Strumpet City

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mr. Doggett, of Doggett & Co., found himself with a problem. A letter, signed by James Larkin, Irish Organiser of the National Union of Dockers, warned him that if he instructed his carters to deliver coal to Morgan’s Foundry there would be a strike. A letter from Morgan & Co. demanded delivery immediately and warned him that the long-standing contract which he shared with Nolan & Keyes would be cancelled and given solely to Nolan & Keyes, if supplies were not despatched. He rightly guessed that his rivals had received a similar letter but had no way of finding out what they intended to do. He had no desire to face a strike. He had no desire either to lose the contract. It was a situation which kept his thoughts fully occupied. It was obvious that Nolan & Keyes shared his dilemma. For some weeks neither accepted the challenge by attempting delivery.

The situation troubled Timothy Keever too, but for a different reason. He worked for Nolan & Keyes and felt there was a moral issue. He decided to put it before Father O’Connor. His opportunity arose when the priest visited him as part of his parish work. Mrs. Keever spent more than she could afford in entertaining him to tea. After the meal Keever brought Father O’Connor into the yard at the back of the cottage to show him the shrine to St. Finbar he had built in his spare time. Father O’Connor seemed impressed.

‘Very beautiful,’ he said.

The shrine occupied the right-hand angle of the back and side walls. The statue was a small one, the tiny grass plot in front accommodated three jamjars with artificial flowers. Keever had distempered the wall behind in yellow and white and had contrived a kneeling board out of a packing case.

‘Maybe you’d say a prayer,’ Keever invited, diffidently.

The idea of kneeling in such surroundings horrified Father O’Connor. Tea with the Keevers, in itself, had been something of an ordeal.

‘Later, perhaps,’ he evaded.

The rest of the yard he noted, was occupied by a manhole cover and the pathway to the outdoor toilet. There was a large box.

‘What is this?’ Father O’Connor asked. It was an alternative topic to the shrine.

It’s for the dog,’ Keever explained. ‘He keeps the cats away. Especially at night.’

‘Ah,’ Father O’Connor said.

The back wall, which was enormously high, puzzled him, until he recognised it as part of the railway embankment. The railway line seemed to be everywhere in the parish of St. Brigid.

‘You have a comfortable home,’ Father O’Connor said. He was not quite sure, now that he had seen the shrine, what was expected of him next.

‘It was my father’s home,’ Keever said, ‘he was a carpenter.’

‘I see.’

‘In his time he was senior prefect.’

There was a strong tradition in favour of the skilled worker in parish activities.

‘Isn’t our present senior prefect a carpenter too?’

‘No, Father, Mr. Hegarty is a bricklayer.’

‘Of course,’ Father O’Connor said.

‘My own father intended me for a trade,’ Keever explained, ‘but God took him at an early age, so I became a carter. In fact I’m in a difficulty at the moment that Mr. Hegarty told me to ask your advice on.’

‘By all means,’ Father O’Connor agreed. He examined the box, found there was no dog present and sat down on it.

While Keever explained the situation in Nolan & Keyes Father O’Connor listened with half a mind. The man before him was, he thought, a model of what the Christian worker should be, accepting his social position with humility and making up for his lack of formal education by his persistence in good works of various kinds. He collected used stamps for the missions from the office staff of Nolan & Keyes and went among the carters on paydays gathering halfpennies for the same purpose. He carried a notebook in which he recorded each subscription as he received it and he handed over the total to Father O’Connor each week. He was constantly seeking recruits for the Church sodality among the men with whom he worked.

‘You are being asked,’ Father O’Connor summarised when he had finished, ‘to refuse your own employer’s instructions in order to force a point against another employer?’

‘That’s what I’m being asked, Father.’

‘And you’ve no grievance against your own employer?’

‘None at all, Father.’

‘It seems to me,’ Father O’Connor said, ‘there can be no moral justification whatever for injuring your own employer in his business because of the supposed shortcomings of some other employer.’

‘That’s how Mr. Hegarty put it.’

‘Mr. Hegarty is perfectly right.’

‘You’ve taken a weight off my mind, Father,’ Keever assured him. He turned again to the statue of St. Finbar, then looked questioningly at Father O’Connor, who hesitated. The shrine and the kneeling board were obviously sources of deep pride. Father O’Connor crossed himself. Despite the dog box, the outdoor toilet, the monstrous, grimy wall, he attempted to pray. He would have liked to gratify Keever’s wish, but the thought of kneeling defeated his will. He crossed himself but remained standing. After a while he crossed himself again and followed Keever back into the kitchen, consoling himself with the thought that at least he was visiting in his parish, and ministering in foul rooms compared with which Keever’s kitchen was a palace. As they went in, a train passed with such a thunderous commotion that the yard and its contents shuddered and seemed to hover on the brink of disintegration.

They had a glass of plain porter each in Mulligan’s snug. It was almost noon. Sunlight caught the edge of the table. The wood was worn. Near where Lily’s glass rested someone had tried to carve initials but they were indecipherable.

‘You shouldn’t have come into this business, love,’ Maisie said. ‘You haven’t the temperament.’

‘I know that now,’ Lily confessed.

‘And this fellow I was talking about,’ Maisie said. ‘Mind you, it’s not everybody he’ll take on, because he’s afraid of gossip. But I think I could persuade him to see you.’

‘Three pounds is a lot of money.’

‘Three guineas, sweetheart, he’s still got his professional pride.’

‘Maybe it isn’t It at all.’

‘Maybe it is. Do you want your teeth going bad and your nice hair . . .’

‘Shut up, for Jaysus’ sake.’

Lily moved her glass until it covered the indecipherable initials.

‘I’m near distracted, Maisie.’

Maisie drained her drink and punched the bell behind her.

‘You don’t want to go to the Locke, do you, with all the ditch-and-doorway element?’

‘God forbid,’ Lily said.

‘‘How are you for money?’

‘Desperate, but I’ve four quid . . .’

‘I wouldn’t call that very desperate,’ Maisie said.

‘ . . . which isn’t mine.’

‘Matter-a-damn who’s it is.’

‘I’m minding it for a fella.’

‘Get yourself looked after, girl.’

A panel opened and a man acknowledged Maisie’s gesture by inclining his bald dome at them. They both waited. He returned and placed two more glasses on the ledge. Maisie paid him and took the drinks to the table.

‘Well . . . ?’ she said to Lily.

‘Give me the address.’

‘That’s the ticket.’ Maisie beamed with relief. ‘He never qualified because of the drink and he’ll have a booze with your three guineas as soon as you leave him. But he won’t let you down if treatment is wanted.’

‘I hope to God he’s good.’

‘Liz and Agnes Benson swear by him. And many another.’

Maisie rooted in her handbag. She found a pencil, but neither of them had a piece of paper.

‘To hell with it,’ Maisie said, ‘I’ll bring you to him myself.’

‘You’re an angel,’ Lily said. ‘When?’

‘This evening.’

They both drank.

‘Here’s hoping,’ Maisie said, smiling encouragement. There was no need to name the hope. Lily remained subdued.

‘I’m sorry about this chap’s four pounds,’ she explained. ‘He’s not a customer, he’s a friend.’

Maisie said she was a queer girl.

The news that Nolan & Keyes had made up their minds to attempt delivery to Morgan & Co. reached Doggett through channels of his own. He had no option but to act himself. The men he employed knew of his presence almost as soon as they reported for work. They, too, had their own channels.

‘Doggett’s up above’ the nearest carter whispered to Mulhall. They both interrupted yoking-up to look at the window of the superintendent’s office. It was long and overlooked the yard. The early-morning air, pungent and misty, forecast an uncertain day.

‘It’s not the weather brought him down so early,’ Mulhall said.

