Strumpet City (47 page)

‘Where do you live?’

Fitz automatically gave his address.

‘I have a motor car at the gate. I’ll take you home.’

Fitz looked round and found his companion was Yearling.

‘I’ve to finish my shift.’

‘Nonsense,’ Yearling said, ‘you will come with me.’

He led Fitz down the yard. In the car he found that Fitz was trembling and produced a silver hip flask.

‘Take some of this,’ he said, ‘good stuff for shock.’ Then he gave the address to the driver, who said he would need directions.

‘Yearling is the name—I’m a director.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Fitz said.

‘It was a dreadful accident. How did it happen?’

Fitz described it as they drove. As he talked he realised it would never have happened only for the fool who had signalled the cabin men to restart the machine. But he said nothing of this to Yearling, in case it might implicate one of the men. The damage was done. Mulhall, whether he died or lived, was finished. At Chandlers Court he got out, and thanked Yearling again.

‘Never mind that,’ Yearling said. ‘Have a rest when you go in. And don’t come to work tomorrow. I’ll see you don’t lose anything on that account.’

When he got in Mary knew already. Word had been brought and the house from top to bottom was astir with the news.

‘I was just going over to Mrs. Mulhall,’ Mary said, ‘she’ll need somebody with her.’

‘I’ll go with you for a moment,’ he said.

They knocked on the door and a quiet voice said, ‘Come in.’ She was sitting at the table, dry-eyed and shocked. On the bed in the corner lay the clothes Mary had lent her earlier in the day. At the fire, spread out to air on two kitchen chairs, were Mulhall’s good suit and a clean shirt, awaiting his return. She rose as Mary came across to her and the two women embraced.

‘My poor Bernie,’ Mrs. Mulhall said in a whisper, ‘my poor, darling Bernie.’

She began to cry. Mary held her tightly. There was no other comfort she could offer.

Over a fortnight later, on New Year’s Eve, while Mulhall in hospital still hovered between life and death, Fitz came home with news that he had been made a foreman. Mary knew it was Mr. Yearling who had done it and that it was Mrs. Bradshaw’s influence. She spent a long night writing a letter of thanks. Fitz went up to the hospital to see Mulhall. Carrington, who had been promoted to superintendent and whose place Fitz was filling, had said to him:

‘You’d be well advised to leave the union. It’s no longer in your own interest to meddle about with Larkinism.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ Fitz said, ‘but I’m not opting out now.’

‘Well, keep quiet about it anyway,’ Carrington said. ‘I’m not trying to get at you. This is just a friend’s advice.’

‘I know that,’ Fitz said, ‘there’s no misunderstanding between us.’

He was allowed in briefly to see Mulhall, who was asleep. He peeped behind the screen at the great body that would march in no more processions and battle no more through cordons of police. He would never let down the trust of that ageing and wounded man.

BOOK THREE

1913–1914

C
HAPTER
O
NE

Christmas brought Hennessy a little work, a job as porter to a butcher. Rashers saw him pushing a delivery bicycle through the streets. It had ‘A. Rattigan—Choice Meats’ written on the enormous basket in front. He was not very expert at bicycle-riding and the basket in front made him wobble a lot, but Rashers waved encouragingly. The children in the poorer areas were less sympathetic.

‘Ay—mister . . .’ they yelled after him, and then, when at the risk of wobbling over altogether he looked around to find out what was wrong, they pointed and said:

‘Your back wheel is going around, mister.’

When he cursed at them they had an answer too.

‘Get down and milk it’ they yelled.

He soon learned not to look back at all. After a week the wobbles were noticeable only when he was starting off or stopping. A publican, by arrangement with the butcher, decided to use him in the night hours to deliver and collect bottles, so that he had two jobs. On Christmas Eve the butcher, a kindly man who knew there were several children, gave him a round of meat for the family dinner. The publican, not to be outdone, threw in a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of Tawney wine. Before going home Hennessy spared a little of each for Rashers, topping up the bottles with water so that his wife would not know.

