Strumpet City

CHAPTER FOUR

Mary, alone with the sleeping children, sat at the window overlooking the street and felt the dusk growing in the room about her. At first she had been occupied by the children playing in scattered groups below, until in twos and threes they were called away and there was nothing left to watch except the changing tones of pavement and housefront as the shadows of late evening began their transformation. It was September and already the dusk came perceptibly earlier. Soon the women, meeting each other, would remark: ‘God bless us, but aren’t the evenings closing in.’ Soon would come the colder weather and the need for fires. With half the city idle, what was to happen then?

The thought remained to trouble and preoccupy her. Fitz’s promotion to foreman had brought not only extra money and a little more comfort but a place in the world that was better and more secure than any of her neighbours. He could have left the union when he was promoted. Foremen, she had thought, were above unions. Yet he had come out with the rest, and in doing so put everything she had and all she hoped for in jeopardy—her children’s future, the possessions she had gathered to make a home with, the small weekly amounts she was beginning to save. It was not in her nature to question his decision, yet the consequences of it distressed her. Hunger and want were again part of her world, twin possibilities that threatened in her moments of solitude and were now calamitous presences in the shadowed corners of the street.

A tapping at the door roused her. She realised that someone was calling her.

‘Mrs. Fitzpatrick, are you within?’

She recognised the voice and for a moment hesitated. Then she called, reluctantly.

‘Come in—Mrs. Hennessy.’

The woman opened the door and poked her head around it, peering into the gloom.

‘Your husband is out?’

‘He is,’ Mary said.

Mrs. Hennessy, entering the room, let the shawl down from her head and settled it in folds about her shoulders.

‘Them oul stairs has me killed,’ she said conversationally. She was small and thin, with dark hair that was greying and a drawn yellow face. Her eyes, inquisitive and watchful, challenged the world to do its worst.

‘Can I help you?’ Mary said, waiting for the customary flow to start.

Mrs. Hennessy produced a jug from beneath her shawl.

‘I was wondering if I could borrow the loan of a sup of fresh milk for the baby,’ she said, ‘she’s too young for the condensed.’

Mary went to the press.

‘Wait till I tell you what happened,’ Mrs. Hennessy said. ‘There was a terrible commotion some hours back. Some bowsie put a brick through the window of Kerrigan’s dairy and there’s not a sup to be had there. Only for that I wouldn’t trouble you at all.’

Mary poured milk into the jug. Mrs. Hennessy, watching the operation closely, said: ‘The blessings of God on you.’ Then, as a quick afterthought, added: ‘You might lend me the loan of a cupful of sugar as well.’

Mary took the cracked cup which also appeared from under the shawl and filled it with sugar.

‘You’re far too generous,’ Mrs. Hennessy said, ‘and you’ll have it all back as soon as the tide turns.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Mary said, ‘don’t think of it.’ The quick and inquisitive eyes were taking in the room.

‘Did you hear what the police is up to?’

‘I did, indeed,’ Mary said.

‘Depredation and damage—that’s their programme now,’ Mrs. Hennessy said. ‘They’re breaking into the houses and smashing things and manhandling defenceless women and children. I know several this night that hasn’t a stick of furniture left whole—everything the poor souls ever had smashed into smithereens.’

‘God forgive them,’ Mary said. But she got no chance to say anything more.

‘God forbid they’d ever break in here,’ Mrs. Hennessy continued, ‘and you with everything a body could want for. Sofas and chairs and table and nice pictures. They’d make short work of it all. Thanks be to God they’ll find little of value to damage in Ellen Hennessy’s caboosh, and what little there ever was is safely stored by now in The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment. That’s the advantage of having nothing. You can’t lose it.’

Then, after a breath she said: ‘Still—God is good.’

Mary said sympathetically: ‘Your poor husband is out of work again, I’m told.’

‘Is he ever in work,’ Mrs. Hennessy broke in. ‘He had a nice little job and, as usual, wouldn’t mind it.’

