At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [45]
“I believe I don’t know—”
“In the garden here. A party.”
“Party, Madame?”
A darker ardor charged his face and briefly she heard his shuffling, coughing congregation. Nothing would do but she must utter the dread word. “Bazaar.”
“I don’t see.”
“For the raising of subscriptions. The Irish classes you mentioned, the hockey clubs. The band would provide a musical interlude.”
“A feis!” exclaimed the priest. “I see it now. Music from the band, Irish singing, poetry even, the local schoolchildren will playact scenes from our heroic past. A most marvellous suggestion. And you would suffer your home to be prevailed upon for this exhibition?”
She had countenanced a band of uniformed boys, not national schoolchildren trampling her lawns. She saw herself presiding over the usual banquet of suburbandom. Madame MacMurrough will now present the prizes . . . “I should be honored.”
“While we have your good self to the fore, good lady, your father has not entirely left us.”
She believed she’d had her fill of this priest for the present. She pulled the hearth bell. “Thank you, Father, it has been a most encouraging interview.”
“No no, Madame, thank you, thank you. Go raibh maith agat go leoir.”
“Galore,” she repeated, pouncing on recognized syllables. “Galore to you too, Father O’Toiler. Isn’t it glorious to be speaking the old tongue together?”
He was still wittering when the child came to show him out. “The Glasthule Feis, yes indeed. I don’t know how I can thank you sufficiently. A display of Gaelic crafts we could have. Athletics. Did you know the long jump and the triple jump were Irish creations? Is there space I wonder for a hurling contest? A committee. We must form a committee of interested persons. You will of course grace us at the chair?”
“Your hat, Father.”
“Go raibh maith agat, Madame.”
She waited till she heard the door close, then she dropped into a cushioned chair.
Nancy stopped in the hall and said, “Dinner is waiting, mam.”
“Lunch.”
“Yes, mam.”
“Have you seen my nephew?”
“Wasn’t he out in the garden a moment back?”
“Call him for me. And tell Cook that lunch is to be delayed.”
“But isn’t dinner waiting, mam?”
“Lunch.”
“Yes, mam.”
“Just tell Cook I said so. And call my nephew.”
“Yes, mam.”
“Do it, child.”
Minutes later she heard his step on the gravel and the garden doors opened in the garden room. Fresh air preceded him as he came up behind and she felt his breath then his kiss on her temple. “Aunt Eva,” he said in disapproving tone.
“Did the child complain to you?”
“I understand Cook is throwing pans at the kitchen wall.”
“Why are people so trying?”
He was at the side table. She heard the comforting chink of glass, but still she kept her eyes closed.
“It’s their Sunday out. Of course they want lunch to be done with.”
“And my head aches so.” “Sherry.”
She opened her eyes to receive the glass in her hand. He stood before her, young, relaxed, proficient. Tennisy clothes hung casually from him. Mustache thin as ink. Bored, she thought.
“Did the priest bring on your migraine?”
“You saw him, then?”
“Just in time. I was returning after my bathe, but I scarpered down the garden. Really, Aunt Eva, the parish clergy. Could you not find a Jesuit to play with? He looked an ugly stick.”
“You oughtn’t to talk that way of a priest.”
“I’m sure his soul is very handsome.”
Just as your soul, my handsome young nephew, is damned. “Are you going to smoke?”
He turned as the match struck. “Do you object?”
“No. But I should like to be asked.”
“May I?”
Her fingers lifted in acquiescence. Smoke curled from his mouth. She wondered as she watched just how indifferent he could be. “Am I too strict with you?” she asked.
“On the contrary, dear Aunt. You are the soul of compassion. My presence here confirms it.”
Not entirely indifferent. He does so preen himself upon his disgrace.
Through the garden doors she heard a singing and she turned to see the new washerwoman make her way down the lawn. She had a fantastical and placid motion, carrying her basket on top of her head. Another basket looped through