for a moment. “Then Reg told him that we’ve hated the French even longer than we have the Germans. He even made a joke that if it hadn’t have been for the English, Henri would have been born in Greater Germany and called Heinrich.”

She gave another little laugh. “The American boy was taken with that. As for Henri, he was a real wet blanket and spent the whole evening mooning around looking bored. The only time he showed any interest was when Reg showed him a picture of Oliver Cromwell and told him Cromwell and his friends had cut Charles the First’s head off. He sat up and took notice then, did Henri, said he didn’t know the English did that sort of thing and wanted to know why we’d kept quiet about it. Reg put him straight and told him that, actually, it was only one king and that, anyway the English weren’t the kind of people to boast about such things. No, when we had to execute our king, we did it with a bit of respect - a simple, dignified, beheading - not like a certain nation you could mention, turning the whole thing into a performance!”

As he sat reading, trying to filter out the sound of Mrs. Goodwin’s voice, O’Driscoll heard Karen’s name being mentioned and his pulse immediately quickened.

“Karen? Yeah, she’s definitely coming tomorrow, she said she could do with a night out after the break up.”

“The break up?”

“Yeah, she split up with Darren a couple of weeks ago, didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t even know they were having problems.”

“Apparently things haven’t been good for a while, but it came to a head a couple of weeks ago and she gave him the boot - that’s why she didn’t go to the Shakespeare thing or come out on Tracey’s birthday.”

“Poor Karen.”

“She’s well rid, if you ask me.”

As he listened, O’Driscoll’s eyes focused on the copy of History Today that was resting in his hands, but inside his heart was racing. He had always known in a vague kind of a way Karen was in a relationship, but his mind had shied away from thinking about it on the basis that ignorance, while not being exactly blissful, was some kind of protective shield against the misery that would engulf him if he did consider it. However, it appeared she was footloose and fancy free and while the idea of him registering on her romantic radar was clearly preposterous, at least his fantasies could take place in a world that was a tiny iota nearer to the real one. With the words he had heard giving him much food for thought, he applied himself willingly to the grindstone that was Friday afternoon and managed to make it to the end of the day without further incident.

Saturday

By early evening, John O’Driscoll was in an unusually ebullient mood. Having found out that, due to the illness of an elderly relative, Karen would not be able to coordinate Sunday’s concert, but she would still be attending tonight’s leaving do, he felt that the fates were for once looking kindly on him. Against all odds and in the face of all the evidence from previous events that indicated only embarrassment and tongue-tied failure lay ahead, somehow he had the feeling that tonight just might be the night he got off with Karen Black.

His preparations for the evening were unusually comprehensive. Having bathed, showered and deodorised himself, he brushed his teeth repeatedly and rinsed his mouth out with enough mouthwash to take the top layer off his soft palate. He dressed himself in his best “going out” clothes and, having subjected himself to judicious scrutiny in the mirror, turned to the vexatious question of aftershave. There were those in his group who looked on the use of aftershave in the way of those eighteenth century Scottish Presbyterians who believed dancing in the village square was the first step on a road that led inexorably to sexual degeneracy.

Micky Quinn, for one, was of the opinion that any man who chose to wear the product was by that act alone “suspect.” His own recent flirtation with Paco Rabanne he excused on the grounds that it was worn to please another, rather than flaunted provocatively as a lifestyle choice. So it was not without trepidation that, having sniffed experimentally at a dusty bottle of Blue Stratos and decided its contents probably hadn’t gone off, he wasn’t sure whether aftershave did go off, or whether, like a good malt whiskey, it actually matured with age. O’Driscoll took the plunge and applied a liberal splash to each jowl.

With the aftershave dilemma thus resolved, he considered his next move. The others had arranged to meet in a pub at six-thirty, but with the function proper not due to start in the church hall until eight, O’Driscoll was determined that for one night at least, the cupid dart of love would not be skewered by the Strongbow arrow of drunkenness. Arranging his beige chinos in a way that would best preserve their knife-like crease, he sat down to wait, and it says much for his strength of purpose that it was nearly seven o’clock before his nerve cracked. Crack it finally did, and shortly afterwards, he was taking up his usual position in The North Star, seating himself and his Blue Stratos so as to keep them firmly upwind of Micky Quinn’s nose.

