Strumpet City

CHAPTER SEVEN

Timothy Keever now toiled from seven in the morning until seven in the evening in the back portion of Xavier Broderick Sons & Company, Church Furnishers and Chandlers, Merchant’s Quay, for a weekly wage of fifteen shillings. After two weeks of the lockout Father O’Connor had used his kindly interest to secure the position for him. It was a non-union shop and the money was smaller than he had earned in Nolan & Keyes, but he was locked out with the rest and had no choice. There were compensations. He was out of the weather and the labour in the stores was mitigated by simple clerical duties which required him to carry at all times a heavy marking pencil and a fountain pen. These he displayed prominently in the breast pocket of his shop coat. There were disadvantages also. The clerical work, although it filled him with pride, took its toll in concentration and anxiety. His overseer was a foul-mouthed little man of atheistic and anti-clerical views and blasphemous observations to which he was provoked most frequently by the Holy Statuary that thronged both the stores and the shop. He passed discreditable remarks to Keever about the pious effigies of St. Joseph, the Little Flower, Blessed Martin of Porres, the Infant of Prague, The Virgin and even Christ the King. He suffered from stomach trouble and treated it by eating the charcoal which was sold for use in thuribles for the burning of incense, his belief being that charcoal was very good for flatulence. Keever shuddered at his talk and felt there could be no luck in a place where charcoal destined for a holy purpose was pilfered and consumed in such quantity. But he feared to risk his own security by objecting and had to be content to close his eyes and shut his ears.

Sometimes when Father O’Connor came in on business he was called into the shop to speak with him. These were proud moments. The lady assistants looked on with respect and even the floorwalker smiled and said: ‘Here is Mr. Keever for you now, Father.’ So among the statues and the priedieus, the ciboria and chalices, the lamps of brass and the vestments hued according to liturgical ordinance, Keever enjoyed for brief moments a world that could have been a cluttered anteroom to the real heaven into which, his duty earnestly done and his earthly life over, he hoped by the Mercy of God and the intercession of the Saints to be eternally translated.

Mostly they spoke of the affairs of the parish, who was on strike, who had given in, what was the prevailing temper of the people. With Mr. Hegarty he still visited certain of the aged and the poor, dispensing on Father O’Connor’s behalf what relief could be afforded out of the remnants of the fund. Father O’Connor had given up the hope of a regularly operating charitable society. The issues had become too complicated. It was impossible to distinguish between those who were suffering because of circumstances beyond their control and those who were hungry because they were in revolt against lawful authority.

But Keever could report that the suffering was spreading and growing more intense with each week that passed and that neither the strike fund nor the food kitchens could keep the condition of the mass of the people from deteriorating. One afternoon he told Father O’Connor that there were rumours of a new move, a plan to send the children of the strikers to working-class homes in England. The effect on Father O’Connor was quite astonishing. He began to tremble and had difficulty in speaking.

‘Are they out of their minds?’ he asked.

Keever was appalled at the effect of what he had reported.

‘Maybe it’s only talk, Father,’ he said contritely. ‘I shouldn’t have repeated it to you.’

‘No, no,’ Father O’Connor assured him, ‘this is an extremely grave matter. You did right to tell me.’

‘I hope so, Father.’

Father O’Connor became very serious.

‘Mr. Larkin may see nothing wrong in sending Catholic children to homes which are almost certain to be of the Protestant faith. But I’d expect Catholic parents to understand the grave danger. If you hear any further talk of this—even a whisper, make it your business to let me know immediately.’

‘I will indeed, Father,’ Keever said.

He returned to the stores, where, among the smells of colza oil and benzine, paraffin and brasso and beeswax, he made up parcels and filled cans and pondered on Father O’Connor’s reaction to what he had reported, until the overseer interrupted him to draw his attention to a new consignment of statues and gave him a price list.

‘I want you to mark these up’ he said. ‘Put a price code on one of each kind and bring it up to the shop for display.’

Keever took the list and unpacked the first of the statues. It was St. Michael the Archangel. He looked at it in some doubt and said: ‘Where will I mark it?’

The little overseer screwed up his face.

‘On the right cheek of his arse,’ he said.

Shock paralysed the hand in which Keever held the marking pencil. It refused to move.

‘Go on,’ the overseer said after a while. ‘Do what you’re told. There’s no fear he’ll sit down on it.’

