Collected Stories (35 page)

Suddenly the front door banged open and Mother stormed in with Sonny in her arms, not her usual gentle, timid self, but a wild, raging woman. It was clear that she had heard it all from the neighbors.

“Mick Delaney,” she cried hysterically, “what did you do to my son?”

“Whisht, woman, whisht, whisht!” he hissed, dancing from one foot to the other. “Do you want the whole road to hear?”

“Ah,” she said with a horrifying laugh, “the road knows all about it by this time. The road knows the way you filled your unfortunate innocent child with drink to make sport for you and that other rotten, filthy brute.”

“But I gave him no drink,” he shouted, aghast at the horrifying interpretation the neighbors had chosen to give his misfortune. “He took it while my back was turned. What the hell do you think I am?”

“Ah,” she replied bitterly, “everyone knows what you are now. God forgive you, wasting our hard-earned few ha'pence on drink, and bringing up your child to be a drunken corner-boy like yourself.”

Then she swept into the bedroom and threw herself on her knees by the bed. She moaned when she saw the gash over my eye. In the kitchen Sonny set up a loud bawl on his own, and a moment later Father appeared in the bedroom door with his cap over his eyes, wearing an expression of the most intense self-pity.

“That's a nice way to talk to me after all I went through,” he whined. “That's a nice accusation, that I was drinking. Not one drop of drink crossed my lips the whole day. How could it when he drank it all? I'm the one that ought to be pitied, with my day ruined on me, and I after being made a show for the whole road.”

But next morning, when he got up and went out quietly to work with his dinner-basket, Mother threw herself on me in the bed and kissed me. It seemed it was all my doing, and I was being given a holiday till my eye got better.

“My brave little man!” she said with her eyes shining. “It was God did it you were there. You were his guardian angel.”

Christmas Morning

I
NEVER
really liked my brother, Sonny. From the time he was a baby he was always the mother's pet and always chasing her to tell her what mischief I was up to. Mind you, I was usually up to something. Until I was nine or ten I was never much good at school, and I really believe it was to spite me that he was so smart at his books. He seemed to know by instinct that this was what Mother had set her heart on, and you might almost say he spelt himself into her favor.

“Mummy,” he'd say, “will I call Larry in to his t-e-a?” or: “Mummy, the k-e-t-e-l is boiling,” and, of course, when he was wrong she'd correct him, and next time he'd have it right and there would be no standing him. “Mummy,” he'd say, “aren't I a good speller?” Cripes, we could all be good spellers if we went on like that!

Mind you, it wasn't that I was stupid. Far from it. I was just restless and not able to fix my mind for long on any one thing. I'd do the lessons for the year before, or the lessons for the year after: what I couldn't stand were the lessons we were supposed to be doing at the time. In the evenings I used to go out and play with the Doherty gang. Not, again, that I was rough, but I liked the excitement, and for the life of me I couldn't see what attracted Mother about education.

“Can't you do your lessons first and play after?” she'd say, getting white with indignation. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself that your baby brother can read better than you.”

She didn't seem to understand that I wasn't, because there didn't seem to me to be anything particularly praiseworthy about reading, and it struck me as an occupation better suited to a sissy kid like Sonny.

“The dear knows what will become of you,” she'd say. “If only you'd stick to your books you might be something good like a clerk or an engineer.”

“I'll be a clerk, Mummy,” Sonny would say smugly.

“Who wants to be an old clerk?” I'd say, just to annoy him. “I'm going to be a soldier.”

“The dear knows, I'm afraid that's all you'll ever be fit for,” she would add with a sigh.

I couldn't help feeling at times that she wasn't all there. As if there was anything better a fellow could be!

Coming on to Christmas, with the days getting shorter and the shopping crowds bigger, I began to think of all the things I might get from Santa Claus. The Dohertys said there was no Santa Claus, only what your father and mother gave you, but the Dohertys were a rough class of children you wouldn't expect Santa to come to anyway. I was rooting round for whatever information I could pick up about him, but there didn't seem to be much. I was no hand with a pen, but if a letter would do any good I was ready to chance writing to him. I had plenty of initiative and was always writing off for free samples and prospectuses.

