Strumpet City (4 page)

‘Watch out for shells,’ Fitz said over his shoulder.

She smiled to let him know that she remembered.

He took her hand. At the touch of his fingers on hers they both stopped. In a moment he had come close to her. His face, above hers, was dark against the sun; but hers was radiant and expectant, her mouth half open, her eyes closed. Alone in the centre of the sun-filled strand they kissed. Her own love frightened her. She said:

‘What is going to become of me if I keep on loving you like this?’

He held her to him, repeating her name. After a while she released herself gently and they walked on again, hand in hand, until the sand became dry and after that fine and shot through with silver specks which clothed their feet. They climbed among the hillocks of strong, sparse grass and sat down. Behind them the narrow breakwater reached out a further mile into the sea, dividing the river at their backs from the strand in front of them, keeping navigable depth for the shipping traffic of the Port of Dublin. The strand they had just crossed was sunlit and empty. They were quite alone.

‘Were you waiting a long time?’ Mary asked.

‘Not very long, but I was a bit afraid Miss Gilchrist had taken the day herself and left you stuck in the house.’

‘She wouldn’t look at the King. She’s a Fenian.’

‘All the Fenians are dead and gone.’

‘Not for her. She keeps a picture of one of them in her room. They used to call at her house when she was a child in Tipperary. She told me she once saw the watchfires lit on the hills and it was a signal for a rising against the British.’

‘I’d like to have seen them myself,’ Fitz admitted.

‘It does no good,’ Mary said.

She had brought some sandwiches with her, which she had filled with left-over meat. Fitz had a bottle with milk and also some oranges. They began to eat. The walk across the strand and the salt flavour of the air lent an edge to their appetites.

‘Ham,’ Fitz remarked appreciatively. He bit into the sandwich.

‘Pity it’s not tomorrow,’ Mary said. ‘They’ll have chicken tonight, for Father O’Connor and Mr. Yearling.’

As Fitz took another, a thought struck him.

‘If they ever want a butler, let me know.’

He broke a piece of bread and threw it lazily across the sand towards a gull which had been resting, its head tucked in tight against its shoulders. The gull was awake immediately. It stalked across and began to eat.

‘It’s beautiful here,’ Mary said.

‘As nice as Cahirdermot?’ Fitz asked.

‘Different. We had only mountains and fields. There was a river too, of course, but only the boys used to swim.’

They finished their meal and walked across to where firmer sand began beyond the tide-mark. At a pool left by the tide they knelt close together and peered among the rocks and seaweed. A dead crab, tangled in a frond of seaweed, swayed gently beneath the surface. It was a small, green crab, its upturned belly showing the V-shaped cut in its shell. Fitz pointed at this.

‘That’s where he keeps his money.’

Mary saw his face reflected in the pool, so close to her own that they might have been painted together on a medallion, against a background of blue sky and barely discernible wisps of white cloud. Fitz, she knew, was telling her something he had believed as a child. She had often wondered about his childhood, about his growing up in the noise and bustle of the city, about his work among trundling carts and swinging cranes and furnaces so huge that when he told her of them she thought of hell and its fire. How had he remained gentle and kind through all that? Perhaps it was because of the sea and the strand, the beautiful summer strands where even the poorest child could wander and hunt in the pools for crabs, hoping some day to find one that carried money in its purse. She rested her head against his shoulder, linking her arm through his.

‘You believed the funniest things when you were a child. You must have been happy.’

‘I’m happier now.’ Fitz pushed her hair back from her face.

They rose and began to walk again. Far away, near the Martello Tower at Sandymount, tiny figures on horseback moved to and fro. The young ladies from the riding schools of Tritonville Road were exercising on the sands. They went back again among the coarse grasses of the sandbanks. When they were seated a moment Fitz drew her down until they were lying side by side.

After what seemed a long time he said:

‘You love me?’

He had withdrawn a little to ask her and she could see his face. Its tenderness brought her near to tears. She nodded.

‘Say it.’

She paused a moment and then said:

‘I love you.’

‘And you’ll marry me?’

I’ll marry you.’

He drew something from his pocket and held it towards her. It was a ring.

