M. Hyland - Carry Me Down

I leave them and go to the living room. They come to say goodbye and I hardly look at them. I watch television until after ten, then I sit on my bed with Crito on my lap and wait for them to come home. It is late, past eleven o’clock. When a car drives by the cottage, Crito jumps up and goes to my bedroom window, then comes back when nobody walks up the gravel driveway.

I hold her tight so she won’t jump off again, and I squeeze and stroke her stomach and talk to her.

‘Whatever you do, don’t have any more kittens,’ I say.

She tries to jump off when another car goes by, and so I hold her tight.

‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘Stay here.’

She struggles and I take hold of the middle of her tail and, as she struggles to get away, I feel the strange rubbery bone under her skin and fur, and I pull it too hard. She pulls but I don’t want to let go.

She hisses at me. I feel bad. I let go but I don’t go after her. Instead, I stare up at the ceiling and daydream about going to Niagara Falls. I meet two tall men from the Guinness Book at the airport in New York and they offer to carry my suitcase. They tell me we’re going to stay on the fourteenth floor of a big hotel near the Empire State Building and in the morning we’ll go to Niagara in a first-class carriage on a train that has a restaurant, a balcony and its own band. In Niagara, near the Horseshoe Falls, there’ll be a television camera crew waiting to film my first meeting with Robert Ripley. I fall asleep before the daydream ends but even this little bit does the job of stopping me from wondering when they’ll be home.

It is half two and time once again for us to form a queue behind the curtain of the imaginary library.

Brendan is first. He rings the bell, closes the curtain behind him and goes to Mr Roche. ‘I’d like a book about how to make umbrellas because me ma keeps losing ours.’

‘A book about the making of umbrellas. Ah, here we are,’ says Mr Roche and he makes a label for the front of the Reader’s Digest, as he always does, and this one says: The Making of Umbrellas .

When Brendan has taken his book, Kate pushes her way to the head of the queue, rings the bell and goes behind the red curtain.

‘What about a book about stopping your brother from wetting the bed?’ she says.

‘I’ll have to go to the archives for that one,’ says Mr Roche. He comes out from behind the curtain and goes into the broom cupboard and emerges with another Reader’s Digest. He makes a special show of clearing the dust from it and humming to himself.

But does he not realise that Kate has asked for that book so that she can tease me? Does he not see what she will do?

‘Here’s just what the doctor ordered: Ten Steps to the End of Bed-Wetting ,’ he says as he hands the book to Kate.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘This will be very helpful.’

Perhaps Mr Roche suspects her and wants to give her some time to reconsider. Perhaps he has forgotten that he is here to protect me. When he has returned to his place behind the curtain, Kate takes the book and puts it in my desk. ‘Here,’ she says, as she closes the lid of my desk. ‘Read this and stop pissing your pants!’

Kate sits at her desk with her arms folded across her chest and I can hardly breathe as I try to find something to say. But I don’t need to speak: Mr Roche comes out from behind the curtain and, as though he was able to see Kate through the curtain, he walks straight over to her desk.

‘Where did you put that book I just now gave you?’ he asks.

‘In my desk.’

Mr Roche looks in Kate’s desk and, when he sees that the book isn’t there, he checks mine. He sees the book in my desk. He walks to Kate and takes hold of her hair. She struggles and the pink ribbon tied to the end of her long brown plait comes loose and falls to the floor. Then, he stops.

‘Ow,’ she says.

He is so angry that he doesn’t bother to speak. Instead, he pulls her out of her seat. Kate frees herself and runs to the window. Mr Roche stands by her desk. ‘Kate Breslin, get back over here. Everybody else sit back down at your desks!’

He is on his toes with anger now; his neck is fat and pulsing. Kate takes the edge of the curtain in her hand and Mr Roche goes to her.

‘You lied to me,’ he shouts. ‘You lied to me.’

‘No I didn’t.’

‘You did. Why did you do that? Why are you so cruel?’

‘What?’ she says. ‘What did I do?’

We watch from our desks as Mr Roche goes to the blackboard and stands with his arms folded across his chest. His arms rise up and down with his heavy breathing. ‘Let’s return to our spelling,’ he says.

As Mr Roche lowers himself into his chair, Kate turns to Brendan and whispers something that makes him laugh. Mr Roche gets to his feet and leaves the classroom without speaking. We hear him rummaging in the cupboard in the corridor and, when he returns, he is carrying a coal bucket filled with water. He clears a space on the floor near the front of the classroom, a foot from his desk, and puts the bucket down.

‘Kate Breslin, get down there on your knees and drink like a dog.’

‘What?’

‘Get down here on your hands and knees and drink from this bucket.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I won’t.’

‘Do it now, or I will do it for you.’

‘You must be mad,’ she says. ‘I won’t do it.’

Mr Roche rushes to her desk, clutches her hair, drags her by the scalp, pushes her to the floor and holds her head over the bucket of black, sooty water.

‘Do you know what your evil does to the world? Do you understand nothing about cause and effect? Do you think evil springs from nothing?’

She is silent. He pushes her face into the water. ‘Drink,’ he says.

She drinks and, when he is satisfied, he pulls her head out of the bucket. Water trickles down her neck and blackens her shirt at the back, like blood.

I think it is over when she begins to cry, but he kneels down and holds her bottom in one hand and, with the other, presses on the back of her neck, pushing her down again, her face in the water.

Kate moans and, at last, he stops.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Now stand up at the back of the classroom.’

She moves to the back wall and he gives her his jumper so she can mop herself up. She holds the jumper to cover her face.

‘It’s the likes of you who make the men that rape,’ he says. ‘At every school in the country, the killers and madmen are made by bullies like you.’

Kate sobs.

‘Please don’t do any more,’ she says. ‘I’m really sorry. I need to go to the toilet.’

But Mr Roche hasn’t finished.

‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Please, sir, let me go home. I’m sorry.’

He folds his arms and stares at her.

We all sit and wait. It’s three o’clock and the home bell has rung. We should be leaving. But nobody stirs, and it is quiet enough to hear stomachs churning. Nobody speaks when the teachers and the other children pass by our classroom to get their coats. Mr Roche stands by the door and smiles and waves at them.

Mr Donnelly walks by at ten past three, and Mr Roche tells him we are taking a test and won’t go home until the last pupil has finished. Mr Donnelly looks in, sees that nobody is writing, opens his mouth, but doesn’t speak. He looks at his watch, then leaves.

Nobody is able to move. We are turned to face the back of the room and we watch Kate, who watches Mr Roche. Then it happens: at fifteen minutes past three, Kate wets herself.

It is as though I am the one doing the wetting. The urine that runs down her legs and forms a pool on the floor belongs to me. I can feel the urine on my own legs and the wet heat of piss in my own socks. When Mr Roche goes to her and puts his hand on her shoulder, it is I who feels the comfort of his touch.