The Law of Dreams (26 page)

“I ain't selling tommy rot,” Molly sniffed. “I
sell good gear.”

“Ah Molly, such a softhearted little piece. And how much straw did
you cut in?”

“I feed you better than your mothers did! If you don't like it
here, then go away!”

“But will you and Muldoon give me back my sub?”

“Oh you dog! You've no right to snap at me, McCarty!”
Molly said, then burst into tears.

“Don't mind,” Fergus tried reassuring her. “I like
your tobacco.”

“I do my best . . . I prefer a little straw in a mix . . . I smoke
it myself,” she said between sobs. “I do . . . for flavor . . . it's
genteel.”

“Oh come, come, sit down, have a puff with us, don't be such a
baby.” McCarty tried to grab Molly's wrist, but she jerked it away.

“I cherish you, Moll,” McCarty said. “Come sit between
your friends and have a puff.”

“You're not my friend, you always been against me! I
don't know what a friend is!”

“Have a puff with us, Moll. No hard lines.” McCarty grabbed
her wrist and pulled her onto his knee, where she sat, sniffling. The horse boy brought
out a handkerchief and Molly, seizing it, blew her nose violently.

“Don't buy tobacco from the Welsh,” she told Fergus.
“And don't buy at the tommy shop. Mr. Murdoch makes more profit selling
tommy rot than building the line.”

Snatching McCarty's pipe from his mouth, she took a puff, letting
smoke stream out between her small, even teeth. “You're vicious,” she
said to McCarty.

“Ah, Moll, I'll make a song of you one day.”

She laughed. “Don't sing it near Muldoon — he'll
cut your string.”

“If I'd had you in Ireland, Molly, I'd never have gone
walking.”

“Oh, go fetch your old paper and give us a read.”

She stood up, and McCarty rose obediently and went to fetch his newspaper
from the table.

“So proud of his letters! If you can read, McCarty, why do you want
to go back to Ireland?”

“What shall I read first?”

“Read us a good hanging.” The girl sat down on the bench.

McCarty examined the paper.

“Once I went to Nottingham for a hanging,” she said.

“I have seen in Cork the men hanged,” said McCarty. “And
two navvies, when we were building the line to Aberdeen. Killed a policeman with a
spade.”

“Muck says a hanging is a lesson as good as you'd get in
church. Only there was such a crowd we couldn't see much, and a snapper lifted
Muck's best handkerchief.”

“No hangings that I can find today,” said McCarty. “Very
sorry. Would you like to hear about the Mexican Question?”

“Read us the shipping.”

“What will you pay? A kiss?”

“Oh just go ahead and read it! You needn't look so puffed!
Anyone in America can read, even the babies.”

“Do you want to hear 'em or not?”

She stood up, crossed the floor, and bent to kiss McCarty on his cheek.
“There. Now read 'em, if you please.”

He tried to grab her wrist but she returned to the bench, sitting down
beside Fergus, and leaned forward to listen.

McCarty rustled the pages. “You're wanting America, I suppose?
It's always America. How about New Zealand for a change? Or India? Always plenty
of shipping for India.”

“No, America.”

McCarty sighed and examined the page, then slowly began to read.

“ ‘Brig
Laconia
, one hundred eighty tons, sailing
March tenth thereabouts for Philadelphia. Captain Shelby, master. Neat and dry.
Passengers apply to W. Tapscott and Co., Liverpool.' Like the sound of her,
Moll?”

“That's not all. Read the others.”

“ ‘For New York,
Fox
, two hundred fifty tons, Black
Star Line, Captain Coxom, master. To sail March twentieth. All foodstuffs provided
—'”

“Weevils and cat's meat,” said Molly. “But go
on.”

“‘For Quebec, brig
Na
. . .
Na
—'”

“Naparima,”
Molly said impatiently. “I knew a
fellow went out on her last year.”

“
Naparima
, yes. ‘One hundred seventy tons, sailing
April seventh, Captain Shields. For Philadelphia,
Malabar
, two hundred fifty
tons, sailing April seventh, Captain York. For New York,
Centurion
,
Fidelia
, and
Carolina
, sailing April first . . .'”

