At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [30]
“Why was that, Da?” he asked.
“Why was what is it?”
“We came home to Ireland before the regiment.” He knew, of course. The parish knew. And once at college when Jim muffed at football he heard a brother say to another brother, “Quakebuttock for a pater.”
“Oh sure don’t you know that was your mother.” His father was silent a while then he added, “Heaven be her bed tonight.”
“Did she not like Africa?”
His father looked him a caution. “You have your fill of questions tonight.”
“Was wondering only.”
“There’s enough of your wondering now.” The box of medals went inside in the press. His hands remained on the open doors and he stared at the interior dark till in a tone of revelation he announced, “Mimosa.”
“Mimosa, Da?”
“Mum-mim-mom,” he said. “I had a smell of it the other morning walking up toward Ballygihen. Mimosa it was.”
“What’s mimosa?”
“I never thought ’twould prosper in this weather. She’d have been right pleased to know.”
“Do you mean my mother?”
“Who else would I mean? She did always favor the mimosa. We had it in the garden when we were quartered there. Wait-a-bit thorn, the Boers called it. Strange class of people.”
Jim signed the word with his lips. Mimosa. What book at school would he look that out in?
“Whatever about that,” his father said, stretching his back for a heat by the range, “’tis Gordie we must look to now. Deo volenting, he’ll come home to Dublin with the regiment and they’ll march with the Colors in triumph.” He reflected a moment, his face clouded, then charity found his better side. “No, fair dues. He signed up, so he did. Upped his age and took the man’s part in the end. Albeit behind my back.”
“Aunt Sawney misses him, Da.”
“Aunt Sawney?”
“She came down in the night looking for him. She wanted to know why wasn’t he home. I think she thought it was morning.”
“Did she give you a stir?”
“A bit all right.”
“She forgets sure. It’s her age. They were very thick together. Never knew for why, for he was ever on the tease with her. With her and the world and his wife. That’s all that boy ever needed, a taste of army discipline. Sure wasn’t he first chop the last time he stayed? The changed man. I always said if the army don’t drill some sense into that noddle, then the devil’s not in Ireland. If only now he hadn’t let that drapery miss to spoil his parade.”
Jim couldn’t but smile. A week back, they had marched with Gordie’s battalion from the barracks, along the quays, up Dame Street, College Green, O’Connell Bridge down to the Custom House, a grand tour of the city’s princely center. And everywhere they passed, the flags were waving and handkerchiefs and hats, and from every window the hurrahs came till the panes rattled with the roar. He could feel his father set to burst with pride. And when the band broke into the regimental song, his voice joined lustily with the ranks:
A credit to the nation
A thousand buccaneers
A terror to creation
Are the Dublin Fusil—
Dublin Fusil—
Dublin Fusiliers!
But the occasion had been marred by the sight that greeted them at the dockside. There was Gordie, fine, manly, with his good-conduct badge and his skill-at-arms badge, and his hands that seemed suddenly as large as his father’s, save his hands were wrapped round Nancy from Madame MacMurrough’s. Nancy in her Easter bonnet and Sunday finery, “looking a proper drapery miss,” said his father. And his father made Jim turn away, for she was kissing Gordie in the street.
“Well, Gordon, I trust and you won’t let us down.”
“Spectamur agendo, Da,” and he shook his father’s hand.
The regimental motto made his father’s eyes water, and he said, muttering and turning aside, “Thanks son. Thank you, son.”
Then Gordie scuffed Jim one final time on the neck, but his hand lingered there and rested almost gently on his nape. Thick coarse cloth enveloped his face, and Gordie was whispering, “Look after the old man for me. And look after Aunt Sawney. And look after Nancy too. And look after yourself, young ’un. Remember me.”
He straightened up. “Mind this fella keeps