At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [132]
But where was Doyler? He had muzzy thoughts of tenements in Dublin. He might have gone down the Banks to ask of his people, but he didn’t care to trouble them. Many evenings, after his deliveries, he pushed through the wind of the Point, down into the Forty Foot. In the dark, if he was certain of his solitude, he brought out his flute and played to the waves the music Doyler had learnt him there. Slipjigs mostly, those winding minor-keyed melodies, that seemed to say to him, sleepily on and over, sleepily stop—and on again; sleepily slow but surely, steepily deepily sleepily down. He’d pull his collar up round his neck and watch the Muglins light. It seemed unlikely as sunshine that he’d swim to that island. That come the spring he’d go with Doyler and struggling against the stream they’d rise to those rocks, upon whose face they’d lie, and under the tumbling clouds all would be made clear.
All what would be made clear, he was not sure. There were words in the back of his mind, or in the sea that circled his mind, whose articulation, like his father with the Gaelic, his tongue could not get round. He sometimes felt if he would close his eyes and dip below, he might catch these words, they were drifting there in the flotsam, and he could say them now, if only to himself, and he would understand what it was that troubled him. Troubled and thrilled him, so that they were the same sensation to feel, trouble and thrill, a single trepidation. Yet it was not right he should understand now. He must wait till Doyler. Only when he was ready, when Doyler would bring him to the island, only then was the time for understanding.
But as soon as he got this far, he started over, like he was swimming in his mind and had touched the raft and now must head for the cove again, for indeed it was not clear what he should understand, or even that there was anything requiring his understanding. And why wouldn’t he just look forward to the day instead of moidering in the deeps the while? For it might so be nothing would await him on the island. Yet the hurry of his heart told the lie of that. And there were words in the back of his mind or in the sea that circled his mind which, if only he would catch them, would tell the truth. And his heart didn’t need to be told but knew already that Easter next, all would be clear.
Then the light of the Muglins recalled him and he sloped out of the Forty Foot and climbed on the shop bike, with its rusty chain and the mudflap that squeaked against the wheel, and cycled with the wind behind him home.
His father came in one evening, having been into Dublin, on what business he did not immediately say. He shook his coat at the yard door then hung it to dry before the range. The steam rose with the homely aroma of ironing. “I went as far as the Coombe,” he said eventually. “Coombe and the Liberties. Did you know they’re away off beyond the Castle? I wasn’t so sure at first.”
Jim smiled for his father was notorious for losing his way, especially in Dublin; though having been a Dublin Fusilier he refused to admit this and would never inquire directions. He brought his father cocoa and watched his hands engulf the mug. “The Coombe, Da?” he said.
“Card after card after card,” he answered. “Scarce a window but they has their card in the glass. Some of them, God help us, with two cards, three cards, to show for it. All of them edged in black. I read the names and regiments. Old Toughs or Blue Caps to a man. I thought I might recognize some of the names. But I did not. These were younger men. These would be Gordie’s fellows. And all the young childer in the streets. I thought them is all orphans now.”
He finished his cocoa and the little grouts at the bottom he emptied on the fire.