At Swim, Two Boys

by Jamie O’Neill

  —Nicely tickled, said Dick.

  And the chaplain said, That guttersnipe is out for anything he may get.

  But Nanny Tremble thought he’d look dandy in a nice clean suit. Tweed, she proposed, out of Donegal. For I’m sure it looks awful damp where he stays.

  MacMurrough glanced at the sky, whose lowering clouds were edged in sun. He smiled at the fishing men who, too, unhungrily hunted. He looked up the lane, feeling in his pocket his sovereign-purse, pondering wise old saws upon muck and brass and how amiably they got along, those commodities.

  A boy was scampering over the far rocks. MacMurrough watched him. An unkempt but well-dressed boy, ten years old, maybe younger, lost in a private world with his glass jar and collecting-net. Through his feet and his scrambling hands, MacMurrough had a sense of the stones and sand and barnacles and wet. And breathing his air, he savored the lazy freedom of holidays. The boy stopped suddenly, as though something had struck him. He stood poised on a slip of rock, attending as if he heard a whisper in the faraway or glimpsed a shadow in the deep of his eye.

  MacMurrough was seized with a certainty he would turn. The boy would turn and he would see MacMurrough and a horror of recognition would come on his face.

  He stepped back till the wall stopped him. But the boy did not turn. His head shook the disturbance clear. Then, dipping behind an outcrop, he was gone.

  Hobbling feet told Doyler’s return. “You changed your mind,” he said immediately he saw MacMurrough’s face.

  MacMurrough looked down on the soap-bright phiz. His hair was smarmed and a new shirt blossomed, collarless but clean, inside his new-brushed serge. Really he had ought to send him packing. “Not changed my mind at all,” he said. He dropped the stub of a cigarette, unmindful of having smoked it. His eyes peeked along the shore where the little boy had been. Gone. “Are we ready?”

  “No strings,” Doyler repeated in a tone that would admonish himself more than MacMurrough.

  MacMurrough’s hand patted his bum. “Not that a little feel would go astray.”

  His face washed and his mind made up, Doyler could laugh. “Mary and Joseph, but you’re the heathenest case I did ever meet.”

  A Man Of Moderate Means Finds True

  Economy In A Suit!

  A Suit Will Give A Man Ease, Spirit, Confidence!

  A Suit Will Make A Man Know His Worth!

  The boy read the notices as they passed down the aisle. He snorted and MacMurrough said, “Just think what an overcoat would achieve.”

  It took the name of Ballygihen House to get decent ministration and MacMurrough was happy to give it. The mask in charge became a face with a welcome. Man and boy he had served the MacMurroughs of Ballygihen. “And let me see, you must be . . . ?”

  “Nephew,” said MacMurrough.

  “The nephew,” he repeated. “Over from England if I do not mistake. I hope now and you’re enjoying your stay with us?”

  The tone was familiar, a custom of the Irish servantry which at times MacMurrough found charming. Today, however, it was crack service he required and he rapped on a glass-topped case. “Is there anyone in charge who can see to me? My friend here needs a suit.”

  “I was thinking the very same thought myself,” said the man.

  He could feel Doyler flustering beside him. The Irish assurance with which he’d entered the store leaked away under the sidelong stares. MacMurrough sighed. “Can’t you just find us something? We have a meeting this afternoon with my nephew’s solicitor.”

  “The young gentleman’s solicitor, no less. Well sir, you have come to the appropriate shop. A suit bought at Lee’s of Kingstown will give ease, spirit, confidence to any man or youth that wears it. Matthew! Matthew!” he called. “Where are these fellows when you need them? Always on the gallivant, what? On the gay galoot, I don’t doubt it. Matthew, will you show the young gentleman to the fitting-room and take his measurements for him. Have you given any thought to the cloth you’d be thinking of? Tweed, we have found, is a rough hard-wearing fabric and will often show to the best in difficult weathers.”

  “He’s not going ratting. We want something smart.”

  “No, I like tweed,” piped Doyler.

  “The young gentleman has a mind his own. Let you go with Matthew till he gets the measure of you, and Mr. MacMurrough and myself will decide what is proper.”

