The sea threw waves on the beach, and out on the water he spied some fishing boats. One of them flew a black flag and the Irish tricolor promiscuously from atop its cabin. The boy ran down to the water’s edge and waved at the boat, but there was no response. He walked along the hard edge of the sand, whistling.
Good on ye, he said to the disappearing boat.
He took off his shoes and toyed with the water, daring it to wet his toes. The cold sand sucked around his feet and made gurgling noises. He found himself laughing and he wasn’t quite sure if he should be enjoying himself or not, in this strange town, on this strange beach, in this strange loneliness.
He stepped in farther until the sea was up to his ankles and he kicked up spray and the droplets made shapes and parabolas in the air. Mathematics was the only thing he enjoyed in school, though he told nobody, and he wondered now if he could ever chart the arc of a droplet of water. It would be an odd graph, he thought, captured in a millisecond, from one end of an axis to another. He could create a formula for moving water and it would be decipherable only to him.
The sea no longer felt cold and in a moment he was running along the sand, kicking furiously and laughing, and the sea itself seemed doomed to the fact of his joy.
He shouted to the waves: Try me, come on, try me. He was soaked to the knees and moving at the edge of the empty beach like some piebald horse with his feet in the air and his neck outstretched, until he stopped quite suddenly and felt his face flush.
On the pier sat three girls, dangling their legs over the edge. They were whispering to each other some secret which the boy knew was about him. He walked along the beach with his head hung to his chest and then gave another skip in the air just in case they were watching.
He climbed over the pier and, out of their view, he sat on the rocks, took out a cigarette butt from his shirt pocket, and began drying it in the sun.
As he waited he watched the girls move out onto the sand, where they sat together and shared an ice-cream cone. One of the girls stood up and took off her red pullover. She had short blond hair and her breasts stood out against a white shirt. When she placed her arms behind her head to stretch, it gave him an erection. He disappeared behind a large rock and, unzipping, he cradled the length of himself in his hand. As he masturbated he watched the girl stretching farther, furrowing a line in the sand with her toes. He locked his eyes on the back of her body and, when she put her arms behind her head and twisted once more, he cupped his other hand. He closed his eyes and bit his lip and, when he was finished, tucked his penis away, darting a look around.
The old couple were bringing the kayak in to the pier. They were bent to the work of paddling so they had not seen him, but still the boy felt ashamed as he wiped his palm on a nearby rock. He took a small stone and fired it so that it arced through the air and hit the water about ten yards from the kayak, landing gently, so that the old man turned, puzzled.
Go and shite, whispered the boy.
* * *
SHE WAS ON THE STEPS of the caravan staring into a small handheld mirror. She had a tube of lipstick to her mouth and she ran her tongue over her teeth. She seemed beautiful and he was angered by this and he wanted to tell her to wipe the lipstick off, but he knew she was just preparing for her gig. She would lean seductively into the microphone and sing about women tying up their hair with black velvet bands.
Mammy. I want to wear a black armband, he said, standing on the step.
Ah, don’t start, not now, please. No.
Ach, why not?
Because I said no.
I want one.
Listen to your mother, please, and when I say no—
I saw some boys in town wearing them.
You don’t need one.
I even saw some wee girls too.
He exaggerated the word and she lowered her head to the mirror, touched the glass with her forefinger, as if she would find the answer written there. No, she said, and in that one word her accent seemed now distinctly southern, as if she had changed the place of her birth.
The boy muttered beneath his breath and pushed past her into the caravan and then he saw the portable radio on the kitchen table wrapped in a blue ribbon.
His mother came to the doorway and stood mantled by light.
I didn’t think you’d like to play chess on your own, she said. I thought I’d get you a little something. A present. For when I’m out working. You might be able to tune in a pirate station.
The boy lifted the radio and turned the dial and some scratchy music sounded out. He put it to his ear and began to sway.
When your father and I were young we were in Portrush for a holiday and the room had a radio and we used to listen to a station called Radio Luxembourg, she said. Sometimes the reception was bad and your father would pick up the radio and walk around the room and sometimes I thought the music was coming from him—
Did Daddy have a radio when he was young?
Sure, your daddy was the first man in Derry listening to the Rolling Stones.
They’re the ones who sing I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.
They are indeed.
What music did my uncle like?
I’m sure he liked the same things, she said, and then she hesitated a moment, looked at the boy, and added: I’m sure your uncle had a radio too.
Like this one?
Perhaps, who knows.
With an aerial and all?
Possibly. Maybe he listened to the same songs your daddy did. Brown Sugar. Honky-Tonk Woman. They were great days for music, you know.
Aye. Thanks, Mammy.
Do you like it?
I do, aye. It’s dead on. I love it.
It’s so you won’t get lonely up here.
He turned the dial up and down, got mostly faint signals, except for one Gaelic radio station that came in loud and foreign.
He flicked his hair and then said: Mammy?
What, love?
I still want to wear a black armband, though.
She shook her head. You’d give the Pope heart problems, she said.
A thought occurred to him, and just as she stepped outside he asked her what was the count of his uncle’s blood pressure.
I’ve no idea. Why would I know that?
Just curious.
You’re a strange lad sometimes.
What’s normal blood pressure?
Much too high when you’re around. She laughed.
Seriously, Mammy.
One hundred and twenty over seventy, I think.
He imagined the way a line would slash between both figures.
She looked at her lipstick in the mirror once more: Enjoy your radio, she said. I’ll be home by midnight. Don’t forget to lock the door.
As she went away from the caravan he noticed she was wearing very tight pants. Her guitar case swung beside her. She had stickers from all over the country on the case, and he often thought it looked as if she was carrying an atlas: Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, Cork plastered on the side. Her leather jacket too looked like it had been on a long journey. Years ago, she and his father had gone around the country in a Bedford van with three or four other musicians. His father had been the roadie and he had constructed special wooden platforms for the speakers to sit on. But the days of show bands were long over, and his father was years dead, killed in a traffic accident in Kildare when his car had skidded out of control after blowing a right front tire. The boy had been seven then. He tried to recall the funeral but couldn’t; all that appeared were some shadowy figures with a box on their shoulders that he had later leaned across and kissed before it went into the back of the hearse.