At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [234]
“Sure what am I saying?” said Mr. Mack, his hand springing to his damp forehead. “The events has left me all to seek. And his coat only staring me in the face.”
Indeed it was: on a low hook on the hall stand, Jim’s Norfolk jacket, among the whips and canes. MacMurrough looked with puzzlement at Doyler.
“Rest easy, Mr. Mack,” said Doyler lightly, “I’ll fetch him home direct.”
“Well, if you’re sure now.” The boater straw returned to his head, his expression better tallying with its rake. It lifted in farewell and another thousand of apologies, the door closing behind him.
“Bring me up that jacket,” said Doyler.
MacMurrough came into his dressing-closet where Doyler was ransacking the wardrobe. He had pulled on a pair of MacMurrough’s trousers, the corrugate folds of the legs giving him a clown’s look, one who had mislaid his stilts. “Is there never a braces or a belt?” he cried, coat-hangers flinging on the floor.
MacMurrough tossed him Jim’s trousers. “I found them in the hall.”
“Scheming bloody monkey. I’ll pay him out for this. I’ll murder him, so I will, bloody massacre him.”
“You knew nothing of this?”
“Answer me, would I be here and I did? He knew I’d stop him.
He knew I’d never let him a hand in this.”
He knew more than that, thought MacMurrough.
“Can’t think why I didn’t catch on. Staring me in the bleeding face. Stephen’s Green this, Stephen’s Green that. You and your train strike. I knew there was more to it, I knew—What do you want getting dressed for?”
“I’ll be coming along.”
“Oh no you don’t, mister. This is between me and Jim.”
In his consternation Doyler had snapped the lace of his boot. He was making rather a camel of it, rethreading the sucked ends through the eyes. MacMurrough threw him an ironed pair. He unhooked a smart check Newmarket vest. “It’s damp out,” he said: “put this on inside the jacket.” For himself he chose tweed and a hunting jerkin underneath, forgoing for once his linens and creams. From a cabinet he produced his aunt’s Webley. He revolved the chamber, counting the cartridges remaining.
“Is that thing loaded?”
“Yes,” MacMurrough replied, it rather pointing than aiming at the boy’s good leg. “So don’t let’s argue who’s coming.”
Doyler went back to his boots. “Do what you want, MacMurrough, only don’t get in my way.”
MacMurrough pulled on his socks. Of course there could be no real danger in Dublin. But equally there could be no thought of his leaving without he first made sure. Once again, the mailboat receded into the Irish Sea. It was becoming exhausting, this not going. He glanced at Doyler, who frowned back. Yes, Jim had outwitted them all ways, tickled them to his purpose, in their very rumping manipulating them. He could only marvel at the boy’s mastery of the world—that same world which tossed MacMurrough, upped sided and downed him, and over which he had no more influence than the choosing of the socks he wore while it tossed. He pulled on his boots.
“Ready?”
“Aye, ready.”
The sun no doubt had risen, but it was a dreary lightless morning, with a rain that never entirely ceased, but dripped from trees and mizzled between the showers. MacMurrough had thought they might take a cab or an outside car. Doyler asserted, as a soldier of the Irish Republic, he had the right to seize any vehicle he chose. But they passed not a postman’s bike. At Kingstown MacMurrough roused the stables—to find the stabler had no notion of his mounts riding to Dublin. Did the gentleman not know the ruccus was in Dublin? The Larkinites held the town for the Kaiser. They was shooting horses and sharing the meat.
Hens pecked in the yard, sparrows fluttered on the walls. Kingstown wore its conventional slumberous air. MacMurrough fingered the Webley in his pocket, considering the puissance of its persuasion. He turned to Doyler whose only guidance was, “Don’t think you’re getting me up on one of them yokes.” When he turned back he saw the gates were swinging, the stable door had shut in his face. “I don’t think,” he said, “we make very effective revolutionaries.”
“Will you