At Swim, Two Boys Part 34

"What and I was?" The man had smiled at Jim, in a way that wasn't at all uncomfortable. It was hard to think this was the same soldier-speaker who had thundered of war and Ireland and death. But Jim had liked him all the more for his gentle manner. "He was pleased if I tried to speak Irish with him."

"G.o.d and Mary with you," Doyler said in a peenging voice. "And G.o.d and Mary and Patrick with you, your honor."

"Shut up," said Jim.

"Shut up yourself."

A kick poked his boot, and Jim clambered his feet to give a kick back, but the way Doyler reclined he could see right up his kilt. It fl.u.s.tered Jim to look there and he quickly turned away.

Doyler said, "What you blushing for?"

"Who said I was blushing?"

"Even your ears is gone purple."

"I'm not blushing for you anyway."

"There's nothing down there you not seen it before. Seen it a hundred times swimming. Aye, and looked for it and all."

"Are you going to talk dirty?"

"Little molly, you."

Jim got up. He went to sit on the wall. A courting couple pa.s.sed on the promenade below. Away up the lawns, a band played something jolly, something nice, something way out of tune. He looked at his boots with his stockings down at his ankles. He didn't feel shame, but rather looked at it. He looked at a boy who sat on a wall, carefully pulling his stockings up. A shameful sight, quite wretched really.

"U-boat scare," said Doyler. He had come up beside, and he nodded to the plume of the mailboat as it hurried in from a strange direction.

"Yes," said Jim.

"The Helga Helga now'll be out on a sweep." now'll be out on a sweep."

"It will." Jim knew he had only to wait and the arm would come round his shoulder. He would be mollified then. Mollified, that's what he'd be. He sat stiffly apart. He stared at the bay. The houses on Howth looked brilliantly clear. They reminded him of pictures he'd seen of Italy or the Aegean Isles. The sea was deeply blue, save far out where waves broke, like fallen sails, in flashes of white.

"Lookat, are we pals or what are we?" said Doyler.

"Of course we're pals. Only you're not very pally today."

"Don't you see it's that MacMurrough woman? Was I a college boy, now, she wouldn't treat me that way."

His hand was slapping on the curve of the wall. Jim counted the white spots on the fingernails. A gift, a friend, a foe; tidings to come, a journey to go. Doyler's hand had all five. "She treats us all the same," Jim said. "What would she care who's a college boy?"

Doyler aimed a spit right across the promenade to the rocks beyond. Jim watched the propulsive lob, the curl in the air, the splash on the stone's tip, the way the saliva seemed to cling to the granite. Truly, he was a very excellent spitter. Jim hunched his shoulders. He nodded out to Howth and said, "My da took me there once. I used think it was England, you see, when I was a kid. He brought me there and had me ask a fisherwoman was this still Ireland. She answered something very strange. She said, Not since the Chief pa.s.sed over, nor yet till he come again."

Doyler huffed a laugh. "She meant Parnell."

"I know that. The da was very angry. Queer old harp, he called her. He was always very set against Parnell."

"Wouldn't surprise me your da sided with the priests."

"Well, you're wrong actually. Had nothing to do with the priests. Parnell voted against the relief of Khartoum. The time General Gordon was under siege. The da never forgave him that. Gordon was his hero. He named me brother for him sure."

For the first time that day Jim heard a genuine amus.e.m.e.nt in Doyler's voice. He let out a kink of laughter. "He's the boyo, your da is. Parnell had the country torn asunder, and your da finds an argument n.o.body never heard of. There's original for you. More power to him, that's what Doyler says. What the-what're yous doing down there?"

Not ten feet from them a gang of urchins had begun scaling the wall. They had lumps of mortar scattered about and tufts of valerian they'd tugged for a purchase. "Would yous get down off of that wall," said Doyler, "before you have us all tumbled in the sea."

"Want to get in, mister," piped a crabby face.

Doyler reached down and heaved the creature up and over. "What's wrong with the gate below?"

"Stuck."

"Couldn't you see us here? All you had to do was ask, we'd open it for yous." He brushed the kid down. "Go on down by the gate," he told the others. He marched the kid off, hauling him through the briers and in under the trees. Jim watched from the wall the other kids troop under his arm while he held the gate for them. One had a gash in his foot and Doyler bundled him down the rocks to bathe it. He had a rough kindness that way with children. "There's Irish for you," he said returning. "No trouble too much save troubling the head."

Jim nodded.

"Come and sit here with me," Doyler said. "I want to tell you something."

"Can't you tell me here?"

"It's about schoolteaching."

"What?"

"About being a schoolteacher."

"What about it?"

"Come here and I'll tell you."

Jim looked over his shoulder. Doyler was sitting up with his kilt pulled over his knees. He beckoned Jim and patted the gra.s.s beside. "I want to talk is all."

Jim dawdled over, pulling a face. He sat down. "Well?"

"Have you thought at all what you'll do after college?"

"Sure that's miles off."

"No it's not."

"I need to be sure of an Exhibition first for the seniors."

"No bother on you." He began then talking about a King's scholarship and how it was the same course as the intermediate seniors. "You'll be sitting the seniors anyway, may as well go up for the King's, what harm?" The King's was a scholarship to train for a teacher. What happened, you got the King's, then you went up to St. Pat's in Dublin. St. Pat's was the place to go. The boys at St. Pat's would make a teacher of Jim. A bobby job was schoolteaching. A job with a collar and tie.

