At Swim, Two Boys

by Jamie O’Neill

  “Do be careful, Anthony. If you only knew the bother they have caused getting them.”

  “What are they, Aunt Eva? As though one couldn’t guess.”

  The man held the door while he returned for the last box. He was leaning to lift when he heard the distinct catch of a bolt pulled back. He quickly glanced. Poking from some crates, point blank, a rifle, aimed at him.

  It was a situation in which only the rifle was familiar. A Mauser, MacMurrough noted, and an ancient one at that. He had frozen in mid-hump. He could make out hands, fingers, arms in the shadows, but no face. He saw the bolt lifted and pushed home. Snatch. The finger cocked. MacMurrough was thinking how extraordinary to be lured to this out-of-the-way place when she might have had him shot anywhere. The finger pressed. His eyes were closing. The finger pressed, till—crack. Fired dry. Nothing. The face lifted from the sights. White teeth, a chip off the middle, Doyler grinning from the dark.

  MacMurrough threw the box in the back of the car. “Drive,” he told his aunt.

  “I had every intention.”

  “Now. Get us out of here.”

  They were out of the docks area and its wretched slums, and people in the streets had ceased pointing at the lovely motor. MacMurrough’s fright communicated in a resentment toward his aunt. “Really, Aunt Eva, you cannot continue in this way. I will not tolerate any more these manipulations. If you wish me to run guns with you, have the decency to ask. You must surely know by now I am entirely under your thumb.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “No, you really do not think. When will you learn that rifles are dangerous toys? Most especially in the hands of children.”

  “I really don’t think,” Eveline repeated, “those constables ahead are directing traffic.”

  MacMurrough looked. They had crossed the river and were coming towards Trinity. The flow of traffic had slowed almost to a standstill. Four policemen advanced down the line. They carried carbines. “No,” he agreed. “They are checking the vehicles.”

  “We have been betrayed.”

  “How can you know that?” But already he was thinking: Doyler. Stupid vindictive renter. I’ll wring his neck for him.

  “Perhaps now you will understand the need for secrecy.” She pulled out her traveling-glass and actually checked her face powder.

  “Turn the car,” said MacMurrough.

  “There are more behind. And if I judge by their absurd hats, two plain-clothes government men.”

  MacMurrough turned. They were there. The traffic was stopped both directions. Hopefully he threw a rug over the boxes. They looked like three boxes of rifles with a rug on top. The traffic inched them to discovery.

  “You must take this.”

  “I don’t want it. What is it?” It was her Webley of course. “Aunt Eva, I can’t start shooting people.”

  “Whatever happens, they must not get the rifles. I have bartered half my jewels and all of my influence for these rifles. I accepted nothing shoddy or made-in-Birmingham. These are German rifles.” Bloody vintage ones at that, MacMurrough might have told her. “They must go to Ferns. They are nine, which minus the one the Citizen Army will have filched makes eight. We cannot proceed without them.”

  “We cannot proceed at all.”

  She put her glass away. “Hold tight,” she said. “If I am hit, you may need to take the wheel.”

  “Be careful! What are you doing?”

  “The back of my hand to caution.”

  The engine raced, she loosed the clutch, the car slammed into the motor in front. Reverse now, and she smashed into the lorry behind. MacMurrough put a hand to his face, smirking behind it, more in shame than in fear. Slam into the front again, smash behind, till she made a clearance. The police were running. The Webley slipped to the floor. He bent to retrieve it and heard a singing noise pass where his head had been. Now they were wildly into the middle road where they slithered over the tram-lines. The policemen in front were kneeling to fire. “Shoot!” she called. “Before they shoot us, damn you!” He fired aimlessly, but it scattered the men. They veered crazily between two trams. She flung the car into a dizzy turn while sliding along the seat, virtually into MacMurrough’s lap. They scraped through the opposing traffic. Stalls were overturned, he caught the briefest whiff of oranges. Shots fired after them. They were down some side street, up another, safe.

  “Where are we?”

  “Temple Bar.”

  “Aunt Eva, you are indisputably a wonder.”