His delayed arrival at the pub meant when O’Driscoll did reach the church hall, he was relatively sober, and the moment he clapped eyes on Karen, he was glad he had kept all his senses about him. She was wearing a pair of dark green jeans and above it a checked shirt from French Connection which had been left open to the third or fourth buttonhole and, whether it was a natural phenomenon or the product of some artfully-constructed scaffolding, tonight her cleavage seemed to have more definition than usual.

The whole arrangement was framed tantalizingly and deliciously by the cloth of the unbuttoned shirt and as he gazed, transfixed, at the garment in question, some distant part of O’Driscoll’s brain began to send signals to his eyes, telling them to stop counting the buttonholes. After all, he didn’t want to give the impression that he had been staring at Karen Black’s tits, although, of course, that was exactly what he, and probably every other man in the room had been doing. Karen’s hair shone with health and vitality and tonight she had tied it up at the back, allowing a curled ringlet to fall on either side and frame her face. It was a style that O’Driscoll had seen her wearing before and tonight, it left him as numb with desire as it had on the previous occasions. Divining something of this, Duffy observed, “Hey up, John. Karen’s got her Hasidic hair on again,” but when O’Driscoll gave no sign of having heard, Duffy moved his hand up and down in front of his friend’s face and looked at the others.

“What’s up with O’Driscoll?” asked Sweeney.

“He hasn’t had enough to drink, that’s what’s up with him, the shirking git,” growled Micky. He opened his mouth to continue but stopped suddenly and like some vast Celtic Hannibal Lecter, raised a quivering nose to the air, nostrils flaring as he scented the atmosphere around him. Satisfied that the suspect fragrance that was polluting the air around him had not come from his friends, he made his way to the bar.

An hour later, O’Driscoll felt like pinching himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming as he looked into the eyes of Karen Black, who was dancing with sinuous grace a couple of feet away from him. In fairness, it should be pointed out the two of them were actually part of a larger group that was dancing, with varying levels of coordination, to Jeff Beck’s ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’, but what could not be denied was that Karen Black was occupying a space on the dance floor not two feet away from him, dancing with him and doing her best to have a conversation with him against the ear-shattering backdrop of the music.

“Your hair looks nice tonight,” he said, his heart thumping in his chest as he spoke.

“What?” she mouthed, with a quizzical expression on her face.

“I said your hair looks nice,” he shouted, desperately trying to keep his eyes from travelling southwards towards that shirt and those buttons. She smiled and moved towards him so that her mouth was inches from his ear. “Do you think so? I’m sure I heard your friend Micky saying it looked a bit ... Jewish.”

When O’Driscoll indicated that he hadn’t heard what she said, it was done partly to buy himself time but also so that he might once more experience the gossamer touch of her breath on his ear as she spoke. She repeated the question and he leaned back and subjected her face to a solemn and judicious scrutiny. “No,” he said in answer to her question, “there might be a hint of Afghan and those earrings do look a bit gypsy - better keep out of Father Kennedy’s way or he’ll chuck you out - but it’s definitely not Jewish.”

There a pause in the music so she was able to hear what he said and laughed, shaking her earrings as she did so in a way that O’Driscoll found most disturbing. Feeling things were developing along most interesting lines, he wondered whether inveigling Karen towards the more secluded setting of the bar might be a good move. “Fancy a drink?” he said, just as another guitar riff drowned out his words but she shook her head and said, “Let’s stay out here a bit longer, this is fun.” As she floated effortlessly across the dance floor and O’Driscoll clumped after her, straining to keep his dancing just the right side of embarrassing, she smiled again. Gazing into her eyes, O’Driscoll couldn’t see what was reflected in them. Was it interest? If so, was it simply friendly interest or something more? For the life of him, he couldn’t be sure.

