At Swim, Two Boys Part 21

-Your egoism is not in doubt, MacMurrough. What is in doubt is your humanity.

-You never used to hector so.

-You never used to be so cold.

It was cold, and bare with it. Winter prevailed in the dim-lit room. And chancing on the gla.s.s that s.c.r.o.t.es kept by his table, MacMurrough caught his face and it seemed to him a fresh and alarming thing, a hanging fruit among the withered leaves. Such a fruit as the ancients described as having a color as though fit to eat: but if plucked it crumpled in your hands into ashes. And where they grow by the Dead Sea these fruits are called the apple of Sodom. And where they grow by the Dead Sea these fruits are called the apple of Sodom.

MacMurrough cast an eye on the spiral stairs down. He yearned for Nanny Tremble to come and cosset him. But s.c.r.o.t.es leant forward with eyes of December.

-Answer the truth. Did you not look upon the world this morning and imagine it as the boy might see it? And did you not recognize the mist and the dew and the birdsong as elements not of a place or a time but of a spirit? And did you not envy the boy his spirit? For you know there can be no power over him who freely gives what another would take. Such a one has the capacity to love. Freely, naively, to say, I do.

Coldly MacMurrough answered, You forget yourself, Dr. s.c.r.o.t.es: I loved you. Heartily I loved you. Two years hard I spent loving you. They had me watch you die.

-So must you kill everything now in revenge?

"Snapdragons," said Eveline. "I'm never sure if they're not too tawdry. Are they tawdry? Or are they merely vulgar?"

"Tawdry," chose MacMurrough. "Vulgar when called antirrhinums."

Her hand squeezed his containing elbow. "How very Wildean," she said.

A momentary lapse which sundered them. She covered with tulips. "They're one's favorites, of course, but he won't grow them, old Moore won't. Or at least he will, but only among the snapdragons and whatever these are, green things. Whereas with tulips what one prizes is their uniformity. Nothing to break a prospect so well as a parade of unvarying turbans."

Old Moore preceded their progress down the garden path. His hands snapped dead things off, boots slid dead things under the shrubberies. Aunt Eva looked to left and right, but graciously not ahead.

"One argues with him, naturally, but in the end one must give way. Too odd to care too much about a garden, don't you agree?"

MacMurrough did agree and their arms entwined once more. She spoke of tulip-beds she had known at Versailles and in the Tuileries and he thought of Wilde's that had flamed like throbbing rings of fire. flamed like throbbing rings of fire. He was struck still by her allusion. He was struck still by her allusion.

Squilde. Don't let 'im catch yer bending, mate. We got ourself an a.r.s.e-fackin-Squilde on us-fackin-wing.

"Whereas here in poor old Ireland all is a galimafree." She strode ahead to quiz the gardener, who shuffled his feet, bowing his head. MacMurrough imagined the mumbling response, his seeking to stumble his words lest expertise should offend. She strode ahead to quiz the gardener, who shuffled his feet, bowing his head. MacMurrough imagined the mumbling response, his seeking to stumble his words lest expertise should offend.

Green old rambling garden. MacMurrough knew it, of course, from his holidays as a boy. Screen of twisted pines, the sycamores to the road with their clouds of flies. Dark shrubberies scattered about like mounds over warrior-kings. Exciting places for a child to grub in, somewhere to show your bottom to the gardener's lad. Wonderful meadow lawn, quite hidden from the house, where he had liked to lie in the long gra.s.s while the ponies came up and nudged him. And always at the end, the sea.

And Aunt Eva. How romantic she looked in her saffron wrap. Her hair was a glossy black after some preparation or other. A pale maquillage. White flowing unfas.h.i.+onable dress whose trail was stained with gra.s.s. Not quite the Irish colleen, but whatever it is colleen is the diminutive of.

His gaze took in the run of the house. She called it Georgian, but Georgian here meant anything up to the 'fifties. His grandfather had taken it as convenient for the Mail. The stone was rendered grey, but not somberly so, lightly grey, grisaille, grisaille, his aunt would say, faded of salt and wind. Canted wings, one grown over with ivy, the other so bare as to be bald, lending the facade a tilted aspect. No turret, nor room for one, which was surprising really, considering the hours MacMurrough spent there with s.c.r.o.t.es. Bal.u.s.trade bounding the balcony whereon his aunt took tea in the morning. Below the balcony the garden room, whose French windows, open to the day, drew the garden paths together. his aunt would say, faded of salt and wind. Canted wings, one grown over with ivy, the other so bare as to be bald, lending the facade a tilted aspect. No turret, nor room for one, which was surprising really, considering the hours MacMurrough spent there with s.c.r.o.t.es. Bal.u.s.trade bounding the balcony whereon his aunt took tea in the morning. Below the balcony the garden room, whose French windows, open to the day, drew the garden paths together.