  “We must thank goodness for the Wide Street Commissioners. Except my poor Prince Henry—”

  Some bowler-hatted ass stepped into the road. He looked for all the world to be studying the tops of buildings.

  “My God,” she said. She swerved, but to avoid him she must mount the pavement. She rounded the corner and, watching it coming, smashed into the corner lamppost.

  She shook herself. But she could not shake herself free. She heard the tramp of boots behind. Her nephew stupidly talking to her.

  “Go,” she said. “I can’t without you.”

  “I cannot shift my legs.”

  “I must fetch an ambulance.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance. I need my nephew to go. Go to Ferns. Everything is prepared for you.” In her agitation she was thumping the horn. “Will you go! Please, for my sake.”

  He was walking backwards from the car. The pain was in her back. She was passing out but she could not afford to fall yet. Go, you fool. The police were nearly upon her. She pushed on the horn. Go, Anthony, go. He turned on his heels, running, and her eyes in redness closed.

  Mr. Mack arrived seconds before the constabulary men. “Officers, officers, I saw everything. I was only looking for the street name—”

  “Did you see a man get out?”

  “I did, officer. He went off towards Trinity. I can explain all. I was only looking for the street name. I never heard a whisper till—Why, I do believe it’s Madame MacMurrough it is.”

  “You know this woman?”

  Mr. Mack watched the posse of officers charging entirely the opposite direction for Trinity. “Where are they going?” he asked.

  “You said Trinity. Now do you know this lady?”

  Mr. Mack’s eyes skewed east and west. “Which way, your honor, would you say Trinity was?”

  It took the better part of three hours, but Mr. Mack at last found his way, courtesy of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, to Dublin Castle. While he was being led through the courtyard to the DMP office, there to explain why he had aided a fugitive in escaping the law, from a window above two splendid officers of the crown, in scarlet undress and blue undress, contemplated the scene.

  “Hmm,” said the lieutenant in blue.

  “Well, it doesn’t look as if our man will show,” said the captain. He sat down, angling his chair on its two back legs

  “Hmm,” said the lieutenant again. “What is this Georgius Rex anyway?”

  “Load of codgers. Make tea mostly for the troops.”

  “What’s a Sinn Feiner want joining that for?”

  “Rifle,” said the captain. “We let them march with Martinis once a month.”

  “Oh,” said the lieutenant blandly. “Dublins, wasn’t he?”

  “Quartermaster-Sergeant, it says. Turned tail in the Boer War.”

  “What sort of a rotter leaves his regiment in a wartime?”

  “Yes, I thought we’d have some fun with that.”

  “I was chatting with one of these Dublins. Do you know, he actually considered there was a history attached to the Irish regiments.”

  “Mercenaries, weren’t they, out in India. John Company.”

  “Chap actually believed they had some claim to honor.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I thought it damnable strange. I say, here’s a poser. Which is better for officer training: polo or hunting?”

  “That is a poser. Polo or hunting. Very good indeed. I’ll have to think that one out.”<
br />
  The lieutenant looked at his finger nails. “It is a bore.”

  The captain, whose scarlet was just that shade too noisy for the lieutenant’s liking, clapped the four legs of his chair on the floor. “You can come to enjoy it after a while. Keeping a tab on the buggers.”

  “They’re all pro-German. We should shoot the leaders, pack the rest off to France. In my opinion, there is too much kid-gloving in this country.”

  “Oh, it won’t come to shooting people. And if it does, we can leave that safely to the Irish. You surely know the one thing they hate more than us English.”

  “Well, it ain’t porter and it ain’t German gold.”

  “It’s an Irishman with the pluck to stand up to us.”

  The captain laughed and the lieutenant eyed him with distaste. He did not rate the man’s tailor at all.

  Doyler woke with a start. His rifle had slipped from his hands. He looked about him. For a moment he couldn’t work out where he was. The stars gleamed above. Liberty Hall of course, on the roof, on guard detail. He picked up his rifle. He pulled the bolt back and fingered the chamber. But of course there was no cartridge inside. He blessed himself, despising the urge. It was the night of Good Friday.