Muhall’s face, once powerful and ruddy from the open air, grew smaller and became silver coloured. The bulk of his body under the bedclothes grew smaller too. More frequently now, as he lay between sleep and wakefulness the patterns on the walls cast by sunlight or lamplight drew him into the half-world of imagination, where he drove unearthly horses and humped weightless sacks in streets that were shadowed and soundless. He squared his great shoulders and led the processions and listened at vast meetings to voiceless speeches. The bands played in dumb show, the torches waved wildly to noiseless cheering, faces mouthed words at him that he could not hear. But the exultation ended always, whether he was carrying sacks up a stairs or marching with his comrades, when he looked down in sudden agony to discover that he was walking on stumps. Sometimes he wept, but only if he was sure he was alone. At times it was for pity of self. At times it was because of the things he could no longer do for Larkin and the union.

Whenever they visited him he was still militant. Pat he liked best to talk to, because Pat was one of the strong-arm element engaged in ambushes on the police and in teaching scabs that strike breaking would not pay.

‘That’s my man,’ he would say approvingly at the end of each account of a victorious clash, ‘into the river with them.’

‘That’s the motto, Barney,’ Pat would say. ‘The prospect of a watery end is a great deterrent.’

Once, when Fitz said: ‘One of these days you’ll find yourselves had up for murder’, Mulhall grew angry.

‘There’s a lot of ways of murdering people,’ he said, ‘and one is to starve them.’

‘That’s not the law,’ Fitz pointed out. Mulhall tried to pull himself up in the bed and roared at him:

‘Whose side are you bloodywell on?’

But Fitz took the outburst quietly. Mulhall’s anger with him was always brief.

When they got outside it was Pat who said: ‘He won’t last.’

‘No,’ Fitz said.

‘How are they managing?’

‘On Willie’s strike pay. That’s all they have.’

‘Christ help them,’ Pat said.

They went down the stairs together.

‘What do you know about Hennessy, the fella with the bowler hat?’ asked Pat.

Fitz became cautious.

‘What should I know about him?’

‘That he’s got a job somewhere.’

‘I didn’t hear that.’

‘To be precise,’ Pat said, ‘that he’s watching at night for Crampton’s.’

‘He could be,’ Fitz said.

‘A few of us intend to find out. We’ll lie in wait for him. If he turns up we’ll let him have it.’

They were walking down the street now. Fitz stopped.

‘I don’t think you should do that,’ he said.

‘Crampton’s men are locked out. It’s a scab job.’

‘He’s an inoffensive poor devil with a crowd of young children,’ Fitz said. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t see any harm in it.’

‘He’s replacing a watchman.’

‘I don’t think Crampton’s ever employed a regular watchman.’

‘I don’t care whether they did or not,’ Pat said truculently, ‘if he isn’t replacing a watchman he’s helping the police by taking a job off their hands.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way.’

‘Then it’s time it was made clear to him.’

‘Look,’ Fitz said, ‘I don’t want Hennessy beaten up.’

‘He’s got to be stopped.’

‘All right. But leave it to me,’ Fitz said, ‘I’ll have a talk with him.’

‘Will it do any good?’

‘He’ll stop if I ask him,’ Fitz said.

Pat was reluctant. His comrades had been killed and maimed. Lily, too, had pleaded with him to keep away from trouble and personal danger but he had refused. Force was the only answer. Sentimentality had to be discarded. He said to Fitz:

‘When will you talk to him?’

‘Now—if you like.’

‘Right,’ he said.

They turned back together and entered the house once more.

‘Fetch him down,’ Fitz said, ‘I’ll talk to him in here.’

‘It’s a pleasure,’ Pat assured him.

Fitz went into his own flat to wait while Pat climbed to the next landing. He listened outside the Hennessys’ door. He could hear the voices of children. A woman’s voice was raised above the bedlam, scolding them. When he knocked the voices stopped at once. There was silence for a while, then the woman opened the door.

‘I want Aloysius Hennessy,’ he told her.

‘He’s getting ready to go out,’ she said.

‘Tell him he’s wanted now. Down in Bob Fitzpatrick’s apartment.’

Mrs. Hennessy examined the stony face. It frightened her.

‘What’s he wanted for?’

‘He’ll find that out when he comes down,’ Pat said. He looked beyond her into the room. She had been giving the children their meal. There were jamjars with tea in them and some bread on the table. A sour smell flowed through the half-open door and mingled with the already fouled air on the landing.

