At Swim, Two Boys Read online

  Eveline had completed her inspection at the hall stand. The child waited by the pass door, hands by her sides like a board-school girl. Itching to be below stairs out of harm’s way. Pauvre ingénue. Eveline smiled and ordered hot water and towels to her dressingroom. Even the imbécile might manage that.

  While she sponged her cheeks with water of roses, she considered her interview with the new curate at St. Joseph’s, Glasthule. Naturally, it was the canon she had called upon, some invitation to decline, but a young priest had received her, offering regrets at the canon’s indisposition. The canon’s health was neither here nor there to Eva, her confessor being of the Jesuits at Gardiner Street, but the young man made such parade of hospitality, she had quickly perceived her demurs would serve but to encourage his insistence.

  She had accepted tea in best blue china. The curate gave his name—unless she misheard, Father Amen O’Toiler, which sounded a sermon in itself. He fingered her card, then, still fidgeting, stood to make his say. “I cannot tell you, Madame MacMurrough, what pleasure it is to greet a scion of your famous name.” Her famous name was given its due, which she heard as a type of Cook’s tour of Irish history. Bridges taken, fords crossed, the sieges broken, battles lost, long valiant retreats—and not a one but a MacMurrough had been to the fore.

  It was a familiar account and she had waited politely, seated at the edge of an aged Biedermeier whose stuffing was gone. Absently she wondered which charity the curate had in mind and what donation might eventually suffice.

  The priest had continued his progress round the sunless parlor, chilly yet fuming from an ill-ventilated fire. Every few paces he referred to her card, as though the heads of his argument had been pencilled thereon, as onwards he passed through the dark centuries, the long night of Ireland’s woe. Yet night, he averred, not so dark as to blind, for in every generation a light had sparked, betimes no more than a flash on the hillside, moretimes a flame to set the age afire. And not once in all the years but the cry had gone out: MacMurrough! The name was imperishable, ineradicable, sempiternal, a lodestar in the Irish firmament that had blazed to its zenith, as many believed (and not least the curate himself, if he might make so bold), in the brilliant, some might say heliacal, career of Madame MacMurrough’s late revered regretted father, Dermot James William MacMurrough, Queen’s Counsellor, quondam Lord Mayor and Chief Magistrate of our great metropolis, freeman of the cities of Waterford, Cork, New York and Boston, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, Member for the Borough of Ferns.

  “And there at the moment of her direst need”—the curate’s voice had strained as he came to the crux of his tale—“when sacred Ireland stood upon the edge, at the very brink of extinction, who stood forth to show the way? Who but your father saw through the genteel broadcloth, the polished suaviloquence, to the degenerate soul within? Who was it saved Ireland from the alien heretical beast?”

  Yes, Eveline thought now, before her dressing-table glass, her father had been first to denounce Parnell. Though it had been a close race, so fierce the stampede.

  Perfume bottles, phials of scent, Gallé and Lalique; a porcelain shepherdess proffered tiny sugared treats on a tray, offered them twice, for the toilet glass reviewed her, stretching through the bottles, a child sinking through colored viscous water. Eveline chose a bon-bon, sucked it thoughtfully.

  There was more to this curate than at first she had suspected. More than once he had made allusion to the Fenians. His face had pecked in the intervals after, seeking collusion. She had nodded, blinked with charming detachment. Then taking her leave she had felt his high neck bend toward her. That odor of carbolic and abstinence so readily in the mind confused with mastery. The priest whispered in her ear: “The sword of light is shining still. England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.”

  The formula was stale, let alone the notion, but it had sounded singular on the lips of a priest. If this now was the teaching of the seminaries, change most certainly was in the air. Poor old Parnell—the Chosen Man, the Chief, the Uncrowned King of Ireland, adulterer, fornicator, the Lost Leader—it would be the supreme irony: to have terrified the Church into Irish Ireland.

  She rose now from her dressing-table and approached the garden window. She turned the hasp and the casement opened. She inhaled the breath from the sea. Casement, how very beautiful was the word. She spoke it softly. A decidedly beautiful name, Casement. “He is far from the land,” she softly hummed.

