At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [231]
Looking at him now MacMurrough felt again the attractions of Doyle. Bold breezy insouciance that had made of him such worthy game. But he saw better the bitterness in the eyes, on his shoulder the chip, and he remembered the shrug, carelessly given, but which at heart he gave for he held himself not worth a care. So much MacMurrough might recognize in himself. Oh, other things too: a damnable honesty, the penchant for misery, a yearning for magnificence but a spirit unwinged.
“You know,” said Doyler, “you don’t have to go, you know.”
“Why thank you, Doyler. I shall stay so.”
“I mean, not on my account you needn’t. Jim says you’re to join the British Army. I’d hate to think I drove any man to taking the Saxon shilling.”
And so should I, young man, hate to think you had driven me anywhere. “My aunt once told me that nothing is gained by clinging to life save more life to cling to. The world I find is embarked on a grand adventure. I find I choose to play.” He had stood up saying this, ruffling his hand in Doyler’s scraggy thick hair. “You know where everything is, don’t you?”
“You leaving me?”
“Yes, I’m going to bed.”
“You leaving me here on me own?”
“What did you expect?”
“Nothing. Wasn’t sure was all.”
But there was a haunt in his face, like a maid new-arrived, of the big night in the big room in the big creak of a house. “Hope you don’t mind the dark?”
He did not, most definitely not, what did MacMurrough take him for, he had no fear of the dark whatsoever, guaranteed.
“Good,” said MacMurrough, lowering the lamp. The night and its draughts inhaled the light, and he left the boy to fret alone. He thought about it while he undressed in his appropriated cupboard across the hall. Earlier, the way one does, it was ravishment and rampage, a forcible entry, his hurting the boy face-down on the leafy pile, the punishment of piss, other debasements, idly he had meditated. But when it all boiled down, a cuddle would nearly do. Yes it would; and it surprised how quickly the door knob was in his hand.
“Who is it?” came the small voice.
“Move over,” said MacMurrough. He climbed in the bed. “Lift up,” he said, nudging under the shoulders. He turned the body, a sack, in his arm. “It’s silly,” he said, “pretending we’re strangers.”
The sack lumpily reposed. “I want to fuck you,” MacMurrough said. There was no response. MacMurrough sighed. He patted the body where his hand had fallen. “I just want to,” he said. “I want to,” he elaborated, “but I won’t mind if you don’t choose to.”
“Now there’s a lie with a lid on it.” Doyler’s hand, in a casual way, had fingered below and found out MacMurrough’s stand. “You like this?”
It wasn’t the most imaginative ploy, but MacMurrough answered, Yes, for a tease, he did.
“How much will you pay me so?”
Little toe-rag. “Must we bring that up?”
“You know that suit, MacMurrough? I sold that suit.”
“My dear, it was yours to do with as you pleased. I’m glad you sold it. I never liked it.”
“Why’d you buy it me so?”
“I thought it made you happy. You surely knew I was fond of you. You were a cussed bloody-minded sod, and I admired you for it.”
The hand below had cupped MacMurrough’s balls. Now a tentative ambivalent pressure exerted, exciting really, exquisite even; until Doyler said, “You’d pay Jim so, would you?”
Oh dear oh dear, MacMurrough thought; Doyler Doyler, my dear.
“I used see them in Dublin, MacMurrough, the girls in their glad necks. Up and down the street they’d go. I wanted to burn that suit. I knew what that suit made of me. But I needed the brass, so I sold it instead. Didn’t pawn it, sold it.”
MacMurrough brought his own hand down to cover the boy’s grip, and he squeezed a little so that his groin hurt, nothing nauseating, just a little manageable penance. He said, “I’m sorry, Doyler,