"Defney I never seeyan dis many tings in a roowam befroor." Thus the boy of MacMurrough's bedroom. Shaving-stand, washstand, shuttered secretaire, his leafy Saraband rug: it had seemed bare enough to MacMurrough. The house was far less fussy than he recalled. The heavy mahoganies remained, but were islands of furniture against faded walls. Gone the sand pictures, the featherwork scenes, pictures without paint that so had charmed his childish mind: all that jumble of ornament and garnish that marked the high reign of the old Queen. Wandering through the house he felt how light were these rooms and large now, when his memories crowded them with riding-booted feet, gruff voices of visiting gentry, the incommunicado of footmen. Hearths gaped without their screens, pole-screens, cheval-screens, screens against the draught, the light-where had all the screens gone? Yet, for all its airiness, there was a mood of want and disrepair, as though the modern style had fallen by accident, by unreplaced breakage, loss.

And the garden, too, with its wilderness sides and combed lawns-a type of Jekyll and hide. Even here the modern style seemed hit upon by negligence. Or perhaps not negligence but nonchalance, a supremacy over style born of conviction. His aunt was certain of her standing, in history and in place. Anything she touched, ergo, was . . . a la mode. a la mode.

However, she owned a curious inability to keep people. The place was run on the very minimum of staff. Half the rooms she kept shut. He had noticed a certain maneuvering of the apostles, robbing Peter to pay Paul, with the tradesmen. Was Aunt Eva feeling the pinch? She still topped it the grande dame grande dame of course-to the extent of keeping a dispensary, what she was pleased to term her Wednesday of course-to the extent of keeping a dispensary, what she was pleased to term her Wednesday levee, levee, when from the front steps of the house she doled out blue b.u.t.ter and castor oil to the needy sick of the parish. But still, to remain here among the retired majors and advancing suburbandom of Sandycove: a florist's bizarre in the borders. when from the front steps of the house she doled out blue b.u.t.ter and castor oil to the needy sick of the parish. But still, to remain here among the retired majors and advancing suburbandom of Sandycove: a florist's bizarre in the borders.

Our estate is over the mountains, she told him when he asked. But he remembered the family home, High Kinsella, which sat upon a vast heatherless roadless mire: one of those blank Irish houses, with staring windows, and the misgiving as you approached of the roof fallen in. She had taken recently to motoring there of a long weekend.

How interesting if Aunt Eva should be poor. How well they should get on.

Something crawled inside his collar. Impa.s.sively, he plucked the gentle seed. Lousy little renter. Nanny Tremble had been right about the Keating's Powder. The grey thing crushed with a tactile crunch and his fingers stained with blood. Had better check for crab-lice too. His shoulders hunched with incipient formication.

In Wandsworth they used water from boiling potatoes. Rubbing it into s.c.r.o.t.es's back that time in the infirmary. Horrid warts he had. Old man's warts. Old lag's lice.

-And only this morning we were treated to proclamations of undying love.

-For your soul, great heart, for your soul.

"He claims it is a July garden," Aunt Eva said returning. "Have you ever heard such a thing? A July garden indeed. It was never a July garden when I was a child. Why, I don't remember any Julys here. We always traveled to Paris in antic.i.p.ation of the recess." Aunt Eva said returning. "Have you ever heard such a thing? A July garden indeed. It was never a July garden when I was a child. Why, I don't remember any Julys here. We always traveled to Paris in antic.i.p.ation of the recess."

"This is Ireland. Everything comes later here."

She sighed. "Yes, this is poor old sold-out Ireland."

Even the late blooming of flowers, apparently, could be laid at the union with England. They pa.s.sed under an arch that come July, politics permitting, would ramble with rose. Low hedges separated the path from the vegetable rows. Cabbage, cabbage, potato, cabbage; potato, potato, cabbage, cabbage. And just there, by the sea-steps, I took him in my mouth.

Aunt Eva stopped. "Well, it is useless to go on. At the least no one need starve. We can feed them all colcannon."

They turned, old Moore remaining to potter about in his darling rows.

"If he can grow cabbages that way, why can't he plant tulips in beds? I sometimes despair of my race and its lack of an aesthetic. Of course it comes from the famine. If a thing can't be eaten, one must throw it away. But what am I to do? Dispose my guests among the praties?"

"Wait until July."

"It looks as though we shall have to."

They came to a seat and she sat down. The heavy scent of wall-flowers hung, members too, MacMurrough recalled, of the cabbage family. He stood over her, smoking.

"Did I mention we are to have a boys' band playing?"

"What sort of boys' band?"