  A trundle on the stairs and the child came in with towels and steaming water. At the washstand she ventured to say, “There was a delivery while you was out, mam.”

  Eveline nodded.

  “Only stockings, mam. Was I right to leave them in the library like you said?”

  Stockings, yes. She must see to them directly her toilet was done.

  One more bon-bon from the porcelain shepherdess. It was evident the maids—the few were left her—had been at her supply. “When you have finished whatever you are doing below, go down to Glasthule. The confectioner’s will know my order.”

  As she came down to the library she saw through the open door the gardener and the gardener’s boy and the gardener’s boy’s boy all greedily washing her Prince Henry. It was the one chore she might charge them to perform. Her mind drifted to a time late last summer when she had motored over the hills to the old demesne near Ferns. With her had traveled two gentlemen of the press and a representative of the Irish Automobile Club. Her intention had been to astonish the world by ascending and descending Mount Leinster, whose track, winding to the summit, had in parts a gradient steeper than one in three. This feat would prove not only the motor’s magnificent pedigree but her own accomplishment, representative of all Irish womanhood’s, in handling it.

  And indeed she had carried the day. The motor performed superbly, the IAC man figured and stamped in his book, the newspapermen assured her of a prominent notice. She had expected at the least a Johnsonian quip—the wonder being not in her exploit, but in a lady’s wish to stage such performance. But the next day’s newspapers gave no mention of her. The August bank holiday had passed and while she had been conquering Mount Leinster Great Britain had declared war on Germany.

  At her library desk, begloved once more, this time in creamy four-button mochas, she opened the brown-papered parcel of stockings. Plain-knit, rough-textured stuff. Queer specimen down Glasthule had suggested the arrangement. She might not approve of enlistment in the tyrant’s yeomanry, but she did not see why Irish soldiers should suffer cold feet. Besides, the soul had grown soft since Parnell, with the English and their ploys, killing home rule with kindness. A reacquaintance with arms might prove useful, indeed requisite, in the coming times.

  For she too felt the change in the air. Last August, while she motored home alone through the acetylene-lit gloom, the twilight had forced itself upon her. But this was not the evening twilight of the foolish poets. It was the half-light before dawn, the morning of a new Ireland. For indeed it was true: England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity. And she, a MacMurrough born to lead, knew well where lay her duty.

  Inside the foot of each stocking she inserted a slip of paper. Green paper whose script proclaimed: “Remember Ireland!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The girls were colloguing outside the confectioner’s when Jim came by.

  “Lookat, there’s Jim Mack, home for his dinner. Isn’t he the grand swell in his college get-up? Dinky cap and lovely shiny boots on. Delivered out of a bandbox.”

  “And his knickers up to his knees and proper black stockings on. Wouldn’t you love to take him home with you and stick him on a cake?”

  “Ah, but why wouldn’t his da put him in longers?”

  “On his birthday and all.”

  “Big boy he’s getting, and handsome with it.”

  “Though without the anatomicals yet, would you listen to me!”

  “Are you getting your greens there, Jim?”


  “Ah, the wee spurt, little by little.”

  “Shush now,” said Nancy, “leave him be. You’ll have him baked for shame.” She left her companions and beckoned Jim privately over. “How’s the birthday boy?” she asked and she planted a smacker on his cheek. “There you are for luck.”

  From a distance his face looked unwashed, but closer to you saw there were rosebuds on his cheeks, buds that bloomed now to perfect pinks, occasioning a further shrill of laughter from the girls behind.

  “Well, Nancy,” he said, brushing a hand against the wet.

  “Is that all you have to say for yourself?” She hooked his arm and marched him onward. “Don’t mind them saucepots. Them saucepots is only ignorant.” She chid them over her shoulder, “Ignorant, so yous are!” He was muttering something, but she held to his arm. Past the butcher O’Brien’s where tubs of brine fumed on the pavement and carcasses buzzed with blow-flies above. Past the buttery milky smell of Smelly’s marbly dairy. “Muck for more luck,” said she when he stepped in dried-up dung. Adelaide Road was spilling with children from the national school and there were cries and street-calls all ways. Only when they came to the entry to Adelaide Cottages did she draw him aside.

