At Swim, Two Boys Part 36

"Oh now, I'm sure now," said Mr. Mack, "they won't be keeping us a minute longer than strictly."

The friend looked up. "He was called out by the father."

"Whatever for?"

"Now now, quiet, Jim. Mr. MacMurrough is talking. I'm certain they won't keep us a moment, your honor. Though, truth be told, young Doyle is no great shakes at the marching. With the game of a leg and all."

The door opened. The priest strode the floor. Behind him, Fahy and Pigott. Between them, Doyle.

"What can you imagine is the meaning of this?" MacMurrough demanded. The two louts smirked, wearing the satisfied gloats of their master's bidding. "Mister Taylor, can you explain yourself?"

"Mister MacMurrough, your aunt awaits you. I advise you speak with her immediately lest something be said you may after regret."

"Nevertheless, I really must protest-"

"Then you will protest to your aunt who has vouchsafed your good conduct." His two eyes c.o.c.ked independently. "I believe I need say no more."

MacMurrough felt a crumple inside. He saw the friend on his feet, only his father restraining him. He saw the turned faces in the benches. The priest cracked his smile. He addressed the boys.

"The devil, we know, is omnipresent. As omnipresent as Our Lord and his seeing angels. Yet I had not expected to meet him in my own band of Irish boys. Look at the sorry cut of him, men."

Doyler's head drooped in subjection. There was blood on his nose and his chin. His shirt was ripped where they must have torn his badge away. His nipple was exposed, a pathetic emblem.

"No G.o.d, no sin, no h.e.l.l, no heaven, the black devil of socialism, hoof and horn, is among us. Do we want him?"

The silence told the boys did not.

"Do we say no to his works?"

Silence nodded its head.

"Do we cast him out?"

We do, said the tongueless faces and the priest signed to his henchmen to take Doyler away.

"Boys of Ireland," he continued, "you will join your hands in prayer with me now that our sainted isle will be protected and rendered strong against the manifold perils that beset her. For this once, lest there be any doubt, we will pray in the Saxon tongue. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost."

In a hopeless stasis MacMurrough heard the praying, the braying versicles and hushed response. When he lifted his head he saw all faces lowered, save the friend's, whose gaze was on him. The boy's lips moved in suffrage, pleading with MacMurrough, begging him to do something. But MacMurrough could do nothing. He had crumpled inside, and his head lowered in shame.

There was an explosion outside, followed by another. The night through the windows burst into light. Star after star flared in the sky as the fireworks let off. Green, silver and gold the fragments glittered, then fluttered down like fabulous rain. And the air was rent by drumfire and sh.e.l.lblast and the surging cheers of the populace.

"Cushmawaunee," he heard Mr. Mack say, "it looks as though we're after missing the grand finale."

On and on the fireworks come and into the night are falling still. Across the rift of a continent they fall, bursting in stars and fountains of light. They crackle in a thousand squibs, in mad minutes of furious joy. In metal rain they shower to rise again in scarlet flowers. Their dust like fairy dust descends, upon the brave, upon the coward.

They dart across the heavens of Greece, where Gordie watches the night sky. Beside him his chum remarks, Shower of lights tonight.

And Gordie says, Me da used say they was souls released from purgatory.

I never heard that before, says Gordie's chum. Gob, but there's enough of them.

They'd want to be, says Gordie.

Where y'off to now? asks Gordie's chum.

See if there ain't no water left on this tub.

When he comes back he says, Snacks, and hands the half-full of his can to his chum. The troopship gently rocks beneath them, at anchor in the bay.

Have you a sister at all? asks Gordie's chum.

I haven't, says Gordie. A brother only.

Shame that, says Gordie's chum. A man could settle with a sister of yours.

He could, Steerforth, he could, says Gordie. He lies back on the deck and watches the glittering sky. The glittering sky and the shimmering souls that minute by minute escape the dark.

Who's Steerforth? asks Gordie's chum.

Away with you, says Gordie, cuffing his neck.

In Ballygihen, in the tumbledown lodge, Mary Nights at last laid down her head. Oh, but it was the beautiful elegant lodge of the world. Upon the flawless stone she lay, and through the splendid loft she gazed. What cared she for falling stars? Oh G.o.d, that all the stars would fall and leave the thick black velvet cloth. Oh G.o.d above, of love and light, loan me the blanket of the night, till on the cold and grumpy ground, I'll warmly wrap it round me.

Her stiff old neck she turned on the stone. When might it end, she did not know. She did not know what end she pondered. But this she knew, and knew too well: the nights were drawing in.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

He was swimming to the island, but the sea was slippery and thick, like a jelly that would set beneath him. Great guns he was going, but he wanted to try a kick in the legs. And it was true, it was better if he kicked. The push propelled him over the water, like flying, not flying but leaping, long horizontal leaps that skimmed the surface and he landed like an insect and kicked again. Strange to say, the water was uphill all the way.

