Across the Divide

by Brian Gallagher

  ‘Thank you, Brother,’ she cried over her shoulder.

  ‘Nora! Nora, come back!’

  But there was only one place she wanted to be. Clutching her music satchel under her arm, Nora ran out the door and made for the hospital.

  She knew its location from when her friend Mary had had her tonsils removed. She cut through squalid back streets that she would normally have avoided. The journey was a blur of smelly alleyways, barking dogs, ragged children and dung-filled roadways, but Nora felt a pressing need to see for herself that Liam was all right.

  She entered the hospital’s main door and looked about. The woman on the reception desk appeared forbidding, and Nora paused a moment. She breathed deeply, catching her breath and deciding how to approach the receptionist. She wasn’t sure what visiting hours were or whether a child on her own would be allowed to see a patient. On the other hand, she was well-dressed and well-spoken, and that tended to get you taken seriously. Without waiting any further she crossed to the desk and spoke confidently.

  ‘Hello, I’m looking for Liam O’Meara, please.’

  The woman looked at her appraisingly, and Nora added, ‘I’m his sister, Nora.’

  The receptionist hesitated, looked at Nora a moment longer, then seemed to make up her mind. She consulted a ledger on her desk. ‘St Mary’s ward. First floor.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Nora, then she quickly turned away and made for the stairs. She ascended to the first floor, then followed the signs for St Mary’s. There was a strong smell of disinfectant and floor polish, and as Nora glanced into other wards she realised that there weren’t many visitors about. Perhaps visiting hours hadn’t officially begun, she thought, and only close family members were being allowed in. Just as well I claimed to be Liam’s sister.

  She came to the end of the corridor and turned left into St Mary’s ward. It was a long room with a high ceiling. Nora looked about, half afraid of what she might see, then she spotted Liam. He was in the last bed on the left. His head was heavily bandaged, but, other than that, he looked all right, and Nora was relieved that he wasn’t unconscious or hooked up to the kind of tubes that she had seen attached to sick children as she passed the other wards. Instead Liam was propped up in bed and was reading a book.

  He hadn’t seen her, and suddenly Nora felt a little shy. Her mother had taught her that it wasn’t courteous to call on people unexpectedly, but surely this was a special case? She hung back for another second or two, then she decided she was being silly and approached Liam’s bed.

  ‘Hello, Liam,’ she said.

  He looked up in surprise. ‘Nora!’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘My head’s sore, but I’m OK. How did you get in?’

  ‘I … I told them I was your sister. I hope you don’t mind.’

  Liam laughed, and Nora’s spirits lifted at the sound.

  ‘Fair play to you,’ he said. ‘They’ve all these stupid rules about who can visit, and how long you can stay.’

  ‘I don’t want to tire you …’

  ‘You’re grand. It’s great to see you.’

  ‘You too,’ said Nora, as she sat down in the chair that was beside the bed. ‘So’, she said, looking at him seriously, ‘what did the doctors say?’

  ‘I have to leave the stitches in for another while. But tonight could be my last night in hospital. If everything is all right they’ll let me go home tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s really good.’

  ‘Yeah. How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I found out a few minutes ago, at choir practice.’

  ‘And you skipped practice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hope you don’t get into trouble with Brother Raymond.’

  ‘It should be OK. I’ll go back for the second part of the rehearsal.’

  ‘Right.’ He looked at her, his expression serious. ‘Thanks for coming, Nora.’

  ‘I had to know you were all right. So, what happened?’

  Liam shrugged and Nora realised that he had probably told this story innumerable times. ‘I sneaked into town to see the meeting,’ he said. ‘But the police went mad; they just attacked anyone they saw. I got a baton on the head, and next thing I remember I was in here.’

  ‘That’s terrible. Was it really scary?’

  Liam hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yeah, it was.’

  ‘The police should be ashamed.’

  ‘I know. Sackville Street was awful, there were bodies everywhere. Da said there were two killed and dozens taken to hospital.’