  Doyler hung behind, looking doubtful. Though he didn’t feel like it, MacMurrough winked and nodded for him to follow the boy. “Where may I sit?”

  “Take the weight off your legs, please do, Mr. MacMurrough. Is it Anthony now it is?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Not at all. Though I have served the MacMurroughs, man and gorsoon, these forty years, I wouldn’t doubt it. Over from London. Your aunt will be mighty glad to have you on her hands. Is it for the recuperation you have come? I dare say it is never the local sights that has you brought this way out from Piccadilly.”

  It seeped into MacMurrough like the grease off his tongue. Newspaper reports, of course. And one had begun to forget. Had begun to imagine nobody would care. Aunt Eva, damned seductrix. He smoked while the walker extolled his cloths, slipping his head between the rails of ready-mades and his palter inside his patter. Terrible shortage of young men this season. Due to the war, he wouldn’t doubt it. The trouble in finding a willing boy. No sooner found than he was off to enlist. One had to take them as one found them these days. Had he noticed a similar shortage in England? Of clerks, he meant.

  There was more to it than newspapers. Something stickier in his ointment. “He’ll need shoes too.”

  “Boots or shoes? Will we settle for high-lows? That way they may be serviceable to the young gentleman after his meeting with the solicitor.”

  MacMurrough waved a hand. “And a shirt. Tie, collar.”

  “One of each will be ample. One pair cuffs, one pair holders, one pair studs. Will the young gentleman be wanting a nether integuments with his outfit?”

  “What?”

  The walker bent to whisper. “A drawers, I was meaning.”

  It had gone beyond a joke. MacMurrough rose. “Do you pretend to practice upon me?” But his searing eyes caught the man’s urgency which betrayed little nastier than a wish to engage. Good grief, he’s a sod. All it is. Damn fellow’s one of us. He laughed out loud. “A drawers? No, my nephew doesn’t wear them. Most unhealthy.”

  “I quite agree,” said the walker. “A needless encumbrance on the young.”

  MacMurrough chuckled on so that he had to leave the gentlemen’s outfitting and wander about the store. He touched things, silk and satin, then went out in the street, sniffed the breezy air. They change the sky not their soul who run across the sea. But he could think of unpleasanter ports of refuge. His boy was in good hands, if not auspiciously safe ones. He took a turn round the town.

  Outside the Catholic church he read the news bills. He looked at the flowers and considered a buttonhole. A chap sat on the steps in whose eyes he saw Dick’s as they followed the Saturday skirt. Wintry face of the flower-seller.

  How delightful it was to spend money. There was a thrill in providing for another that was close to, if not actually, sexual. A thrill that very nearly, though not quite, sufficed.

  A wedding left the church and, meeting a funeral, walked three steps with the dead. Three girls like miniature nuns, their shawls pulled over their heads, passed a little tramp who fed his dog with little crumbs of bread. He tossed his butt in the gutter and a boy retrieved it whose magic blows reglowed its end. Under a barber’s pole old men stooped. The church bells rang, signifying something. With holiday ears MacMurrough heard, with holiday eyes he watched.

  He came upon an old man on a bench, and feeling the sulter of weather and fumes, he thought to share a while the shade and the old man’s air of being at ease with the world. He nodded, sitting down, and the gentleman tipped his hat. His old lips smacked and made gummy calculations; then he coughed, and coughing became Scrot
es, who presently leant forward and inquired of MacMurrough,

  —Who are we?

  —I’m sorry, old man?

  —The gentleman in the haberdashery. You mentioned he was one of us. Who are we?

  —Sinners, old man, said MacMurrough laughing. Habitual degenerates in the making.

  Doyle was emerging from the fitting-room when MacMurrough returned to the store. He had chosen his own cloth in the end, a bright brown tweed with gas-pipe trousers. The man and his boy fussed with the turn-up. Doyler wore a look of mortification.

  “It is only a temporary stitch we had opportunity to put in, but the young gentleman believes there is at home a practiced hand who will make it the more durable for him. Else I would tap my toes and insist on Lee’s quality alterations.”

  “How do I look?”

