Strumpet City (46 page)

‘He works as a messenger boy in the despatch department of the Independent Newspapers.’

‘Hairy oul messenger boy,’ Rashers said.

‘I expect he’ll get the push one of these days. They have to at a certain age.’

‘He won’t knock a living out of music anyway,’ Rashers said. But almost immediately he felt he was being over-severe. He gave a great sigh.

‘What is he, when all’s said and done, only a boy. It’s all before him.’

Hennessy approved the change to tolerance.

‘Live and let live,’ he said.

‘You’re right,’ Rashers said. Then he repeated it. ‘You’re right.’

Unanimity reigned. There was no use in rancour, they both now felt. Be patient. Endure. Willie Mulhall was only a little less advanced on the road to infirmity and loneliness and God knows what tribulation.

‘Play something else,’ Hennessy prompted.

Rashers, after an interval of thought, complied, resuming the meandering air with its trills and turns while Hennessy, staring into the red coals, let his mind wander. They had sat like this on another occasion, in the boiler room under St. Brigid’s Church, he recollected, drinking port and eating turkey and ham. That was around the Christmas time too. No, after it, he now remembered. Rashers was misfortunate to lose a good job like that. He had thought of going to the parish priest and applying for it himself, but as he considered it, it began to seem a traitorous sort of thing to do. Rashers, rightly or wrongly, felt he had been dealt with harshly. It would be disloyal to offer to work in his place. But Rashers was a stubborn and bitter oul oddity too, refusing to chance the effect of an apology, refusing even to go to St. Brigid’s for mass. They said the parish priest was kindly enough, although a bit abrupt. He could have gone to him. But no. Pride.

It would have been nice to walk in through the door and say: I’ve landed a steady, respectable job. Seasonable, but steady while it’s there. With the clergy. That would impress. The clergy. As boilerman. St Brigid’s. She would respect him then . . . as she used. You could make a career out of a job like that if you minded it. Aloysius Hennessy, Boilerman to St. Brigid’s.

‘A nice morning, Mr. Hennessy.’

‘A lovely morning, ma’am, thanks be to God.’ And then, when he had passed, but was not quite out of earshot: ‘Who’s that, Alice?’

‘Who?’

‘The man in the overalls you just said hello to?’

‘Oh, that’s Aloysius Hennessy, the boilerman from the church.’

The charcoal had grown so hot that the sides of the bucket glowed with a pinkish colour. He turned up his collar against the draught at his back. Firelight and meandering music interweaving in the half-light drew him dreaming into their labyrinth. He heard her voice remotely. He heard it a number of times before he realised with a shock she was in the room beside him.

‘So this is where you are.’

It was his wife, arms on her hips, a small, emaciated woman with a strident voice. The music stopped.

‘Idling and gossiping while your children go hungry.’

‘A few words with a good neighbour and a friend, Ellen,’ he said. ‘I was on my way up in a minute or two.’

She began to scream at him.

‘A nice article I married. Sitting on his arse while he should be looking for work.’

‘I searched high up and low down,’ Hennessy said earnestly, almost in tears. ‘I’m going to try again in the evening.’

‘You will. When every gate is closed and they’re all gone home for the day.’

Her voice was so loud that the dog began to bark.

‘And this article beside you,’ she said, referring to Rashers. She turned her anger fully on him.

‘You’re no better than he is,’ she shouted at him. ‘There’s a pair of you well matched.’

Rashers began to rise to his feet. He did so, as always, with difficulty because of his leg. He was stiff from sitting and had to hold on to the fireplace for support. He stared at her and she moved back a little, afraid of him; afraid of his eyes, his unkempt beard, his infirmity.

‘Ma’am,’ Rashers said, ‘he’s your husband and I suppose he has to listen to you. I don’t. Now clear off out of my premises and conduct your barney on your own battlefield.’

‘Ellen,’ Hennessy pleaded, ‘we’ll go upstairs and leave Mr. Tierney in peace.’

‘That’s what you’ll do, ma’am,’ Rashers said, ‘because if you delay another second I’ll set the dog on you.’

‘You would too—you bloody oul cripple.’

‘Rusty,’ Rashers called.

The dog came to his side.

‘Ellen,’ Hennessy appealed, ‘leave when you’re asked.’ He was distressed and took her by the arm, but she pushed him away.