As McCarty droned down the shipping list, Fergus watched Molly lean
forward, chin in her hand, listening.

The curious names of the ships had incantatory power. Nothing he could
touch, but something he could feel. They had radiance.

“‘Ships of the largest class,'” McCarty read,
“ ‘commanded by men of experience who will take every precaution to promote
the health of the passengers.
Miramishee
, one hundred eighty tons, for Quebec,
April fifteenth . . .'”

Molly's mouth was open slightly, and Fergus understood she was
dreaming of her passage to America. She was no older than him, was in no better position
— worse, perhaps — but she was living on the taste of a dream.

What you lost weakened you, could kill you. What you wanted kept you
going. What you wanted gave you strength.

THE CUTTING GOUGED DEEPER
and wider every day as the
slopes were peeled back, tons of excavation filling the trucks. When it rained the mud
was soft, and when it froze the mud was stiff. Horses struggled and floundered trying to
pull trucks along the temporary grade. The sleepers had been poorly ballasted; sometimes
a truck derailed and tipped over on its side, dragging the horse over with it.

Plodding up and down the line between the parallel rails, horses cut their
legs on the wooden sleepers. If the nicks weren't cleaned and salved, the horses
went lame and Muck Muldoon shot them along the right-of-way or they died in the bald
field overnight. Every morning when Fergus went out with a handful of hay to collect the
blue, there were nags lying dead in the field.

“
WHY NOT
get out your pack and deal the Fergus a
hand or two?” McCarty said to Molly one evening while they waited for Muck to come
home. “She can teach you the ways of the world,” he told Fergus.

“What's the use?” she said. “Muck takes it all.
You know how it is.”

“It's your winnings, so. I don't know why you stand
it.”

“He's not so bad.”

“You let him rule you too much.” McCarty puffed his pipe
contentedly.

“Oh, and you stand up to him? Very brave I seen
you, McCarty. Very bold.”

McCarty shrugged and waved smoke away.

“Never, McCarty. Not once.” She went back to chopping turnips
and leeks.

Fergus smoked his pipe, staring into the slow fire. Muldoon was an
oppressive presence in the shanty, even when he wasn't there. Molly seemed always
to be listening for his footsteps, always waiting for him. No supper could be put out
until the ganger was in his chair, eyeing every plate, making sure that no one had a
bigger portion than his. They each had to sit in the same place at the table every night
— it was another of Muck's rules.

Men like to rule — girls, and others. Rule animals; rule the
ground.

He remembered Carmichael distributing the plots each year. Telling them
where they could dig their beds and plant the sets.

Muck ruled her. Also ruled him, and McCarty. It was no good pretending he
didn't rule them all.

In order to live, you had to submit to rule. It was what you did in
exchange for wages. What a horse did for food.

You could try telling yourself you weren't in submission; navvies
liked to pretend so. Men had their pride. Tramping had seemed like freedom, but that was
an illusion. What was a tramp except a road slavey, always hungry, looking for a place
to fit himself in? Six days a week when the timer's bell sounded three hundred or
so ex-tramps picked up picks and shovels, which they were not permitted to put down
again until the noon bell rang — when they were allowed twenty minutes to eat
their dinner. Then they worked until another bell rang at the end of the day.

The Bog Boys had thought they weren't in submission. At least Luke
had imagined so. Misappreciation killed her.

Molly, interrupting his thoughts, handed him a package wrapped in
newspaper. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“Turnip tops.”

He immediately thought of that gray, cold day with Luke, scouting, when
they had gleaned a turnip field.

Turnips, hunger food on the mountain, only eaten in bad times.

“Do you want 'em or don't you?”

He looked at her blankly.

“For your blue horse.” Impatiently. “Still kicking,
ain't he?”

“He is.”

“Muck don't care for the nags so don't tell
him.”

I'm only a horse myself. So are you.

“And here he comes,” McCarty warned them.

The door flew open and Muldoon entered, followed by old Peadar, both of
them smelling of beer.