At that precise moment, the DJ did what all good DJ’s do, which is switch without pause and without warning from a fast record to a slow one, thereby denying the girls who are happy enough to dance in the vicinity of the males near them but wouldn’t be seen dead in their arms the opportunity to retreat to the seating area. O’Driscoll found that at the precise moment the first soft chords of 10CC’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ replaced the more energetic ones of ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’, he was staring straight into Karen Black’s eyes. He saw them change, but try as he might, her couldn’t interpret the new expression.

Was it embarrassment or was it something more? Bollocks, he thought, there’s only one way to find out, so screwing his courage to the sticking place, he started to cross the space between them and at that precise moment the music stopped, the lights went up and Father Kennedy’s gruff tones could be heard announcing, “I’m sorry to spoil ye’re enjoyment but as chair of governors, I want to take this opportunity to make a small presentation...”

Immediately, the crowd took on a new definition and those in front began to shuffle dutifully towards the stage. O’Driscoll looked round but Karen was gone, leaving a tantalizing memory of that final expression her eyes had worn as the lights had gone up. Was it regret... or relief... or something else? O’Driscoll couldn’t be sure and, not for the first time, he was forced to concede that, although he had a relatively wide knowledge of books and literature, when it came to reading the eyes of women, he was functionally illiterate.

He was later unable to say what the catalyst was for the unfortunate incident that then occurred. Perhaps it was the emotional trauma caused by his near miss with Karen as he saw her leaving the hall a few minutes later, or perhaps it was the truly colossal volume of strong lager that he then took on board to moderate that disappointment, but a scant two hours after he had gazed longingly into the eyes of Karen Black, John O’Driscoll found himself occupying exactly the same spot on the dance floor, only this time with a very different figure dancing opposite him.

Some thought the four girls who joined the party at nine-thirty in a whirl of noise and laughter were friends of Sue in the kitchen, while others believed they were connected in some way to Tracey Reeves, but it turned out that they were known to no one and had actually been heading towards a different venue when they mistakenly entered a likely-looking doorway. The largest of the girls wore her hair in a style known as the “Rachel” haircut from by the TV series Friends, and she wore it with confidence and élan, but even her best friend would have had to admit any resemblance between her and Rachel ended there. The second girl was wearing a top that consisted of a Madonna-style coned bra and little else, while the third was clad in garishly-coloured knee socks and clogs. The fourth, distinguished only by a curly perm at one end and platform shoes at the other, seemed tame by comparison to her friends. Within moments, the four girls made their way to the bar and were demanding to be served by Mr. D’Souza, the middle-aged church deacon acting as barman for the evening.

“Oi, four Diamond Whites over ‘ere, Gunga Din, jeldi, jeldi!” shouted the one in the knee socks and clogs as the four took up position at the bar. At that moment, Father Kennedy passed by wearing his usual forbidding expression and the one with the Rachel hair said, “Fuck me, Tray, I didn’t know it was a vicar and tarts do.”

“I’m not going down on me knees to that ugly old bugger for no one,” said the one with the knee socks and there were screams of laughter from her friends.

“Might put a smile on his face if you did, miserable-looking old sod,” said the one with the curly perm. “I bet his crucifix hasn’t seen any action for years.”

O’Driscoll could not later recall the precise sequence of events that culminated in him and the one with the curly perm gyrating and cavorting madly on the dance floor while a cheering crowd egged them on. He could only remember a mad, frenetic hour in which beer had followed beer and whiskey had followed whiskey as he determined to put the disappointment of the near miss with Karen behind him. It was when Chuck Berry’s ‘C’est La Vie’ song, the one John Travolta and Uma Thurman had danced to in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, began to play that O’Driscoll leapt to his feet and started imitating the Travolta half of the dance.