‘Bloody oul cripple,’ she screamed.

Rashers raised his good arm threateningly above his head and immediately the dog snarled.

‘Jesus,’ she said, in terror of its bared teeth.

‘Go with her,’ Rashers told Hennessy. He was holding himself very straight. His anger and hatred made his beard stiff and his eyes malignant. She backed through the door, Hennessy following. When they began to climb the stairs Rashers shouted after her:

‘Blame God for the cripple part of it—not Rashers Tierney.’

His voice set the dog barking furiously.

‘Do you hear me, ma’am,’ Rashers shouted after her again, knowing she was terrified to answer. ‘The cripple is God’s handiwork. Criticise Him.’

He heaved violently against the door with his shoulder so that it slammed. Then he leaned against it, trembling with rage.

‘Once upon a time,’ he said to the dog, ‘that was a comely young girl with a gentle voice. She was all pink and milky white. Now she’s as yellow as a drain.’

His rage overwhelmed him once more. He jerked open the door and bawled up the stairs.

‘Do you hear what I said, you consumptive oul bitch—you’re as yellow as a drain.’ His voice beat on wall and ceiling. It carried his anguish through all the passageways of the house.

The rain became heavy sleet when he reached the Park, and the road climbed until there was no shelter from the gale, which drove the sleet against him until his hands were locked about the reins with the cold, and the flakes took a long time to melt on his eyelids and left him travelling blindly. When at last he reached shelter he found he had either forgotten, or lost, his lunch. The load was delivered and the docket marked ‘Priority’ signed without anyone in the house offering him a cup of tea. But a tip of sixpence had been left for him. He was tempted to spend it on something hot when he got back into the city. He resisted. It would provide a treat tonight for his wife when they went to the theatre. He worked through his city loads until three o’clock and returned to the loading yard to find his lunch parcel waiting for him at the checker’s office.

‘The stableman found this after you’d pulled out,’ the clerk said, ‘you left it behind you.’

Mulhall took it without saying thanks. He was too tired.

‘There’s one more load for you’, the clerk said, ‘a near one this time—Morgan & Co.’

‘Nothing after that?’

‘Nothing at all.’

An early finish would suit him down to the ground. He stuck his lunch in his pocket. It would be better to get loaded and complete the job and make for home. He could sit in comfort at the fire.

‘Here goes,’ he said, his mood brightening for the first time since morning. He delayed to light his pipe before leaving the shelter of the office. A smoke would help to keep his hunger at bay.

The winter dusk was settling as he passed through the gates and into the yard of Morgan & Co. It was large, with gas-lamps at intervals which a man was lighting with a rod.

‘Single load,’ he said to the gateman.

‘That’ll be for office use,’ the gateman answered.

‘I know,’ Mulhall said. A single load was always for the fires in the offices. For some reason they liked to keep their office heating expenditure separate.

‘You know where to leave it.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘I do,’ Mulhall said. He had been delivering to Morgan’s most of his life. But when he pulled up outside the office block the caretaker stopped him from carrying the sacks through the hallway.

‘There’s a Board meeting on up above,’ he explained. ‘They’ll be coming down any minute.’

Mulhall understood. The passageway was unusually spick and span. It would not do if the departing directors found it marked with a trail of coal-dust.

‘Where will I leave it?’

‘I’ll show you,’ the caretaker said. He led him to an open space by the further wall of the building. Then he got three men to give a hand.

‘Is Bob Fitzpatrick on shift?’ Mulhall asked, when the unloading was completed.

‘He’s in No. 2 House,’ the caretaker said. Then, conspiratorially he asked: ‘Union business?’

‘That’s right’, Mulhall said.

‘Good stuff,’ the caretaker approved. ‘We’ll keep the Red Flag flying. I’ll get him for you.’

‘Tell him I’ll wait for him beside the new mechanical hoist.’

There was accommodation beside it for tethering horses. He would be less conspicuous there.

The men working at the hoist recognised him and hailed him. Since his gaol sentence he was one of their leaders, a militant Larkinite. He acknowledged with a wave of his hand. Communication was too difficult. They worked on a platform about the machine. Steel ropes, biting into the grooves of great wheels, kept an endless chain of steel buckets moving, charged with coal on their upward journey, empty and ready to be refilled as they descended. The noise of rattling steel was continuous.

