The Poor Mouth (4 page)

–Um.

Father Fahrt frowned speculatively.

–What about making a move at Dublin Castle? They could certainly put pressure on the Corporation.

–And get myself locked up? I am not a damned fool.

–Ah! With politics I am not familiar.

–I’m buggered if I can see what’s political about this but those ruffians in the Castle will arrest an Irishman and charge him with treason if his trousers are a bit baggy or he forgot to shave. But here’s an approach that came into my head …

–What is that, Collopy?

–Why not have the whole scandalous situation denounced from the pulpit?

–Oh … dear.

Father Fahrt gave a low, melodious, sardonic laugh.

–The Church’s first concern, Collopy, is with faith and morals. Their application to everyday life is pretty wide but I fear your particular problem is far, far outside the pale. We couldn’t possibly raise such a matter in a church. It might even give scandal. If I were to start forth on the subject in University Church, I think I know what Father Superior would say, not to mention his Grace the Archbishop.

–But, look here——

–No, no, now, Collopy.
Ecclesia locuta, causa finita est.

–Ah well, that’s the way, I suppose, Mr Collopy said with tired resignation. The Church keeps very far from the people in their daily troubles and travail, but by gob it wasn’t like that when we had the Penal Laws, with Paddy Whack keeping a look-out for the soldiery from the top of the ditch on a Sunday morning and the poor pishrogues of peasants below in their rags answering the Hail Mary in Irish. ’Tis too grand you are getting, Father, yourself and your Church.

–I’m afraid there is such a thing as Canon Law, Collopy.

–We have too much law in this country. I even thought of getting in touch with the Freemasons.

–I hope not. It is sinful to have any truck with those people. They despise the Holy Spirit.

–I doubt if they despise women as much as the damned Lord Mayor and his Corporation do.

–There is one remedy I am sure you haven’t tried, Collopy.

Here Father Fahrt urgently scratched again.

–I’m sure there is. Probably thousands. What’s the one remedy?

–Prayer.

–The what was that?

–
Prayer.

–Prayer? I see. You’d never know, we might try that yet. You can move mountains with prayer, I believe, but I’m not trying to move mountains. I’m trying to put a bomb under that Lord Mayor. But there is one very farfetched idea I’ve had and damned if I know would it work. I’d want influence … a word in high places … great tact and plawmaus … perhaps a word of support from his Grace. Indeed it might be a complete and final solution to the whole terrible crux. If it came off I would go on a pilgrimage to Lough Derg in thanksgiving.

–It must be a miracle you’re looking for if you’d go that far, Collopy, Father Fahrt said smiling. And what is this idea of yours?

–Trams, Father.
Trams
. I don’t know how many distinct routes we have here in the city, but say the total is eight. One tram for each route in each direction would suffice, or sixteen trams in all. Old trams repaired and redecorated would do.

–Are you serious, Collopy? Trams?

–Yes, trams. They would have to be distinctive, painted black all over, preferably, and only one sign up front and rear—just the one word WOMEN. Understand? It would be as much as a man’s life was worth to try to get into one of them.

–Well, well. At least this idea is novel. Would there be a charge?

–Very likely there would be a penny fare at the beginning. To look for a free service at the start, that would be idealism. But once we have the cars running, we could start an agitation for the wiping out of the penny fare in the interest of humanity.

–I see.

–I would like you to think this thing over, Father. Let us say that a lady and gentleman are walking down the street and have a mind to go for a stroll in the Phoenix Park. Fair enough. But first one thing has to be attended to. They wait at a tram stop. Lo and behold, along comes the Black Tram. The lady steps on board and away she goes on her own. And the whole beauty of the plan is this:
she can get an ordinary tram back
to rejoin her waiting friend. Do you twig?

–Yes, I think I understand.

–Ah, Father, you don’t know how dear to my heart this struggle is and the peace that will come down on top of my head when it is happily ended for ever. Decent people should look after women—isn’t that right? The weaker sex. Didn’t God make them the same as he made you and me. Father?

–He surely did.

–Then why don’t we give them fair play? Mean to say, you or I can walk into a pub—

–I
beg
your pardon, Collopy. I certainly can
not
walk into a public house. You never saw a priest in a public house in your life.

