At Swim, Two Boys

by Jamie O’Neill

  Incomprehension creased Mr. Mack’s rotund face. “What does it mean, do I have to?”

  “It’s just that, some of the boys at school, that’s where they live.”

  “Some of your schoolfellows?”

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Mack stroked the end of his mustache. “That tops it,” he said. “You can ask your schoolfellows to put in a good word for the shop.” He tapped his nose. “Word of mouth, a personal recommendation. But see they gets the bills first.”

  A sudden notion and he jabbed his hand into a jar of Lemon’s sweets. He emptied the handful into Jim’s jacket pocket. “Distribute these to your schoolfellows. They’ll think the more of you for it.”

  “Yes, Da.”

  “Papa,” said Mr. Mack. “That’s three times, four times you’ve called me Da.” But Jim was already out of tongueshot, pushing down the road.

  Peculiar case, thought Mr. Mack. He’s not sullen, nor yet very gamesome. Is he cheerfuller in the street? Hangs up his fiddle when he’s home, that’s for sure. Sixteen: hobbledehoy, neither man nor boy. Might have perhaps wished him a happy birthday. But he’d be looking for his present then, and we’d be Christmas Day in the morning before them bills got delivered.

  Now what’s this the commotion is up the hill? Something going off whatever it is. And that whiff. Recognize that whiff.

  A woman in dark bombazine walked by holding a clean child by the hand. Mr. Mack mimed a tweak of his peak, then patted the child’s head. “Open till late,” he said.

  Way up Adelaide Road, over the railway bridge, undriven came a low cart. That smell, thought Mr. Mack. Then: “Herrings above! Aunt Sawney, where are you? Get up out of your chair, Aunt Sawney! The dungcart is coming. They’ll be here in the hour and we’ve nothing prepared.”

  Jim propped the bike against a garden wall, took a handful of bills and went to the first door of a terrace of villas. He was sliding the handbill inside the box when the door opened and a boy stepped out. He wore the same cap as Jim, with the same badge: Dirige nos Domine.

  “Who is it?” called a voice within.

  “It’s a billing-boy from the Glasthule huckster’s.”

  “What does he want at the front door? Tell him to mind his manners.”

  “Mind your manners,” said the boy who was Jim’s schoolfellow, and the door closed in his face.

  Some words you could really hate, and one of those was fellow. They used it all the time at college. His first day at Presentation, a boy had approached: “The fellows wanted to know, is it true you live in a corner-huckster’s?” Jim had said no, it was the Adelaide General Stores and some of these fellows sniggered. “Do you sleep at night in a bed?” Jim slept on a settle-bed made up in the kitchen, so he said yes, but they were up to that dodge. “In a bedroom?” He shook his head. Then, decisively: “The fellows wanted to know what name do you call your father?”

  “Da,” Jim answered.

  Sometimes the jibes spilt over into rough stuff, like shoving when he queued for the water-fountain or hard scragging at football. In the end he claimed a fight with the ugliest fellow, a bullocky lad named Fahy. He could still feel the shock of the chatterer to his chin, the dizzy sway round the circle of honor as grassward he fell. But they left out the physicality after that. Whenever his hand went up in class, they chaffed him for the Grand Exhibit. When for lack of his own he shared a schoolbook, they goosed him, chiming, “For the scholarship boy is a needy boy.”

  He mentioned it once to his father, and his father said, “What is it they call their own fathers?”

  Jim shrugged. “Papa, I think.”

  “That’s easy fixed so. You call me Papa in future, then you’ll be equal with your fellows.”

  It might have passed but for his father’s interfering. He couldn’t keep away from the college, but was ever at the gates, offering his services for field days and bazaars. The school wouldn’t play a match but his cart rolled up with pop and sweets. Save the souls of piccaninnies! A shilling per guinea to the Presentation Missions.

  Ballygihen Avenue ended at the sea and when Jim came there he rested on the sea-wall and stared out across Dublin Bay. The city lay under a haze, but Howth was sunny and clear, a sleeveless, sinewy arm thrown out while Dublin dozed.

