Strumpet City (57 page)

‘I know you’re just dying to try your new purchases.’

But he shook his head.

‘Later,’ he said.

She began a selection for piano from
The Merry Widow.
She had only started when a servant entered. After a moment of uncertainty he crossed and whispered in Yearling’s ear.

‘There is a sergeant of police at the door, sir—he says he must see you at once.’

Yearling nodded. He signalled to the others to excuse him and left quietly as Mrs. Bradshaw continued to play. In the hall a policeman whom he knew quite well saluted him.

‘We’ve been searching everywhere for Mr. Bradshaw, sir. I understand he may be here.’

‘Something has happened?’ Yearling asked. Then he said: ‘Step in here a moment.’

He opened the door to a waiting room and turned up the flame of its low-burning lamp.

‘Is it a death?’ he asked, when he had finished his business with the lamp.

The sergeant removed his helmet to wipe his forehead.

‘It’s them houses he owns down near the harbour,’ he said.

‘A fire?’

‘No—not a fire, sir. We enquired at his house and were told he was here. Two of them collapsed about an hour ago. We don’t know how many of the poor creatures is dead.’

As he spoke another ambulance bell beat violently above the roar of the wind and receded. From the room Yearling had left
The Merry Widow
waltz tinkled remotely. Yearling sat down for a moment to consider the news. Then he said:

‘He is below with his wife. We mustn’t shock her more than is necessary. If you give me just a moment I’ll send one of the servants to fetch him here to us.’

‘That would be best,’ the sergeant said.

He waited while Yearling composed himself. He saw him rise and go to a tasselled rope woven of red and yellow threads. He saw him pull it.

They left Mrs. Bradshaw home and then went to the harbour side. Bradshaw was unable to say how many inhabitants the two houses had held, but his agent reckoned between forty and fifty. The death roll was seven when they arrived; within twenty minutes it had risen to nine.

‘Was there no warning?’ Yearling asked the sergeant.

‘It seems there was,’ the sergeant said. ‘A man in the first house saw the wallpaper suddenly tearing across. He rushed around knocking at doors and warning people. They left as fast as they could.’

Rescue workers were everywhere among the pile of rubble. Above them, in the light of the acetylene lamps, Yearling saw the skeletons of the two houses, their rooms and stairways laid naked by the collapse of the wall. Twisted beams and broken floors and masonry hung at dangerous angles. From time to time pieces of brick and wood were wrenched loose by the wind and raised a cloud of dust as they fell. Among the ambulances and fire brigade engines were vans from the Gas Company and the Waterworks. Firemen had rigged the hoses in readiness against an outbreak.

‘But not fast enough, it seems,’ Yearling said, when two more bodies were released from the debris.

‘Old people,’ the sergeant said, ‘or a mother trying to save her children.’

Father O’Connor had gone in among the injured. Two other clergymen were already busy. They said to him:

‘The dead have been attended to.’ He went down the line to a young woman whose dark hair was matted with blood. He gave her absolution. But she was barely conscious and kept saying over and over again: ‘The children . . . the children.’ As the rescuers worked, a guard with each party kept watch for signs of a further collapse. Bradshaw shuddered and touched Yearling’s arm.

‘They were passed as safe only a month ago. I have the inspector’s letter.’

‘Of course,’ Yearling said. Then he said: ‘You should go home.’

‘How can I leave?’

‘There’s nothing further you can do. When they want you they’ll call on you.’

They were rejoined by Father O’Connor.

‘I’m telling Ralph he should go home.’

‘Of course,’ Father O’Connor agreed. ‘Mrs. Bradshaw will need you.’

‘It’s the railway being so close,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I’ve written several times to them. The vibration affected the foundations.’

They brought him home. Yearling insisted on driving Father O’Connor back to town.

‘Do you think it was the railway?’ Father O’Connor asked.

‘It was neglect and old age,’ Yearling said grimly.

‘But they were passed as safe.’

‘They were condemned long ago—and then reprieved because Ralph knew the right people.’

‘I refuse to believe it,’ Father O’Connor said. He thought of the young woman who had been calling without cease for her children. Would they be found?