–Well, I can walk into a pub and indeed I often do.

–Well, well, Collopy, you are full of ideas but I must be moving. I didn’t realize the hour.

–Good enough, but you will call again. Think about what I’ve said. Can I offer you a final glasheen for the road?

–No thanks indeed, Collopy. Good night now lads, and mind the Greek article haw-hee-taw.

In unison:

–Good night, Father Fahrt.

He went out with dignity, Mr Collopy his escort.

I
T
had been a dull autumn day and in the early evening I decided that the weather would make it worth while looking for roach in the canal. My rod was crude enough but I had hooks of a special size which I had put away in a drawer in the bedroom. I got out the rod and went up for a hook. To my surprise the drawer was littered with sixpenny postal orders and also envelopes addressed to the brother describing him as ‘Director, General Georama Gymnasium’. I decided to leave this strange stuff alone, took a hook and went off up along the canal. Perhaps my bait was wrong but I caught nothing and was back home in about an hour. The brother was in the bedroom when I returned, busy writing at the smaller table.

–I was out looking for roach, I remarked, and had to get a hook in that drawer. I see it’s full of sixpenny postal orders.

–Not full, he said genially. There are only twenty-eight. But keep that under your hat.

–Twenty-eight is fourteen bob.

–Yes, but I expect a good few more.

–What’s all this about General Georama Gymnasium?

–Well, it’s my name for the moment, he said.

–What’s Georama?

–If you don’t know what a simple English word means, the Brothers in Synge Street can’t be making much of a hand of you. A georama is a globe representing the earth. Something like what they have in schools. The sound of it goes well with general and gymnasium. That’s why I took it. Join the GGG.

–And where did all those postal orders come from?

–From the other side. I put a small ad. in one of the papers. I want to teach people to walk the high wire.

–Is that what the General Georama Gymnasium is for, for heaven’s sake?

–Yes. And it’s one of the cheapest courses in the world. A great number of people want to walk the high wire and show off. Some of them may be merely mercenary and anxious to make an easy, quick fortune with some great circus.

–And are you teaching them this by post?

–Well, yes.

–What’s going to happen if one of them falls and gets killed?

–A verdict of death by misadventure, I suppose. But it’s most unlikely because I don’t think any of them will dare to get up on the wire any distance from the ground. If they’re young their parents will stop them. If they’re old, rheumatism, nerves and decayed muscles will make it impossible.

–Do you mean you’re going to have a correspondence course with those people?

–No. They get a copy of my four-page book of instructions. Price sixpence only. It’s for nothing. A packet of fags and a box of matches would cost you nearly that, and no fag would give you the thrill of thinking about the high wire.

–This looks to me like a swindle.

–Rubbish. I’m only a bookseller. The valuable instructions and explanations are given by Professor Latimer Dodds. And he has included warnings of the danger as well.

–Who is Professor Latimer Dodds?

–A retired trapeze and high wire artist.

–I never heard of him.

–Here, take a look at the course yourself. I’m posting off copies just now to my clients.

I took the crudely-printed folder he handed me and put it in my pocket, saying that I would look over it later and make sure that Mr Collopy didn’t see it. I didn’t want the brother to appraise my reactions to his handiwork, for already I had a desire to laugh. Downstairs, Mr Collopy was out and Annie was in the bedroom colloguing with Mrs Crotty. I lit the gas and there and then had a sort of free lesson on how to walk the high wire. The front page or cover read ‘T
HE
H
IGH
W
IRE-—
Nature Held at Bay—Spine-chilling Spectacle Splenetises Sporting Spectators—By Professor H. Q. Latimer Dodds’.

Lower down was the title of the Gymnasium and our own address. There was no mention of the brother by name but a note said ‘Consultations with the Director by appointment only’. I was horrified to think of strangers calling and asking Mr Collopy to be good enough to make an appointment for them with the Director of the Gymnasium.

