At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [164]
“I can only wonder what it’s like to save somebody,” Jim said.
“Do you know,” said MacMurrough, “the strange thing was—I was in my underwear, obviously I had no towel—I had to ask the gentleman might I borrow his. Indeed you must, indeed I insist, said he. In the end it began to feel rather quits, my rescuing the man and his lending me his rotten towel.”
Jim laughed. “Were you in your Jaegars?” he asked.
“Yes, I believe I was.”
“You look best in your Jaegars.”
He had made himself bright red and he shyly peeped up from his feet at MacMurrough’s face. He made to cross his legs and their knees touched. MacMurrough recalled his own discovery of touch, the willing of it, its exploration: so very different from the being touched, the receiving into one’s seclusion the touch of another. And so maddeningly sensual. Often, going home, MacMurrough ached of arousal unrelieved.
Across the bay in Sandycove, a last sun warmed the Martello tower. The whole of Sandycove looked warm, inviting, all tanned stone and water-washed fronts, as though a kinder climate would obtain there. It seemed absurd they should swim in Kingstown. How he had saved for those two season tickets. Yes, he had scrimped and scraped from his allowance, skimping on cigarettes even. Going then to the boy’s home. Infant paraded for his benefit. They offered tea which he had declined. Funny really, quite happily hop in his bed, but drink their tea? One expects the best and can get by on the worst: it is the populars in between are beyond the pale. And the child Nancy looking so proud and womanly.
“You know,” he said, “even if you get there you won’t stay long on your island if it’s this weather.”
The boy shrugged. “What does it matter the weather?”
Even things he did not quite trust, MacMurrough took pleasure in seeing them in the boy. That loyalty which, given a cause, would be silently fanatic; the determination which, given a means, could be ruthless. They talked about the parade tomorrow, St. Patrick’s day, when the Dublin battalions of the Volunteers planned a demonstration in the center of town. They might see Doyler there, MacMurrough suggested.
“I’d like to see him,” said Jim, “though I don’t know would it be right somehow so close before Easter.”
MacMurrough knew that one day soon, perhaps even tomorrow afternoon, he must trawl the Dublin slums for this famed Liberty Hall and find Doyler out. Roundly confront him with his, heartless was the only word, indifference. Not a tram-visit, not a letter, not even a Christmas card to his friend. What did Doyler imagine he was about?
Oh, it was all of it absurd, and MacMurrough could become positively angry with himself, could kick himself thinking of the fool he made. What did he imagine he was about? It all boiled down to his having no proper employment. By this rod I measure myself: that one should not drown on his swim to an island and that two should somehow get there. It was laughable—playing Mother Match to Erin’s youth.
And yet he could think of nothing more grand than helping this boy to his happiness. A happiness whose consummation must inevitably dash any hope of his own. Absurd.
The boy’s eyes were on the Point, beyond which lay the Forty Foot and the Muglins rock. His lips were pulled into his teeth. “He asked me once, Doyler did—well, it doesn’t matter what he asked. But I couldn’t. I was just plain too frightened. I couldn’t, even though I wanted to, sure I wanted to kiss him. There, I’ve told you now.”
MacMurrough laughed.
“I used always have this notion of being watched, you see. Not by other