Collected Short Stories (13 page)

Before dusk, nine or ten over-excited boys were going round the houses in the street begging stuff for their annual Fifteenth-of-August bonfire. Anything at all would do, they boldly announced to the neighbours: old boxes, oilcloth, newspapers, broken chairs, and thrown-out mattresses – and they would point to the middle of the street where a miscellaneous heap of these articles was stacked as high as the arms of the lamp-post. In two hours time when the blue darkness of summer would slowly descend upon the street they would blacken or paint their faces, wear bowler hats and old garments, and sprinkling the heap with paraffin they would accompany the first bursts of flame by singing ‘The Soldiers' Song': then they would dance round the ring of flame, shouting and laughing, letting off fireworks, while their mothers and fathers, gathered in an outer circle, would encourage their wild Indian antics.

Now as they pressed round the doors they cheered when anything was handed out to them, and as they carried these objects shoulder-high or dragged them to the spreading pile they would cheer again and dash off once more, promising themselves that this would be the greatest bonfire that was ever seen in their district. Presently they reached the end-house of the street where an old woman lived alone; here they halted in a compact group, whispering and debating among themselves whether to rap the door or turn back. They feared this woman, for she was always muttering mysteriously to herself and seldom opened her door except to threaten them with the police or with a stick whenever they came to play handball against the gable of her house. But tonight their tense feelings had numbed their fear of her, and the biggest boy among them struck his chest stoutly and volunteered to knock the door even if no one else would venture with him. He stepped out from the group and rapped the door with flourishing importance. There was no answer to his knock though a few of the smaller boys standing safely out from the door began to whisper: ‘She's staring out at us … She's upstairs … I seen the curtains moving … She's in … I seen her with my own two eyes.'

The door was rapped again, and this time the biggest boy hearing the shuffle of feet in the hallway, edged away from the door. The door was slowly opened, and before they could see her they chorused out: ‘Could you please give us something for the bonfire?' She smiled at them and the smile drew their confidence, and they all crowded closer, each pleading with her to give them something.

‘All right,' she said. ‘Go round to the back-door and I'll give you something.'

They moved round dubiously. ‘Maybe it's a bucket of water she'll throw round us!' the biggest said; and they all laughed – a laugh that was strange and low-pitched.

They heard the stiff bolt of the back-door scringing as she levered it back.

‘There – would that be of any use for your bonfire?' she said, pointing to a black sofa that was mottled with mildew and propped up with bricks to support a missing leg. They buzzed round it where it lay under a sideless shelter, and in a few minutes had it hauled through the door and out to the gable-end where they turned it over and examined it. Two coils of spring were bursting through the rust-stained sacking and a boy ripped them out, tied them to his feet with string and began to walk round, shouting: ‘The latest in stilts, boys! A walking jack-in-the-box!'

‘Aw, give us a pair,' the young ones whined as the stuffing and springs were torn out of the sofa by the bigger boys. It was then that a half-crown jingled on the ground and one boy pounced on it.

‘Finder is keeper!' he said and tried to put it in his pocket.

‘No, you won't!'

‘It's mine. I found it. I seen it first.'

‘It's the oul' woman's,' they shouted, balked into honesty.

‘Come on and we'll give it back to her,' the leader said.

‘That's right! That's fair! Give it back to her!' they all chanted except the one who held the coin in his fist.

‘All right,' he agreed dolefully, and they threw their caps in the air and went back with him to the old woman. They told her they found a half-crown in the lining of the sofa.

‘Are you sure it's not your own?' she said.

‘Naw, where'd we get a half-crown?'

She took the silver coin in her hand, turned it over, and stared at a small hole near the rim. She went out with them to the old sofa and they pointed to the exact place where the coin had fallen. For a moment she stood without speaking and the boy who had the springs tied to this feet, disengaged them shyly, fearful that he had done something that had annoyed her.

‘Keep the half-crown and buy sweets for yourselves,' she said quietly. They gave a cheer of delight, hoisted the sofa on their shoulders like a coffin and marched off singing ‘The Boys of Wexford'.