  “See for yourself.” MacMurrough led him to a body-glass and the boy turned this way and that.

  “Don’t hardly recognize meself.”

  “Do you know what you look like?” MacMurrough was about to say an apprentice chauffeur-mechanic. But he stopped himself. He might be a boy from his schooldays. He might be any mother’s son.

  “What do I look like?”

  “Gilbert the filbert.”

  “The knut with a K?”

  “The pride of Piccadilly, the blasé roué.”

  As a last touch MacMurrough pulled a cap from a stand and landed it on his head. It was a wide flat cap which childed his face and made his eyes look deeper than ever.

  “Are you sure you’re sure about this?”

  “Quite certain.”

  “For free?”

  “Free—but you might come to the Pavilion with me.”

  He grinned. And with ease, spirit, confidence, said, “Never mind the Pavvo. Go to the shagging Flower Ball in this rig-out.”

  MacMurrough signed at the desk, and in his ears the chaplain’s words of doom: Your aunt will know of this. The account will be queried, questions will be asked. All for a grin and a foolish will to win.

  They were wrapping Doyler’s tats in a parcel. Sparing his gloves, the clerk used expendable hands. Doyler broke in and said, “Hold on a crack,” and he rummaged through the mess of his jacket. He found the pin on the inside of his lapel and quickly transferred it to its new concealment.

  “Well, then, are you sorted?”

  “Right I am.”

  “Pavvo beware,” blarnied MacMurrough.

  “Listen to you. It’s you is supposed to rub off on me.”

  —If there is any god, said Dick.

  “Sticky buns?”

  “All right.”

  “And an assortment of buns,” MacMurrough told the waitress. He tilted his chair and stretched his legs on the paving. “Touch crowded this afternoon.”

  “Saturday, aye.”

  “Shame about lunch.”

  “Cakes is fine but.”

  They were seated in a portico giving on the gardens. The band had removed temporarily for their teas and the air sustained a patter as though the trees received a dry adumbration of drizzle. Waitresses in white forked aprons swept past for all the world like mobile Ys. The boy hunched with a stiff neck. Only his eyes roamed and, roaming, gleamed.

  “Not a bad spot, I suppose,” MacMurrough conceded.

  “Slap-up so it is.”

  “Told you you’d enjoy it.”

  “Sure I been before,” said Doyler. “Many’s the time I snook in the Pavvo.”

  “I see.” Rather a disappointment.

  “Hawking the newspapers, of course. Could always reckon on ten minutes to get a sheaf of them sold. If you was quick like and handy with the makes. Then they catched on to you and it was out on your ear with a boot up the b-t-m. They had a down on newsboys, thinking us thiefs. But the takings was good while it lasted. Makes,” he added, having considered his eloquence, “is ha’pennies you do give for change.”

  The tea arrived with the sticky buns. Nanny Tremble fretted about manners and the chaplain complained of sulphurous breaths. But toggery maketh gentle man: almond-eyed Doyler viewed the stand; morsure at a time, he chewed like a choirboy.

  He leant forward over the table carnations. “You see the one what brung the tray?”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s after dropping her scent in the tea-pot.”

  MacMurrough conspired in his smile and said, “You might have a soda, if you preferred.”

  “No, tea is grand.”

  Behaving as though I really did have a nephew.

  The boy supped, swallowed, said, “Tea is quite satisfactory, I thank you.”

  Which jollied the occasion no end. They chatted a time, then the boy looked hole-and-corner about him. Again he leant closer. “Do you mind me asking?”

  “Ask away.”

  “Is there many about that likes what you do?”

  A long draw on his Abdulla. He stubbed it out. “I don’t know, actually. Common enough for there to be laws against it.”

  “Wouldn’t mind the law.”

  Antinomian little buggeree.

  “Only the young fellow in Lee’s what measured me up, he said to me was you my gent. Said he had a gent and all. Said the walker there does look after him nicely. Then do you know what he did?”

  Yes, thought MacMurrough, though his brows rose in candid query.

  “Damn fellow had a squeeze at me flowers and frolics.” He sat back in consternation. “What would he want doing a thing like that?”

