Collected Short Stories (26 page)

Meanwhile her daughter had reached the outside gate, glad to be out in the free falling snow. She held Mary's hand tightly, but the child disengaged it, and while waiting for the bus watched the flakes turning her cape white.

They boarded the bus and the child knelt up on the seat, wiped the mist from the window with her gloved hand and looked out at the streets that were as white as the bed in the hospital.

‘Why was grandma cross?' she asked.

‘She wasn't cross, child. Your poor grandma is sick.'

‘And what made her sick?'

‘She's growing old.'

‘And what made her old?'

‘Turn round and sit on the seat like a good girl.'

The child turned around from the window and sat on the seat, watching the flakes of snow melt on her blue cape and dribble on to the floor.

At the centre of the city they had to change buses and stand in a queue. Beside them was a cafe and when the door opened the warm burnt smell of coffee rushed out into the cold air.

‘Come, Mary,' the mother said, and taking the child's hand she led her into the cafe and sat at a round table near the window.

‘And now, Mary, what would you like to eat?'

‘Sweets, Mammy. Turkish Delight like grandma's.'

‘We'll see.'

The mother rose from the table, crossed to the counter, and carried back two cups of tea, a few biscuits, and a small box of Turkish Delight.

The child smiled, took the box, and pushed the inside out like a matchbox. Lying closely side by side were cubes of coloured jellies dusted with fine sugar.

‘You take one first, Mammy,' the child said.

The mother smiled, and to hide the warm tears of joy that rose up beyond her control, she lowered her head near the box and rhymed:

Eena, meena, mina, mow,

Catch a sweetie by the toe,

If he squeals let him go,

Out you must go.

She prized out a cube with her fingers and put it in her mouth. The child smiled, but seeing the tears in her mother's eyes she said:

‘You're crying, Mammy.'

‘The cold is making my eyes watery – that's all.'

‘But it doesn't make my eyes watery,' she said, lifting out a sweet and putting it in her mouth. She smiled and looked at the large window that was misted over except for drops of water wriggling down the pane and leaving clear tracks behind them.

Is she thinking of her grandma and the hospital? the mother wondered, staring at her child.

The child swallowed the remains of her sweet and smiled, ‘Look, Mammy, the window's crying. Look at all its tears.'

The brickworks at the edge of the town had been closed down for many years and wind and rain had made wrecks of the old kilns and drying sheds. Nearby in the deep pit lay a pond of greenish water and across it on sunny days there stretched the shadow of the tall brick chimney with its lightning-conductor, a chimney that was a landmark for miles around.

One day it was rumoured that the brickworks was to be reopened and the rumour became a fact when Tim Rooney, a famous steeplejack, arrived one morning with three assistants to repoint and renovate the tall chimney. After much manoeuvring and hammering, the sectional ladder was placed upright against the face of the chimney, and from the top of it Tim gazed down at his three workmates who were shading their eyes against the sun and staring up at him. From the broad lip of the chimney he hauled out abandoned jackdaws' nests and flung the bundles of sticks into the air, and after putting his hammers in a straw basket that was suspended from a pulley-block he plucked at the rope and signalled to his men to lower away. He watched the basket move to the ground in short, irregular jerks, and before descending the ladder himself he looked across the fields to the houses at the edge of the town where smoke rose untroubled from the chimney pots and freshly washed shirts hung limp from the lines in the backyards. The sight of the clothes made him thirsty and he licked his dry lips and resting his hands on the topmost rung of the ladder, now warm under the sun, he began to descend with slow and definite rhythm.

‘Well,' he said on reaching the ground and clapping the red dust from his hands, ‘there's a grand view from the top. Three counties lie below you,' he exaggerated, ‘and you can gaze down the throats of all the chimney pots in the streets beyond. Well, John,' he addressed the youngest of the group, a lad of eighteen, ‘what about that jaunt you're to make to the top? When you're married you'll be able to boast to your children how you climbed to the top of the tallest chimney in the town.'

John's gaze travelled slowly to the top of the chimney but he didn't move or speak.

‘He boasted all week he'd climb it,' said George, the eldest of the group.

‘Nobody's forcing him if he doesn't want to go,' Tim declared, unwilling to encourage him. ‘We'll take our lunch first.'

‘I'm not afraid,' John answered and spat on his hands. ‘It'd be better if I'd climb on a fasting stomach. I'll go before we take our lunch.'

‘It would be better for us all if you would,' George mocked. ‘You'll be seasick before you're halfway up.'