‘It was unfortunate,’ Mary said.

‘Wait till I tell you,’ Mrs. Hennessy said. ‘He goes off to Sackville Street a few weeks ago to see will Larkin turn up and comes home to me with his head in a bandage and his arm dislocated. “What happened to you Hennessy?” say I, when he came in the door. “I was caught in a charge in Sackville Street,” says he, “and got a belt of a baton. And when I fell I think I was walked on be a horse.” Right enough, when he took off his shirt he was black and blue all over. “That’s what you get,” says I, “for playing the Red Hand hayro. Now your wife and your unfortunate children can go hungry.”’

She gathered her shawl about her head once more.

‘I’ll go up now,’ she said, ‘and look after them. They’re all alone and like a bag of cats for want of a bit to eat. I’m more than obliged for the loan of the milk and the sugar.’

Then she surveyed the room again. Her eyes went from item to item, assessing each.

‘You have enough here to stave off the hunger for many a long day,’ she assured Mary, ‘and if the time ever comes when you have to start shifting some of it, just give me the word. Ellen Hennessy will see you get the right price in any pawnshop in the city. Don’t forget now.’

‘I won’t forget,’ Mary said.

She closed the door after Mrs. Hennessy and stood for a moment to wonder whether kindness or envy had inspired the other woman’s offer. God help her, she had little in her life to prompt her to generosity, with her husband who seldom worked and a family that kept increasing. Her life was a succession of childbirths, her days dependent on the pawnshop and reluctant little charities wheedled from her neighbours. If she was envious or grudging she had every reason to be.

Mary sat down at the window again, determined to be patient while she waited for Fitz to return from his meeting, trying not to lose hope among the ever deepening shadows of the street. What Mrs. Hennessy had looked upon as her guarantee against misfortune would be the misfortune itself, to part with the things she had gathered, to break up the home she had made through personal sacrifice and with the sympathetic help of Mrs. Bradshaw. That help, at least, would continue. Mrs. Bradshaw was a kindly woman. When she knew of the trouble she would do little things to help. For Mrs. Bradshaw had everything except children. That was the strange way the world worked. Mrs. Hennessy had too many. But that was the Will of God.

Sometimes she had tried to imagine what it would be like to change places with Mrs. Bradshaw, to sit in a beautiful house looking out at the garden, with a bell near at hand to summon a servant to open the windows when the room grew warm with the sun, or to close them when the evening air became cool. To give orders about the meals. And to arrange the flowers—saying this should go here and that should go there. To play the piano when there was company. To dress elegantly for the theatre. To wash with delicate soaps. To carry a pretty purse of notes and sovereigns. And she would have education. And she would speak with a beautiful accent. But she would have to have been born differently, never knowing her father, or her mother who was dead. And she would have no children. And she would have Mr. Bradshaw. No.

She heard Fitz on the landing outside and heard him opening the door.

‘You’re sitting in the dark,’ he said.

She looked round, noticing for the first time that by now there was hardly any light falling into the room. She rose and said: ‘I’ll light the lamp. How did your meeting go?’

He left his cap on the dresser, a habit she had given up trying to cure him of. He saw her hair falling forward across her cheek and saw the outline of her features in the lamplight and remembered their wedding night.

‘They’re releasing Larkin,’ he answered. ‘The Government have stepped in.’

That was probably good news. She did not know the ins and outs of the trouble.

‘That’s good,’ she said.

‘And the strike pay will be ten shillings a week—for a while at any rate.’

‘Is it going to go on, do you think?’

‘They say it can’t,’ Fitz answered.

She was aware of him watching her as she bent over the lamp. She knew he was watching her closely. He was troubled. She felt that too.

‘But you think it will,’ she said, knowing by his tone.

‘Yes,’ he said.

She put the chimney back on the lamp and adjusted the wick.

‘What are we to do, Fitz?’

