Strumpet City (36 page)

‘You’d like to own it, wouldn’t you?’ Doggett said.

Mulhall looked round in surprise. It was a thought that had never entered his head.

‘I only want to work in it.’

‘You must understand that there may not be room—not at present.’

‘Because I’ve a criminal record?’

‘Not at all,’ Doggett said, ‘we’ll forget that part of it.’ He went back to his desk and thought carefully for some moments. Then he said:

‘You can enquire later in the week. It will give us an opportunity to see how things are going.’

He began to arrange the articles on his desk. Mulhall went to the door, but Doggett’s voice again stopped him.

‘You mustn’t think I am holding anything against you.’

‘No,’ Mulhall said.

He closed the door and went down the stairs. The timekeeper asked him if he was starting, but Mulhall shook his head. He did not stop to talk.

Mulhall walked with his hands tucked in his belt and his hat tilted forward over his eyes to protect them from the sun. He went thoughtfully. The meaner streets smelled badly because of the heat; all the doors stood open, revealing, down hallways that were foul and dark tunnels, the small sunlit yards, each with its communal lavatory. At first he thought he would go to the union office, but the idea of stating a case for himself put him off. It would come better from the men themselves. He decided to see Fitz and turned down the quays again. At Morgan & Co. the gateman told him Fitz was on shift.

‘I’d like to see him, if I could.’

The gateman said he would ask Mr. Carrington, the foreman.

‘Fitzpatrick is well got with him,’ he explained. ‘I don’t think there’ll be any objection.’

‘Thanks,’ Mulhall said.

The gateman delayed. He knew Mulhall, who often delivered coal to Morgan & Co.

‘How are you after your spell away?’

‘Gameball,’ Mulhall assured him.

‘We cleaned up a few scabs ourselves the other night,’ the gateman confided.

‘Where was that?’

‘In Tobin’s of Thorncastle Street. Four of them were drinking together. There’s not a pane of glass left in the place after it.’

‘What about the police?’

‘They didn’t show up until it was all over—like sensible men.’

The gateman rubbed his hands briskly together and said with relish: ‘By God, we gave them a bellyful.’ Then his attention fixed on a distant figure crossing the yard.

‘There’s Carrington going into the house now. I’ll ask him.’

Mulhall lit his pipe and waited. Men were unloading coal into an endless chain of buckets which rose in procession up an open tower before moving along a belt and into one of the furnace houses. It was the newest house, machine fed. A few more of these, Mulhall thought, and there would be less work for furnace hands. It was one of the things he had given thought to while in gaol. Machinery would improve and replace labour. The motor car would replace the horse, and do the work of three carters. What would happen then? He had argued about it with another prisoner.

‘The motor will never be a success,’ the prisoner said, ‘because they can’t invent a wheel to suit the roads.’

Mulhall knew better than that.

‘If the wheel won’t suit the road,’ he said, ‘they’ll make the roads suit the wheel.’

After some time Fitz came out to him. He smiled broadly and held out his hand.

‘Welcome home,’ Fitz said.

Mulhall shook his hand and then gestured towards the tower and the moving buckets.

‘That’s new, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘They put it up about two months ago.’

‘Has it done away with labour?’

‘It’s servicing the new house, so no one’s been laid off. But more would have been taken on if the furnaces were hand fed,’ Fitz admitted.

‘Suppose they start feeding the old houses in the same way?’

‘Too bad for some of us,’ Fitz said.

But you couldn’t stop them using machinery. Machinery meant more profit, and profit was the beginning and the end of everything. Roads and bridges and buildings would be reduced to rubble wherever they impeded profit. Men would be laid off and children would go hungry. For the sake of the machines families would know want.

‘We’ve got to keep a watch on new machinery,’ Mulhall warned. Then he told Fitz about his interview with Doggett.

‘Have you seen Larkin?’

‘I’d rather someone else saw him for me.’

‘I’ll go down with Joe Somerville tonight,’ Fitz promised. ‘We’ll call a meeting and state your case.’

‘What’s Joe Somerville got to do with it?’

‘He’s acting secretary for the carters’ section,’ Fitz explained.

‘That’s a new one,’ Mulhall said.

Things had changed in his short absence.

