A Star Called Henry (3 page)

Melody was mystified; she was numb. Woman after woman sat beside her, one on each side, and whispered the deadly secrets into her maiden ears.
Now, if you smell a fancy woman off his coat you should boil it in water with the head of a Malahide mackerel
. She’d gone up the little side aisle in a state of sexual innocence, kissed only by one man and no further. She knew that sex happened, like she knew that God was up there behind the clouds. She knew that women went inside to their houses for a while and came out with babies.
Two good pulls like that now and he’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night
. She’d heard noises under the dark stairs.
He’ll never be off you, you mark my words. With the leg made of wood there the blood needs somewhere else to go
. She was impossibly innocent. Her mother had told her that she’d have to stay in her new home for three whole days after the wedding night. She was ready for the lock-in but she didn’t know why.
A nice leaf of cabbage will do the trick
. She lived bang in the middle of a place that survived on the buying and selling of sex. It was in the air; its stains and howls were everywhere around her, the cries, whoops and gasps, babies and brats crawling over every square foot, brassers and sailors holding up every corner for miles around and, God love her, she’d never noticed. And now, she was being bombarded.
If he makes you do it the way the dogs do you’ll end up with twins or even triplets or more. Unless the straw in your mattress came from under a priest’s horse
. She looked around for her husband, to see if she’d see the monster she was being told about by these calm and bitter women. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t hear him, his laugh or his leg. She couldn’t breathe.
I got this jar of stuff from a Jewman and that got rid of it before I had the lid back on it
. She thought she was going to die, just a few more whispered words would kill her; her tongue was beginning to swell.

She was saved by the fight that broke out when a couple of moochers that nobody knew were caught helping themselves to the bottles of stout.

—Yeh dirty lousers!

Granny Nash jumped onto one of them and bit him on the cheek. His screams saved Melody. She got away from the women. But the sight of her mother hanging on to the poor man’s face filled her with fresh terror. Was this part of the wedding? Would she have to do it? The man was trying to save his face but his arms were stiffened by all the bottles and sandwiches stuffed up his sleeves. His friend was being pounded by Melody’s father, using her new husband’s leg. And her Henry sat on the table guarding the rest of the bottles. The neighbours queued up to have a go at the moochers but Granny Nash wasn’t ready to give up and hand over. She was growling and chomping like a scorched bitch from hell; her dirty old thumbs were crawling across the man’s face, looking for eyes to gouge. Faye was bawling and scratching herself under the table. Old Missis Doody was clapping her hands.

—Seven, EIGHT, open the GATE!

Melody had had enough.

—You’re ruining my day! she screamed.

Granda Nash dropped the leg.

—Sure Jaysis, love, he said.—The day would’ve been ruined altogether if they’d got away with the rest of the bottles.

But the fight was over. The moochers tumbled out the door and down the stairs, whimpering and crying, and they left a trail of blood that the dogs of the district followed and lapped. They also left the bottles, none broken, and most of the sandwiches, some of which could be straightened and eaten. Henry strapped his leg back on and went over to Melody. He had a face on him that was bashful and brave.

—Ready?

—Yes, said Melody.

It was time to go. They said their goodbyes. Melody wouldn’t kiss her mother; the moocher’s blood was still on her chin, her eyes were tiny and mad. They strolled the short walk to their new home. Melody held on to Henry’s arm and began to feel happy again. The air was cool and nice, she was married and walking home. Around a few corners, down a few dark lanes.

To No. 57, Silver Alley.