For Mary it was the best Christmas she could remember. She bought holly to put around the walls, she had mottoes over the fireplace which read ‘Happy Xmas’ and ‘God Bless Our Home’. They were painted in green and red and yellow on rectangles of glossy black oilcloth. Mrs. Bradshaw sent a cake and a sovereign. For the first time she made Fitz play Santa and put little sixpenny toys in the children’s stockings. She had a sprig of mistletoe hung up too, which Pat took advantage of when he called to wish them the compliments of the season. He stayed for the meal, with Mrs. Mulhall and Willie, whom Mary had invited over because for them it was a sad time. In the evening Joe called. So, too, did Mr. and Mrs. Farrell. Farrell looked very much older, but he was still working on the docks and Mary was very much moved to see them again, remembering the time she had stayed with them in the first months before her marriage, remembering too the wintry seas almost outside the house and the driftwood on the strand brought in by the tide after the dreadful storm. They had drink too and sang songs. Pat persuaded Mrs. Mulhall to sing, but in the middle of it she began to cry, because she knew only one song and that was the song Bernie loved, and the thought of it all became too much for her.

‘You’ll have him back home soon,’ Pat comforted her, ‘and isn’t that something to look forward to.’

‘If God will spare him to me, that’s all I ask,’ she said, ‘we’ll manage the rest somehow.’

Pat said there could be no doubt about it now. The shock was the worst thing and once he’d weathered that, he’d weather the rest. Fitz said so too, though he knew that Mulhall was still lying in the shadow of death and felt it might be better, when all was said and done, if God decided to take him. She was reassured and asked them not to mind her and said she was sorry to spoil their pleasant evening.

Then the Christmas season had gone. Mary took the mottoes from the wall and threw the holly on the fire. As it blazed and sent its aromatic smoke about the room, she dreamed of what the year might bring. Fitz was a foreman now, with a foreman’s wages. They might get a little cottage of their own somewhere, away from the squalor and tragedy of Chandlers Court. Mrs. Bradshaw was her friend, generous, thoughtful, a person of influence in Fitz’s employment. That was the important thing, to have a friend in high places. The future was going to be happy. She sat down in the lamplight and began to write another letter, this time to her father, telling him how well the children were, how nice Christmas had been and all the great news that he would be so delighted to hear.

For others there was less to look forward to. First the publican decided the time had come when there was no longer any need for an extra porter; then the butcher, despite a kindly sympathy, had only three days a week to offer; then week-ends only; then, with regret, nothing. The city, its spending over, closed its purses to Rashers. January spread its dark skies above the children whose little bodies were bent over the ashcans. A series of shipping strikes marked the resumption of the dogged fight against long hours and inadequate wage packets. People who had overcoats kept them buttoned to the chin. In the mornings their eyes saw nothing except the lighted windows of their business places and in the evenings nothing but the lighted windows of home.

‘The supports are moving,’ Bradshaw said, leaving the letter on the breakfast table. She waited for him to continue, but he had huddled back into his chair.

‘What supports, dear?’

‘Good God—the supports they put up to strengthen the walls of the houses—what other supports?’

‘Is the letter from your agent?’

‘Who else do you imagine would write to me about the damned supports?’

‘How could I know,’ she said gently, ‘you didn’t explain who the letter was from. You simply said: “The supports are moving.”’

He had picked up the paper. It was February. The shipping companies, he read, had settled up with the men. It was an unusually generous settlement. It amounted, Bradshaw considered, to a complete and abject surrender.

‘The supports of the whole world are moving, if it comes to that,’ he said gloomily.

She clicked her tongue in sympathy. She had no idea what this latest remark was about, but he seemed so miserable. The room was cold and he disliked cold intensely. Agents’ letters always made him miserable too. Why he did not sell the houses she could not imagine. It cost so much simply to keep them standing that no matter how many he crammed into them there seemed to be very little money left over. She had dared to hint her view to him once or twice, but when he growled back at her she had to confess that she knew little or nothing about such things. He dropped his paper for a moment.

‘I think it a very odd thing.’

He said nothing further, so that in the end, although she was quite afraid to do so, she asked:

‘What is that, dear?’

‘About Yearling.’

‘Is there something odd about him?’

‘He hasn’t called to see us for several weeks.’

‘I noticed that too.’

‘That’s what I think very odd.’

‘I was thinking so too.’

‘You never said so,’ he said, accusingly.

