At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [13]
“Some of your schoolfellows?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Mack stroked the end of his mustache. “That tops it,” he said. “You can ask your schoolfellows to put in a good word for the shop.” He tapped his nose. “Word of mouth, a personal recommendation. But see they gets the bills first.”
A sudden notion and he jabbed his hand into a jar of Lemon’s sweets. He emptied the handful into Jim’s jacket pocket. “Distribute these to your schoolfellows. They’ll think the more of you for it.”
“Yes, Da.”
“Papa,” said Mr. Mack. “That’s three times, four times you’ve called me Da.” But Jim was already out of tongueshot, pushing down the road.
Peculiar case, thought Mr. Mack. He’s not sullen, nor yet very gamesome. Is he cheerfuller in the street? Hangs up his fiddle when he’s home, that’s for sure. Sixteen: hobbledehoy, neither man nor boy. Might have perhaps wished him a happy birthday. But he’d be looking for his present then, and we’d be Christmas Day in the morning before them bills got delivered.
Now what’s this the commotion is up the hill? Something going off whatever it is. And that whiff. Recognize that whiff.
A woman in dark bombazine walked by holding a clean child by the hand. Mr. Mack mimed a tweak of his peak, then patted the child’s head. “Open till late,” he said.
Way up Adelaide Road, over the railway bridge, undriven came a low cart. That smell, thought Mr. Mack. Then: “Herrings above! Aunt Sawney, where are you? Get up out of your chair, Aunt Sawney! The dungcart is coming. They’ll be here in the hour and we’ve nothing prepared.”
Jim propped the bike against a garden wall, took a handful of bills and went to the first door of a terrace of villas. He was sliding the handbill inside the box when the door opened and a boy stepped out. He wore the same cap as Jim, with the same badge: Dirige nos Domine.
“Who is it?” called a voice within.
“It’s a billing-boy from the Glasthule huckster’s.”
“What does he want at the front door? Tell him to mind his manners.”
“Mind your manners,” said the boy who was Jim’s schoolfellow, and the door closed in his face.
Some words you could really hate, and one of those was fellow. They used it all the time at college. His first day at Presentation, a boy had approached: “The fellows wanted to know, is it true you live in a corner-huckster’s?” Jim had said no, it was the Adelaide General Stores and some of these fellows sniggered. “Do you sleep at night in a bed?” Jim slept on a settle-bed made up in the kitchen, so he said yes, but they were up to that dodge. “In a bedroom?” He shook his head. Then, decisively: “The fellows wanted to know what name do you call your father?”
“Da,” Jim answered.
Sometimes the jibes spilt over into rough stuff, like shoving when he queued for the water-fountain or hard scragging at football. In the end he claimed a fight with the ugliest fellow, a bullocky lad named Fahy. He could still feel the shock of the chatterer to his chin, the dizzy sway round the circle of honor as grassward he fell. But they left out the physicality after that. Whenever his hand went up in class, they chaffed him for the Grand Exhibit. When for lack of his own he shared a schoolbook, they goosed him, chiming, “For the scholarship boy is a needy boy.”
He mentioned it once to his father, and his father said, “What is it they call their own fathers?”
Jim shrugged. “Papa, I think.”
“That’s easy fixed so. You call me Papa in future, then you’ll be equal with your fellows.”
It might have passed but for his father’s interfering. He couldn’t keep away from the college, but was ever at the gates, offering his services for field days and bazaars. The school wouldn’t play a match but his cart rolled up with pop and sweets. Save the souls of piccaninnies! A shilling per guinea to the Presentation Missions.
Ballygihen Avenue ended at the sea and when Jim came there he rested on the sea-wall and stared out across Dublin Bay. The city lay under a haze, but Howth was sunny and clear, a sleeveless, sinewy arm thrown out while Dublin dozed.