At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [27]
“You won’t be long about that be the cut of you. Mighty prosperous altogether.”
For a season then he was a regular in the shop and the two old comrades would often be jawing over old times. Every now and then a roar would let out of a regimental song: “Hurrah, hurrah for Ireland! And the Dublin Fu-usiliers!” In the kitchen Gordie would wink at Jim and Aunt Sawney used bang her stick on the floor.
Gordie called him Burlington Burt, and it was curious to see him late of a morning step out from the Banks, his swagger suit alive against the slob and a bloom in his buttonhole if only an old dandelion he plucked on the way. His bowler he tipped at an angle and his cane he carried sloped to the ground. “It was the Colonel gave him that,” their father explained to them. “Five times in a row the smartest man in the battalion.” He said it with pride, the way he would share in his comrade’s splendor. They had never known their father be friendly with anyone. It was inconceivable he would give credit so free.
Then one day Gordie took Jim aside. “Old Burlington Burt’s put the stiffeners on the old fella.”
“What stiffeners?” asked Jim.
“Don’t you know the old fella cut and run from the Boers. Scut away out the army the first shot was fired. He’s scared of his wits thinking Burlington Burt will blow the gab.”
“The da never scut.”
“Young ’un,” said Gordie and he cuffed Jim’s neck.
The pinch of tea and the tins of milk soon proved a burden, till finally Aunt Sawney put her stick unshakably down. “A double deficit,” his father said sadly. “For they won’t mind what they owe us and what pennies they have they’ll spend elsewhere now.”
“Ye’re the slatey one,” Aunt Sawney chid him, “and himself inside of Fennelly’s regaling them what a touch ye are.”
The brown bowler hat was presently an item in Ducie’s window. The lemon gloves quickly joined it, followed one drab morning by the silver-topped cane. Then one evening Mr. Doyle came in the shop with Doyler in tow.
“Cross-patch, draw the latch, sit by the fire and spin. Is the coast clear, Sergeant?”
“She’s away at chapel,” Jim’s father answered. “And who’s this you have with you? Who’s this the grand wee fusilier?”
“Sure you know the eldest. First shake of the bag. Say hello to Mr. Mack, son.”
“Hello, Mr. Mack,” came the surly voice.
“Though ’twasn’t your humble what shook that particular bag, I don’t think.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“You and me was sodgering yet when this wee mustard came out the nettlebed.”
“Ha ha ha,” echoed his father’s strained voice, and the inside door closed to a crack.
In the kitchen, Jim returned to his books. Doyler he knew from national school. He was the rag-mannered barefoot boy who glowered at the back and never played games in the yard. He was mocked for a baldy peelo, for his hair would often be shaved against the itch, and his cap would slip and slide about his head. Every morning he was hauled for a thrashing because every afternoon he went working in the street. The master’s face had been a sketch when he went up for the scholarship. But he sat it and was waiting, like Jim was now, the decision.
Movement by the door caught Jim’s attention. Through the crack he saw Doyler’s shadow, and the shadow of his hand was darting up and down to a shelf. Soaps. He was stealing soaps.
The grown-up banter continued beyond. Immediately, Jim understood what was going forth. Mr. Doyle kept his father occupied while his son helped himself to the shop-goods. He rose from the table, and with that movement Doyler clocked him. He froze in the jar. His coat was open and the torn lining sagged with his haul. Jim made to approach, but a jerk of Doyler’s head commanded him wait.
The eyes shifted to where the grown-ups were, shifted slowly back. Dark ovals washed Jim in their gloom, and as though some deep communication had passed the face nodded, nodding assurance. Slow and deliberate, he buttoned his coat.
Jim nodded back, but it was unclear to him what he had assented to. He came to the door and pushed it a gap.
Inside,