Torn Water. John Lynch

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       5. The Rehearsal

      He is following Mr Shannon, scrambling behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides, down High Street and across the Mall. The streets are full of schoolchildren scurrying for buses and with shoppers flitting in and out of stores.

      ‘Keep up, Lavery, keep up. You're letting the side down, old boy.’

      Shannon seems to glide along on his own current of air, swaying to avoid a pack of schoolgirls, tipping his head in greeting to people he knows. James collides with a small dog, its body contracting into yelps as his foot finds its paw. Shannon comes to a halt and looks back at the dog, hopping around on three legs, and at James scurrying after it.

      ‘Hit it a boot in the hoop, Lavery, and look lively. Tempus fugit. Good day, Mrs O'Rourke.’

      Mrs O'Rourke stares at James and pushes him away as he tries to make amends with her dog. ‘Clear off, you hooligan.’

      ‘I'm sorry,’ he whimpers.

      ‘Piss off before I take a lump out of you. Good afternoon, Mr Shannon, you're looking well this fine day.’

      ‘One can but try, Mrs O'Rourke, one can but try.’

      He watches as Shannon struts away from him, delicately sidestepping a pushchair, full of fruit and groceries.

      Mr A. G. S. Shannon is James's English teacher, ‘a force for literature’, as he likes to call himself. James can remember the first time Shannon had stood before him in classroom G14, seven years before, giving his new English lit charges the once-over. He wore moccasins and James can remember their slap on the floor as he paced, his heels making a small sucking noise as his feet travelled back and forth. His hair in those days was a Brylcreemed black with a kiss-curl that fell daintily across his wide forehead. It was his belly, though, that fascinated James: it was large; it seemed to begin at his sternum and end at his groin. James thought it looked as if it had been grafted on to his body for it seemed at odds with the relatively slender man that carried it.

      ‘My name is Mr A. G. S. Shannon and my business is literature, and your business is to make it your business.’ Then he had lifted his head and raised an index finger to his chin. ‘If you have knowledge of language, my boys, you have a shot at the truth. Without it you will remain in your Neanderthal twilight, grunting and pawing your way through life.’

      Some boys had burst out laughing, some had let out a snort of protest, but James and a couple of others had held the thought he had given them as if it were fashioned from gold. He was different from the rest of the teachers. He didn't seem to have the same cranky dedication to authority, or the constant need to flex it. James would often hang around at the end of class, waiting to catch his eye, to be fed a small morsel of his attention. Sometimes he would put his arm across James's shoulders and walk him from the class. They would amble down the corridor, Mr Shannon's rich quotes from Shakespeare weaving seamlessly with the strong blades of sunlight streaming through the windows.

      Rehearsals are in an old two-storeyed townhouse off Canal Street. The front door lies open, revealing a long, narrow hall lit only by a solitary lightbulb, with a wooden staircase at the end. They climb to the top floor, Shannon sometimes taking two, three steps at a time. Two men he has never seen before stand by a fireplace. Shannon guides him towards them, his hand delicately placed between the boy's shoulder-blades. The men look up from two tattered scripts; one wears a Paisley cravat.

      ‘Gentlemen, may I introduce you to young James La very? He is our Martini. La very, this is Cathal Murphy.’

      The man wearing the Paisley cravat extends his hand, and James shakes it shyly.

      ‘And this reprobate, Lavery, is the inestimable Oisin “Chin Chin” Daly.’

      Oisin “Chin Chin” Daly is at least six feet tall, with long, greasy, heavy hair. He has brown eyes that flicker watchfully from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. ‘Mr Lavery …’

      ‘Mr Chin Chin – sorry, Oisin.’

      ‘No, man, you scored the first time.’

      Suddenly two women are in the doorway. One is small with red, short-cropped hair and a freckled face; on her shoulder is a green duffel bag with white trim. The other rummages furiously in one of two plastic shopping-bags. She is plump and short with greying brown hair.

      Shannon eyes her imperiously, left eyebrow arched. ‘Ah, Nurse Ratshit at long last.’

      ‘Ratchet, Nurse Ratchet, you bollocks. Where the f—ing hell are my car keys?’ Suddenly she notices a set hanging from her friend's hand. ‘For Chrissakes, Patricia, why didn't you pipe up? And me making a complete arse of myself.’

      ‘You gave them to me not two minutes ago, Kerry, in case you lost them.’

      The play they are there to rehearse is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. James has been roped in to play Mr Martini, a paranoid character who spends most of the play talking with an imaginary friend. Mr Shannon had crept into the physics class the week before and asked permission from Mr Bennett to steal James for ten minutes.

      ‘Of course, Mr Shannon, have him for as long as you'd like.’

      As they stood in the science corridor, Shannon had dug a thin book out of his briefcase, and held it skyward, an awkward grin of triumph spreading across his lips. ‘Do you know what this is, Lavery? Do you have any idea?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘An American classic, Lavery, a modern classic from the New World.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘I want you to peruse it.’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Read it.’

      ‘Why, sir?’

      ‘Because you are going to be in it.’

      ‘Me?’

      ‘Yes. Your part is Martini. Rehearsals begin next Tuesday afternoon after school. Performance in the amateur drama festival at the Opera House, Belfast, one month from now.’

      ‘Why me, sir?’

      ‘Why not you, La very? Pray, why not you?’

      James had watched as Shannon walked away from him, backside swaying, head held high. Just before he turned the corner he raised the fingers of his right hand and wiggled them.