‘I was never seasick in my life.'

‘Hard for you! The biggest boat you were ever in was a swing-boat in the children's playground.'

‘Here goes!' John answered, fastening his belt and cartwheeled toward the base of the chimney. He gripped the side of the ladder with one hand, bowed gracefully, and said, ‘You're now about to witness an exhibition of how a chimney should be climbed. There's nothing in it, gentlemen, as long as you keep your head. Nothing in it.'

‘Hear! Hear!' George applauded and eyed him humorously. Tim said nothing.

The lad climbed some rungs rapidly and then with slow caution ascended another four. His toe dislodged a piece of mortar and he heard it clink against the ladder on its way to the ground. He paused, frightened. Above him he saw the ladder converge at the top like railway lines. He had a long way to go yet, and on looking down to measure his distance from the ground he saw, in one swaying moment, the old drying sheds buckle and stretch like an accordion. He held grimly to the ladder and allowed his head to clear. Sweat oozed in blobs on his forehead and his hands became clammy. In front of him he saw tiny hairs of moss growing like moles between the bricks and he noticed with rising terror that some of the bricks were cracked. He closed his eyes, swallowed with difficulty, and made an attempt to descend. His foot missed the lower rung and his trouser-leg caught on it and rolled back, and for a moment he felt the free air on his bare leg. He drew his two feet together, twined his arms round a rung of the ladder and remained still.

A tizzing sound trembled through the sides of the ladder. They were hammering on it, signalling to him to come down. He was afraid to move or to look up or look down. He heard Tim call up to him, but what advice was given he couldn't make out. The grey rope at the side of the ladder tautened and presently the basket halted beside him, but when he put a hand on it it swung away from him and in an instant he gripped the rung above his head and closed his eyes to shut out the drunken tilting of the chimney.

‘Hold tightly, John, like a good lad,' Tim shouted, his voice near at hand. ‘Hold tightly and don't look down.'

Tim was now directly below him: ‘Don't be afeared,' he was saying, ‘give me your right foot. Let it loose and I'll guide it. That's the stuff. Now give me the left foot. Hold tight with your hands and leave the feet to me … Here we go again. Put the right foot down and now the left beside it. That's the way it's done. That's the ticket! We'll make a steeplejack out of you yet, never fear. Off we go again. First the right and now the left.'

‘Are we nearly there?' John asked without turning his head.

‘We haven't far to go. Keep looking up and you'll be safe in port before you know where you are.'

Tim hurried down the last few rungs; John followed him and on reaching the ground his workmates clapped loudly.

‘It's not as easy as it looks,' he breathed, his face a green colour and his eyes large with fright. ‘Was I up far?'

‘You were near the top.'

‘I was like hell.'

‘I warned you you'd be seasick but you wouldn't heed me.'

‘Give over,' Tim said. ‘We all have to learn. For a first attempt he didn't do badly.'

‘Never again,' John said and sat on the ground which swayed like the deck of a ship.

Tim patted him on the shoulder: ‘Breathe in the air deeply and you'll be as right as rain in no time.'

They helped him to his feet and gave him a drink of water from a can that lay in the long grass out of the sun. They spread newspapers in the cool shade of the hedge, opened their lunchboxes, and took out their thermos flasks. In front of them across the sunny field the windows of the houses were all open and the smoke from the chimneys lay in a smother above the roofs.

‘It's so still here,' Tim said, ‘it'd be a nice place for a cemetery. But you'll not be going there for a while yet, John.'

John smiled like a convalescent and his hand trembled as he took the cup of tea that Tim poured out for him. He drank it slowly, and when he had finished he lay back on the grass and felt his nausea slip away from him. For a while he listened to the man talking, and then closing his eyes he tried to relax. He dozed over, but the smell from the men's pipes made him feel sickish and he sat up and rubbed his forehead. Above the hedge towered the chimney and as he stared at it he saw a young boy halfway up the ladder.

‘Tim, look!' and he turned pale and felt his head grow light.

Tim peered through the leaves in the hedge and saw the boy nearing the top of the chimney.

‘For the love of God, men, don't budge, don't breathe,' he ordered. ‘There's a young lad at the top of the ladder. Keep still and don't frighten him.'

The two men turned and watched the boy lever himself onto the lip of the chimney and sit dangling his legs as if he were seated on a roadside wall.

