At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [160]
“Well, there was no holding Nancy and in she flounces with the baby and all. And Mr. MacMurrough, he looks down at the little face, and do you know what he says? I’m glad to see, says he, there was room at the inn this Christmas.”
His father leant back in his chair and his eyebrows lifted.
“Isn’t that the grand way of talking?”
“It’s true too.”
He shrugged his head. “Oh sure I wouldn’t know about that. But I have to say, it shows the quality. He shook my hand, he did. Mr. Mack, says he, you’re a gentleman.”
Jim lay with smiles on his face that he felt could flutter away of themselves and fill the room with butterflies. He knew he was still feverish, for the smiling ached his muscles. It was so pleasant to lie there and know that sleep was coming, it was coming soon for his eyes were heavy, but sleep would be peaceful. All was safe, he was well. He saw round the room his father’s things. The Staffordshire watch-holder with no watch to hold. The slats of wood and cloth by the door that his father called a prie-dieu. Above that, his mother’s portrait. She looked surprised, but pleased, to see him there. This was a strange bed, in a room he wasn’t used to, where the pillow and sheets were suffused with pomade. But it was home and he was not lost.
“Well?” said his father.
“Well what, Da?”
“Aren’t you begging to know what Mr. MacMurrough wanted with you?”
“To swim, I thought.”
“That’s only the start of it. He has season tickets bought for the Kingstown Baths. Heated pool and sea-water pool, them both. Oh, sure he had some blarney about a gentleman expected and he never turned up. But ask me now, and I think he has them bought special. He has a wish for you, I do believe. Nothing would do but he came up to see you. Very modern ways he has. You couldn’t say Hop but he had the window opened. Change of air, he called it.”
“I remember him, Da. I remember him coming in.”
“Well, and I hope you took your cap off to him. For he’s a gentleman true and blue. Private lessons from Mr. MacMurrough, what? Will that make you eat up your beef tea?”
“I have it finished.”
“So you have.” He took the bowl and with his other hand he touched and rubbed Jim’s knee through the blankets. His face was out of the lamp, but still Jim saw his honest happiness which like soap shone on his cheeks. He picked up his book. “I’ll bring these down now.”
“What book were you reading?”
“Just some old thing out of Dickens. They gave it me to borrow from your school. Here’s a good one for you. Who the Dickens was Boz? That came to me all on my own while I was sitting here. What do you think? Might send that in the papers. Do you catch on at all? Who the Dickens was Boz? They give a reward for items of interest like that.”
But Jim could see his father was already doubting if Who the Dickens wasn’t a touch too choice for the newspapers. It was strange about Mr. MacMurrough. In his fever, when he came in the room, he had seemed to Jim a silver knight, opening his window and banishing gloom. And he had looked so kind that last time they had met, his lip not checked by that mustache, and his eyes too that had lost the chill in their corners. His father was telling how Nancy was stitching an old vest and a drawers together which she was to dye blue and he’d be a bathing beau in the Kingstown Baths.
“Da, I wouldn’t have gone swimming without asking you.”
“Sure I know that, son.” He pulled a wry face. “Leastways, if you did, you’d be holding on to the ladder.”
“You knew about that?”
“Where would your towel be going if it wasn’t down the Forty Foot each morning? There’s a twitter of wit in the old man yet. Ho ho ho, not totally queer in the attic.”
“And did you used follow me so?”
“If it was particular inclement I might stretch that far. Don’t you know, son, you’re my pride and joy. I wouldn’t want to be holding