‘I’ll tell him,’ she said. ‘He’ll call in on his way down.’

She slammed the door.

There was something wrong. Pat knew the signs. He had knocked several times on doors like this one, calling out husbands who were breaking the lock-out. Sometimes when they refused to show themselves Pat and his butties broke in and dragged them out, while the womenfolk and the terrified children screamed and pleaded for another chance. It was necessary to close the ears to that too. Scabbing was infectious.

He decided to wait inside the hall door in case Hennessy tried to get out without meeting them, but it was unnecessary. In a few moments the thin figure with the oversized bowler descended the stairs and knocked at Fitz’s door.

‘Are you within, Mr. Fitzpatrick?’ Pat heard him ask. He went up and joined Hennessy in the room.

‘It’s a cool class of an evening,’ Hennessy ventured. He looked uneasily from Fitz to Pat.

‘You don’t know how cool it’s going to be,’ Pat said. The remark made Fitz angry.

‘I’ll do the talking,’ he said. Then he turned to Hennessy and said: ‘There’s no need to be upset. It’s just a few questions we’d like to ask you.’

‘Certainly,’ Hennessy said. His face had grown pale and his hands were trembling.

‘You’re working for Crampton’s?’

‘I am,’ Hennessy admitted.

‘For how long?’

‘For the past four weeks.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘As night watchman.’

‘How did you get the job?’

‘There’s a gaffer up there knows me. He gives me small jobs from time to time.’

Fitz was beginning to find his role unbearable. He pitied the thin figure with its stamp of lifelong suffering.

‘What are they paying you?’

‘Ten shillings a week.’

‘A scab rate, too,’ Pat put in.

‘For Christ’s sake shut up,’ Fitz shouted at him. ‘The man is being honest.’

Then he said gently to Hennessy: ‘Did you know that Crampton’s men are locked out?’

‘I did,’ Hennessy said, ‘but I’m not replacing anybody. They never used a night watchman before.’

‘It’s a scab job,’ Pat insisted.

‘There was no picket,’ Hennessy said, turning to him. ‘I didn’t think there was any harm in it. I mean . . . a night watchman.’

‘If there was a picket would you have passed it?’

‘No, gentlemen,’ Hennessy said, ‘I wouldn’t pass a picket.’

‘I’ll save you a journey,’ Pat said, ‘there’ll be a picket on Crampton’s in the morning.’

Hennessy’s features quivered and he had to struggle to speak.

‘Whatever you say, gentlemen,’ he answered.

‘When are you paid?’ Fitz asked him.

‘On Friday nights.’

‘Carry on until Friday and then quit,’ Fitz said. ‘If you promise to do that no one will interfere with you.’

‘I promise,’ Hennessy said.

‘That’s all I wanted to say,’ Fitz concluded. ‘Now go ahead and attend to your work until you draw your week’s money. No one will interfere with you in the meanwhile.’

When Hennessy had gone Fitz warned Pat.

‘There’s to be no rough stuff,’ he said. ‘Is that clear?’

‘You’re too bloody soft,’ Pat said. But his tone conveyed that he would do as he was told. It was not in his nature to go against Fitz.

Hennessy took his usual route by the river, to watch Crampton’s premises from eight at night until eight the following morning. He had nothing with him for supper, not even a cigarette to dull the hunger or give a moment’s illusion of company during the slow hours. At the end of the week he would draw his last ten shillings. He wondered what he would say to his wife. The thought of his numerous children was so unbearable that he pushed it in panic from his mind. Instead he kept his eyes on the path and the gutter, watching diligently for a discarded cigarette end that might be retrieved. But he had little hope of that either. Rain had begun to fall and path and roadway glistened damply.

When Mulhall died some days later it was Mary who went for the priest. First Mrs. Mulhall called over to her and said, in a voice which made Mary anticipate what was coming:

‘Is your husband in?’

‘He’s not,’ Mary said. ‘Can I do anything for you?’

‘It’s Bernie,’ Mrs. Mulhall said. ‘He’s been rambling in his mind and then sleeping. I don’t like the look of him at all.’

‘You want the priest for him?’ Mary said.

‘I’ve been waiting for Willie but he hasn’t come home.’

‘I’ll go immediately,’ Mary said.

‘The children?’

