At Swim, Two Boys Part 56

Which meant no more, Eveline was not deceived, than that her permit had been approved to hear public Easter Ma.s.s. They pa.s.sed along corridors, where walking wounded sidled by the walls, into the Castle grounds. The motor waited by the steps, and with Shorty's efficient bracing she slipped into the leather lap of the rear. All the courtesies. Motor and driver, her personal attendant, a cornered s.p.a.ce in the officers' ladies' ward: the London influence of her brother of course.

The sentry at the gates saluted, the constable peeked his helmet. Under the gate-arch now, with its figure of Justice atop, her back turned significantly on the city. Shorty, in acknowledgment of the weather, hurrumphed and pa.s.sed a white-gloved hand to his mouth. Eva responded in like vein, pr.i.m.m.i.n.g her face so that she stared impa.s.sively ahead: it truly was a most pretty morning.

The motor-car purred to its halt outside a blank facade, dead to a lane, a chapel whose sole recommendation, so Eveline perceived, was the absence of any side exit: this prisoner de luxe de luxe should not through faith be tempted to her liberty. The pilgrim crowd, discomposed by their pa.s.sage, reformed by the chapel steps. Urchin eyes spilt on the coachwork, breaths gaped on the gla.s.s. She saw the pinched and mesquin faces of the women. Beyond, on a tenement sill, flowers waved in a window-box like weeds on a cliff. Shorty, in full stepping-out rig, soon made way and handed Eveline to the chapel porch. He eyed her a little doubtfully. "Thank you, Shorty," she said, dismissing him. "Perhaps an hour. You shan't forget me now?" And she stepped through the portal unaided. should not through faith be tempted to her liberty. The pilgrim crowd, discomposed by their pa.s.sage, reformed by the chapel steps. Urchin eyes spilt on the coachwork, breaths gaped on the gla.s.s. She saw the pinched and mesquin faces of the women. Beyond, on a tenement sill, flowers waved in a window-box like weeds on a cliff. Shorty, in full stepping-out rig, soon made way and handed Eveline to the chapel porch. He eyed her a little doubtfully. "Thank you, Shorty," she said, dismissing him. "Perhaps an hour. You shan't forget me now?" And she stepped through the portal unaided.

The usher was abashed to receive her. He asked only a ha'pence and she understood then why the chapel should hum so exclusively of the Lord's unwashed. He guided her to a forward seat where she knelt awkwardly, a veiled island of dignity beyond the promiscuous shawls.

Poor people, yet buoyant with it. There was a murmur from the benches almost of chatting. Forty days they had mortified their wants: now they feasted on the expectation of meat, a pipe of tobacco, alleluia. A youth in soutane came to light the candles. So very few candles, a begrudgement of flowers. Her back ached, so too her neck. Escape: the notion of course had crossed her mind. But where to go, what to do? History had finished with her generation. Better surely exile than to remain here, in this land of taint and squalor, among a people who saw no further than their pipes, hoped for no better than bacon at table. Twice four hundred years had Ireland famished in Lent. What cared this racaille racaille for that? for that?

Oh lah, but this was too unfair, and immediately she repented her durete. durete. Lent must have fallen very hard this year. Fish was grown so expensive in the war, it was rather a treat for the rich than any penance of the poor to be fasting on it. Lent must have fallen very hard this year. Fish was grown so expensive in the war, it was rather a treat for the rich than any penance of the poor to be fasting on it.

A hand-bell rang. The susurration ceased, quiet came down in a fust of incense. A shock of white as entered the priest.

An elderly gentleman, quite alone save for the soutaned young man, now surpliced, his server: a well-looking youth whom presently Eva believed she must recognize. Surely I have met that young man? The priest bowed, genuflected to the altar, signed the cross. That quaint unsongful intoning, Introibo ad altare Dei. Introibo ad altare Dei. Low Ma.s.s in a slum chapel at half before noon. Low Ma.s.s in a slum chapel at half before noon.

The server's responses came reasoned and clear-so very much more fitting than the rote-learnt gabble of the usual altar boys. A college student, Eva considered: an act of charity to serve in this quartier. quartier. So simply he stood and so surely he spoke, they were true, she was certain, the words that he said, that he would go unto the altar of G.o.d, unto G.o.d who gave joy to his youth. So simply he stood and so surely he spoke, they were true, she was certain, the words that he said, that he would go unto the altar of G.o.d, unto G.o.d who gave joy to his youth.