To a room in 57, Silver Alley. Up two flights of stairs, in the door, the top front room. A room of their own. A room with a window, a good working window that could be opened and closed. It had once been some child’s nursery. A hundred years later, the newly married Smarts felt lucky to have it. They had it to themselves; all this space and peace, they’d never had so much before. They stood at the doorway, getting their breath back, and looked in at their home. They had so much. They had good thick walls and a window. They had a mattress, fresh straw, a chair and a stool. They had a tea chest for the coal and another for a table. They had a window box waiting for flowers. They had a mantelpiece and a blue statue of Mary already up there. They had two cups not too cracked and two plates not cracked at all. They had knives, forks and one spoon. A water bucket, a basin, a good big kettle and a slop bucket. A paraffin lamp and a brand new bar of Sunlight soap. An old biscuit tin for keeping the food and a piece of gauze for over the milk. They had clothes on their backs and some to spare. They had a man who’d call for the rent for the landlord, a policeman called Costello, every Friday at six o’-clock and it didn’t frighten them at all; they’d have the money stacked and ready on the mantelpiece. The floorboards were clean, their window was gleaming. Henry’s everyday leg was parked in a corner. They had a sheet made from flour bags, and sugar sacks for blankets. They’d a bit of bread and cheese in the tin, and a dollop of butter staying fresh in the water bucket. They had everything they needed; they owned it all.

He sat on the chair, she took the stool.

A room of their own. They could close the door and keep out the rest of the house. They could forget the darkness they’d climbed through, the unseen filth that made each step an adventure. They could joke about the banister that wasn’t there when they’d reached for it. They could ignore their drenched sleeves where they’d rubbed along the stairwell and the stench that had risen with them as they’d climbed the stairs. They could comment or not on the bloodied coughs they’d heard coming from the room below them as they’d passed, and could still hear now if they wanted to. They could hear claws in the attic, beyond the sagging ceiling, and claws behind their walls. They sat side by side like they were on a tram and, beautifully shy now that they were married and alone, they looked at the walls and at their window.

The walls were alive, looking back out at them. Crawlers and biters, cities under the layers. If they put their hands to the paper they could feel creeping and shuffling. Melody and Henry thought all walls were like that. They weren’t solid; they were never reliable. There was cow hair in the paste, invented to keep the room warm. It smelt to high heaven and back down to hell.

They looked at the cracked pane of their very own window. They saw the yellowed, blackened newspaper, filling the hole under the sill. The front top room, a room with a view. They could look out and see the world. They could see the smoke floating by, smuts the size of kittens, grey, stinking rain. They could go to their window and see other windows just a few feet in front of them, a big man’s reach over the alley. Houses bending towards each other, hooding the alley below, and ready to topple. Flaking brick and rotten wood; a good wind or a push would bring them down. Sneering replicas of their own room, leaning out towards them, they could see the houses dying. To the right of their window they could see the alley’s missing teeth, three houses that had fallen into fire five years before. Three houses and eighty-seven people, the flames licking Melody and Henry’s window. They could open the window and look down at the alley, at the stray dogs and children, bare feet and rickets, the beatings and evictions, the running dirt and pain. They could look out at their future.
Ah sure, God be with the days
. They could close the window and keep out the dead and the living, the screams and the heartache. Inside, they were happily married. Outside, they were doomed.

Henry and Melody sat on the chair and the stool. They were excited and frightened, frightened and excited. She was sixteen, he was twenty-two. My parents. My mammy and daddy.

I’m just around the corner, gathering steam. I was born in that room, or in a room just like it. I was born into that alley, that city, that small corner of the Empire. I’m looking for the door, trying to find my way in. It’s dark, but I’m nearly there.

 

 

They paid the rent every Friday night. Melody handed it over to Costello the rozzer, a big, fat Dublin Metropolitan policeman who first saw Dublin the day before he started work. He hated the place, the people, their accents and their dirt. They deserved their streets and their slums. Collecting the rent was a nixer. He loved it, especially when there was no rent when he knocked. He had a huge moustache that matched his gut and feet that spanned three parishes.

He counted Melody’s shillings and pennies. He weighed them on his palm, hoped they’d be a little too light.

—Grand so, he said after he’d waited long enough to make Melody worried.

He pocketed the money, dropped it down on top of more money. He wet the top of his pencil.

—Where’s himself the night? he asked as he pretended to write in the notebook he held gently in his mitt.

—He’s at his work, Mister Costello, said Melody.

—His work, said Costello.—He calls it work, does he?