"Local boys. Poor ones, I presume. I arranged for kilts for them to wear." She looked up suddenly, as if she had caught d.i.c.k's murmur of hands wandering up skirted thighs. "I'm sure I remember you playing an instrument. Didn't you, Anthony?"

"Yes, I played concert flute. I told you."

"The man in charge is not to be trusted."

"Trusted with what?"

She looked aggrieved at his interrogation. "The care of young minds." Her fingers, which had stroked a stem, now pinched it till it severed. She brought the spray to her nose, sniffed. Before she would toss it aside she said, "He is not patriotic."

MacMurrough laughed, a single e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed breath.

"There is no occasion for scoffing. Father O'Toiler and I intend the boys to be an inspiration to the parish. It has become too Englified and reminds one of your recreant father."

His father, yes. Advocate, of course, not brilliant but reliable. For the prosecution, hence the knighthood. Sir John MacMurrough, Knight of St. Patrick. Dubbed at Dublin Castle, hence the recreancy. Twins, she the elder by half an hour, he the winner by the unalterable right of male succession.

"As it happens this current teacher is indisposed. An unfortunate mishap on the road. The man to replace him need not be so proficient. He need only be . . . bien dispose." bien dispose."

"Aunt Eva, you're not suggesting . . . ?" Apparently she was. "Does your priest know about this? Does he know anything of my situation?"

Sternly she said, "What is there to know? Other than that you are a MacMurrough and as such bear a name inseparable from our country's cause." She sought to hold his eyes. Some appeal there he thought might be gratified by his flinching. He did so and she said, eirenically, "As for your contretemps with the British courts, we must never forget your grandfather himself was imprisoned. Kilmainham Jail. They have ballads about it still." She sought to hold his eyes. Some appeal there he thought might be gratified by his flinching. He did so and she said, eirenically, "As for your contretemps with the British courts, we must never forget your grandfather himself was imprisoned. Kilmainham Jail. They have ballads about it still."

So that was it. They were to play the green card. Wily old bird is offering me a way out. Would anybody fall for it? Even for Ireland it seemed too extravagant to equate his plight with the humdrum consequences of nationalist agitation. And yet he was Irish-as much as he was anything much. His gaze lowered from the sycamores through which the sky still showed. He flicked his cigarette in the flowers. "Two years with hard labor, hard fare and a hard bed is hardly a contretemps."

"I am afraid they have coa.r.s.ened you. However, you will find that in this country incarceration is not quite the disgrace our conquerors would make of it. Why, I myself received a one month's detention."

"Darling Aunt Eva, even in Wandsworth I had news of your escapades. Eggs at Asquith, gracious me. However, three-quarters of an hour in the cells below till they cat-and-moused you out scarcely amounts to a martyrdom."

"And what of that?" she snapped. "If our masters have grown too cunning to permit of martyrs, is the cause to be any the lessened?"

Yes, he thought, she had hoped for prison. Hunger-striking, he did not doubt. How it must have riled her, her brother's intercession. He remembered she had crossed to London for the Coronation demonstration of 1911. His father, invited of course to the Coronation itself, refused her his house. She camped outside in a borrowed motor, festooned with garlands and bannerets. In the procession itself she reclined upon a float, fingering a giant harp, the Dark Rosaleen of Erin, at the head of a mildly discomfited contingent from the Irishwomen's Suffrage Federation. He watched her pa.s.s from a balcony in Piccadilly, one remarkable woman in a ma.s.s of thousands, each chanting for her vote.

He did not know whence she produced them, for she did not seem to carry anything with her beyond her parasol, but some salts had appeared which now she inhaled. Such a feminine creature. Impossible to imagine her a man. When he posited this, she answered he was impertinent.

"I do not intend to be."

"Thoughtlessness is small excuse."

"I merely meant that in some ways you are better fitted to be head of the family, The The MacMurrough. In place of my-as you call him, recreant-father." MacMurrough. In place of my-as you call him, recreant-father."

"One does not wish oneself changed. One wishes the world changed to accommodate one. Such is suffragism. Such is all emanc.i.p.ation. You may wonder where a pipsqueak priest and his poor boys' band may enter in such a scheme. But you will find, dear boy, that all roads lead to the same end. Which end is that? Why, the future of course. It is our task to ensure the future shall be glorious-if not in its state, then in its memory. We can do no more. And I," she continued, "a woman alone, can do little at all, unless my nephew help me."

She held out her hand, which he took in antic.i.p.ation of guiding her to her feet. But instead she kept his hand in hers and he felt her searching through the kid of her glove the calluses of his fingers. "Let us dismiss your embarras with the English. A small clarification is all that is required. How the English, to traduce your grandfather's memory, concocted the charges against you. You will find society only too willing for so happy an eclairciss.e.m.e.nt. The world of affairs awaits you, my boy. I intend you shall enter it and prosper."