And yes, there was a joy in this server's youth, a joy to look at him even, so fresh of face in this dowdy scene. The vestments he wore did not shroud him entirely, and she made out, though her veil blurred a little her view, the collar of a tunic at his neck: at the cuffs and legs the heather green of a uniform. So, a Volunteer lad-had she inspected him, perhaps, at a parade?

The priest made his confession to the server, and in the people's name the server begged G.o.d's mercy on the priest. After, the young man made his own confession, in the name of all gathered, striking his breast for their fault, their fault, their most grievous fault. Perhaps it was this chapel and its sanctuary so very bare: the scene imposed its drama on Eva. The youth bows to the venerable priest: it might be Ireland's sins he confesses, that she has not risen, she has not risen, most grievously has not risen.

How it must anguish them, she thought, the young, to know once more their hopes are deceived. How shall we ever expect their pardon? This lad would go out alone, she made no slightest doubt, with his bare hands to fight, were but one good man to lead the way. That one good man lay in chains in London. Now when she saw them joined in prayer, how white and fine were his fingers: a virile delicacy that carried her to Cas.e.m.e.nt. How he had delighted, that n.o.ble-hearted man, in the upright spirit of the young.

Poor dear Cas.e.m.e.nt. Yet one other uncrowned king in this land of kings uncrowned. This foolish bungling land, where the sole occasion they came to a coronation, it was the baker's boy from Oxford they must light upon, Lambert Simnel, the creature. The shame of it all. Was it anywhere but in Ireland that a rebellion could be canceled by a notice in the press? Nothing could be salvaged. Now the English would confiscate all arms. The leaders would be imprisoned or banished. Conscription would be enforced, what manhood remained to be bled in France. Let her go, let her go with what grace was left her, into exile in England. She might come to see Cas.e.m.e.nt there. A personal recompense after this national disgrace.

The mountains, the mountains, they called to her now. The Ma.s.s continued in a kind of dumb-show, while in her mind she motored away from this city, beyond its cl.u.s.tering villages, till the road began its climb to the moors. Dublin lay behind, and before and about her were the great shoulders of hills, the heather and gorse and bog-gra.s.s, green and pink and gold.

There was a spirit in those hills which the foreigner had never touched. Cities they had raised and walls against it. The cities reached their roads to trample it. Nothing dismayed that spirit: neither kindness nor crowbars swayed it a jot. That spirit, it could drive the foreigner mad for freedom, or wicked to stamp that freedom out. It was deep in the land. In the mist it hung, it seeped below in the suck of turf.

Eveline needed but think of those mountains and she felt it within her, that spirit, a flame in her breast. She could not reason it. Nothing would it benefit her, Ireland free or subject. For all she cared, nothing would it benefit Ireland. Ireland might go forward, she might go better forward and faster to freedom, by ballot, committee, const.i.tutional reform. She might be richer for it, more blessed, her people content, her industries prosperous, the miserable drain of emigration staunched. But nothing suchlike would a.s.suage that spirit. The hurts were ancient, they were deep in the land. That spirit was a flame whose tallow was blood. War was its cry: no hand-fed Home Rule, but liberty a.s.serted by right of arms.

My name is MacMurrough, my patrimony the mountains. Over the hills would I go, over the military road.

Her eyes closed and she felt the soreness behind them. She would go nowhere now save into exile in England. And every day her body healed brought exile that day closer. They would take her under guard to London and place her there in her brother's keeping. That meddlesome woman. Harridan, harpie. She used be seen motoring in the hills. They say she had a hand in gun-running and such. Making a spectacle of her name and s.e.x. Had ought to wear a cap and sew at home. It's easy known why no man would have her. Would live in mortal fear for his trousers.

Christe eleison! In glad confident voice the server called down a savior's blessing. In glad confident voice the server called down a savior's blessing. Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, the priest agreed. the priest agreed.

Eva rewoke to the Ma.s.s before her. Something had changed, the impression was distinct upon her, while her mind had wandered. He seemed to have grown in this interlude, the serving lad, and the s.p.a.ce between altar and nave, contrarily, to have gulfed. She saw his bare white throat and the hair on his forehead damp and a little blown. His hair was black, so very black. As she watched, she was aware of an inexplicable exhilaration-there, she felt it, patter, in her heart. He glanced to her, and she caught the shine in his eyes. His head lifted, proud and joyous, with a smile almost of amus.e.m.e.nt, that seemed to say, It is a little thing that I shall do.