The one with the curly perm jumped up and within moments the two were out on the dance floor, doing their best to imitate the sinuous, sexy moves that the two stars had acted out in the film. When O’Driscoll kicked off his shoes, a la Travolta, a large white toe could be seen protruding from the end of not one but both of his black socks, and one of the socks also contained a second hole so large that Duffy’s subsequent description of the garment as being “more hole than sock” could not be disputed. Concentrating all his attention on mirroring the movements of his partner, O’Driscoll followed as, Uma Thurman-style, the one with the curly perm drew her nicotine-stained fingers backwards and forwards across her face.

The performance moved into territories that would have confirmed the worst fears of any watching Scottish Presbyterian as both dancers began to gyrate and make thrusting movements with their groins. A future generation would invent a word “twerking” to represent these actions, but in 1995 there was no language to describe them other than some variation on the generic term “making a cunt of yourself”, which Micky Quinn employed to cover a multitude of sins.

“C’mon, Tray, hitch your skirt up a bit higher!” called out the one with the Rachel hair.

“Any higher and they’ll be able to see me kebab!”

Abandoning himself to the moment, O’Driscoll began to fondle his own genitalia in an ostentatious manner, whilst grinding his backside into the receptive lap of his partner. He had just thrust his groin for the third or fourth time in the direction of the crowd when it parted as if by magic and he suddenly saw Karen, standing a few feet away and taking in the whole scene. In another second, the gap had closed and she was lost to view but O’Driscoll would recall forever that frozen moment, when he had looked into Karen Black’s eyes and seen... Afterwards, he couldn’t be sure what he had seen but for this once, he was glad of his inability to read meaning in women’s eyes. A moment later, the music stopped and O’Driscoll was swept away as part of the drunken scrum that moved towards the bar area and, although he looked around for Karen, she was nowhere to be seen and seemed to have left as suddenly as she had arrived.

Before long, the lights were going up and few moments later, still with the four girls in tow, the lads assembled outside on Ealing Broadway. The one in the curly perm was being sick to a noisy accompaniment of “Hoick it up, Tray!” and “Better out than in, babes!” while a trickling sound from further down the alley suggested the one with the Rachel hair was evacuating another part of her anatomy.

At that moment, while no one was looking, O’Driscoll took the opportunity to slip away - he wouldn’t be missed in all the confusion and anyway, he wanted to be alone with his shame.

Sunday

It was a much-chastened John O’Driscoll who awoke the next morning and as he contemplated the hours ahead, he cursed his past Catholic upbringing and current Catholic employment for ruining yet another Sunday. The staff concert was to take place at four o’clock and with Father Kennedy expected to be busy getting made up and into costume, a few members of staff, among them O’Driscoll and Duffy, had been nominated to entertain the American delegation and generally keep an eye on things. Upon arrival at the sacristy they knocked on the well-remembered oaken door, and a few moments later, dragging footsteps signaled the approach of Mrs. O’Reilly, Father Kennedy’s elderly and irascible housekeeper. She studied O’Driscoll’s face with a look in which disfavour and dementia were represented in roughly equal parts, until memory triumphed and she recognized him as the young man who had been behaving strangely in the hall a couple of weeks before.

“Afternoon, Mrs. O’Reilly,” he said brightly, before adding sotto voce, for it was well-known that the old lady was three-parts deaf, “you mad old biddy.”

Mrs. O’Reilly looked at him suspiciously. “What did you say?” she asked sharply, twiddling the dial on what was evidently a new hearing aid, for its surface was as yet uncontaminated by dust or furniture polish.

“Er... I said those flowers look pretty,” answered O’Driscoll, pointing to a vase of tired-looking daffodils. “I’ve come to help with the concert,” he went on, speaking slowly and with exaggerated care.

“You don’t have to shout, I’m not deaf,” she snapped and opened the door to let them in. “Father Kennedy is preparing his performance,” she continued, enunciating the last word with the reverence which Laurence Olivier’s dresser might have referred to his Hamlet, “but I’ll take you into the dining room.” They entered the room to find that the visiting delegation had already arrived and Duffy, and asked if there was anything with which they could help.

