At Swim, Two Boys

by Jamie O’Neill

  Doyler set his shovel squarely down. It made a rasping noise on the tin base of the privy. “Mr. Mack, I’d never hold it against a man that he tried to better himself.”

  That’s right, thought Mr. Mack. Comes back to me now. Same time Jim won his exhibition, they had one gave out to young Doyler too. Sure what would that man care for a scholarship? Hunted his son down the country instead. Always grafting. Half-timer at school. Late-to-come and soon-to-go. Wonder he learnt his readamadaisy.

  Poor lad to fetch up down the Banks. That’s where you go when you can’t keep up the rent. Demon drink, curse of Ireland.

  He watched the boy shoveling muck with his steady muscular rhythm. His dowdy clothes were all in fits, the seat of his pants so often patched it was a puzzle to tell the material. You’d be all day putting that shirt on, avoiding the tears and repairs in the sleeves. Wretched muffler pulled up round his nose. Mr. Mack was overcome with pity, at a boy’s life stunted by the failings of a father. He waited till he was leaving with the last bucket of filth and thrust a bag of broken biscuits into the crook of his free elbow.

  “Take these now and don’t say a word.”

  “That’s kind of you, Mr. Mack.”

  “Not a word now. And eat them all yourself.”

  “I couldn’t do that without sharing them.”

  “No, of course you couldn’t. That wouldn’t be Christian at all. But mind you keep your puff up. That’s a man’s job you’re at.”

  The gaffer appeared at the shop door. “Hey you, you little Larkinite. Put some beef into it. You’re close to the door as it is.”

  Larkinite, Mr. Mack pondered. Now why in the world would he call young Doyler a Larkinite? Wasn’t that an agitator of the blackest variety? When he came to the kitchen Aunt Sawney was on her knees with soap and scrubbing-brush. “Would you like me to help with that?” he asked.

  “Get away out of my way.”

  “I’ll tend shop so. There’ll be a rush on soap and soda after the dungmen.”

  “There will, but ’twill all be on tick with your lordship at the till.”

  Under the picture of King George the pile of mess had risen. Odd how he managed to slop his swill at that place every time. Could almost be on purpose. Wait now, hold on to yourself. Was that young gallows taking a rise out of me? Wasn’t there something last year about agitators employing the Red Hand? Business about sharing, was that Christian sharing or red-flag Larkinite? I hope now my Jim won’t be falling into bad company at that band.

  There was a moral to all this but Mr. Mack could not immediately catch wind of it. That evening, while he made out the orders in the shop, he said, “I met an old accomplice of yours today.”

  His son looked down from the steps where he was dusting a stack of jars.

  “Remember that Doyle one, was at the national school with you? He’s back now and he’s the dungman’s lad.”

  “Doyler?” said Jim.

  “What’s this the smile’s in aid of?”

  “Only I saw him myself and I thought I recognized him.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Down by the sea-wall.”

  “And what were you doing by the sea-wall?”

  “Delivering bills.”

  “To the sea?”

  Smile gone and capital T for Tragic in its place. “Was catching my breath is all.”

  In a shake Mr. Mack discovered the moral of the day. “Now that lad’s father is a shaper and a hook, and look where his son has fetched up. If now I was to fritter my time catching my breath by the sea, where would that leave you? Not to mention your brother. Not to mention Aunt Sawney. On the ash-pit with young Doyler is where. You want to catch on to yourself. Have you done with them jars yet?”

  “Yes, Da.”

  “Did you deliver them bills like I told you?”

  “The most of them, Da.”

  Mr. Mack squeezed his mustache. “Papa,” he said.

  When Aunt Sawney called them in for their tea, he stopped by the door, surprised out of himself by the sight. A groaningboard of a feast. Cured ham, the tongue of a sheep, buttered shop-bought bread. And there was more. She was carrying in a jelly now that wobbled alarmingly before her face. “Glory be,” he said, “that’s a grand spread you’re after fixing, Aunt Sawney. I had no notion you was going to such trouble. Did we, Jim?”

  “’Tis no trouble to me,” said she, “not to be the clutching hand.”

