Strumpet City (32 page)

‘With the others?’

‘With the others and with myself.’

‘Why? What happened? Tell me—please, Lily.’

‘I’ll tell you,’ she promised, ‘just give me a minute or two.’

She released herself and sat thinking. He waited. It seemed to him that everything else, the stripped trees, the green slopes, the damp mist in the hollow, the black branches, the whole world waited with him. He looked at her face and it was unhappy again. It tempted him to tell her not to answer, to say it was all right. He could not. He must know where he stood.

‘Well?’ he asked, after an interval.

‘If you want to know,’ she said at last, ‘I got a dose of something.’

He knew what she meant. There was no need to ask questions. He thought carefully.

‘That wouldn’t make any difference to me.’

‘You’re daft,’ she said.

‘Did you go anywhere? Did you get treatment?’

‘I went to a fellow that Maisie knew. That’s how I came to spend your money.’

‘And you wouldn’t tell me.’

‘I was ashamed.’

Her own admission surprised her. She tried to laugh at it.

‘Imagine Lily being ashamed,’ she said.

‘Did he do any good?’

‘I think he did the trick, all right. Maisie swears by him. But you can never be sure, can you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pat said. It was a subject he knew very little about. One thing he was quite certain of. It made no difference.

‘I’m still asking you, Lily.’

‘But I couldn’t, Pat. Supposing something happened to you.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Or supposing there were children. Jesus—imagine that! Children brought into the world and
that
already rotting them.’

She began to cry. He took her to him and held her fiercely. He was angry now, with the green slope, and the black boughs, with everything that dared to remain aloof from Lily’s suffering.

‘Lily. We needn’t have children. We needn’t do anything like that at all. We can marry and be with each other.’

‘You think that would be enough?’

‘I do.’

‘I wouldn’t do that on you,’ she said, gently. She took his hand and pressed it against her cheek.

‘But if I’m the one who wants it that way?’

She shook her head. She was staring again at the hawthorn boughs. He knew it would be no use to go on. For the present, anyway, there was no purpose to it. She was in his arms willingly, gratefully. For the moment that was sufficient happiness.

‘After you left me, did you think of me at all?’

She said: ‘At first I thought about nothing except
it.
I got work in a place in Glasnevin and never went near town except to see this doctor fellow. I hated everybody. Then, when it seemed to clear up, I knew I’d never go back to the old places. I was a fool to think that sort of life would suit. The funny thing was, when I made up my mind about that, I began to think about you. I thought quite a lot about you.’

‘What did you think?’

‘That I hadn’t been very fair to you. It was the way I felt at the time. I’m sorry, Pat.’

‘It doesn’t matter, now. Do you think you could love me, Lily?’

She did not answer immediately. When she spoke it was to say: ‘It’ll be dark very soon. We should think of getting home.’

‘Lily . . . ?’

She looked up at him for some time, her eyes wide and beautiful.

‘Yes I think I might.’

That was sufficient. The rest could wait. He kissed her again and they got up. Behind the mildness of the air there was a chill, the evening damp rising from earth and grass. Night was moving stealthily among the bushes and the branches, treading warily after the vanished sun, flowing noiselessly over the stripped trees and the heights, spreading unresisted across the plains of Ireland.

They walked back towards the city with the river below them still luminous in the twilight, the trees ghostly, the air chilled and earthy. At the Park gate the river broadened and became defiled and smelled like a slum. The tramcars passed them, twinkling with lights.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

There were few days left of sunshine and mildness. The evenings drew in, fog drifted across the city, sometimes thickly, sometimes light and noticeable only because each lamp along the street wore a shimmering corona. Mary, thinking of Christmas, looked about a living room that had been transformed. There was a fine oval table in the centre with a tasselled covering and four good chairs about it. There was a sideboard with a mirror and a rug which she put before the fireplace when the day’s cooking was done. There was an easy chair for Fitz and a matching one for herself. They were well worn, but decent looking. The clock which Pat had given them on their wedding night still stood on the mantelpiece. It added an elegant touch to the room. Sometimes she looked at the furniture as it was reflected in the mirror of the sideboard. For some reason the reflection made it more real. They had sold some odd pieces and bought a second-hand pram. It was not much use just then, with the days so cold and short. But there would be spring and summer. Time would pass quickly. They could walk out together to Sandymount and Merrion again. They could bathe and then sit on the sands and look out to Howth with the sea around it. Everything seemed easy and worth while now. It would have taken them years to build up such a home. It had come to them in a single afternoon, in a delivery van drawn by two horses, about which the children of the street had gathered to gape.

