Dermot McHugh looked down at the class of twenty-four boys, knowing in his heart that like himself they were counting the minutes till the bell sounded that would herald the end of the school day. He had spent the past hour trying to instil some sense of the importance of the Land League in two dozen uncaring minds. He had observed them fiddle and shift and doodle and chew gum and secretly read the sports pages of the tabloid newspapers as he rolled out dates and times and places and the significance of their fellow countrymen’s secret rebellion against the British landlords.
He could jolt them into shocked attention by announcing that there would be a sudden test on the subject in the ten o’clock history class next morning, but knew he wouldn’t have the heart to mark all their papers. Most likely they would mirror exactly what was written in their history textbook. The class swot, Oscar O’Flynn, would hand him immaculate pages of perfect script worthy of a Trinity history scholar, while the rest would as usual do their worst! How had he ended up here trying to teach boys about the past, when it was clear all they were interested in was the future and getting released from school? He had always meant teaching to be a temporary position, something to do until a more interesting and fulfilling career had turned up, and yet here he was, twenty-six years later, languishing in the depths of St Peter’s Boys’ School. His own classroom, his own pigeon hole in the staff room and the after-school responsibility of running the Chess Club. He blinked behind his glasses.
If he hadn’t met and married Laura O’Leary after a whirlwind eight-month courtship his life would be very different now. He wouldn’t change loving Laura, or having his two kids, it was just that he had got weighed down with the responsibilities of being a family man much earlier than he had ever expected. His son Aongus sent him a weekly email from Australia: Perth, Ayers Rock, Sydney. The emails kept coming, telling him of his son’s wild adventures as he backpacked around the country.
‘Isn’t it wonderful to see the young enjoying themselves,’ his wife kept telling him as she organized their regular summer trip to Kerry. ‘I’m so proud of Aongus, going off adventuring and seeing the world.’
The adventuring was expensive and Dermot was carrying the extra few-thousand-euro debt on his own overdraft, his son promising to pay him back on his return to Dublin.
The class were shuffling. Pretending to concentrate, waiting to see if he was going to load them with homework. He was tempted to disrupt their night’s DVD and TV watching with a six-page essay but good sense prevailed.
‘Just read over the next chapter in your books, boys,’ he said as the class finished.
He was definitely going soft in the head, old age creeping up on him, he thought, as he watched them grin and nudge and holler to each other, pushing and shoving through the wooden door. The classroom emptied quickly as he tidied his notes and books.
‘Excuse me, sir. I wondered if I could ask you something.’
Tommy Butler stood in front of him. The Butler boy was one of those who usually frequented the back row of the classroom and contributed little or nothing unless it was disruption, so to find him still there minutes after the last class of the day had finished was unusual.
‘Yes!’
‘It’s about history – like you are always telling us.’
He was intrigued.
‘I want to do a kind of project.’
Tommy Butler in his classroom volunteering to take on a project was something he had never reckoned on.
‘It’s like this – it’s about someone very old . . .’
‘Oh I see, a figure in history has caught your imagination, like Pearse or Parnell or Michael Collins or Churchill.’
The boy looked totally puzzled, the names not even registering.
‘No way!’ he said. ‘No, I’m talking about someone real, a real person.’
‘A hero of yours!’
‘She’s an old woman.’
Dermot looked suspiciously at the boy. What was he doing? Casing some old lady’s house, trying to find out how valuable her antiques and furniture were? The mind boggled when it came to the likes of these thirteen-year-olds!
‘What woman are we talking about, Butler?’
‘A very old woman, sir.’
‘I can’t help you unless you tell me about this old lady.’
‘It’s my nan. She’s going to be a hundred years old, sir.’
Dermot nodded, relieved to discover he was referring to a Butler family member.
‘Well, it’s just like we got to mark it, do something special for her. There’s going to be a big party and presents and the like.’
‘Your grandmother must be a wonderful woman, celebrating one hundred years on this earth.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s it. I want to do something real special for her, something that will make her remember those hundred years.’
Dermot was totally baffled. This was a very unexpected side to the young Butler fellow.
‘Do you mean make a scrapbook, or a family tree?’
‘Nah. She’s got them already. My idea’s way better than photos – it’s a hat.’
‘A hat!’
‘My nan loves hats. Always did, christenings, parties, weddings, but this one’s got to be different because it’s a Memory Hat. One that will make her think about all the things that happened in her life, remind her, remind us.’
‘What an unusual idea!’
‘Yeah. The thing is I got to try and organize it. A hundred years is a long time and though I know a lot of things about my gran and my dad and the family growing up, I was wondering, sir, if you could help me?’
‘Help you?’
‘With the historical bit, sir, not the hat bit. That’s already sorted.’
Dermot McHugh considered. He could pack up his bag, send the boy packing and be home in time for his favourite game show, or he could turn on the class computer and begin to search for relevant dates. Tommy looked nervous, hands in his pockets, chin tilted, slightly defiant eyes narrowed, waiting for rejection.
‘Where’s your grandmother from?’
‘Janey, Dublin, sir, where else!’
Dermot smiled. That should have been obvious.
‘Sounds like an interesting project. You could learn a lot from it.’
They looked at each other for a moment.
‘A timeline might be a good thing – a starting point. World and local history of the last century.’
Tommy looked fazed.
‘And of course what was going on in Dublin then, in your grandmother’s backyard so to speak, in the “rare old times” as some people call it.’
Tommy Butler looked pleased, interested as the Google search engine kicked in and filled up the screen.