Strumpet City (31 page)

She pressed back against the leather, alone in the cab, alone, for a moment, in the world. If she got out and strolled up and down it would make no difference. If she went in and sat with the men and drank port wine it would still make no difference. She was trapped by life and by mortality. She began to wish Fitz would come out. When he did she leaned forward to welcome him, as though he had been away for some days. The driver climbed into his seat. Fitz shouted ‘Go ahead’ and closed the door.

‘Where’s Pat?’ she asked.

‘He’s not coming.’

She frowned.

‘He met someone he knew inside.’

‘Does that mean he’ll spend the day drinking?’

‘No,’ Fitz said, ‘he has other plans. Do you remember Lily Maxwell?’

Mary did. The girl who, from all accounts, was no better than she should be.

‘He hasn’t seen her for ages. While we were inside he met someone who knows where she’s living.’

‘Any man would be better away from women like that.’

It was a woman’s view. Fitz did not share it. He knew Lily meant much to Pat.

‘Not always,’ Fitz said.

Mary touched his hand and he turned to her. She asked: ‘Do you love me?’

The question surprised him. Something had upset her. He wondered what it could be.

‘Of course I love you.’

It was both an answer and a question. She left it unanswered. His reply had satisfied a need in her that she no longer tried to understand. She was content to leave her hand in his, to feel her reassurance return slowly as the cab travelled through the bright streets of the city, towards their couple of rooms and the insecure world in which her children waited. Thinking of her home, she remembered for the first time the note Mrs. Bradshaw had left with her. She took it from her pocket and opened it. It contained three one-pound notes. She drew them out.

‘Where did this come from?’ Fitz asked.

‘Mrs. Bradshaw gave me the envelope in the cemetery.’ There was a letter, which she passed to Fitz. He read aloud:

‘My dear Mary,

This will help you and your husband to provide something in the way of a special treat for your children. Accept it on their account.

Since I called to you I have been clearing out some old furniture and some floor coverings which I propose to send to you within a few days. You will be able to make use of them, I feel sure.

I have had the full story of your visits to Miss Gilchrist and consider your kindness to that old and friendless poor soul does you very great credit. God will reward you for that, as He promised long ago “one hundredfold”.

Believe me when I say that your goodness has been most praiseworthy indeed.

Florence Bradshaw’

Fitz handed back the letter.

‘That should make you happy.’

‘The furniture will be wonderful, won’t it?’ she said.

Father O’Connor, having sent the housekeeper to fetch the clerk, watched at the window for their arrival. Sunlight lay on the courtyard outside and slid past the brass flower bowl in the window to fall on worn linoleum. It was a pleasant room which at the moment smelled of polish—a clean and agreeable smell. If his own room caught the sun for even an hour or two of the day it would have been entirely transformed. As it was it remained dark and damp and almost always depressing.

Sunlight meant so much. At the funeral today, for instance, it had been so pleasant: the earth dry and firm, the breeze mild and agreeable, a perfect setting for an extremely edifying occasion. Miss Gilchrist had received a fitting reward for faithful service; Mrs. Bradshaw had performed a quite singular act of charity. People like Yearling might laugh and say they did not care a fig where they were buried or by whom; but then Yearling, for all his unusual perceptiveness, did not understand the poor. The Fitzpatricks, too, had behaved very well—neither too forward nor too awkward. He seemed a respectable type of man to be mixed up with Larkin and strikes. But that was part of the tragedy—the good and the bad alike were being drawn in. If people of title were now choosing to associate with such things, was it fair to blame the ordinary workman for being misled? Mrs. Bradshaw might take an interest there. He might speak to her. The man had gone out of his way to help him on that dreadful night.

The housekeeper and the clerk crossed the courtyard. There was a light tap on the door.

‘Come in.’

The clerk was wearing a frayed and faded soutane that reminded him, like everything else in the parish, of a rag-and-bone shop.

‘Have you no better soutane than that?’

‘I have indeed, Father.’

‘Is the good one very uncomfortable or something?’

‘I was cleaning the novena lamps—a dirty job.’

‘I see.’