“Thank you, young man,” answered Mr. Donnelly, who had clearly taken upon himself the role of spokesman for the group. There followed a few minutes of desultory conversation before one of the group noticed a large map of Ireland on the wall and Mr. Donnelly asked whether one of their hosts would like to give them an interpretation of The Troubles from a UK perspective. O’Driscoll took up a position in front of the wall and indicated the large expanse of green which comprised the greater part of the map.

“This is free Ireland,” he began, and was rewarded with several nods of recognition from his audience.

“And these,” he continued, pointing to the area coloured red, “are the occupied territories...”

He was about to continue when he noticed Sister Bernadette had entered and was directing a warning look at him. The nun was looking a little flustered and, knowing how important it was to her that the visit was a success, O’Driscoll resolved to desist from further pissing about in front of the Americans. Sister Bernadette greeted the visitors warmly, enquired as to whether they had been given everything they needed and informed them that Father Kennedy would join them for a few minutes before completing his preparations for the performance. The visitors would then be escorted to the school hall where they could watch final preparations for the show and then the performance itself. The nun also informed the delegation that if anyone wanted to have a drink or use the toilet facilities, they would have to get the key from Father Kennedy, since the kitchen was kept locked after it had been broken into during a recent function.

At this point, Father Kennedy entered the room, and it was immediately evident that he had begun the process of preparing for the performance because, although he was still wearing a cassock, his face bore evidence of the application of stage make-up, and he carried with him the small pencil case in which he kept his face paints. His entrance created something of a stir among the American delegation for though Father Kennedy scrubbed and polished and at his best was no oil painting, with the application of layers of heavily-tinted make-up, his face had assumed an aspect that almost defied description.

O’Driscoll could hardly blame the Americans for their reaction. As a child, the filmed version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Charles Laughton had caused him to have recurring nightmares and as he looked at the priest, it was as if the faces of Laughton’s Quasimodo and John Hurt’s Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant had morphed together in some terrible act of transmutation. As Kennedy moved towards the centre of the room, one of the delegates took an involuntary step backwards, and from the rear of the group, there came something that sounded like a gasp. There was a discernible air of relief among the visitors when the priest left, reminding Sister Bernadette as he did so that the key to the kitchen would remain in the bag containing his face paints. Sister Bernadette too departed almost immediately on some unknown mission, leaving O’Driscoll and Duffy with the visitors.

There was a short, charged silence before a visibly nervous delegate asked, “Does Father Kennedy often wear... er... make-up?” The obvious response would have been for O’Driscoll or Duffy to explain Father Kennedy’s role in the concert but some mischievous instinct prevented either of them from taking this step, with each discerning the same thought process in the other by some unholy act of osmosis.

“Make-up?” replied O’Driscoll while at the same moment Duffy said with feigned embarrassment, “Er... I didn’t really notice.”

There was no chance to explore the matter further, for Sister Bernadette re-entered the room and asked the delegates if they had everything they wanted, at which point Duffy and O’Driscoll took the opportunity to slip out. As they did so, one of the female delegates professed herself to be feeling faint and asked if she could have a hot drink.

“Certainly,” replied Sister Bernadette, “I’ll arrange that for you right away. We’ll just put the kettle on in the kitchen.” Noticing an air of unease among the Americans, she thought she might diffuse the tension with an act of cultural exchange by using a piece of their vocabulary, and she trawled her memory for one of the new transatlantic expressions that she had recently learned. Eventually, her face cleared and with a tiny smile of triumph, she said, “I’m afraid it will take a couple of minutes because we need to get the key from Father Kennedy. He keeps it in his douche bag.”

Into the silence which greeted this remark, the dropping of a single pin would have sounded like the thunder of a hundred cannons. After what seemed like a lifetime, a tiny, trembling voice broke the silence. “I’m sorry but did you say Father Kennedy has a... douche bag?”

“Yes,” answered Sister Bernadette brightly. “Although,” she went on quickly, after all, she didn’t want the Americans to think there was anything “sissy” about Father Kennedy, “of course he doesn’t use it all the time, only when he’s going on stage.”