To Doggett, who was looking down at the activity in the marshalling yard, they were two men among a score or so of others. He smoked and watched.

‘You’ve instructed the foreman?’ Doggett asked.

‘I have, sir. They get the dockets as they pass the scales.’

The superintendent was nervous.

‘All the dockets are for Morgan & Co?’

‘All the one destination, sir.’

‘That’s the idea,’ Doggett said. ‘No word yet of the situation at Nolan & Keyes?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

Doggett moved nearer to the window. He said, conversationally, ‘We’ve been busy, you know—very busy.’

‘It’ll slacken soon, with the summer coming on, sir.’

‘Seasonal. Still, I anticipate we’ll do better than average.’

‘I hope so, sir.’

‘We all hope so,’ Mr. Doggett said. He was watching each move below him, his mind working coolly. He saw the carts loaded and the marshalling procedure beginning.

Mulhall lay about twelfth in line. He lit his pipe and spat from his plank seat. He kept his eyes on the men nearer the scales. They had agreed, but they might break just the same. It would be a new kind of strike, if it came off. The first man drove on to the scales and waited while the clerk weighed. He accepted the destination docket, read it carefully and put it in his pocket. Doggett, his hands behind his back, watched from the window. This, he knew, was the crucial moment. The line of carters watched too. The leading carter drove clear of the scales and towards the gate. Everybody wondered. They saw him rein in as he approached the gate, which was narrow. Then he gave a check to the reins. While still in the yard the horse and cart swung to the right of the gate and the carter dismounted. The second carter did likewise but more decisively. So did the rest, until the whole line was at a standstill and the cart in front left no room to cross the scales. Mulhall, seeing the foreman going over to the men, left down his reins and went to them also. He took the delivery docket from one of the men who had crossed the scales, read it and signalled to the others. They dismounted, some with a leap, some clambering down laboriously or reluctantly. Doggett saw them forming into a circle for consultation. Some time later the foreman reported to the superintendent in the outer office, who brought the decision to Doggett.

‘They refuse to deliver to Morgan & Co., sir.’ Mr. Doggett had already discussed the prodecure with him.

‘Very well,’ he instructed, ‘re-consign everything as we prepared it. And try to find out what the situation is in Nolan & Keyes.’

‘It’ll take some time, sir. Where can I contact you?’

‘Right here,’ Doggett said in a tone which made the superintendent jerk nervously. Before he moved away from the window he saw the men being despatched one by one to the alternative destinations. It took time, because their loads had to be adjusted. But it was accomplished without a hitch.

Nolan & Keyes reported a split. At first the refusal seemed unanimous, but after bickering and argument Timothy Keever, fortified by Father O’Connor’s advice, followed his conscience and persuaded some of the others that he was right. They delivered to the foundry. The rest of the men in Nolan & Keyes persisted in their refusal. They were locked out. Doggett took the news coolly, although it placed him in an extremely dangerous position. If word got out to Morgan’s that he had given in to the carters’ threat and that Nolan & Keyes had stood firm his contract would be in danger. But he had laid his plans. Now that Nolan & Keyes had attempted delivery there was only one safe course open.

‘Work out an afternoon consignment for Morgan’s,’ he told the superintendent. ‘Supervise the loading personally and lockout immediately if we have a second refusal.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There was a chance, Doggett felt, that the men might weaken under the pressure of a renewed instruction. Meanwhile there was another precaution to be taken, in case the news that he had surrendered early that morning got about.

‘I’ve forgotten the yard foreman’s name.

‘O’Connor, sir.’

‘Please send him to me.’

The foreman was a small man in his fifties. Coal grime had settled permanently in the pores of his face. A black sweat beaded his forehead and streaked his temples.

‘You’re O’Connor?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘The men refused your instructions this morning?’

‘They did, sir. They said they were standing by Larkin’s agreement.’

‘Are you a member of that gentleman’s organisation?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Do you know anything about it?’

‘Only what I hear the men saying, from time to time.’

‘For instance?’

‘It’s the National Union of Dockers, sir. Mr. Sexton is general secretary but Mr. Larkin is Irish organiser. Sexton doesn’t like him. He won’t recognise the strikes engineered by Mr. Larkin and he may stop strike pay.’

‘How do they propose to finance themselves?’

‘They’ll collect around the docks and all over the country. Larkin is collecting in Cork at present.’

‘You know quite a lot about Mr. Larkin.’

‘Only what I hear, sir. The men have a good deal of talk about him.’

‘Too much, it appears,’ Doggett said. He rose and left the desk.

‘How long are you with us?’

‘About thirty years, sir—since Mr. Waterville’s time.’

‘How long have you been yard foreman?’

‘Fifteen years, sir.’

‘Fifteen years is a long time.’

‘It is, sir.’ O’Connor’s face betrayed a moment’s pleasure.

‘Long enough,’ Doggett continued, ‘to have learned the art of handling men in.’

O’Connor hesitated. Doggett’s tone had changed suddenly. He became confused.

‘It isn’t easy these days, sir, with so much agitation going on.’

‘We had evidence of that this morning, hadn’t we?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s all for the moment,’ Doggett said. He called the superintendent.

‘I have been speaking to O’Connor.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Doggett looked steadily at the superintendent.

‘O’Connor is unsatisfactory,’ he said, ‘pay him off this evening.’

The superintendent took a little while to grasp what was meant.

‘Dismiss him—sir?’

‘Yes. I expect my foremen to be competent.’

The next day the men in the foundry, standing by their promise, refused to handle the coal that had been delivered by Keever and his followers. The Board met briefly to decide to lock out. Only Yearling expressed hesitation.

‘Our insistence hasn’t done much good, has it?’ he remarked.

‘What do you suggest?’ the chairman asked.

It was a question Yearling had answered over and over again. Now he merely shrugged.

‘We have no option,’ the chairman insisted, ‘unless we are prepared to encourage anarchy.’

‘I thought Doggett might fail us,’ someone said. ‘He’s been trick-o’-the-looping.’

‘Not this time,’ the chairman said.

‘He diverted the first load, I’ve been told.’

‘There is an explanation,’ the chairman answered. ‘He had trouble with a foreman. It appears the fellow was in the pay of Larkin and diverted the load on his own initiative. Doggett tells me he has dismissed him.’

‘The only medicine,’ someone approved. ‘Good for Doggett.’

In May the carters of Nolan & Keyes and of Doggett & Co. were joined by all the other carters of the city who went on strike against the masters’ rejection of a general wage demand. New pickets appeared. The coal-carrying trade came to a standstill. Father O’Connor paid off Rashers and closed down the boiler-house for the summer. He wondered if his advice to Keever had been responsible, however indirectly, for closing down the foundry. Whenever he passed a picket throughout the months of June and July the thought came freshly into his mind. He had spoken with a conscientious regard for justice, yet there was another side to it that troubled him, something in the faces of the men: tiredness, the dark lines of hunger, the way they saluted him and the speculative look with which their eyes regarded him as he passed. When he went the rounds of his parish there were hungry children in the strikers’ homes. Poverty might disgust him, but that was some uncontrollable reaction in himself. It was not that he had lost his pity for it.

‘Do you think they would have locked out if all of you had refused delivery?’ he asked Keever.

‘I don’t know, Father. They didn’t at first in Doggett’s.’

‘I see,’ Father O’Connor said.

‘The men are blaming me.’

‘You must tell them . . .’ Father O’Connor began. He had been about to add ‘that Father O’Connor advised you.’ But he had second thoughts. The Church had its own work. He must keep clear of conflicts in a world he did not altogether understand. He had been asked for a moral judgment. He had given it. The rest was not his business.