He was working himself into a state of misery and ill feeling which, if she allowed him to go on, would last all day. That would be very bad for his health.

‘I thought perhaps I was only imagining it,’ she said, hoping to humour him.

‘I don’t see how you could imagine that Yearling
hadn’t
called. You could imagine someone
had
called even if someone
hadn’t
. But to think you imagined someone hadn’t called seems . . .’

‘I know dear . . . that was a stupid thing to say.’

‘Preposterous. However, I suppose I shouldn’t worry.’

‘You mustn’t.’

‘Did you ever notice the way he treated my whiskey?’

‘I remember he used to drink rather a lot.’

‘Guzzled it,’ Bradshaw said. ‘What’s the use of making excuses for him?’

‘He played the ’cello very nicely,’ she remembered. Sadly. If the summer would only come quickly. Then at breakfast they could look out on the flowers in the garden, gay and full of colours. In winter the french windows showed you too much of the desolate skies and let in draughts all the time.

‘His tone is very rough at times,’ Bradshaw objected, ‘and when he becomes engrossed he breathes very heavily. I always found that very distracting.’

‘He doesn’t realise it, of course.’

‘In addition, he’s too Liberal—far too Liberal.’

‘He likes a generous measure,’ she agreed.

‘I mean his politics—not the whiskey,’ Bradshaw exploded. He was sick to death of these misunderstandings. He tapped the newspaper. ‘He has liberal opinions which lead to
this
. If it goes on Mr. Larkin will be cock-o-the-walk.’

She had not read the paper as yet and so could not know what latest villainy of the labour leader Bradshaw had in mind.

‘He expresses strong sentiments,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think . . .’ She hesitated.

‘You sometimes think what?’ he demanded.

‘Sometimes I think . . . it’s the whiskey.’ It was such a dreadful thing to say that she was covered in confusion. At the same time, it seemed to please her husband.

‘Yearling is easily deceived. He can’t see that all this modern blarney about betterment of the workers’ conditions is a mere stalking horse for Red Republicanism.’

He took out his watch. It was the hour for his walk along the front. The prospect, on such a morning, was not at all pleasant. Nevertheless, regular exercise was essential to health. Putting back the watch with an air of resignation he added: ‘I think I might write to him.’

‘But won’t you be seeing him?’

‘Good God, Florence—I don’t mean the agent, I mean Yearling. I think I might write to Yearling.’

Then he said, deciding firmly:

‘That’s what I’ll do, I’ll write to him. He’s getting as odd as two left feet and I know why. It’s living all alone for so long in that enormous and empty house. Don’t you think I should do that?’

She saw now that he had missed Yearling. The grumbling was only a cloak. She saw, too, that he was uneasy about writing, for fear of a rebuff.

‘Suppose I invited him for a musical evening,’ she suggested. ‘I could ask Father O’Connor as well. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to come.’

She knew that this was what her husband had hoped for.

‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘write to both. Yearling is a nuisance, but we’ve known him such a long time. We mustn’t watch him become an old oddity of a bachelor and do nothing at all to help him.’

He put on his heavy muffler, his greatcoat, his hat, his gloves. He went out into the raw morning air. It made his ears tingle and smelled bitterly of the sea.

They met on St. Patrick’s Day. Yearling brought a fresh sprig of shamrock for his hostess. Mrs. Bradshaw praised it, found a pin and put it on her blouse. Then she said:

‘It seems a shame in a way. It withers so quickly.’

‘There’s an honoured custom, ma’am,’ Yearling reminded her, ‘and it’s called drowning the shamrock.’ He meant with spirits, of course. She smiled indulgently because no matter what her husband might say, he was jovial and yet thoughtful and that was nice. Bradshaw took the decanter from the sideboard. The glass was already out in readiness.

They sang Moore’s melodies because it was fitting to the occasion. They expressed national sentiments. It was altogether a very pleasant evening which concluded when Father O’Connor sang ‘The Dear Little Shamrock’ and they all joined in the chorus. The last tram had gone when they broke up but Yearling said he would leave Father O’Connor back to town in his motor, it was no trouble at all. After he had wound all the clocks and put the chain on the door, Bradshaw was in very good humour and sat at the fire for a while. She sat with him.