Father O’Connor saw it and admired it. He praised Mrs. Bradshaw’s generosity. He said he knew they appreciated their good fortune. He hoped her husband would be able now to put everything else out of his mind and work steadily for the good home that was theirs. He had in mind, he said, the labour troubles that were bringing misery and want into homes that could enjoy that peace which was the hallmark of the Catholic family. As he went down the street afterwards he passed Rashers Tierney, who took off his hat and said, with irritating energy:

‘There’s yourself, Father.’

‘Good evening,’ Father O’Connor answered.

His voice had a cold edge to it. That was unintentional. He wished to have no grudge against this poor, limping oddity. That would be a strange way for a priest to behave. Indeed it would. What had the poor old man done, except what he had been told to do—and told to continue doing. Naturally, he would see nothing unfitting in a bundle of galvanised rags tolling the church bell.

There were other things to be thought about. Winter and cold rooms. Hunger and empty stomachs. The sting of pride which had almost mastered him when Father Giffley rejected his decision about Tierney could be chastised by taking up again the thankless task of providing a little relief for want and misery. He had given in too easily. The time to put into practice his resolution to make amends had come. The job of distribution would be one for Timothy Keever and the Confraternity Committee. Strictly speaking, Mr. Hegarty should supervise the arrangements, but the head prefect, he had noticed, was not so familiar with the deserving cases and did not seem to have much relish for that kind of work. It would be quite wrong to blame the man. Hegarty was a tradesman, and tradesmen were careful to keep themselves aloof from the ragtag and bobtail.

Once again they brought down the foodstuff from his bedroom and spread it out in the room behind the vestry. They made out a list. Some would receive money; others, who might put money to the wrong use, would receive parcels. The procedure was to be the same.

‘I want you to avoid any who are on strike—as far as seems reasonable.’

That was painful, perhaps, but absolutely necessary. In all justice.

‘When I say reasonable I mean that you will not give out parcels indiscriminately to strikers, because for one thing, it is a disservice to themselves to encourage them and, in addition, we must not appear to seek charity from well disposed people in order to make it possible for their employees to hold out against them—that would hardly be a just arrangement.’ Father O’Connor wondered if they understood.

‘On the other hand, if there is extreme want or sickness in a home or some factor of that kind you could overlook the fact that one of the victims may also, incidentally, be involved in a labour dispute.’

‘We’ll consult you, Father,’ Keever said.

Father O’Connor frowned. He did not want to be set up as an arbitrator in such things.

‘That shouldn’t be necessary if you use your own judgment,’ he decided.

They went around the streets again each evening after work, a small band of devoted workers. Keever wore the long, black overcoat and the bowler hat which was his Sunday uniform. It was easy to help the old. They crouched over small fires or lay in rough beds and took the smallest kindness with gratitude. But with men who were only destitute because there was no one to hire the labour of their bodies it was different. They watched their wives accepting charity and gave none of the usual signs of gratitude. Their attitude made him cautious. It showed they had not forgotten. Once, he ran into trouble. He had a parcel to spare at the end of a long night of visits. Thinking he would leave it in the house with someone and get home, he said to the woman he was dealing with:

‘Is there anyone else in the house that’s out of work?’

‘Mrs. Moore’s husband has been idle this while back.’ That seemed all right. He was very tired and the room depressed him. It was practically bare of furniture. All he could see was the rough table. There was a candle burning on that, which threw more shadows than light. The woman’s husband was over by the uncurtained window, watchful, a silhouette.

