Paul Murray - Skippy Dies: A Novel

Paul Murray is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2003 and is published by Penguin. Skippy Dies is his second novel. He lives in Dublin.

An Evening of Long Goodbyes

HAMISH HAMILTON
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS

HAMISH HAMILTON

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2010

Copyright Paul Murray, 2010

Excerpts from Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves and On Portents (from Gravess Complete Poems) printed by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd. LAmoureuse, from Capitale de la douleur by Paul luard, printed by permission: copyright Gallimard.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-14-194389-3

For Sen

Skippy and Ruprecht are having a doughnut-eating race one evening when Skippy turns purple and falls off his chair. It is a Friday in November, and Eds is only half full; if Skippy makes a noise as he topples to the floor, no one pays any attention. Nor is Ruprecht, at first, overly concerned; rather he is pleased, because it means that he, Ruprecht, has won the race, his sixteenth in a row, bringing him one step closer to the all-time record held by Guido The Gland LaManche, Seabrook College class of 93.

Apart from being a genius, which he is, Ruprecht does not have all that much going for him. A hamster-cheeked boy with a chronic weight problem, he is bad at sports and most other facets of life not involving complicated mathematical equations; that is why he savours his doughnut-eating victories so, and why, even though Skippy has been on the floor for almost a minute now, Ruprecht is still sitting there in his chair, chuckling to himself and saying, exultantly, under his breath, Yes, yes until the table jolts and his Coke goes flying, and he realizes that something is wrong.

On the chequered tiles beneath the table Skippy is writhing in silence. Whats the matter? Ruprecht says, but gets no answer. Skippys eyes are bulging and a strange, sepulchral wheezing issues from his mouth; Ruprecht loosens his tie and unbuttons his collar, but that doesnt seem to help, in fact the breathing, the writhing, the pop-eyed stare only get worse, and Ruprecht feels a prickling climb up the back of his neck. Whats wrong? he repeats, raising his voice, as if Skippy were on the other side of a busy motorway. Everyone is looking now: the long table of Seabrook fourth-years and their girlfriends, the two St Brigids girls, one fat, one thin, both still in their uniforms, the trio of shelf-stackers from the shopping mall up the road they turn and watch as Skippy gasps and dry-heaves, for all the world as if hes drowning, though how could he be drowning here, Ruprecht thinks, indoors, with the sea way over on the other side of the park? It doesnt make any sense, and its all happening too quickly, without giving him time to work out what to do

At that moment a door opens and a young Asian man in an Eds shirt and a badge on which is written, in mock-cursive, Hi Im, and then, in an almost unreadable scrawl, Zhang Xielin , emerges behind the counter, carrying a tray of change. Confronted by the crowd, which has risen to its feet to get a better view, he halts; then he spies the body on the floor, and dropping the tray, vaults over the counter, pushes Ruprecht aside and prises open Skippys mouth. He peers in, but its too dark to see anything, so hoisting him to his feet, he fastens his arms around Skippys midriff and begins to yank at his stomach.

Ruprechts brain, meanwhile, has finally sparked into life: hes scrabbling through the doughnuts on the floor, thinking that if he can find out which doughnut Skippy is choking on, it might provide some sort of a key to the situation. As he casts about, however, he makes a startling discovery. Of the six doughnuts that were in Skippys box at the start of the race, six still remain, none with so much as a bite gone. His mind churns. He hadnt been observing Skippy during the race Ruprecht when eating competitively tends to enter a sort of a zone in which the rest of the world melts away into nothingness, this in fact is the secret of his record-nearing sixteen victories but hed assumed Skippy was eating too; after all, why would you enter a doughnut-eating race and not eat any doughnuts? And, more importantly, if he hasnt eaten anything, how can he be

Wait! he exclaims, jumping up and waving his hands at Zhang. Wait! Zhang Xielin looks at him, panting, Skippy lolling over his forearms like a sack of wheat. He hasnt eaten anything, Ruprecht says. He isnt choking. A rustle of intrigue passes through the body of spectators. Zhang Xielin glowers mistrustfully, but allows Ruprecht to extricate Skippy, who is surprisingly heavy, from his arms and lie him back down on the ground.

This entire sequence of events, from Skippys initial fall to the present moment, has taken perhaps three minutes, during which time his purple colour has faded to an eerily delicate eggshell blue, and his wheezing breath receded to a whisper; his contortions too have ebbed towards stillness, and his eyes, though open, have taken on an oddly vacant air, so that even looking right at him Ruprechts not a hundred per cent sure hes even actually conscious, and it seems all of a sudden as if around his own lungs Ruprecht can feel a pair of cold hands clutching as he realizes whats about to happen, though at the same time he cant quite believe it could something like that really happen? Could it really happen here, in Eds Doughnut House? Eds, with its authentic jukebox and its fake leather and its black-and-white photographs of America; Eds, with its fluorescent lights and its tiny plastic forks and its weird sterile air that should smell of doughnuts but doesnt; Eds, where they come every day, where nothing ever happens, where nothing is