Pandaemonium (5 page)

With this thought, Deborah climbs across Gillian and into the aisle so that she can reach to turn up her own music, drown out all that gloom. Soundtrack to a bloody horror movie. Wasn’t this trip supposed to be about making everybody feel
less
depressed? If so, the staff should have stipulated that it was to be a strictly Goth-free venture, confiscated Cameron’s tunes and completely barred Marianne from getting on the bus. It’s not like she would be missed.

Now
there
is a conundrum: did being a creepy weirdo who nobody wanted anything to do with turn you into a Goth, or did being a Goth turn you into a creepy weirdo who nobody wanted anything to do with? Christ, even Rosemary and the God-squadders have all found somebody to share a seat with.

Caitlin stopped going more than a year ago, but Rosemary still talks to her as though she’s part of the fold. She has never been sure whether this is intended as an inclusive gesture or an ongoing punishment. Either way, it has a horrible tendency to rub off, leaving even certain teachers under this embarrassing misapprehension. She’s long had to tolerate being regarded a quiet little goody-two-shoes, but she draws the line at this.

Rosemary hands her two copies of the sexy and sizzling CYG news, leaving it incumbent upon Caitlin to pass one along to Maria. Wonderful. This is an act of complicity that Maria will unavoidably interpret as Caitlin saying: ‘I’m just as far from the trendicentre as you, so let’s all be dweeby little church mice together.’

Caitlin can feel the heat in her cheeks as Maria takes the paper from her hand.

‘Thanks, Rosemary, I’ve not read this,’ Maria says politely, and Caitlin feels something in her gut turn to stone.

‘Which topic would you like to discuss first?’ Rosemary asks.

Caitlin gapes, unable to stop her mouth falling open as she contemplates the projected length of the journey ahead.

‘If no one has a preference,’ Rosemary goes on, ‘I’d like to start with Pope Benedict’s universal indult restoring an individual priest’s permission to celebrate the Tridentine Rite.’

Caitlin swallows, her throat suddenly too dry to speak. A guilty wee voice inside her head, the same one that always told her to log off MySpace and get back to studying, nags her that she ought to learn from Rosemary’s example. They were always being told that if they found religion boring, it was because they weren’t giving enough of themselves to unlock its rewards. Caitlin is well versed in knuckling down and getting on with even the least engaging tasks. If she can sit down to an hour of calculus, she should be able to apply herself to anything. Maybe she should read the signs, try that bit harder. This is supposed to be a retreat, after all.

However, as she listens to the subsequent discussion, she feels like something inside her is being denied, something that makes her want to scream. To avoid this outcome, she decides to try and zone out. Too bad Maria has the window seat, so she can’t just lose herself in watching the road go past, but she can stare at the sheet in front of her without reading it, like she does with her missal at mass: take her imagination for a trip while the words become meaningless squiggles in her field of vision.

She’s almost back at the Barrowland watching Jimmy Eat World when Rosemary crashes the gig and hauls her back to the bus.

‘And what do you think, Caitlin?’ she asks, leaning over the seat.

She’s about to mumble ‘I don’t know’, in lieu of ‘fuck off’, but she knows from experience that a disinterested response will not be enough to deter Rosemary from further attempts to drag her into the discussion.

Okay, she thinks, you asked for it.

‘To my mind,’ she begins, ‘the term “universal indult” is the first thing that calls for analysis. How universal are we talking? If we discover intelligent life on a distant galaxy, and it turns out they’re Tims, does the Pope get to call the shots? What if they’ve got their own Pope? Do they have a Pope-off to decide it? They’re both alpha primates, after all. Would it be bare-knuckle, or would it be like Gandalf versus Saruman using those papal croziers?’

They leave her alone after that.

‘They’re teenagers, Mr Guthrie,’ Blake replies, an explanation that would be enough for anybody else.

‘But behaving this way when they’re supposed to be reflecting on the death of their fellow pupil? They’re a damp disgrace, that’s what they are. Unbelievable.’

