‘Not laying into so many strikers now, are you?’ he asked the policeman. ‘Must be awful to have your fun spoiled by men who’ll stand up to you.’
Liam saw the anger flare in the man’s eyes, and for a moment he thought he was going to reach for his baton. But he seemed to check himself, his eyes blazing.
‘If you know what’s good for you, slum-rat, you’ll shut your trap,’ said the DMP man.
Da stood his ground.
‘And if you know what’s good for you, pal, you’ll change your ways, and steer clear of Dublin men walking their own streets.’
Liam swallowed hard, fearing the policeman might punch Da, or try to arrest him, then suddenly a cheer went up along the quayside.
‘The Hare! It’s the Hare!’
All at once everyone seemed to be running forward, and Liam and his father were swept along with the crowd, leaving the DMP man behind. Liam was relieved that his father hadn’t been arrested, and thrilled that he had gotten away with standing up to, and – if the truth were told – taunting a policeman.
The cheers became louder and, looking down the river, Liam saw the Hare, laden with supplies, steaming proudly up the Liffey. Liam thought it was one of the best sights he had ever seen. Da looked at him and smiled, then they both turned back towards the approaching ship and cheered until they were hoarse.
Chapter 14
Nora jumped from the tram before it came to a halt, lightly hitting the pavement at a run. It was a mildly daredevil act that she really enjoyed, all the more so as it was the kind of thing she could never do when travelling with her parents. She made her way along Burgh Quay, feeling excited over what she was about to do next, but also a little anxious. If her parents objected to her jumping from a moving tram, they would have been horrified at the thought of her going to meet Liam at Liberty Hall, the headquarters of Mr Larkin’s union.
She had told her mother that the choir was singing at two weddings today, and she still felt slightly guilty over deceiving her. But Nora felt she had no choice, it was the only way she could meet the challenge that Liam had set her. In fairness to him, he hadn’t intended to test her, but when she had praised him at rehearsals for helping to distribute the food delivered by the Hare, he had queried if she really meant it.
‘Of course I mean it,’ Nora had said.
‘Why don’t you give us a hand then?’
Nora had been taken aback, but Liam didn’t seem to think it was an unusual request. ‘There’s another ship coming this week with more food. We’ll be delivering some of it to people who are too old or sick to collect it themselves. If you want to help, you can.’
Norah had hesitated, but only briefly. ‘All right, I’ll help.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, certain.’
‘Thanks, Nora, you’re dead sound.’
Liam smiled, and Nora had felt good, both at the compliment and at doing what felt like the right thing.
Now, as she made her way to Liberty Hall, she still thought it was right to help, but she was nervous. She had never been anywhere like the union hall before. She wasn’t sure what the people there would be like, and how they might respond to her, dressed as she was in expensive clothes and hand-made shoes.
Before she had time to worry any further she reached the entrance and stopped. The union headquarters was really busy, with men whom her mother would have described as rough bustling in and out the doors. There were women going in and out too, most of them wearing shawls, and many of them with under-nourished children. Nora watched for a moment, then she steeled herself and followed a woman with three gaunt-looking little girls who passed through the entrance door.
The woman seemed to know where she was going, and Nora followed her along a corridor that opened into what she assumed was the main assembly area. It was noisy and crowded. Along one wall people were making up food parcels, while at the back of the room meals were being served from a big kitchen. The rest of the room was taken up with those who were queuing for the food parcels that were already made up.
There was so much going on that nobody paid any particular attention to Nora. Despite the fact that anyone queuing here was obviously in need, and that it was now four weeks into the lock-out, there was a good deal of banter among them. Nora was surprised. How cheerful would I be if there was no money coming in to my family for that long? she wondered.
‘There you are!’ said Liam, suddenly appearing by Nora’s side. ‘So you got out OK?’
‘Yes, Mummy thinks I’m singing at a wedding.’
‘Well, you can give us a few bars of “Ave Maria” if you like.’
