At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [152]
Not that Gordie was ever behind in catching on.
But where would you be without Aunt Sawney? You’d wonder how’d she know it all. Would swear she had a street of them raised, the little mites. And her parched old face when she watched you at nursing. She liked to see the child at her feed. Well, you’d go that way had you never gave milk. Smacking her gums, like she’d be tasting it herself. Hairy old chin she poked at the babba and her cheeks all sunk. You’d often wonder had she mistook the boot-blacking for rouge. But if ever a face told lies, Aunt Sawney’s was the wickedest yet.
She woke in the night one time, without the babba crying, and she could just make out Aunt Sawney in her chair, rocking and rocking, slow-like and deliberate, over the drawer from the chest where the babba slept. Queer old fright she looked by the nightlight. You couldn’t but think of them withered old jugs and for a moment the fear came on that she’d take up the child and—you didn’t know what with it.
But Nancy hadn’t moved nor made any sound, and she was glad of that after, for Aunt Sawney only kept to her rocking, so slow and deliberate-like, nodding stiffly at each Jesus in her prayers. There was something the way she stared, something near fierce about it, the way with every rock of her chair she’d be willing her hopes inside the sleeping mite. Till a moan from the drawer broke the moment and soon enough the babba was looking for her feed. While the tiny mouth dribbled and the withered face watched, Nancy had prayed that Aunt Sawney would be spared to them, spared at least till the child would know her, and she’d love her Aunt Sawney for the true cause and source of her happiness, whatever share would come her way.
She sighed now, and smoothed her dress over her knees. To and fro she rocked the crate, the wheels on cobbles scraped. She sighed again, and rhymed a music-hall snatch.
It ain’t all honey and it ain’t all jam
Wheeling round the houses with a home-made pram.
It must be dinner-time for some boys came past, little tykes so they were, calling out “Maggie! Maggie!” and pointing their dirty fingers down the lane. Sure let them point. Soon enough now and it won’t be fingers they’re pointing. She took up the song herself, and sang as she’d heard it off the girls by the canal.
O Maggie, hold your head up high
Walk tall and proud and strong.
You’re worth twice twenty score and more
Than him that did this wrong.
Well, she didn’t know what she was worth, not much she supposed, nor what Gordie was worth, little more now than a letter off the King. But you couldn’t call it wrong what they done together, not when you saw the little mite here. Oh sure Gordie, Gordie, I’ve mourned and missed you longer than ever I loved you. I love you yet, but I can’t be mourning for ever. Isn’t it enough I’ll never have my wedding-day nor never share your bed with you? Not once for my man to hold me in the night and wake with my man in my bed beside me. All that’s gone. The beginning of that was the ending of it. They’ll know me in years to come for the old maid does be watching at weddings. No, she never married, they’ll say, though ’tis known she was pretty once. Going into a hugger-mugger then, to relish the shame of the tale.
She reached into the oranges crate and brought the bundle of sleep to her breast. Turning she saw the card in the shop window. Aunt Sawney had put it there after the babba was born. Gordon Mack, in thin black lettering inside of a thick black border. Gallipoli 1915. RIP. And he was a rip too. A rip and a bold particle. I was a girl then and he was a boy. You were after making a woman of me, Gordie, if you did but know. Though I doubt if ever I made a man of you. Is it only with men they can be made men of? Is it that why they rush to go?
At the bottom of the card, old Macks had added, Corporal, “C” Comp., 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers. For King & Country. Which last was a lie, but what harm, if it made old Macks happy.
Poor old Mr. Mack. He has it harder than any of us, I sometimes think. There he is with his heart all