At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [199]
“I had business in Ferns,” MacMurrough said.
“Oh, you did.”
MacMurrough had undressed to his combination shorts, his Jaegars. He was toweling his legs. The boy had his head bowed. From out of the veil of his hair, he said, “My, you’re a handsome man.”
MacMurrough wasn’t sure he had heard him. “Good grief,” he said.
“Oughtn’t I say that?”
“No—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Only I thought—”
“No, I mean, of course you should say it. I don’t mean that. I mean it’s a surprise. A very pleasant one. Truly.”
“MacEmm, you wouldn’t leave that way without saying anything, sure you wouldn’t?”
“I shall have to be leaving some day soon.” Even now MacMurrough could not state plainly his intention. It would be too much to have the boy waving while the boat sailed. Far rather dismay him a day or two till he read it in a letter.
“Some day is all right, though I’m not sure about soon.”
MacMurrough slipped thankfully into a trousers.
“Doyler was in this bed, wasn’t he?”
Again the boy had stopped him. “Jim, are you sure you want to be asking these questions?”
“It doesn’t matter, MacEmm. I’m glad if you were with Doyler. I am. I’m glad.”
MacMurrough turned from him, into his closet to choose a tie. The big fawn one, he heard called after. “This one is it?”
“Can I tie it for you?”
“Of course you may.”
He stood before him, a most solemn face, his jaw working with the twining of his hands. It was a while before he spoke. Even then it was MacMurrough’s shirt stud he addressed. “MacEmm—when Doyler comes, it will be all right, won’t it?” He gave a glance at MacMurrough’s face.
“My goodness,” said MacMurrough, “it has you worried out of your mind.”
“I know it’ll be all right. Only I think I needed you to tell me it will.”
He put his hands square on the boy’s shoulders. “It’s your friend who’s coming, Jim, not some stranger. Didn’t you tell me you loved him? Don’t you know when you love someone you don’t need to do anything at all?”
“You don’t?”
“You just look in his eyes and smile.”
“Oh,” said Jim. He was biting his lip. His chin lifted and he was forcing his narrow shrinking face into the semblance of a smile. His eyes fluttering looked into MacMurrough’s. “Oh,” he said again.
MacMurrough’s arms flung about him and pressed the boy to his body. His fingers raked through his hair, near pulling it. The face crushed against his shoulder and, muffled, the boy said, “I do love you, MacEmm.”
“Oh Jim,” said MacMurrough. His arms in their strength would hold him more tightly still, would crumple the slender frame, grunt the breath from its lungs. And still tighter they would hold him, hurting him, willing the hurt, rather to experience than to express, in this pain they would give, the extremity of the passion he felt. He saw them reflected in the body-glass: the tumbled hair, the jacket skewed in his grip, the boy’s arms that languid reached to his neck. A corner of the bed peeked into view. “Come now,” he said. He took Jim by the shoulders again. “You mustn’t leave him waiting.”
He walked him to the gates and watched him down the road to Glasthule. A terrible fear shook him, a fear for his boy and what the future might hold. Lest he should stumble and the crowd should find him. For we live as angels among the Sodomites. And every day the crowd finds some one of us out. I know their lewd calls and their obscene gestures. I know their mockery that bides their temper’s loss. I have seen in lanes and alleys of Piccadilly faces streaked with their spit and piss, and mouths they have bloodied with boots and blows. For rarely an angel finds a Lot to house him. And I would not my boy should suffer so.
You had it wrong, old man, my Scrotes. There is no grand mistake. Aristotle wrote something that Augustine got wrong that Aquinas codified in law. It’s