At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [141]
“I’m told your father has resigned.”
“From the drilling? He has, yes.”
“How is she?”
“Who?”
“Forgive me, I’ve forgotten her name.”
“Is it Nancy?”
“She’s all right, I hope?”
“Grand, I think.”
He had got the story from his aunt. Drill instructor of insufficient probity, nation’s youth, curate’s opinion not hers, regrettable all round. She had looked distressed rather; and not a little surprised at the man’s having shown such ballast.
MacMurrough yawned. His eyes were tired from the glare and pinched in their corners with salt. They sat so close but he had no need to touch the boy, to pat his leg or stand up and, by adventure, brush his trousered stiff on his forehead. All that was given. It was settled and to come. He felt nearly sleepy: that luxurious sleepiness when slumber is certain, and one lies awake pondering trifles, till theftuous sleep drift one away.
“Yes, she’s grand and fine,” the boy said.
“She must be coming due. A Christmas child.”
He was proud to be spoken to on such a subject, and studiedly he vouchsafed, “We aren’t sure the exact day, but I heard them mentioning it could be any time now.”
“And you’ll be an uncle.”
“I will,” he said and smiled.
MacMurrough’s fingers went to his pocket for a cigarette, but he willed them to wait. He suffered the exquisite delight of gratification delayed. So too with the boy, in not holding him, not touching him. But they were coming down now from that high place they had been. The moment of vision fast was fading. The after-glow of his bathe too was fading and MacMurrough felt the spanking breeze edging his appetite. Tiresome ceremony to go home to. Staff lined up at the pass door. Small token of one’s appreciation. Little bob and the surreptitious fingering of the parcel, poker-faced estimation of content, of worth.
The boy held his cap in his hands. Its donning would mark an irreversible leave-taking. MacMurrough said, “Did you get a Christmas box?”
“A book, I did. Kipling.”
“Let me guess. Barrack-Room Ballads.”
“And Other Verses. How did you know that?”
“Fathers are much the same, I suppose. Macaulay was my particular bugbear. ‘Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the nine gods he swore’—wretched stuff. My father would read chunks of it out loud after Christmas table. I could never understand, if he liked it so much, why he didn’t buy himself the rotten books. I always wished for Shelley.”
He laughed at that. Schoolboy surprise at the masters maligned. Kind of relief, too, that they can be. “I never read Shelley,” he said.
“You might like it.” Yes, bearding the pater in his den and quavering an interest in Prometheus Unbound. God-forsaken man. Having that obscenity in the house.
MacMurrough stroked the raw trace on his upper lip. The boy glancing saw this and his smile freshened, brightness itself.
“I knew there was something,” he said.
“Yes,” said MacMurrough. “Mustache. Do you like it?”
“I do.”
“Shaved it off this very morning.”
“I was sure there was something, only I couldn’t think what it was.”
“So you like me without?”
“I do so.”
“I’m pleased.”
“Yes, I like it.”
He colored slightly. He stared down at the stone by his boots. How wonderful it was this coming to know, certain of the knowing to come. Every word was weighed and every glance an inquiry. Each gesture gave just that little too much away. As now when the boy fiddling with his cap let it slip and, they both reaching to retrieve it, their hands touched on the felt. Touched that little too long. With another glance, the boy relinquished his claim, leaving MacMurrough to hold the prize, that blue peter without which no departure was possible.
After an interval the boy asked, “Was it because of Doyler you gave up the band?”
“Oh—partly, I suppose.” MacMurrough shrugged. “I thought it most unseemly how the priest handled it.”
“You were close with him, I think.”
“We were friendly, yes, for a time.”
“I saw you together a few times all right.” His drying hair fell in his eyes. His tongue showed between parted teeth which