  “You’ll never guess.”

  “Guess what?”

  “I’ve news from Gordie. Got a letter in the first post.” She watched his eyes close, squeeze, then open wide again. A right scholar he makes. Can’t even blink without thinking. “Has that woken you?”

  “He’s all right?”

  “Flying sure. You know where he’s at?” She had the letter out of her apron pocket and she stumped a finger at the top of the page.

  “All Love,” he read, “Does Ever Rightly Show,” he read, “Humanity Our Tenderness . . . ?” He looked up, querying her face.

  “Do you not catch on? Likes of you, a scholarly chap and all.” She danced her finger under each word, spelling it out. “A-L-D-E-R-S-H-O-T. It’s a code, of course.”

  “Aldershot! I see it now.”

  “It’s in England. Famous military town. I looked it up in a book in Miss MacMurrough’s.”

  “We knew he was to go to England,” said Jim, “only they couldn’t say where.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  “Yes, now we know.”

  His head dawdled over the letter. The peak of his cap pointed up at the sky. She couldn’t make out the face for his quiff fell over his eyes like the fringe of a show horse. She let him read on, biting her lip, till she knew by the purpling ear-tips that he’d reached the passage she intended. Enough. She snatched the letter away. “I’d leave you read the news for yourself, only it’s a taste mashy inside.”

  “Mashy?”

  “Oh mashy something desperate.”

  He looked up and a smile traveled his face as though unsure where to fit. When she returned the letter to its envelope, the “S.W.A.K.” on the seal caught his eye and he asked, “Is that the return?”

  “The return, would you listen to it!” But the ox-eyed look of him brought the fondness out of her. She laid a hand on his neck, relishing the twitch when she rubbed behind his ear. “Don’t mind that. That’s only Gordie trying to land me in scrapes at Miss MacMurrough’s. He’s a bold particle is your brother. I hope and you don’t take after him. You don’t, sure you don’t, Jim Mack?”

  Again the ponderous squeezing blink. “I think I take after my mother. I’m not sure.”

  “Ah sure, God bless you, what more could you ask? Your poor mother and now your poor brother gone and all. Do you miss him? Of course you do. The street isn’t the same. But God is good, he’ll be home again. Safe and sound, you’ll see.”

  He was fidgeting with the flap of a pocket. She could feel the hairs on his neck bristling. And the heat off him! She lifted her hand. “I do declare, if you blush any redder you’ll go up in a smoke.”

  “I’d better be getting in.”

  “Don’t let on to your da about the letter. He came by this morning giving such a slice of the ignore, I thought to let him stew.”

  At last she had made him smile. His cheeks rose, the dimples came, the lonesome look departed.

  “You see?” said she. “That’s found the sunshine in you.”

  It was sunshine rarely seen at home. As soon as the shop door clinked closed, his father bustled from the window and said, “What were you doing talking to hussies in the street? Shop-girls and maids-of-all-work. And you had your college cap on.”

  And from in the kitchen, Aunt Sawney called, “’Tis cold plate for dinner and take off them boots when you’re stepping inside.”

  “‘Memorable Scenes at Dardanelles.’ Now that’s a further development. ‘Race to land before dawn.’ We’ll have to mark that down on the map. ‘Australasians’ Gallantry.’ Australasians means Australians and New Zealanders, them both. No word of the Dubs, but we know they’re out there.”

  Dinner was cold bacon and cold cabbage, the cabbage adrift in a murky water. Mr. Mack brought his fork as far as his lips. “Eat up your greens, Jim. World of goodness in cabbage.” He waited while his son obeyed, then back to the news.

  “‘Fight for Ypres. Use of Stupefying Gases.’ Now that’s shocking. That’s beyond the beyonds. ‘Canadians’ Gallantry.’ Still no mention of the Dubs. Mind you, don’t know why we’re supposed to be shocked. The German soldier has no tradition of honor. That’s the case with Germany. See it with the Kaiser. All Prussian gas and gaskets, but no command of honor. And that’s the sad truth.”

