At Swim, Two Boys Part 32

"Good garden of potatoes there," Doyler said. "What they calls a broo, with the cabbages in between."

"You're welcome to help yourself, you know."

"Serious?"

"Don't suppose anyone would notice."

"Aren't you the grand n.o.b, Mr. MacMurrough. But you don't know gardeners very well."

He hadn't thought of old Moore, it was true. "Must you keep on with this Mr. MacMurrough? We know each other better than that."

"Aye do we. First off you're asking why amn't I serving your guests. Next you're offering me spuds to steal."

"You're sharp enough to know what I meant."

"Aye, you meant charity."

Out in the bay MacMurrough saw what he presumed was the Misses French's motor-yacht. Its jolly-boat had moored by Kelly sh.o.r.e. There were toy poodles inside. He heard their yapping and he could just make out their crimped heads as up and down they leapt, will-they-won't-they spring to land.

The best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. Wilde again; his observation concluding: Wilde again; his observation concluding: They are quite right to be so. They are quite right to be so. Wilde, too, had provided his boys with suits of clothes. At the trial Carson produced one in evidence. We picture the scene, the lawyer's flourish, almost the prestidigitation, Do you deny, sir, that you provided this boy with this suit of blue serge? It was said the lad in question, paperboy off Worthing pier, was to be found that afternoon outside the Old Bailey with the other renters, winking and nodding at likely customers. Oh, to have bought them all that day, the luxury, and only a few quid the lot, glorious. Wilde, too, had provided his boys with suits of clothes. At the trial Carson produced one in evidence. We picture the scene, the lawyer's flourish, almost the prestidigitation, Do you deny, sir, that you provided this boy with this suit of blue serge? It was said the lad in question, paperboy off Worthing pier, was to be found that afternoon outside the Old Bailey with the other renters, winking and nodding at likely customers. Oh, to have bought them all that day, the luxury, and only a few quid the lot, glorious.

Were Wilde's panthers grateful or rebellious? Eventually, of course, one prefers a rebellious bedfellow. But it requires a degree of grat.i.tude to get him to bed in the first place.

While he watched the poodles and mused on charity and rent, his hand descended on Doyler's thigh. He could wish Doyler had chosen blue serge instead of this agony in check. A shave of the rough cloth and his hand was brushed aside.

"Do you never give over?"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure."

"Wouldn't you let a body be himself?"

Rather a lacuna then, fit of the magnificents. MacMurrough inclined his head to search through the glowers. "Aren't we friendly today?"

"I have me friend."

"I could help."

"Help with what? He don't need clothes." He stood up. He took a swig of his champagne. The sulky look was disturbed by surprise as a hiccough escaped his throat. "Champagne, what?"

"Boy, they call it."

"Who calls it boy?"

"Them what drinks it."

Doyler laughed, expectorated. The cap came off and returned degage and a hand lunged in his pocket. "Lookat, I'm thankful I met you but."

You're all right, Doyler, MacMurrough thought. You'll do fine, my sputative disputative boy. "Come here," he said.

"What is it?"

MacMurrough felt for the pin inside the boy's lapel, unpinned it, fixed it flagrantly on the outside. Doyler looked gaugingly at him. MacMurrough said, "I hereby grant you the freedom of my garden to wear your badge with pride." Then he kissed him on the cheek and muttered in his ear, "I'll bring a blanket down the meadow garden. Tonight at ten."

"Get on with you," he answered, pulling away. He wiped his cheek, the action too impulsive to be thought discourteous. "What if they catched you?"

"This is my garden. I refuse to be cowed in my own garden."

"Aye aye. Why're you avoiding them above so?"

d.a.m.n me, if he isn't sharp enough to slice himself. MacMurough quaffed the last of his wine, tossed the gla.s.s in the briars. "Shall I let you into a secret? You know what the good cause is here? For which every family in the parish has prinked and spruced and sc.r.a.ped its pennies? The marriage of a MacMurrough. My aunt is to find me an Irish colleen."

"So?"

"You don't find that deceitful?"

"Running away with yourself. Do likes of this, there'll be any number of weddings after it."

The troubled trebles of schoolboys greeted them as up the path they returned. A nation once again, a nation once again, a nation, a nation, a nation. And rather a latration of yaps and yowls as a harum-scarum of dogs swept past. Then, out of the agitation, a nation rising yet again.

"You know those Greeks the song refers to?"

"Ancient freemen? Did often wonder about that."

"They were from Sparta. One of the Greek cities. Rather militaristic, actually."

"Well?"

"It was considered among the soldiers-and the soldiery was every citizen in Sparta-"

"Sound enough."

"Considered disreputable if a soldier among them did not have his lover."

"His lover, aye?"

"Friend. Comrade, if you like. Another man."

"What're you saying to me?"

"Just pointing out the history." The boy is interested. s.c.r.o.t.es, I take my hat off to you. b.l.o.o.d.y papers have a use after all. "It was an Irishman who first made this point. In print, I mean. Chap name of Mahaffy, in his Greek history. Not sure about now, but he was often to be seen beetling under the clock at Trinity. Mind you, that was the first edition. s.c.r.o.t.es tells me, told me, in the later editions the subject was purged. He taught Wilde."

"Is it Oscar Wilde?"

"Yes."