‘If there’s an investigation and the truth comes out,’ Yearling said, ‘Bradshaw and certain other gentlemen will be in trouble.’

Father O’Connor said nothing, his mind still occupied with the badly injured woman. He had ministered to her impulsively, without his usual horror of suffering. Pity and compassion and his priestly office had filled his thoughts. For the first time in his life the sight of blood had not frightened him.

The papers said:

‘Appalling Disaster

Tenements Collapse

Families Buried in Debris

Several Killed and Injured

Ruins in Flames’

The fire, Yearling gathered, had broken out after midnight when a tunnel made by the rescuers let air into the smouldering ruins, but the fire brigade kept it under control. A boy of seventeen, Eugene Salmon, who had rescued several children, was killed himself while trying to carry his little sister to safety. A reporter of
Freeman’s Journal
wrote: ‘The two houses numbered 66 and 67 were owned by Mr. Ralph Bradshaw who is also the owner of extensive property elsewhere in the city. His agent, Mr. H. Nichols, informed me yesterday that about two months ago, an official inspection of house No. 66 had been made and he had been directed to carry out certain repairs. This he had done and he states that the improvements were effected to the satisfaction of the inspector.’

At the inquest, the inspector confirmed the agent’s statement. Yearling, reading it, knew that the collapse had been so complete that there could be no evidence left to prove or disprove the inspector’s assertion. Later he received a letter from Bradshaw. He had been too shocked to attend the inquest, he said. He was taking Mrs. Bradshaw abroad for an indefinite period. His agent would handle all that was necessary. He would write soon.

The news headlines of the same day announced the opening of a relief fund.

‘Freeman-Telegraph

Shilling Fund

For Relief of Sufferers

Homeless Families

Destitute Orphans

An Urgent Appeal’

Yearling put Bradshaw’s letter aside and subscribed a thousand shillings. Then he thought again and sent on another thousand shillings, this time with the specific request that it should go to the family of the boy Eugene Salmon. After that he took a walk by the harbour, passing the ruins of the collapsed houses, about which the workmen were building a hoarding. It was a grey day, cold, with a mist blowing in from the sea. He walked towards Sandycove, remembering an October sunset of an earlier year, when the sea had drawn his thoughts towards England and a remote past and Father O’Connor had offered him God as a consolation, as though Christ could be passed around like a plate of sandwiches. The sea again compelled his attention, pounding in now through its grey mist and breaking on its grey rocks, an age old motion, dragging the pebbles after it in its backwash, full of terrible strength but not a brain in its vast bulk, a slave played on by every wind. The wind too was a slave, compounded out of combinations of hotness and coldness. What was there left now of school or university? No wisdom, little companionship, and memories only of an odd escapade. Two sentences ran in his head without relevance, mnemonics taught him by his music teacher when he was a child of about twelve.

‘Good deeds are ever bearing fruits’—the sharp keys.

‘Fat boys eat and drink greedily’—the flat keys.

The information had been useful.

On his return journey he made a slight detour in order to pass the Bradshaws’ house. It was boarded up and he stood to look at it. He regretted the piano inside, now silent, and the absence of the gentle woman who had played it. There was no longer anyone to bring flowers to.

Mary saw it boarded up too. She came to it, unsuspecting, at dusk on a Sunday afternoon. The gate creaked as she opened it, the carriage way was littered with leaves that had been left to rot. In places the wind had piled them into black hillocks. The window that had once framed a view of the splendours of Edward VII was shuttered. She knocked at the side entrance as a matter of form, knowing there was no one at all to answer and knowing too that its clamouring would fill her with terror. There were ghosts inside, ghosts of the Dead, left-behind ghosts of the Living. She forced herself to wait a little while, feeling a shutter might jerk open and that Mr. Bradshaw would glare at her from a curtainless window. She did not dare knock again at the basement door. She feared Miss Gilchrist’s face.

Lamplight and candles showed in the windows of Chandlers Court when she returned home. Rashers limped into the hallway just a little ahead of her, his sandwich boards laid aside because it was Sunday.

Fitz was reading by lamplight. He had the kettle boiling for her on the fire. When he saw her face he left down his book.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘They’ve gone.’

‘The Bradshaws?’

