Strumpet City (34 page)

He managed to get as far as the basement door. While she was opening it another spasm seized him. She found him doubled up and breathless. He stopped, his eyes streaming, unable to ask her. She took his arm and led him into the kitchen. It was spick and span. The red gleam of the fire behind the range reminded him that the furnace would go out if he did not get well quickly enough to attend to it. As it was, the pipes were almost cold. He made a tremendous effort.

‘For the love of God, woman, spare me a thimble of whiskey.’

‘Sit down,’ she said, helping him. He looked about him and recognised the press it was usually kept in. He saw her opening it. When she came back she poured him a stiff measure. He took it slowly, coughing and spluttering over it at first, but becoming easier after a while, until at last he felt he could talk to her.

‘God reward you,’ he offered.

‘I’ll give you a cup of tea.’

‘No, no. The whiskey did the trick. It always does.’

‘The tea will cap it,’ she said.

She prepared it and with it he took some bread and butter. He felt warmer and better after it. Drowsy, too. He had slept very brokenly the night before.

‘I’ll go now and attend the furnace.’

‘You’re a man that shouldn’t be out at all,’ she warned him. Even now his face was a deadly colour. She wondered should she tell Father Giffley.

‘If Rashers stays out, the furnace is out too.’

‘What matter about the furnace.’

‘Am I to let it out and lose my job.’

‘You’re in no condition to be abroad.’

‘It’s only a little turn,’ Rashers said. ‘I’m right as rain now.’

He got up with difficulty and went to the door. It was a pity to have to leave the warm, dry air of the kitchen. It would have been good to curl up and sleep on its flagged floor. He had slept on less comfortable beds.

‘Wait now,’ she called to him.

She put the cork back in the bottle, which was still almost half full of whiskey, and gave it to him.

‘Put it under your coat,’ she warned him.

He looked at it doubtfully.

‘They’ll surely miss it.’

‘Divil the miss.’

‘You’re a good-hearted woman.’

‘I’ll not have your death on my conscience, and that will be the story if you don’t watch yourself.’

Rashers held up the bottle and measured it with his eye.

‘If I die it’ll be of free drink,’ he said. It was an effort. He did not feel in the mood to joke.

The rain had found its way under the broken door and down the first two steps of the boiler house. Beyond that it was dry and dark. He groped for the candle butt, lit it and opened the furnace gate. A thick white ash was all that remained of the coke-dressing, he had spread the previous night. He raked it gently, bringing the live coke to the surface. He threw a shovel full of fresh coke to the back of the furnace. The white ash, disturbed, burst upwards in a dense cloud and flowed into the furnace room. In the light of the candle, against the background darkness, countless white particles began to dance and jostle. Rashers breathed deeply as he lifted the shovel a second time. The dust caught him at the back of the throat and the muscles of his chest convulsed. He threw the spade aside, knelt suddenly on the coke and began another fight for air that seemed endless and doomed to defeat. But it passed. He lay down trembling. There was sweat on his face and under his clothes. Everything had withdrawn to a great distance. The candle flame was a luminous petal which shed no light at all. He remembered the whiskey and drank. The cork fell when he fumbled as he tried to replace it. He drank again, a long slug, for comfort this time, not for medicine. It felt better. With his eyes closed and lying still, it was possible to think a little. If it was Edward VII he would be surrounded by doctors. It did no good, in the heel of the hunt. Maybe a high-up like him wouldn’t chance a drop of whiskey. Champagne or a high-class foreign wine. That was their dish. Rashers slugged again at the bottle and burrowed deeper into the coke stack. Drowsiness crept over him, a murmur in his ears and in his limbs. He dozed while the furnace shared the misfortune of many another in St. Brigid’s and starved to death.

The church suffered. At afternoon devotions, during the recitation of the rosary, the cold and damp penetrated Father Giffley to the bone. On his way into the vestry he touched the pipes with his hand and confirmed his suspicions. In the house he summoned Father O’Connor.

‘Have we a boilerman?’

‘Of course.’

‘The heating system contradicts it.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The church is like an icebox.’

‘I’ll see what is wrong.’

‘You should have done that four or five hours ago.’

