At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [140]
A finger moved to his upper lip where the breeze abraded the tender smooth. That grim dread line: this morning he had shaved his ’tache off. Matter of an inch or so of hair, yet he felt positively airy for its going. The cigarette was exquisite, and left him unsatisfied. As Wilde had said, what more could one want?
In he patters now. Shy thing like a dog in slippers. Coast clear? Check behind walls. Undresses deep in the shelter, shirt and vest modestly last. Delightful how he folds his clothes, boots squared under the bench. That’s right, turn round and let me see you in the sun.
Coming along nicely. Shoulders broadening, the chest separating, not the ribs and salt-cellars I remember only months back. Touch of a stiff if I’m not mistaken. Sensuality of the open air. A decent, hand-reared boy. Say hello. No, wait.
The boy padded to the cove. He reached for the ladder, but he stopped in half-stoop. A movement of his shoulders seemed to shrug the cold from him. He stood full upright in the strained sun, staring down at the water. Then slowly his arms began to rise. His fingers uncurled and his elbows bent. His arms rose, drawing him up, feet to his toes, toes to his tips. Up he rose, pulling his stomach in, stretching his torso, his armpits opening their downy nest. In a wide arc his arms rose, till high and forward of his head his hands prayer-like met. His head ducked down. So he stood, minutes it seemed.
Afterwards, MacMurrough could not decide what view he had of the boy, for he seemed to have seen all sides at once. His hair’s shaven back and the flop of it over his forehead; those long shivery lashes and the freckles on his neck; how his spine grooved, how his nipples were pale and tight. He saw the deep cleft of his seat and the small stand of his front, the each shaped for the other. Water foamed below him and sky streaked above. His white body stood out sharply against the blur of stone and rock. Mica darted in the sun.
MacMurrough was certain the boy was aware of his presence. Certain too that he did not pry, but had been appointed to see. A glimmering of fate told him he would know this boy. He would know him, perhaps, for all that he was and had been and should be. But he would never see him again so completely. He must look now and see all there was to see. The boy posed a practice dive, and not a very serviceable one at that. But the animal within had willed its revelation.
At last MacMurrough let him go. He turned away. When next he looked, the boy had descended the ladder. He was in the frothing water, clinging to the rungs, his usual penance in the sea.
MacMurrough went to the shelter. The boy came huddling out. When he saw MacMurrough holding his towel he gave that extraordinary blink. Then he turned and MacMurrough wrapped the towel round his shoulders and began rubbing him dry. Rubbing all of him, all over his body, rubbing, it might be, a drenched puppy.
“Now dress,” he said.
He left him and returned to the ledge looking out on the sea, and smoked. After a time the boy joined him.
“I’m not allowed swim,” he said without prompting. “I mean I promised my father I wouldn’t till the spring. That’s why I hold on the ladder. Because it’s not really swimming.”
“I see,” said MacMurrough.
“Only I wouldn’t like my father finding out.”
“Of course.”
It seemed faintly ridiculous their talking. Yet the boy needed to talk. They had come so close, so precipitantly. He needed to anchor his emotions. MacMurrough said, “Fathers can be difficult at times.”
“Do you say so?”
So, said MacMurrough to himself, though he knew that this time it could not be that way. “How is the band these days?” he asked, filling in for the boy’s awkwardness.
“The band is grand, thank you.”
“I don’t hear much music coming from the summerhouse.”
“No, not music so much.