"He was a very bad fellow, they say."

"Yes, they do."

"They'd say anything against an Irishman, the English would."

"They might tell the truth, too."

"Aye, they might. They say he used be very famous at one time."

"He was. He stayed here, you know."

"In this house?"

"Walked these very paths. It's whispered some of his poems were, if not written, contemplated here."

"Is that where you . . . ?"

MacMurrough laughed. "I wasn't thought of at the time. Or if I was, I was only an infant in your mother's shawl."

That took the queries off his face, dimpled his face to smiliness. "You seen the ma and the missy so?"

"She made a difference to me, your mother did. I came across her one time and I heard her singing."

"She does always be singing, all right."

"I felt I might belong. I might, G.o.d help me, be"-irrational, irrepressible, irresponsible, iron-brained, irascible, irksome, entirely irresistible-"might be Irish," he said.

"There you are, Anthony. I have been searching aux quatre vents."

"Aunt Eva, I was coming to see to the gates."

"The gates are long opened. Really, Anthony, you might be more considerate. Est-ce que je connais ce jeune voyou?"

"Doyle. He's from the band."

"Quel insigne interessant il porte. La Main rouge. You are from the band," she said, enunciating clearly for the dull ears of the low. "Scurry along, young man, and change into the costume provided. There's all to do and each to his task."

She took MacMurrough's arm and wheeled him round. He had a glimpse of a black devil beshadowing the path, and Doyler was gone. "Did you need to be quite so direct?"

"I have annoyed you. Oh lah, que je can be brusque. It was his vesture. Such colorful taste. Is your friend by any chance a bookie's runner?"

Suit. She knows, of course. Does she know? Of course she knows.

"But of course he is not your friend. He is, as you say, a boy from the band. Now do come along. I have a most interesting young man I wish you to meet."

"I thought I was to be wed."

"All in G.o.d's time. Today we display the goods. To their best advantage, one hopes. Good day, Mrs. O'Donnell. Good day to you, Mrs. O'Neill. Splendid show, I agree. Yes yes, Erin go breagh! O'Donnell aboo! Sa.s.senachs a bas! Presently now."

She directed him to a tangential path. "Ulster folk, a contumelious breed. I discovered them earlier arguing the name of a flower. It is a sweet william. Not at all, it is a stinking billy. They do pout so. Dear dear, Anthony, and you have scuffed your shoes. Lead me to a seat and we shall sit a moment. You have a mouchoir?"

"I have a handkerchief."

"Now, this young man, Father O'Toiler has brought him along, he is a schoolteacher. His pupils will enact a drama. Something of a lisp and all the gaucherie of youth, but he has such stirring ideas. You recall my mentioning a Fenian had died?"

"The dynamiter."

"The funeral is tomorrow. This young man is to give the panegyric at his graveside. He was tempting us with little morceaux choisis on the terrace. How we thrilled. Les fous, les fous, les fous! Meaning the British. The lisp is unfortunate and he has small grasp of oratory, but the words had us all a-tingle."

"Is the speech to be given in French?"

"Don't tease. One translates for dramatic effect."

Her oh-lah French and her oh-lah ways. He was nettled still by her sharpness with Doyle. But of course it wasn't her sharpness, it was his own pusillanimity. What a dumb dog I am, forever consulting my safety. Not even my safety. My menus plaisirs menus plaisirs-two quid a week.

She was mentioning now some school in Rathfarnham where everything was taught through Irish. Wasn't that a marvel? An Irish school was just what Glasthule needed.

"And will you run down the entire Presentation College to have your way?"

"You have a very diseased imagination. Where is that priest?"

"Who is the fellow in the library? Officer of some sort."

"Oh, that's just Tom. Tom Kettle. His father and your grandfather were sparring-partners of old."

"Tom-tom Kettle-drum," said MacMurrough.

"You know him, then?"

"He was above me at school. That dreadful year I schooled in Ireland. After you ragged father into sending me here."

"For all the good it did you."

"Why's he in British uniform?"

"Tom Kettle is a very teasing man. But he is a Member of Parliament. And, more to the point, he is married to a Sheehy. The Sheehy girls are all mad or married to madmen. One of them, after all, has fetched up with that dwarfish oaf in knickerbockers. But they will have many befitting acquaintances, any of whom should be delighted to meet a MacMurrough."

"Don't you feel any shame at all?"

"Shame?" she repeated and her fingers tapped on her parasol.

"The duplicity of it all. Charging a s.h.i.+lling a head of the poor, just so's you can see me wed."

They had come to a bench and she waited while he took her hand and led her to sit. She said, "Balmorals," and he took out his handkerchief, began wiping his bals.

"How very little you know of the poor, Anthony, dear. No doubt you would deck them all in screaming tweeds. But they are poor people: they are not garden pets. They will take what they wish from this entertainment. Fear not, they will have their s.h.i.+lling's worth. And should a wedding come of it, that too will entertain. They will queue outside the church, praising the fine clothes and the grand procession, and the talk for weeks to come will be of you and your bride. They expect these things. They do not expect one to perambulate in their muck. The duplicity you remark has given employment to fifty men. That is fifty tables with dinner tonight."

He looked up from his shoes with surprised admiration. A surprise that was becoming ever more customary. He had never supposed she had considered the subject.