Father Giffley went to the press, groped in it and took out a bottle. He half filled a glass.

‘I’m petrified,’ he grumbled.

Father O’Connor, with sinking heart, saw him take it over to the fireside chair where he swallowed most of it with the first mouthful.

‘I’ll find out what has happened,’ he promised.

The courtyard was dark and rain was still falling. He turned up his collar. The image of Father Giffley raising the yellow liquid and swallowing remained vividly with him. It had been so long since that had happened. Was it about to start again: the whiskey after breakfast, the inflamed afternoon face, the sickly and perpetual odour of peppermints? There would come a time when Father Giffley’s weakness could no longer be ignored.

He reached the boiler house and pushed in the broken door. It was pitch dark. Stale coke fumes hung unpleasantly in the cold air. The sound of heavy breathing came from the darkness. It startled him. He called out.

‘Tierney.’

The breathing continued, its rhythm uninterrupted. He picked his way gingerly down the remaining steps, struck a match and found a stump of candle. Beside it the earlier one had guttered to death. Its grease dribbles clung to the ledge and spread in knuckled streams down the side of the wall.

‘Tierney,’ Father O’Connor called again.

He held the candle above the sleeping figure and bent down. The sight horrified him. Rashers’ mouth had fallen open. The teeth in it were yellow and rose crookedly from the narrow gums. The empty whiskey bottle was in his right hand. He had been incontinent in his sleep. Father O’Connor recoiled from the strong smell of urine. He prodded Rashers with his foot.

‘Tierney,’ he called.

He was tempted to kick at the prostrate horror. Was the whole of Ireland possessed by Drink; had it become an unwashed wretch on a slag-heap, grasping an empty bottle by the neck? What right had any creature to spurn God’s gifts of mind and health in this way, to put out God’s sun—quench His stars and obliterate the lovely face of His Creation. Father O’Connor felt fury blazing in the arteries of neck and temple.

‘Tierney!’ he roared.

Rashers opened his eyes and identified his visitor.

‘It’s yourself, Father.’

‘Get on your feet.’

‘All in good time, Father.’

Rashers spoke soothingly. It was all very well to say get on your feet. It was another thing to have complete confidence in their ability to obey.

‘The furnace is out.’

‘Bloody end to it,’ Rashers said. Then he recollected himself and apologised.

‘Saving your presence, Father.’

‘You’re a drunken disgrace,’ Father O’Connor exploded at him. Rashers looked puzzled. He thought. He became conscious of the empty bottle about which his fingers were still curled.

‘A drop for my chest,’ he said.

‘A good deal more than a drop. The furnace has been out all day. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘First it was contrary with me. Then I went up to mass. Then I got a little turn. The chest . . .’

‘Do you buy and consume a bottle of whiskey every time you have trouble with your chest?’

‘I didn’t buy it.’

‘You stole it, then.’

Rashers made an effort and raised himself on one elbow. In the candlelight, with the black beard merging into the background of piled coke, he was little more than a pair of eyes. They were suddenly focused and scornful.

‘That’s a strange conclusion for a man of your cloth to jump to.’

‘Who gave it to you?’

Rashers, with both elbows under him now, found his full voice and shouted his anger: ‘Ask my arse.’

‘How dare you use obscenity in my presence!’

‘I never asked for your presence,’ Rashers yelled. ‘So bad cess to you and to hell with you and God’s curse on you for labelling me a robber. Now get to hell out of here.’

He scrabbled at the coke about him and flung a fistful in Father O’Connor’s direction. Father O’Connor dodged backwards. Some pieces hit the skirts of his soutane and fell harmlessly to the floor. The attack astounded him. He stood wordlessly, the candle held above his head. They faced each other with hatred. Rashers made a final effort and found his feet. He pulled his clothes down about him. He continued to hold the empty bottle by the neck.

‘Tomorrow,’ Father O’Connor said, controlling his voice, ‘the clerk will have whatever wages is due to you. You’re dismissed.’

‘Sacked?’ Rashers cocked his head at an angle.

‘That is what I have just said.’

Rashers brushed past him and mounted the steps. He took them slowly, controlling his limbs.

