At Swim, Two Boys Part 22

From s.c.r.o.t.es'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 s.c.r.o.t.es's pen. Flick of pages when he searched a reference. Veni Karthaginem. Et circ.u.mstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum. Veni Karthaginem. Et circ.u.mstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum. A little August to s.h.i.+ne on our winter. The book snapped shut. A little August to s.h.i.+ne on our winter. The book snapped shut.

-If we are not to work, s.c.r.o.t.es 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? s.c.r.o.t.es 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 d.i.c.k.

-I beginneth as I endeth, s.c.r.o.t.es 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 s.c.r.o.t.es: which are these lofty principles you quake to disavow? The world I'm sure trembles to hear.

MacMurrough smirked. Very clever, s.c.r.o.t.es. 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 Confessions?

s.c.r.o.t.es 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.

s.c.r.o.t.es 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. The one to sink, the other to rise, and all to meet in the embracing middle. In time all will throb to the Daily Mail Daily Mail and all hands be raised in horror at hypocrisy. and all hands be raised in horror at hypocrisy.

It was a pleasing fancy, but MacMurrough shook his head. I doubt I could rise to hypocrisy any more. Don't you see, old man, I can't persuade myself. I can't pretend with the sniff of oak.u.m in my nostrils. This is what I've come to. It is true. I am this.

-What is this that you are?

-I can tell you what I wanted to be. I wanted to be the queer b.u.g.g.e.r who lives in that house. See that man? That's the man we don't talk about. I thought I'd come here to Ireland and somehow I'd stop here, literally stop. See that man? He isn't there. But she's not going to let me, is she. She must have it all begin again, this time with fanfares and fetes. She thinks I have no pride. But I have.

-I wonder, said s.c.r.o.t.es.

-Indeed, said MacMurrough.

-Is it pride you have, or fear?

-Let us say it is a certain reluctance to give delight to these people. An Oscar Wilde in Ireland-whatever next? It's true I hold myself proud. Even my aunt admitted me that.

-Your aunt, a benevolent and admirable lady-Here MacMurrough raised his finger in interruption. Two pounds a week she allows me, s.c.r.o.t.es. That is not benevolent nor admirable. That is four f.u.c.ks and no f.a.gs.

-Your aunt, s.c.r.o.t.es persisted, after the merest sniff, has remarked what she calls your fanfaronade. An appellation not wholly ill-advised, for you are that strange beast who prides himself yet has no pride. You blush for your nature, yet will freely speak of chauffeur-mechanics, the efficient cause of its detection. You congratulate yourself on a capacity to prost.i.tute impoverished youths, yet are ashamed of the desire that draws you to them. You fear discovery, yet will flippantly bring a boy into your aunt's home.

-Yes, you're right, of course, said MacMurrough. I'll rape him on a rug down the meadow lawn in future.

-Listen to me, MacMurrough. You have survived an imprisonment of two years with hard labor, a sentence which is judged the maximum a man may suffer and still hope to live. You have survived it well, with every prospect of recovery. Are you proud of the fort.i.tude, the determination, the character this proves? Not a bit of it. You warble a wish to stop, to cease to be. Even more remarkable, you commingle these sentiments to the one comprehension. You despise yourself, and are proud of the despisal, regarding it a virtue. It is an arrogance of disgust-s.c.r.o.t.es signed the papers before him-venerable as Augustine and as vain.

-After you have finished this tirade against me, s.c.r.o.t.es, my treasure, do you intend saying anything nice?

-As a matter of fact, I do. Solvitur ambulando. Come, fetch my coat, fetch my hat. We shall venture without where the sun yet s.h.i.+nes.

-I rather think not, said MacMurrough. I've already beat the bounds once today.

But s.c.r.o.t.es was having none of it. While he trussed his neck with a m.u.f.fler, his banter carried on.

-A remarkable aspect of this prison you have contrived is the circ.u.mambulance of its walls. Wherever you go, the walls go with you. It is a kindly improvement on the traditional practice, allowing for ample exercise and the variation of views. We shall visit to the celebrated Pavilion Gardens and take tea like gentlemen.

-The Pavilion? I'll be the talk of the tea-room.

-Gammon, said s.c.r.o.t.es. I hesitate to disappoint my ill.u.s.trious young friend, but between his incarceration and his release there has broken out the greatest war mankind has known. Only last year this country was on the brink of its own civil war. The people have other concerns. It is the Whitsun bank holiday. Society rejoices. August brings the Horse Show. Why, next month is the Regatta.

-Next month is Aunt b.l.o.o.d.y Eva's fete.

s.c.r.o.t.es held the door. MacMurrough pressed his nib on the paper. The dull paper grey as the sea. Veni Dublinum. Veni Dublinum. And seethed all about me the noisy stew of infamous loves. The pen pitched from his hold. And seethed all about me the noisy stew of infamous loves. The pen pitched from his hold.