  ‘And what did he say about you being there? Are you in huge trouble?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ said Liam. ‘I thought Ma and Da would kill me. But I was knocked out, and they were so relieved when I came to that they didn’t really give out at all.’

  ‘Right,’ said Nora. She couldn’t help but wonder if her parents would react like that if she had done something as outrageous as Liam had.

  ‘I’d nearly prefer if they were angry,’ said Liam. ‘Like … I feel bad for worrying them so much, with all that’s going on.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Nora,’ said Liam gently. ‘You see, there’s a good chance that Da will be out of a job tomorrow. The employers are having a meeting, and everyone says they’re going to lock out the men.’

  Nora felt guilty, fearing that her father might be involved with this as a member of the Employers’ Federation. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll manage somehow. That’s what Da says anyway.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about,’ said Nora as encouragingly as she could. But, she wondered, did her parents know what they were talking about? Daddy claimed he had some sympathy with the workers, but that the unions wanted too much power; her mother said that Mr Larkin was a criminal agitator. But who had too much power, she thought, when the police could baton the people of Dublin and put a ten-year-old boy in hospital? She didn’t say any of this to Liam, still feeling a kind of loyalty to her parents. But things were coming to a head. And as she sat by her friend’s hospital bed she knew that sooner, rather than later, she was going to have to choose which side she was on.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Please, Mr O, see it as a friendly warning.’

  ‘Thanks very much, Mrs Riordan,’ Liam heard his mother respond. ‘It’s good of you to look out for us.’

  He sat forward in his bed, straining not to miss any of the exchange taking place in the front room between his parents and Mrs Riordan, a neighbour who lived round the corner.

  Liam had been discharged from hospital the previous day. His head wound was healing well and the doctors said that next week he should be able to return to school and have the stitches removed – neither of which Liam was looking forward to. Now, though, he was hanging on every word, listening through the slightly ajar bedroom door as Mrs Riordan passed on a message from her nephew, a policeman in the DMP.

  ‘Mick is a good lad, Mr O,’ she said, ‘he’s only tipping you the word for your own good.’

  Once again, it wasn’t his father who acknowledged their neighbour. ‘We know that, Mrs Riordan,’ said his mother. ‘Don’t we, Billy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said his father, slightly curtly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘He’s not happy with some of the things the DMP have had to do,’ continued Mrs Riordan.

  ‘Had to do?’ his father challenged. ‘They didn’t have to baton-charge men, women and children in Sackville Street? Our Liam is lucky to be alive.’

  Liam normally didn’t like to hear his da getting angry, but there was something pleasing about hearing him getting agitated on his behalf.

  ‘Sure isn’t that what I’m saying, Mr O?’ said Mrs Riordan. ‘Mick is a decent lad; he’d be against that stuff. So when he saw your name and address on a list at the station, he knew you must be a neighbour – and he tipped me off.’

  ‘They’ve funny priorities, the DMP,�
�� Liam’s father said. ‘Keeping working men like me under observation, when they could be going after criminals.’

  ‘I know. But sure that’s the way, in the times that are in it,’ said Mrs Riordan. ‘Anyway, I better get home; I’ve to put on a herring for Tommy’s tea.’

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ Liam’s mother said. ‘And thanks again.’

  ‘Mind yourself, Mr O.’

  ‘Mrs Riordan.’

  Liam heard the hall door being opened and then closed as their gossipy neighbour left. He could understand his da’s irritation – he had been locked out of his job only the previous day, along with thousands of other workers across the city – and now he was being spied on as well.

  ‘She means well,’ said his mother on her return.

  ‘I know she does, Kitty. But that doesn’t mean she’s not being used.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe her nephew Mick isn’t doing us a favour. Maybe it’s a DMP tactic. Frighten individuals into thinking the police are watching them.’

  ‘Do you really think that’s what they’re up to?’ his wife asked.