  He was genuinely mystified. MacMurrough said, “Perhaps he liked you.”

  “Liked me? Sure he wasn’t rich.”

  This leap of logic required another cigarette. MacMurrough lit one slowly, then flicked the match. “Does one need to be rich to enjoy the company of a handsome young man?”

  “Am I handsome?”

  MacMurrough pulled deeply and savored the smoke, smiling his eyes on the boy’s face. “Yes.”

  “And you’re rich. Rich as crazes, you are.”

  “My family might be. Myself, I haven’t a bean.”

  “How bad you are. Wasting away, I can tell.”

  Little brat is teasing me now. “Money is irrelevant to desire. Only it helps to overcome another’s shyness. That’s all.”

  “No, it’s not all.”

  “Explain.”

  “You think any fellow would want another fellow?”

  Scrotes. Where was bloody Scrotes when you needed him? “I don’t see why not. I don’t say every fellow. But look at the clerk in Lee’s.”

  “That’s me point sure. If it wasn’t for the walker as led him into it, he wouldn’t think to do that. If it wasn’t for meeting you I wouldn’t be . . .”

  “Wouldn’t be what?”

  “I wouldn’t be sitting here, that’s all.”

  Comfort for the troops. He wants his friend. He actually wants his friend. Briefly MacMurrough glimpsed balmy waters where ephebes naked bathed. And on his bench, in pallium draped, their tutor kindly watches. Pulling on an Abdulla.

  “He means a lot to you.”

  “Who does?”

  “Your friend.”

  The eyes flared and, sneering, he said, “Don’t think I don’t cop you getting your eyeful of us swimming.”

  Coolly MacMurrough replied, “Not watching so much as waiting my turn. Wouldn’t seem right, somehow, disturbing your lessons.”

  The sneer curled the corner of his mouth while he considered this. The luster dulled in his eyes; his head bent. In its stead reared Mammon’s nummular nob.

  “They do say money is the root of all evil.”

  “I thought that was supposed to be the love of money.”

  “There’s neat for you. ’Tis them without that loves it best. That puts Doyler in his place. Doyler and all his kind.”

  Nanny Tremble thought another sticky bun and a refreshment of the cups was in order and MacMurrough did the honors. “Look here, do we have to talk about money?”

  “Talk what you like.
It’s you what’s paying.”

  “I thought we’d got past all this.”

  “Oh well, damn the thing anyway.” He seized a bun and took a munch of it, dominoes flashing between spittled dough. “You can have the suit back if you wants it.”

  Was this good humor returning? MacMurrough searched till he found a little doyle that with coaxing might grow to a doyling full grin. “Would you let me watch you take it off?”

  “Go away, you—I don’t what you are. A bad lot for sure.”

  Friends again and honors easy. Time for a change of subject. “That badge you’re so careful about. I’ve noticed before. Some religious attachment?”

  Quick dart of his eyes. “Religion, me arse. I’m a socialist.”

  “An agitator, no less. In the Pavilion Gardens.”

  He liked that. “Never know where we’d be.” He turned the lapel and screwed his eyes to view it. “Badge of the Citizen Army. Nor King nor Kaiser we serve, but Ireland. Meaning the working man.”

  “Why do you hide it?”

  “Don’t hide it.”

  Very well. “Why do you wear it where no one can see?”

  He let go the lapel and fussily patted it down. “They have them banned at work. Door to the street if they catched you wearing your badge. I suppose and you could say I have it hidden. Hard to know what’s for the best. You know why I got this job?”

  “Good worker? Hard worker? Honest?”

  “The owner was after letting the men go for to encourage them to list. Great plaudits he got for that day’s work. Then he employs us boys at half the rate. He has the union banned. What can you do? Half the rate means half a loaf but nix means nothing on the table. They don’t like you to have ideals. Ideals is for likes of you. For your aunt and the father.”

  “Yet you still have ideals.”

  “Aye do I. I have the words of them. I have a badge I don’t dare to show.”

  It was a tale of woe which was just verging on the tedious. “Can be hard to believe in something when the world’s against it.”

  “Aye aye, and what do you believe in, Mr. MacMurrough?”