Rainbow's End (26 page)

They arrived, panting, in Dally Court to find complete bedlam. The tenement in which she had been born and raised was a great, still smoking pile of bricks. Neighbours were digging around, moving bricks, calling . . . and bodies were laid out in a neat row over by the next block.

Maggie stood very still, clutching her throat, then recognised one of the searchers. ‘Patsy!’ she called. ‘Patsy, it’s me, Maggie McVeigh. What’s happened? Where’s . . . where’s me family?’

Patsy Craven came over to her. His face was black, save for two white trails which ran from either eye. He was crying.

‘Maggie? Sure an’ ’tis yourself,’ he said brokenly. ‘They’re dead, all of ’em. Not one saved so far . . . Biddy’s gone, Carrie, your mam . . .’

Maggie said, panting, ‘I don’t believe you! You’re coddin’ me!’ and broke free from Conn’s restraining arm. She ran across to where the bodies had been laid and fell to her knees, gabbling a prayer as she did so. And saw for herself.

Biddy, her face smooth and calm but her body hideously broken. Carrie, the same. Clodagh, the same. Her mother, the same.

Maggie gave a terrible scream and began to say it was all her fault, that if only she’d agreed to live at home . . .

A voice, gentle, persuasive, was in her ear, an arm was around her waist. ‘Come along now, there’s no good in talkin’ like that. Come on, I’m goin’ to tek you home, you can’t do no good here. Dear God, your hands is like ice . . . here, put this on.’

Something warm was thrown round her shoulders and the arm around her waist steadied her, then began to lead her away. She made no effort to break free, she just kept crying and saying over and over: ‘If only I’d come home! If only I’d been with them I could have warned them . . . Oh, if only I’d been livin’ at home!’

Liam had to pass Henry Street on his way to work, so he popped in to see whether Maggie was still there, but she wasn’t. Old Mrs Collins cooeed to him, however, ‘Well, if it isn’t young Liam Nolan, lookin’ fine as fivepence in ‘is uniform. Huntin’ for Maggie, are you, me laddo? Well, she’s gone off to get them brothers of yours off to school, so you’ve missed her.’

‘Never mind; how did she get on last night?’ Liam enquired, more out of politeness than anything, because he guessed by the fact that Mrs Collins’s stall was up and doing that Maggie had stayed the course. Not that he had any idea that she might not have done so; not Maggie. She wasn’t a girl to give up easy and she was looking forward to her night on the pavement, he knew it. To stay out all night was an adventure for a girl, he supposed tolerantly.

‘She got on very well, very well indeed,’ Mrs Collins said and gave a sudden sharp cackle. ‘Found ’erself a feller, so she did.’

‘What, here?’ Liam said, gesturing around him. Most of the stall-holders were elderly.

‘Aye, here,’ Mrs Collins said, ruffling up. ‘We ain’t all in our dotage, ye cheeky varmint! Other people beside meself got a helper in . . . they went off together, did Maggie an’ Conn.’

‘Who’s Conn?’ Liam asked. Despite himself his voice was redolent of suspicion, with just a touch of outrage. He might not want Maggie himself, but it now occurred to him that he didn’t want anyone else to have her either. Not that she would have shown an interest in another feller, now he came to think of it. She never had, so why should she do so now?’

The old man who sold watches had been setting his wares out enticingly on a piece of worn black velvet, but hearing Liam’s question he stopped what he was doing and pushed his old cap to the back of his head. ‘Conn’s me nephew from Connemara, come into town to visit for a while,’ he explained. Then he leered at Liam. ‘They spent the night together, did Conn an’ Maggie McVeigh. They went off together when it got light, an’ all.’

‘She’ll have took him back to Claymore Alley, no doubt, for a mouthful o’ breakfast,’ Liam said. He meant to sound sarcastic but merely succeeded in sounding spiteful. ‘Well, I must be on me way.’

He was half-way down the street before it occurred to him that he’d not asked one rather important question. He turned back. ‘This Conn,’ he said loudly. ‘How old would he be? Thirteen? Fourteen?’

‘Twenty, an’ he’s a handsome lad, so he is,’ the old watch-seller said. ‘Black hair, eyes like coal . . . oh aye, the maids all try to catch our Conn’s eye, but your Maggie did it wit’out even tryin’.’