He kicked through the crest of a wave and there was the Muglins before him. The water was warm now and shallow and emulsive. His feet felt sand underneath and he tiptoed through the ripples. He could hear her behind the rocks, she was singing or something, and the gulls moaned round and about, and flapped their wings. In a way he was annoyed and he wanted to know why had she been here all this while when she could have come home. Home was only a spit away. But when he came round the rocks, it wasn't his mother but Doyler who moaned, and his wrists were red in their chains while he writhed on the rock, and an old gander pecked at his eyes. Save it wasn't his eyes he pecked, but down down down below.

The dream dispersed and Jim lay awake in his settle-bed. The last turf slumped in the grate and the hag in the ashes leered blazily at him. He was damp in his shirt like truly he had swum in the sea, but the dream was fading and all he retained was a sensation of having flown, of having skittered through rain.

He thought it was mice in the shop, then rats in the yard. It came as no surprise when the scratching resolved to fingers on the window pane.

He climbed to his knees and pulled the blind. Doyler's face grinned ghostily through the gla.s.s. Jim eyed the ceiling. He tied the blind in place then levered the sash an inch. Doyler slipped his fingers under and together they shuddered it open.

"How'd you get in the yard?"

"Shinned up the wall, of course."

The breeze brushed the vigil flame and shadows swayed on the walls. Upstairs the bed moved and his father called down, "Are you right there, Jim?"

"Fine, Da."

"Go to sleep now, son."

"Yes, Papa."

They watched the ceiling till the bed-frame ceased complaining.

"You want to come in?"

"No."

"I'll come out."

"Stay." He wore once more his blue-gone duds of old. He had a brown-paper parcel, tied up with packing thread, which he held up now. "What cheer, eh?"

"You're leaving," said Jim.

"Came to say goodbye."

Words blurted out, admonitions, remonstrations. How Jim had warned him. Told him not to mind them fellows. Time and again he'd warned him against that. Would Doyler listen to him? No, Doyler would not listen.

The bed creaked above and Aunt Sawney coughed above and behind. In the quiet after, Doyler shook his head.

"Lookat, Jim, I'm going nowhere here. I came back for the mother, but the mother don't need me. There's things I have to do. And they won't be done in Glasthule."

Jim mouthed the openings of different sentences. In the end they all amounted to the same and he said, "I'll kiss you. I'd like to, I mean."

Again the squeak of the bed above and their eyes lifted. Falling, they met. Doyler huffed his little laugh. The blood was crusting on the gash in his lip. His hand pa.s.sed into the room and stroked Jim's chin. Jim knew the bone of his face through the fingers. Five times he knew it. Then the fingers fisted and gently pucked him. "A chuck on the chin is worth two kisses, they say," he said.

"The swimming," said Jim.

"Sure you're the fine able swimmer. All's you need is the practice."

"The Muglins, though."

"Did you think I'd forget?"

He reached inside his shirt and tugged the string that held his medal. Between thumbs and fingers he twisted the tin till it split in two. Jim saw the proffered half of St. Joseph.

"I'd give you me badge, only they stole that on me. Keep this instead while I'm away. It's my pledge to you. We'll have our Easter swim, my hand and heart on that. We'll make them rocks together, Jim. Are you straight so?"

"I'm straight as a rush," Jim said. He sniffed. "I am too."

"Old pal o' me heart," said Doyler.

"Come what may," said Jim. "Come what may."

Doyler grinned. "Come Easter sure. 1916."

PART TWO.

1916.

ecce abstulisti hominem de hac vita, c.u.m vix explevisset annum in amicitia mea, suavi mihi super omnes suavitates illius vitae meae.

-ST. A AUGUSTINE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

The steps raced on the street outside and into the lane till the shop bell clanged. Mr. Mack refolded the foxed and crinkled pages of the letter, returned the letter to its place upon the mantelshelf. The door flung wide and Jim was there, white and breathless.

"They told me there was a telegram."

"It's on the table, son."

Mr. Mack stared at the letter on its shelf, beside the framed photograph of his son upon which his son had written, I trust the cigarette does not offend. It does not offend, he told him. You were mistaken to think it offended, nor anything you said nor done offended. You were greatly mistaken in that.

Jim looked up from the telegram. "Missing, Da?"

"That's right, missing."

"What does it mean?"

Mr. Mack fixed his face, then turned from the mantelshelf. "Why, it means there's hope yet. Isn't that the best news? Missing in action only. That's easy done. The muddle of war, 'tis surprising there isn't more goes missing. Where there's hope there's, where there's hope there's-" But he could not rightly recall what there was. "Where there's hope there's a way. They'll have him found soon enough, never doubt it. Then we'll have him home again and there'll be mafficking the length of the street. Don't doubt it, Jim. We'll be back the three of us together in no time. In time for Christmas even."

"Christmas, Da?"

"Let that be the end of the lemoncholy now."

The way the boy stood there holding the telegram, so mannishly determined against tears, it made Mr. Mack finally to heave. He kept his face smiling but he could not stop the blubbers. He said, "Now now, be a Briton. Turn off the main," while the tears streamed down his cheeks.

"We'll say the Rosary, Da."