At Swim, Two Boys Read online

  Her wish for peace had her resort to her Irish. We’re ourselves here: no quarrels. “Do you know, Ma, you’re the true Sinn Feiner. The right patriot for peace, you are.”

  She cocked her head at his humor. “In with you and shift your shirt. Leave that one out for me to wash it.”

  “Ah, Ma, I’ve no call to be wearing a clean shirt to work. It doesn’t last two minutes on me.”

  “You might take a leaf from himself inside. While you have it to wear, be thankful of a clean cloth to your back.”

  “Have it to pawn is better.”

  “Son—”

  “Aye?”

  “Come back to me now.” He came back and she said, “Don’t be bitter, son. There’s bitterness enough in the world.” She touched his chin as she spoke. The hard of her face was in the soda of her fingers. “I’ll be in to fix your bite to eat.”

  “Ah no, Ma. Sure you have the seven cares of the mountain with them sheets. You’ll share a sup of tea?”

  “Don’t wake himself.”

  “Why would I do that?” He made tea and brought out two jars of it. He hunched beside her with a heel of a loaf that he dipped inside. “What house is it at all needs all them sheets?”

  “Ballygihen House it is. Up Sandycove way.”

  “Ballygihen?”

  “They have any number of help and still they wouldn’t cope.”

  “Not MacMurrough is it?”

  “Miss MacMurrough,” she answered. “Spinster of the parish.”

  In a confused way he watched the sheet she was scrubbing.

  “The slavey says ’tis a nephew from England they have staying and he’s the jack and all for clean sheets. Please God, he’ll stay a while yet. ’Tis the dirty linen of them above us will keep us body and soul together.”

  “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. I’ll string it round me neck, will that do for you?” He slipped into the water. “Ready for the back?”

  “Ready enough.”

  “You want to try a kick in your legs this time.”

  To this Jim did object. “Sure you never kick.”

  “See me kicking and ’tis round in circles I go. But give a kick yourself. Don’t break the surface, mind. You’ll find you get the pull of a push off it. Are we straight so? Great guns you’re going.”

  And Jim was back inside the water, where his thoughts tumbled in the spill.

  He had feared he might grow used to the mornings, but over the weeks the adventure had not diminished. First thing on waking, he moved the blind to test the sky. Not that it made any difference what weather it was. A spat handshake was copper-bottomed. He had told his father that and his father had to agree. “Though ’tis a shame you wouldn’t ask at home before entering into commitments.” All the same it was better if the day promised bright. Better on the raft or after their swim when they would dry in the sun; for swimming it made no difference. The sea was a freezer, rain or shine.

  He skipped breakfast for fear of the cramps, only he brought bread to share afterwards. Jitter bread, Doyler called it, for it stopped the teeth from chattering. Doyler would fetch an onion out of his pocket that he rubbed along the surface. “There’s relish for you.”

  Jim was always early at the Forty Foot and he waited outside the entrance whilst the regulars came past. The regulars were all sorts, Protestant and Catholic, clerks and clerics, all kinds of accents you’d hear. At first he tried to look inconspicuous, like he hadn’t a friend to be waiting for, and if a friend arrived it was only the off-chance they thought to go swimming. But these men soon grew accustomed to him. “Begod ’tis fresh this morning,” they’d say coming out. It surprised him how open they were, that they wouldn’t mind him intruding on their spot. “He’s behind himself this morning—no, speak of the
devil, hopping along the front there.” A cheery wave the regulars would give and Doyler waved in return. “Sure we’re regulars ourself now,” he said.

  And down they’d descend the winders into the gentlemen’s bathing-place, still raw and long-shadowed. A quick strip and a mad dash to the water. That instant before he jumped when he did not quite believe he would dare. Water up his nose, sensation close to nausea, and the swell all round, till he rose with his bubbles to the surface. The crazy wafting horizons, the floundering rocks. That marbly numbness below and the way his thing floated free, near alive in the water. It was special to swim naked. The way nature intended, so Doyler claimed. Nobody minded at the Forty Foot, though in the day you was supposed to wear costumes. Then off to the raft and Doyler saying, Great guns you’re going, as beside and a little behind his smooth and inconsistent form made its kickless stroke.

  Jim’s father had changed his mind about Doyler. Doyler wasn’t a bad hat after all. Doyler was a bit of a black diamond in fact. “You might stick in with that one. The new father has a great wish for him. See if you can’t pick up any of the Erse while you’re at it. Mighty fond of his dee gits is our new father.”