Guthrie is unable to even use the word ‘damned’ in front of the priest, low as it might rank on the sweary scale. This would be fine if it didn’t look like it was costing him something each time. There were plenty of folk who never swore because they never felt the desire to express themselves thus, but Guthrie, the poor bastard, clearly wanted,
needed
to swear: every oath censored, every unworthy feeling suppressed, every thought unspoken seems to add to the torrent that is straining against the flood barrier.

Sorry as Kane feels for Guthrie, he feels sorrier for his old pal Con Blake, or
Father
Blake, as Guthrie still unwaveringly insists on calling him, despite his having been school chaplain for nearly three years. He must feel like somebody’s maiden aunt whenever Guthrie is around, trying to shield him from - and apologise for - all of the uncouth and inappropriate (i.e. normal) behaviour of the St Peter’s pupils.

Blake is conspicuously uncomfortable with the deputy head’s unstinting deference, given the vast experience gap in terms of the years they have each put into their respective jobs. This discomfort is greatly exacerbated by the fact that Guthrie’s deference comes into the same category as his not swearing. An anxiously self-conscious young prelate couldn’t fail to disappoint the idealised expectations of such an unreconstructed traditionalist, but that wasn’t going to stop Guthrie bowing and scraping nonetheless. As long as Blake wore that collar, he was untouchable.

Kane hears a retaliatory salvo from the boys at the back, upping the volume on the latest from some troupe of American self-harm fetishists resourcefully plundering the album collections gathering dust in their divorced parents’ lofts. Funny how the same ideas keep coming around. Used to be each generation discovered the Beatles: maybe each generation will now also discover back-combing, mascara and The Mission. Fair play to them: the genre hasn’t merely stood the test of time, it’s even got Dan Guthrie to his feet. Bus-aisle moshing, however, is unlikely to feature high on his list of intentions.

‘Radar, it’s a trap!’ he cries, by which time Radar has already bounded on to the plinth, and they are immediately beset on all sides by the biggest ambush of Stygian spawn Adnan has ever seen. There are Bull Demons, Pain Elementals, Cacodemons, Mancubii, Hell Knights, Revenants and a veritable swarm of Lost Souls. Radar starts spamming plasma in a circular arc, haemorrhaging health points as fast as he’s spending ammo. Adnan gets a few good blasts off with the shotgun, then strafes sideways in search of cover behind some boxes. It’s only as he gets up close that he spots they’re of the exploding variety. Schoolboy error. A fireball hurled by a lowly imp - oh, the ignominy - connects with the combustible crates and reduces him to chunky kibbles.

‘Gibbed,’ he reports.

Radar ’s demise isn’t long in following, his defiant but suicidal stand finally ended by a disembodied-head-butt.

‘That was mental,’ Radar laughs. ‘Ridiculous overkill. You said this was a custom map?’

They are playing a home-brew port of
Doom II
on their DS Lites, the game engine modded to run on the handheld machine and the net code updated to support wireless multiplayer. It is a museum piece of a game, about all the Nintendo’s puny processing power can handle by way of first-person shooters, but there’s a reason why everything that has come since has owed its dues to this original; the same reason he and Radar have been playing this for the past hour in preference to thirty-odd other games on their data cards: it’s still the best.

‘Custom, yeah,’ Adnan confirms. ‘Not part of any of the original games. My cousin Tariq made this map at least ten years ago, when he was a student. Folk always end up jumping the shark when it comes to creating their own maps. He claims this one
can
be successfully completed, but I don’t believe him.’

‘I suppose the clue is in the map being titled
A Slight Case of Over-Bombing
,’ Radar observes.

‘Aye. Though you wouldn’t get a student called Tariq typing the words ‘over-bombing’ into a computer these days unless he fancied forty-two days’ detention without trial.’

‘Tariq. He’s the one that went on to be a physics hingmy.’

‘Particle physicist.’

‘That’s it, aye. I take it he employs a wee bit more subtlety these days?’