‘Maybe I’ll just help with the parcels,’ Nora said, with a grin.
‘Grand,’ Liam responded. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the drill.’
Nora was impressed at how Liam seemed to be completely in his element here. He led the way to where a stack of labelled parcels had been placed on a table in a corner.
‘These are all addressed for delivery. There’s two packages here for around Dorset Street. Do you want to carry one and I’ll take the other?’
‘Fine,’ said Nora. She read the name on the first package. ‘Who’s Mrs Perkins?’ she asked.
‘She’s an old woman who’s been trying to get by on her own since her son died.’
‘Oh. What happened to him?’
‘He had an accident in Naughton’s Mills. Got crushed when a beam collapsed. He was a union man so they have to look after the mother.’
‘Right,’ said Nora, conscious that there was a world of which she had barely been aware, where workers got killed and their dependents risked starvation. ‘And the other one?’
‘Jem Whelan. He used to be a docker till he injured his back. He can’t walk properly now, so we’ll bring the parcel up to him.’
‘OK,’ answered Nora, impressed by the way the union organisers, despite being short of funds, seemed to look out for the needy.
Liam picked up one of the parcels. ‘You can take this one,’ he said, placing it in her arms. ‘Not too heavy, is it?’
Nora thought it was fairly heavy but she shook her head. She thought of how Cook served her family with fine food every day, whereas the people getting these parcels possibly had no idea where their next meal was coming from. ‘It’s fine,’ she answered, then Liam hoisted the second parcel.
‘All those women, Liam,’ Nora said, indicating the busy group serving in the kitchen. ‘Who are they?
‘A lot of them are in the Irish Women Workers’ Union.’
‘Really?’ said Nora, who didn’t know that a union for women existed.
‘See the woman in the red top over there? She’s Delia Larkin, Jim Larkin’s sister. She helped start the women’s union. She’s one of the main people running all this,’ said Liam, indicating the busy kitchen and the food parcels.
Nora was impressed that not alone were suffragettes seeking votes for women at the parliament in Westminster, but here in Ireland women were also taking it on themselves to change things.
‘That’s great,’ she said.
‘Yeah, she’s sound,’ said Liam. ‘The other women here are mostly wives of members. As well as helping out, it means they get to have at least one meal a day.’
‘One meal?’
‘A lot of them were going without their share of food so their kids wouldn’t go hungry.’
Nora was shocked. She hadn’t known what she would encounter in Liberty Hall, but she hadn’t expected to find that women were starving themselves to feed their children.
‘I’m just going to deliver these two, Mr Brennan,’ called Liam to a man who was busily sorting more parcels.
‘Work away, son,’ he called distractedly, ‘work away.’
‘Right, your first delivery,’ said Liam with a smile, then he led the way out of Liberty Hall and they started walking up Gardiner Street.
They chatted about the choir as they carried the precious foodstuffs, occasionally setting down the
parcels to give their arms a rest. They walked through a part of Dublin that wasn’t familiar to Nora, and she was struck by how different these streets were to the leafy roads around her own home in Leeson Park. They were lined on either side by tall, dilapidated tenement houses, their hall doors wide open and their windows frequently broken, with tattered wisps of net curtains hanging out.
Judging by the number of bedraggled children playing on the stone steps and swinging from ropes tied to the lampposts, she reckoned there must be lots of large families living in each house. She pulled her warm coat around her and tried not to think of how cold it must be in those rooms, with their broken windows, and probably no money to buy coal for fires.
They made their way towards Dorset Street, then Liam turned down a narrow, gloomy laneway to get to Mrs Perkins’ house. On one side of the laneway there was the high wall of a factory, and on the opposite side was a terrace of ramshackle tenements. Nora could hear a baby screaming through the open door of one of the houses. She hoped against hope that Mrs Perkins didn’t live in one of these buildings, and her heart sank when Liam indicated that the second last house was their destination.
They climbed the granite steps.
‘Watch where you walk,’ said Liam as they entered the darkened hallway and made for the stairs.