  The week had run with rumor. The British were to raid all centers. The British were to seize all arms. Any name on the nationalist side was to be taken and imprisoned. The Archbishop himself was to be imprisoned. The guard at Liberty Hall was doubled, then trebled, round the clock. It was known the Volunteers had maneuvers planned for Easter Sunday. Their leaders were every day and night at the Hall, the lights in Connolly’s office burnt late. It was joked they were promoting each other to generals and admirals. Then Doyler received his orders. Special mobilization—all ranks with equipment and two days’ rations—Liberty Hall, Sunday at three. So it was settled. Easter Sunday it was. He went to his officers and asked for extra duties. They gave him guard detail at the Hall, thankful enough for his offer. He was not sure could he trust himself without keeping busy.

  He smelt a cigarette smoke from over the roof. If he listened, he could hear the other lads chatting. Those things you talked about on guard detail, Mr. Mack sort of things. What’s this is the Latin for candle. Name the states of America. They hadn’t ought to be chatting at all. He sat down with his rifle on his lap.

  Muster at three at Liberty Hall. There was an unreal quality to the words. Muster, liberty. Two days’ rations—were they mad? Where was he supposed to find two days’ rations? Easter Sunday—on this day she rose again, Ireland. It was too far-stretched. Far too stretched to be frightened about it.

  But there it was: he was frightened. And it had come as such a revelation, he had wanted to stop people he knew in the street. You’ll never guess—I’m not brave at all. Now he hugged his rifle while away behind a Protestant bell struck midnight. Easter Saturday already. The cold metal of his gun warmed where he touched. When he touched again it had chilled.

  He remembered how Connolly had addressed the army. Any man with doubts should leave now, he told them. Let another stand in his place. There would be no recriminations. Only let him go now. Not a man had moved.

  But in the pause, Doyler had imagined himself to leave. He dropped his rifle, he tossed his hat. Out the door and his tunic shrugged from him, down the steps and he shook from his boots and his trousers. Then he ran, naked he ran, where to? The river, he leapt from the quay to the river. The tide carried him, the darkly-going green, where did it carry him? To the blue, to the sea, swimming to the sea.

  He slept late the Saturday morning. He had no duties, but he dressed in his uniform and made a parcel of his working clothes. He must go see his mother. He set off for King Street. The city was half alive again after the grim and shuttered Friday. Then he thought he’d please her by getting confession first. Any number of chapels beckoned, but he couldn’t make up his mind. In the end he met his mother in the street. She took him home through the markets where the knowledge and sight and stink of death assaulted him. She gave him red tea and he gave her what he had, which was his working clothes and one and fourpence.

  “You’ll be going to Glasthule,” she said. He didn’t answer and she looked bothered at him. “And you with swimming for Easter?”

  “I have me duties tomorrow.”

  “Don’t we all have duties?”

  “I’m not talking about making the tea, Ma. This is my country.”

  “What country is that without a friend in it? When you go to Glasthule say to Mr. Mack he might come in soon.”

  “Himself?”

  She nodded. “Go in now,” she said, “and make your peace with your father.”

  “What father is that?”

  “He gave you a name, son, when there was no call on him. He gave you a name and a home when you had none before. For no better than I married him, speak your peace.”

  He threw the dregs of his cup in the back of the fire. “Wasn’t I intending to anyway?” he said. But he didn’t move, and he said, “Ma, do you remember, Ma, when I stole the pig’s cheek?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Out of the butcher’s barrel. Do you not remember that? I had it hid under me coat running home. The brine was dripping and it took the dye out of the coat where I hid it. You must remember that, Ma?”

  “I don’t, son.”

  “You took it off me then and you cooked it. You had me sit to table with this pig’s cheek in front of me. And I kept telling you, Ma, I got it for all of us, yourself and the girls and himself even. You wouldn’t hear of it. Sat me down with the knife and a fork to eat it by meself. Himself came home and you hid it away. He was angry smelling meat and no dinner. He left in a black rage and you brung it out again, the pig’s cheek. I wasn’t let go till I had it ate, the plate of it. I remember the girls was looking at me. But you said I was hungry, I must eat it all.”

