A Star Called Henry (12 page)

Victor slapped my leg. He was delighted. And so was I. My first compliment.

—You can sit down again now, Henry.

I slid easily into the desk.

A hand went up in front of me.

—Yes, Cecil?

—Who did he sell the pups to, miss?

—Different people, Cecil. Now.

She cleaned the board.

—Hey, miss. My uncle buyed one of them pups.

We spent the rest of the morning buying and selling pups and dividing bits of cakes. I was several slices ahead of the rest and Victor was no slowcoach either; I could almost see the jam on his chin. I was learning nothing new. But I was happy. I knew that I’d be able for anything.

 

 

But it couldn’t last.

I was writing my first sentence, MY NAME IS HENRY SMART, on a slate with my own piece of chalk, and Victor was busy beside me, MY NAME IS VICTOR SMART, his letters straight and evenly white. The room was quiet, just the noises of fifty-seven concentrating children and the scraping of fifty-seven pieces of chalk, when the door opened and, before I looked up to see who was coming or going, a voice announced the end of our education.

—Two strange boys.

Victor’s chalk skidded across his slate. I couldn’t move. I was too big for my desk again. I was stuck, trapped.

The nun at the door wasn’t even looking at us. She was looking at Miss O’Shea who was standing beside her desk, straight and twitching, like a cornered rabbit. So the first thing I saw of the nun was her profile. A nose shaped like a sail and just as white. The rest of her face hid behind her habit. The nose was aimed at Miss O’Shea.

—We’ve a couple of strangers with us today, said the nun.

—Yes, Mother, said Miss O’Shea.

—You’ve taken over enrolment duty now, have you,
Miss
O’Shea?

—No, Mother.

Miss O’Shea sounded like a child; it was me and Victor against the nun.

—Good, said the nun.—It’s an onerous, thankless task. Better suited to an old crow like me.

She moved and turned like a boat in water. She was facing us. Glaring at us. Two black eyes divided by the white beak. Coming at us.

—Let me see the strange boys.

And she was in front of us, and over us.

—Do you have a name, the bigger boy?

—Yeah.

—Yes, Mother.

—You’re not my mother.

—You think I’m going to get angry, don’t you? You think I’m going to lose my temper. Don’t you?

—No.

—No, Mother.

—You’re not my mother.

Victor coughed.

—Cover your mouth when you’re coughing, the smaller boy, said the nun who called herself Mother.—We’re all marching towards our eternal rest without needing help from the likes of you. Your name, the bigger boy?

—Henry Smart, I said.

—Are you English, with a name like that?

—No.

—As far as you are aware. Do you know your father, Henry Smart?

My father’s leg was under the desk.

—Yeah, I said.

She sniffed. Her nose and eyes went on Victor.

—And the smaller boy. What do they call you?

—They don’t call me anything, said Victor.—Henry would kill them if they did.

—Yes, she said.—I am sure that he would. Who sent you here?

—Our parents, I said.

—Who are they when they’re at home?

—They’re our mother and father.

—You’re being cheeky again, aren’t you? I don’t think you’ll be staying here. No, I don’t. You were let in by mistake. This is not the place for you. You must be twelve, she said.

—I’m eight, I said.

—He’s nearly nine, said Victor.

—No, he is not, she said.—No, no. I don’t think you’ll be staying with us.

I didn’t care any more. There was no point. I felt stiff and huge and too old for my desk - maybe she was right about my age - so I stayed put. I decided to say nothing until I was angry. I trusted my anger. And answering her without it had only made me feel stupid.

—Have you heard of Our Lord?

She was talking to Victor.

—What?

—Our Lord. Do you know Jesus?

—I do, yeah, said Victor.—That’s him there, your man hanging over the blackboard.

She grabbed his arm.

—Pagans. The pair of them. It’s Saint Brigid’s you should be in, she hissed.—I knew it!

Saint Brigid’s was the orphanage up on Eccles Street. I knew all about Saint Brigid’s.

I was up out of the desk and I grabbed Daddy’s leg on the way. The desk fell apart and Victor fell with it but she held on to him.

—Give him back! I shouted.

