At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [226]
“We’ll shake the lamp to find any oil left.”
“There’s no lamp sure.”
“And you know,” said Jim, exploring his fingers along Doyler’s arm, along the scrapes and grazes of the elbow, their mesmeric tactility, “you know, things won’t be like this then.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Listen to me. When you’d touch me, I won’t be jumping, I won’t be startled, won’t hardly show if I felt it even.”
“What about it?”
“I’m just thinking that would be pleasant. To be reading, say, out of a book, and you to come up and touch me—my neck, say, or my knee—and I’d carry on reading, I might let a smile, no more, wouldn’t lose my place on the page. It would be pleasant to come to that. We’d come so close, do you see, that I wouldn’t be surprised out of myself every time you touched.”
“And wouldn’t you better like it if I touched you, say, down here, say? And if I was to go down, say, like this, say?”
“Don’t bend, you’ll bring on the cramp.”
“And, say now, I took hold your buttons and undone them, say, like this, say, and I fetched out your lad, what would you say to that?”
“Don’t, Doyler. Stop it.”
“And say I was to lick my, say my tongue, say? Only the tip of my tongue, like this, say?”
“Oh my goodness,” whispered Jim. “Oh my gracious me.”
He didn’t need to ask where Doyler had learnt this. In this same bed—oh my gosh. The love he felt was extraordinary. The sense of its power astounded him. That all this should happen, and then Ireland to rise! that he should not be separated from any he loved. He felt humbled, and a little awed. The little hairs curled through Doyler’s fingers as up and down the fingers stroked. This very bed. The eyes closed and the mouth wide and the thick lips on the pink thing. My gosh.
After, while they lay, Jim said, “Will I tell you now about the Sacred Band of Thebes?”
“Tell me anything you like.”
“They was an army,” Jim began. Yes, an army. They stood three hundred strong. And each man stood with his friend by his side. They fought that way, friend and friend, side by side. They were famed the world over, the ancient world over, for their courage and loyalty. They never once broke or ran. “For you know,” said Jim, “it would be awful hard to do anything dishonorable with your friend by your side.”
“So they was never bate?”
“Well, they was,” said Jim. At Chaeronea they fell. But not a man but he had his face to the foe and his friend beside him, dead too. Sometimes it could make Jim cry picturing this. The victor too had cried to see them on the battlefield, when all else had broke and run, the Sacred Band of Lovers, each man so brave and true to the end.
“So that’s what they was,” said Doyler, “lovers?” Jim nodded. “The sergeants too? Did they have their chaps?”
“They were all of them lovers,” Jim said firmly.
“Was they not worried they’d be thought partial? Giving out guard detail and that, a sergeant might be accused of favoring his own chap.”
“I don’t know,” said Jim, “but the sergeants had only sergeants for their friend.”
“I’m with you now,” said Doyler. “So was the general’s chap a general also? That was two generals. Two generals is a very chancy business. Could lead to any manner of confusion.”
“I know what you’re doing,” said Jim, “and you’re only wasting your breath. You know it’s the most wonderful thing.”
“Tell me this, Jim: what happened if one of them died?”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened the other fellow then? Did he fall on his sword or what? Did he hunt round quick to catch another chap? Maybe they had him excused drill till he found another fellow.”
“You’re no use at all,” said Jim, “and I don’t know why I bother with you.” Doyler was making to rib-tickle his belly, and Jim just thumped him on the shoulder. He got up and was dressing. Doyler stretched in the sheets.
“I don’t believe a bed and Doyler was ever this long acquainted. Reminds me of himself at home. When he used take to his bed till me ma found the money for his trousers to get back from the pawn. Like father, like son, eh?”
“Father?” said Jim.
“Something like it, I suppose. When