The silence which greeted this remark was, if possible, longer and more charged than the previous one as the delegates struggled to make sense of what they had been told. A child entered carrying the key and there was another interminable pause before a figure who was evidently the most junior of the delegates shuffled forward and gingerly accepted it, returning to his place with the offending instrument hanging precariously between thumb and forefinger.

Having performed her errand of mercy, Sister Bernadette hurried off on another of her mysterious errands, leaving behind a stunned silence which rapidly turned into a seething cauldron of debate. Mr. Donnelly appointed himself chief inquisitor and was not slow to express his disapproval of Father Kennedy’s conduct. For the priest to flaunt oneself like a painted jezebel was bad enough, but the possession of the article which Sister Bernadette had identified by name hinted at physiological manifestations of the priest’s wickedness so horrible that they didn’t bear thinking of.

One of the delegates suggested rather diffidently that what went on in a man’s private life was surely his own business but Mr. Donnelly swatted this argument away with disdain. He didn’t know what form of Catholicism they practiced here, he said, but he hadn’t come all this way to see men of the cloth disporting themselves like... a Vietnamese lady boy, and the whole thing didn’t sit with any of the tenets of the Catholic Church that he knew.

There was mild unease among Saint Catherine’s staff when the American delegation failed to arrive at the school hall for the performance, and it soon became apparent that something had happened to disturb the carefully cultivated atmosphere of harmony. Mrs. Goodwin appointed herself chief investigator and bustled backwards and forwards between the two delegations. Returning from one such visit and finding a group of Saint Catherine’s staff chatting in the corridor, she approached them and in a loud voice said, “Could someone tell me what a douche bag is?”

There was a brief pause before Tracey Reeves, one of the young teaching assistants began tentatively, “It’s something that they use in America...”

“Yes, go on!” demanded Mrs. Goodwin impatiently. Tracey moved towards her, lowered her voice and whispered in her ear. An expression of incredulity dawned on Mrs. Goodwin’s face and she said, “What do they want to do that for?” In the end, it had taken several hours for the confusion to be resolved, with recrimination eventually giving way to reconciliation as the narrative of the misunderstanding had unfolded.

Duffy and O’Driscoll, engaged in the tidying away of scenery and stacking of chairs, were blissfully unaware that there was a problem and even when word finally did reach them, they listened at first with only half an ear, their minds focusing on the icy globules surrounding the first, well-deserved pint awaiting them in The North Star. Slowly, however, an antenna in O’Driscoll’s mind began to oscillate, at first mildly but then with increasing urgency and he sent Duffy ahead so he could find out what had happened.

It was Mrs. Goodwin, of course, who brought him up to speed. A major incident had been resolved, she said, thanks in no small part to her own diplomatic activity, but the authorities had laid the blame for the misunderstanding squarely at the door of John O’Driscoll, who according to Father Kennedy, had played a really shabby trick on Sister Bernadette. When asked by a mystified O’Driscoll to furnish him with details of this trick, the school secretary said, with a toss of the head that he (John O’Driscoll) had deliberately misled her (Sister Bernadette) as to the function of an item which she (Mrs. Goodwin) would not dignify with a name.

With another toss of the head, she retired, leaving O’Driscoll alone in the sacristy with only Parnell, the church cat, for company. “They’re going to blame me again,” he said wildly as Parnell fixed an insolent eye on him from his vantage point on the arm of the sofa. “They’re going to bloody well blame me again!” Parnell gave him a look of infinite contempt, spat silently and then, sticking his tail in the air, wandered haughtily off in the direction of the kitchen. It was for O’Driscoll, the final confirmation that his hopes for the future lay in ruins around him - even the cat despised him! He heard a voice saying, “Father Kennedy’s coming this way and he doesn’t look very happy,” and O’Driscoll felt that unmistakable and familiar sensation as, for the third consecutive Sunday, his bowels began the boiling and churning process that would shortly reduce them to liquid form.