The next day, before knocking-off time, there was a notice scrawled on the gate of Doggett & Co. which read:

‘Stand by Bernad Mulhall
No Victimisation’

It was in white chalk. Doggett, who read it on his way out, instructed the gateman to clean it off. He noticed, without surprise, that the name Bernard had been misspelled. Neither was he very much perturbed. If the pressure became dangerous he could settle it by reinstating Mulhall. He had consulted with the manager of Nolan & Keyes, with the Chairman of Morgan & Co. Foundries, with a number of other employers. There were wider issues than that of Mulhall. There was the question of curbing Mr. Larkin himself. Doggett’s colleagues were evolving machinery for doing so.

Later that night Joe Somerville, acting secretary of the carters sub-section, settled down by candlelight and began the labour of composing the minutes of the meeting.

Minutes of Meeting of Carters’ No, 3 section re Bernard Mulhall, held in Beresford Place . . .

He paused and consulted Pat, who was stretched on the bed in the far corner.

‘What was yesterday’s date?’

Pat, glancing first at the top of the newspaper he was studying, told him.

Joe continued:

Opening the meeting, J. Somerville explained that R. Fitzpatrick was a Foundry worker who was here only to deliver a message about the position of B. Mulhall, who was speaking to him. The meeting agreed there was no objection to a Foundry member being present for this purpose. R. Fitzpatrick and J. Somerville then reported how B. Mulhall had applied for reinstatement to the firm of Doggett & Co., he had been released from gaol that day where he served six months hard labour for his class. The answer he got was to say the least evasive and the question arose what further action was to be taken to secure his rights as he was a carter with long service.

J. Brady said there should be an immediate heel-up, that Comrade Mulhall was a solid trade union member, one of the first in Doggett’s, and it was up to each and all to stand by him now. T. Williams asked who was it chalked the message on the front gate, this was no use to anyone and only showed our hand to Mr. Doggett. The general secretary asked what message and when he was told he said he would do the talking to Mr. Doggett and the men must await his instructions. J. Brady said everyone had confidence in Mr. Larkin and they were sure he would call out the men when the time came. After further discussion it was agreed unanimously to call out the men if his talk with Mr. Doggett did not bring quick results.

This business being completed P. Forde said he wished to raise the question of a collection for the railway men who were on sympathetic strike with their comrades across the water. It was agreed there would be a weekly collection, P. Forde to collect from the men in Doggett’s and P. Bannister to look after the levy from Nolan & Keyes men. The meeting concluded.

Joe read over the minutes to Pat, who listened with half an ear. He was thinking of Lily. He had met her a few times since their walk in the Park, but although she was friends with him once again it was always hard to persuade her to come out with him. When she did it was never into the city. She was afraid to meet people she had once known.

‘I think the cupboard will stretch to a cup of tea for the supper,’ Joe suggested. He had laboured hard in the literary field. It was up to Pat to look after the menu. Pat left down his paper and began to prepare the tea without enthusiasm.

‘I wish it was as easy to make a pot of porter,’ he said, when the water had boiled at long last and he began to pour it over the two spoons of tea that lay on the bottom of the blackened can.

Doggett met Yearling at a special employers’ meeting. It was a large meeting, representative of most of the industrial and manufacturing firms in the city. The objective was to form a combination to fight the continuous strikes and threats of strikes. One of the speakers described it as an effort to form an Association of Employers to present a united front to Larkinism. The speeches bored Yearling but Doggett gave them his shrewd attention. On a number of occasions over the past three years he had succeeded in keeping his coal-carting concern open when others were closed down. It had paid off well in increased profit, but it had cost him much in goodwill. In the case of Morgan & Co. it had almost cost him an important contract. It became clear from the tone of the meeting that his technique of settling demands and then sweeping the market while the other coal concerns remained stubbornly closed would not work much longer. The leaders were appealing for consultation and concerted action. When the proposition was put ‘that a Company, to be called the Dublin Employers’ Federation Limited, be formed, with the object of affording mutual protection to and indemnity of all employers and employees’, Doggett raised a reluctant hand in favour of its adoption. He felt it only politic to do so and wondered when the man beside him kept his arms folded.

After the meeting Doggett went out alone into the summer evening. The red glow of sunset was in the sky and the odour of evening flowers accompanied him as he passed the railings of St. Stephen’s Green. It was a little bit early as yet to take a cab home; on the other hand the clubs and hotels in the area were almost certain to be occupied by groups of employers, some of whom he had no great desire to meet. Doggett turned down Grafton Street and then left into the snug of a public house. It was a place he knew well, with pictures of royalty and racing prints on the wall.

