Strumpet City

CHAPTER NINE

They sheltered in the gateway while the east wind, beating up the river, brought a sudden flurry of snow with it. Many of the gateways facing on to the river were closed. Once again, at intervals of a hundred yards or so, groups of carters were picketing.

‘A white Christmas,’ Fitz said, ironically.

Mulhall, looking at the cold, white spray that broke along the water, said: ‘And a hungry one.’

It was rough, being on strike for the second time within a few months. But the carters were a determined crowd. Larkin’s expulsion from the Liverpool union had left the road open for the formation of a union of his own. He had taken it. The carters were his first members.

‘Are you getting strike pay regularly?’

‘It hasn’t failed yet.’

‘Where does Larkin get it from?’

‘A mystery,’ Mulhall admitted, ‘but he always finds it somehow. Maybe the clergy are right. He’s in league with oul Nick.’

‘We had a meeting at the foundry last night,’ Fitz told him. ‘We’re all transferring to the new union.’

‘You had a hand in that, I’d say.’

‘I gave you a promise.’

‘That’s what I meant,’ Mulhall acknowledged.

‘It was easy. They all want to be with Larkin.’

‘When is it to happen?’

‘Tomorrow evening. We’re going over in a body.’

‘Good,’ Mulhall said, ‘we’ll all be together again.’

‘We can levy right away to help the strike fund for you fellows.’

Mulhall nodded. The curtain of snowflakes had thinned. The air became clear. They began to walk home together. It was a desolate walk, with the east wind freezing their limbs and putting an edge on appetites they could not hope to satisfy. The streets were muddy and scattered with puddles. One stretched almost the entire width of a laneway. Mulhall waded straight through but Fitz picked a passage around the edges. His boots were leaking.

Mary was almost certain she was going to have a baby. It was another strong reason for avoiding trouble. The savage militancy of the new movement had bothered him throughout the whole of the autumn. Many a time, while the city slept and he broke off stoking to eat the supper Mary had made up for him, he had stared at the glowing frames of the furnace openings which spread in line down No. 2 House, feeling the bond between himself and that glowing gallery of fires. When he fed them they in turn fed him; if he let them go out there would be nothing for the home and nothing for the table. Sooner or later Larkin would call on him again to starve them and starve in turn himself. Sometimes, when turning to say goodbye to Mary in the evenings he would see through the large windows behind her the roofs of houses on the far side, their broken slates a dark blue under a sky that was taking a long time to get rid of the day, and she would seem so lonely and unprotected that it felt like the act of a traitor not to grasp tightly for her sake to the little bit of security that offered. But he had come to see that the security itself was a mirage; people he did not know and would never meet decided its extent and continuance for reasons that suited only themselves. He and the others did not count.

On Christmas Day Mary gave half of what they had to the Mulhalls; Mrs. Bartley thought of Rashers and saved a piece of cake for him; Rashers, in turn, invited Hennessy to the boiler house of St. Brigid’s Church on the Feast of the Epiphany. Father O’Connor had re-employed him as boilerman for the season and the housekeeper had promised to give him his breakfast in the kitchen, a privilege of boilermen, which had become traditional in the parish. Hennessy waited for him in the boiler house itself. It lay under the back of the church, down stone steps that were surrounded by iron railings. A small furnace stood in the centre, and there was enough room to accommodate the couple of broken chairs between it and the coke from which Rashers fed it. He opened the door of the furnace and extended his hands to the warmth. Then he lit the candle which stood on a ledge in the stonework. The wavering light showed up walls that were thickly coated with black dust and ancient webs so encrusted that they hung like rags from the corners of the ceiling. He jumped when Rashers came suddenly behind him.

‘You took a start out of me,’ Hennessy confessed.

‘Sit where you are,’ Rashers ordered.

It was only a dirty hole under the church, but it was warm and dry and for a season it was his. The fact gave him the right to play host.

‘Did you hear the bell ringing?’ he asked.

‘I did. I’d want to be deaf not to.’

