At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [84]
Band practice was now three evenings a week, held in a summerhouse in Madame MacMurrough’s garden. Her nephew took them, but he was a reserved man, had rarely anything to say. It was clear he was under the eye of the priest or his aunt. Reserved, but not unkind. He would smile at times and the injured look depart his face. Once or twice, if the priest or his aunt was called away, he entertained them with his own flute. This was a grander instrument altogether, no finger-holes at all but keys all down the side and along the top, and the sound was grander too, sweetly so, that made the boys’ music rough and unready in compare. His eyebrows would sometimes lift in Doyler’s direction. Jim understood an intelligence passed between them. He was a little green of this friendship, but he was a little glad too. He seemed a lonely man to Jim, and a way sad.
Those boys who were not thought likely enough at the flute were given drums to bang instead. So now they were a flute and drum band that Jim’s father drilled after practice.
Doyler thought it hilarious and it was funny, Jim supposed, in the usual way with his father. They paraded as instructed, two rows of boys on Madame MacMurrough’s lawn: heels in a line, touching, feet turned out to a V; knees straight but not stiff; body erect but inclining a touch; shoulders square; arms hanging what his father called natural: elbows in, palms turned a little to the front, little finger resting on the side pleat of the kilt. Up and down his father paced, correcting each boy’s stance. Then would come the words of command.
“Young piggy heart!”
And of course they would fall out in sniggles of laughter. The priest had insisted the commands should be gave in Gaelic and his poor father could never get his tongue round the alien sounds. Quick march came out: Gum on my shawl! Right turn was: Arrest young piggy! Shower of gigglers, his father complained. Jack-acting and jig-acting in the ranks. But if he called a boy out, he must call him at the double, and that dread command off his father’s tongue was: Erse sodder! And his father’s tongue would taste his mustache in puzzlement at the scurrility it spoke.
But little by little progress came and they learnt to slope, port and shoulder their flutes. Up and down Glenageary they marched, sometimes fluting, moretimes with their flutes like toy rifles to their shoulders. His father marched in front, twirling his cane. In his Sunday suit and bowler hat he looked the picture of an Orangeman on parade. Save the sash he wore was green.
Their first public showing was the second Sunday in June, a high day in the patriotic calendar, for it marked the annual commemoration at the grave of Wolfe Tone. The evening before, Father O’Táighléir gave a lesson on Tone and the United Irishmen, that was the fraternity he set up. He told of his noble ideals and how the tale that he destroyed himself was a scandal put about by the English. He warned the boys it was a Protestant grave they would be visiting, in the grounds of a Protestant church; but that, though born a heretic, Tone had served for many years as secretary to the Catholic Committee. It was too late now to prove or disprove them, but rumors persisted of his deathbed conversion. The boys were at liberty to believe as they chose; for his part the father knew where he stood and where stood every true-hearted Irishman. With a nod then to Madame MacMurrough, he spoke of the ’98, of the boys of Wexford and their heroic stand, how their priests had led them, how the yeomanry hunted them, till the last lad with his harp on his shoulder was butchered while he knelt to pray.
Doyler was well pleased. “What cheer, eh?” he said after the talk. Which meant Tone was all right. Wolfe Tone was some way pro the working man. “Are you straight?”
“Straight as a rush,