Farewell to the School

I stand on the school steps looking over the bay, perhaps for the last time. Behind me the Georgian mansion, once home to an Anglo-Irish family, later a convent school. I was the first male teacher ever hired. Today, after three years I am leaving, and I’m not sure why.

My best friend Jack, also on his last day, comes towards me blinking behind thick glasses. Small, bald, soft-cheeked, he smiles with a mix of irony and pity. “Coming to meet the Leaving Cert class?” I ask. “Ho, Ho, the big presentation,” he chortles. Speech? “No-o,” he replies, stretching the word.

Jack’s future seems laid out: wife, daughter, mortgage, modest car, solace in his books on Greece and Rome. He is bound for Libya to teach English; I am heading into uncertainty.

In the classroom the chatter dies. A marble fireplace hints at grandeur past. I remember my first year, my nerves before teaching the honours English class. Now Helen, red-faced, shuffles forward with two pens. “On behalf of the class, thank you, Mr C and Mr H. We wish you success.”

The pens feel slight, yet the girls’ eyes are on me. “Thank you,” I say, clumsy with sentiment. Jack refuses with a quiet smile: “No-o.”

Later, in the concert hall, the girls sit in rows, uneasy in white gloves for prize-giving. Mother Superior warns them always to remember they are “Loreto girls.” Then she thanks us, the departing teachers. Applause swells, turning into stamping feet. Mother Superior winces: Teresa, the vice-principal, flutters her hands to calm them. For a moment the Loreto girls are just teenagers.

The applause warms me, but across the aisle Jack bows his head, cheeks red, almost squirming. Perhaps most of it was for him.

Afterwards I feel weary and slip away. In my battered car, a Life magazine photo taped to the roof catches my eye: the Vietnamese girl aflame with napalm, running down the road. I hated the Americans for that war. How could I know then that within a year a young GI from that conflict would share my house?

Girls drag suitcases towards town, eyes glittering with summer freedom. A cow chews daisies behind convent railings. I try to feel the emotion of the moment but find only emptiness: my 28 years, a failing car, the sense of being a sham. A Guinness or two with Jack will help.

In pubs we had our best conversations. “Have you ever seen the chaos of the soul?” I might ask. “Yes, I think so,” he would answer, and I believed him.

Years later, falling in love in Thailand or riding mountain roads in Africa on my Kawasaki, I still thought of him — backing his small Mazda from the driveway, hugging his Jack Russell goodbye. Would-be poet, would-be hero, always philosopher.

Then came that Sunday. Preparing for golf, he cried his head was exploding. His daughter found him on the bathroom floor, razor spilled beside him.

Like the Homeric heroes he admired, Jack was struck down in his prime. He was like the brother I never had. So many years ago, I miss him still.

Cover Photo: The Greystones Guide (source article)