At Swim, Two Boys Part 52

Meanwhile Jim's father made talk and Doyler politely earned his tea. No, Mr. Mack, he had never stepped inside of the Castle. True to be sure, Dublin was notorious for losing your way in it. Italy joins Austria? No, he hadn't heard that. Certainly, that was a grave development. Oh yes, he saw it now. On the map, yes. That was a good one, Mr. Mack. Italy joins Austria. No, he never thought of that. Sure why not, send it in, the papers might publish it.

The tea things came and went, sparingly with Lent. At last the table was cleared and Jim might leave his elbows legitimately there. He rested his chin in the crook of his hands, watchful and listening. The fire spat at the hearthrug. Long time ago he would used curl on that rug, a ball of pinky heat, while the furniture winked and tall shadows peopled the walls. Then, like now, though he had not then the words to describe it, he was aware of his detachment, of his being a witness to the moment, witness not partic.i.p.ant. Now, in a lazy way, he was pleased to remain so, these last few hours, a time yet. His feet pressed against the bench he sat on which later they'd pull out for their bed.

Doyler had little Estella on his lap, and he was dandling her up and down, asking her, riddling, "Will I tell you a story of Johnny Magorey? Will I begin it? That's all that's in it."

Jim's father said, "I believe there are two flutes here somewheres about. Are you with us at all there, Jim?"

"What, Da?"

"I said we have two flutes here somewheres."

"Yes," said Jim. "I kept your flute for you."

"Sure I knew you would."

Jim showed it down from the press, casually, and busied himself with his own, piecing the sections. Hours of work that flute had cost him. Cleaning the years of use from the finger-holes, new-twining the tenons, oiling the brittle from the wood, s.h.i.+ning away till he found its yellow gleam; and all the while testing to be sure of the tone, bright and near silvery in the high Ds, dark and warm in the low. Doyler gave out a scale. He said something. Jim s.h.i.+ed his head. "Oh well sure," he muttered.

"Slipjigs," called Doyler. He rapped on the floor, one two three, and off they flew, spattering the dew. Nancy tapped on the tiles, Estella jogged on her lap. His father called up the stairs, "Are you all right with the rattle, Aunt Sawney?" "Way with you!" they heard her back. They had the dew nicely spattered: on they played. It was a puzzle how they agreed the tunes, but a glance to Doyler and Doyler would nod, and their fingers leapt to the change. The night came down and the fire gathered them round. They slowed to airs. Doyler's eyes glimmered in their corners, watching him. Jim closed his own and he heard the notes, how they found themselves, as once Doyler had told they would. He heard them drifting above, their harmonies, s.h.i.+fting in the draughts of the fire; with the smoke they lifted, up up above, in modes he did not know the names of them, aloft and adrift in the night and the stars.

"You been practicing," said Doyler.

Jim nodded.

Nancy said, "Now then, Mr. Mack, will we leave these two dotes to themself a while?"

"Already?" said his father. "And I was only thinking I'd fetch the spoons."

"'Tis Lent a while yet," she said, "and Our Lord still in the tomb."

There was admonishment in her tone and Jim saw his father glance to the walls the way he'd hear the neighbors malavoguing his house. "Bed so," he said.

Nancy was away up the stairs. His father went out the yard-"The inconvenience," he said with a wink to Doyler. They were alone a moment. Doyler bent down for a heat off the fire. He looked over at Jim. "You've a spot on your chin," he said.

"So have you. You have three growing."

He laughed and Jim laughed too. Jim finished with the flutes, running a cloth through the sections. He said, "I didn't expect you'd be in a uniform."

Doyler stood straight and squared his shoulders. "Am I handsome or what?"

"Throwing shapes, so you are."

"And yourself in your breeches. They're gone too small for you now."

Jim lowered his head, feeling the pa.s.sage of Doyler's eyes. His hand smoothed the crease of his knee, wet from the flute. Doyler said, "But I always preferred you in your breeches."

Jim peeked up through the strands of his hair. "You never told me that before."