‘Tell them the Christian workman must at all times acknowledge certain principles to be above the claims of man-made organizations.’

Keever decided not to mention that he had already done so. He had been told what to do with his principles. It hurt him but had no persuasive effect whatever. Finding no outlet for ambition or reason for hope on earth, Keever had long ago fixed heaven with acquisitive and unflinching eyes.

‘At the same time we have a duty to help the wives and children,’ Father O’Connor said. ‘I want you to make a list of families for me—not more than ten for a start—whom you think are most in need of relief. You and Mr. Hegarty and the members of the Confraternity Committee can make up some food parcels for distribution.’

‘I’ll do that, Father.’

Father O’Connor thought Keever looked uneasy.

‘Do you not agree?’

‘Certainly, Father, of course,’ Keever said.

‘Very well. Let me have the list as soon as you can.’

There was a large press in Father O’Connor’s bedroom, which was quite empty. He decided that tins of cocoa would be easiest to store and more nourishing than tea. Sugar and tins of milk would be no problem. He ordered these in quantity. While he was at it he decided to stock in some blankets. They would be cheaper now that summer was coming and could be held against the winter. He found room for these in the press also. Drawing the money by cheque, visiting shops, consulting with the two prefects, kept him busy and contented. They spent three evenings in the room behind the vestry making up parcels. Each contained a packet of flour, a tin of cocoa and a tin of milk. It was good to work so humbly for others.

The rumours of disagreement between Sexton and Larkin persisted. Fitz was certain that sooner or later the Liverpool Executive would stop their strike pay.

‘Isn’t Larkin collecting in Cork?’ Joe pointed out.

‘I’d feel happier with a little cash in reserve, just the same,’ Fitz said.

They were resting on a piece of waste ground near the river, a favourite site for games of pitch and toss. Nettles and weeds wrestled for possession of the few feet of soil. A mane of grass, reaching upwards through the broken bottom of an upturned bucket, had the gloss of health.

‘If you need it badly I can lay hands on a couple of pounds for you,’ Pat offered.

‘Where?’

‘From Lily.’

‘The fancy woman,’ Joe put in.

‘It’s my own money,’ Pat added, ignoring him. ‘She’s minding four pounds for me.’

Joe looked up at the blue sky and joined his hands across his belly.

‘Minding it for him,’ he said, addressing his scepticism directly to God.

‘When do you want it?’ Pat asked Fitz.

Joe remained in isolated communion with the Powers above him.

‘There’s no great hurry,’ Fitz said.

The Angelus bell sounded from a nearby church. When they had taken off their hats and crossed themselves Joe asked:

‘Did you hear it was the curate in St. Brigid’s advised Keever to carry on?’

‘I didn’t hear that,’ Fitz admitted.

‘We’re a priest-ridden race,’ Pat declared, ‘but we’ll get rid of them.’

‘When?’ Joe asked.

‘When we organise and establish a Workers’ Republic.’

‘With Lily Maxwell in the chair.’

‘Leave Lily Maxwell alone.’

‘That’s what you should do,’ Joe said, goading him.

‘You’ll have your money tomorrow,’ Pat assured Fitz.

But though he tried throughout the week to find Lily she seemed to have disappeared. There was no answer when he knocked at her room. Maisie, when he met her, said she had no idea where Lily could be. He met her again and was told the same thing. The second time he got the impression that she was lying.

Chandlers Court looked out on the summer evenings and waited for whatever might choose to happen. There was a tension in the streets, a promise of action which seemed each day to be on the point of materialising, but which never did. The weather, mercifully, made heating unnecessary, but fires were still needed for cooking. In No. 3 a communal system helped the economy. They pooled their resources and took it in turns to use each other’s fireplace. Mary began to know the lives of those about her. The Mulhalls lived best. They had a table with a cover, good chairs, a dresser well stocked with crockery. Mrs. Mulhall was a woman who polished and scrubbed. The Bartleys below were clean people too, but the room was poorly equipped because Mr. Bartley never seemed to be able to find anything except casual work. The little boy at whose bed Father Giffley had watched some years before was now a messenger with one of the grocery shops. He earned half a crown a week, which helped to pay the rent. Most of all she hated going to the Hennessys, who were desperately poor. They drank out of tins and jamjars and spread covering on the floors at night for their numerous children.

The first ten families listed by Keever received their food parcels with gratitude. They were all, in one way or another, intimates of his. With the second ten he ran into trouble. After an evening of successive calls he returned to Father O’Connor. Hegarty and he placed the parcels on the table.

‘What’s this?’ Father O’Connor asked.

‘We had trouble,’ Keever said.

‘They refused to take the parcels,’ Hegarty explained.

‘They refused . . .’

‘They called me a scab,’ Keever said.

‘And they didn’t leave your name altogether out of it either, Father,’ Hegarty added.

Father O’Connor flushed deeply. ‘All of them refused?’

‘Every one of them.’

‘In one of the houses they tried to empty water over us from the windows.’

‘Blackguardism,’ Father O’Connor said.

‘It’s Larkin and the union, Father. They’re boycotting Keever and myself.’

‘I see,’ Father O’Connor said. He had betrayed anger. That was a mistake. He should be calm. He should receive the information as though it was of no importance.

‘Well—leave the parcels back in the press. Tomorrow evening we’ll have a committee meeting.’

But the next evening only Keever and Hegarty and one very old man turned up.

‘If you’d send someone else with the parcels they’d take them,’ Keever suggested. He was humble. It would not matter to him.

‘Certainly not,’ Father O’Connor decided. ‘We are not going to be dictated to.’

The parcels remained in the press. He owed a duty to Keever. More important still, he owed a duty to himself. Or, rather, to his cloth and the Church which had been offered a blackguardly insult. It was an indication of the evil disposition which was gaining ground, even among the lowly and illiterate.

Rashers had his own campaign to fight in the daily battle to survive and he fought it with his own weapons. Circumstances were making it more than usually difficult. The city was either curtailing its charity in the belief that that would kill the new tendency among its lower orders to strike and perhaps do worse, or reserving its coppers for the collecting boxes of the locked-out men. It was a new partisanship which left no place for Rashers. The idea of cashing in on this sympathy occurred to him, and he got as far as painting the words ‘Help the Lock-Out’ on the side of a home-made box. But while he waited for the lettering to dry he changed his mind. It would be wrong, his conscience suggested, and he gave in to its reproaches. The idea of writing a ballad about the strikes seemed better and more honest. Hennessy found him sitting on the steps one afternoon, already at work on it. He had the first two lines on the back of a cigarette packet, but its composition was a laborious process. He welcomed the interruption.

‘Is Fitzpatrick above?’ Hennessy asked.

‘He went out about twenty minutes ago,’ Rashers said.

‘That’s most unfortunate,’ Hennessy remarked. The cigarette packet intrigued him.

‘What’s the writing about?’

‘It’s a ballad about the strike.’

Rashers handed him the packet. Hennessy, screwing up his eyes, read:

‘Come all ye gallant Dublin crew and listen to my song

Of working men and women too who fight the cruel wrong.’

‘What comes after that?’

‘Damn the bit of me knows,’ Rashers confessed, ‘it has me puckered.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Sing it at meetings and outside public houses.’

‘In the hope of making a few coppers?’

‘What else?’

‘Not a chance now,’ Hennessy said.

‘Why not?’

‘The tide has gone out, oul skin. That’s why Mulhall sent me looking for Fitzpatrick.’ Hennessy handed back the cigarette packet.

‘The Liverpool Executive stopped the strike pay this morning.’

Fitz was already down at the committee rooms, where Mulhall had been waiting in the hope of seeing him. The doors were still closed and the crowd grew as they talked. Men who would not normally have come until later in the evening arrived early because the story of the stoppage of the relief money had spread from street to street. There were carters, shipping workers, a number of hands from factories that had become involved in the spread of the stoppages. The rumour went that there would be no money at all. Mulhall was more optimistic.

‘Larkin collected in Cork,’ he said, ‘and as well as that the committee built up a relief fund through the collection boxes. There’s bound to be something.’

‘It’ll want to be a lot,’ Fitz said, looking at the crowd, ‘to go anywhere among this mob.’

Joe joined them and after an hour Pat came along.

‘Trouble in our native land,’ he said.

‘The strike pay has been stopped,’ Fitz confirmed. There was still no sign of the doors being opened, so they moved over to the river wall. Down towards the sea, on the South Wall, cranes swivelled above ships.

‘It’s at times like this I wish I was a docker,’ Fitz said.

‘Or a sailor,’ Pat said. ‘Plenty of money and a wife in every port.’

Joe, who had been brooding about the matter on and off, saw his opportunity and said:

‘What about the four pounds you left with Lily Maxwell?’

Mulhall looked mildly curious. Fitz, glancing quickly at Pat’s face, knew that Joe had gone too far. It was one of those things which should never have been said.

‘I haven’t been able to see her,’ Pat said. Joe began to explain to Mulhall.

‘Imagine giving four pounds to mind to a . . .’

But Fitz, his tone sharp and violently angry, cut him short.

‘Give it a rest.’

Pat, who had been leaning on the wall, straightened and faced the three of them.

‘I promised Fitz two pounds of it and he’ll have it. I’ll pick her up.’

‘The girl might need it,’ Fitz said, ‘don’t go trailing her.’

He was sorry for Pat, whose face showed pain and humiliation.

‘There’s no question of trailing her,’ Pat said, ‘the girl never wronged me of a penny piece. You’ll have two pounds tonight.’

He left them abruptly. Mulhall looked after him and then asked: ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘His sweetheart let him down,’ Joe said, beginning to laugh.

‘Give it over, I told you,’ Fitz said, rounding on him.

They went back to the hall and found it open, but the crowd outside seemed as dense as before. Someone Mulhall knew said: ‘They’re paying out inside.’

‘What’s the damage?’

‘It’s reduced to five bob.’

‘Better than nothing.’ Mulhall remarked. He began to elbow his way in. Fitz and Joe followed. Inside they produced their cards to the first man of three sitting at a table. With a shock Fitz realised that he was looking at Jim Larkin.

He was bigger than Fitz had imagined him and was smoking a black cheroot. The thumb of his left hand was stuck into the docker’s belt which he wore loosely about his waist. The man next to him made a quick entry in a book, the third man counted out five single shillings and handed them to Fitz, together with a printed notice which said:

‘Meeting This Evening At Parnell Square 5 p.m. sharp.

Jim Larkin Will Speak

Scabs Arriving

Muster For Action

Unity Is Strength’

They reached the sunlight again.

‘It was Jim Larkin,’ Fitz said. The encounter had excited him. It was as though he had just seen personalised all the slogans and half-conceived ideas that had been the common currency of the past two months. Mulhall, more experienced in such matters, found it less remarkable.

‘How’s the time?’

‘I’ve no notion.’

They walked together towards the city centre to consult the public clocks. It was half past four. All three were more or less hungry, yet they passed the bread shops and walked across restaurant gratings and were unaware for the moment of their drifting odours.

‘What’s that about scabs arriving?’ Joe asked, looking again at the badly printed notice.

‘That’s more of their dirty play.’

‘They did it in Belfast, didn’t they?’ Mulhall reminded them.

They went on towards the square, where they found a few men with banners building a temporary platform against the ornamental railings. Four or five hundred men were spread about in loose groups, waiting. From the windows of Vaughan’s Hotel guests were watching curiously.

‘Anyone a cigarette?’ Fitz asked.

Men were still arriving and the scattered groups began to move forward into a mass. After a while Fitz found himself hemmed in on either side and then, quite suddenly it seemed, the pressure of people jammed his shoulder tight against Mulhall’s. He looked towards the platform and saw that Larkin had mounted it. He began to address them.

At first the accent was strange. Part Liverpool, part Irish, it produced immediate silence. The voice, flung back again from the high housefronts on the other side of the road, was the strongest Fitz had ever heard. From time to time the hands moved with an eloquence of their own. The strike pay had been withdrawn, he was saying, because the British Executive were indifferent to the sufferings of people in Dublin. For two months they had given them half-hearted support and now, the fight was proving too big. The Executive were afraid. It was laughable, he said, that trade union leaders with the broad waters of the Irish Sea between them and the field of action should be afraid, while the Dublin trade unionists were still full of courage and fighting fit. If they intended to withhold strike pay why was it not done at the beginning, before men had sacrificed themselves and their families throughout two long and bitter months?

They answered with a cheer. Fitz found himself joining in. He saw Larkin’s hand upheld for silence and stopped. They were going to carry on, Larkin continued, with or without money. A sum had been collected which would keep them going for a while. The weekly payment would be even less than in the past, but they must see themselves as soldiers in the field, holding a position against odds, surrounded and cut off and ready to continue on short rations. He had information that a shipload of free labourers would arrive at the South Wall that evening. The answer to that would be to call out the dockers. He intended to address meetings on the South and the North Wall and hoped to bring work there to a standstill. In that way they would close the port of Dublin. The Government might then take a hand in persuading the employers to see reason.

The meeting lasted almost an hour. At the end of it Fitz found himself in a column of marching men, headed by Larkin. As they rounded the corner of Parnell Square he looked back. A few hundred men in ranks of four stretched behind. They passed the Rotunda and met the first heavy traffic. Horse-drawn cabs pulled in to one side, trams came to a standstill, people on the footpaths stood to stare. After two months of doubt and idleness to have control of a city street, however briefly, was an exhilarating experience. They strode out strongly, turning left before crossing O’Connell Bridge. They found the approach to the North Quays blocked by a cordon of police in plenty of time to swing confidently to the right and across Butt Bridge, then left again along the approach to the south bank of the river. As they passed the closed gates of the marshalling yards men who had worked in them before the strike cheered derisively. Mulhall pointed out Doggett & Co. to Fitz. The gate was red and the firm’s name stood out on it in white painted letters. About two hundred yards below that they came to a second cordon of police and halted. At a distance behind the police the first gang of dockers were unloading and behind that they could see the masts of ships that were lying to and crane arms swinging backwards and forwards against the skyline.

The police inspector stepped forward and Larkin went over on his own to meet him. In the centre of the few yards of dockside dividing the police from the strikers they parleyed for some minutes. The police were about sixty strong and the strikers, Fitz knew, had drawn too close. Anything would spark off a clash.

‘They won’t let us through,’ Mulhall predicted, while they waited.

‘Not a hope,’ Fitz said.

‘We could burst our way through,’ Joe said.

‘I’m on.’ Mulhall agreed.

‘Better wait and see what Larkin wants to do,’ Fitz advised.

The pressure of body against body in the crowd behind him generated an excitement of itself which was already reckless and dangerous. The police inspector rejoined his column and Larkin returned. For a while nothing happened. Then the police, turning about, withdrew some yards and about-faced again. This time they drew their batons. Larkin pushed through the ranks of the strikers, reached one of the quayside capstans and mounted it. He began to address them.

The police, he said, had closed the quays. They said it was to avoid disturbances but that was not the truth. It was to aid and abet the employers in their plan to import free labour. The Government had made its police force the minions of the employers instead of the servants of all the citizens. The answer to that was to close the port, not for a day or two days, but until such time as the demands of the men on strike had been conceded. He was going to address the dockers, despite employers and governments and police, and he would do so within the hour. Meanwhile he appealed to them to have trust in him and to promise that in his absence their demonstration would continue to be orderly and disciplined. He was helped down from the capstan and struggled towards the back of the crowd.

‘What do we do now?’ Joe asked generally.

‘How is he supposed to talk to the dockers?’ Mulhall wondered, ‘both sides of the river are cordoned off.’

‘He might get through on his own over on the North Bank.’

The men had broken rank and were gathered in a crowd. With Larkin gone there was no longer a focal point. Some of them lined up against the gates of the marshalling yards and shared cigarettes. The police, seeing the situation losing its tension, put away their batons.

‘Come on,’ Mulhall said. Fitz and Joe followed him over to the wall and they stood with their backs to Doggett & Co.’s gate.

‘If there’s a heave we don’t want to end up in the river,’ Mulhall explained, looking over at the unprotected quayside.

There was no sign of any slackening of work along the river. The cranes continued to swing, the rattle of horse-drawn floats and distant shouts mingled and drifted; it was the familiar voice of the riverside. A man who knew Mulhall came across and said:

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We were instructed to wait,’ Mulhall said.

‘Some of the lads at the back want to get on with it.’

‘That’s what I think too,’ Joe said.

‘We could easily break through. What do you say?’ He was speaking to Fitz, who said:

‘I say we should hold tight, but I’m willing to do what Mulhall thinks best.’

Mulhall looked across at the police.

‘We’d break through all right,’ he said, ‘because they’d let us. But you’d find they’ve reserves up every side street. And when they got us between them they’d let us have it.’

‘I don’t think we should be afraid of the police,’ the man objected.

‘There’s your answer,’ Fitz said, pointing towards the police. A second column had approached from behind and was spreading out in formation behind them.

‘That’s what I mean,’ Mulhall said.

A cheer began from behind. At first they thought the men were jeering at the reinforcements, but after a moment they realised that all heads were turning in the direction of the river. They could see nothing because of the crowd in front.

‘Up here,’ Mulhall said, turning to the wall. They climbed up after each other.

Fitz, who reached the top first, shouted ‘Look’ and pointed.

A rowing boat was moving downriver, manned by four oarsmen. Standing in the centre and waving to the men on shore was Larkin. The boat drew level with the police cordon, passed it and went on towards the unloading docks. A detachment of police left the main body and moved down the quayside, keeping pace with it.

Mulhall, deflated, said: ‘They’ll get him when he tries to land.’

But Larkin’s intention came suddenly to Fitz. He gripped Mulhall’s arm tightly and shouted:

‘He won’t land. He’ll speak to them from the boat.’

A hush fell on the crowd and they heard, after what seemed an age, the distant but still recognisable tones. What he was saying was lost, but the effect soon became clear. The nearest crane arm completed its semicircle and remained still. So did the next. Then, at intervals that grew shorter as the word spread from gang to gang, crane after crane became immobilised. They watched in silence as the paralysis spread. Yard by yard and ship by ship, the port was closing down. The cordon of police opened to form a narrow laneway, and through this the first contingent of striking dockers filed to join the demonstrators. Their arrival started a movement in the crowd which spread through it rapidly.

‘Let’s get down,’ Fitz suggested.

‘Stay put,’ Mulhall warned.

The cheering had grown wilder and the movement, reaching the rear, stopped for a moment and then began to surge forward. The front lines moved nearer to the police, hesitated, then surged forward once again. The police, deciding the moment of initiative, drew their batons and charged.

The mass of bodies shuddered as it took the impact, gave ground a little, but held. Fitz, looking down on the swaying bodies, wondered at the foolishness of the police action. Caught on one side by the wall and threatened by the river on the other, the crowd tightened and became impenetrable. There was no room to scatter and therefore no option but to stand firm. Already a number of men had been forced over the quayside into the water. Some of the police, detached from their colleagues, went down and were left behind, while the main body, finding the pressure irresistible, retreated and tried to hold together. The struggle continued back along the quays until the first side street offered a channel of escape, through which men streamed thickly from the main body. Fitz saw the mass thinning, and the police, the pressure at last released, stopping to regroup. Up the road from where they sat were three or four casualties of the charge. He climbed down and walked towards them. One man, with a deep gash along the side of his head, needed help urgently. Fitz turned and called to Mulhall.

‘Have a look at this.’ The man was barely conscious. His shirt and the collar of his coat were stained heavily with blood.

‘Can we lift him?’ Mulhall asked, when he had reached them.

‘I wouldn’t like to.’

‘There’s a stretcher in the first-aid room back in Doggett’s,’ Mulhall remembered.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Joe offered.

‘Will there be someone there?’

‘There’s bound to be a watchman,’ Mulhall said. It seemed the best thing. Doggett’s was only a short distance away. Fitz agreed.

‘Does he know how to use the telephone?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘Get him to call the ambulance while you’re there.’

When they had gone he lifted the injured man gently so that his arm made a rest for his head. It helped to slow down the flow of blood. Beyond that there was little he could do. The area immediately around them was deserted, but further along the riverside men still hung around in groups. Fitz, wondering uneasily where the police had got to, wished that Joe and Mulhall would hurry. The man in his arms was unconscious and breathing heavily, the wound was open and ugly, about him the painted gateways and dusty cobbles wore an air of brooding menace. He looked behind him and there was no sign of help.

‘Mulhall,’ he shouted, hardly knowing why. There was no answer. The injured man began to moan. It seemed to Fitz that the others had been gone for an hour. His arm under the head began to ache unbearably, the evening light bathed the cobbles about him with an oppressive light that seemed to press on him physically. At last he caught sight of Mulhall and Joe. They moved towards him for a short distance and stopped. He waved his free arm at them to hurry, but they signalled wildly to him and shouted. He looked downriver again and froze. The isolated groups had formed into a crowd again and were racing towards him. It was another baton charge, this time with the police in control. He heard Mulhall shouting to him to run, but the head on his arm, helpless and bloody, held him fixed where he was. He hugged the injured man tighter, until the bedlam of legs and bodies milled about him on all sides, cutting out the light, tripping over him, throwing him to the ground with his broken burden now lying beneath him. A heavily booted foot caught him on the forehead as it passed and he lost consciousness.

He woke up again in the timekeeper’s office of Doggett & Co. There were keys about the wall, each with a number chalked beneath its hook. Mulhall and Joe were drinking tea with the watchman.

‘We’ve been keeping an eye on you,’ Mulhall said, when he sat up. Fitz felt his head.

‘Don’t mind the bandage,’ Mulhall reassured him, ‘the ambulance man said you’d be as right as rain.’

Fitz remembered. ‘Where’s the other chap?’

‘They carted him off with them,’ Joe said.

‘Is he bad?’

‘Fractured skull—they think. You probably saved his life.’

‘Give me a cup of that,’ Fitz asked. Mulhall took a can from a gas ring in the corner and poured.

‘We were keeping it hot for you,’ he said. He grinned at Fitz, a kindly and approving grin that made Fitz feel happy. He sipped the tea. He realised as he did so that he was ravenously hungry.

Pat searched for Lily until the heat of airless streets brought him to a standstill. He leaned against a lamp-post and wondered what likely place was left. He had stood on the narrow landing outside her room for almost an hour, thinking she must surely return for a meal. He heard the Angelus bell striking and nodded to other occupants as they passed up and down the uncarpeted stairs until it became embarrassing to be seen standing so long in the same place. He went out again into the streets, tried the pubs and the usual shops all over again and met Maisie for the second time that evening. She treated him this time like a harmless lunatic.

‘There’s no sign of Lily anywhere,’ he reported.

‘Maybe she’s gone off with a soldier,’ Maisie said, laughing at him.

‘I want to see her urgently.’

‘You must be in a bad way,’ Maisie sympathised, ‘and it only half past six of a summer’s evening.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘I know where you’ll find as good as her.’

‘It’s important, Maisie,’ Pat appealed.

‘I haven’t seen sight nor light of her,’ Maisie said, ‘and that’s the gospel truth.’

She was lying. He was convinced of it. Lily, for whatever reason, was avoiding him.

Hunger and thirst made him wish now that he had waited to see if there was any strike pay. The thought that Lily did not want to see him began as a puzzling suspicion and became a gnawing pain. They had been warm to each other for so long.

He decided to abandon the search for the moment. His immediate need was a drink. He set off purposefully until he reached a shop with three brass balls hanging outside it.

‘Are we doing business, Patrick?’ Mr. Donegan said pleasantly. He had been writing in his accounts book. Pat removed his jacket.

‘This,’ he said putting it on the counter.

Mr. Donegan adjusted his glasses and held it up to examine it.

‘Your coat?’ he questioned.

‘How much?’ Pat asked.

‘How much did you want?’

‘Half a crown.’

Mr. Donegan made a clicking noise with his tongue. Pat was well known to him, a regular and reliable client. But he liked to make a business point.

‘It’s not worth half that,’ he said.

‘Two shillings,’ Pat compromised.

Mr. Donegan wrote a docket and handed him half a crown.

‘We’ll leave it the half-crown,’ he said easily. ‘Any sign of the work resuming?’

‘Not yet,’ Pat said, ‘but I’ll be back to you, whether or aye.’

‘Of course you will,’ Mr. Donegan said. A thought occurred to him. ‘Anything in the pockets?’ He ran his hands through them absentmindedly.

‘You might find a few holes,’

‘For ventilation,’ Mr. Donegan smiled. Then he frowned. ‘Don’t go getting drunk. There’s no nourishment in porter.’

‘There’s other things in porter,’ Pat suggested.

‘No’, Mr. Donegan denied. ‘Drink, like women, is a snare and a delusion. God bless you.’

‘God bless us all,’ Pat said.

He met Rashers on his way across town, recognising first the voice and then the bearded figure with the hand cupped against the side of the face and its feet planted in the gutter. The dog sat patiently, as though adjudicating.

‘Come all ye gallant neighbours come, and listen to my song

Of working men and women too who fight a cruel wrong

How sad their plight, this bitter night, deserted and let down

Their cause betrayed by foreign knaves which serves the British crown

O, do not trust unless you must the men that serves the crown.’

Pat slapped Rashers on the shoulder.

‘Come on. I’ll buy you a pint.’

‘I’d rather you forked out the tuppence.’

‘I’ll do both. Come on.’

‘You’re a decent Christian gentleman,’ Rashers said, following him, ‘and may you have the life of Reilly and a large funeral.’

He gave a jerk to the lead, bringing the dog reluctantly to its feet.

They went into the public house and ordered. Sunlight slanted through the windows and the air was warm and smelled a little of urine.

‘Where did you get the ballad?’

‘I made it up.’

‘Out of your head?’

‘Out of my heart,’ Rashers said, correcting him. ‘A ballad made out of the head is worse than useless. Here’s my best respects.’

He raised his pint.

‘A happy Christmas,’ Pat said.

‘We’ll see that too’, Rashers predicted, ‘when the working class comes into their own.’

‘We’ll have a statue put up to you in years to come,’ Pat promised, ‘and the people will gather from near and far to see the words spelled out on it in golden letters: Rashers Tierney, Bard of The Revolution.’

They both fell silent, picturing in their mind the stone tribute of Pat’s fantasy.

‘The only thing is,’ Pat amended, ‘they’d have to leave the bloody oul dog out of it.’

‘I seen a statue to a dog once,’ Rashers volunteered. ‘It was put up by a rich oul wan in memory of a pet terrier.’

‘And why not?’

‘It didn’t look right. I often wondered had she the priest to pronounce over it, sprinkling holy water and wishing it eternal rest, in secula seculorium.’

‘Maybe she believed in that thing about souls.

‘What thing?’

‘When you pass on you come back as an animal.’

‘You mean Rusty here mightn’t be a dog at all? He might only be somebody looking like a dog?’

‘Rusty could be Napoleon. Or Julius Caesar.’ Rashers looked down at the dog. It cocked its head at him, wondering if they were about to leave.

‘Poor Rusty,’ Rashers said, ‘it’s a bit of a come-down for you, whatever the hell you were.’

He patted the dog on the head. Pat looked for the public house clock and saw that it was half past eight.

‘There’s your tuppence,’ he said. ‘I have to be off.’

He finished his pint and went out. There seemed very little point in going to Lily’s room again, so he decided to kill time by walking down towards the quays. There were policemen everywhere in the streets, moving along in groups. He changed his mind about going to the quays and went in again to drink, this time with a man who was full of talk about the disturbances. When he came out it was half past nine. The streets had the late evening odour of dust, and an old man in a long black soutane was closing over the entrance doors to the Pro-Cathedral. One scraped its lock along the stone paved threshold, the other collided roughly with it and set up a thunder roll of sound that escaped from the church and echoed along the street. Pat, the drink moving in him, hurried his pace and headed directly for Lily’s favourite pub, where the curate said yes, she had been there on and off. His expression conveyed his conclusions about Pat’s reason for asking, but he went off polishing a glass and whistling. His customers’ business was their own, provided they conducted it in an orderly fashion. Pat took his drink and sat down to wait.

The pain inside him, which he had managed to forget in his talk with others, attacked him more fiercely now that he was alone. He looked at the fly-blown mirror with its lettered advertisement and recollected a night when Lily had asked to have it brought into the snug so that she could fix her hair. The curate did it for Lily, although he would have refused any of the others. Pat remembered her small, pretty face in it and the hands shaping the hair about it with movements that he loved. He had money that night after a lucky break with the horses, and they had gone to the Empire Palace Theatre afterwards to see James Fawn, the comedian.

Pat pushed the memory from his mind and was raising his glass when he heard the voice from the snug. He took his drink with him and walked down with it.

‘Lily,’ he said.

She started when she saw him at the door. He noted that too. It upset him. She stood waiting for her drink, drumming her fingers on the edge of the service hatch, unable to think of something to say that would be ordinary and usual. At last she managed, lamely, ‘Hello, Pat.’

She took her drink and sat down. He joined her.

‘I want to ask you something, Lily.’

‘You don’t have to sound like a bloody funeral about it.’

‘Why have you been avoiding me?’

She laughed falsely and said: ‘Are you getting ideas about yourself?’

‘For weeks I’ve been looking for you. You even got Maisie to put me off.’

She flushed angrily and he could see that her rage, too, was false. She was working it up purposely, a weapon of defence.

‘That’s something I want to have out with you, Pat Bannister. You’ve been following me around and asking every Tom, Dick and Harry about me, getting me talked about and making a holy show of me. What the hell ails you?’

‘I wanted to see you. About the few pounds you were holding for me.’

‘Four lousy pounds. Is that the extent of your trouble?’

‘Did you spend it?’

He said it casually, knowing now that she had.

‘You said I could.’

‘All of it?’

‘All of it he says. Four lousy pounds.’ Her vehemence surprised him. She looked tired and overwrought. In her eyes and on her face he saw the months of anguish and fear. They puzzled and touched him. He put his hand on hers.

‘It doesn’t matter if you needed it, Lily.’

‘I needed it,’ Lily said. ‘I bloody well needed it all right.’

Her voice was bitter, but it was more like her own. He had got nearer to the Lily he had always known.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy you a drink and we can talk.’

He rapped on the counter.

‘What’s the use of talk?’

‘What did you need it for?’

She froze again and said shortly: ‘Never mind what I needed it for.’

‘All right,’ he said, pacifying her, ‘it doesn’t matter. I didn’t know you’d spend it—not all of it.’ He paused and added, ‘You never did that before.’ He meant it as an explanation, but Lily chose to take it as a reproach. She turned quickly on him.

‘I needed it. I’ve told you already.’

‘And I said that’s all right. But you shouldn’t have avoided me.’

‘Who avoided you?’ Lily demanded, raising her voice.

The curate, coming for the order, said soothingly, ‘Now, now, lady, keep the voice down—no commotion.’

‘You shut up,’ Lily snapped at him.

He grinned at her and went off to get the drinks. Pat, the hurt of it goading him, persisted.

‘All those weeks you were avoiding me. And you had Maisie and her likes laughing at me.’

‘What the hell do you think they were doing at me?’

Pat touched her hand again, but she drew it quickly away from him. Her hostility was harder to bear than anything else. He had not realised before how much he cared for her; not her body only, that she had denied to him when they had last met, but Lily herself, Lily who was quick to gibe but quick also to comfort and generous also in giving. Lily who could touch him with a slender hand and evoke a memory of childhood. Painfully he asked:

‘Are you in trouble, Lily?’

His warmth and concern undermined her anger.

‘Was I ever in anything else?’ she said, her lip trembling and her eyes filling with tears, ‘since the day I came into the world.’

‘And you won’t tell me what it is?’

‘Please don’t ask me, Pat,’ she pleaded. ‘I needed your few pounds and I spent it. And for all the good it done I might as well have flung it into the Liffey.’ She turned to face him, a desperate honesty in her voice. ‘I played square with you always, didn’t I? You trusted me with many a thing and I never once let you down. This time it couldn’t be helped.’

‘You don’t have to explain anything, Lily.’

‘That’s what I used to think. But you kept looking for me.’

‘Is there any harm in that? Am I not to look for you?’

‘You were asking everybody. I knew it was the money you wanted.’

‘The others had me upset. I said I could get two pounds and when I told them how one of them jeered at me for a fool.’

He saw her stiffen and wondered what he had done now.

‘What others?’ she asked, in a tight, agonised voice.

‘Joe—Fitz. I told them I could get two pounds.’ The curate came and put their drinks on the table. Lily ignored him.

‘So you’ve been talking to them about me . . .’

‘I haven’t been talking to anybody.’

‘You blazoned it to the world and its wife that Lily Maxwell spent four pounds that didn’t belong to her.’

‘You have it all wrong, Lily.’

He had half risen in his effort to explain away her misunderstanding, but she brushed past the curate and stopped at the door.

‘After that you can keep your drink. I don’t want you crying it around the city that I drank your money on top of spending a bloody fortune on you.’

Pat stood up. Everything he tried to say had come out wrong. He struggled for more words, the right words. They didn’t come and he felt he was going to burst.

‘Lily . . .’ he shouted. He loved her. He wanted to shout that too. But the curate was standing by, grinning, taking it all in. She pushed open the door and went out. It banged hard behind her, sending a cloud of sawdust inwards along the floor. The curate, large, red-faced, amiable, said to Pat:

‘That’s women for you—never know when you have them.’

He was greatly amused.

‘Will I take back the second drink?’

‘Leave it where it is,’ Pat told him.

He tried to match the curate’s mood—to sound offhand and undisturbed. It was painfully difficult, with his world in bits about him.

She was gone. He lingered over the drink Lily had left behind her until the loneliness became unbearable. He was back in the street and wondering what direction to take, when the idea of approaching Mr. Donegan again suggested itself. He had nothing to pledge that was worth anything and anyway Mr. Donegan was bound to have put up the shutters for the night, but he made up his mind to try what was a forlorn hope.

It was quite dark now. Along Donegan’s street, the gas-lamps, spaced widely apart, threw a circle of soft light about themselves. The shutters of Mr. Donegan’s shop caught and reflected the ghost of their glow, the three brass balls shone dimly. A light escaped from the chink in the blind which covered the window above the gold lettered name. Pat began to knock at the door, producing a sound that startled the deserted street. It took Mr. Donegan some time to descend the stairs and when he opened the door he was not in the best of humour.

‘What’s all this?’ he demanded, peering out.

‘It’s me,’ Pat said.

‘Either that or your twin brother,’ Mr. Donegan agreed.

‘I want to see you about a little matter.’

‘I open in the morning,’ Mr. Donegan pointed out.

‘For the love of your mother, Mr. Donegan, as an old and loyal customer.’

Mr. Donegan sighed.

‘Come in.’

He led the way down a narrow passage until they came to a side door which let them into the shop. It was in darkness. Mr. Donegan found the portable ladder, struck a match and grunted elaborately as he stretched up to light the gas.

‘Now look what I’ve done,’ he said. He had touched the mantle with the head of the match. A blue flame, escaping through the puncture, tried like a tongue to lick the side of the glass.

‘It’s a favour,’ Pat began, when Mr. Donegan had climbed down.

‘So I feared.’ He looked again at the mantle, as though it was at fault.

‘I want two pounds.’

‘Tonight?’

‘At once, if I can have it.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Of a kind.’

‘If it’s to bribe a policeman don’t be a fool. He’ll either list it in the charges or he’ll take it and tip off one of his pals to pick you up tomorrow.’

‘It’s not that sort of trouble.’

‘What have you to pledge?’

‘Nothing,’ Pat said.

It took Mr. Donegan some moments to find words.

‘Nothing,’ he repeated.

‘If you give me two pounds now, I’ll have it back with you before three o’clock tomorrow.’

‘Where will you get it?’ Mr. Donegan asked, putting his elbows on the counter and leaning forward, confident that there was no satisfactory answer.

‘From a moneylender who knows me well.’

‘And what guarantee have I that I’ll ever see you again?’

‘My good name.’

‘You’ve a good name,’ Mr. Donegan agreed, ‘but that’s not a good business basis. We must be reasonable.’

Pat bent down. Mr. Donegan, leaning forward still further, saw with growing surprise that he was unlacing his boots. He took them off with difficulty and placed them on the counter under Mr. Donegan’s nose.

‘These,’ he said.

Mr. Donegan lifted one of the boots, and, looking hard at the sole, spoke his mind.

‘Is it these . . .?’

‘Them.’

‘You’d buy five pairs of these for two pounds.’

‘I could. But I wouldn’t,’ Pat said.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Mr. Donegan agreed. ‘I know you well enough to believe that.’

‘Then take the boots. A man can’t do without his boots very long and they’ll be your warrant that I’ll be back with the money.’

Mr. Donegan thought hard. Then he went to the back of the shop. He reappeared with two sovereigns, which he gave to Pat.

‘Are you satisfied,’ Pat asked, before he accepted them.

‘I’m satisfied,’ Mr. Donegan said, ‘but take the boots. I can’t have you going around naked.’

‘A bargain is a bargain,’ Pat insisted.

Mr. Donegan, noting the barefooted, coatless, ridiculously dogged cut of him, gave it up. He had found the measure of his man. His confidence was unprofessional, but complete.

‘All right,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘if it pleases you, it pleases me.’

Pat put the money in his pocket and made immediately for Chandlers Court. He could not bear to have them think her dishonest, a common tart who took whatever she could get. The night was warm, the side streets almost deserted, a sickle moon poised gracefully above them and touched the roof-tops with silver. He climbed the stairs without meeting anybody and tapped at the door. It took Fitz some time to recognise his caller.

‘Where were you all day?’ he asked.

‘I went to see Lily,’ Pat said. He was searching in his pockets. Fitz felt on his palm the tiny weight of the two sovereigns. He was moved, by loyalty, by generosity, by that superb quality in Pat’s love for others which made his personality something of a riddle.