“Ah, I don't know will he come at all this year,” Mother said with a worried air. “He has enough to do looking after steady boys who mind their lessons without bothering about the rest.”

“He only comes to good spellers, Mummy,” said Sonny. “Isn't that right?”

“He comes to any little boy who does his best, whether he's a good speller or not,” Mother said firmly.

Well, I did my best. God knows I did! It wasn't my fault if, four days before the holidays, Flogger Dawley gave us sums we couldn't do, and Peter Doherty and myself had to go on the lang. It wasn't for love of it, for, take it from me, December is no month for mitching, and we spent most of our time sheltering from the rain in a store on the quays. The only mistake we made was imagining we could keep it up till the holidays without being spotted. That showed real lack of foresight.

Of course, Flogger Dawley noticed and sent home word to know what was keeping me. When I came in on the third day the mother gave me a look I'll never forget, and said: “Your dinner is there.” She was too full to talk. When I tried to explain to her about Flogger Dawley and the sums she brushed it aside and said: “You have no word.” I saw then it wasn't the langing she minded but the lies, though I still didn't see how you could lang without lying. She didn't speak to me for days. And even then I couldn't make out what she saw in education, or why she wouldn't let me grow up naturally like anyone else.

To make things worse, it stuffed Sonny up more than ever. He had the air of one saying: “I don't know what they'd do without me in this blooming house.” He stood at the front door, leaning against the jamb with his hands in his trouser pockets, trying to make himself look like Father, and shouted to the other kids so that he could be heard all over the road.

“Larry isn't left go out. He went on the lang with Peter Doherty and me mother isn't talking to him.”

And at night, when we were in bed, he kept it up.

“Santa Claus won't bring you anything this year, aha!”

“Of course he will,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Why wouldn't he?”

“Because you went on the lang with Doherty. I wouldn't play with them Doherty fellows.”

“You wouldn't be left.”

“I wouldn't play with them. They're no class. They had the bobbies up at the house.”

“And how would Santa know I was on the lang with Peter Doherty?” I growled, losing patience with the little prig.

“Of course he'd know. Mummy would tell him.”

“And how could Mummy tell him and he up at the North Pole? Poor Ireland, she's rearing them yet! 'Tis easy seen you're only an old baby.”

“I'm not a baby, and I can spell better than you, and Santa won't bring you anything.”

“We'll see whether he will or not,” I said sarcastically, doing the old man on him.

But, to tell the God's truths the old man was only bluff. You could never tell what powers these superhuman chaps would have of knowing what you were up to. And I had a bad conscience about the langing because I'd never before seen the mother like that.

That was the night I decided that the only sensible thing to do was to see Santa myself and explain to him. Being a man, he'd probably understand. In those days I was a good-looking kid and had a way with me when I liked. I had only to smile nicely at one old gent on the North Mall to get a penny from him, and I felt if only I could get Santa by himself I could do the same with him and maybe get something worth while from him. I wanted a model railway: I was sick of Ludo and Snakes-and-Ladders.

I started to practice lying awake, counting five hundred and then a thousand, and trying to hear first eleven, then midnight, from Shandon. I felt sure Santa would be round by midnight, seeing that he'd be coming from the north, and would have the whole of the South Side to do afterwards. In some ways I was very farsighted. The only trouble was the things I was farsighted about.

I was so wrapped up in my own calculations that I had little attention to spare for Mother's difficulties. Sonny and I used to go to town with her, and while she was shopping we stood outside a toyshop in the North Main Street, arguing about what we'd like for Christmas.

On Christmas Eve when Father came home from work and gave her the housekeeping money, she stood looking at it doubtfully while her face grew white.

“Well?” he snapped, getting angry. “What's wrong with that?”

“What's wrong with it?” she muttered. “On Christmas Eve!”

“Well,” he asked truculently, sticking his hands in his trouser pockets as though to guard what was left, “do you think I get more because it's Christmas?”