  “Well no, I didn’t intend—”

  “There’s some I know afeared to sneeze, they might give something away.”

  “Well yes—”

  “There’s others too mean to join their hands, leave out to pray for a soul.”

  “That’s surely true—”

  “But there’s one I know has two poor boys. The one he hunts away to die, th’other he keeps to slave on his birthday.”

  This final turn was accompanied by a thump on the table as she banged his plate in front of him. He looked down and in the heel of the hunt he knew what was her game. The same doling of cabbage and bacon that had outfaced him at dinner. The spread was for the boy alone.

  “Bless Thee, Father . . .” But his heart wasn’t in it and he quickly signed the cross. He picked up his knife and fork. “Happy birthday, Jim.”

  He could feel her grinning gummily at him. Incorrect to say she was a malicious old witch. The wits aren’t your own at her vintage. Besides, she was only over the bronchitis. And the house was her own to do with as she pleased, the house and the shop and God knows, don’t we know it. But this new rigmarole about Gordie, hunting him away. As though ’twas I invaded Belgium.

  He heard her now, a horse-whisper to his son. “I have a treat to go with the splash, little man.” And from out the press she produced a parcel.

  Mr. Mack felt the blow like the homer she intended. Before the boy had the paper unwrapped he could tell it held the finest long black broadcloth trousers a young man could want or wish for.

  “Look, Da.”

  “Why, I must say, that’s handsome in the extreme, Aunt Sawney.”

  “Handsome be damned,” she answered, the gullets of her cheeks agitating. “Is it handsome to keep the little man in breeks all his days? He’s been wanting of them a twelvemonth and more but ye, ye’re too thick to know and too grasping to get them him.”

  Mr. Mack grinned delicately. “Now now, Aunt Sawney.”

  “Can I try them on, Da?”

  “Say thank you first.”

  She lifted her chin and he lipped her skin then, turning his back, slipped out of his breeches and into the longed-for legs.

  Aunt Sawney drew her blanket closer round her shoulders; said, “I’ll mind shop now while ye and your lordship has your feed. And don’t mind the rule on your birthday, little man. Speak your fill, if there’s any worth speaking to.” Out she went and soon enough the Joyful Mysteries came moaning through the door.

  “Da, what’s wrong?”

  “No no, nothing wrong.”

  “Papa, you can have some of mine to eat.”

  “No no, ’tis your birthday, I wouldn’t dream. Well, maybe one slice of tongue, no more. Go on then. I’ve a cake if you’ve space for it after.” In truth he was verging on tears. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed an eye then, disguising the gesture, blew roughly on his nose. “How are the trousers on you?”

  “They’re fine.”

  “That’s the hookum. Bit wide in the waist. I’ll put a tuck in them for you after. Could maybe turn them up a patch too.” Why was he so sad? His son was his son no matter his breeks. But he looked so grown-up in his trousers. Had he tried to keep him a boy and why had he tried it? I wasn’t being thick, nor mean, he wanted to say. It’s not the time for a boy to be a man. Wait till the war was over.

  “That’s grand to have something best for Sundays, isn’t it, Jim?”

  “For Sundays, Da?”

  “Best take them off now. Don’t want them creased.”

  Later on, while J
im did his homework, Mr. Mack returned to his Irish Times. He was still trying to put flesh on the bare bones of the London communiqués. Hard to work out where the Dubs was fighting. Only chance was to glean it from the death notices. Foolish secrecy that wouldn’t give out the names of regiments. Headlines full of British gallantry, but did British include Irish? Why wouldn’t they be done with it and say Irish gallantry? Do the world of good for recruiting. Gallantry of Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Old Tough’s Heroism. World of good ’twould do.

  All over the world they were fighting, from the steppes of Russia to the African plains. Well, not America, granted not America. But in the seas around, they were fighting everywhere. From Canada they came to win glory in France, from Australia and New Zealand to knock out the Turk. If you looked at the map you saw the corners folding over, returning the blood of the young dominions to stand in defense of their motherland. It made you feel grand to be a part of it, this great empire at war, its fighting men sent forth not for gain but for honor, and Dublin its second city.

