At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [18]
His son looked down from the steps where he was dusting a stack of jars.
“Remember that Doyle one, was at the national school with you? He’s back now and he’s the dungman’s lad.”
“Doyler?” said Jim.
“What’s this the smile’s in aid of?”
“Only I saw him myself and I thought I recognized him.”
“Where was this?”
“Down by the sea-wall.”
“And what were you doing by the sea-wall?”
“Delivering bills.”
“To the sea?”
Smile gone and capital T for Tragic in its place. “Was catching my breath is all.”
In a shake Mr. Mack discovered the moral of the day. “Now that lad’s father is a shaper and a hook, and look where his son has fetched up. If now I was to fritter my time catching my breath by the sea, where would that leave you? Not to mention your brother. Not to mention Aunt Sawney. On the ash-pit with young Doyler is where. You want to catch on to yourself. Have you done with them jars yet?”
“Yes, Da.”
“Did you deliver them bills like I told you?”
“The most of them, Da.”
Mr. Mack squeezed his mustache. “Papa,” he said.
When Aunt Sawney called them in for their tea, he stopped by the door, surprised out of himself by the sight. A groaningboard of a feast. Cured ham, the tongue of a sheep, buttered shop-bought bread. And there was more. She was carrying in a jelly now that wobbled alarmingly before her face. “Glory be,” he said, “that’s a grand spread you’re after fixing, Aunt Sawney. I had no notion you was going to such trouble. Did we, Jim?”
“’Tis no trouble to me,” said she, “not to be the clutching hand.”
“Well no, I didn’t intend—”
“There’s some I know afeared to sneeze, they might give something away.”
“Well yes—”
“There’s others too mean to join their hands, leave out to pray for a soul.”
“That’s surely true—”
“But there’s one I know has two poor boys. The one he hunts away to die, th’other he keeps to slave on his birthday.”
This final turn was accompanied by a thump on the table as she banged his plate in front of him. He looked down and in the heel of the hunt he knew what was her game. The same doling of cabbage and bacon that had outfaced him at dinner. The spread was for the boy alone.
“Bless Thee, Father . . .” But his heart wasn’t in it and he quickly signed the cross. He picked up his knife and fork. “Happy birthday, Jim.”
He could feel her grinning gummily at him. Incorrect to say she was a malicious old witch. The wits aren’t your own at her vintage. Besides, she was only over the bronchitis. And the house was her own to do with as she pleased, the house and the shop and God knows, don’t we know it. But this new rigmarole about Gordie, hunting him away. As though ’twas I invaded Belgium.
He heard her now, a horse-whisper to his son. “I have a treat to go with the splash, little man.” And from out the press she produced a parcel.
Mr. Mack felt the blow like the homer she intended. Before the boy had the paper unwrapped he could tell it held the finest long black broadcloth trousers a young man could want or wish for.
“Look, Da.”
“Why, I must say, that’s handsome in the extreme, Aunt Sawney.”
“Handsome be damned,” she answered, the gullets of her cheeks agitating. “Is it handsome to keep the little man in breeks all his days? He’s been wanting of them a twelvemonth and more but ye, ye’re too thick to know and too grasping to get them him.”
Mr. Mack grinned delicately. “Now now, Aunt Sawney.”
“Can I try them on, Da?”
“Say thank you first.”
She lifted her chin and he lipped her skin then, turning his back, slipped out of his breeches and into the longed-for legs.
Aunt Sawney drew her blanket closer round her shoulders; said, “I’ll mind shop now while ye and your lordship has your feed. And don’t mind the rule on your birthday, little man. Speak your fill, if there’s any worth speaking to.” Out she went and soon enough the Joyful Mysteries came moaning through the door.
“Da, what’s wrong?”
“No no, nothing wrong.”
“Papa, you can have some of mine to eat.”
“No no, ’tis your