As she stared after them a long sigh broke from her. She was trembling and she went into the house and sat near the fire in the kitchen. She gripped the arms of the rocking-chair to steady herself, and over and over again she said aloud: ‘Calm yourself! Calm yourself!' for her mind was leaping back to a night, fifteen years ago, when her only son went to that door, never to come back. Where he went to she didn't know, and whether he was alive or dead she might never know. She had grown tired watching for the postman, and though letters came regularly from her two married daughters, the letter she prayed for never came.

Her tears flowed freely – tears of remorse and of baffled pity. One thing she now knew; she knew it now – her son had not lied to her when he swore he didn't steal his sister's half-crown. It was good to know that, though her home was broken on account of it and she was alone and had nobody to tell it to.

She shrugged her shoulders and poked up the fire. She could believe him now: believe him with all her heart and without forcing herself to believe. And if only he'd step into the kitchen this very moment, she'd go down on her knees and ask his forgiveness.

She sighed, put a hand to her forehead, and spoke aloud to herself: ‘Ah, son, wherever you are this day, be you alive or dead, I believe you. You didn't steal the half-crown. It was lying hid in the sofa all these years. That's where it was – in the old sofa!' She swayed to and fro, and the rocking-chair creaked under her weight.

God in Heaven, she never could forget that night he quarrelled with her and left the house. More than anything else she thought about it. And not a morning passed and not an evening passed but she prayed with all her might that he'd come back.

But why hadn't she believed him when he swore he didn't touch the half-crown? Oh, maybe she'd have done it if only her daughters hadn't screeched and cried out against him. And the language they used that night – it was scandalous! Language they picked up in the factory and the mills – they didn't hear it from her: at least she could say that for herself.

‘But wait a minute, wait a minute,' she said aloud to her own memory. ‘Wait a minute till I get it all clear again.'

It was in the evening it all happened. And the first in from work that evening was Mary and Anne. And what did they do first: they tidied themselves at the jar-tub in the scullery while I got their tea ready. They were in good form the pair of them. They were singing and they were laughing, and each was urging the other to hurry for they were going to see a picture in the First House of ‘The Clonard'.

‘And where are you getting the money from?' I asked them.

‘We have it ourselves. We've a half-crown. There it is and there's a hole in it for luck.'

It was Mary who took the half-crown from her apron pocket: the black shiny apron she used at work – and she laid the half-crown on the mantelpiece beside the clock. It was beside the clock she left it, for I remember when they discovered it was gone they lifted up the clock and shook it, and they lifted up the two brass candlesticks and the tea-canister and the two delph dogs. But it wasn't there; it wasn't anywhere about the kitchen.

But wait now, wait now, I'm going too quick. What happened after they left the half-crown on the mantelpiece? Let me see: I made their tea and I poured it out for them and sat on the sofa watching them. I didn't lift the half-crown; I didn't touch it; I didn't look at it to see the wee hole that was in it for luck. I am sure of that. I knew it was there on the mantelpiece for I heard it click the time Mary planted it down beside the clock. And as I sat on the sofa I heard Jimmy's rat-tat at the door. He came in and he, too, was in the best of form. I remember he was in no hurry out. He was a good boy, Jimmy; he loved a book and he wasn't using the house as a lodging-house like them two straps of girls. They were always on the go – two runners if ever there were ones: two clips of daughters that didn't give a straw whether I was left alone one night or two nights or every night. No, they didn't give a rap about me, but poor Jimmy did.

But I'm wandering again. Where was I? I was where Jimmy came in. He took off his oily linens and poured hot water into a basin in the scullery for him to wash himself with. Nothing could take the oily grease off him like hot water and washing-soda. The oily smell of his clothes was like the oil I used in the sewing-machine that made me sick. I remember he was singing. He used to sing one thing and another that he picked up at his work. But he always sang: ‘My feet are here on Broadway this blessed harvest morn' – he knew I liked that, for he knew that I was reared in a country parish that seen many a decent girl and boy set off for America.