Strength that is in his hands, truth that is on his lips, purity that is in his heart: the words returned of the schoolmaster Pea.r.s.e, spoken in her garden so long ago. This serving lad, so dazzling he stood, might be such as they of the Fianna of old.

It no longer seemed any ordinary Ma.s.s: no common rubric was told. The priest took a book whereof was read some circ.u.mstance regarding a tomb. The server listened with an interested curiosity. There was a sense of his waiting, of his being long prepared for this coming event. A G.o.d would be brought down to the altar. An extraordinary notion: a G.o.d to come down before Eva's eyes. Though it seemed to Eva it was the server now, not the priest, who was the center of this mystery.

She sensed the hush from the benches behind, their occupants tilted forward so that her neck bristled with suspected touch. The suspense, a crowded silent bating, told rather pity and wonder than any approval of the boy. Who was he? What was this little thing he would do?

Cas.e.m.e.nt and Pea.r.s.e: now came, unseemingly, the image of her nephew, his languorous vigor roused while he knelt beside her, this women's aisle of the nave, watching this lad. She recalled his face upon their last interview, soul-pained and doomed, there too a shade of Cas.e.m.e.nt. And then, this love he had not blushed to avow: some bathing boy, he too perhaps in the joy of his youth; a love which tomorrow would send him, her nephew, to the trenches.

And it seemed of a sudden inevitable that his love should be so. Inevitable that such love should send him to war. Inevitable as war was inevitably male. It was a preserve she had struggled all her life to touch, yet never had reached. Nor had any woman touched it, Kathleen nor Rosaleen nor the Shan Van Vocht, for all their summons and goad. They knelt beside her, Cas.e.m.e.nt and Pea.r.s.e and her nephew, each feasting upon this lad, and this lad performing with a significance secret to their eyes: and she felt a little ashamed, feminine, a folly.

Came the Offertory, and a heathen withershin rite it presented. A silver plate, a gold cup, cruets of wine and water-she watched astonished as the server surrendered these treasures to the priest. And now he had nothing left in this world to give, and he knelt again to pray. His face was offered full to the window, whose light in glory round him shone. How frail the linen that pulled upon the tough green cloth.

The air dinned in Eva's ears while the priest obscurely muttered. There was something very wrong about this, altogether wrong that this child should fascinate so. But she could not bear to remove her eyes. A sacrifice, she thought: a chosen lad. So intense was her gaze, his eyes turned a second time in response. They flashed again, and in that flash she glimpsed the ferocious wish of his courage. A hand-bell sounded: in his hands the priest some nick-nack elevated. Abruptly the youth bowed his head. With a shine on his neck the window-light played, with a glint of metal on the soft bared skin. She felt a tear in her heart. She believed she cried out. Outside, the bells tolled from every steeple. Every steeple in the land tolled noon high Ma.s.s.

Later, she knelt at the rail waiting for communion. She felt her age in her hands that trembled to join; in their tiny form she remembered her beauty. Her heart heaved on the hollow air, as though physically they had torn it from her, that spirit, that flame. And what more, bar shriek, might she have done? A woman could not shame men to arms who every day saw women subject. Nor Kathleen nor Rosaleen nor the Shan Van Vocht. Now came the golden youth. And when he came, holding the paten, she felt his breath when she lifted her veil, a nothing, the brush of a ta.s.sel, his given life, Ireland.

She waited at her place while the people left. Soon she was alone in the chapel. She waited, certain of his coming, as she was certain now of the rising to come. But a rising not as Eva had hoped nor any sane person would hope. Rather black Good Friday than Easter triumphant: not the opened tomb but the cross on the hill. He would go out, this young Ireland, he and a necessary few. In the beauty of his boyhood he would offer his life, by the overwhelming sword to die: a ravishment really: and Irishmen everywhere would shake for shame.

The sacristy door opened. She saw him plainer now, in his Volunteer green, quietly ashimmer, enthused still but muted, a trace fatigued, dazed even, and perhaps with a falter in his step on this earthly ground. At the aisle he genuflected to the altar. She reached, before he turned to leave, her hand to his elbow.

"Young man, forgive me," she said, hearing her voice come whispered and awed. "You must tell me. The sword of light, it will yet shine. Tell me now."

He looked at her at gaze a moment. Her fingers fretted the cloth of his sleeve, feeling for the scorch of that flame which these years had blazed in her breast. She searched his face through the gauze of her veil.

"Not today," she said, "but tomorrow, surely?"