  But one son was enough.

  When he looked up, he saw that Jim had arranged the settle-bed and was already lying in it. He heaved up from Aunt Sawney’s chair, disremembering having got into it, rubbed his eyes. The only sound was Aunt Sawney above coughing and the low hiss of the gas. “Have you said your prayers?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “That’s not your good shirt, is it?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “Goodnight so.” He lit a small candle from the Sacred Heart vigil, signing the cross as he did so, then opened the door to the boxstairs. He was preparing to turn off the gas, when Jim said,

  “Papa?”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m worried about Gordie.”

  “What are you worried for?”

  “If they send him to France. They’re using poison in France.”

  Mr. Mack sat down on the edge of the bed. The candle was wasting, but that didn’t signify. “He’s in the army, Jim. And the British Army is the finest-trained and best-rigged army the world over. Look at me sure. Nobody knows what happened my mother and father, may the earth lie gently on them. But the army took me in, fed me, clothed me, made the man I am today. It’s a great body of men he’s joining. They wouldn’t send Gordie in with a damp cloth on his face. There’ll be respirators and all sorts, then nothing can harm him. Take my word. He’s safer in the army than crossing a road in front of a motor. All right, honor bright?”

  “All right, Da.”

  In the bluey light he smiled down at his son. He found himself touching his forehead, momentarily checking for temperature, then sifting his fingers through the fall of his hair. How well he looked, how rude in health. Both his sons looked well, for they lacked the pallor of Dublin. They were born down the Cape and their first few years had been spent in the warm. A memory of that sun glowed in their faces, in the high color and the brownish skin. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all, was the Spanish blood rumored on their mother’s side.

  Yes, both boys had their mother’s face, thanks be to God for that. But Jim positively sang of her. They lose it, you see, age coarsens it from them. But say what they will, I’ve reared two goodly boys.

  On his padded way up the stairs, he said under his breath, You’d be so proud, if you saw them, you’d be so pleased. God rest you in peace everlasting. God rest you in peace, my dear.

  In the bedroom, above the bockedy prie-dieu, hung a photograph-portrait of his wife. I’m so so sorry, he told her.

  Way up Glasthule Road, through Kingstown and its breezy streets, a smack of industry hits the sleeping town. Outside a black-brick bakery, in the fallen light from a window, a young lad crouches. He looks to be reading, but in fact he’s nodded off. The book slips from his hands and slides to the road.

  The bakery hand comes out and shakes him. “Here y’are, son,” he says and drops the broken bread in his lap. “God save us, I hope ’twas worth the wait. What’s that you’re after reading?”

  He takes up the cheap cardboard cover. “Socialism Made Easy, what? By Mr. James Connolly. You don’t want the polis catch you reading likes of that. No, nor the priests.”

  The lad acknowledges him but he’s too tired to grin or say anything. He stuffs the bits of bread in his pockets and homeward treads.

  Through George’s Street with its shuttered shops, named for the king who named Kingstown, past the railed-in People’s Park and down the slope to Glasthule Road. The road must squeeze between chapel and college and he glances up at the gaunt red brick of Presentation where no light shows. No light shows from the church and on he treads without signing the cross. At the lane that leads to the Banks, he halts and sniffs the air. Weedy fishy middeny air that follows where he goes.

  The words come to him of the old famine song and softly he sings while he crosses the road and past the public house to Ducie’s lamplit window.

  O we’re down into the dust, over here, over here,

  We’re down into the dust, over here.

  O we’re down into the dust, for the Lord in whom we trust

  Has surrendered us for lost, over here, over here.

  “Flute, is it?”

  Cigarette smoke and a glove on his shoulder.

  “Band flute, aye.”

  “Boxwood, I should say. German. What they used to call a student flute.”

  Still Doyler doesn’t turn, but gazes dead in the glass. The chatty manner has an edge to it which he feels in the press of the hand on his shoulder.

  “How much do they ask for it?”

  “Five bob, actually.”

  “Tidy sum. For a flute.”

  “Worth more.”