Jim had never given much thought to his future beyond that he'd somehow get away from the shop. The Post Office, he'd thought, a clerkship somewhere. But Doyler had it all worked out. Jim would go to St. Pat's, he'd be a teacher, then maybe his friend would give him work at his school.

"Which friend?"

"Gaum you. His nibs from the Wolfe Tone. Don't you know he gives a school in Irish? Up Rathfarnham way."

"He's a schoolteacher?"

"So he told me."

"I didn't know you'd spoke with him."

"An ta tu schoolteacher, says I. Ta me schoolteacher, says he."

His cod-Gaelic wheedled the smile out of Jim. "And you think I'd make a good teacher?"

"Never doubt it. And sure what better employment? Helping your fellow man to get on in the world-you'd be proud of a job like that. The only job for you, old pal."

"I never thought," said Jim.

"Well, now you have."

"Yes, now I have."

"You see, Jim, I think of these things. I think an awful lot of you, I do."

Jim looked at him. He was lying on his front with a meadow gra.s.s sticking out from his mouth. How did Doyler do this? He could make Jim so angry with himself, so ashamed. The next minute, he was all alive, like a spark was inside, like the full of him was electric. How did Doyler do this to him? He really didn't know.

He stretched out in the gra.s.s too, leaning on his elbow, facing his friend, the pal of his heart, happy to watch him, fondly, his face. The gra.s.s was wonderfully cool in the shadows. It gave a fringy brush to his legs. Doyler grinned. He took the gra.s.s-stem from his mouth and tickled its ear under Jim's chin. "You can tell does a fellow like you with a spear of gra.s.s, did you know that?"

"How do you tell?"

"You wave it under his chin, and if his face goes red at all, then you know."

Jim laughed. The blush had risen, as of course it must, but for once he could be glad of it. He thought how lovely it would be to touch at this moment. The notion hadn't formed before Doyler's leg came to rest against his own. It pressed ever so lightly, and Jim pressed lightly back. He smiled with his bottom lip caught in his teeth, for it was wonderful to lie in the long gra.s.s, with just this tiny pressure of touch between.

Then Doyler said, "I think I'm going to ask for a kiss."

And Jim said, "I think I hoped if you would."

They neither of them moved. Until they heard voices approaching, and Jim quickly pulled away.

Butler, Courtney, Pigott. Butler had the cigarette, for his father had the tobacconist's.

"Clear off," Doyler said. "Yous aren't let in here."

"Sure, boys, we're after interrupting the lovebirds."

"f.u.c.k off, Courtney."

"Who're you telling-who's he telling to eff off?"

"Hark the college boy. Can't even f.u.c.k like a man."

Butler said something about the ineffable Doyle. Courtney still looked shocked. Pigott leant against the wall. He had paper and tobacco for making a cigarette. He rolled it, watching Doyler. He licked the paper and said, "Where's your badge?"

"Never you mind me badge."

"You was sporting it earlier. Mighty proud you looked. Never had known we had a Larkinite in our midst."

"Larrikinite," said Butler.

"Stick it, Butler. You know where and all."

"Had it whipped off pretty fly, all the same, when the priest was there."

"You want to make something of that, Pigott?"

"Maybe you wouldn't want a certain somebody finding you out," said Butler.

"Go on and smoke your gasper. We'll see about badges."

"We'll see about feathers."

"Butler, do you really want me to wallop you?"

"I'm a reasonable chap," said Pigott, "and I don't go for this baiting fellows less fortunate than meself. But you need to know I won't have a b.u.t.tonman in my company. You need to understand that, Doyle."

"It's a shame you'll be leaving the band so."

"You make him see reason," Pigott said to Jim. "Tell your pal don't be making a parade of himself. Tell him I'm afraid he'll be properly licked else."

"Aye will I," said Doyler. Pigott raised a cautioning finger. He beckoned the others to follow him, and lumbered off. "And if you lick me all over you won't miss me a.r.s.e. Mawgabraw!" Doyler shouted. He turned to Jim. "Do you mind the cheek of that?"

Jim said, "He means what he says. His da's something in the Hibernians."

"He looks the bully neck would have a da that way."

He was panting a bit, out of his breath with anger. Jim said, "We should go," but Doyler paid no regard, just slumped in the gra.s.s. Jim knelt down. He felt jiddery in his legs and he had to hunker back on his heels. He was intimidated by the boys in a way he had not felt before. They had brought this on themselves and it was only right the boys should menace them. Through his fallen hair he stole a view of Doyler's face. There was doubt in his eyes, the way they squinted back at him. His forehead was frowning and his jaw chewed, ruminating, like he had trouble thinking. Some calculation, on the tip of Jim's nose, that would not add up.

He said, "I seen them fists you had in your hands. You're a good pal. You was ready there to back me."

"We'll go," said Jim.

"Is that what they call us, the lovebirds?"

"No."

"Why did he say it?"

"That's just Courtney."

It was nearly chilly in the gra.s.s. The shadows of the trees reached beyond them and made crazy jags along the wall. From up the lawns came the groan of a warpipes.

"Lie down a moment."