The bell of St. Brigid’s stood in the church grounds, a great bronze affair supported by bars which were imbedded in a stone pedestal.

‘That was me,’ Rashers said, modestly.

‘You rang it?’

‘The clerk said I could. Hanlon used to do it for him of a Sunday.’

‘And now it’s your privilege,’ Hennessy said. ‘Isn’t that a great honour—to be summoning near and far to the house of God.’

‘I knocked a bloody fine clatter out of it,’ Rashers boasted. ‘Got my feet against the stonework, took the rope in my hand and lay back.’

He gave Hennessy a rough demonstration.

‘It sounded very impressive,’ Hennessy confirmed. ‘Every clang caught me at the back of the throat.’

‘Here’s something else for the same place,’ Rashers said. He opened a newspaper and displayed slices of chicken and ham, which he had managed to hide away in the course of breakfast. When he had divided them with Hennessy he took a bottle from his pocket, removed the cork and passed it under Hennessy’s nose.

‘Port wine,’ Hennessy breathed.

‘Pinched it from a bottle on the dresser.’

‘They’ll miss it and you’ll be in trouble.’

‘There were three half-finished bottles in a row. They’ll never guess.’

‘Somebody must be partial to the cup that cheers.’

‘Father Giffley, I imagine. The other man is a bit prejudiced in that direction. He doesn’t like the smell of drink at all.’

‘God bless the thought, anyway,’ Hennessy said. He drank deeply.

‘What do you think of my little place here?’ Rashers asked, as they feasted.

‘If I was you I’d bunk down here at nights instead of in that bloody oul basement in Chandler’s Court.’

‘I would, only for the dog. I can’t very well leave him on his own.’

‘Bring him with you,’ Hennessy suggested generously.

‘That would be a class of a sacrilege,’ Rashers objected, ‘bringing an unbaptised animal into a church.’

‘This isn’t the church.’

‘It’s all sanctified ground.’

‘Not the boiler house,’ Hennessy argued. ‘Sanctifying the boiler house would be a bit Irish. You might as well say the toilet at the back of the vestry was sanctified.’

The point impressed Rashers.

‘You might be right,’ he conceded.

‘Of course I’m right.’

‘Maybe I’ll chance bringing him down an odd night,’ he agreed. Again he passed the bottle to Hennessy. He thought in silence for a while.

‘A bit of music mightn’t be out of place.’

‘What music?’ Hennessy asked.

‘This,’ Rashers said. He rooted in his inner pockets and drew out a tin whistle. It was a superior toned Italian Flageolet.

‘I got a present of a shilling at Christmas from Father Giffley,’ he explained, ‘and I squandered it on this.’

‘Are you not afraid they’d hear you above?’

‘Divil the bit.’ He held the whistle towards Hennessy. ‘What do you think of it?’

Its slender column took on the rosy hue of the firelight. They both regarded it, Rashers affectionately, Hennessy, his mouth full of food, with an expression of bulbous curiosity.

‘You spent a shilling on that?’ he asked when it was physically possible.

Rashers turned it about and about in the firelight and said: ‘I often spent a shilling on less.’ He took a swig from the bottle and passed it to Hennessy.

‘Isn’t this the life of Reilly?’ Hennessy exclaimed. They bent forward together to let the fireglow play on their bodies, unaware of the antics of their gigantic shadows in the flickering candlelight.

‘I knew you’d like the wine,’ Rashers said. ‘It’s made out of grapes.’

‘Play the oul whistle,’ Hennessy invited. He disposed himself comfortably to listen.

Rashers began to do so. The notes came out sweetly and slowly. Hennessy, listening politely, now and then gathered food crumbs from the paper on his knee with fingers that courteously avoided noise. Rashers thrust his chin forward and found again a simple consolation he had lost months before in race crowds and drink.

Celebrating late mass in the church above them, Father Giffley bent down to the altar and breathed the Domine Non Sum Dignus. The act of stooping sent a stab of pain shooting from his neck to his throbbing eyes. The server struck the altar gong three times with the felt-headed hammer and the worshippers bent low also and beat their breasts.