At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [89]
“He gave the speech.”
“Aye aye,” said Doyler. “I seen that look on your face. Good luck to any Saxon was there that day. You had pikes in your eye, so you did. Poetry, what?”
“Is that what he is, a poet?”
“How would I know? Quid to a bloater he don’t be shoveling shit.”
He spat now, the same way he’d spat that day after they snuck back in the churchyard looking for Wolfe Tone’s grave. A conspiracy against the common man, he’d called it then. For there was no lying on that sod. It had all been railed in, top and sides, with rusting iron bars. “There’s poetry for you,” he said to Jim. “They’ve made a prison of Wolfe Tone’s grave.”
Doyler rubbed his bread with onion, then he lay on his belly at the turn of the battery wall. He was watching the peelers at their swim. “Old breaststroke they’re using,” he commented. “The crawl is best for speed right enough. But the breast has its uses. You’re head up with the breast, can always see your way, even when the water would be littered. Muck or wreckage, never know what would be in the water. See the way them horneys does the breast? Only way to swim if you’re under a heavy pack or you has your rifle you need to keep it dry. Soundless too if it’s sneaking up you want. Don’t knock the breaststroke, for in war it has its uses. Speed’s not everything in war.”
“Who’s talking about war?” said Jim.
A cock of disbelief in Doyler’s face. “Is there anyone who isn’t?” He dribbled a spit over the ledge, then turned from the cove. “You know why they calls this the Forty Foot?”
“Forty feet deep?”
“Not nearly. Twenty at most. Touched bottom once. Conger was down there. Wouldn’t see me for bubbles the way I scut out of that.”
“Why’s it called it so?”
“The Fortieth Foot regiment was stationed at the battery once. They gave their number in the line to the best spot for bathing in Dublin.”
It was the sort of thing Jim’s father would tell. “That all?”
“I’ll tell you what all. We live in a country where nothing is named but for an occupying power. Look about you. Battery here, the Martello towers, all them castles in Dalkey. There’s nothing lasts but was made for to subjugate the people. Even the cove we swim in is only a hole they left after blasting the granite for Kingstown piers. Kingstown named for an English king, the piers to bring his soldiers quick and safe. That bread’s good.”
“Aunt Sawney bakes it.”
“She bakes good bread.” He sat up and glared at the policemen’s bobbing heads. “You’d wonder what manner of a country this is where nothing is safe but the paid hands of empire barge in and they fling your clothes to the floor.”
“The polis done that?”
“On the wet floor they flung them. Straight in me face. And me shirt only clean on. But sure why wouldn’t they? Aren’t they the polis? Aren’t they paid to keep the working man down? It’s them would make a cripple of you.”
He finished the bread and pulled his cap down on his eyes. “Back to the old slog.” Then he laughed and in the usual shake the ape was off him. “Would you look at the cut of you. Like a gurrier out of the Banks with your shirt to the wind. Come here till I see you straight.”
All of a heap, Jim was being bundled round and his collar adjusted and his tie reknotted too tight and his shirt-tail tucked in his waistband.
“Leave it off, Doyler, I’m all right.”
“How would you go home like that? Your da would have a fit. And I’m the one he’d blame. Doyler’s the one would land on the mat.”
He spat on his hand and smarmed it on Jim’s hair, saying, “Goboil. If you knew me ma you’d know all about gob-oil, you would. All your share of hair ever needs is a spit of gob-oil on it.” He turned him round again. “Let me look at you now. I suppose you’ll pass muster.”
The grin went lop-sided. “I never remarked the length of your nose. I might have really, for they say ’tis a sign of what’s below.”
“Shut up, Doyler. You know that’s not true.”
“A long nose is a lady’s fancy.”
This was coarse talk, and with coarse talk you did not argue.
“Serious, though,” said Doyler, “was you ever sweet on a girl?”
Jim realized he must have looked