At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [3]
“Expected” was all the answer he got.
Constable now. Sees me carrying the Irish Times. Respectable nod. Little Fenianeen in our midst and I never knew. After hacking at a recruitment poster. Mind, ’tis pranks not politics. Pass a law against khaki, you’d have them queueing up to enlist.
The shops ended and Glasthule Road took on a more dignified, prosperous air. With every step he counted the ratable values rising, ascending on a gradient equivalent to the road’s rise to Ballygihen. Well-tended gardens and at every lane a kinder breeze off the sea. In the sun atop a wall a fat cat sat whose head followed wisely his progress.
General, he calls me. Jocular touch that. After the General Stores, of course. Shocks and stares—should send that in the paper. Pay for items catchy like that. Or did I hear it before? Would want to be sure before committing to paper. Make a donkey of yourself else.
A scent drifted by that was utterly familiar yet unspeakably far away. He leant over a garden wall and there it blew, ferny-leaved and tiny-flowered, in its sunny yellow corner. Never had thought it would prosper here. Mum-mim-mom, begins with something mum. Butterfly floating over it, a pale white soul, first I’ve seen of the year.
Pall of his face back there. They do say they take on worse in the sunshine, your consumptives do. Segotia: is it some class of a flower? I never thought to inquire. Pal of me heart. Well, we’re talking twenty thirty years back. Mick and Mack the paddy whacks. We had our day, ’tis true. Boys together and bugles together and bayonets in the ranks. Rang like bells, all we wanted was hanging. But there’s no pals except you’re equals. I learnt me that after I got my very first stripe.
He looked back down the road at the dwindling man with his lonely stand of papers. A Dublin tram came by. In the clattering of its wheels and its sparking trolley the years dizzied a moment. Scarlet and blue swirled in the dust, till there he stood, flush before him, in the light of bright and other days, the bugler boy was pal of his heart. My old segotia.
Parcel safe? Under me arm.
The paper unfolded in Mr. Mack’s hands and his eyes glanced over the front page. Hotels, hotels, hotels. Hatches, matches, dispatches. Eye always drawn to “Loans by Post.” Don’t know for why. What’s this the difference is between a stock and a share? Have to ask Jim when he gets in from school.
He turned the page. Here we go. Royal Dublin Fusiliers depot. Comforts Fund for the Troops in France. Committee gratefully acknowledges. Here we go. Madame MacMurrough, Ballygihen branch. Socks, woollen, three doz pair.
Gets her name in cosy enough. Madame MacMurrough. Once a month I fetch over the stockings, once a month she has her name in the paper. Handy enough if you can get it.
Nice to know they’re delivered, all the same, delivered where they’re wanted.
His eyes wandered to the Roll of Honor that ran along the paper’s edge. Officers killed, officers wounded, wounded and missing, wounded believed prisoners, correction: officers killed. All officers. Column, column and a half of officers. Then there’s only a handful of other ranks. Now that can’t be right. How do they choose them? Do you have to—is that what I’d have to do?—submit the name yourself? And do they charge for that? Mind you, nice to have your name in the Irish Times. That’s what I’ll have to do maybe, should Gordie—God forbid, what was he saying? God forbid, not anything happen to Gordie. Touch wood. Not wood, scapular. Where am I?
There, he’d missed his turn. That was foolish. Comes from borrowing trouble. And it was an extravagance in the first place to be purchasing an Irish Times. Penny for the paper, a bob for that drunk—Jacobs! I didn’t even get me two dee change. One and thruppenny walk in all. Might have waited for the Evening Mail and got me news for a ha’penny.
However, his name was Mr. Mack, and as everyone knew, or had ought know by now, the Macks was on the up.
The gates to Madame MacMurrough’s were open and