There was always some excuse.

‘You wouldn’t want me getting oil stains up to me elbows, would you?’

The voice was not what it should be.

‘I would have you moderate your tone,’ Father O’Connor suggested, coldly.

The clerk frowned, making it plain that he was annoyed. Clerks everywhere were the same, Father O’Connor reflected. They grumbled, they disapproved, they argued back. He would not do it with Father Giffley though. Indeed no. Afraid.

‘It was reported to me this morning that Tierney the boilerman was ringing the bell for the ten o’clock mass.’

‘I let him do it when I’m busy,’ the clerk said. He was offhanded—deliberately so.

‘You mustn’t allow it in future.’

‘He thinks it a great privilege.’

‘What he thinks about it doesn’t matter in the least,’ Father O’Connor insisted. It isn’t seemly.’

‘Seemly,’ the clerk repeated. ‘I declare to God, Father, I don’t follow you at all. What’s unseemly about a poor man pulling a bell-rope to give me a hand.’

It was always so. Nothing was accepted simply. Everything had to be argued in St. Brigid’s.

‘Tierney is the boilerman. He is not very clean. His appearance—to say the least about it—is extremely odd. We mustn’t let the bell-ringing become a music-hall turn for the parish gapers.’

‘Father Giffley never objected.’

‘I am quite sure Father Giffley knows nothing about it or he would. Anyway, kindly attend to the bell-ringing yourself in the future.’

‘Whatever you say, Father.’

Once again the tone of voice was disrespectful.

‘That will be all.’

‘I see.’

The clerk, stern-faced, angry, withdrew. Some hours later, when the three priests were at the evening meal, Father Giffley said: ‘You were speaking to the clerk about the ringing of the bell.’

‘I see, the clerk has complained to you.’

‘He has the excellent habit,’ Father Giffley said, ‘of referring such matters to his parish priest.’

‘The boilerman was ringing the bell. It looks most unseemly.’

‘You saw him?’

‘Not personally. It was reported to me.’

‘It didn’t occur to you to consult my views.’

‘I was certain they would be the same as mine.’

‘I am still your parish priest,’ Father Giffley said. The deep, red colour was in his cheeks and forehead. Father O’Connor lowered his eyes.

‘It seemed such a small matter—I am sorry.’

‘I have already issued instructions. In the future—as in the past—Tierney may help the clerk whenever it is required.’

‘Very good, Father.’

Father O’Connor knew he was being humiliated. It was deliberate. It was putting him in the wrong with the clerk and the boilerman, placing him below the ragtag and bobtail. That hurt almost unbearably—that and the contempt which was now unconcealed. He beat down anger and rebellion, kept them from showing in his face, guarded each movement of hands and head, pushed them back when they sought other means of entry. He did so by fixing his thoughts inflexibly on obedience. To be obedient was everything. Humiliation, the sting of wounded pride, the knowledge of being unloved and unrespected by another, these things did not matter at all, if one could become truly as nothing, if one could empty the house of Self and be stripped utterly.

Over a cup of tea and a half-eaten egg, Father O’Connor fought to possess Christ.

Pat stopped to check the name of the road. It was as the man in the Brian Boru House had informed him. There were parallel rows of small, two-storey houses with tiny gardens in front. It was quiet, respectable. Closed doors kept each household to itself, curtained windows gave away no secrets. A door opening and closing somewhere down the cul-de-sac startled Pat and sent the air trembling. He looked down the road and recognised Lily immediately, although as yet she was too far away for him to see her face. She was coming towards him. It was a piece of luck he had not bargained for. Watching her, he began to tremble a little. She might still not want to speak to him. He waited. She came forward, unsuspecting, with easy, unconcerned movements. When she was some yards from him he shouted: ‘Lily.’

She faltered. The serge suit, the butterfly collar, the bowler hat did not seem to match the voice. Then she recognised him and stopped.

‘My God,’ she said, ‘have they made you Lord Mayor or something?’

Delight made his heart jump. She was herself. She was accepting him in the old way.

‘Lily,’ he repeated. To say her name helped to release the pressure of tenderness inside him and made speech easier.

