At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [28]
“Spare your breath, old camerado. The well ever dried for the thirsty.”
There was still that remnant of the swell about Mr. Doyle. His face was prinked and scrubbed and his jacket was brushed and buttoned high. But a patch of skin showed between the lapels. His cuffs gleamed their usual white but you could see they were unattached to any shirt.
“Where’s that young buzzard after getting to?” he said, looking round for Doyler. He pushed him roughly to the door. “Sergeant Mack says we’re to approach the Benevolent Fund. Say thank you to Sergeant Mack.”
The black look deepened on Doyler’s face. Without lifting his eyes from Jim, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Mack.”
“Quartermaster-Sergeant Mack’s the brave man for advising, never doubt it. He’d have the gun advised off a Bojer’s back. Which is all to the good, for devil the chance he’d fight him for it.”
When the shop door closed his father ushered Jim back into the kitchen. He took a heat from the range. He waited there with his back to Jim. “Wouldn’t mind now what that fellow says. That fellow says the worse thing comes in his head. Terrible man for a dodge. Terrible man for the lend of a loan. Wouldn’t mind anything that man says. Do you hear me there?”
The next morning on his way to school, a spit landed at Jim’s feet and Doyler dropped from the wall above.
“You won’t say nothing about last evening.”
The words came out for a threat. He had that way of looking or talking that expected trouble. “No good,” Jim answered. “The da’ll soon feel the miss of what was took.”
“Not if you put them back for me.” Out of his coat he pulled six cakes of soap. “There’s one got sold. I’ll pay that back, only not till Saturday fortnight. You’ll leave me off till then?”
Jim handled the cakes. Monkey Brand. It won’t wash clothes was the slogan. Costly stuff that they never used at home. Neither did their customers, for they’d gathered dust as long as Jim could remember. Comical to think of Doyler stealing soap. His tousled hair and dirty face were a study for the monkey on the wrapper.
He wasn’t just dirty: there were bruises forming round the eyes and his lip was gashed. “He beat you, didn’t he. He beat you, your da did, ’cause you wouldn’t hand over the soaps.”
Doyler glared and for a moment Jim feared he might cut up rough. He spat at the wall, a streak of browny phlegm. But when he looked up again, his eyes were shining, and the hint of smile took the ape off his back. “I didn’t want you thinking me a thief.”
“I wouldn’t have told.”
“You’d be thinking it all the same.” At a dueller’s distance he called back, “Good luck with the scholarship results.”
“Good luck with yours,” said Jim.
They met a few times after that. They walked up Glenageary once. They walked as far as Ballybrack. He put leaves on Jim’s leg after he was stung by nettles. One time he called Jim cara macree, which he said was Irish for pal of my heart, and he took a thorn and pricked their palms and smeared their blood together. In the back of Jim’s mind an idea was forming that if after all he went to college, it would be better if another from his own streets went with him. They were palling up, on the cusp of being great, when news came of their joint success. That day Doyler wasn’t to be found. County Clare, they said.
When Jim came in his father had the Soldier’s Friend out and was polishing his medals. The table was a rainbow of ribbons, blues and greens and reds. He looked up, glazed from his painstaking. “There you are at last. Home from the spit and dribbles. What kept you?”
“I was at the devotion with Brother Polycarp.”
“Oh, keep in with the brothers,” his father said wisely. “The brothers won’t see you down. Is that a new flute we have there?”
Surprised at the ease of it, Jim answered, “The brother wanted me to try it for him. He wasn’t sure with the tone. He said to keep it by me for the time being.”
He climbed on a chair to fetch the cleaning rod from