  For years he had believed that Howth was England until finally his father took him there, him and his brother, on the two tram journeys across Dublin. They made a scratch tea in a heathery field and his father had him speak to a poor fisherwoman to ask was this still Ireland. He remembered the surprise of her answer. “Not since the Chief passed over, nor yet till he come again.”

  “Curious old harp,” his father had said. “Did you mark how and she grabbed the boy? Would frighten a boy that way.”

  “She was a witch,” said Gordie. “The old woman of the sea.”

  “Queer old harp she was.”

  But she wasn’t old, Jim didn’t think. If she loosed her shawl she was young and beautiful, like the photograph-portrait of his mother at home.

  The tide was half-way down and he listened to the lazy rush of its waves. Straggling rocks creamed in the sun, melting to tan, to umber in the sea. Dark weeds chained them. He smelt the breezy air that was like ozone through the school latrine. Farther along, towards Kingstown, urchinous boys were scraping for bait. Their cries mingled with the calls of gulls that hungrily wailed above. The sea glistened in the bay, a blue sheet that was hardly blue so sharply it shone, nor yet a sheet so spangled its surface. A calm upset by light alone.

  You carry your weather with you, his father was fond of saying. Yet the day was glorious.

  Sandycove’s beached harbor, the Martello tower on its cliff, its cliff improbably landward. Two figures strolled from the Point, towels slung over their shoulders. Bathers out of the Forty Foot, gentlemen’s bathing-place. There was a loneliness in watching them, for they were actors in the day’s glory, like the gabbling boys and the boisterous gulls.

  His father had a story about that Martello that when the Government decommissioned the towers, after the French scares, its garrison had been overlooked. “Twenty year and more,” he told, “they remained at their post, when all this land was back of God speed. They were the lost troop, a sergeant and two swaddies. And yet, at long last when the authorities caught up with themself, it was discovered from the books in all those years not one guardmount, not one sentry-go had been shirked. There’s soldiering for you. That’s the spirit of the British Army.” And indeed it was not difficult to see his father there, reveille to Last Post, at spit and polish, jankers and Queen’s Regulations, counting in his quartermaster-sergeant’s English: boots, leather, pairs of, three.

  Forlorn hope is from the Dutch for lost troop. How sad the words and beautiful. All love does ever rightly show humanity our tenderness.

  Bills, two gross, local populace, delivery thereto. When he watched the horny hands with veins like rhizomes in the flesh carry up the onion box, he had believed it was his birthday present. His father would often confound surprise with suspense so that, even when faced with the bills, Jim had needed to rummage through to the bottom to be sure there was no mistake. Whatever else, there was no long trousers. Last in his form to be still in breeches with a cake from Findlater’s for after. Acme of swell.

  The breeze brushed the sweat on his forehead. It would be good to take off his cap, feel wind in his hair. There were other actions he could envisage performing: loosening his tie, slipping out of his boots and stockings, unbuttoning the knees of his breeches. He imagined padding out to the edge, toes bunched against the jag of rocks. The way the weed would slither beside you, sea-lace and thong-weed. The water grew chiller as it climbed. Or he might venture as far as the Forty Foot itself, strip off and plunge headlong to the deep. He had never swum in the Forty Foot, he had never swum in the sea, but he could conjure the charge of the waves all over. Like those two bathers strolling down, he too would have acted. Involvement, not witness, would mark the day.


  If you carry the weather with you, then character is determined by the prevailing wind.

  In his pocket he found some sweets; Lemon’s, he remembered. The crinolined lady on the wrapper looked light and gay with her parasol, very much like Nancy would look if she wore Aunt Sawney’s drapes. Nancy made him blush and he believed she always would now. His brother had rarely mentioned her before he left for England, but on the last night at home he said, Nancy’s a bit of—jam, he called her. When Jim remonstrated, he grew coarser still. Don’t come the green with me. I know the sniff of the glue-pot. Then—Is it Nancy you think of when you fetch yourself off? How could his brother say such a thing? How dared he utter those words. Jim couldn’t look at Nancy since without the blood rising, and the blood rose now to his ears as he thought of it.

  He crushed the wrapper and let it fall behind.