He had been thinking about that for some days. The only hope had been that the general refusal would lead to a withdrawal of the form and a return to work until the whole thing had been argued out. But that had not happened. Instead the employers had hardened in their attitude.

‘As well as releasing Larkin, the Government have promised an inquiry,’ he said.

‘Please God something will come of it.’

‘I doubt it,’ Fitz said bitterly. ‘If they want the thing settled why don’t they withdraw the help of the military and the police. We might have some chance of making the Federation listen to us.’

He had not answered her question. What were they to do if it dragged on? But she knew the answer. She had seen it happen to others countless times before. The homes, piece by piece, would go to the pawnshops. That was what Mrs. Hennessy had meant. The grocers, for a while, would give a little credit. The moneylenders would step in, taking a profit in keeping with the risk.

When the chimney had heated and there was no danger of cracking it she turned up the wick to its full strength. It made the transition from evening to night seem quite sudden. But the yellow glow of the lamp was more cheerful than the dusky half-light. She began to cut bread and to make him cocoa.

‘Maybe you should spare it,’ he suggested.

‘We still have our savings,’ she said, ‘and I shouldn’t complain. We’re better off than most poor souls.’

They sat down to table together. He had been over with Mulhall to tell him the latest and now he told Mary about Mulhall, how he looked, what he said, what Mrs. Mulhall had said, how he thought she would fare now that Willie and her husband were both idle. It was the small talk they always indulged in over supper. But tonight the full meaning of what was happening seemed to sit along with them. He had to say something about it.

‘You’ve never asked why I wouldn’t leave the union,’ he said.

She surprised him by saying: ‘It’s because of Bernard Mulhall. I didn’t have to ask.’

Her voice was gentle and sympathetic and he knew she was thinking not of the accident only but of what the Mulhalls were left to face.

‘Mulhall was a tower of strength,’ he said.

He would never betray Mulhall’s trust. But it was not altogether that. There were Pat and Joe and the men who worked with them. There were Farrell and the dockers and thousands of others throughout the city, some long resigned to perpetual squalor as to the Will of God, others rebelling with recurring desperation whenever there was a leader to lead them. Never before had they stood so solidly together. He said to Mary:

‘The men in the despatch department of the Tram Company were dismissed simply for belonging to Larkin’s union. There was no other reason. The tram men had to support them. Then this form was issued to everyone all over the city. The rest of us had to take our stand with the tram men.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t be asked to sign it?’ she said.

‘I wasn’t,’ he admitted, ‘but I couldn’t stay in when the others were locked out. I couldn’t do that.’

‘I know you couldn’t,’ she said.

‘Are you angry?’

‘No. I’m glad you wouldn’t do something you knew you shouldn’t do. In the long run it wouldn’t work out.’

The gratitude in his face moved her deeply. She came to him and kissed him. Then she said:

‘The children are the real worry.’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘I was thinking about it before you came in. If we put a little of what we have aside—and never touch it, no matter how bad things may be—we’ll know that if the worst happens we’ll be able to send them to stay for a while with my father.’

‘We’ll do that,’ he agreed. Then he thought about it and added:

‘You could go with them yourself too. That’d be better still.’

‘I wouldn’t leave you here alone,’ she said.

He held her to him and said no more. If things became very bad he could talk to her again about it. They must wait. The gates were closed. The keys that could open them were in other hands.

‘You’ve taken a weight off my mind.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said.

She knew he would have acted as he did whether she approved or not. But she was happy she had spoken. She was close to him and part of him. That was what she wanted.

Rashers set out with the determination to try everything he knew. He was hungry. He had been hungry for weeks. It was a miserable kip of a city at the best of times. It had gone to hell altogether now. Day in and day out he stood in the gutter and played his whistle. Nobody minded him. Occasionally, when he had made certain there were no police to see him, he begged. They turned aside from him. He knocked at door after door for odd jobs. There were none, or some locked-out unfortunate had got there before him. Once he met Hennessy. He was aggrieved at the perversity of fate, the obduracy of the employers, the supineness of the Government, the stubbornness of the strikers, the deadlock that looked like paralysing the city for ever.