  ‘It’s war, Kitty. There’s twenty thousand men affected by the lockout. And next week the Master Builders are threatening to lock out three thousand labourers if they don’t sign a pledge not to join the union. They’d use any tactics.’

  ‘Either way, Billy, be careful. We don’t want the police on us.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I mean it. If you were put in jail, I don’t know what we’d do.’

  ‘I won’t be jailed. It’ll be fine, love, don’t fret. Stick on the kettle there, will you?’

  Liam heard his mother running the tap and he thought over what he had heard. It was OK for his father to say ‘don’t worry’. But it was worrying. If the authorities could keep Jim Larkin in jail despite all sorts of protest, then they could certainly lock up someone less well known, like Da. Liam prayed that that wouldn’t be the case. Because if it was, what would happen the family then?

  Chapter 13

  Nora was playing badly, her attention poor as she ploughed her way through Chopin’s ‘Nocturne in E flat’. Mr Gannon, her piano teacher, sighed heavily as she stumbled through a sequence that she normally played fluently. He was an elderly, sad-eyed man who came to their drawing room every week to give Nora a lesson, and he looked at her now in apparent sorrow.

  ‘Concentration, Miss Reynolds, concentration, please.’

  ‘Sorry,’ answered Nora. She wished that instead of playing Chopin and Beethoven she could perform catchy pieces like ‘Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?’ or the new song that was all the rage, ‘You Made Me Love You’, but both Mr Gannon and her mother would be horrified if she even suggested it.

  In truth, the problem today wasn’t the music, it was that Nora was distracted by all that was happening. Mr Larkin had just been released from prison, and Liam had told her that he had triumphantly addressed a huge gathering outside Liberty Hall. Despite the inconvenience that had been caused by abandoning the trams during Horse Show week, there was a lot of public sympathy for the locked-out workers, partly because of the actions of the police in batoning so many law-abiding citizens during the recent trouble in Sackville Street.

  Nora was looking forward to choir practice tomorrow night, to hear the latest developments from Liam, whose father seemed to be in the thick of all the action. Now, though, she finally reached the end of the Chopin piece, and Mr Gannon looked at his fob-watch, then nodded. ‘Enough for today, I think. For next week I’d like you to practise “Für Elise”, please.’

  ‘I will,’ said Nora.

  ‘And the Chopin piece – please, Miss Reynolds, some application during the week, yes?’

  ‘I will, I really will,’ promised Nora.

  She smiled at Mr Gannon as he stood, preparing to leave, and he nodded in return.

  ‘Very well then,’ he said.

  Nora felt affection for the softly-spoken piano teacher, and she was grateful that even when she played badly, like today, he never reported the fact to her mother. She waved to Mr Gannon as he left, and the idea of being reported made her think of Brother Raymond.

  Following her hasty exit to visit Liam in the hospital, she had returned for the second half of the rehearsal and apologised for leaving without permission. Brother Raymond seemed to understand her anxiety over Liam. Nora had pleaded with him not to inform her mother of what she had done, knowing it would be the end of her membership of the choir if he did. Perhaps Brother Raymond knew it too, for he had chided her gently but then agreed that just this once he would let the matter rest.

  Nora left the music room now, making for her bedroom and looking forward to eating the bar of chocolate that was her weekly treat after her lesson. She entered the hallway and from the opened door of the drawing room heard her mother speaking angrily.

  ‘Mr Dickens is right, Thomas, the law is simply an ass!’

  Nora paused, curious to discover what had made her mother so cross.

  ‘Quite,’ answered her father.

  ‘What is the point in locking up an agitator like Larkin only to free him in less than two weeks?’

  ‘Well, he’s not actually free, dear. He’s released on bail, pending trial.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense, Thomas, he should still be in prison.’

  ‘Perhaps, but–’

  ‘And travelling to England to address mobs of workers? Raising funds there for so-called strike pay? It’s outrageous, the law shouldn’t allow it!’