Costello cracked Dublin heads for a living. So did my father. He stood in front of the door of Dolly Oblong’s, the biggest brothel on Faithful Place, bang in the middle of Monto. In her dark room deep inside the house Dolly Oblong, a woman few people had seen, scoured the papers for news of troop movements, stock prices, football results. She knew what boats were on their way, the big race meetings, the date that Ash Wednesday fell on, years in advance. She saw business everywhere; she knew everything. It was said that, in her day, and still a child, she’d brought spunk to the eyes of the Prince of Wales; he’d been brought to her through secret passages that had been dug especially for him. And immediately after that, she’d serviced an unemployed navvy, the Prince’s arse hardly back inside the passage. She’d fucked all classes, colours and creeds and her girls would do the same. She ran a house for all men. All men with the money and the manners.

And that was where my father came in. He stood on the steps all night and kept the peace. There was privacy inside for those who needed it and licence for those who wanted to whoop. The rozzers and clergymen could come and leave under cover of night. The sailors could come at any time they wanted. But they all had to get past my father. He stood there from six till six, all night long. The letter-in and chucker-out. Soldiers, butchers, politicians - they all had to pass his test. He glared at them as they came up the steps. He looked for something in their faces: crankiness, aggro, badness. If he saw it, they didn’t get past him. He was a great big man but there was more to him than that. Compensation for the missing leg, his body had a sharpness that was quickly understood. Sailors with no English turned back when they read the tilt of his shoulders. Rat-arsed aldermen stopped boasting when they saw Henry’s eyebrow lift. Bankers stared at his chest and knew that he was incorruptible. Others just knew him; they knew about him. In one neat hop he’d have the leg off and their heads open and the leg back on before they hit the ground. He was a good bouncer, the king of the bullies. He often went a full week without having to take off the leg. He was polite and agile. He stepped aside and let the men in, the ones with clear faces, decent men looking for a ride or a bit of after-hours singing. They often tipped him. The girls liked him too. They paid him to buy them their cigarettes and sweets. Dolly Oblong would never let them out; she wanted them white-skinned and captured. She called them all Maria; the clients liked it. She hated the coarseness of the girls who stood on the steps all down the street and the snootiness of the flash houses, like the one she’d worked in for years.

He made a living. He walked home at six in the morning, dying for his bed and the weightlessness that arrived when the leg came off. He was reliable, steady, a father crying out for children.

—He calls it work, does he? said Costello.

Every Friday night.

—Yes, Mister Costello, said Melody.

—Looking after hoors is work, is it?

—I don’t know, Mister Costello, said Melody.

He did other things too, my father. He was reliable, he was steady. A man created from his own secrets, he was well able to keep other people’s. He did things for people. Sometimes Henry wasn’t on the steps of Dolly Oblong’s. He was somewhere else. He gave messages, he delivered lessons. He gave lessons that were never forgotten.

Costello gave his money a fat jangle.

—What about you, Missis Smarty? said Costello.—Are you one of his hoors?

—No, I’m not, Mister Costello.

—No, he said.—Sure, who’d want you?

—I’m off, said Henry to Brannigan.

—Fair enough, said Brannigan.

Brannigan watched Henry hop down the steps. He watched, then listened to the leg as Henry disappeared across the street, into the dark. He pushed out his chest to fill the gap left by Henry.

Melody closed the door. Peace at last. For another week. She wished her Henry could stay at home on Fridays, at least until after Mister Costello had gone. It always took her hours to recover. She cleaned the floor. She dusted the statue.

Henry waited. He waited for the message to come to him. There was no such thing as a quiet wooden leg. Sometimes, the tap tap of the approaching leg was message enough; he walked under a window - tap tap - and back, knowing that the money, the promise would be delivered first thing the day after, or quicker. Tonight, though, Henry needed silence. His was the best-known leg in all of Dublin - tap tap. He needed silence. He stood back in the dark. He listened. He heard the shouts and howls from the streets behind him. A baby crying from a window above, a bottle breaking, a batch of cats singing for sex. He was listening for a wheeze. Any minute now. Any second. He knew his man. He knew his week. It was Friday night. Any second now.