‘Then good riddance,’ he said, when he had reached the top. He went out into the courtyard and on into the street, still holding the empty bottle by the neck.

Father O’Connor retired to his room. He was deeply upset. The poverty of St. Brigid’s parish was bad; its ingratitude was appalling. His efforts to help the poor had led to assault and bad blood. A useless, crippled old man he had picked off the streets had flung his kindness back in his face. His parish priest was likely to take the side of the boilerman. He had done so before. It seemed to give pleasure to Father Giffley to humiliate him. If that was to happen again, then the sooner they had it out and over with the better.

Father Giffley was not in the room on the ground floor—a bad sign. Had he retired to his own room to drink himself stupid? If so, that too would have to be faced. Father O’Connor climbed the stairs again. He knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

The fire was piled high in the way that Father Giffley liked. It added its own light to that of the buzzing gas mantle. The bookcase in the corner gleamed orange and red where the wood and the glass reflected its glow. Father Giffley was seated in a deep armchair. A tumbler with whiskey stood near him.

‘Am I disturbing you, Father?’

‘Please close the door. I am just beginning to feel warm again.’

Father O’Connor did so.

‘That is what I came to see you about. I found the furnace completely out.’

‘Did you find the boilerman? That’s the essential thing.’

‘He was lying on a pile of coke—asleep.’

‘Asleep?’

Father O’Connor decided to call a spade a spade.

‘He was dead drunk.’

The other, about to raise the tumbler to his lips, replaced it. The eyes examined Father O’Connor closely, noting his agitation, interpreting it.

‘And where is he now?’

Father O’Connor steeled himself.

‘I dismissed him. That’s what I came to tell you.’

Father Giffley continued to regard him closely. He spoke very calmly.

‘And why do you come to me?’

‘On a previous occasion you reproached me for not having done so.’

‘It appears you didn’t on this occasion either.’

‘I acted on impulse. The furnace was out. The man was lying on the coke heap. He had been . . .’

It would be indelicate to refer to that—the smell of urine, the unwashed smell.

‘His language was obscene and he threw things at me.’

Father Giffley gave some moments of consideration to that. At last he said: ‘Do your respectable friends never drink?’

‘In moderation . . .’

‘Always?’

The emphasis on the word communicated his disbelief. He looked sadly at the tumbler in his hand.

‘If you found your parish priest drunk would you try to have him sacked?’

‘Please, Father . . .’

‘Why don’t you answer?’

‘There is no answer. You are complicating something that is quite simple. The boilerman was drunk. He neglected his duty. He . . .’

‘Complications? Is there one law for Kingstown and another for the clergy and another for the boilerman?’

Father O’Connor did not answer.

‘Well?’

It was no use answering. Any attempt of his would be twisted by the other to suit his purpose. His parish priest hated him. It was, he could only hope, part of the man’s mental sickness.

‘This morning I listened to you speaking about the Larkinites. You were quite wrong—as usual. The reformers have a better case than we have. They are trying to destroy this dung-heap. I wish I had the strength of will to help them.’

‘That is not the generally accepted view.’

‘No. Yet one day, when they have succeeded in spite of us, it will be.’

It was a surprising speech and Father O’Connor had nothing to say about it. He wondered what bearing it could have on the boilerman.

‘Have I done wrong in sacking the boilerman?’

‘You took that step without consulting me,’ Father Giffley said. ‘And now you ask me did you do wrong. Am I to take responsibility for your decisions? This time I leave the matter in your own hands. You feel you have been insulted. If you wish to punish, it is your sole responsibility.’

‘It was not a question of punishment.’

‘No?’

‘One has a right to expect decency and good behaviour.’

‘Quite so,’ Father Giffley agreed.

The words should have reassured, but instead they disturbed. What was the use of discussing decency and good behaviour with a man who was himself about to offend against both. Irritated by the whiskey, the swollen face, Father O’Connor snapped:

‘I never know what you mean.’

He stopped short, alarmed at the sound of his own voice. It was loud, it was almost contemptuous. Father Giffley turned fully about, fixing his eyes squarely on Father O’Connor.

‘You have that look again now,’ he said.