-Not the tradesmen's gate, said s.c.r.o.t.es when they were outside. Let us walk with the trees and nod good-day to the neighbors.

-Nod to the neighbors? repeated MacMurrough. h.e.l.lo and Gomorrha to you. h.e.l.lo and Gomorrha.

But they met no one at the gates and no one of consequence till past Glasthule. Crossing to Kingstown it was a surprise after the broken paving to hear his shoes clip on the Aberdeen setts. George's Street was striped with awnings. Straw hats, postcards, trinkets, an excursionist's treasury dangled in the suns.h.i.+ne. Those few buildings that were not new and red-bricked had scaffolding on their fronts, properly ashamed amid the town's gay prosperity. A crazy jam of traffic, horsecart and tramcar. Six priests, four monks, seven nuns MacMurrough counted in the s.p.a.ce between two public houses.

"Herrody May! Even Herrody May!"

-What can they mean? asked s.c.r.o.t.es.

-Herald or or Mail, Mail, answered MacMurrough as the newsboys darted past. I don't know how I know, but I do. answered MacMurrough as the newsboys darted past. I don't know how I know, but I do.

Austrian veal butcher's festooned with Union flags. Indeed, the red-white-and-blue waved high and low.

-Empire Day, said s.c.r.o.t.es.

-Yes, Empire Day, agreed MacMurrough. I had forgotten.

And he was not alone, it seemed. Some dismal procession was wedging its way between the tramlines and horsemuck. Men with hockey-sticks, or hurleys as they called them, at a shambling march, their green armbands a scandalous sedition of the chromatic propriety. Jeers from the jarveys, cold stares from gentlemen, ragam.u.f.fin boys mocked their step. Even the dogs of the street joined in, yelping and wagging their furious tails: that uncanny sense in the canine that recognizes preponderant disdain. Then a biddy from a fruit-stall stepped out to lead them. She walked backwards in front, waving her skirts and jigging her feet in hilarious burlesque. And how the crowd loved her, cheering her on, and her hawker sisters called ribaldly after. But by degrees that could be measured in the granite setts, her face hardened and her mockery slowed, till all of a heap was revealed in their midst-Mother Erin. Erin go bragh, she sobbed till she stumbled in a gutter. Her sisters came with the bottle and the shambling men marched on.

Then a boy stopped his bicycle outside a shop selling wool and he made to climb off. The way his leg stretched it was like time stood still. MacMurrough could feel the abrasion of his breeches, could catch the sweat of his crotch, taste the ink on his fingers, even. The curve of the leg as it hung in the air had a Palladian perfection. He blinked in an odd way when he saw he was watched. MacMurrough smiled and the boy half smiled before the color rose and he turned away. The boy with the stockings, the comfort for the troops.

-You know, he said to s.c.r.o.t.es, if Ireland might be a boy instead of a blowsy old cow, I'd be all for Ireland, I would.

At last they turned into Marine Road, quietly sedately hoteled, guest-housed. Matrons in thick-starch double-blue frocks rustled by. Squadron of schoolboys done up as sailors, Nanny Tremble in charge with fob dangling. At the cab-stand, the blinkered blood-eyed nags. He stopped by the entrance booth to a walled and landscaped garden whence drifted the oompah of a bra.s.s band.

-So this is the famous Pavilion Gardens, said s.c.r.o.t.es. Has the aspect, you'll forgive me, of an ice-cream factory.

-It's intended to resemble a s.h.i.+p on the sea.

-No, definitely an ice-cream manufactory.

Through the bars of the gate he glimpsed ladies with parasols and gentlemen with cigars who strolled the snow-white palace of iron, of gla.s.s and iron and floating belvederes. Behind him, when he looked, two giant constables kept watch from the courthouse steps. He heard the stall-women at the railway station. He smelt the s.h.i.+t of the horses at the hazards.

-I have forgotten my cane, he said to s.c.r.o.t.es.

-You have forgotten nothing, s.c.r.o.t.es returned.

It was true. Only a gentleman might carry a sword. He pitched a coin at the man in the booth and swung through the turnstile.

Waiting to be seated, he felt his fists gripping. He would have preferred his back to the wall, but he had come this far, so he ordered a middle table. He was conscious of little noises, tea-spoons, teacups, against a background of refined chatter. His chair sc.r.a.ped when pulled and faces turned. That first meal in Wandsworth. Thanked the old hand who brought it to the door. He shook his head, signaling silence. The warder saw and cuffed him.

The girl came to take his order. "Sticky buns and a pot of tea," she repeated. "Are you here on your furlough, sir?"

MacMurrough nodded.

-She takes me for an officer.

-Naturally. Your upright bearing and eleven-a-side mustache.

A laughter rose from a party two tables away. Fas.h.i.+onable eyes wreathed in glee. He edged his chair so that he no longer faced them. I don't feel very upright, he said.

