At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [113]
“So?”
“You don’t find that deceitful?”
“Running away with yourself. Do likes of this, there’ll be any number of weddings after it.”
The troubled trebles of schoolboys greeted them as up the path they returned. A nation once again, a nation once again, a nation, a nation, a nation. And rather a latration of yaps and yowls as a harum-scarum of dogs swept past. Then, out of the agitation, a nation rising yet again.
“You know those Greeks the song refers to?”
“Ancient freemen? Did often wonder about that.”
“They were from Sparta. One of the Greek cities. Rather militaristic, actually.”
“Well?”
“It was considered among the soldiers—and the soldiery was every citizen in Sparta—”
“Sound enough.”
“Considered disreputable if a soldier among them did not have his lover.”
“His lover, aye?”
“Friend. Comrade, if you like. Another man.”
“What’re you saying to me?”
“Just pointing out the history.” The boy is interested. Scrotes, I take my hat off to you. Bloody papers have a use after all. “It was an Irishman who first made this point. In print, I mean. Chap name of Mahaffy, in his Greek history. Not sure about now, but he was often to be seen beetling under the clock at Trinity. Mind you, that was the first edition. Scrotes tells me, told me, in the later editions the subject was purged. He taught Wilde.”
“Is it Oscar Wilde?”
“Yes.”
“He was a very bad fellow, they say.”
“Yes, they do.”
“They’d say anything against an Irishman, the English would.”
“They might tell the truth, too.”
“Aye, they might. They say he used be very famous at one time.”
“He was. He stayed here, you know.”
“In this house?”
“Walked these very paths. It’s whispered some of his poems were, if not written, contemplated here.”
“Is that where you . . . ?”
MacMurrough laughed. “I wasn’t thought of at the time. Or if I was, I was only an infant in your mother’s shawl.”
That took the queries off his face, dimpled his face to smiliness. “You seen the ma and the missy so?”
“She made a difference to me, your mother did. I came across her one time and I heard her singing.”
“She does always be singing, all right.”
“I felt I might belong. I might, God help me, be”—irrational, irrepressible, irresponsible, iron-brained, irascible, irksome, entirely irresistible—“might be Irish,” he said.
“There you are, Anthony. I have been searching aux quatre vents.”
“Aunt Eva, I was coming to see to the gates.”
“The gates are long opened. Really, Anthony, you might be more considerate. Est-ce que je connais ce jeune voyou?”
“Doyle. He’s from the band.”
“Quel insigne intéressant il porte. La Main rouge. You are from the band,” she said, enunciating clearly for the dull ears of the low. “Scurry along, young man, and change into the costume provided. There’s all to do and each to his task.”
She took MacMurrough’s arm and wheeled him round. He had a glimpse of a black devil beshadowing the path, and Doyler was gone. “Did you need to be quite so direct?”
“I have annoyed you. Oh lah, que je can be brusque. It was his vesture. Such colorful taste. Is your friend by any chance a bookie’s runner?”
Suit. She knows, of course. Does she know? Of course she knows.
“But of course he is not your friend. He is, as you say, a boy from the band. Now do come along. I have a most interesting young man I wish you to meet.”
“I thought I was to be wed.”
“All in God’s time. Today we display the goods. To their best advantage, one hopes. Good day, Mrs. O’Donnell. Good day to you, Mrs. O’Neill. Splendid show, I agree. Yes yes, Erin go breagh! O’Donnell aboo! Sassenachs à bas! Presently now.”
She directed him to a tangential path. “Ulster folk, a contumelious breed. I discovered them earlier arguing the name of a flower. It is a sweet william. Not at all, it is a stinking billy. They do pout so. Dear dear, Anthony, and you have scuffed your shoes. Lead me to a seat and we shall sit a moment.