Mulhall heard his name being called again and peered for some moments through the dusk and the drizzling rain before fixing on a man at the winch who was beckoning to him. He climbed on to the platform and went across to him. It was a man named O’Mahony.

‘How’s tricks?’ Mulhall said.

‘I have a bit of news for you about the Tram Company,’ the man said, ‘I can’t tell it to you here because it’s a long story, but I’d like to meet you outside and have a talk with you. Are you free tonight?’

‘Not tonight,’ Mulhall said, ‘I’m going to the Queen’s with the missus. How about tomorrow night?’

‘I’ll see you at Liberty Hall,’ O’Mahony agreed.

‘Can you give me the gist of it now?’

The Tram Company was of very special interest. William Martin Murphy, its chairman, had refused to meet Larkin.

‘I heard the tram men will be invited by the management to a secret meeting and they’ll be bribed to leave the union. It was all discussed in a certain house.’

‘How did you hear this?’

‘I can’t tell you now, but it’s reliable.’

‘How reliable?’

‘It’s from my own sister—she’s in service.’

‘Good man,’ Mulhall said, and turned to go.

The man, pleased with his approval, grinned and stepped back towards the wheel. It was a careless movement that brought him too close to it. He stumbled against it, threw out his arms to find balance and shouted. Mulhall ran back and found him groaning with pain. His right arm was pinned firmly between the steel rope and the winch, which, despite the obstruction, continued very slowly to rotate, gripping the arm more and more tightly as it did so. Mulhall threw all his weight against it and shouted for help. No one seemed to hear. The buckets continued to rattle as they descended and the slack rope, no longer being drawn in by the winch, began to pay out about the platform. Mulhall, exerting all his strength, kept the winch from moving and shouted again. No one responded. The dusk had grown deeper, the rain heavier, the jingling of buckets seemed to increase every moment.

‘Jesus,’ the man beside him said. Mulhall’s strength was failing and the winch had moved a fraction more.

‘Switch off,’ he shouted, ‘switch her off.’

Fitz, arriving a moment later, found Mulhall agonised with effort.

‘Tell them to switch her off,’ Mulhall said to him. Fitz went to the middle of the platform and shouted up to the control cabin. At first they failed to understand. Then the message reached them. The buckets ceased to move. The wheels stopped. There was silence. The men gathered about the winch and forced it backwards until the rope slackened and the man’s arm was free. They took him down from the platform.

‘Are you all right, Bernie?’ Fitz asked Mulhall.

‘Gameball,’ Mulhall said. He leaned against the winch. Every muscle in his back ached; his lungs laboured for air.

‘Rest a bit,’ Fitz advised. He went down to examine O’Mahony. The arm was badly bruised but otherwise it was sound. Somebody shouted down from the cabin above and a voice shouted back.

‘All clear now. Start away.’

The sound of the buckets beginning to move again drew Fitz’s attention. He looked back at the platform. What he saw horrified him. Mulhall had moved away from the winch and was swaying with exhaustion. The winch, with no weight dragging against it, was hauling in the slack rope that lay in coils about the platform at a pace that increased each second. Fitz saw the danger and shouted out: ‘Bernie—watch the ropes. Jump.’

Mulhall straightened and looked out at him. Fitz shouted again. It was too late. The loop of steel rope that Mulhall was standing in rode up about his legs at a terrifying speed, tightened, and pulled through. When Fitz reached Mulhall he was lying in blood.

‘What happened, Fitz?’

‘Lie still,’ Fitz said. But Mulhall raised himself with a great effort and saw lying beside him his own dismembered feet. They had been amputated from just below the knees.

‘Lie back,’ Fitz said gently. He took off his coat and began to tear his shirt. With another man he made a tourniquet for each leg. They wound them as tight as their strength allowed. They knelt there in the rain, under arc lamps that the men had rigged up, holding on doggedly until the ambulance arrived, and Mulhall, now unconscious, was carried away. Fitz picked up the two feet, grotesque and horrible, and wrapped them in a sack. An ambulance man took them from him. When they had gone Fitz leaned against the side of the platform, shivering.

‘Are you all right?’ a strange voice asked him, very gently.

‘In a moment,’ Fitz said. Suddenly his stomach turned over and he was violently and repeatedly sick. A hand gripped him by the shoulder and when the bout of sickness had exhausted itself the same strange voice said: