The high whine of Radio Eireann's carrier-wave frequently finds me awake. By-and-by it changes to ten-second bleeps and I get out of bed. It is 7.25am. The high-ceilinged annexe of Drumderrig House feels frosty. It is late January or early February. For four years I have listened to the gurgling water of the hand-basin of Kevin Dodd's bedroom next door as he arose early to open the school. Now that he has left, I have this part of the house to myself, and it's my turn to do the early gurgling.
By 7.40 I am climbing the stairs to the Oratory for Mass. Brigid, woman of many parts, now turns acolyte for fifteen minutes. From the oratory window I can see, across Lough Key, the house where I was born, and where my mother has died a fortnight ago. But now is no time for thinking. Mustn't get behind get behind in the schedule. Downstairs for breakfast at 8.07, dining alone as Noel will have a later Mass. As I crunch toast I hear the slither-and-plop of the letters in the passage outside, delivered by a silent postman who has penetrated the outer defences of the glass porch and sneaked them through the portcullis. A mixed bag. Magazines, scientific and educational; someone offers to sell biros with the school's name on them, at an attractive price per gross; a letter from the department:-A athair oirmh-It is noted that on the December lists furnished by you to this department, the pupil Aida Nosferate of Class 302 has not completed the required two years of study of the subjects French and Science Syllabus A, and is therefore ineligible to sit the Intermediate examination in these subjects, according to Rule 26 (b). Mise le meas….."
OPEN….UNLOCK…SWITCH ON…PLUG IN….
By 8.17 I emerge, laden with mail, books, documents, and an orange-juice jar full of milk for the coffee. Fiat ODI 906 is ageing but willing to go. Out the gate. Turn right. Down Abbeytown. Turn left at the Abbey. Over the bridge. Turn right. Past the Shrine. Turn left. There is a drift of three or four early Christains up to the 8.30 Mass in the Sports Complex. Jim Lloyd treads mincingly on the hardened ice of the footpath. The same people doing the same things as yesterday.
At 8.20 I drive into the school grounds and park my car at the gable of the old building. Now routine really takes over. Open front door of Old Building. Go through to staff-room. Deposit milk. Plug in oil-fired heater. Open back door. Round to boiler-house. Unlock. Switch on. If it misfires, procure newspaper and fold. Apply Ronson lighter. Open furnace door. Throw in lighted paper. Drop door shut quickly. Avoid puff of black smoke. Step over puddle on way out. Back to the staff-room. See is mouse still in the cupboard. Wash two dirty coffee cups left by two unspeakable staff-members the previous evening.
By now it is 8.25 and the first cargo of pupils has arrived, two and a quarter tons, from the Corrigeenroe-Knockvicar area. Naturally, being prejudiced, I consider these to be, 'la crème de la crème', and this morning at least they are models of deportment. For instance they refrain from breaking down the door into the New Building when I am delayed for a minute picking up two empty Coke cans and a 'Holland and Madden' maths. book. I open the door and they deposit their bags inside. Then with a rush they are off to the Sports Complex. I follow at a more middle-aged pace.
ETERNAL ROUTINE;
For want of a church the main sports hall is being used for Sunday Mass, the annexe for daily Mass. In the passage, past the annexe into the main hall, I collide with Paddy Leonard, sacristan. Always there, always punctual, with a morning greeting for all. I wonder by what similar eternal routine he has got to this same point as I, at this same time every morning, Fr. Michael Breslin, perhaps, will be the celebrant this week, and because Mass is just about to begin all our operations next door will have to be conducted at less than boisterous decibels.
On a normal morning, I open the canteen door, hand out a football and a few table-tennis bats and they are away with gusto. Mondays are different. What has to be done on Mondays depends on what the worthy parish councillors of Grange, Derrymaquirk and Bealinultha have done after evening Mass the previous evening. They will at least have rolled the carpets and stacked the chairs. The chairs, eight hundred of them, are stacked against a side wall, but the job may have been hastily done, and the tall teetering piles, unable to stand the impact of a football, may have to be restacked. Why? Because they didn't obey Anthony Martin's strict command-'No more than twelve'. Or was it fourteen? The carpets too may have to be re-rolled, as the original rolling may have been crooked, or the warp-fibres of one, may have rolled into another, holding two rolls together like Siamese twins. Each roll weighs about a quarter of a ton and the manhandling of them brings forth much groaning, not all of it faked. At least they are lined up at the end of the hall, out of the way to a great extent. Now the basketball backboard on its tall mobile frame has to be moved from the corner out to the centre. Co-ordination of effort is needed here. James Monaghan applies himself with vigour. Padraig Harte excitedly shouts orders. Liam Bruen, a more careful man, extends his hands to the bar, but as we physicists would say, 'the point of application is not displaced in the direction of the force'. Wattless power, perhaps, the ESB would call it. Soon the job is done and the football can proceed. The days of Spring will soon be here and I will soon tell them to go outside and play on the tarmac pitch behind the complex. Their speechless shock at the wanton cruelty of asking them to go out into the mild, fresh air, will almost melt my heart. The nets are now put on the four ping-pong tables and recreation proceeds.
