At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [157]
No, she was wrong about that. He didn’t miss Doyler at all. Matter of fact he was only too glad if Doyler was away. “Do you tell me?” Yes, that’s what he told her.
She went to ruffle his hair but he shook his head out of the way. “Cheer up, old trooper,” she said.
And it was true. He was only too thankful that Doyler was away. Doyler had been his friend, and if he had any feelings for him at all, he must be sure they never again were friendly. He no longer went to the Forty Foot. He did not think of the island. At school they were playing rugby. The scrum was torturous for him, a torment to be touched. One day when he ran he felt his feet lifting from the grass like the grass was liquid and he swam with the ball.
And that day, while play carried on far into the opponents’ twenty-five, he saw walking the chalk on the field perimeter a familiar figure like an old crow. A black crow with a black umbrella, for the rain was sheeting down. He forgot about play entirely and he ran to greet him. “Brother Polycarp!” he called, “Brother Polycarp!”
He was out of his breath, hot and light-headed, when he caught the brother up. Brother Polycarp didn’t stop or turn in his walk. “It’s Jim, Brother. Jim Mack.”
“Is that who it is,” the brother said.
He didn’t sound very interested. “Are you better again, Brother?”
“Better at what?”
Jim shook his head. The rain on his face was like a sweat. He felt very strange inside. The world felt strange, and looked it too, as though curtained by rain. In and out of the curtain boys ran. One charged into him and nearly knocked him over. He made out hooped jerseys with strange colors like tropical bees. They were playing football. In lovely toil they scrimmaged, the lofty goal to reach.
“May I talk with you, Brother?”
“Aren’t you talking anyway?”
“Brother, I fear I made a mistake. About being a brother, Brother.”
“A brother Brother,” the brother mimicked. “How is your pal?”
He seemed genuinely to want to know. Jim tried to frame responses. But he was so hot inside. For all it rained he felt hot and giddy, under the collar, so that his tie would strangle him if he did not loosen it. But when he went to his collar he found he was wearing a jersey. Fellows were calling his name. The ball rolled in a roily puddle. The turmoil of the game shoved about him, toiling and moiling. He believed he had a headache. But his head and its ache seemed miles separated.
“He’s gone away, and he mustn’t come back.”
“And so you think to be a brother.”
“Brother”—Jim did not know why, but he believed he might tell Brother Polycarp. Brother Polycarp would—“Brother, I’ve done a terrible thing. Do you know what it is I’ve done? You do know, don’t you?”
But Brother Polycarp had no interest in that. “Publius Vergilius Maro,” he said: “how’s your Virgil these days?”
The brother was rambling; physically too, for his mouth moved in curious ways so that a dribble came out the corners, and his cheeks were caught in a crooked leer the way it was a stroke he had had. A stroke, as they said, of the hand of God.
Jim had to shake his head to clear the muzziness. For a moment he was running with a huge egg and his hands like balloons trying to hold it, then the ball was gone and he said, “Brother Matthew takes us for Latin now.”
“‘Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt’: translate.”
Distantly Jim recalled the phrase. “You told us it could not be translated.”
“And I did, you could make a fist at it. Do you know when he