At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [74]
“On account of some foolishness, as you put it. But not in London. In Oxford.”
“Well, it is very interesting and I make no doubt the nature of nature is a topic we all shall thrill to in due course. In the meantime, we have your future to consider. Cannot Dr. Scrotes prepare his manuscript for himself?”
His voice, when he heard it, surprised by its evenness. “Scrotes is dead. He died in Wandsworth. In a prison corner he died while picking the shreds from hawser ropes. Have you ever seen a hawser rope, Aunt Eva? It is the thickness of my leg. They allow you your fingers to pick it with, and you may not cease till your day’s tally has been picked. In the night you smell the bonfire on which they burn the day’s work. For the world has no use for oakum any more, only for the labor that will produce it. A scholar, Aunt Eva, a gentleman of sixty-seven years of age, worked to death. On account of some foolishness. In Oxford.”
“How terrible.”
He believed she meant it. “Aunt Eva, can you truly believe any society would want me now?”
“I want you. I am society.”
They had reached the French windows and she turned to take one last view of the garden. Gossamer floated over the lawns as though, when she sighed, blown by that breath. “Sometimes I think the only course is to dig it all up and start afresh. Away with the shrubberies, a fountain that works.”
“Tulip-beds.”
“Yes, tulips too. But do you know, there is a surprising complication with tulips. Every now and then, nobody seems to know why, a perfectly decent yellow will break into the most alarming variegation. There are people who become very excited by it. They take a pride in the display. For myself, however, I find it spoils the effect. As I say, it is their conformity one prizes.”
From Scrotes’s turret room MacMurrough watched the waves. Howth was a grey mist and the sea was grey and the gloomy pines that marshaled his view bent to the easterly wind: December descending.
The close scratch of Scrotes’s pen. Flick of pages when he searched a reference. Veni Karthaginem. Et circumstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum. A little August to shine on our winter. The book snapped shut.
—If we are not to work, Scrotes said, let us rather talk. I cannot abide these wintry broodings. Speak. You are dismayed by your aunt.
Petulantly MacMurrough re-found the page.
—What had you supposed? Scrotes persisted. That you should stay in this fine house with its fine views without charge? One had thought you would enjoy teaching flute to young men.
—You begin to sound like Dick.
—I beginneth as I endeth, Scrotes retorted, sounding as you.
MacMurrough stared again through the window. Dull imperative waves. Like a child, they commanded attention, imparting nothing. Can you see me as Erin’s bandleader? he said. Married off to the first Hibernian hoyden with a father sufficiently green? It’s too absurd.
—And this absurdity upsets you?
—I might go along with her, I suppose. But I could never bring myself to believe any of it.
—And she requires you believe?
—The worst of it is, she doesn’t. All she requires is that I should conform. Which is show, a denial of my beliefs.
—Remind me, said Scrotes: which are these lofty principles you quake to disavow? The world I’m sure trembles to hear.
MacMurrough smirked. Very clever, Scrotes. And it may be true that I don’t believe in anything much. But I believe I ought to believe, which is something.
—It is a very modern something.
—You say this while we trudge through Augustine’s Confessions?
Scrotes raised his eyes in monkish supplication. Da mihi, he prayed, sed noli modo.
—Tee hee hee, rallied MacMurrough, and he jounced his shoulders in pantomime of the other’s crow.
Scrotes settled the papers before him, the papers restoring his donnish air. By tradition, he said, those of your station have been more than happy to conform, in public. In private they debauched to their hearts’ content. What scruples arose they retained chaplains to resolve. Doubtless it is the way of all great families, all low families, too, in fine.