  Nora was partly amused to hear her normally controlled mother so fired-up, but part of her was irritated too. Why did Mummy always expect the law to support people who were already rich and in charge of everything? As far as Nora could see, the law usually worked against suffragettes, or unions, or any of the people trying to make things better. So if just this once the law was an ass for releasing Mr Larkin, then Nora was in favour of asses!

  The notion brought a smile to her lips, and she forgot the irritation she had felt against her mother. Instead she turned away from the drawing room door and took the stairs two at a time, eager to reach her bedroom and the waiting bar of chocolate.

  Liam walked excitedly along the docks with his father at his side. This was an area he knew well from their trips to visit Granny in Ringsend, but today they had a different reason for walking down the quayside. Lots of other people were converging on the banks of the Liffey, and there was an air of drama as the assembling crowd looked expectantly down the river, everyone wanting to be the first to spot the ship that was due in port at any minute.

  Liam could hardly believe his luck the previous night when Da had agreed to him coming along today, especially when his mother argued that there might be trouble with the police. Da however had claimed that there should be no trouble – they weren’t picketing, or striking or clashing with blacklegs – today they were welcoming a ship to the port, and it was an historic event that he felt Liam ought to see. For the ship that the hundreds of onlookers were awaiting was the Hare, and it carried a cargo of food for the hungry, locked-out workers of Dublin.

  Jim Larkin had been campaigning vigorously in England, and with the funds supplied by sympathetic workers there he had purchased the food and commissioned the Hare to carry it across the Irish Sea and up the Liffey into the heart of the city. Da had explained that Larkin’s union was badly stretched and could only afford limited strike pay, but the idea of successfully appealing to mass meetings of British trade unionists for support and then dramatically shipping in food for the hungry workers and their families was classic Larkin.

  Even though Liam didn’t know all the details of the dispute between the Employers’ Federation and the union, he could understand perfectly how Larkin had become a hero to the struggling people of Dublin, and today Liam was proud that his father was one of Larkin’s supporters.

  ‘How will they give out the food, Da?’ he asked.

  ‘Once the Hare docks, L
arkin himself will supervise the unloading, then we’ll take all the food to Liberty Hall and parcel it up.’

  As Liberty Hall was the union headquarters, that made sense to Liam, but he couldn’t imagine how they would divide the food fairly when there were over twenty thousand workers locked out. So far, his own family had been surviving on Da’s strike pay and the money Ma made as a part-time dressmaker, but other families were already going hungry.

  ‘How will they find a fair way of sharing the food, Da?’ he asked.

  ‘Each worker gets a docket with his strike pay. They produce it at Liberty Hall and get a food parcel. What’s in it is decided by the number of people in their family.’

  That sounded fair to Liam, but then a worrying thought struck him.

  ‘What happens if the police take the food?’

  ‘I’d like to see them try!’

  Liam thought of how the police had behaved in Sackville Street, and even though they were present on the docks today in far smaller numbers he wasn’t as confident as his father.

  ‘You don’t think they might?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry, son. I wouldn’t have brought you if there was going to be trouble. Having your head split once was enough, what?’ he added with a grin.

  ‘I wasn’t worried about myself, Da, but it would be awful if they took any of the food.’

  ‘If they try taking so much as a loaf of bread it’ll be the sorriest day of their lives,’ his father answered with conviction. ‘But it won’t happen. The DMP are still a shower of bowsies and bullies, but since we started defending ourselves they’ve had to change their tune.’

  Liam had heard how groups of men had begun to arm themselves with sledge hammer handles to protect their colleagues from police attack.

  ‘They used to attack us without batting an eyelid, now they have to think twice. Here, I’ll show you,’ his father added.

  Liam couldn’t believe it when his father stopped in front of a nearby policeman and looked at him cheekily. The DMP man was about six feet tall and heavily built and had been looking with suspicion at the passing workers as they made their way along the quays. Now he locked eyes with Da, but before the man could say anything, Da spoke up.