"Did I not? I might have." Doyler rubbed his nose, finger and thumb, like a snuffers. "Lookat, I'll go back into town. I'll be out again tomorrow, promise."

"You said you'd be staying."

"I'm saying I could go back. If you wanted like."

"Don't be saying that, Doyler. You wouldn't leave now."

"No." Again he fretted with his nose. "Where'd you stow me rifle anyway?"

"It's safe," said Jim. "Help me out with the bed."

His father returned, making low inward mouth-music. He played with lighting his candle while they undressed to their s.h.i.+rts. They climbed in the bed, head and toe, and his father said, "What's this, no prayers?" They had to climb out again and kneel on the floor. Doyler hid a claub of laughing behind his hands. Jim blessed himself and they clambered once more in the bed.

"Goodnight so, boys. Sure you won't stay awake gostering all hours?"

"No, Da."

"Goodnight, Mr. Mack, and thanks now."

"Not a word."

The gas came down, the stairs door closed. Jim heard the steady tramp above, the weary grievance of his father's bed. The legs beside him stretched and he squinched up by the wall to make room. Out from the dark Doyler said, "Your feet'll froze me. And you know what? They smell and all."

"Yours are no soap."

The covers threw back and Doyler's s.h.i.+rt was s.h.i.+mmering by the window. The blind eased up. "There's no moon," he said, "but it's better open." He knelt there a moment. He appeared to rise in the air: it was his s.h.i.+rt pulling off. "s.h.i.+ft over," he said. Feet traveled Jim's legs in drifts of warm and ice, then Doyler lay beside. He pinched Jim's s.h.i.+rt. "Take it off."

Jim pulled the s.h.i.+rt over his head. When he lay back, Doyler's arm was waiting on the pillow. It turned him in its hold. "Now we're settled," Doyler said.

"We are too."

"You don't mind?"

"No, it's lovely."

He cuddled over Doyler's chest. His head lifted and dropped with each breath. He listened to the pump of the heart. His hand had fallen on Doyler's side. Now he strayed it up his arm, fingering the hairs in the sneak of his armpit, then up along the shoulder. There was a feeling in this touch, yellow and soft, that was very like the color of candle-light. He found the leather string round Doyler's neck, and he traced it along, on past his scapular, till he touched the half of a medal.

"It's there," said Doyler, "never fear."

"Sure I knew that."

Then Jim was telling, he didn't know why, about the flag he had made. A green flag, he had it st.i.tched himself out of an old cloth. And he'd fas.h.i.+oned a kind of a strap to carry it on his back with. He'd tried it swimming and you wouldn't hardly notice it in the way. Had Doyler forgot? The flag was for the patriots Gidley and MacKinley. To claim the Muglins for Ireland.

Doyler was huffing away. "What's funny?" asked Jim.

"I know a pole too we can hang it from."

Jim felt a tug on him below and his breath came murmuring out. He had to take another breath the further to let it murmur.

Doyler creaked round to face him. "It's a tiny bed," he said.

"I can make more room."

"No, it's a tiny bed not to be friendly in it." He pulled Jim closer and pressed against him. "Sure you don't mind?"

"It's lovely, Doyler."

"I wouldn't want you having any doubts."

It streamed out of Jim then. Oh sure he knew that, he had no doubt about that, all along he never doubted, leastways he believed he knew, save he couldn't see it back last summer, he was scared then, but he wasn't scared now, he had longed for it to be this way, and how could it be any different, it was never a case of whether, only of when or who first, weren't they made to be this way- "Shut up," said Doyler. "Case of whether-You're giving me earache." He pulled Jim closer again. And it was strange being there, not strange with Doyler, but with this other thing that shared their bed and b.u.mped against Jim at times, expected of course, but in physicality an astonis.h.i.+ng event. Doyler laughed into his ear, "You know, with your pole and mine, never mind a flag, we could hang our was.h.i.+ng out."

Jim turned on his belly.