‘I know you can’t wear it yet about the house, but I’d like you to take it and keep it with you.’

She put it on her finger.

‘It’s not a very dear one,’ he said humbly. Again the tears gathered because of the way she felt.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

She wanted to give him something in exchange, a memento which would stand ever afterwards for the happiness of the day. She had nothing with her.

They delayed until the edge of the incoming tide was less than a hundred yards away. It approached slowly over the flat sands, rimmed by an edge of white foam. Here and there streamlets, like the scouts of an approaching army, crept forward in advance of the main body. It was time to go. They left the sandhills and climbed up on to the breakwater which was as wide as a road but unevenly surfaced, for the foundations had moved and the great granite blocks which comprised it had angled in places. Sand and fragments of shells, the remnants of winter storms and furious seas, filled the gaps where the granite had parted.

They stopped to watch a coal boat moving up river towards the bay. It glided full of peaceful purpose. The waves in its wake rolled towards them and broke at last against the stonework, a commotion about nothing. Screaming and swooping, the white gulls followed the ship.

‘How soon do you think we could manage?’ Fitz asked.

Mary wasn’t sure. They would have to save money. She told him she would not care to live in a house with others and of her hope that the Bradshaws would help them to get a cottage.

‘I have some money saved,’ she said.

Fitz had none. But his job was steady and, compared with most of the others, not badly paid. They talked until Mary, thinking once more of the time, said urgently:

‘Fitz, we must hurry.’

They began to walk again. In an hour they were back in the streets of the city and Fitz was waiting to see her on to the tram. She was pensive, thinking of the day they had spent together.

‘A penny for them,’ Fitz offered.

‘I’m feeling sad.’

‘About what?’

‘Our lovely day—all gone.’

‘There’ll be others,’ Fitz said.

‘Will you think about it—I mean tonight when you’re working?’

‘Nearly all the time.’

‘Here’s my tram,’ she said. On and off she had been wishing for something to give him and now the solution occurred to her. She took Rashers’ ribbons from her coat and pushed them into his hand. He looked at them, puzzled.

‘To remember,’ she said.

She was afraid he might laugh, or that he might think she was mad. Or, because he was not in favour of the King, that he might be angry.

He took them gravely and said:

‘I’ll keep them, always.’

Her heart quickened. She was filled with happiness.

He helped her on to the tram, waved, and was gone. She sat once more on the outside, hearing the trolley’s conversational humming and feeling the wind against her cheeks and hair as the tram battled its sturdy way towards Kingstown.

When the night sergeant came in at fifteen minutes past eight he put his helmet on the desk and looked around the office without a word of greeting for the young policeman who had risen behind his desk. The sergeant was a burly man with a very red face. He breathed heavily and mopped his brow. The policeman said:

‘Good evening, Sergeant.’

The sergeant looked at the coat-rack and then at the fireplace which was littered with cigarette stubs and empty cartons.

‘Has Dunleavy gone?’

‘Sergeant Dunleavy left sharp at eight.’

‘I see,’ the night sergeant said.

He loosened the neck of his tunic and, turning his back on the policeman, stared out of the barred window.

‘You were up at the hospital?’ the policeman asked.

The sergeant sighed heavily. ‘Aye. And Dunleavy knew that.’

‘He said he was in a bit of a hurry this evening.’

‘He might have waited the few minutes. I did it for him often enough.’

The policeman did not want any part in the quarrels of his superiors. So he said:

‘How was the youngster?’

The sergeant turned away from the window and looked at him.

‘It’s what we suspected. Meningitis.’

The poor little scrap,’ the policeman said, seeing the red face was tight with pain.

‘They’ll send for me here if there’s a change.’

‘Please God it’ll be for the better.’

‘No,’ the sergeant said, ‘he’ll die. They always do.’

‘Is he the youngest?’

‘The second youngest.’

‘It’s a heavy cross for you, Sergeant,’ the policeman said.

‘It’s bad for a father, but worse again for the mother,’ said the sergeant.

‘It’s hard on the two of you.’

