At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [54]
The radiance dimmed and a familiar detachment came over him. He was sensible of this detachment in Brother Polycarp’s room when the brother would roam his hand on his skin: he did not feel but he saw himself felt. His mind’s eye watched a boy. It watched him at home and it watched him at school and it was watching him now at the Forty Foot. And looking back, it seemed to Jim that he had never prayed for himself at all but for this other boy that his mind’s eye watched, a rawney-looking molly of a boy, the son of a quakebuttock, a coward himself, praying that he should hear his calling and join the brothers like Our Lady wished and not to be so inconsiderate. Did the boy not understand it was what his mother wanted?
He said again, “I never thought I’d be leaving.”
“Come swimming with me,” said Doyler.
“Swimming?” It was the last thing on his mind.
“Forget your baths, come swimming in the sea. It’s different in the sea, don’t ask me why, but you don’t find the same anywheres else. There’s a freedom I can’t explain, like your troubles was left in your pile of clothes. There’s how many waves to wash you, sure they wash right through your head. Will you come?”
“Sunday?”
“It’s the Whitsun weekend, but they have me working tomorrow, working on Monday. Sunday’s the only day I have to meself.”
Jim saw the crowds that would throng the seaside. Spectating men and expert swimmers. Advice they would give out. Case of the slows. Seen iron swim better. The way they would jostle you, might snap you behind with the wet of their towels.
But Doyler had that misgiving read off his face. “Miss Mass this once. We’ll have the place to ourself. Give up on Polycarp just this once and come swimming with me instead. Will you do that? Out of friendship only?”
Jim shook his head.
“No?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sunday. I’ll be waiting.”
“Is it true, Mack? He called you that?”
Boots resounded on wooden boards and more boys trampled into the study. With a thud Jim closed the dictionary.
“Did you hear what old Ponycart called Mack?”
“The rebel shoneen?”
“The Fenianeen?”
“The croppy boyo?”
And Butler took up the song:
“Good people who live in peace and joy,
Breathe a prayer, shed a tear for the Soppy Boy.”
“He was after letting a royal curse at him.”
“What did he call him then?”
Fahy came in and said, “Whom called what which?”
“You wouldn’t suppose what Ponycart was after saying to Mack. Ask Mack, he’ll tell you. Did you look it out in the dick yet, Mack?”
Jim sensed the brawn of Fahy above. The room had begun to hum with the mushroomy smell of damp tweed. Rain drummed on the window-panes and sistled the fire when it spilt down the chimney. Fahy’s breath blew on his hair and his arm leant like a buttress on his desk. “The get of a blackguard, was it?”
“No, nothing about in the newspapers. This was a different kettle.”
“What did he call you so? Tell.”
“In the yard. There are witnesses. Mack was playing at handball. It’s true, Mack, it is.”
Jim looked at the pocky face, filling and draining with its breathless news. Courtney.
“Well?” Fahy’s finger toying with the ink-well.
“He asked for the ball,” said Jim.
“And Mack said, Which one, Brother?”
“What did he mean, which one?”
“I had two balls on me,” said Jim, beginning to explain.
“And had they dropped yet?”
“Leave him tell, will you, Butler?”
“But the brother didn’t know that. And the screw he gave out of his whites. Would annihilate you. He thought Mack was being coarse, don’t you see.”
“But what did he say?”
“Go on, Mack, tell us.”
“He said I was supercilious.”
“Super-what-is-it?”
“No, he didn’t. Not at all. He called him a supercilious cornerboy fecker.”
The room hushed. They heard the tread of Brother Polycarp in the hall, heavy to allow his ample warning. Fahy moved back an edge. “He called you that?”
“Isn’t that