"No use turning your back, Jim Mack. Your back's as good as your front is to me."

"I'm not shy," said Jim. "Only if you touch me again-"

"Come here to me, you gaum."

"No," said Jim. "No," he said again. "I mean, Doyler, don't."

The shape that had crouched above him stiffened. "No?"

"We can't."

A moment. "Will they hear us above?"

"It's not that."

A moment again. "Don't you want me, Jim?"

Jim reached his hands to Doyler's shoulders. "Don't you know we have to wait till the island?"

A long while then while Doyler arched over him. The thin light of night, and of vigil and embers, found the outline of his face. Then he lay down stiff in the s.p.a.ce beside. He took a breath.

"Lookat Jim, I never swum to the Muglins that time. What happened I was swept out one day. I was struggling like mad to keep afloat even. Only for a launch chancing by I don't doubt I'd be drownded. I'm sorry for leading you on. I did it by reason I wanted to swim with you. I wanted to be with you that way. Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"And about them fellows with the flag. They was never patriots. They was robbers and murderers. They was no better than pirates. And me leg too, Jim. I never hurt that in the Lock-out. That was himself at home did that."

"Is that it?"

"That's it. I'm sorry now. But you can't swim to the Muglins. It's too tough a stretch."

"You can so swim there," said Jim. "I know for I swum half-way and back."

"You did?"

"I did, last week. And I had enough in me to swim it again the same time."

Doyler let a low whistle. "Me life on you, Jim, but you're the man if you did."

"And I know about the pirates for I spoke with men at the Forty Foot and they only laughed at my story. That doesn't signify. We still have the Muglins to claim for Ireland and that's why I made the flag. About the leg I guessed, for you was either in Clare or in Dublin, you couldn't be both. Now listen to me. We'll swim to the island tomorrow. We have that pledged and we can't go back on a pledge. You're not forgetting we spat on it?"

"I'm not forgetting we spat on it."

"Well then. If you never been there, that's all the better. It was a thing that muddled me that you swum there already. It's clearer now. It'll be us two together, out there in the sea. We have to go, because in a way, you see, we'll always be there."

"We will?"

"No one will take it from us. Even you can't nor I can't. That's why we'll swim."

"When did you work this out?"

Jim heard the tone in Doyler's voice. He heard himself sound strangely too. "I've been thinking is all."

"You been talking to MacMurrough?"

"We go swimming all right."

Doyler scratched his arm. "You like him?"

"I do."

"I suppose and he told you about them Spartans?"

"A thousand and one things he told me. You wouldn't know where he was coming from half the time. Spartans, Alexander the Great, the Sacred Band of Thebes. Even the Gaels, that they had a ceremony, two men if they loved each other."

"What ceremony?"

"A blessing. Before a priest and all. Christian priest."

"I wouldn't fancy the blessing we'd get off that curate if he catched us now."

"MacEmm says there's more things happened already than ever you'd dream of to come. MacMurrough: I call him MacEmm."

"I don't like him."

"You had a barney is all. Friends can't fall out that way. You'll make up, you'll see."

"Has he been saying things about me?"

"Only things I asked him. Don't worry about that now. Haven't you me with you now?"

"I think I have."

"Hold me so," said Jim. He lifted Doyler's arm and snook in under it. He bundled himself small the closer to be held. He felt a great emulsive flow of love, all the truer for his needing no arm to hold him. The parts had s.h.i.+fted. He felt the marvel of his will that had brought Doyler to him this night. Doyler had not understood about the island. But that would come. Doyler had nothing to fear. Jim would swim him to the Muglins, he would swim him home again. There was no end to the swimming they would do.

He was coming on to yawn. His breath sucked in the draught from the window. His shoulders hunched, his legs stretched to their toes, he made claws of his fingers in his hands-a fierce pandiculation of his limbs. This is my body. See how it fits. Everything fits. I am a finely tailored flesh. He arched his groin. Feel this, my stand. Its throb alone would fetch it. His breath streamed out. The magnificence of my chest.