At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [108]
“You think I should wear my badge with pride?”
He had forgotten about the badge. I have spilt my soul and he bothers with baubles. “I shouldn’t risk losing my job over it. But in the Pavilion Gardens I don’t see why not.”
In one of his cracks he had the badge pinned openly. Red hand supinate on a tinny metal. In this he believes.
He made to stand up. “Have to go round the corner.”
“You’ll need some change.”
“They makes you pay?”
“A tip. There’ll be a woman outside. Just drop it in her saucer. It’s expected.”
He shot his cuffs, in a gesture unbecomingly spontaneous, and swanked through the tables. Thruppenny masher I’ve made of him, thought MacMurrough. Already his neck was reddening where it wasn’t accustomed to a collar. Howling check he chose. On their way from Lee’s he had called at the railway station where he plastered his hair with tap water.
Shit-shoveller and comfort for the troops, Arcades ambo. Naturally he blames me. And I suppose I have cast that apple before him.
—That apple, the chaplain trumpeted, which, once he taste of it, shall rot in his mouth to the apple of Sodom.
Yes yes, we know all that. Besides he’s already taken a tolerable bite. But did my giving it him to taste beget his desire or waken it? That is the question. Or is that the question? Mayn’t they find a half-hour’s happiness in each other’s arms? God knows, there’s little enough joy in the world, and precious little for free.
I wonder does he frig himself thinking of his friend. Don’t suppose he finds much privacy where he sleeps. I should like to hold him while he frigged. Yes, that would be pleasant. To stroke his hair and hold him close while he thought of his friend and frigged in my bed. His flowers and his frolics to fondle and lovingly Dick to lunge, while the name of his friend to the pillow he moaned.
Test of a true hunter—Do you fuck your catch? Pater, O pater, behold thy son.
Doyler returned. Sheepishly showed his hand, the coins still there. “Do you mind?”
MacMurrough shook his head. “She does little to earn it more than ask for it.”
They walked back through George’s Street, then through the People’s Park, which pleased the boy immoderately. No, he had never been before, never in his puff. A right cheek they had calling it the People’s Park, then the keepers chasing you out without you was wearing a collar and tie. And vaguely MacMurrough agreed.
“You know, Scrotes had many friends in the socialist movement.”
“Scrotes? Your friend, is it?”
“Some people in Sheffield. I was supposed to visit with them. But I didn’t. I came here instead.”
“Maybe you was better going with the socialists.”
“England is bloody at the moment. This war has got into everything.”
“There’ll be war here soon enough.”
“They’re always saying that about Ireland.”
“Sure as tomorrow’s rain, there’ll be fighting in the streets.”
“Yes, and the Russians are on the Tyne and the angels are at Mons.”
“Ah well, you being a visitor, you’d know better than me.”
MacMurrough laughed in good grace.
“Tell us about them socialists anyway.”
“Fellow called Carpenter. Written books, apparently. Talks about comrade love.”
“Aye does he.”
“No, seriously. Believes it’s a way of bridging the social divides.”
“Likely story. If that was the case, every time a nob took a tart they’d end up talking socialism.”
The import of what he had said gradually dawned. MacMurrough raised a brow in curiosity. But the boy, too, had a good grace.
“Ah sure well,” he said, having spat on the wall, “that makes me the tart.”
They slowed their pace, yet still they came to the lane where he lived. They