“What are you doing with these fellows — having a
game?”

“No, nothing, Muck — only waiting for you. Sit down,
I'll take off your boots.”

“What supper have you got me?”

“Mutton it is.”

“Mutton, mutton . . . I'm tired of your old mutton. Why
don't you feed us beefsteak like Englishmen?”

“Well, mutton's what there is.”

“English eat beefsteaks. This is England here, let us feed like
English. Give it to us red. Sick to death of your old mutton.”

“It isn't England anyhow. Wales it is.”

“Damn you for saucing me!”

“I'm not, Muck. Sit down, let me take off your
boots.”

Muldoon's hungry, rampant look made them all uneasy. Molly started
pushing the ganger into his chair. Suddenly he threw his arms around her in a bear hug,
lifting her feet off the dirt floor.

“Set me down, Muck, you idjit.”

Instead he began swirling her around the dim, crowded little room.
“You ain't Kelly's — you belong to Muck.”

“Oh, go on, Muck! I can't breathe. Let me down! The fellows
want to eat. Come, let me go . . . I've made you a good supper.”

“You're my sleeper, ain't you?
Druid mna
,
little witch.”

“Let me down, you lugger.”

Then Muck stumbled and released her. The girl nearly escaped, but he
seized her wrist. “Give us a kiss, angel.”

“No, let me go.” She was turning away when Muck cracked
her.

Suddenly the room smelled very bad — not
different than before, only stronger: the stench of half-burned trash, men's dirty
clothes, and sweat.

Her lip was cut, there was blood in her mouth and on her chin, and Muldoon
was pushing her roughly across the room.

“Muck, don't — there's the supper, I cooked you
good supper. Meat on the hob —”

He gave her a shove through the curtain of their bedroom then went in
after her, disappearing.

Fergus looked at McCarty, who shrugged.

How unfinished and shapeless you feel. How lewd.

They could hear Muldoon cracking her, again and again.

“I'll show you down, you little witch.”

The iron bedsprings bucked and creaked. Muldoon owned the only set of
bedsprings in camp — he'd boasted of them. Molly was proud of them as
well.

Fergus caught McCarty's eye again, and the horse boy slowly shook
his head.

He could hear the thrusts clearly.

She didn't make a sound.

Kneeling by the hob, Peadar, the old lodger, sighed and picked up a spoon
to give the boiling mutton a stir. “Come, this looks quite ready. We had better
eat.” He began dishing out the mutton onto their plates.

McCarty sat down.

“He'll kill her,” Fergus said.

“She's a rugged little thing, tough as a pony. Come, take your
feed. It ain't your affair, Fergus.”

He sat down reluctantly. Staring at the mutton on his plate, smelling the
steam, and disgusted by his own appetite.

The question is, who rules, and why. These arrangements can change. You
don't need to accept. You can struggle. You may bust out of one set of rules into
another.

He made up his mind he wouldn't eat. While he was staring at his
food, smelling it, hunger licking his mouth — the ugly sounds from the bedroom
stopped.

“There it is,” McCarty said, relieved. “All blown over
now.”

“I would nail that fellow's tongue to a tree,” Fergus
said.

McCarty looked up. “Don't you give him no
spark. She's the one will pay for it.”

He was still staring hungrily at his untouched food when Muldoon sauntered
out, buckling his belt. Spitting into the coals the ganger helped himself from the
kettle of boiled meat. “Ain't this fine spoileen?”

Old Peadar nodded. “It is, it is.”

You butcher a pig by slitting its throat. At first, hung by its heels,
blood dripping, a pig retains its shape. White strings of muscle and the force of
whatever it was that binds flesh to bones. As you butcher, the shape dissolves, until
there is nothing left except a pigskin attached to a heel caught in a loop of rope, a
soak of black blood on the ground, a pair of eyes.

He heard her come through the curtain and cross the room. While she was
helping herself from the kettle he saw her gown was torn. Sitting down, she started to
eat. She had cleaned the blood off her chin.

No one had noticed his foolishness, his pathetic gesture of solidarity. He
hesitated, then began to cut up his food.