Free Everything in This Country Must by Colum McCann Page B

guitar close, her foot tapping in time to the songs. The small crowd seemed to sit under hats of cigarette smoke and the boy willed them to give her a longer, louder round of applause, to drop pound notes instead of coins into the tip jar.
    At the end of the song called Carrickfergus, a young man blew his mother a kiss and the boy thought he should go into the bar and kick the fucker’s teeth in, but instead he turned around and snarled at an old Alsatian that was tied up at the back of the pub. It kept its muzzle flat to the ground and, when the boy threw a rock, it rose surly and mistrustful and loped away to the farthest end of its chain.

    *   *   *
    THE WEATHER BRIGHTENED and there were games on the beach. An odd bouquet of swimming togs and bikinis. Two women with skirts held high trod the low depths of the water as skeins of light caught the breaking waves. A small child threw a colored ball in the air. The ice-cream truck played its tinny tunes. The caps of swimmers bobbed on the sea and, farther out, an oil tanker seemed nailed down on the horizon.
    His mother had bought him a pair of black shorts but he had refused them and now he felt the stickiness at the back of his trousers. He longed to take them off, but he stood with nonchalance at the rear of the beach while inwardly he cursed himself. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and noticed the line below which his arms were sunburned.
    The sun climbed and shortened his shadow. He wondered if he threw himself down onto the sand would his shadow stand and watch him?
    On the beach he saw the blond girl. She wore a red swimsuit this time and held a small radio to her ear. He watched her for half an hour, motionless in the sand, then he walked near the water. He was acutely conscious of his shoes and finally he took them off and strung them together, tucking his socks inside, and put them around his neck. The sand sucked his toes. The girl didn’t look up at him at all. She had a forearm shading her eyes and he thought that if he had money he would buy her some sunglasses. He would walk up and give them to her and then sit beside her. They would get bronzed in silence. Soon they would kiss.
    He began to jog along the beach, looking over his shoulder at her, turning at the far seawall, climbing the steps and circling around once more. He thought about trying to phone his grandmother, but his mother had always done the dialing and he didn’t know the number.
    A fresh breeze herded litter along the street and he walked past the alleyway where the older teenagers were breathing in their glue. They called after him and he hurried away, giving them two fingers from beneath his jacket.
    Try me, he said under his breath.
    You’d try me, would you?
    Come on, so.
    I’ll kick the living shite out of ye.
    He found himself suddenly outside the house of the old couple. It was a whitewashed bungalow and there were roses in bloom on the front driveway. It looked old, as if it had been sunk back into another decade, battered by years of the sea. The window frames were rotted. Some slates were missing from the roof. The gate, when he touched it, shivered. He hesitated and then opened the latch and turned around again. He went to the pier, sat with his back to a pierside bollard and smoked a cigarette, then raised the courage and walked nervously up the path. The old man answered the door.
    Can I borrow the kayak?
    Excuse me?
    If I keep it close to shore?
    The old man smiled and said: Wait please.
    The boy was surprised that the man had a foreign accent. He couldn’t place it and, for a moment, he was horrified that the old man might be English, but the accent didn’t have any of those tones. English people, he thought, delivered their words on silver tongs. They spoke as if each word were being served with scones and china cups. Or else they spoke like soldiers, rolling the words around with menace and fear. This accent was different. It sounded like there was gravel in it.