I didn’t wait for an answer. I just lifted the leg and whacked at the nose. She rose and flew and skidded across three desks and landed in a black heap on top of half a dozen screaming boys. She’d left Victor behind.

—Come on, Victor.

We ran to the door. I held his hand. He was coughing again. Miss O’Shea let us past. I turned at the open door and shouted into the room.

—MY NAME IS HENRY SMART!

I nudged Victor.

—MY NAME IS—

He coughed. It came from somewhere dark inside him. I watched the colour drop from his face as he waited for the air to turn and let him breathe.

—VICTOR—

He grabbed more air.

—SMART.

—Remember those names, all of you, I said.

I looked at Miss O’Shea.

—And you remember. That you were the woman who taught Henry Smart how to write his name.

She was blushing and her mouth was wobbling. I wanted to stay. But the nun was back on her feet. She was swaying a bit, but getting her head back. She came at us.

—Let her have it, Victor, I said.

Victor filled the room with his roar.

—FUCK OFFFFF!

And we were gone. Out onto the street and away. We ran until we were safe, just two snot-nosed, homeless kids among thousands. We ran to the other side of town.

Far away from Saint Brigid’s.

I’d had two days of schooling. But it was enough. I knew it was in me. I could learn anything I wanted. I was probably a genius. Victor started crying and I knew why. It was the warmth, the singing, making words, the chalk working across his slate, the woman who’d made him feel wanted. I missed it too, already, but there were no tears. We sat under the wall at Baggot Street Bridge and hid from the world.

We were well out of it. Miss O’Shea had just been a bit of good fortune. A lucky knock on the door. The nun had been the normal one. Mother, she’d wanted to be called. Never. Not even Sister. Fuck her. And religion. I already hated it.
Holy God we praise Thy name
. Fuck Him. And your man on the cross up over the blackboard. Fuck Him too. That was one good thing that came out of all the neglect: we’d no religion. We were free. We were blessed.

—Hey, Victor, I said.—Come here till I tell you. We haven’t had a thing to eat in three days. Are you hungry?

—Yeah.

I got him onto his feet.

—Come on, so. What d’you fancy?

—Bread.

—Fair enough. Is that all?

—Yeah.

—You’re easily pleased. What does V.I.C.T.O.R. spell?

—Victor, said Victor.

—Good man.

We went off looking for a shop with bread in it, with a good wide door for escape and some short-sighted old josser behind the counter. Dublin was full of them.

 

 

And then Victor died.

On the same day as the new king was crowned. I woke up but Victor didn’t. But, actually, he did. He woke me. His coughing. I was awake. Terrified, like I’d never slept. Like I’d just been born; empty. It was so dark. I felt something over me, and lifted my hand. I touched something and I remembered where I was. We were under a tarpaulin, behind the Grand Canal Dock. We’d crawled under it, out of the rain, the night before. Victor coughed again and I remembered the noise that had pulled me from sleep. I’d never heard it as bad. It was a cough that broke bone, an unbelievable hack that would destroy anything in its way.

—Victor?

I couldn’t see him, although I knew that he was right against me, where he always was when we slept. I could feel him. I touched him, waited for another cough.

—Victor. Stop. Sit up.

I tried to wake him, to get him sitting. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t get a proper grip. I found his cheeks and rubbed them. All I wanted was to hear another cough. I still couldn’t see him. I searched for the edge of the covering, to give him air. To see him. I rolled along under the low tarpaulin and kept rolling until I was out from under it. I stood up and lifted it and peered back in.

I could see him now. I let morning light in by lifting the tarpaulin roof with my back. I knew he was dead, even as I rushed back in. His mouth was open, and his eyes, staring into the darkness. There was a mark, where a line of watery blood had run from his mouth past his ear. I rubbed it away with my sleeve. There was nothing in his eyes now, just what I thought was the memory of his last agony and terror - the last cough and the utter darkness on top of him. I’d been right beside him. He was white and glazed. His mouth was stretched, the cracked, bursting lips were losing colour as I looked. He was changing there under me, hardening, gone. I thumped his chest, and got nothing back. He was dead. I thumped again. I felt his face. He was warm. I put my cheek to his mouth, waited to feel a breath, hoped, any tiny tickle. There was nothing. I pressed my cheek to his mouth, tried to go deeper for signs of my brother’s life. I pushed; I tried to climb into him. I felt wetness on my cheek. My own tears. Victor was dead.