‘You’re far too generous. And, besides, I told you there was no hurry.’

‘They’re safer with you than lying about in Lily’s place,’ Pat said. He was elaborately offhand.

‘You’re a real friend in need,’ Fitz said, touched.

‘For nothing,’ Pat said.

‘Aren’t you coming in for a minute?’

‘No—it’s a bit on the late side. How did things go?’

‘Larkin addressed the dockers. We think the port is completely closed—but we can’t be sure until tomorrow.’

‘I heard there was trouble.’

‘A bit. I got a clatter myself.’

‘So I see,’ Pat said, acknowledging the bandage. ‘Sorry I wasn’t there.’

Fitz wondered at this apparent lack of curiosity.

‘Come in and we’ll talk.’

‘No,’ Pat said, ‘I have to get along. See you sometime tomorrow.’ He turned to go, then turned back.

‘Just one little favour.’

‘Of course,’ Fitz said.

‘I didn’t like what Joe said today.’

‘Neither did I. I told him off.’

‘Would you let him know when you see him that Lily was all right.’

Fitz knew what he meant. He said he would.

‘And Mulhall?’

‘I’ll tell both of them.’

‘Thanks,’ Pat said. ‘She’s a straight girl—and I want them to know that. Good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ Fitz said. Pat waited until he had dosed the door. Then he went down the stairs and out again into the streets. He passed under a gas-lamp and into the shadows. A passerby stared after him, puzzled by his noiselessness, but the night hid his want and left him wondering.

On the following day the dockers continued their strike. Stevedores read out names to knots of men who listened in silence and then moved away, ships tied up and remained idle and untouched in calm water under a lazy sun. For over a week nothing moved along the port. There were policemen everywhere, or so it seemed, parading in groups and looking grim and businesslike, but finding very little to do. Even the mass meeting of dockers at which they had pledged themselves to remain out until the carters’ grievances had been dealt with remained orderly. Fitz heard Larkin again that night and wondered at the magnetism of the man as the crowd cheered and the flares of the torch-bearers tossed about the platform, painting shadows on hungry faces that peered under peaked caps. Most of them had empty pockets, bare rooms to return to, bread and tea to kill hunger with and no assurance of strike pay or any kind of relief. Yet they cheered when he said he could promise them nothing except hardship, and felt that somewhere at the end of the road there was a better world waiting. Like heaven, it was very far away, and like heaven it would be very hard to reach. Yet where before the only certainty had been obscurity and want, now at least there was that hint of hope. Hope for what, Fitz in the calm after the speechmaking, could not quite remember. He could only remember that it had been there, that it had infected him in company with thousands of others crushing and jostling and listening; perhaps it was a feeling of movement that remained, a journey beginning, a vague but certain purpose.

Whatever it was, it served Rashers well. People parted with pennies and halfpennies when he moved among the gatherings, singing in his cracked voice before the speakers mounted the platform. He had a fortnight of unusual prosperity. Then the Government, alarmed at a situation for which there was no precedent, intervened by calling a meeting of the interested parties at Dublin Castle and setting up a board of conciliation to examine and recommend new conditions for wages and hours of work. Mr. Sexton, seeing the moment ripe to reassert his authority, crossed over from Liverpool and decided to represent the union in his capacity as general secretary. On his advice the men agreed to return to work pending the outcome. Rashers found the ballad still good for a few pence on Saturday nights, until his clients learned that Sexton, not Larkin, would carry on the negotiations. The disappointment had its effect on Rashers’ income and the ballad, though useful, ceased to be the money-earner it had been.

Mr. Doggett, having met the general wage demand, was anxious to clean the slate of the other outstanding irritation. He informed the foundry that he would accept responsibility for the few shillings overtime pay that had caused the dispute. Nolan & Keyes did likewise. The whole transaction cost less than five pounds and the men concerned received three shillings each. Mulhall, meeting Fitz on the stairs, offered him a drink on the strength of it.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said.

It was August. The trams were bringing back visitors from the Horse Show at Ballsbridge, the streets were beginning to breathe again after the drenching sun of the afternoon.

Mulhall paid and said immediately: ‘It’s about Sexton taking over the negotiations. Most of us feel Larkin should have been allowed to carry it on.’

Fitz felt the same way, but he knew there was little they could do.

‘Sexton is general secretary. He can overrule Larkin anytime he likes. At the same time I don’t see why he should come into it now.’

‘Because Larkin’s tactics don’t suit,’ Mulhall said, ‘they cost too much money. And it’s going to remain that way until we break away and form a union of our own.’

‘I’ve heard that being talked about,’ Fitz said.

‘With Larkin as general secretary,’ Mulhall added. He paused and drank. ‘What do you think about that?’

Fitz hesitated.

‘I agree that we should start on our own,’ he said carefully, ‘but not just yet. We’ll need money. After the knocking around we’ve taken during the past few months we need time to find our feet again.’

‘I know, but we can make a beginning. Will you do your bit on the organising end?’

‘In the foundry—yes.’

‘That’s enough for a start. Myself and a few others will be moving around the jobs generally. We may have to be ready quicker than you think—and I’ll tell you why. Larkin may be prosecuted by the union—for misappropriation of funds.’

It took Fitz some time to grasp his meaning.

‘What funds?’

‘The money he collected in Cork.’

‘But that was paid out.’

‘It was paid out to us in Dublin. Their case is that it was collected for the National Union of Dockers and should have been sent on to Liverpool first. It’s a legal wrangle, but they’ve written to the committee about it.’

‘What’s their reason?’

‘It’s clear enough to me,’ Mulhall said. ‘He’s called too many strikes without consulting them. They’ll move heaven and earth to stop him doing it.’

Mulhall finished his pint.

‘So we need a union of our own. Are you still backing us?’

Fitz, remembering the meetings, put aside his other doubts and said: ‘I’m with Larkin—all the way.’

‘Good,’ Mulhall said. He indicated the empty glass.

‘Have another.’

‘No thanks,’ Fitz declined. ‘I’m on shift at twelve. But we’ll talk again.’

‘I’m glad you’re with us,’ Mulhall said, ‘you’re important.’ He reached out his hand. It was a formality Fitz had not expected.

‘Thanks,’ he said, taking it warmly.

‘I beg your pardon, Father.’

The paper lay on the breakfast table between them. Father O’Sullivan had the right to pick it up first, but the headlines had roused Father O’Connor’s curiosity. He reached out his hand.

‘Certainly,’ Father O’Sullivan said. He had a large, benevolent face.

‘Just the headlines.’

Father O’Sullivan motioned with a large benevolent hand to explain that it didn’t matter.

‘Strikes in Cork and Derry: Larkin’s Answer to exclusion from Conciliation Board. Expulsion Certain, confirms Sexton.’

It was everywhere, this upheaval, a symptom of materialistic thinking spreading through the whole of Irish society. He would give warning from the pulpit.

‘Thank you, Father,’ he said, not bothering to read further.

He saw now that it would have been a mistake to distribute the food to the strikers. It was as well they had refused. Relief would only prolong their miseries and strengthen the hold of their leaders. There were others who could be served, neglected and harmless creatures who were hungry too. The old. He should have thought in the first place of the old.

Near Christmas he told Hegarty and Keever to dispose of the parcels to the aged of the parish, provided they were not mixed up with the troublemakers. Keever made out his list. He was more prudent this time. The parcels were accepted gratefully. One learned, Father O’Connor reflected, however painfully, to separate the sheep from the goats. Some months earlier the true meaning of the phrase would not have been clear to him. Now he saw that it applied even to charity. It was sad. It was painful. It was true.