‘The house is all boarded up,’ she said. Her voice was very quiet.

She began to prepare the tea. For the first time since the lockout had begun she had returned empty-handed. The consequences troubled her.

‘It never crossed my mind they’d go away,’ she said to him.

‘It crossed mine,’ Fitz confessed.

‘We’re going to miss their help,’ she said.

He knew that. The furniture, the flooring even, all had come from Mrs. Bradshaw. Food too and at times, he suspected, money. She took down the mugs the children used and put them on the table. Then she sat down suddenly and began to cry. He went to her.

‘Mary,’ he said, ‘we’ll manage. Don’t let it upset you.’

‘You know what’s going to happen,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but we’ll weather that. Others have gone through it already.’

She meant that now the furniture would begin to go, piece by piece, the pictures off the wall, the ornaments she prized because they gave the room an air of comfort and sufficiency.

‘What will we do?’ she asked.

‘We’ll have our tea,’ he told her, ‘it’s not the end of the world.’

He took over the laying of the table and began to cut the bread.

‘Where are the children?’ she asked after a while. She had stopped crying.

‘With Mrs. Mulhall.’

‘I still have the money for their fare . . .’

‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘that’s the only real worry looked after.’

‘Yes. My father would take care of them.’

‘If it comes to that,’ he said, ‘but it may not.’

‘You wouldn’t mind?’

‘When you feel the time has come—say so. Is that all right?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She took over the making of the tea again.

‘This will be ready in a moment,’ she told him.

‘I’ll go up and call the children,’ he said.

When he had gone she paused for some time to measure their new situation. She turned down the lamp a little to husband the oil. Then she resumed her work.

When it became necessary Mrs. Hennessy conducted her to the pawnshop. They packed the pram with two chairs and a small selection of ornaments. Rashers was ringing his bell and entertaining the queue. His sandwich boards announced to the world that the value obtainable at The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment was superior to any other in the city. He had a rigmarole which he repeated over and over again. As Mary and Mrs. Hennessy joined the queue he rang his bell and called out to them.

‘Now ladies step along lively with no shovin’ and no pushin’. First come first served. Don’t give the polis the impression that The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment is the scene of an illegal assembly.’ Then he rang his bell louder and bawled out generally. ‘Hay foot straw foot, Step along and see a live lion stuffed with straw, Eating boiled potatoes raw. Have yiz e’er a blanket to pawn or sell—e’er a table or e’er a chair? Best prices in town for pairs of ornamental pieces.’

‘That fella has a slate loose,’ Mrs. Hennessy decided.

‘I heard that, ma’am,’ Rashers challenged her.

‘It matters little to Ellen Hennessy whether you did or not,’ she said.

‘But I’ll not take issue on it,’ Rashers told the queue, ‘because her husband did his bit in Sackville Street on Bloody Sunday.’

‘What happened him?’ a voice asked.

‘He was walked on be a horse,’ Mrs. Hennessy told her.

‘Which is not half as sore as being walked on be an elephant,’ Rashers said generally. He went off, ringing his bell in triumph.

They queued for over two hours. The women discussed the food kitchens and the arrival of scabs from England. They talked about the health of each other’s children and the way to drive a good bargain with Mr. Silverwater and his assistants. ‘Don’t go near the son if you can avoid it,’ they advised Mary, ‘he’s worse than the oul fella.’ She waited and listened and tried to forget the two chairs and the other articles that were lying in the pram. In bits and pieces from week to week her home would be eaten away. She was standing in line for the first time with the half starved.

‘Your poor children will begin to feel the pinch now,’ Mrs. Hennessy said.

‘If it gets worse I might send them away,’ Mary said.

‘And where would you send them?’

But Mary was sorry she had spoken at all.

‘It’s something I’d have to speak to my husband about first,’ she said.

Rashers limped his way through the poorer streets of the city, ringing his bell and giving out his rigmarole to keep his spirits up and fight the fatigue and the monotony.

‘Step up and see a live lion stuffed with straw, Eating boiled potatoes raw. Have yiz e’er a blanket to pawn or sell, e’er a table or e’er a chair? Best prices in town for pairs of ornamental pieces.’