Collected Short Stories (2 page)

Our Johnny kept pigeons, three white ones and a brown one that could tumble in the air like a leaf. They were nice pigeons, but they dirtied the slates and cooed so early in the morning that my Daddy said that someday he would wring their bloody necks. That is a long while ago now, for we still have the pigeons, but Johnny is dead; he died for Ireland.

Whenever I think of our Johnny I always think of Saturday. Nearly every Saturday night he had something for me, maybe sweets, a toy train, a whistle, or glass marbles with rainbows inside them. I would be in bed when he'd come home; I always tried to keep awake, but my eyes wouldn't let me – they always closed tight when I wasn't thinking. We both slept together in the wee back room, and when Johnny came up to bed he always lit the gas, the gas that had no mantle. If he had something for me he would shake me and say: ‘Frankie, Frankie, are you asleep?' My eyes would be very gluey and I would rub them with my fists until they would open in the gaslight. For a long while I would see gold needles sticking out of the flame, then they would melt away and the gas become like a pansy leaf with a blue heart. Johnny would be standing beside the bed and I would smile all blinky at him. Maybe he'd stick a sweet in my mouth, but if I hadn't said my prayers he'd lift me out on to the cold, cold floor. When I would be jumping in again in my shirt tails, he would play whack at me and laugh if he got me. Soon he would climb into bed and tell me about the ice-cream shops, and the bird-shop that had funny pigeons and rabbits and mice in the window. Someday he was going to bring me down the town and buy me a black and white mouse, and a custard bun full of ice-cream. But he'll never do it now because he died for Ireland.

On Saturdays, too, I watched for him at the back door when he was coming from work. He always came over the waste ground, because it was the shortest. His dungarees would be all shiny, but they hadn't a nice smell. I would pull them off him, and he would lift me on to his shoulder, and swing me round and round until my head got light and the things in the kitchen went up and down. My Mammie said he had me spoilt. He always gave me pennies on Saturday, two pennies, and I bought a liquorice pipe with one penny and kept the other for Sunday. Then he would go into the cold scullery to wash his black hands and face; he would stand at the sink, scrubbing and scrubbing and singing ‘The Old Rusty Bridge by the Mill', but if you went near him he'd squirt soap in your eye. After he had washed himself, we would get our Saturday dinner, the dinner with the sausages because it was pay-day. Johnny used to give me a bit of his sausages, but if my Mammie saw me she'd slap me for taking the bite out of his mouth. It was a long, long wait before we went out to the yard to the pigeons.

The pigeon-shed was on the slates above the closet. There was a ladder up to it, but Johnny wouldn't let me climb for fear I'd break my neck. But I used to climb up when he wasn't looking. There was a great flutter and flapping of wings when Johnny would open the trap-door to let them out. They would fly out in a line, brownie first and the white ones last. We would lie on the waste ground at the back of our street watching them fly. They would fly round and round, rising higher and higher each time. They would fly so high we would blink our eyes and lose them in the blue sky. But Johnny always found them first. ‘I can see them, Frankie,' he would say. ‘Yonder they are. Look! Above the brickyard chimney.' He would put his arm around my neck, pointing with his outstretched hand. I would strain my eyes, and at last I would see them, their wings flashing in the sun as they turned towards home. They were great fliers. But brownie would get tired and he would tumble head over heels like you'd think he was going to fall. The white ones always flew down to him, and Johnny would go wild. ‘He's a good tumbler, but he won't let the others fly high. I think I'll sell him.' He would look at me, plucking at the grass, afraid to look up. ‘Ah, Frankie,' he would say, ‘I won't sell him. Sure I'm only codding.' All day we would sit, if the weather was good, watching our pigeons flying, and brownie doing somersaults. When they were tired they would light on the blue slates, and Johnny would throw corn up to them. Saturday was a great day for us and for our pigeons, but it was on Saturday that Johnny died for Ireland.