The sergeant went to his desk. He wrote
Sergeant J. Muldoon
on top of the duty sheet and then with an effort began to examine the papers in front of him. The policeman worked in silence. He could not think of anything to say.

‘What’s in?’ the sergeant asked him. He was finding it difficult to read the reports for himself. The policeman gave him particulars. Then he said:

‘We have a guest in cell No. 3.’

‘What’s he there for?’

The policeman told him about Rashers.

‘How long is he there?’

‘Since early afternoon.’

‘I’ll go and see him.’

Activity helped. The sergeant took the heavy key and went down a passage. The cell was in gloom. Rashers was stretched on the bed, asleep. The sergeant stood over him. Rashers’ heavy breathing reminded him of the child in the hospital, struggling for the life that minute by minute was being prised from his grasp. In an hour or two they would send for him to say that the end was near. He would stand and watch helplessly. There were no handcuffs to hold Death at bay. You could not lock Death up in a cell or let it off with a caution. It was the biggest thief of all.

The sergeant shook Rashers by the shoulder.

‘Wake up,’ he commanded.

Rashers stirred and sat up. He blinked at the strange sergeant.

‘A new one, be God,’ he said.

‘What’s this about refusing to give your name?’

‘I gave the only name I ever knew of,’ Rashers said. ‘Is it lies you want me to tell?’

‘What name was that?’

‘Rashers Tierney.’

‘Who christened you Rashers?’

‘The first woman I remember.’

‘Your mother?’

‘I don’t remember her.’

‘Who then?’

‘A little woman by the name of Molloy that lived in the basement of 3 Chandlers Court. I came to her at the age of four.’

‘From where?’

‘They never found out. Maybe God left me under a dustbin lid.’

‘Where do you live now?’

‘In Chandlers Court. When Mrs. Molloy died she had to leave it. They carried her out. That was when I was fifteen or so. They’ll do the same with me when my time comes.’

Rashers reflected on what he had said.

‘They’ll do it with us all, for that matter,’ he added, ‘you and the sergeant before you, King Edward and Rashers Tierney. We’re all booked for the same trip.’

‘Don’t talk so much,’ the sergeant commanded.

‘It was always my failing,’ Rashers admitted.

‘Did you get anything to eat?’

‘Damn the scrap.’

The sergeant went out, locking the door. A little while later he returned with a mug of tea and roughly cut bread.

‘Take that,’ he said.

Rashers took it and began to eat. The sergeant sat on the bed too, in the warm gloom locked up, a prisoner within himself, his thoughts pacing around and around in his skull. For much of the time they were not thoughts at all, just the name of the child being repeated to him over and over again by some voice which he had no power to silence. The names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph also went through his mind and he prayed to these because he too, like Rashers, had been taught to look to them in trouble. He did not expect a miracle from them. The child was doomed to die. But he wanted comfort, he wanted to feel there was a Court of Appeal, that there was a world beyond this one, a world untouched by sorrow and disease and death, to which the child would go. His child must not cease to exist.

‘I’m going to let you out,’ he said when Rashers had finished.

‘Thanks be to God,’ Rashers said. ‘The oul dog at home will be demented.’

‘Have you money?’

‘Every penny was lifted off of me. Isn’t that what has me where I am?’

The sergeant took a shilling from his pocket and gave it to Rashers.

‘Take that,’ he said.

Rashers looked at it suspiciously. A charity from a police sergeant was one of the impossibilities of his world.

‘Go on, take it,’ the sergeant commanded. Rashers put it in his pocket.

‘Now get on home.’

Rashers collected his bag and his board with the few remaining favours. He found it hard to walk. The sweat had dried on his socks. His feet were numb. He took a set of colours from the board and offered them to the sergeant.

‘You’re a loyal servant who’ll appreciate them,’ he said.

‘I’ve no use for them. Say a prayer for me.’

‘I’ll say a rosary,’ Rashers promised warmly.

They went to the door of the station. The streets were bright still, but the sky had the evening look of waiting. At some invisible point night was mustering to invade it. Rashers pressed the colours into the sergeant’s hand.

‘Take them home for one of the kids,’ Rashers insisted generously.