‘Is there any moves at all—or what?’ he asked irritably.

‘Not a damn thing,’ Hennessy answered. He too was gloomy.

‘Jaysus,’ Rashers exploded, ‘are they going to let the whole bloody population starve!’

‘That seems to be the programme,’ Hennessy confirmed.

‘You’re not working yourself—I suppose?’

‘No. I’m living on the expectations.’

‘Sit down a minute,’ Rashers said.

There were two abandoned buckets on the piece of waste ground. They upended them for seats. Grass and nettles surrounded them and in front of them, against the gable of a warehouse, a hoarding displayed its advertisements. One had been put there by some religious-minded body. It read:

‘Ask—and you shall receive.

Knock—and it shall be opened unto you.’

‘Me arse,’ Rashers said, when he had read aloud this message of hope.

‘Some Protestant crowd puts them up,’ Hennessy explained.

‘Yes, telling a pack of bloody lies. They shouldn’t be let,’ Rashers said.

Hennessy, prepared as always to be reasonable, said: ‘I suppose it gives employment.’

Then, in an effort to be cheerful he asked: ‘What do you think of the one beside it?’

Rashers studied the picture of a man with a ruddy, smiling face, dressed in blue striped pyjamas, straddling a Bovril bottle, that tossed on the waves of a blue ocean. It said: ‘Bovril—prevents that sinking feeling.’

He spat elaborately and glared fiercely at Hennessy.

‘Ah, now,’ Hennessy protested, ‘it makes you laugh.’

‘It makes me hungry,’ Rashers said.

It was no use trying to humour him. So Hennessy said: ‘The Government inquiry might bring this lock-out to an end sooner than we think.’

But it did nothing of the kind. When the inquiry pronounced and said the Federation form should be withdrawn, the employers refused, so the only result was a further spread of the lock-out. It set more and more pacing the streets, and there were fewer still in a position to give anything to Rashers. He walked through streets that were empty of any promise of help. The collecting boxes rattled, the pickets paced up and down, long convoys of carts and wagons moved through the city, always under escorts of police and military; the trams and the power stations were similarly guarded. Sometimes he went down to the monster meetings at Beresford Place, mingling with thousands of the out-of-works and listening, as the great orange sunsets of early October stained the waters of the nearby Liffey with colours of green and red and gold, to the speeches that thundered from the lighted windows of Liberty Hall. He heard the wild cheering and now and then the great outpouring of thousands of voices in song. He watched the startled gulls rising from grimy parapets and hovering with loud cries about the iridescent river. And as he did so he became conscious of belonging to nothing in particular. The thought increased his desperation. There was a time when he could have put a brick through a window and earned a few days in gaol, where there would be shelter and food of a sort. Now they would treat him as a rioter and beat him until he was half dead. He watched hungry faces that looked up at the speechmakers from under the peaks of caps. He saw the light of hope in thousands of eyes. But he was not one of them. The respectable and the good-living in neatly kept clothes passed him on their way home. They glanced at him quickly and turned away and wanted nothing to do with him. When the well-to-do looked at him they did not see him at all. That was in early October, when the days were drawing in and the evenings were coming early, making the pavements damp and the streets cold. His spirits sank lower. He was constantly hungry. He was always cold. Then, for the first time in many months, his luck changed.

He was looking into a shop window in which he saw nothing but his own reflection, his long, ragged coat, the grey beard, the hat that had lost all semblance of shape and fitted over head and ears like a bowl. He was thinking of food. He had thought of little else for days. A hand tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Using the head?’ said the voice.

When he turned around it was Pat Bannister. A generous skin, Rashers knew, but unlikely to have anything to give away.

‘I’m thinking about hard times,’ he said.

‘It’s a general complaint,’ Pat said.

