At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [82]
“Ma, let me do that.”
“Away now. Haven’t you your swimming?”
“No, ma, I’ll do them sheets.”
He had his hand out and was tugging at the washboard till she let go and said, “What ails you, son? You look on me like I was the washer at the ford itself. Is it something you have to tell me?”
“I don’t know if it is, Ma.” Missy was watching him. The eyes looked suddenly knowing, wide-awake and gauging him. “You know me flute, Ma?”
“I do.”
“Did you never worry where the money came to get it back out of Ducie’s?”
“I did wonder. Was I better to worry?”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“I know you wouldn’t steal it.”
“Honest I didn’t.”
“Tell me what’s troubling you.”
“I can’t, Ma.”
She shook her head. He saw the white of the sheet and the grey splashes on her smock and he thought of the washer at the ford that when you passed she held up her washing and it was your shroud she held with the marks of your sins upon it. The grey washer at the ford.
“I know my son and whatever it is troubles him he won’t stray far.”
“Do you know that for sure, Ma?”
“Aren’t you my black-headed boy? I know it well.”
He nodded at his mother. He tightly bit his lips and nodded.
That morning he brushed himself ’s shoes and the two pair boots his sisters shared, and he even brushed his own that his ma wouldn’t be ashamed of him leaving. He dusted down himself ’s suit and hung it on the wall. The eldest girl was awake and he gave her money to fetch things for breakfast. She looked at the sixpence and said, “Danny, will you be bringing the flute with you tonight? It was great when you used play for us.”
“Go on to the shop. And get some relish for your da.”
“But the flute, Danny?”
“Do your schoolwork and I’ll play for you. That’s the deal.”
“You’ll help me, so?”
“Get on out of that and I’ll see. And mind them boots.”
On his way to the lane he stopped a moment to watch his mother in the yard. The half-doors were open in the cottages and the caged birds sang from the windows. His mother cronawned to Missy—shoheen lo is shoheen la-lo—while the child dozed and the stains washed away.
Then he came by the sea-wall to the Forty Foot and the worried narrow face was waiting for him there.
“Thought something might have happened.”
“Not at all,” said Doyler. He clapped his arm on the elfin shoulder. “Pal o’ me heart,” he said.
“Muglins,” said Doyler. He tossed his head backward out to sea. “Did you ever hear tell of the patriots Gidley and MacKinley?”
“I didn’t,” said Jim lazily, for the raft was warm to the skin and it was pleasant to stretch on your belly while the boards pitched amiably in the swell.
“They was on a ship out of Spain that was bound for Ireland, carrying armament and store, what have you. This was way in the penal days. The captain took fright or turned traitor, I don’t know which, but he turned the ship for England. Well, the bold Gidley and MacKinley was having none of that. They knocked him on the head, the captain, and they set their sails for Waterford. I don’t know but there was a storm and they was tossed up near Duncannon. The British took them and strung them up in St. Stephen’s Green. It was there they was left to rot, save the good citizens of Dublin what took their promenade in the Green found the sight disagreeable. So the poor bodies was taken out in boats and chained beyond on the Muglins. People said there would be howls heard in storms and big weather off the ghosts that rattled in their chains. Howls that called on Irishmen for vengeance on their murder.”
Jim squinted at the spill of rocks. He had a foreboding of his dreams that night. “Penal times?” he said.
“Long while ago, right enough. But do you know what it is? When we swim out there we’ll bring us a flag to raise. We’ll raise the Green and claim the Muglins for Ireland. Then finally the ghosts of Gidley and MacKinley, bold patriots them both, will go to rest.”
“How’ll we carry a flag?” asked Jim.
“Mary and Joseph, but you’re the practical fellow.