At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [16]
All the same, why wouldn’t they stick to the stated times? Sending the dungcart a day early, the commotion it causes. Poor Aunt Sawney, she’s on her last legs without the vexation of middens. Dung-dodgers, she calls them. Do they dodge the dung or what? Goo-wallahs it was in India. Shifting furniture, clearing a gangway, rolling up the oilcloth. Deal of commotion, up and down the street.
Up he weighs now, great brute of a bucket on his shoulder. Fancies himself a taste. Likes to show his brawn. “Careful now, we don’t want any mess.” Is that a limp I see? Bit of a hop there. Tries to bury it, but can’t dish an old sergeant. Wait now, that face. Great big grin on him, width of Cheshire. Don’t I know that face?
He tramped back into the house after the dungman’s lad. Now would you look at that. Heap of mess on the floor, right below the Georgius Rex. Told him about loading that bucket. Straight up to the brim he filled it.
“Here you, young hopeful, I want a word with you.”
“Yes, Mr. Mack?”
Mr. Mack peered. “It’s young Doyler, isn’t it? You’re Doyle’s eldest.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you back in the parish. In work and all. Yes, I’m very glad.” Mr. Mack stroked the bush of his mustache. “I was only talking this morning with your father.”
“Is that right, Mr. Mack. Mr. Mack, could I trouble you for a drink of water?”
How germs are spread. Could risk an old jam pot? Uncharitable. In the end he brought water in his own special cup. The boy turned back the cuff of his sleeve and wiped his mouth on the inside. Mr. Mack was touched by the gesture, a courtesy he was sure addressed to him and his cup. “Thirsty work,” he said.
“A bit all right.”
“How long are you back?”
“Not long yet.”
“Your father is above with the papers now.”
“He is.”
“He might keep at that employment.”
“Hard to keep a job down, Mr. Mack, with his lungs the way they are.”
Mr. Mack let a grunt. The bellows, the bronicals, any shift you choose. If work was in a bed, that man would sleep on the floor. Consumption, my eye. Of spirituous liquors is what it is. Sure he’d sell his mother for a tuppenny wet. But that’s the way it goes with some of these fellows. They leaves the army, they wouldn’t know to sneeze without they’re ordered to. I’m glad now to see his son turning out a better class. “Not long at this work?”
“Not long,” said Doyler.
Knock the spirit out of you, this work would, give it time. He had the collar of his waistcoat turned up against the muck, and the inside of the lapel showed a badge with a red hand in it. What’s this, the Red Hand of Ulster? The Doyles is never northern folk. The father nobody knows where he hailed, the mother is out of the west some place. Though father might not be the appropriate sentiment in this particular case. Doyler Doyle: had to take the name twice to be sure of it. “Where was this they sent you? Clare, was it? Your mother has people that way.”
“Clare, aye.”
It struck Mr. Mack he had been wanting this morning in his encounter with Mr. Doyle. Never once thought to ask of the family: the wife nor the care. That was amiss now. Quickly he inquired of the mother, who was grand all right, and of his brothers and sisters, though as it turned out he had only sisters, but they too were grand. And were they still down the Banks, his folks?
“Where else would have us?” the boy replied.
Indeed. “Still, you’ll be glad to be back in the parish. In work and all.”
“To be frank, Mr. Mack, there’s little enough for me here. The contractors has us on short time.”
The advancing sewers, didn’t I say?
“Most the men they laid off. Employed a grush of boys in their place. Half the wages and the same blow they proves their loyalty to the Crown.”
“Crown?” said Mr. Mack. “How’s this about the Crown?”
“Sure what hope has the men but they list in the army? The contractors is held for a great example.”
This was serious talk and close to, if not beyond of, politics. And Mr. Mack was not at all sure it fitted his dignity to be arguing with the dungman’s lad. “Do you not see,” he said, “’tis