‘They’ll be all right on their own for the while it takes,’ Mary said. ‘I have a guard for the fire.’

She hurried to the church. It was the hour when those who were lucky were finishing work. The streets were full of impatient people, the tramcar trolleys made blue flashes against the night sky and the wheels made a continuous tumble. She went to the vestry and gave her message. The last time she had been inside it was with Fitz just before their marriage. There had been a funeral, she remembered. Almost five years ago.

Father O’Connor was on duty. The clerk found him having his evening meal with Father O’Sullivan.

‘What is it?’ Father O’Connor asked.

‘A sick call,’ the clerk said. ‘A Bernard Mulhall, of Chandlers Court.’

‘Is it urgent?’

‘The woman says he’s dying.’

‘Oh,’ Father O’Connor said. He looked uncertainly at his unfinished meal. Father O’Sullivan had risen.

‘I’ll go, Father,’ he offered.

‘Oh no,’ Father O’Connor said, rising in his turn, ‘it is my responsibility.’

‘I know the poor fellow very well,’ Father O’Sullivan explained. ‘I’d like to attend him—if you will allow it?’

He said it anxiously, as though afraid of giving offence.

Father O’Connor said: ‘But of course—if you wish to.’

‘Thank you,’ Father O’Sullivan said. He threw his napkin on the table and indicated to the clerk that he would go immediately. Father O’Connor felt he should at least have finished up what remained on his plate. The clerk went out to tell Mary the priest would come at once. She hurried back to help Mrs. Mulhall to prepare.

So it was that Father O’Sullivan made his way once again to Mulhall’s room, this time to administer the final sacrament, to forgive him his sins, to anoint his five senses with holy oils. He found the room prepared as before, though this time with signs of haste and this time without the fine glass bowl and without the white linen cloth, which had been sold. A cup held the holy water, a sheet of clean paper covered the table. Mulhall’s breathing made the room shudder. His mouth gaped open, his cheekbones looked as though they would burst through the taut skin. His Spirit had already surrendered to death. Only the body continued the struggle, going through the repetitious motions, mechanical, instinctive, unaware. Father O’Sullivan signalled and Mary led Mrs. Mulhall from the room. The sound in it terrified her. She was glad to be able to leave.

Father O’Sullivan bent over the labouring body. He spoke to it, but knew there would be no response. He then began to administer Extreme Unction, blessing with holy oils each eye, each ear, the lips, the palms of the hands. From long habit he loosened the bedclothes at the foot of the bed, then as he did so remembered that there were no feet to anoint. He tucked the clothes back under the mattress again. The breathing suddenly became quieter, although when he looked the mouth still gaped open. He took the lower jaw in his hand and closed it firmly. For a while the face remained in repose, the cheekbones no longer threatened to burst it asunder. He watched, thinking for a moment that Mulhall had come through his crisis of unconsciousness into natural sleep. He may have done so. But as Father O’Sullivan was about to call to him again Mulhall sighed, stirred a little, and died. Father O’Sullivan knew immediately. For a moment Death was a presence. He felt it enter the room. He prayed. In a brief while Death ceased to be a presence and became merely a state.

He went to the door and summoned Mrs. Mulhall. Mary was still with her and her son Willie, who had just come in. He avoided saying her husband was dead. Instead he said: ‘I was just in time.’ His face and the gentleness of his tone told her the rest. She went past him into the room.

‘Everything has been done that should be done,’ he told Willie. To Mary, as he was leaving, he whispered: ‘Stay a little while with her and comfort her.’ Mary nodded.

Mrs. Mulhall was standing at the bedside. Her world of girlhood and womanhood lay there. She would listen no longer in the nights for the furtive signals of distress. She would rise no more in the hours of darkness to calm a man suffocating in nightmares. It was at an end now. She said to Willie:

‘You’ll have to go down to Mrs. Henderson in Townsend Street and tell her. Tell her to come and attend to him and lay him out. We must have everything arranged and decent before the neighbours begin to call.’

I’ll do that,’ he said, I’ll do it now.’

His voice was very like his father’s and as he went Mary noted the same deliberate movements, the confident set of his shoulders. He was almost twenty now, she reckoned. She went to the older woman and put her hand about her shoulders.