My mind's wandering on me again. Where was I? Yes, Jimmy washed himself in the scullery and I boiled a fresh egg for his tea. He didn't want any hot water for shaving for he said he wasn't going out. Merciful God, he wasn't going out! He said he was in no hurry for his tea and he'd wait till Mary and Anne had got theirs. He lay on the sofa – his shirt was open at the neck and his face was red and fresh after the good washing he gave himself. I handed him his slippers that I had warming at the side of the hob and I lifted his working shoes to give them a brush or two for the morning. And when the girls had finished their tea I cleared away the soiled dishes and asked Jimmy to sit over to the table. The girls were brushing their hair at that looking-glass on the wall.

‘Where are you set for, the night? You're in a hell of a hurry,' Jimmy said.

‘The pictures.'

‘Who's taking you?'

‘We're taking ourselves.'

‘You must have plenty of spondulics when you can go every night in the week to the damned pictures.'

‘It's our own money. We never see much of yours. You'd never ask us to the pictures – not if you got in for nothing.'

‘I'd like my job taking you two anywhere.'

I disremember rightly what happened after that but I think Mary sat on the sofa and Anne went upstairs for her good coat from the back of the door and I went out to the yard for a shovel of coal. That coal was always damp and I mind the way it hissed on the fire and Jimmy saying he must put sides on that shelter in the yard. It was then that I seen Mary standing on the fender and looking on the mantelpiece and asking if I saw her half-crown.

‘It's there beside the clock where you left it,' I said.

‘It's not.'

She stood on a chair and lifted up the clock and looked under it and behind it.

‘Did you take it, Mother?'

‘I didn't lay a finger on it.'

Anne came into the kitchen with her good coat on, ready for the road. I don't know what happened next for my mind is all in a tangle. But I remember the both of them talking at once and asking Jimmy to fork up the half-crown and not be codding any more and keeping them late. Jimmy laughed and I thought by the way he laughed he was fooling them and hiding the money on them. They eyed the time by the clock and they shouted at him to stop the bloody nonsense and give them the half-crown and not keep them late.

‘I didn't touch it, I tell you,' he said.

‘You're a liar!' they shouted back at him, and I told them to hush and not let the next-door neighbour hear them fighting.

‘You're a liar!' Mary shouted again, for she had a she-devil's temper when you roused her. She tapped her foot on the floor and glared at him.

‘You put your collar-stud on the mantelpiece when you were going to wash,' she said. ‘The stud's there for all to see but the half-crown's not!'

Jimmy put down his cup and smiled at her.

‘Give it to them, son, if you have it, and don't keep them late,' I said.

‘Didn't I tell you I never seen it!'

‘You're a thief!' Mary screeched. ‘That's what you are – a bloody thief!'

Jimmy jumped up from the table then and struck her, for I remember Mary crying and expressions flying from her mouth that'd have shamed any decent-minded girl. Oh, them factories and warerooms is no place, let me tell you, to rear your children in: they hear every filth and it sticks in their minds like grease in an old pot. I done my best to quieten them and I told Jimmy he done wrong to hit her.

‘I'll do it again if she calls me a thief!'

‘You're a coward,' Anne said. ‘Only a coward would strike a girl.'

Jimmy sat down again and I knew by the way his cup rattled on the saucer that he was sorry for what he'd done. I looked under the square of linoleum near the fender for the half-crown, and I looked under the sofa, and I took the tongs and searched in the ashes in the grate but I couldn't find it.

‘It's no use looking for it,' Anne said. ‘That playboy has it well hid. Make him give it up to us.'

‘Jimmy, son,' I said, ‘give them the half-crown. It didn't fly off the mantelpiece by itself.'

He stared at me and I'll remember that look to my dying day.

‘So you don't believe me either. As sure as there's a God above me I didn't take it.'

‘You needn't bring God into it,' I said, for I was annoyed at hearing him swear like that.