At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [34]
“Half an hour maybe.”
He made a contemplative mime of a spit. “I’ll be waiting.”
The day was down when Jim came out the monastery gate. A shadow waited on the chapel wall opposite. Vernacular transformed it to Doyler. “Half an hour, me arse. Them Protestant bells has gone three goes at least. Get on and shift your bob. I’ve piles waiting.”
Jim felt the creep of eyes on his back, and turning he saw the blind shift in Brother Polycarp’s window. The brother had been in purple spirits throughout their devotion, smiling for holiday before their prayers; and during them, in their silences, Jim heard him chortling to himself. “Nation once again, how are you,” he said afterwards. “I think we put the kybosh on his Gaelic reverence. He’ll know better in future to poke his bake in Presentation. What do you think, Mr. Mack? Did we introduce our bootmaker to his tailor there?”
The blind was down now but still Jim made the dark shape behind. The brother’s mood had shifted when he spied Doyler outside. Twice the past week they’d met after Jim’s devotion. Brother Polycarp wasn’t long catching on. Corydon, he called Doyler. “I see Corydon awaits his Alexis again.” Tonight he added, “Better alone than bad company, Jim. Lie down with dogs and you’ll rise with fleas.” Jim sucked his cheeks. There was nothing in the Cassell’s about Corydon. Nothing about Alexis either. He hurried down the lane to catch up.
There was plenty about bad company, however, in most the books they used at Presentation. In particular a manual called Christian Politeness which described the proper deportment of a Catholic gentleman. Where the eyes should rest, where the hands; the lips part so when drawing breath; exhaling, a gentleman employs his nose. Doyler might have posed for the thou-shalt-nots. His hands wouldn’t settle, but swept along a wall or slapped against any lamppost he passed. He scrunched stones underfoot or scooted them away as though they posed an obstruction. According to Christian Politeness, the eyes were the windows of the soul: Doyler’s rarely rested: proof of a giddy and unstable character. Occasionally they glanced on Jim’s eyes, prompting a confederate grin. Jim might scatter a pebble, but he was conscious of imposturing. The fall of his hair bounced flatly on his forehead under the peak of his cap. He saw himself a study in brown that lumbered ponderously along. Then Doyler’s arm would bang on his back. “Slow as a wet week, so y’are.”
“Watch them go, the cripple and his pooch.”
Under the yard wall of the parochial house, a cigarette glowed in a huddle of forms. “Fahy,” said Jim.
“Ignore ’em,” said Doyler.
A throat hawked and an oyster of phlegm splashed at their feet. Doyler spun. “What ails ya, Fahy? Have you something to say or what is it?”
Fahy laughed and one of his cohorts, a clever-shins named Butler, crowed, “There’s that whiff again.”
Doyler grabbed at Butler’s coat. “Any more of that and I’ll have ya ate. Ate without salt I’m telling ya.”
Fahy detached from the wall and leant forward the way his finger pressed on Doyler’s chest. “Now listen to me, my wee sleeveen. You’re becoming a pain in the Erse, if you don’t mind me saying. Hop away home to your hut in the Banks. And take the pooch with you.”
“Let’s go,” said Jim.
Doyler let go Butler, who brushed himself prettily down, and measured Fahy with his eyes. But Fahy was not easily browed. His father owned a slaughterhouse in Dalkey: he fed his sons on steak for breakfast.
Suddenly Doyler was laughing, “Ah, have a banana.” A thin streak of spit landed expertly on top of Fahy’s. “What ails them fellas?” he asked when they climbed down the steps to the sea-wall and the jeers were left behind. “Are they that way always? Are they that way at Pres?”
“Mostly.”
“You’d do better to ignore them.”
“I do.”
He stopped Jim with a hand that bolted on his shoulder. “Do they give you trouble? You’d tell if they laid a hand?”
Eyes burnt and the ridge of brow protruded like horn. The grip was fast through Jim’s jacket. He could feel the press of each finger.
“Sure