“Lord God,” she muttered distractedly. “And not a bit of cake in the house, nor a candle, nor anything!”

“All right,” he shouted, beginning to stamp. “How much will the candle be?”

“Ah, for pity's sake,” she cried, “will you give me the money and not argue like that before the children? Do you think I'll leave them with nothing on the one day of the year?”

“Bad luck to you and your children!” he snarled. “Am I to be slaving from one year's end to another for you to be throwing it away on toys? Here,” he added, tossing two half-crowns on the table, “that's all you're going to get, so make the most of it.”

“I suppose the publicans will get the rest,” she said bitterly.

Later she went into town, but did not bring us with her, and returned with a lot of parcels, including the Christmas candle. We waited for Father to come home to his tea, but he didn't, so we had our own tea and a slice of Christmas cake each, and then Mother put Sonny on a chair with the holy-water stoup to sprinkle the candle, and when he lit it she said: “The light of Heaven to our souls.” I could see she was upset because Father wasn't in—it should be the oldest and youngest. When we hung up our stockings at bedtime he was still out.

Then began the hardest couple of hours I ever put in. I was mad with sleep but afraid of losing the model railway, so I lay for a while, making up things to say to Santa when he came. They varied in tone from frivolous to grave, for some old gents like kids to be modest and well-spoken, while others prefer them with spirit. When I had rehearsed them all I tried to wake Sonny to keep me company, but that kid slept like the dead.

Eleven struck from Shandon, and soon after I heard the latch, but it was only Father coming home.

“Hello, little girl,” he said, letting on to be surprised at finding Mother waiting up for him, and then broke into a self-conscious giggle. “What have you up so late?”

“Do you want your supper?” she asked shortly.

“Ah, no, no,” he replied. “I had a bit of pig's cheek at Daneen's on my way up.” (Daneen was my uncle.) “I'm very fond of a bit of pig's cheek.… My goodness, is it that late?” he exclaimed, letting on to be astonished. “If I knew that I'd have gone to the North Chapel for midnight Mass. I'd like to hear the
Adeste
again. That's a hymn I'm very fond of—a most touching hymn.”

Then he began to hum it falsetto.

“Adeste fideles

Solus domus dagus.”

Father was very fond of Latin hymns, particularly when he had a drop in, but as he had no notion of the words he made them up as he went along, and this always drove Mother mad.

“Ah, you disgust me!” she said in a scalded voice, and closed the room door behind her. Father laughed as if he thought it a great joke; and he struck a match to light his pipe and for a while puffed at it noisily. The light under the door dimmed and went out but he continued to sing emotionally.

“Dixie medearo

Tutum tonum tantum

Venite adoremus.”

He had it all wrong but the effect was the same on me. To save my life I couldn't keep awake.

Coming on to dawn, I woke with the feeling that something dreadful had happened. The whole house was quiet, and the little bedroom that looked out on the foot and a half of back yard was pitch-dark. It was only when I glanced at the window that I saw how all the silver had drained out of the sky. I jumped out of bed to feel my stocking, well knowing that the worst had happened. Santa had come while I was asleep, and gone away with an entirely false impression of me, because all he had left me was some sort of book, folded up, a pen and pencil, and a tuppenny bag of sweets. Not even Snakes-and-Ladders! For a while I was too stunned even to think. A fellow who was able to drive over rooftops and climb down chimneys without getting stuck—God, wouldn't you think he'd know better?

Then I began to wonder what that foxy boy, Sonny, had. I went to his side of the bed and felt his stocking. For all his spelling and sucking-up he hadn't done so much better, because, apart from a bag of sweets like mine, all Santa had left him was a popgun, one that fired a cork on a piece of string and which you could get in any huxter's shop for sixpence.

All the same, the fact remained that it was a gun, and a gun was better than a book any day of the week. The Dohertys had a gang, and the gang fought the Strawberry Lane kids who tried to play football on our road. That gun would be very useful to me in many ways, while it would be lost on Sonny who wouldn't be let play with the gang, even if he wanted to.