His eyes flecked down the aisle, where she knew Shorty watched for her. The eyes flashed back. That smile, almost of amus.e.m.e.nt, had reformed on his face. Curtly, deliberately, he nodded. He strode down the aisle. Turning, she saw Shorty had moved from his way and the young man thrust through the chapel doors to the shiver of day beyond.

Her face too formed the grim appearance of a smile. So let it be. Tomorrow.

In the end the doctor was no more useful than his motor which ferried them through a clapping, even cheering, crowd up the road from Bullock to Ballygihen. A spoon of arrow-root in a port wine, Parrish's nerve tonic was not to be despised, beef tea had its place in the pharmacopoeia, a draught of chlorodyne towards evening maybe: these sanatives the doctor recommended. And so, all afternoon Doyler had groaned while Jim plied teaspoon and invalid cup. Until MacMurrough intervened. The doctor was only earning his fee, he a.s.sured him: all Doyler needed was rest, a window open and the pot handy.

Even Mr. Mack had called with his particular corrective, a bottle of something extra A1 against the-pantomime-"keeping it regular, if you'll pardon the expression."

MacMurrough had mentioned Jim might stay up with Doyle the night.

"Did you hear that, Jim? Mr. MacMurrough says you're to stay with Doyle the night. Is it here in Ballygihen you mean, Mr. MacMurrough?"

"Oh yes, doctor's orders, mayn't be moved."

The evening then, while Doyler drowsed under the chlorodyne, they fetched a sofa into MacMurrough's room and arranged it by the window where just they could hear the sea. They talked of old times, things that had happened weeks, sometimes months, before; their old chats on Doyle's Rock, the Sat.u.r.days they swam with a Blackrock priest to the pier and back, their ice-creams. Jim talked of the plans he had made. That he would go for the King's scholarship in June. Yes, he would try for a schoolteacher. He would need to get a digs then in Dublin. Doyler would share that digs with him. In the night, they'd go over the books together. Himself, he had the makings maybe, but Doyler was promised for a teacher. The world knew the teacher Doyler would be and it was the pity of the world if he didn't try. Jim wouldn't rest till Doyler had the scholarship too. They would be schoolteachers together. It was only right.

He was a kind boy and rarely unthoughtful, and he paused now and then in the rehearsal of these schemes to intrude MacMurrough's lumping presence: a chair at his table, an hour of his evening, holidays all three to the West. Their low voices in the falling light invited an intimacy. MacMurrough rested against the sofa's shoulder and Jim rested upon his lap and MacMurrough played his hand through Jim's hair. Across the room where a night-light burnt, Doyler dozed in MacMurrough's bed.

"Do you know what it is, MacEmm?" Jim said. "It's having to thank you more than any drowning has him exhausted."

"I shouldn't be at all surprised."

MacMurrough reached for his wine, a good claret, '93, which he had come upon during the boy's hunt for an invalid port. He had no more cigarettes and he had rather go without than smoke Woodbines, what other delights Glasthule had to offer. He might rumble out a cigar before bed.

"I don't know but, if you hadn't been there, would I have managed it at all."

"Managed what exactly?" MacMurrough inquired.

"I could easy get him back to the Muglins. But I wouldn't know much about the pumping thing. You'll have to teach me that."

Absurd youth. The shock was long erased: a tremor in a boat: no conception now of the horror a minute might have wrought. Even with the boy breathing MacMurrough had feared, as he had encountered before after a near-drowning, a comatose state. It was hard to be sure by the mouth, but he doubted Doyler had stopped breathing at all. His recovery was too swift and certain. Already when MacMurrough carried him up the harbor steps, he was complaining the trousers weren't his and what had happened his uniform. The devil's own luck: and no worse for it than gripes, the sicks, and a light feverishness: his due anyway after the water he had drunk.

He reached his wine to the floor. The boy stretched his shoulders, tame upon MacMurrough's bosom. "You oughtn't have been there at all," he said. "Out in your boat looking over us. By rights I should be annoyed, but you know, I'm not at all annoyed with you."

And so I am absolved.

"You were in your Jaegars too. When I'll be a teacher I'll wear Jaegar drawers." He turned his head to see MacMurrough's face. "Won't I be handsome?"

If MacMurrough hadn't surmised before, he might be certain now how swimmingly things had gone on the Muglins. The boy was glowing, MacMurrough could feel it on the palm of his hand, positively glowing with knowledge, animal and s.e.xual. He had felt this once himself, but he could not recall the incident nor the other with whom it had been shared; and when he tried, the memory that came was of his face bruised and his arm held high after a schools' boxing tournament.