"I was not aware you had any intentions for me."

"We shall begin with the garden fete. Don't glower so, Anthony dear. You know perfectly well one cannot have one's nephew staying without an announcement. It would not do."

"Would not do for whom?"

"For a MacMurrough. Whatever has happened, we are still MacMurroughs, and I will not have you shut in your room the day or flaneuring along to the Forty Foot. The garden fete will mark your return. I shall invite all the leading families. The nationalist ones, naturally. They will see a bright likely young man leading local youth in patriotic song and everyone shall be charmed. For you are a charming boy when you wish to be. You have elan, you have eclat, you have breeding. And you shall marry."

"Marriage now?"

"Of course you shall marry. Did you think I would allow our name to die on account of some foolishness in London? I have never heard such a thing."

She was in earnest but he could not bring himself to take seriously her designs. "Why stop at a garden fete? Why not an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Irish Times Irish Times?"

"I do not follow."

"I might telephone to them myself. Anthony MacMurrough, surviving son of Sir John MacMurrough, and grandson of the late regretted Dermot James William MacMurrough, QC, MP, so forth and so fifth, has returned from His Majesty's Wandsworth where lately he served two years' hard for gross indecency with a chauffeur-mechanic. July Jamboree in Glasthule. Apply Ballygihen House."

He said this looking her in the face, while her face hardened, but he looked away after and it was from her voice he learnt how deeply he disappointed his aunt.

"Yes, they have coa.r.s.ened you. They have made-I mean the English have made-a braggart of my nephew. No doubt you believe I interfere. But you are fortunate to have anyone take an interest at all."

"I should survive without you, Aunt Eva."

"Yes, you would," she agreed, "if only to spite us." She stood up, a deliberate lean upon her parasol. "You hold yourself a very proud young man. But I see no pride, only a wallowing in fanfaronade. One day I wish you may have something to be proud of." Her elbow angled, expectant of his arm. "I am afraid this chamaillerie has quite exhausted my humor. You may walk me to the house."

He took her arm but held it stiffly. Contretemps, embarras, chamaillerie. Contretemps, embarras, chamaillerie. The worst crime in the calendar he could live with. Foolishness was too unkind. The worst crime in the calendar he could live with. Foolishness was too unkind.

"As it happens, I do not flaneur nor shut myself in. I have my work."

"Yes, a book that you write."

"I am preparing a ma.n.u.script for publication."

"Some unfortunate you took pity on when you were"-her fingers waved-"indispose."

"He took pity on me, actually."

"And in return you undertake the publication of his-what is it?"

"It is a scholarly work, Aunt Eva, whose subject is the nature of nature."

"No less."

"De natura naturae. It was s.c.r.o.t.es's life's work." It was s.c.r.o.t.es's life's work."

"s.c.r.o.t.es being the author of this exercise."

"Dr. s.c.r.o.t.es, in fact."

"Indeed. And how did Dr. s.c.r.o.t.es come to find himself in your"-again the waving fingers-"bonne compagnie?"

"On account of some foolishness, as you put it. But not in London. In Oxford."

"Well, it is very interesting and I make no doubt the nature of nature is a topic we all shall thrill to in due course. In the meantime, we have your future to consider. Cannot Dr. s.c.r.o.t.es prepare his ma.n.u.script for himself?"

His voice, when he heard it, surprised by its evenness. "s.c.r.o.t.es is dead. He died in Wandsworth. In a prison corner he died while picking the shreds from hawser ropes. Have you ever seen a hawser rope, Aunt Eva? It is the thickness of my leg. They allow you your fingers to pick it with, and you may not cease till your day's tally has been picked. In the night you smell the bonfire on which they burn the day's work. For the world has no use for oak.u.m any more, only for the labor that will produce it. A scholar, Aunt Eva, a gentleman of sixty-seven years of age, worked to death. On account of some foolishness. In Oxford."

"How terrible."

He believed she meant it. "Aunt Eva, can you truly believe any society would want me now?"

"I want you. I am society."

They had reached the French windows and she turned to take one last view of the garden. Gossamer floated over the lawns as though, when she sighed, blown by that breath. "Sometimes I think the only course is to dig it all up and start afresh. Away with the shrubberies, a fountain that works."

"Tulip-beds."

"Yes, tulips too. But do you know, there is a surprising complication with tulips. Every now and then, n.o.body seems to know why, a perfectly decent yellow will break into the most alarming variegation. There are people who become very excited by it. They take a pride in the display. For myself, however, I find it spoils the effect. As I say, it is their conformity one prizes."