‘We reared a good child,’ Mrs. Mulhall said. She was speaking not to Mary but to her dead husband. She sat on the bedside chair and reached out her hand to touch his forehead. ‘Bernie,’ she said to him. ‘My poor Bernie. This is what their machines have done to you.’ She turned to Mary a face that became contorted as she struggled to speak. At last she said: ‘What am I to bury him with?’

Her grief mastered her. She stretched her body across that of her husband and sobbed.

The meaning of the question at first evaded Mary, then shocked her. Mrs. Mulhall had no money. There was nothing to pay for the decencies of death and burial, for the shroud and the coffin, the carriages and the undertaker. Mrs. Mulhall, looking at her husband’s body, had seen a pauper’s end for him. It was a shame too terrible to bear thinking about.

Mary waited for Mrs. Mulhall’s grief to exhaust itself. Then she said: ‘Whatever happens—that won’t happen.’

‘Where can I turn?’

‘The neighbours will see to it.’

‘How can they,’ Mrs. Mulhall said, ‘when they’ve nothing themselves?’

‘Have you no insurance?’

‘I had to stop paying it. There were things over and above that had to be got for Bernie. Every week I did my best to pay it up but always there was something. Then it lapsed altogether.’

‘You’re not to fret yourself about it,’ Mary said, ‘we’ll think of something.’

Already she had thought of something, a thought which frightened her and which she tried to push away. She struggled with it as she kept vigil beside Mrs. Mulhall, until at last Willie and the woman whose customary work it was to wash and prepare the dead of the parish arrived.

Mary went across to her own rooms and found Fitz with the children. He had heard the news.

‘How is she?’ he asked.

‘She’ll be all right for a while,’ Mary said. ‘Willie is with her. I want to give her some candles.’

‘Can I do anything?’

‘Not at the moment,’ Mary said. She found the candles. There were six of them, her own reserve supply. They would help to furnish the wake. She was about to bring them across when she changed her mind. She put them on the table and sat down.

‘Fitz,’ she said, ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘The Mulhalls have no money and no insurance. Unless they get help the poor man will have to be buried on the parish.’

‘We could try to organise something among the neighbours,’ he said, but not very hopefully.

‘The neighbours haven’t enough for themselves.’

‘I don’t know of any other way,’ he said.

She made up her mind as he was hesitating and said quickly, ‘I do.’

He stared at her.

‘There’s the money we laid by for the children’s train fares,’ she reminded him.

The suggestion took him by surprise.

‘And you’d lend them that?’ he asked.

‘If you think it would be the right thing to do,’ she answered.

He thought of Mulhall, his independence, his pride.

‘Yes,’ he decided. ‘I think that would be the right thing to do.’

His tone reassured her. She went to the hiding place where the few pound notes had been lying since the lock-out began. She counted them. Then, as though she must get it done before prudence tempted her to change her mind, she said: ‘I’ll give these to her straight away, before the neighbours begin to call on her. It’ll relieve her mind of that much at least.’

He nodded in agreement. It was a hard decision. But it was right. There was no option.

Mulhall had his wake. There was no tea to pass around and no drink for those who called. They did not expect it. No one nowadays had anything for hospitality. But he had candles and a habit and, when the customary two days had passed, a coffin and a hearse. The grave belonged to Mrs. Mulhall’s mother and father, whose bones already occupied it. The neighbours and his trade union colleagues walked behind him and men with hurling sticks on their shoulders escorted the procession, forming a guard of honour. The sticks were an innovation, defensive weapons against police interference, now carried at all trade union processions by men who called themselves soldiers of the Irish Citizen Army. It was a new body and its members drilled and studied military tactics. They knew they were an army of scarecrows but they did their best to keep their backs straight and to walk in step. They had been formed to protect trade union meetings against police interference. If the police charged it was their job to strike back.

Willie Mulhall was one of them and already a veteran of a number of engagements. The hurling stick on his shoulder, which had the shape and feel of a rifle, filled him with pride. So did the huge turn-out of workers and the fact that a detachment of police followed the procession all the way to the church. It showed that his father had been recognised as a leader by the authorities too. The police followed but kept their distance. The procession was big, but orderly. There was no band and there were no speeches. But there were blazing torches to carry which filled the air with the smell of pitch. Streamers of sparks were plucked from these by the wind and went scattering above the heads of the marchers. As Willie Mulhall watched them pride and grief struggled for supremacy in his heart. Fitz watched them too. Love, he thought, was better than prudence. The flaming torches were telling the city that the people of his class would not be starved for ever.