‘I don’t suppose you have anything you could spare?’

Pat shook his head.

‘Why aren’t you playing the whistle?’ he asked.

‘Because no one has the inclination to listen,’ Rashers said.

‘Some is too stingy and the rest is just too bloody hungry. Music is out of fashion.’

‘Did you ever try advertising?’

‘It isn’t one of my accomplishments,’ Rashers confessed.

‘There’s nothing to it,’ Pat said. ‘Come on for a walk with me and I’ll show you.’

They went through back streets that both of them had known since childhood. They now looked different. There were too many men moving about and there was too little traffic. Nothing was happening. Rashers thought it was like Sunday without the bells. As they walked Pat said there was little hope of the strike finishing soon. It would go on through the winter. They were setting up food kitchens for the women and children in Liberty Hall. The Countess Markiewicz was going to serve the meals with her own hands. He asked Rashers if he had ever heard of her. Rashers grunted. She was one of them high class oul wans that were sticking their noses into a hundred and one things nowadays. Trouble-makers. Like Madame Despard and Maud Gonne. Acting the hooligan about votes for women when they should be at home looking after their husbands and their unfortunate children. Mad Gonne and Mrs. Desperate, the people were calling them. No wonder the city was starving.

The distant ringing of a handbell interrupted his thoughts and Pat said: ‘Now you’ll see what I mean.’

They turned the corner. The gleam on the three brass balls outside Mr. Donegan’s shop caught his eyes first, then the long queue of women, each laden with ornaments or bundles of clothes, then the figure of the bellringer. He was a man of Rashers’ age, but more hale. His body was hidden beneath two sandwich boards which were suspended by straps from his shoulders. The boards announced:

‘Donegan’s for Value

Best Prices

All Welcome’

‘There you are now,’ Pat said. Rashers stared, puzzled.

‘What about it?’

‘The advertising business. A job like that would suit you down to the ground.’

‘What the hell use is that when this fella here has nabbed it already.’

‘If Donegan finds it worth while to take on a man, so will somebody else,’ Pat explained. ‘The thing for you to do is to persuade one of the other pawnbrokers. What about Silverwater in Macken Street?’

‘The Erin’s Isle?’ Rashers said. ‘I’d have a hope.’

‘Give me a minute,’ Pat said.

He went across to the man with the bell. They talked for a while. Then he rejoined Rashers.

‘Now we’ll make our way to The Erin’s Isle,’ Pat announced.

It took them about ten minutes to reach Mr. Silverwater’s establishment. It was an unusual building. Beneath the three brass balls the figure of Ireland, with golden tresses reaching down the green mantle about her shoulders, wept over her stringless harp. The scroll at her feet spelled out in white letters: ‘The Erin’s Isle’. A queue of patient women had formed outside.

‘Now what do we do?’ Rashers asked.

‘We wait,’ Pat said firmly.

Rashers wondered why. But it did not matter. There was nothing else to do.

‘That’s an occupation you get used to,’ he said.

The pawnshop had once been a public house. Rashers remembered having a drink in it as a young man. About forty years ago, he thought. In those days it had not been so hard to find a crust to eat. Or so it seemed now.

‘Do you remember Jeremiah Brady?’ he asked Pat.

‘Who was he?’

‘He owned The Erin’s Isle when it was a public house.’

‘I don’t remember it as a public house,’ Pat confessed.

‘Jeremiah had three faults that make a bad publican,’ Rashers said. ‘He stocked only the best, he kept too easy a slate and his best customer was himself.’

‘A good man’s failing,’ Pat said.

‘It put Jeremiah in Stubbs,’ Rashers finished, ‘and in the heel of the hunt it put him in Glasnevin.’

The sound of a handbell attracted the attention of the waiting women as the man from Donegan’s turned the corner into the street. He nodded over at Pat. Then he began to parade up and down. The noise brought one of The Erin’s Isle clerks to the door. Eventually Mr. Silverwater himself appeared. He found the bellringer parading up and down, bawling out the claims of Mr. Donegan to the patronage of his own customers. Mr. Silverwater was astounded.

