At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel by O'Neill Jamie

Author:O'Neill, Jamie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2002-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

He was swimming to the island, but the sea was slippery and thick, like a jelly that would set beneath him. Great guns he was going, but he wanted to try a kick in the legs. And it was true, it was better if he kicked. The push propelled him over the water, like flying, not flying but leaping, long horizontal leaps that skimmed the surface and he landed like an insect and kicked again. Strange to say, the water was uphill all the way.

He kicked through the crest of a wave and there was the Muglins before him. The water was warm now and shallow and emulsive. His feet felt sand underneath and he tiptoed through the ripples. He could hear her behind the rocks, she was singing or something, and the gulls moaned round and about, and flapped their wings. In a way he was annoyed and he wanted to know why had she been here all this while when she could have come home. Home was only a spit away. But when he came round the rocks, it wasn’t his mother but Doyler who moaned, and his wrists were red in their chains while he writhed on the rock, and an old gander pecked at his eyes. Save it wasn’t his eyes he pecked, but down down down below.

The dream dispersed and Jim lay awake in his settle-bed. The last turf slumped in the grate and the hag in the ashes leered blazily at him. He was damp in his shirt like truly he had swum in the sea, but the dream was fading and all he retained was a sensation of having flown, of having skittered through rain.

He thought it was mice in the shop, then rats in the yard. It came as no surprise when the scratching resolved to fingers on the window pane.

He climbed to his knees and pulled the blind. Doyler’s face grinned ghostily through the glass. Jim eyed the ceiling. He tied the blind in place then levered the sash an inch. Doyler slipped his fingers under and together they shuddered it open.

“How’d you get in the yard?”

“Shinned up the wall, of course.”

The breeze brushed the vigil flame and shadows swayed on the walls. Upstairs the bed moved and his father called down, “Are you right there, Jim?”

“Fine, Da.”

“Go to sleep now, son.”

“Yes, Papa.”

They watched the ceiling till the bed-frame ceased complaining.

“You want to come in?”

“No.”

“I’ll come out.”

“Stay.” He wore once more his blue-gone duds of old. He had a brown-paper parcel, tied up with packing thread, which he held up now. “What cheer, eh?”

“You’re leaving,” said Jim.

“Came to say goodbye.”

Words blurted out, admonitions, remonstrations. How Jim had warned him. Told him not to mind them fellows. Time and again he’d warned him against that. Would Doyler listen to him? No, Doyler would not listen.

The bed creaked above and Aunt Sawney coughed above and behind. In the quiet after, Doyler shook his head.

“Lookat, Jim, I’m going nowhere here. I came back for the mother, but the mother don’t need me.

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