‘We mustn't show ourselves,' Tim urged, ‘mustn't let him know we see him. If he has the head to climb up, he'll have the head to get down.'

Suddenly the boy ceased dangling his legs and crawled on his knees round the lip of the chimney. He did the complete circle and on reaching the top of the ladder he turned his back to descend. He twined his arms around the topmost rung and clung to it without moving. The men watched and waited, bending the branches of the hedge to see better.

‘He's staying there because he can't get down,' John said. ‘I know what it's like – he's afraid to move. We must do something. Tim. Go up after him; help him the way you helped me.”

‘Take it cool; that boy will get down all right. I know what I'm talking about.'

‘He's stuck. He's afraid to move – anyone can see that! I'm going for the fire brigade; they'll get him down,' John said, springing to his feet.

‘Don't make a fool of yourself. Stay where you are. That boy has a head for heights, I tell you. He'll manage by himself if we leave him alone and not startle him.'

The boy still clung to the top rung, but made no attempt to descend.

‘I can't bear to look at him any longer,' John said, and before his workmates could stop him he was running along the hedge to the town.

At that moment, slowly and steadily, the boy began to descend, sometimes halting to look around him.

‘That's the way, my boy,' Tim breathed to himself, ‘that's the way to do it. But for the love of God, don't look down. Come on, another rung. You're just half way. Come on, what are you hesitating for!'

From their look-out behind the hedge they watched intently every movement that he made. They saw him halt, rub each hand in turn on his jersey, look up, and once more begin to ascend.

‘Did you ever see the like of that for cheek since God made you? There's the makings of a great steeplejack in that boy,' George said.

‘He has the head all right, but I wish I had my hands on him before John fetches the fire brigade,' Tim said. ‘I should have left someone on watch when we were at our lunch.'

The boy had now reached the top of the ladder and after struggling on to the lip of the chimney he stood up on it, walked round to the lightning conductor and gripped it like a Roman soldier with his spear. At that moment a woman came out of the end house across the fields and taking damp clothes from her washing basket she hung them on the line. Then, shading her eyes, she called to left and right: ‘Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.' She didn't see him crouched at the top of the chimney, and when she had gone back to the house he descended the ladder rapidly and raced across the fields.

‘Thanks be to God he's safe anyway,” Tim said and rose to his feet. ‘Never again will I leave the ladder without a watchman.'

He walked across the field to the end house and on reaching the open door he called to the woman as she moved about the dark kitchen and asked if he could have a word with her son.

‘I hope he hasn't been up to any mischief, Mister,' she said, coming to the door.

‘Nothing much. I was wondering if you'd like him to be a steeplejack.'

‘A steeplejack! What on earth's that?'

‘My job – pointing and renovating mill chimneys.'

The woman smiled: ‘Is it our Jackie! He hasn't the heart of a rabbit, Mister, and that's the truth.'

‘I can tell you he climbed to the top of the brickyard chimney when we'd our backs turned.'

‘He wouldn't do the like of that, Mister!' she said, and stared at him incredulously.

‘He did, indeed. Ask him yourself.'

She beckoned Jackie beside her and scrutinised the red dust on his jersey and trousers.

‘Where were you?' she shouted, and gripped his shoulder.

‘Over in the brickfields, Mother.'

‘What were you doing?'

‘Looking around and playing.'

‘Playing at what?'

Jackie lowered his head but didn't answer.

‘You climbed the ladder to the top of the chimney,' Tim challenged him.

‘Speak up to the man, Jackie, where's your manners!'

Jackie plucked at a loose thread on his jersey.

‘You walked round the lip of the chimney and put your hand on the lightning conductor,' Tim pressed.

‘Merciful God!' the mother exclaimed and sat down on a chair. ‘Wait till I get my breath back. My boyo, but you're a heartscald. You'd some poor body's blessing about you when you weren't killed stone dead.'

‘He has a head for heights. You should let him follow his gift. He's a born climber, a born steeplejack.'

‘He'll not be able to climb into bed when I'm done with him … And wait till his father hears about it … It's the last chimney he'll climb in this life … Oh, you'll be in your good safe school tomorrow if you're fit to go … I'm thankful to you, Mister, for if I'd seen him at the top of the chimney the sight'd never have left my eyes.'

The bell of the fire brigade could be heard approaching the edge of the town.

‘I'll have to go,' Tim said. ‘But when the lad's the age keep my job in mind for him. There's good money in it.'

He hurriedly took his leave and headed across the field to the hedge where his two workmates awaited him.