The top of the left inside page had a Foreword which I think I may quote:

‘It were folly to asseverate that periastral peripatesis on the
aes ductile,
or wire, is destitute of profound peril not only to sundry
membra,
or limbs, but to the back and veriest life itself. Wherefore is the reader most graciously implored to abstain from
le risque majeur
by first submitting himself to the most perspicacious scrutiny by highly-qualified physician or surgeon for, in addition to anatomical verifications, evidence of Ménière’s Disease, caused by haemorrhage into the equilibristic labyrinth of the ears, causing serious nystagmus and insecurity of gait. If giddiness is suspected to derive from gastric disorder, resort should be had to bromide of potassium, acetanilide, bromural or chloral. The aural labyrinth consists of a number of membranous chambers and tubes immersed in fluid residing in the cavity of the inner ear, in mammals joined to the cochlea. The membranous section of the labyrinth consists of two small bags, the saccule and the utricle, and three semi-circular canals which open into it. The nerves which supply the labyrinth end with a number of cells attired in hair-like projections which, when grouped, form the two otolith organs in the saccule and utricle and the three
cristae
of the semi-circular canals. In the otolith organs the hair-like protruberances are embedded in a gelatinous mess containing calcium carbonate. The purpose of this grandiose apparatus, so far as
homo sapiens
is concerned, is the achievement of remaining in an upright posture, one most desirable in the case of a performer on the high wire who is aloft and far from the ground.

I found that conscientiously reading that sort of material required considerable concentration. I do not know what it means and I have no doubt whatever that the brother’s ‘clients’ will not know either.

The actual instructions as to wire-walking were straightforward enough. Perhaps it was the brother’s own experience (for he was undoubtedly Professor Latimer Dodds) which made him advise a bedroom as the scene of opening practices. The wire was to be slung about a foot from the floor between two beds very heavily weighted ‘with bags of cement, stone, metal safes or other ponderous objects’. When the neophyte wire-walker was ready to begin practice, the massive bedsteads were to be dragged apart by ‘friends’, so that the necessary tension of the wire would be established and maintained. ‘If it happens that the weight on a bed turns out to be insufficient to support the weight of the performer on the wire, the friends should sit or lie on the bed.’ Afterwards practice was transferred to ‘the orchard’ where two stout adjacent fruit trees were to be the anchors of the wire, the elevation of which was to be gradually increased. The necessity for daily practice was emphasized and (barring accidents) a good result was promised in three months. A certain dietetic regimen was prescribed, with total prohibition of alcohol and tobacco, and it was added that even if the student proved absolutely hopeless in all attempts at wire-walking, he would in any event feel immensely improved in health and spirits at the end of that three months.

I hastily put the treatise in my pocket as I heard the steps of Mr Collopy coming in the side-door. He hung his coat up on the back of the door and sat down at the range.

–A man didn’t call about the sewers? he asked.

–The sewers? I don’t think so.

–Ah well, please God he’ll be here tomorrow. He’s going to lay a new connection in the yard, never mind why. He is a decent man by the name of Corless, a great handball player in his day. Where’s that brother of yours?

–Upstairs.

–Upstairs, faith! What is he doing upstairs? Is he in bed?

–No. I think he’s writing.

–Writing? Well, well. Island of Saints and Scholars. Upstairs writing and burning the gas. Tell him to come down here if he wants to write.

Annie came out of the back room.

–Mrs Grotty would like to see you, Father.

–Oh, certainly.

I went upstairs to warn the brother. He nodded grimly and stuffed a great wad of stamped envelopes, ready for the post, under his coat. Then he put out the gas.

M
ANY
months had passed and the situation in our kitchen was as many a time before: myself and the brother were at the table weaving the web of scholarship while Mr Collopy and Father Fahrt were resting themselves at the range with the crock, tumblers and a jug of water between them.

The plumber Corless had long ago come and gone, ripping up the back yard and carrying out various mysterious works, not only there but in Mrs Crotty’s bedroom. Sundry lengths of timber had been delivered for Mr Collopy himself and, since these things went on mostly while the brother and I were at school, we were told by Annie that the hammering and constructional bedlam to be heard from the sick woman’s room were Very sore on the nerves’. It was a point of apathy, or tact, or safety-first with the brother and myself to ask no questions as to what was afoot or evince any curiosity. ‘They might only be making a coffin,’ the brother said to me, ‘and of course that’s a very religious business. People can be very sensitive there. We are better minding our own business.’