We were lying, as usual, at the back, while the pigeons were let out for a fly round. It was a lovely sunny day. Every house had clothes out on the lines, and the clothes were fluttering in the breeze. Some of the neighbours were sitting at their backdoors, nursing babies or darning socks. They weren't nice neighbours for they told the rent-man about the shed on the slates, and he made us pay a penny a week for it. But we didn't talk much to them, for we loved our pigeons, and on that lovely day we were splitting our sides laughing at the way brownie was tumbling, when a strange man in a black hat and burberry coat came near us. Johnny jumped up and went to meet him. I saw them talking, with their heads bent towards the ground, and then the strange man went away. Johnny looked very sad and he didn't laugh at brownie any more. He gave me the things out of his pockets, a penknife, a key, and a little blue note-book with its edges all curled. ‘Don't say anything to Mammie. Look after the pigeons, Frankie, until I come back. I won't be long.' He gave my hand a tight squeeze, then he walked away without turning round to wave at me.

All that day I lay out watching the pigeons, and when I got tired I opened the note-book. It had a smell of fags and there was fag-dust inside it. I could read what he had written down:

Corn ………………....... 2-6d

Club ……………......…. 6d

3 Pkts Woodbine …. 6d

Frankie ………….....…. 2d

He had the same thing written down on a whole lot of pages; if he had been at school he would have got slapped for wasting the good paper. I put the note-book in my pocket when my Mammie called me for my tea. She asked me about Johnny and I told her he wouldn't be long until he was back. Then it got late. The pigeons flew off the slates and into the shed, and still Johnny didn't come back.

It came on night. My sisters were sent out to look for him. My Daddy came home from work. We were all in now, my two sisters and Mammie and Daddy, everyone except Johnny. Daddy took out his pipe with the tin lid, but he didn't light it. We were all quiet, but my mother's hands would move from her lap to her chin, and she was sighing. The kettle began humming and shuffling the lid about, and my Daddy lifted it off the fire and placed it on the warm hob. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed eleven and my sisters blessed themselves – it got a soul out of Purgatory when you did that. They forgot all about my bed-time and I was let stay up though my eyes felt full of sand. The rain was falling. We could hear it slapping in the yard and trindling down the grate. It was a blowy night for someone's back-door was banging, making the dogs bark. The newspapers that lay on the scullery floor to keep it clean began to crackle up and down with the wind till you'd have thought there was a mouse under them. A bicycle bell rang in the street outside our kitchen window and it made Mammie jump. Then a motor rattled down, shaking the house and the vases on the shelf. My Daddy opened the scullery door and went into the yard. The gas blinked and a coughing smell of a chimney burning came into the kitchen. I'm sure it was Mrs Ryan's. She always burned hers on a wet night. If the peelers caught her she'd be locked in jail, for you weren't allowed to burn your own chimney.

I wish Daddy would burn ours. It was nice to see him putting the bunch of lighted papers on the yard-brush and sticking them up the wide chimney. The chimney would roar, and if you went outside you'd see lines of sparks like hot wires coming out and the smoke bubbling over like lemonade in a bottle. But he wouldn't burn it tonight, because we were waiting on Johnny.

‘Is there any sign of him?' said Mammie, when Daddy came in again.

‘None yet; but he'll be all right; he'll be all right. We'll say the prayers, and he'll be in before we're finished.'

We were just ready to kneel when a knock came to the back door. It was a very dim knock and we all sat still, listening. ‘That's him, now,' said Daddy, and I saw my mother's face brightening. Daddy went into the yard and I heard the stiff bar on the door opening and feet shuffling. ‘Easy now: easy now,' said someone. Then Daddy came in, his face as white as a sheet. He said something to Mammie. ‘Mother of God, it isn't true – it isn't!' she said. Daddy turned and sent me up to bed.

Up in the wee room I could see down into the yard. The light from the kitchen shone into it and I saw men with black hats and the rain falling on them like little needles, but I couldn't see our Johnny. I looked up at the shed on the slates, the rain was melting down its sides, and the wet felt was shining like new boots. When I looked into the yard again, Daddy was bending over something. I got frightened and went into my sisters' room. They were crying and I cried, too, while I sat shivering in my shirt and my teeth chattering. ‘What's wrong?' I asked. But they only cried and said: ‘Nothing, son. Nothing. Go to sleep, Frankie, like a good little boy.' My big sister put me into her bed, and put the clothes around me and stroked my head. Then she lay on the top of the bed beside me, and I could feel her breathing heavily on my back. Outside it was still blowy for the wind was kicking an empty salmon-tin which rattled along the street. For a long time I listened to the noises the wind made, and then I slept.