‘Hey, you,’ he shouted, ‘get to hell out of my street.’

The bellringer ignored him. Mr. Silverwater read the board in front and when the bellringer turned he suffered the shock of reading the same message on the back.

‘Donegan’s for Value

Best Prices

All Welcome’

‘My customers,’ Mr. Silverwater yelled at Pat, who had crossed over to sympathise with him. ‘He wants my customers.’

‘That’s shocking,’ Pat said.

‘What’s the matter with Donegan?’ Mr. Silverwater asked. ‘We’re good friends. We often play poker together.’

‘Maybe you beat him too often,’ Pat suggested.

‘We’ve been playing for maybe fifteen years,’ Silverwater said, ‘it couldn’t be that.’

‘He’s taking advantage of the times to extend his trade,’ Pat suggested. ‘Business is business.’

‘Business be damned,’ Mr. Silverwater said.

Then he yelled again.

‘Hey, get back to your own streets.’

‘You won’t shift him that way,’ Pat said, ‘let me talk to him.’

He went over to the bellringer. They held an animated discussion out of earshot of Mr. Silverwater. Pat returned. The bellringer went off.

‘How did you do it?’ Mr. Silverwater asked.

‘I told him you’re a friend of Mr. Donegan, and it wasn’t very nice to cause trouble between you. I said you played poker together.’

‘That was it. That was exactly my very strong emotions,’ Mr. Silverwater approved. ‘We are poker friends for years.’

‘The trouble is,’ Pat continued, ‘he’ll keep away from your shop all right—but will that stop him from parading the streets your customers live in?’

The villainy of it made Mr. Silverwater speechless. He nodded his head several times, unable to find words.

‘I could tell you what to do,’ Pat added. Mr. Silverwater clutched his arm.

‘You speak,’ he invited. ‘I like you. You tell me.’

‘Get a bellringer of your own. Send him around the neighbourhood every day.’ Pat pointed to Rashers. ‘There’s a man over there that’s popular and well known.’

He called to Rashers, who shuffled over. Mr. Silverwater looked him up and down.

‘Can you ring a bell?’ he asked Rashers.

‘Everything from a door bell to a church bell,’ Rashers confirmed.

‘And you know the neighbourhood?’

‘Born and reared in it—man and boy.’

‘Do you want a job?’

‘Lead the way,’ Rashers said.

Mr. Silverwater did not hesitate.

‘Come to me in the morning. I’ll give you a start.’

Rashers said he would consider it an honour.

‘I’ll fix Donegan,’ Mr. Silverwater swore.

They parted.

‘You’re a decent man,’ Rashers said to Pat as they walked back towards Chandlers Court.

‘It worked like a charm,’ Pat agreed.

‘If I’d the price of it I’d stand you a drink.’

‘We’ll take the wish for the deed,’ Pat said. He went off smiling. Rashers made his bargain with Mr. Silverwater. The job was worth ten shillings a week to him. He was furnished with sandwich boards which had the advantage of keeping out some of the cold. He was given a handbell and instructed to parade the neighbourhood during mornings and afternoons. One of his perquisites was a glass of milk and a bun on Saturdays when the shop closed and he had helped to put up the shutters. Life was a little better, but he was not happy. He found it hard to get about. Sometimes, especially on wet days, his bad leg ached and made him hobble. Sometimes his chest pained abominably and dizziness made the streets spin and spin about him. He began for the first time to be troubled by the hunger of others. The men who joked as he passed were gaunt and dispirited, the women he rang his bell at were hollow-eyed and worn. Little children pressed their faces to the glass on Saturdays to watch him eat and made the bun stick in his throat. He trudged through the streets and rang his bell and made up cheerful jingles to cry beneath the windows. But his heart was full of anxiety and his spirit was beginning to bow in defeat.