  Father O’Táighléir seemed everywhere at once. If he wasn’t opening a new class he was raising subscriptions for one. He had the Gaelic League in the parish hall, and Miss Biggs the newsagent, though a notorious Orangewoman, did a power of trade in the thin little O’Growney primers. To the envy of Jim’s father, who searched his head for something Irish a general stores might sell. Language classes, singing-classes, dancing-classes (no skipping, no battering, girls Friday, boys Saturday). The curate had his eye on a plot of the Castlepark Fields where hurling and Gaelic football would be played. In the meantime collections were made for jerseys and boots, hurleys and balls. In the court outside the parish church he had the Irish Volunteers out of Dalkey parade, and they marched up and down each Sunday after Men’s Mass. His influence pervaded where his presence could not. The Protestants grew less assured of their ascendancy and the Union flag on their churches and schools flew rather in defiance than in dominion. The Salvation Army hall was window-boarded and silent. More and more the recruitment posters were torn.

  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,” Jim answered automatically.

  “No, you gaum. I mean that’s where it comes from. It was their test for to join. Are you straight, they asked. I am, says you. How straight so? Straight as a rush. Go on then, says they. In truth, in trust, in unity and liberty, says you. That was the United Irishmen. Don’t mind that priest what he said about Tone. That priest would have them all voteens did nothing but count their beads. Wolfe Tone was a free-thinking man.”

  “Is it true he did destroy himself?”

  “They had the gallows built outside of his cell. What hope would he have? He cheated the English of their show. He brung the French, so he did. But the French was too late coming. Too late for the boys of Wexford.”

  The boys of Wexford, the croppy boys. Dimly Jim saw them from out their cabins creep. It’s the dark before the moon’s rise and their eyes are wide and faces narrow. In the smoky light of spits and fangles, new-forged pikes give a steely glow. It’s the cleanest sight they might ever have seen, these creeping crop-haired boys. The black-frocked priest leaps up on the rock. Arm, arm! he cries, I’ve come to lead you! By heart and hand they will fight for Ireland and by morning they have the militia beat. Wexford falls, Enniscorthy falls, only New Ross bars the way. But the drink is their downfall. The crazy fiddle and the lawless dancing, wretched whiskey and looted wine. Through Protestant blood they wade for a last stand at Vinegar Hill. Death comes merciful with a yeoman’s blade or blazes with pitch upon their heads, made candles of by the English. The ruction, the ignorant had called it, meaning insurrection. Another word, like bother and boycott, given the English language.

  “Do you know what it is?” said Doyler. “When we come to Bodenstown we’ll lie down on his grave.”

  “Why’ll we do that?”

  “Don’t you know the song?

  “I lay on the sod that lies over Wolfe Tone

  And thought how he perished in prison alone.

  “It’s traditional, lying on his grave. That’s what you do sure.”

  Jim shrugged. He didn’t suppose he very much minded lying on a grave. “I thought it was something your own,” he said. “Are you straight, I mean.”

  “Well, ’tis ours now. For you and me,” and
his arm came over Jim’s shoulder, “aren’t we straight as a rush together?”

  The Sunday, then, they piled into a charabanc that took them to Bodenstown, over the hills in County Kildare. It was a bleary day with a drizzle falling. They waited their time in a pasture field, under the watch of cows, while the grass soaked into their boots. The different bands tuned their instruments—peeping, brattling, droning, thudding—all flat in the sodden air. Everything sagged, banners and flags, their flapping kilts, the boughs of the trees. In a rainy way the fields foretold the bogs, and Jim thought of the vast Bog of Allen over the horizon and he felt it for a sinking thing in the heart of the land.

  Their time came and they marched past a wall, without ever a sight of a grave, letting out “A Nation Once Again,” till they halted at the tail of the assembly. A man was set to give a speech from a steps. A tall man with a pale face. He was dressed in the smart green of an Irish Volunteer. “We have come,” he said, “to the holiest place in the land.” And if it is holy, thought Jim, it’s the damp miserable holiness of Ireland.

  Yet the man had a pleasing way of talking, with none of the preachment of Father O’Táighléir. He spoke the way he had known Wolfe Tone for a friend. His brother in blood, he called him. He said they were none of them strangers here, if they loved Wolfe Tone. And in spite of himself Jim found he strained to catch more.

  The soldier-speaker spoke of Tone, of his vision and his spirit, of his love for the common people. He was saying things out of history books, but still he made it sound like it was his friend he was talking of. His friend had been a great man; he had died for his love of Ireland: they stood now at his grave. That must be hard, Jim thought, to be talking at the graveside of your friend. Death, it was a dark and empty falling when Jim thought of it, before the thought had blinked away. Such is the destiny of heroes, the man said in his slow and melodious way—to follow the far, faint call that leads to battle or the gallows tree.

  Was it the wind in the grass or the whirring rain, but Jim heard it somewhere, the whisper of a flute.