He took out his case but, choosing a cigarette, he saw the calluses on his hands. Cuticle: such a dainty word for shredded skin, blisters. h.e.l.lo, dear, have we been picking oak.u.m lately? He felt his hands retreat up their sleeves.

-A course of manicure, suggested s.c.r.o.t.es.

-And the earth returns to its...o...b..t.

The strains of the band carried through the garden doors. MacMurrough read the program. In tribute to our new and glorious allies, an admired selection of Italian overtures. In tribute to our new and glorious allies, an admired selection of Italian overtures. At the bottom, it informed, At the bottom, it informed, The members of this band have been exempted from Military Service. The members of this band have been exempted from Military Service. He saw now that the saloon and terraces were dotted with khaki. He saw now that the saloon and terraces were dotted with khaki.

One of these khakis, a young lieutenant, was shown to the table opposite. He nodded to MacMurrough, who nodded back. Blond mop atop a gentle high-colored face. Tennis sort of build. He caught MacMurrough watching and smiled, playing with his swagger-stick on the table. MacMurrough raised an eyebrow in return. Barely out of school. Cadet corps and third fifteen. Would let you f.u.c.k but really he preferred to hold hands.

Which brought MacMurrough to old Brother Benedict. That last day they walked through the school cloisters while the other boys were at chapel. No alternative, immodest acts, influence on others, disappointment we all felt, shame your mother must feel, under the circ.u.mstances, consideration given to father's position, your mother has begged, one last chance, if truly repentant, bright future ahead, knuckle down, I'm afraid not possible. Deo optimo maximo. Datur omnibus mori. Deo optimo maximo. Datur omnibus mori.

-Can't help wondering if they get much, he said to s.c.r.o.t.es. Officers, I mean. Get to choose your batman. Clean hands and eager-to-please nature. Be like setting up house. Pull me off, Atkins, I'm feeling wotten weawy.

-I am happy to find you relax somewhat.

MacMurrough laughed and lit a cigarette, careless at last of his hands. You know, he said, I had a friend who was set to marry but they were in some terrible train disaster. He found himself in a hospital and the nurse told him his intended had died. He was devastated, of course, but devastated the more to find he was attracted to the nurse. Every time she pa.s.sed he went stiff under the sheets. But d.i.c.ks are like that. Callous they may be, but they never lie. He was alive. He had survived. His d.i.c.k told him.

The girl came with the buns and tea. "Will there be anything else, sir?"

"No, that's all."

"I hope and you enjoy your holidays."

"Yes," said MacMurrough.

"Oh let me do that and your poor hands and all." She poured the tea. "Is it home from the Front you are? Don't mind me asking, sir, only I have a man in Flanders. Sure it's never as bad as they say, sure it isn't, sir?"

MacMurrough eyed the empty chair beside as if s.c.r.o.t.es might actually be found there. "No," he answered. "It's never so bad as they say."

"Thank you, sir," and she bobbed away.

-Worst of it is I should be an officer now. I mean, all one's contemporaries are.

-You might still volunteer.

-You think they'd have me?

-One suspects the authorities have grown less particular of late.

-Well I haven't. What do I care about this war? Whoever the victor, they'll still despise me.

-It is not their despising that concerns us. It is your own.

-Why this harping on my despising myself, s.c.r.o.t.es? It really is tiresome in you.

-My friend, we wish to be rid of something. How to be rid without finding it first?

MacMurrough pushed the tepid tea aside. He left a tip for the ladlorn waitress. I give without loss as I buy without gain.

He walked afterwards along the pier where another band was playing, a military band this time, and listened a while until the recruiting-sergeants grew too insistent. Then he pa.s.sed through a gap in the wall to the seaward side, where the wind hit with the blast of guns. There were slum children on a Suns.h.i.+ne Trip clambering over the rocks and MacMurrough watched their ragged antics and listened to their bootless cries. At the pier's end he waited within the spray of the waves as the mailboat came in. It recalled his own arrivals here as a child and the expectation that rose when his father changed his watch to Irish time.

-You know, I used to enjoy those holidays at Aunt Eva's. As a boy, I mean. It was always a friendly, idle sort of house. She used to tease my father for sliding into an Englishman, and to prove her wrong he would take punch and sing songs into the night. The children were let run free. It's odd, considering the interminable political plight, but Ireland for me has always signified freedom. A lazy freedom which you don't really know what to do with.

-What did your mother make of the place?

-She, being English, put up and smiled. Aunt Eva terrified her. One begins to see why now.

-Does she terrify you?

-All this rot about flutes and fetes. It's absurd, but I mayn't deny it's tempting, too. To see society return. Once more to dine at a club. Unghost my father with posterity till again he s.h.i.+nes on his son. It's terrifying to be tempted into happiness.

-Do you not wish for happiness?

-I don't wish always to hope knowing there can be none. Even Aunt Eva cannot scratch time.