On a normal morning I have about a half-hour of relative peace at this juncture. I sit in the canteen. Or I walk up and down the hall being careful to avoid high- flying footballs. I can read letters that have come and draft answers in my mind. Dear Sir, We are surprised to learn of a discrepancy in the December lists from this school, as we had them thoroughly checked. Aida Nosferatu should of course read Aidan O'Farrell. The error is regretted. Yours etc etc."
ARRIVALS;
Between 9.05 and 9.10 the inbound traffic is at its most dense, three tons from the Plains of Boyle, three and a quarter from the Foyogues direction, and about fifteen hundred-weight by mini-bus from the northern Tundra regions of Cloonloo and Carrowcrory. At 9.10 I collect the football and evacuate the gym. If a first-year class has a P.E. period immediately following, they appear at this stage, shivering but eager, and ask for the ball to kick around until the teacher comes. If any more senior class has P.E. at this time, they melt into the bush like Salvadorean rebels and have to be got out with napalm. I leave the complex and return to the staff-room, where by now Gus is waiting. Normally he is calm, confident and pipe-smoking. Occasionally he is a trifle edgy and key-rattling. Perhaps some ferocious frit of a teacher has discovered a discrepancy in the time-table! One that will necessitate some late nights for both of us. But no. This morning the trouble is more urgent. A phone-call has come from some teacher. He won't be in for the first period. Gus has already added him, in his mind, to the one who is known to be stretched and won't be in at all, to Fr. Sharkey who is on the Stations but luckily does not have a class until 11.30, to the teacher who won't be in for the first period but hasn't bothered to phone, and to the two missing down in the Vocational School. A messy business. Desperate, but perhaps not hopeless.
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS;
Word has come that some miscreant has inserted half a match-stick in the Yale lock in Mary Martin's prefab. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Not that anyone could possibly have any ill-will towards this attractive young lady. It's just a very inexpensive form of protest. Perhaps someone has the wistful hope that he can find the weak spot that will bring the whole educational juggernaut to a standstill. But we who exploit the young are not so easily baulked. A search is made for Rory Sheerin or some such boy who is not swollen by Tayto crisps and Coke, and he is inserted into a four-inch slit in one of the windows. All is well again. It is at times like this that one feels proud of the self-reliance and independence of the establishment. We are almost the perfect society spoken of by medieval theologians. We have all the means necessary for our own survival. Nothing is needed from outside, except Brigid's jar of milk and Dympna Moriarty's biscuits. We can reach out in any need and find an expert or specialist from among our own ranks; Peter Toolan to pick locks, Noel Mattimoe to solve a crossword, Brid Ferguson to coach a basketball team, Mary Martin ditto with the badminton team, Paddy Nangle to explain the rules of all known games, John Moyles to weld a goalpost, Cathy Gilroy to make a French telephone call. I marvel at it all.
'BEYOND YON STRAGGLING FENCE…'
The classrooms are now open and the troops move in, sullen or smiling or shifty or serene. I wait a minute or two to see if all is well. A kind of uneasy peace settles on the school. The sounds that emerge from the classrooms differ as I move around. In Tommy Conlon's. Francie's and Phil's all is tranquillity. Back in the Old Building, in Room 1 of the 'double-room', one simply knows that the metaphysical poets are in good hands. Next door a deep-voiced, subtle 'dig' misses by a mile its smiling 203 victim, who sits protected by a carapace of innocence. It reminds me of Abdul the Terrible, greatest swordsman of the Caliphate, who one day met his mortal enemy, Mahmoud. No eye could see his flashing scimitar as he swung it round at the speed of light. Hah!" said Mahmoud, You missed". Did I?" said Abdul. Shake your head!".
From Marian's room comes an occasional high shriek, perhaps at some unacceptable form of the Aimsir Caite. From No. 4 some tremors and rumblings, fearsome at times, but usually low down on the Richter scale. Over in the 'New Building' Frank Fahy is already in occupation, even though he has come from Loughrea. Rugby weekends frightened him at times. On one occasion he solemnly said goodbye on Friday evening. At the thought of meeting some anthropoids from Galway or Athlone in the League, he felt he might not survive the Saturday match. I offered the Last Anointing. He would soon return to teach in his native county and Brid could then come in from the cold, that is to say , 'The Henhouse'. Further along the corridor, one can find Noel, like a wily Lebanese trader, always ready to open his stall and do business at any hour, making large profits on rulers and copybooks. In the Geography Room Don frets about the Killavil Group Water Scheme. Down in the lower Science room no one has told Des that he has four hundred days to live.
But, hark, what is that sound? I enter the door of the New Building. A group of second-years loll at the front of the stairs, waiting, murmuring. Even as I pass I hear the word go out, "He's coming". And sure enough he is, Don Paco himself, Frank Tivnan, having come down from Corr na Miolta, greatly assisted by gravity. The yellow bird, RDI 449 skids to a stop outside his very own window. Sometimes I fear that one day he will penetrate the wall and emerge from his car inside the classroom to greet his delighted pupils with a "Buenos Dias". But today he unadventurously enters by the door, and after his coming a sort of silence falls over the school. It is 9.20am.
I climb the stairs to my office. The school day has begun!
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