I held his hand. I waited for his fingers to curl around mine. To prove me wrong. I dragged him out from under the tarpaulin, hauled him across to a cinder path. I was a shadow across him. I got out of the way of the sun’s early rays. I still hoped. The heat would loosen him, send a shiver of life through him. His fingers would stretch, curl and squeeze mine. He’d sit up and grin. And cough.

The sun made a wet skin of the frost on the path and weeds but it did nothing to Victor. His neck was crooked, as if he’d been hanged.

I left him there.

He was dead. I wouldn’t let myself be fooled into thinking anything softer. I wasn’t going to see him up there with the other stars, with the first Henry - burning gas, a celestial fart - and all his brothers and sisters, twinkling up there in a happier place. He was dead. I wasn’t even going to look at the sky.

The city was quiet. None of the morning charging and madness that usually had us on our feet and ready before we’d time to remember where exactly we were. Us. We. I’d no more use for those words.

I walked.

There were some people out. I could hear a car off somewhere and a man shouting at a dog or child. I passed a woman who was waiting for a shop to open. She wanted to be the first, to have the shopkeeper to herself for a minute, to plead with him to extend her credit. I could tell by the way she hid in her shawl and by the aggression in her eyes as she looked out at me. I went on. I put my hands in the holes which had once been pockets. Could she tell that I’d just walked away from my dead brother? I took my hands back out.

The flags were out and flapping and there was brand new bunting hanging over Grafton Street. I remembered now: the new king was being crowned, over in London. It was a holiday. That was why the day hadn’t taken off yet. We were going to walk out to Kingstown, to work the crowds around the bandstand on the east pier; that had been the plan - Victor’s idea; he loved the boats and the music.

I walked all over the city. Away from the main streets and bridges there were no flags, no banners. George V’s coronation. And Dublin didn’t care. And my brother was dead on a cinder path behind the Grand Canal Dock and nobody cared about that either. Another dead child. We’d found dozens of them on our travels, me and Victor. There wasn’t even a reward for them.

I walked all day. The city filled. People came out and strolled. It was a warm day, with a nice breeze that made the flags snap. What had killed Victor? Consumption, probably; I didn’t know - I was only nine. It was the cough. I knew that now. It had got darker and deeper; it had brought blood with it in the last months. But we’d never said anything about it. It was just a cough. In the dead of night, when we walked alone through the streets, when the horses were stabled and the hawkers were at home, that was what we heard - the city coughing. That was all we heard at four in the morning, before the seagulls got up on the air and started their squawking, bullying the city into waking up. Dead, dead silence except for the thousands coughing, a steady, terrible beat coming from the rooms above us and the basement areas, children and adults being choked to death by poverty. They were too late; we could hear the pain in the noise, we could feel life desperately clinging. It was how night-time was measured in the slums, in blood coughs and death rattles. And Victor had been coughing along with them and I had refused to hear it. I was only nine. There was only me and Victor. We were all that mattered. He would never leave my side. His cough had been different. Just a cough. It was what you did when you breathed Dublin air. When you slept on the ground. When you didn’t have shoes. (Just a few years later, when I smashed the window in the G.P.O. and started shooting, it was at shoes that I was aiming, in the window display across the street in Tyler’s.) You coughed when you ate bad food or none. When you’d never worn a coat. When everyone else around you coughed. When you’d no mother to fix you and no father to run for the doctor. And no doctor who’d come, anyway. When you’d nothing except your big brother. Who was only nine. And scared.

The city killed Victor. And, today, the King was being crowned. In another city. In London. Did they cough till they died in London? Did kings and queens cough up blood? Did their children die under tarpaulins? I imagined myself on a street in London, and Victor was trotting beside me, chatting away and keeping the eye on everything. But someone knocked against me and I was back in Dublin and alone.