Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [60]
“Another day,” he pushed on, “we went to Paris, to the great cathedral of Notre Dame. ‘The walls rose from the ground like the cliffs out of the ocean.’” The hand that held his beer bottle rose into the air to demonstrate. “‘The glass in the windows blazed with crimson and gold and blue, all the colours of a fierce sky at the close of day.’ We had no concept of a cathedral, so that’s how he described it to us. That day he balled up a bundle of old rags and stuck them under his jacket. Up and down the schoolroom floor he went, dragging his foot, his great hump half hiding his face, his hair askew, clanging the school bell. Quasimodo, high in his cliff tower, addressed the upturned faces in our little schoolroom.”
He shifted around and spoke to the bottle held in his hand. “I came to understand the extraordinary power of the imagination. I saw how easy it was to get people to believe and accept almost anything, provided the mind was open and it was presented in the right way.”
A damp patch of perspiration had begun to collect around his temples, but he seemed oblivious to the heat and discomfort. “At times like that he was a different man, full of strength and energy and conviction. There was fire in his belly then, real passion. It seemed to me that he was at his best when he was being someone else.” He turned to face her. “I was fascinated by that.”
It was a while before either one spoke and then she said, “He must have been an extraordinary teacher.”
“Well…” The word left a trail of uncertainty in its wake. “If you were smart then he was the best kind but he had a hard time dealing with the ‘dunderheads,’ as he called them. He had no patience at all with slackers and even less with those who were just plain stunned. He didn’t seem to take into account that many of the youngsters had never even seen a book until they came to school and that their parents oftentimes could barely read or write or couldn’t read at all. But he couldn’t see that. He put it all down to laziness and that was the end of it.”
He drew the back of his hand across his forehead and sighed. The dark hair on the back of his wrist was flattened by sweat into an oily slick. “There was a fella by the name of Joey Coady. He was a bit of a hard case, like a jack rabbit, off in all directions. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this but …”
He rubbed at the damp patch on his wrist until it disappeared and the dark hair stood up on end. For a moment he looked uncertain but then decided to continue. “There was one day he had Joey to the board. I remember it all so clearly, big white numbers on a blackboard: 26 X 17, that’s what he wanted him to do. Multiply the two numbers. Joey hadn’t the clue. Mr. Molloy started pacing the floor, back and forth, hand on hip. We all knew what was coming. Joey still hadn’t learned the tables or didn’t know how to do what was asked of him, but that day he laid the cane on that youngster and left big purple welts on his arms and legs that lasted for weeks. He went right off the head, lost it completely.” He rubbed his hand back and forth on his forearm. “It was terrible to watch. Somewhere inside that man there was a mean cruel streak that reared up in him every so often, and there was no telling where it came from. It always seemed to be directed at the most unfortunate … like Joey, poor youngsters who had no one to pick up for them and couldn’t pick up for themselves either.”
Her hand came to her throat, her voice thin. “Did that happen often?”
“Often enough. Not as bad as that day, but every time it happened I felt sick to my stomach, but back then I could never bring myself to blame him.”
She reached for her drink. The beer had become warm and sickly, but still she drank deeply as if somehow she could wash away what she had just heard. She felt claustrophobic and was thinking about making a move when suddenly