Liam nodded casually and retraced his steps, telling himself that it didn’t matter if Conn was as handsome as a film star, Maggie wouldn’t go throwin’ herself at the feller’s head. And if she did, wouldn’t it be a blessin’ in disguise now, for it would nail, once an’ for all, her ideas about bein’ in love wit’ himself, so it would.

The trouble was, it preyed on his mind. All through the long, cold day, as he cycled out into the countryside, delivering letters, accepting parcels, until he finally rode in again in the dark with his lamp almost obscured by the bobbing forms of geese and ducks tied to his handlebars and eclipsing his big bicycle basket, Liam thought about Maggie. In fact, by the time he turned his steps for home he was getting in quite a state. How dared she! It was all very well to fall in love wit’ a feller an’ make his life a misery, but then to turn round an’ go off wit’ someone else, someone she’d not set eyes on until a few hours ago . . . well, that was enough, Liam told himself crossly, to annoy a saint.

As he passed Henry Street the traders were packing up their stalls. Mrs Collins had gone, though her board still lay on the pavement, advertising the price of cabbage and how many oranges you might have for tuppence. Liam didn’t want to appear too interested in the traders, so having checked that Maggie was not amongst them he went past with his head averted. She would be at home then, getting the evening meal; he’d find out all about this feller Conn quite soon, then.

As Liam began to cross the Ha’penny Bridge a newsboy came towards him with a pile of
Dublin Heralds.
He was shouting something in the usual garbled fashion of such boys about a great disaster, but Liam was not tempted to buy a paper. There was always a great disaster somewhere and his own small disaster was occupying all his attention right now. Maggie’s defection. And this Conn feller whom she apparently found so attractive that she’d gone off with him when Mrs Collins had arrived to take care of the stall.

Along the quays, into Church Street and along Thomas Street Liam trudged. His arms ached from wrestling with the weight of his overladen bicycle, his legs from the effort of pedalling it along. And his heart ached . . . not, he reminded himself, because it was in any way involved with Maggie or whom she liked or disliked, but because he was disappointed in her, so he was. Fickleness was a feminine attribute, everyone knew that, but he’d not suspected that Maggie could be fickle.

Reaching Claymore Alley, he slowed; doubtless the twins would be around somewhere, playing with their pals. He would ask them, casual-like, whether they’d met Maggie’s new friend, what he was like and so on. The twins would tell him.

The only snag to this plan was that the twins were not in evidence outside the tenement building, nor was Ticky. Liam looked, but he couldn’t see them anywhere. Other kids were playing; there was a football game in progress between the buildings and despite the fact that it was dark a group of girls were playing pen the pig under the gas light, but there was no sign of members of his own family.

Sighing, Liam made for the stairs. He did not suppose that Maggie would see him and immediately begin to tell him about this feller, this nephew of a common watch-seller, but no doubt she would get round to it if he asked about her night out, made a joke of it.

He opened the door which led into the kitchen. His mother was there, hanging over the stove. She was flushed from the fire, but she looked . . . odd. As though . . . as though she had been crying.

Liam went into the room. ‘Mammy? Where’s Maggie?’

His mother looked up. Her mouth trembled and she put a hand to her throat.

‘Mammy? What’s happened? Where’s Maggie?’ Liam said, thoroughly alarmed. His mother was not a woman to weep unless she had cause. And she was definitely crying – now that he was near enough he could see the tears trickling down her cheeks.

‘Oh, Liam,’ she quavered. ‘Have ye not heard? Have ye not seen the fly-sheets? That bleedin’ buildin’ in Dally Court – bad cess to the landlord, I say – it’s fell down. There’s thirty people dead.’

Liam felt an icy coldness creep all over his body. ‘Maggie? he croaked. ‘Is Maggie . . .’

‘Oh, God be thanked, not Maggie, she was keepin’ Mrs Collins’s place all night in Henry Street, don’t you remember? But her mammy, her sisters . . . the buildin’ fell down durin’ the night, they was all killed.’

‘Oh, Jaysus!’ Liam ejaculated. ‘Oh, the poor kid – where is she now, Mammy?’

‘She’s seein’ to t’ings. I ought to give a hand, but there’s none but meself, now, to make a meal, an’ Kenny’s gone after her, to see if there’s anything he can do. Liam, you’ve always been a good friend to the gorl – you go round there! She’s at Dally Court, they’re still movin’ the rubble, tryin’ . . . oh, all those poor people!’