  The breeze died and the heat was suddenly material, like a cloak that dropped on his back. The wall made him conspicuous. What might a watcher suppose was his purpose? He counted the clues to his identity: school cap, shop name on bike, bills in the pannier. His availability to interpretation intimidated him. He saw that his arms were hugged round his knees. He sniffed the muggy flocculent smell, then let go his legs. In his mind a formula impersonally repeated: he has never swum in the Forty Foot, he has never swum in the sea. Of a sudden he leant forward to check for the Muglins, but the rock of course was obscured by the Point.

  It was time to be gone, but a murmur of voices cautioned him. The bathers from the Forty Foot had rounded the bend and were nearing the promenade below. The younger was a shock-headed black-haired lad, Jim’s age, though bigger-built. He tossed his cap in the air as he walked and as he walked he lurched slightly, weak of one leg. For all he had been swimming, he had a filthy look about him and his towel was a rag of threads. The other, by his tweeds and tone, was of the quality.

  Jim believed he recognized the lad. He was not sure but, delaying to see, he left it too late to leave. Movement now would draw their attention.

  They halted at the private steps that led to Ballygihen House. The toney man, who had his back to Jim, said, “I might show you still, if you’d a mind.”

  The lad shook his head. “Due back for work. Already late as it is.”

  “Another time, perhaps. I believe you’d take to it. Don’t think about the leg. You’re quick enough off the mark.”

  “Another day maybe.” He had the usual Dublin drawl, but with an open edge, like a kick, at the end of it. Breath of the west, Jim thought.

  The man made a sudden motion—“Here,” he said—and silver spun in the air. A fist shot out and nimbly the lad caught the coin.

  “For your trouble,” said the man.

  Ivory flashed between thick dirty lips. “No trouble at all.” The smile, like the face, was familiar. Then the lad’s gaze lifted and he saw Jim watching from above. His eyes were dark as night, not dull, but gemmily shining. The smile broadened as though in invitation, as though the rocky shore and the birds and the blue were his to share.

  “What cheer, eh?” he called.

  Jim found himself smiling back. And long after, while he scorched down Glasthule Road, well late for school, he was smiling still. What curious cheer.

  Mr. Mack kept a keen eye on the young lad shoveling out his midden. Vile job that. Vile smell. Murder on the lungs, day in day out. Never grow accustomed to a smell like that.

  Sturdy fellow, though, beef to the heels. And would want to be. That job won’t last long. Way behind the times. Sewers will be here any day soon and no need of all this foostering. Funny that. The modern way means this fellow’s out of an employment.

  Sucked cheeks dimpled to a smirk. They’ll always want a general stores.

  Hair as black as the devil’s waistcoat. Could do with a scissors while we’re about it. Jaunty as muck and in muck he’s covered. Only white is in his eyes. Disease, all sorts you get with a job like that. “Careful with that bucket, now. Don’t be swamping it. Can’t have slops all over the shop.”

  That’s a good one. That’s a good motto for the contractors. Your business is our business. Might send that in. Bit on the flowery side, all the same. Second thoughts, steer clear.

  All the same, why wouldn’t they stick to the stated times? Sending the dungcart a day early, the commotion it causes. Poor Aunt Sawney, she’s on her last legs without the vexation of middens. Dung-dodgers, she calls them. Do they dodge the dung or what? Goo-wallahs it was in India. Shifting furniture, clearing a gangway, rolling up the oilcloth. Deal of commotion, up and down the street.

  Up he weighs now, great brute of a bucket on his shoulder. Fancies himself a taste. Likes to show his brawn. “Careful now, we don’t want any mess.” Is that a limp I see? Bit of a hop there. Tries to bury it, but can’t dish an old sergeant. Wait now, that face. Great big grin on him, width of Cheshire. Don’t I know that face?

  He tramped back into the house after the dungman’s lad. Now would you look at that. Heap of mess on the floor, right below the Georgius Rex. Told him about loading that bucket. Straight up to the brim he filled it.

  “Here you, young hopeful, I want a word with you.”

  “Yes, Mr. Mack?”

  Mr. Mack peered. “It’s young Doyler, isn’t it? You’re Doyle’s eldest.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you back in the parish. In work and all. Yes, I’m very glad.” Mr. Mack stroked the bush of his mustache. “I was only talking this morning with your father.”