‘I’d like to think so, but it does worry me, playing this, to see how much he seems to enjoy seeing things blow up.’

‘Fancy another crack at it?’

Adnan is about to ask ‘why not?’ when he senses a different kind of danger, but in this instance, he’s just in time. It’s the sudden clarity of Cameron’s music that he latches on to: the interference of Deborah Thomson’s mindless aural chewing-gum has suddenly ceased, and you generally don’t get a wish like that granted without complications. He lifts his eyes from the miniature LCD screens and looks along the aisle. Still in gaming mode, he pictures a reticle and a HUD superimposed upon his vision, the stats readout corresponding to the subject in his imaginary cross-hairs, which change colour from green to red to denote a fix on the target that is stomping through the coach.

Adnan elbows Radar by way of giving the edgy, but there’s no means of inconspicuously warning anyone else. Worst caught out is Beansy, who is kneeling up on his seat with his back to the aisle, deliberately jutting his arse into the passage and wiggling it exaggeratedly in time to the music. Guthrie is standing right over him, looking like he is sorely regretting the passing of the years and the passing of the human rights legislation that have denied him the right to boot that arse as a moral imperative. Instead he looks at the luggage rack and locates Cam’s iPod speakers, then, after a brief moment of bafflement in attempting to negotiate the interface, simply yanks out the jack.

It’s impressive how a precipitate absence of sound can be as startling as a sudden loud noise. Bodies stiffen, heads turn, reveries are abruptly truncated. The words ‘who the fuck . . .’ are reflexively spat forth and just as reflexively silenced as the answer to this question becomes apparent. Somewhere in Adnan’s peripheral vision he sees Fizzy hurriedly flicking a small white object past Marky’s head and towards the grille above the window, before folding his arms in a singularly self-defeating gesture of innocence. Fortunately for him, Guthrie is concentrating his blazing eyeballs on Beansy at this point, in a sweeping arc of boiling disapproval that also takes in Deso’s copy of
Maxim
as well as Adnan and Radar’s gaming hardware.

‘The whole bunch of you are a damp disgrace,’ Guthrie shouts. If they were in a hall or a classroom, there would be some serious reverb, but the engine, the road and the tightness of the space mute his bellows a little. Nonetheless, his harangue does silence the place, and makes those other sounds seem that bit more quiet and distant in the pause that follows. ‘Have you forgotten what you’re doing here?’ he demands. ‘Have you no respect? Can you not relegate your own trivial gratifications just for a while, and maybe turn your thoughts to something other than your shallow, shiftless selves?’

Guthrie is sweeping the beams again, all target eyes averted just before contact can be made. Everybody is doing the chastisement charade: kidding on they are chastened and ashamed in the face of this admonishment. Whatever gets him to drop it and fuck off back down the bus. Prick. Nobody’s forgotten why they’re here, which is why nobody is feeling genuinely ashamed or genuinely chastised. He’s the fud that’s lacking respect, because he’s the one using Dunnsy’s death as an excuse to read the riot act.

Guthrie takes a step further towards the rear, past Adnan’s row, and a glance back reveals that, in fact, not everybody is doing the dance, nor averting their eyes. Sitting in the centre of the back row, flanked at a respectful distance of one empty seat either side by his two loyal and ever-present wingmen, is Big Kirk. He’s staring directly at Guthrie, not so much with defiance as with a patronising scrutiny bordering on malicious amusement. Guthrie might have missed this, or might at least have had the option to pretend he missed it, were it not for the fact that Kirk has just brought a lit filter-tip cigarette to his lips and is drawing deeply on it as he draws a bead on his foe; or maybe victim would be closer to the truth.

Kirk, it has to be said, is every bit as much of a prick as Guthrie, and to his fellow pupils - being unrestrained by human rights legislation - a far more dangerous one. Still, when one prick faces off against another, there’s a certain satisfaction to be had in the anticipation that at least one of them will suffer as a result of the encounter, and if you’re really lucky, both. In this instance, though, there is little prospect of mutually assured damage. This is an impossible moment for Guthrie, and Kirk knows it; knew it as he watched him make his angry way along the aisle; knew it as Guthrie performed his histrionics and meted out his tongue-lashing; knew it and relished it as he pulled his fag-bearing left hand from out of sight behind a seat and drew it to his mouth.