‘OK,’ said Nora, avoiding a wrecked-looking pram that lay against the wall, and fighting back her revulsion at the smell of pee coming from the rear of the hallway.
They climbed the rickety stairs, and while Nora hadn’t expected the stairway to be carpeted, she was taken aback to find that in places there wasn’t even a banister.
Liam must have noticed her looking at gaps. ‘People burn the banisters when they’ve nothing else,’ he said in explanation.
‘Right,’ answered Nora, trying not to look too shocked.
When they reached the second floor Liam checked the address on the parcel, then he crossed the landing and knocked on a heavy door covered in peeling cream paint.
‘Union delivery, Mrs Perkins,’ he called out. ‘Parcel from Liberty Hall.’
The door was opened almost immediately, as if Mrs Perkins had been expecting the knock, and a small, wizened woman with wiry grey hair and wearing a heavy black shawl stood before them. She could have been any age from about sixty to eighty, Nora reckoned, but though her skin was wrinkled, her dark brown eyes were alert, and she smiled a gap-toothed smile.
‘You’re as welcome as the flowers in May!’ she said brightly. ‘Come in, come in’.
Nora and Liam entered a high ceilinged-room that had a bed in one corner, a large fireplace with no fire in the grate, and a battered-looking table and chairs near to a window that overlooked the backyard. The room smelt damp and musty and the only form of decoration was a couple of religious pictures – a portrait of the Sacred Heart over the fireplace and a picture of the Virgin Mary that hung over the bed.
‘I’ll just leave this on the table,’ said Liam, setting down the food parcel. ‘There’s milk, tea, sugar, and bread. Even a bit of corned beef.’
‘The blessings of God on you, son!’ said Mrs Perkins, holding Liam by the arm.
‘You’re grand.’
‘God and his Holy Mother will reward the two of yis,’ insisted the old woman.
Nora smiled politely. ‘Glad to help.’
Mrs Perkins went to the table and quickly opened the parcel, taking out a packet of tea. ‘Let me make a cuppa, it’ll warm yis up.’
‘Thanks all the same,’ said Liam, ‘but there’s no need.’
‘I’m making one for myself, anyway. Mrs Murray next door’s after bringing in a pot of boiling water. She’s a saint, that woman, and her with seven chiselers of her own to look after. Sit down there now and have a cuppa with me.’
Nora saw Liam hesitate briefly, then he nodded and sat down. ‘Fair enough. No sugar, thanks, and not too strong, please.’
Nora suspected that Liam didn’t really want the tea, but knew that it would make the old lady happy.
‘You’ll have some too, won’t you, love?’ said Mrs Perkins now, turning to Nora and placing three chipped cups on the table.
A girl in school had told Nora that millions of germs could live in the crack in a tea cup, and Nora’s first instinct was to refuse, but the hopeful look in Mrs Perkins’s eyes stopped her.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, ‘that would be lovely.’
‘First time in a tenement house?’ Liam asked, as they made their way up Dorset Street to deliver the second parcel.
Nora felt uncomfortable. ‘Was it that obvious?’
‘No. You were really nice to Mrs Perkins.’
‘But you knew I was …’ Nora wasn’t sure how to put it into words, for fear of sounding offensive.
‘A bit shocked?’
‘Well…yes.’
‘I knew it,’ said Liam, ‘but she wouldn’t have. You live in a fancy neighbourhood, Nora. No one could blame you for being shocked. It’s good that you’re helping at all, I’m really grateful.’
‘Thanks, Liam,’ she answered, touched by his words. ‘We’re so lucky, aren’t we? Compared to some people?’
‘Yeah. But don’t let slip at home what you were doing.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,’ she said, then she turned to him. ‘What about your father? I thought I might see him in Liberty Hall today.’
Liam looked away, and Nora sensed at once that he was uncomfortable.
‘He’s over in Terenure. They’re picketing a print works.’