Liam was still wearing his thick uniform coat. He turned in the doorway and was half-way down the stairs before his mother’s voice came floating after him: ‘Liam, bring her home! Tell her we love her, tell her that this has always been her home and always will be. Bring the poor darlin’ home!’

He found her easily enough. There were a team of them, friends, neighbours, relatives, all digging in the wreckage, moving the towering piles of brick rubble with the tenants’ small possessions scattered or crushed to matchwood amongst them. Maggie was working away with the best, her hair tied back with a length of string, her sleeves rolled up. She was dirty as a coalman but she smiled palely at him and Liam realised that the work was stopping her from brooding.

Kenny, working away beside her, called to him, ‘Hey, Liam . . . have you come to give a hand?’

‘Aye. And to tell the pair of ye to get off home while I take over,’ Liam said bluntly. ‘Maggie, me darlin’, you’ve been here all day Mammy says. It’s time you took a break, so it is.’

‘Can’t,’ Maggie said briefly. ‘There was a sound just now from under here . . . we have to clear it all, every brick.’ She turned back to her work, saying over her shoulder, ‘We’ve had thirty-one of out here now. Fourteen injured, the rest . . .’ She didn’t have to complete the sentence.

‘Any . . . any McVeighs saved?’ Liam said after a pause. The question had to be asked and perhaps bluntly was best.

‘No,’ she said simply. ‘But Aileen left home a while back, she’s workin’ in Dun Laoghaire. I’ve sent a telegram, so she knows. But the others . . . they were all in bed. They may not even have know what was happening, . . . and Conn reckoned it would . . . would have been quick.’

It was not the moment to ask about Conn and Liam, to do him credit, was not tempted to do so. Instead, he glanced across at Maggie as she bent to her task once more. She was pale, dirty and weary, but he could see the grim determination shining through. Liam waited until his brother straightened for a moment, then looked interrogatively at him and gestured towards Maggie. Kenny nodded and said in an undertone, ‘Let her work; it’s best.’

With a sigh, Liam took off his warm coat, rolled up his sleeves and began to move the rubble. ‘Right; it’s all hands to the pump, then,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Where’s the twins?’

Maggie straightened for a moment, a hand to the small of her back. ‘They’ve gone for chips, an’ cups of tea,’ she said briefly. ‘They’ve worked as hard as grown men, Liam, honest to God they have, but you move the rubble faster if you’ve a hot cup of somethin’ inside you. I don’t suppose you’ve had your meal yet?’

‘No,’ Liam said briefly. ‘But I’ll live.’

She nodded. Together, the three of them attacked the next mound of broken bricks.

It was a big wake and the landlord paid for everything, though they said he left the money with a friend; he certainly did not come near Dally Court whilst the clearing of the rubble continued, nor did he send messengers to find out how the clearers were getting on. He had been constantly warned about the state of the building and had done nothing, and now there were sixteen people dead.

Other landlords in the Liberties must have been scared for their lives, for a group of relatives, strong, angry dockers and brewery workers amongst them, went round to the Dally Court landlord’s house the night of the tragedy. They would have killed him if they had caught him, but he had gone. His smart house and his neat garden were empty, and the maid who answered the door to the group said that he’d taken his wife and family away and no one knew when he would return.

‘He’s a murderer!’ someone called out and the girl – for she was no more than sixteen – gasped, whitened and slammed the door shut.

Someone went to the authorities though, and perhaps it was they who arranged the wake and not the landlord at all. But it was given out that it was the landlord, and he was roundly cursed even as they drank his ale and ate his potted-meat sandwiches and great chunks of his gur cake.

‘Miserable old skinflint, he wouldn’t spend a ha’penny to save the dyin’,’ was the general opinion.

The landlord of the houses in Claymore Alley came round, very polite, rubbing his hands, and asked if everything was satisfactory and whether anyone needed repairs doing. Liam, who answered the door that evening, promptly said that they wanted new windows, for the old ones let in every breath of wind, and much to their astonishment a workman came round a few days later and put brand-new windows in.

‘He’ll put up the rent now,’ Mrs Nolan said, but he didn’t. He dared not, the boys told her. He’d heard about the lynch mob which had gone calling on that other landlord and was still shouting for his blood.

Maggie attended the wake and told Mrs Nolan that night that she felt better for it. ‘Cryin’ makes your eyes red, but it eases the pain,’ she said. ‘And there weren’t no moochers – did you notice? Everyone there was a friend, a neighbour, a workmate.’