  “You was often hungry, son.”

  “Then you took me down the butcher’s after, and I waited while you paid for it. Paid for it. I watched the coppers going in the butcher’s hand. I remember how thirsty I was. And I knew then you’d have no supper that night. The girls would have no supper. I was so thirsty after the brine and me mouth all greasy from me eating. And them coppers going one upon the other into the butcher’s hand. Don’t you remember that, Ma?”

  “I remember you did always come home with the pennies you earned. I don’t remember any pig’s cheek.”

  “Oh, Ma, I wanted to do some good always. I never did it the right way, sure I didn’t?”

  “You were a great good to me, son. You are yet.”

  “But I wanted to be needed, Ma. You would never let on you needed me. You don’t need me now, sure you don’t, Ma?”

  She put her hand to his head. “A cheann dubh dhílis,” she said, “my black-headed boy. Don’t you know ’tis loving I have, not needing. God send one day you’ll be happy with that.”

  He had fallen forward from the chair, and he laid his head on her breast, wrapping his arms tightly round her waist.

  “Aren’t you desperate scared?” she said. “My Lady of the Wayside, for the sake of the child You hold in Your arms, take hold the hand of my boy and he going.”

  He left soon after. Still dragged the day. He could not think what to do with it. At the pro-Cathedral he looked in at the confessions. The lines snaking from the confessionals were close-packed with uniformed men. The light green and the dark green intermingled, Volunteers and Citizen soldiers, already in prayer the one army. It made him think of laughing, the first in a while. What need had the Castle of spies and informers? In Ireland, if you would know was a rising due, look no farther than the Saturday confessions.

  He had stopped inside the door. Now the voices gathered about him, male voices groaning their sins to their beads in their hands. The votary candles flickered, yellow and blue and red, shedding no light only telling the dark about them. The statues all were draped still. A finger poked starkly out of one of them.

&n
bsp; He thought of himself at home, when he had looked in on him behind his screen, his stepfather. He was more dead than living now, but still he clung on. Doyler had opened his hand and placed a plug of tobacco there. To chew, he told him, then pointed to his mouth, Chew. The fingers closed on his own fingers, and Doyler had felt them pulling him down. Sweet Jesus, but that man clung to life. And Doyler understood that. He too would cling to life. That life which all his thinking years he had dreamt to spend in a magnificent cause. He’d take this miserable existence instead. He would too. He’d never live with himself, but he’d take it, and hate himself ever on. Jesus, I’m too coward to turn back even.

  He turned on his heel. He must go to Jim. Even while he thought this, he did not believe it. He was making for the Russell Hotel. Across the river, past Trinity, up Grafton Street to the Green. He sent in a note. It seemed he must wait an age before the coach-house door would open. He followed the boots up the stairs. He stood on the bed-frame and slid the skylight open. He stepped back. He hadn’t spoken a word to the boots. Now he just nodded for him to go first. The boots did as told. Then Doyler pulled himself out and replaced the skylight. He led the boots creeping along to the pit where two roofs pitched. The boots kept his back to him. Doyler didn’t know was he shy or ashamed. He didn’t care. He pressed up behind, he had his hands at the boy’s buttons undoing them. The black trousers came down, he tugged at the drawers. He had himself unbuttoned now. He lifted the tail of the boy’s shirt. He kept one hand on his back pushing down, the other round his waist. The boots staggered to his hands and knees. Doyler too went down on his knees where the surface scraped his skin. He spat and rubbed his spittle in. He pushed. He pushed till it hurt but he could gain no way. He took a hand to aim but still he could do nothing. He rammed against the stupid flesh. He took hold of the boots with his hands on his thighs and tugged him backward. He could do nothing. He could not even do this.

  “Christ almighty,” he cursed, “ain’t you use for nothing?”

  He gave a mighty shove at the boots who tottered forward. He leant back on his hunkers. The boots was sniffing back his sobs. His fingers pulled at his drawers, his trousers. Crouching the way he was he couldn’t get his shirt tucked in.