  “Is that right, Mr. Mack. Mr. Mack, could I trouble you for a drink of water?”

  How germs are spread. Could risk an old jam pot? Uncharitable. In the end he brought water in his own special cup. The boy turned back the cuff of his sleeve and wiped his mouth on the inside. Mr. Mack was touched by the gesture, a courtesy he was sure addressed to him and his cup. “Thirsty work,” he said.

  “A bit all right.”

  “How long are you back?”

  “Not long yet.”

  “Your father is above with the papers now.”

  “He is.”

  “He might keep at that employment.”

  “Hard to keep a job down, Mr. Mack, with his lungs the way they are.”

  Mr. Mack let a grunt. The bellows, the bronicals, any shift you choose. If work was in a bed, that man would sleep on the floor. Consumption, my eye. Of spirituous liquors is what it is. Sure he’d sell his mother for a tuppenny wet. But that’s the way it goes with some of these fellows. They leaves the army, they wouldn’t know to sneeze without they’re ordered to. I’m glad now to see his son turning out a better class. “Not long at this work?”

  “Not long,” said Doyler.

  Knock the spirit out of you, this work would, give it time. He had the collar of his waistcoat turned up against the muck, and the inside of the lapel showed a badge with a red hand in it. What’s this, the Red Hand of Ulster? The Doyles is never northern folk. The father nobody knows where he hailed, the mother is out of the west some place. Though father might not be the appropriate sentiment in this particular case. Doyler Doyle: had to take the name twice to be sure of it. “Where was this they sent you? Clare, was it? Your mother has people that way.”

  “Clare, aye.”

  It struck Mr. Mack he had been wanting this morning in his encounter with Mr. Doyle. Never once thought to ask of the family: the wife nor the care. That was amiss now. Quickly he inquired of the mother, who was grand all right, and of his brothers and sisters, though as it turned out he had only sisters, but they too were grand. And were they still down the Banks, his folks?

  “Where else would have us?” the boy replied.

  Indeed. “Still, you’ll be glad to be back in the parish. In work and all.”

  “To be frank, Mr. Mack, there’s little enough for me here. The contractors has us on short time.”

  The advancing sewers, didn’t I say?

  “Most the men they laid off. Employed a grush of boys i
n their place. Half the wages and the same blow they proves their loyalty to the Crown.”

  “Crown?” said Mr. Mack. “How’s this about the Crown?”

  “Sure what hope has the men but they list in the army? The contractors is held for a great example.”

  This was serious talk and close to, if not beyond of, politics. And Mr. Mack was not at all sure it fitted his dignity to be arguing with the dungman’s lad. “Do you not see,” he said, “’tis the sewers is the problem?”

  The boy shoveled in silence a while, then said, “There’s sewers in it all right. But the fact remains the men as used be working is soldiering now. Can see them camped on Tivoli Fields. God knows, I’m thankful for the work. But it’s hard taking another man’s job. Harder still at half the pay. But that’s the times that’s in it, Mr. Mack.”

  The times that were in it indeed. He might mention three square meals a day, smart uniform, healthy living, separation money for the women at home, pension at the end of it. Satisfaction of fighting for King and Country. Glory to be had and to spare. Travel far and wide.

  “Though I was thinking of joining the band.”

  But down the Banks where this one lodges there’s scant notion of glory. Hard-scrabble place, the Banks. Mean cottages, rotten thatch, entire family cramped into—“Joining a band?”

  “Flute band.”

  “But Brother Polycarp out of the college takes that.”

  “The very man. I saw him this morning only. The new curate as found me this employment gave me the word.”

  “Curate? You mean the band is not restricted to college boys?”

  “So far as I know, Mr. Mack.”

  “Well, I’ll go bail.”

  “Have to get me flute back first, though.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Mr. Mack. “Ducie’s window.”

  “’Fraid so.”

  Mr. Mack puckered his lips. Abstractedly, he said, “I have a son in that band.”

  “Jim, is it?”

  “James, my son James. James is a college boy now.” His voice had risen above the ordinary, so in token of fellowship, he jerked his head and said, “Oh, easy street for some, I suppose.”