"But you know, it's strange," the boy continued, "I did think of you out there on the island and I knew you were thinking of me. And I knew you knew how happy I was. You was so happy for me too, I knew that." A pause, recapitulating, then: "Were happy, I mean." He twisted round on the sofa. "I never asked-"

"The curse and flames!" cried MacMurrough.

"Did I hurt you? I never hurt you there, MacEmm?"

The imp had elbowed him exactly on his horn. "Don't pretend you don't know what you're about. And you may take that fool's grin off your face. I won't desire you to rub it, no nor to kiss it better."

The smile, at such wickedry, quite bulged from his face.

"Lie back now where I was comfortable."

He lay back and MacMurrough once again stroked his fingers through his hair, beautiful hair, without tangle or scrag, you could play with it all ways and always it found itself with the merest shake of his head. He washed it in rainwater. Why in rainwater? The boy didn't know, but it was something his father had taught him to do. What a wonderful father to have.

"I was going to ask you, how did you come to be so good in the sea?"

"Oh, the sea," said MacMurrough. He touched his wine, then recited in his most elegant Hibernian, "My grief on the sea, How the waves of it roll.

For they heave between me And the love of my soul."

"That's lovely," said Jim.

"Yes, I got it out of a book of my aunt's. It goes on: "And my love came behind me, He came from the south; His breast to my bosom, His mouth to my mouth."

"A lovely warm feel. I'd say wine was like that."

"So we often hope," said MacMurrough. "The sea," he reiterated. "I'm not sure I can remember how it started. Well I do, I suppose. I was holidaying at some dreary resort, might have put my name down for anything, but I opted for swimming. Actually, I was in a boating accident some while before that. The others, there were two others, well they drowned. I didn't." He waited. "Perhaps we're drawn to what frightens us."

"Are we?"

Yes, that horror drew him still. He screaming in the waves and his brother coming back for him. Then his other brother coming back. He patted the boy's head as to comfort his own. Wine.

"Did you swim at school?"

"I did, relays and dash. After college, I even worked at a London pool. What they call a life-saver. Had to hide the work from my people, of course. I just liked to be by the water."

"So do I."

"Yes, I know you do."

"I don't fear it though."

"You ought to, Jim. And you will need to be careful with other things too."

"I couldn't give a tip for being careful."

"You will have to be, and that fellow with you."

That fellow gave a snort in his sleep. "I'll check his temperature," said Jim. He went to refresh the bowl, came back, flanneled Doyler's face. It was very beautiful to see his unselfconscious care. One boy caring for another boy. It was very beautiful.

He came back to the sofa. He lifted MacMurrough's wine and silently gave it into his hand. They listened to the night sounds through the window, while the mood recouped, repossessed them.

"MacEmm, can I ask you? I don't know does it mean . . . does it mean anything with marrying, MacEmm? Doyler and me."

"No Jim, you can't ask me that."

"I don't know, you see."

"I haven't cigarettes to be answering questions like that."

"I can get you cigarettes out of FitzGerald's."

"FitzGerald's is closed."

"I never thought of it before and then I wondered, is it this way you'd be with a wife? You see, I don't know."

"Wouldn't you be wiser waiting and see?"

He turned, carefully. "MacEmm, you haven't this brought from England with you, you know. It was here anyway. I wasn't the first in the Crock's Garden and I doubt I'll be the last. I'm sorry for the soldier for I doubt I was much comfort to him and I hope he found better joy where he went. But you know I wouldn't live that way. I have to make it different. It will be different. Won't it?"

"I hope it will, my dear."

"Say it will."

"It will, so."

"I know people don't like us. Boys at school and in the band, Fahy for instance-from the start they never liked seeing us together. Strange, for when I was alone n.o.body ever noticed me even. It makes me think did they know before we did. But how would they know?"

He broke off. A squeak outside, a scringe on the windowpane. "Bats," he said.

"Yes," said MacMurrough. "There's an owl too sometimes. And there's a blackbird in the morning. He'll wake you if the crows don't. You can tell the time from the tree he's singing from."

"And the sea too. It's a wonderful house." He gave that blink which had a feeling of velvet when the lashes came down. He yawned and MacMurrough too felt tiredness come upon him. "I keep thinking how lucky I was meeting you, MacEmm. It's a gift you've gave me. It might have been so different. How empty it would be if we didn't know-it's like a secret really-didn't know how we could be."

"You'll have me tearful soon, young man." He pecked him on the forehead. "Come, we'll make up your bed."