‘You just lost it,’ Pat Kilroy said. He exhaled through his nose. ‘We’ve never had trouble like this from you before, Richard.’

Richard’s attack on the CBC player had been recorded on somebody’s camera-phone, and he had watched the footage. It seemed to him that someone else had taken control of his body during those few violent seconds. But he also remembered that he had taken pleasure in this sensation. He had wanted to hurt his own body, too. He had wanted to keep going until he himself was bleeding and the other boy was dead.

There was something else he had enjoyed. He had enjoyed nursing a grudge about his injured jaw. He had enjoyed sitting tensely in the locker room, ignoring his friends, feeling an iron spring of righteous anger tighten itself in his chest.

He knew the iron spring had always been there.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said to Pat Kilroy.

‘I know you are, Richard, I know you are.’

‘But he did tackle me first.’ Richard thought he sounded grownup, reasonable.

‘It was a dirty tackle, I know that.’

‘He tackled me first and he nearly broke my jaw.’

Pat Kilroy went to the window of his office and looked out at the single copper beech tree on the college lawn.

‘I’m talking about ethos, here, Richard,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about being a man. I’m talking about not stooping to the level of our baser cousins. We rise above, Richard. That’s what makes us worthwhile human beings.’

This speech meant a lot to Richard Culhane. He wanted above all to be a worthwhile human being.

Later that week Peter Culhane visited Pat Kilroy.

‘There was a provocation,’ Pat Kilroy said. ‘I can understand why Richard responded the way he did. But the fact is, he shouldn’t have done it. He should have been able to control himself. I mean, we’re lucky that boy wasn’t more seriously injured.’

Peter held his head at a pious angle. ‘It’s true, Pat. But, you know, Richard’s a proud young man. He doesn’t like taking a knock. He feels he has to stand up for himself.’

‘Well he does,’ Pat Kilroy said. ‘He does have to stand up for himself. But he has to choose his battles.’

‘I’ll have a word with him,’ Peter said.

‘You do that,’ said Pat Kilroy.

Then the two men went into the hallway to look at a photograph of the Senior Cup team that Peter Culhane had played with, twenty-three years ago to the season.

I should explain that boys get knocked or kicked unconscious during schools rugby matches all the time. It isn’t common, exactly, but it happens. It happens most frequently during matches in which Brookfield College are playing.

Brookfield is the only schools team whose supporters habitually boo the opposition when they run out on to the pitch. This is regarded by teams from other schools as ‘arrogant’ and ‘not fair play’.

Richard’s attack on the CBC boy contributed to his status as a legend among schools players. It also contributed to the mystique he conjured in the eyes of women. For a while he posted the camera-phone footage of the fight on his Bebo page. He took it down eventually because he was afraid it made him look like a cunt.