  “I dare say.”

  The grip on his shoulder guides gently him round. The face lights up in the cigarette glow. Guard’s mustache under a soft felt hat. The amicable nob from the Forty Foot. Had wanted to learn him a dive. Brim drawn down.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Doyle.”

  “MacMurrough.”

  Costly smell of the tailor-made smoke.

  “Walk with me a while.”

  Doyler shrugs, careful of dislodging the hand. “If you say so.”

  “So,” says MacMurrough.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brother Polycarp rapped his wand on the easel and the fluting straggled to indefinite desistance. “Will the man at the back with the grace notes kindly stand forward?”

  Feet shuffled, some faces turned, eventually the culprit rose.

  “The new man, is it? Tell me, Doyle, where did you learn to play flute at all?”

  “Nowhere, sir. Brother, I mean. I mean I learnt meself.”

  Brother Polycarp inclined his head while a suspense playfully mounted. “In this band, Mr. Doyle, we are accustomed to a respectable music. A music in the tradition of Kuhlau and Briccialdi and like gentlemen of the transverse mode. We do not slip and slide the like of Phil the Fluter at his ball. Sit you in front in future, boy, and play by the tongue not your maulers.”

  In a coarse whisper someone let out, “Plays be the arse be the smell off him.”

  Brother Polycarp chose to disattend the cod. “Go on now, home with ye. No, stand still till we say a prayer first. Would think the public house was closing on us. Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.”

  He charged through the Our Father versicle, the boys doing a trailing response. Three times in all, then three Hail Marys and an invocation to St. Cecilia. In the end, he called over the clatter of benches, “Now punctual next week. Don’t leave me down. The new curate is due this fortnight and we needs must cut a dash for his reverence.”

  At the front row, Jim was wedging his flute in its sock, a sewnup sugar-sack on which his father had stencilled Master James Mack, Esqr. There was more chaffing behind which he strained to apprehend. A boy randled metallically, “I think I think I smell a stink, I think I think I do.”

  Fahy, the ugliest of his schoolfellows, added, “Something fierce
in here whatever it is.”

  Surreptitiously Jim wiped the wet patch on his breeches where his neighbor’s flute had dripped.

  “Worse than a cheeser.”

  “No,” said Fahy. “Less than a cheeser, it’s the dungman’s monkey.”

  A hand from behind landed on Jim’s shoulder. It stiffened like a vaulter’s pole. He had time to glimpse a cloudy, mismatched suit sail by, then a kick in its leg sent Fahy’s case scattering.

  “Gabh mo leithscéal,” said Doyler when he landed. “That’s excuse me in our native tongue.” He thrust the bits of his flute in his jacket, cocked an eye at Jim, then strode out the passage, lurching once, twice, as he went.

  “Class of gouger they’re letting in now.”

  “A stinker and a cripple.”

  And Fahy said flatly, “That one’s not long for this band. No, nor long for this world.”

  Jim stared toward the door, moving his lips to the Gaelic phrase. He believed Doyler had uttered something more while he clambered past. It had sounded again like What cheer! The mix of quaint and Gaelic struck him as fantastical in the school commons.

  “Mr. Mack?”

  “Yes, Brother?”

  “Close your mouth, boy. You’re not in training for a fly-paper. Kindly do the honors and collect me the music. I’ll be waiting within.”

  A head leant into Jim’s ear and uttered the one word, “Suck.”

  “I heard a coarse word and mention of smell this evening,” Brother Polycarp said when they were alone in his monastery room. “Was it you, Mr. Mack?”

  “No, Brother.”

  One eyebrow drolly lifted. “Who was it so?”

  “I didn’t hear, Brother.”

  “A vilipendence about the new boy, no doubt.”

  Jim’s face perked at the word.

  “The new curate was very insistent he be let in. Why would you say that was?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Brother.”

  “There’s moves afoot. The new curate speaks Erse. Did you know that? An Erse-speaking priest. Wouldn’t you think they’d get the Latin right first. The inflexion one sometimes hears is deplorable. All chees and chaws like an ice-cream vendor out of Napoli.”