‘Where did you spring from?’

‘I found out at last where you were living.’

‘And you were coming to see me?’

‘I was hoping to see you, Lily.’

‘Is that why you’re wearing the regimentals?’

‘No. I was at a funeral.’

‘I might have guessed. It’s a bit of a hobby of yours, isn’t it, going to weddings and funerals.’

She was smiling at him. He thought she looked more lovely than ever, her eyes lively, her face quick with banter. He said suddenly:

‘Come with me somewhere, anywhere. I want to talk to you.’

She laughed at him.

‘Please . . . Lily.’

‘All right. Where?’

‘The Park?’

She hesitated. Then with an odd air of decision said: ‘I don’t mind—I’m free today.’

‘We’ll get a tram at the bottom of the road. Come on.’

He was glad now to be wearing the bowler and the serge suit. They fitted the occasion. The day was still mild enough to make it pleasant on top of the tram. When they passed by Nelson’s Pillar, Lily said: ‘This is the first time I’ve been down here in two years.’

He saw his opportunity to question her.

‘I know that. But why?’

He was sorry almost immediately. She stiffened.

‘How did you know?’

‘I enquired about you. I couldn’t help asking after you. No one had seen you.’

For the first time since their meeting he saw the old look of hurt in her eyes.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said.

She slipped her arm through his, a gesture that reassured him and filled him with an intense pleasure.

They walked the hill of the Phoenix Park. The trees, exposed on its height, were stripped almost bare; in the valley below, a silver gleam between green slopes, the Liffey flowed towards Islandbridge and the city. They had walked here many times in the past; in the season of hawthorn, when the air was full of white petals and fragrance; in the season of lilac and laburnum; in the dying of the year when the paths, as now, were thick with fallen leaves. Sometimes they had listened to the military band which played on Sundays in The Hollow. Pat remarked that.

‘I wish there was a band.’

She said: ‘No bands today, Pat.’

But the air was better than any band, and the light, streaming down from behind high clouds, picked out isolated green patches on the slopes of the Dublin mountains. They found a seat that was sheltered and sat down. Pat took a paper bag from his pocket and handed it to her.

‘What’s this?’

She opened the bag and looked.

‘God—it’s a long time since anyone bought me sweets. When did you get these?’

‘When I was on my way across to look for your house.’ She took one and offered him the bag, but he refused.

‘You were at a funeral this morning. Had you anything to eat?’

‘I had a sandwich in the Brian Boru.’

She dismissed that.

‘A sandwich for a grown man,’ she said, ‘that’s no way to look after yourself.’

He waited, not quite sure if this was the moment to plunge. He made up his mind.

‘Maybe you’d do the looking after for me.’

She selected another sweet with exaggerated care and fixed her eyes on the glen below. It was damp in its lower reaches; the branches of the tangled hawthorns were black against the light.

‘Meaning what, Uncle Pat?’ Her tone was light. But lines of caution moulded her face.

‘I want you to marry me.’

She threw back her head.

‘God, will you listen to him.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘You used to say you didn’t believe in marriage.’

‘I don’t. But everyone else does. Well . . .’

She continued to be interested in the black branches near the bottom of the glen.

‘Not a chance,’ she said.

He took it without protest and remained silent. She held the bag towards him without looking at him.

‘Have a sweet,’ she invited. She was matter-of-fact, offhand. He made no movement. When she looked around his face was full of suffering. She let down the bag, leaned her hands on his knee and kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’m sorry.’ She had dropped her matter-of-factness. He put his hand on her shoulder, turning her towards him.

‘I love you, Lily.’

‘When did you find that out?’

‘The night you walked away from me.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Glad?’

‘Glad you love me—not glad I walked off on you.’

He kissed her. He held her against him, letting the hurt and loneliness of two years find what release it could. He knew, for the moment anyway, that she wanted him to hold her.

‘I’ve been thinking about you all the time, Lily.’

‘Dear Pat.’

‘Why did you walk off like that. You weren’t as angry as you let on to be, I know that. Were you just fed up with me and all of us?’

‘Not with you, Pat.’