Kirk may be a St Peter’s pupil, but he’s no schoolboy. He was taller than all his peers and half the staff when he was thirteen, an advantage Adnan can never recall him wearing with lightness or grace. In the intervening years, as well as adding another few inches, he has filled out with muscle and even more attitude. He’s not brawny - it’s his mate Dazza who’s got ‘the guns’ - but there’s a taut, sinewy solidity to him that every guy in class has had the misfortune to perceive at some point, whether unavoidably in PE or as a consequence of failing to observe a respectfully wide berth in a corridor. Like just about everybody else, staff and pupils alike, Adnan was hoping he’d leave at the end of last year and maybe get a job clubbing seals or something. Unfortunately he had shown up again in August, having done disappointingly well in his exams and come to two worryingly realistic understandings. The first was that if he had come this far without bothering his arse, then if he put in a bit of effort he could probably get some decent qualifications; and the second was that he could now take not only all of the pupils in a square go, but also all of the teachers too - perhaps even simultaneously.

Thus, as he draws slowly on that cigarette, it is understood by both parties - as well as all interested onlookers, of which there is now an enthralled host - that Guthrie’s authority, as adult, teacher or even deputy head, only cuts ice if Kirk is playing the game.

In this one seemingly endless draw, he sucks the fag until it burns right down to the filter. Under the circumstances, his decision to exhale the smoke downwards from his nostrils rather than forwards from his lips seems almost non-confrontational.

‘The driver could put all of us off, right here, right now,’ Guthrie says, the measured tone of his voice serving only to convey how much anger he’s trying to keep a lid on. There’s also something deliberately neutral about it, almost an appeal to reason. Whether he meant to or not, he has all but acknowledged the reality of this power balance, and only in doing so will he have any chance of securing Kirk’s cooperation.

‘Wouldn’t want that, sir,’ Kirk says. Then he nips the fag against the heel of his boot and offers the dead stub to Guthrie on the palm of his hand.

Guthrie bats it away angrily. He turns again and takes a couple of paces back down the aisle, then stops and snatches the DS Lite from Adnan’s grip, Radar’s too, before reaching up and pocketing Cam’s iPod for good measure.

Yeah, that sure won you back all the face you just lost, dude. Big up Mr Guthrie, Deputy Dan, the G-Star. You da man.

Radar remains frozen, his hands still in place from where his DS had been untimely ripped, his face a study of catatonic incredulity.

‘Can’t believe that bastard stole our kit, Adnan, man.’

Adnan’s eyes remain trained on the aisle, his imaginary HUD showing the danger level column recede into the yellow as Guthrie retreats towards the front. Father Blake moves into the cross-hair as he stands up to let Guthrie back into his seat.

WARRIOR CLASS:
SCHOOL CHAPLAIN.
STATUS:
HALF DECENT.
STRENGTH:
OPEN-MINDED.
WEAKNESS:
DOUBT.

‘I don’t know what to do without my box,’ Radar moans. ‘I might need to read a fuckin’ book or something. Are we nearly there yet?’

Adnan pans his imaginary reticle across the aisle to fix on the profiles of the two other teachers accompanying them on the retreat: first Mr Kane
(WARRIOR CLASS:
PHYSICS TEACHER.
STATUS:
HALF DECENT.
STRENGTH:
BRAINY AS FUCK.
WEAKNESS:
NON-BELIEVER AT A TIM SCHOOL); then Miss Ross
(WARRIOR CLASS:
ENGLISH TEACHER.
STATUS:
QUITE TIDY.
STRENGTH:
ALWAYS CALM.
WEAKNESS:
FATHER BLAKE).

‘It’s all a game, Radar,’ Adnan says, smiling to himself. ‘Boot it up in your head instead.’