  He gave the sad truth a moment’s commiseration, staring at his fork. From out the shop the Rosary came, Hail Mary low and Holy Mary high. He leant closer over the table. “I’ve a small something inside needs seeing to after.”

  “I’m finished now, Da.”

  Out in the shop Aunt Sawney disremembered her Rosary sufficient to bang her stick and bawl, “Boys don’t speak at table.”

  Mr. Mack half turned to the open door. A stickler for decorum, no harm in that. “Have you finished your dinner, Jim?”

  “Yes, Da.”

  Again the bang of a stick on the floor. Mr. Mack frowned. He looked doubtfully at the mess of cabbage. Best thing for it was to say grace and get back in the shop. “We give Thee thanks, Almighty God, for all Thy gifts, who livest and reignest world without end.”

  Over which, as though in competition, Aunt Sawney brayed: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

  It was a race to Amen, which Aunt Sawney won. Mr. Mack rose. The Rosary of course was good and proper, but had she forgotten there was socks needed knitting for the Front? “I’ll take over now, Aunt Sawney. You come back to your chair.” Confidentially to Jim he said, “Fetch the shop bike out of the yard and meet me inside.”

  The boy’s face creased and he said, “But Da, I’m due back at school.”

  “Papa,” Mr. Mack corrected.

  “Papa,” said Jim.

  “Better put some juldy in it so. Chop-chop.”

  He watched his son as he loafed through the scullery. Keen as mustard a moment since, now he’s hanging dogs. Would want to catch on to himself.

  “What use is a chair to me?” Aunt Sawney complained as she came in from the shop. “I’m beckoned hither and beckoned thither like a common shop-miss.”

  “Now now, I’m only thinking of your health. You’re only over the bronchitis and you needs your rest.”

  When she drew level with him, she abruptly jutted her chin in his face. “I’m still the name on the lease of this shop. And while there’s saints in heaven, ’tis stopping that way.”

  When his son had fetched the bike, Mr. Mack muttered, discreetly closing the inside door, “Crumbi rumpitita. Latin for cabbage warmed up. Save that wasn’t warmed up even.” He thought a moment, recollected himself. “There’s plenty would walk to Dublin for a plate of cold cabbage.”

  “What do I need the bike for, Da?”

  Mr. Mack said Aha! with his eyes, and from
under the shelves pulled out an onion box. He lifted it on the counter. “I want you to deliver some advertising-bills round the local populace. What do you think? They’re hot off the printer’s press.” He showed one to his son, running his finger along the words at the expected rate of reading. “It’s the modern way of drumming up trade.”

  The boy gazed into the box, his face growing longer and plainer. Makes a comical sketch, thought Mr. Mack. Eyebrows straight and nose the length of the Shannon. Has a face like a capital T. He thought—did he think that?—the box held his birthday present. All in a rush, he spluttered, “I’ve a cake for you after out of Findlater’s.”

  “What, Da?”

  “Deliveries first.” His son flicked through the pile and Mr. Mack had to check himself from cautioning against creasing the sheets. “Don’t crease them now,” he said, defeated by the boy’s shiftlessness.

  “You want me to distribute these?”

  “Deliver them.” Though in point of fact, distribute was probably the more appropriate sentiment in this particular instance. Fair dues. Comes from having a scholarship boy for a son. “Distribute them if you choose. But you needn’t do it all the one go. Do a couple of streets now, the bulk after your school.”

  The Capital T was for Tragic on his face, till the boy shrugged. “All right.”

  “Hold your horses, do your buttons up first. Don’t you want to know where to deliver them?”

  “You said the local populace.”

  “But which local populace? Have you not the horse-sense to ask?”

  “Which local populace, Da?”

  “Well, up Glasthule Road towards Ballygihen. Do you know where I mean?”

  “The posh houses.”

  “Quality Street,” said Mr. Mack. “We’re on the up, Jim, never forget it. Juldy on now. And don’t be late for school. And remember, that bicycle is shop property, not something to hare up and down with.”

  He had ushered his son to the door, but at the door his son said, “Papa, do I have to?”