‘And where does she live?’

‘Just above us—on the next landing.’

He decided to go up. The two men with him were already making for the door when the woman added:

‘Her husband is on strike, God help her.’

Keever stopped and turned. There was a note of genuine disappointment in his voice.

‘In that case, ma’am, I’m afraid I’ll have to go further.’ He turned again to find that her husband had come between him and the door.

‘What’s wrong with being on strike?’

Keever, careful not to shoulder full responsibility, said: ‘I have my instructions.’

‘Whose instructions?’

‘Father O’Connor’s.’ Immediately he regretted it. It was indiscreet. Father O’Connor would certainly think so. The man took the family’s parcel from the table and pushed it into Keever’s arms.

‘If Father O’Connor thinks he’s going to beat Jim Larkin with cocoa and sugar,’ he said, ‘you can tell him what to do with his parcel.’

Timothy Keever backed away. Burdened now with both parcels, he struggled clumsily to open the door.

‘There you are—that’s the thanks you get,’ one of his helpers said, as they trooped down the stairs. The voice was disgruntled and lacking in conviction. Was there yet another waverer in the Confraternity? That was the way Larkinism spread and grew, even among the selected workers of the Church. He felt no personal grudge, all he wished was to get to heaven. If the road to travel was through obedience and good works only it would hold little hardship. It looked now, though, that it would be through suspicion, unpopularity, insult, as well.

‘We are not working just to be thanked,’ he pointed out.

He told his wife about it that night as they sat over supper in his cottage by the railway line. She agreed that it might have been a mistake. They worried about it together, listening to the occasional thundering of trains that passed by their back garden, where the now weathered statue watched with joined hands and the surrounding railings creaked in the rigours of wind and winter.

The news reached Mulhall and from him it went to Fitz.

‘I’m going to see this Father O’Connor,’ Mulhall decided. Fitz thought that unwise.

‘What does it matter?’ he said.

But Mulhall had made up his mind.

‘I’ll deal with Keever too,’ he said.

‘O’Connor will fling you out.’

‘Let him try,’ Mulhall said.

Mulhall was a big man with iron-grey hair and a sure way of walking that inspired confidence in those who worked with him. He liked the new movement well. It was direct and simple. Demand, refusal, strike. He worked for Doggett & Co. under constant threat of dismissal. One slip and he was out of his job, with little hope of being jobbed elsewhere. He was well known as a troublemaker. In the eyes of Doggett he thrived on trouble. Where others bent, Mulhall bloomed. The shoulders straightened, the chest stuck out, the face settled into firm lines of confidence and composure. His demands were conveyed simply—to the yard foreman, to the superintendent, even to Doggett himself.

‘No work after four o’clock on Saturdays, Mr. Doggett.’

‘You’ll work when you’re told, Mulhall.’

‘Mr. Larkin wrote to you. Why didn’t you answer him?’

‘I don’t have to reply to Mr. Larkin.’

‘That’s gameball. We don’t have to work after four on Saturdays either.’

‘I’ll get rid of you, Mulhall, if this nonsense continues.’

‘Right. I’ll let the men know.’

‘You’ll let them know what?’

‘That you’re getting rid of me.’

‘That’s enough. You’ll hear more about this.’

But Mulhall remained in his job. Doggett knew better. Strike fever had hit the city. One ended, another began. It was better to settle up. For the moment. Later on the cure for the epidemic would be found. Already more powerful and more resourceful minds were at work on the problem.

Father O’Connor received Mulhall in the visitors’ room and began the interview at a disadvantage. He had expected one of the usual enquiries; an appeal for spiritual advice, a request for help. It took him some time to grasp that this huge, rough-looking working man was taking him to task. It was quite an incredible situation. He tried at first not to look at it that way.

‘You have some objection to our distributing relief?’

His voice was controlled.

‘We’ve an objection to Timothy Keever.’

‘You have . . . ? May I ask why?’

‘He goes about making fish of one and flesh of another.’