‘A baby Power,’ Doggett ordered, when the shutter in the partition opened.

‘I’ll have the same,’ a voice behind him said. He turned to find himself in the company of Yearling. Yearling smiled at him and said: ‘Interesting meeting.’

‘Very,’ Doggett answered.

‘The name is Yearling.’

‘Mine is Doggett.’

‘How do you do.’

‘How do.’

The curate brought the drinks.

‘Allow me,’ Yearling said, and paid for both.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re Doggett & Company?’

‘That’s right,’ Doggett said. ‘And you?’

‘Morgan & Company—on the Board.’

‘Oh,’ Doggett said. This was the very thing he had tried to avoid. He still held his contract with the foundry, but his conscience was not altogether clear. He remembered that Yearling had not voted for the proposition. Yet the chairman of Morgan & Co. had been on the platform.

‘I’ve two minds about this combination business,’ Yearling confessed.

Mr. Doggett agreed, but waited a while for the other to give reasons. He was not quite sure where he stood. When Yearling failed to say anything further he decided to chance a sentiment that had been expressed at the meeting.

‘In a way,’ Doggett said, ‘I suppose if the rabble of the city can combine there’s nothing wrong in principle if we employers do the same thing.’

‘Nothing at all—if you want industrial warfare,’ Yearling said grimly.

‘We seem to have that already.’

‘We’ll have more of it.’

‘It may make Larkin draw in his horns.’

Yearling grunted in disbelief.

‘He’s more likely to paralyse the whole country,’ he pronounced. That was Doggett’s own assessment.

‘Personally,’ he confessed, ‘I’ve had to decide between Mr. Larkin’s threats and the threats of my own colleagues. That’s why I voted for the resolution. I wonder who’s behind all this.’

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘I’ve thought it might be Sibthorpe or Jacob. It’s hard to know.’

‘A certain gentleman who refused to be knighted?’ Yearling hinted.

Doggett thought for a moment until the name and the association joined somewhere in his shrewd skull.

‘William Martin Murphy.’

‘I may be wrong.’ Yearling conceded, but only out of politeness.

Doggett nodded.

‘He’s certainly the strongest,’ he said.

In the morning he sent for the yard superintendent.

‘We could do with an extra carter,’ he said. ‘Send for Bernard Mulhall and tell him he can start in the morning.’

Doggett was prepared, under pressure of self-interest, to combine, but he was damned if he was going to be the first in the firing line.

Joe Somerville had the pleasure of reporting to a meeting of carters that Bernard Mulhall had been reinstated unconditionally. For Doggett it meant only temporary respite. He read with sinking heart of the general rail strike in England, of riots and bloodshed and the interruption of Irish supplies. Then the Irish rail workers brought the trouble to his doorstep by walking out in sympathy. Doggett saw this with his own eyes. They marched past him in the street, singing ‘Fall in and Follow Me’, a ditty which, being a music-hall fan, he recognised as George Lashwood’s. That evening the police patrolled the city in unprecedented numbers. They guarded railway stations, they stood in strong formations at the entrances to principal streets. Their presence filled the city with uneasiness. Yet beyond the rallies and the speeches nothing much happened. Three days later a general settlement in England put an end to the dispute. The trains began to run again.

Yearling, travelling from Kingstown to the Imperial Hotel, was glad. He liked travelling by train, especially on the Kingstown line. He liked the yachts with coloured sails in the harbour, the blue shape of Howth Hill across the waters of the bay, the bathers and the children digging sandcastles. These were pleasant to look at in the last hours of an August evening. Yearling loved his city, her soft salt-like air, the peace of her evenings, the easy conversation of her people. He liked the quiet crossings at Sydney Parade and the Lansdowne Road, simply because he had swung on them as a schoolboy. The gasometers near Westland Row were friends of his. He could remember passing them many a time as a young man making amorous expeditions to the city. When he looked at these things they in some way kept the presence of loved people who were now dead or in exile; his father and his mother, a favourite aunt whose eccentricities once delighted him; a sister long married and settled in the colonies, a brother killed in childhood. These were melancholy thoughts, but for him melancholy had a rare flavour. It united him with his childhood and his youth. It gave him a reason for continuing to explore life with interest. It was like repeating the part of a story one had already read, in order to savour the more the part that was about to happen.