Nora wondered if that was why Liam had invited her today, because his father wouldn’t be there. She stopped and faced him. ‘He doesn’t know we’re friends – that I even exist, does he?’ she asked softly.
Liam shook his head a little sheepishly. ‘No’, he answered.
Even though they were good friends, this was something they had never discussed before. Somehow, though, the words had come out today, and now that they had, Nora was glad, even though Liam looked a little awkward.
‘It’s OK, Liam,’ she said gently. ‘I haven’t told Mummy about you, for the same reason you haven’t told your dad about me.’
‘It’s not that I’m ashamed of you as a friend, Nora, it’s just …’
‘I know. There’d be too much trouble with our parents.’
‘Yeah.’
‘We can just keep it this way,’ said Nora. ‘Keep it our secret. Can’t we?’
‘Yes’, said Liam, ‘of course.’ Now that the matter had been resolved, he perked up again. ‘It’s like my granny says, “What they don’t know won’t hurt them!’’’
‘Exactly. So, secret friends then. Deal?’
Liam grinned, lowered his parcel to the ground, then held out his hand and shook Nora’s. ‘Deal!’
Liam collided with Martin Connolly as they both went for the ball. Liam won the ball, and Martin lost his balance and fell. Swivelling quickly, Liam took a shot at the makeshift goal, marked by two sweaters on the concrete schoolyard, but the goalie was agile and saved. Disappointed, Liam turned away and saw Connolly rising a little shakily. He remembered how the other boy had almost goaded him into a fight over singing in the feis some time back, but there was nothing to be gained by antagonising the toughest boy in the class, and he reached out and offered him a hand up.
In fairness to Connolly, although he was a rough player, he never complained when on the receiving end of a hard tackle himself, and he accepted Liam’s gesture and rose to his feet.
Liam was a little taken aback at how light Connolly had felt. But lots of families were struggling to find enough to eat now that the lockout was in its sixth week, and the Connollys had been poor to begin with. Still, it was disturbing that someone as seemingly indestructible as Martin Connolly should be getting thin from lack of food.
The prospect of the lockout ending soon wasn’t good either. Liam had heard his father saying that the employers had rejected the government’s attempt to reach some kind of settlem
ent. An ‘all-out war, fought to the bitter end’ was what his da said they could expect, and Liam feared that the coming winter was going to be really tough.
He tried to put aside his worries and turned back to the game, running towards the opposition goal and calling for the ball. But the boy who had the ball shot at goal himself, and Liam was just about to complain to him when he heard Brother Killeen calling his name.
Liam felt an immediate stab of unease. Being summoned by ‘Killer’ Killeen rarely meant good news, but Liam knew better than to delay, so he quickly left the football game and crossed the yard to where he could see Brother Killeen at the gate.
To Liam’s amazement, his mother was standing behind the bull-like figure of Killeen. The brother spoke with unusual gentleness. ‘Your mother needs to speak to you, Liam.’
Being called by his Christian name only confirmed Liam’s dread that something bad had happened, and when he saw Ma’s face his fears grew worse.
‘I’ll leave you to it, Mrs O’Meara,’ said Killeen, discreetly departing.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Liam. ‘Is it Da?’
His mother nodded, and Liam looked at her, afraid to ask the next question. He knew that two men had been beaten to death during the rioting. It would be unbearable if the same thing had happened to his da, but he was such a hot-head that he might easily have gotten himself into trouble.
‘Is he … is he …’
‘He’s OK, Liam. But I need you to come home to mind the girls. I have to go to your da.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’ demanded Liam, deeply worried by the way his mother was trying to stop her voice from quivering.
‘He … he’s been arrested. The police are holding him down at the station – and he’s going to be sent to prison.’
Liam swallowed hard. Part of him knew this had always been a possibility, but now that his father had actually been taken away it felt like his world had been turned upside down. His mother reached out for him, but he didn’t want to be seen hugging her in the schoolyard, and instead he took her hand and quickly squeezed it. Then, holding back his tears, he walked wordlessly beside her as they made for home.
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