In the morning when I opened my eyes I wondered at finding myself in my sisters' room. It was very still: the blinds were down and the room was full of yellow light. I listened for the sound of plates, a brush scrubbing, or my big sister singing. But I heard nothing, neither inside the house nor outside it. I remembered about last night, my sisters crying because our Johnny didn't come home. I sat up in bed; I felt afraid because the house was strange, and I got out and went into the wee back room.

The door was open and there was yellow light in it, too, and the back of the bed had white cloth and I couldn't see over it. Then I saw my Mammie in the room sitting on a chair. She stretched out her arms and I ran across and knelt beside her, burying my face in her lap. She had on a smooth, black dress, and I could smell the camphor balls off it, the smell that kills the moths, the funny things with no blood and no bones that eat holes in your jersey. There were no holes in Mammie's dress. She rubbed my head with her hands and said: ‘You're the only boy I have now.' I could hear her heart thumping very hard, and then she cried, and I cried and cried, with my head down on her lap. ‘What's wrong, Mammie?' I asked, looking up at her wet eyes. ‘Nothing, darling: nothing, pet. He died for Ireland.' I turned my head and looked at the bed. Johnny was lying on the white bed in a brown dress. His hands were pale and they were joined around his rosary beads, and a big crucifix between them. There was a big lump of wadding at the side of his head and wee pieces up his nose. I cried more and more, and then my Mammie made me put on my clothes, and go downstairs for my breakfast.

All that day my Mammie stayed in the room to talk to the people that came to see our Johnny. And all the women shook hands with Mammie and they all said the same thing: ‘I'm sorry for your trouble, but he died for his country.' They knelt beside the white bed and prayed, and then sat for a while looking at Johnny, and speaking in low whispers. My sisters brought them wine and biscuits, and some of them cried when they were taking it, dabbing their eyes with their handkerchiefs or the tails of their shawls. Mrs McCann came and she got wine, too, though she had told the rent man about the shed on the slates and we had to pay a penny a week. I was in the wee room when she came, and I saw her looking at the lighted candles and the flowers on the table, and up at the gas that had no mantle. But she couldn't see it because my big sister had put white paper over it, and she had done the same with the four brass knobs on the bed. She began to sniff and sniff and my Mammie opened the window without saying anything. The blind began to snuffle in and out, the lighted candles to waggle, and the flowers to smell. We could hear the pigeons cooing and flapping in the shed, and I could see, at the back of my eyes, their necks fattening and their feathers bristling like a dog going to fight. It's well Daddy didn't hear them or he might have wrung their necks.

At night the kitchen was crammed with men and women, and many had to sit in the cold scullery. Mrs Ryan, next door, lent us her chairs for the people to sit on. There was lemonade and biscuits and tea and porter. Some of the men, who drank black porter, gave me pennies, and they smoked and talked all night. The kitchen was full of smoke and it made your eyes sting. One man told my Daddy he should be a proud man, because Johnny had died for the Republic. My Daddy blinked his eyes when he heard this, and he got up and went into the yard for a long time.

The next day was the funeral. Black shiny horses with their mouths all suds, and silver buckles on their straps, came trotting into the street. All the wee lads were looking at themselves in the glossy backs of the cabs where you could see yourself all fat and funny like a dwarf. I didn't play, because Johnny was dead and I had on a new dark suit. Jack Byrne was out playing and he told me that we had only two cabs and that there were three cabs at his Daddy's funeral. There were crowds of peelers in the street, some of them talking to tall, red-faced men with overcoats and walking sticks.

Three men along with my Daddy carried the yellow coffin down the stairs. There was a green, white, and gold flag over it. But a thin policeman, with a black walking stick and black leggings, pulled the flag off the coffin when it went into the street. Then a girl snatched the flag out of the peeler's hands and he turned all pale. At the end of our street there were more peelers and every one wore a harp with a crown on his cap. Brother Gabriel used to fairly wallop us in school if we drew harps with crowns on them. One day we told him the peelers wore them on their caps. ‘Huh!' he said, ‘The police! the police! They don't love their country. They serve England. England, my boys! The England that chased our people to live in the damp bogs! The England that starved our ancestors till they had to eat grass and nettles by the roadside. And our poor priests had to say Mass out on the cold mountains! No, my dear boys, never draw a harp with a crown on it!' And then he got us to write in our books: