by Tom Murphy
There was a clatter on the stairs, the door banged open and shut. Without looking backward Lily knew her brother had come into the room. And without showing the anger she felt inside at the saint’s betrayal, Lily Malone said quietly: “Run now, Fergy. Run and fetch a priest.”
Then the blackness and danger that were the only future Lily could imagine, closed around her like a shroud.
2
Father William Reardon Gregory was not yet twenty-five, tall, and fond of games. But for all that he was nearly out of breath with the effort of keeping up with the darting, shifting mop of red hair that signaled Fergy’s progress through the crowds of Mulberry Street.
Father Bill knew the Malones and their troubles, but he had not known the mother was this badly taken.
It was an old story and a common one, he reflected, striding after his nimble escort, and nonetheless sad for all that; just look into the churchyards or St. Paddy’s orphanage, which he did nearly every day, to take the measure of what troubles could strike down a poor immigrant family.
Fergy waited at the street door of the old brick house, and held it wordless, as the tall priest stepped in and up the stairs.
The stairwell was dark and smelled of spoiled food and dampness, and from halfway up the first flight of creaking stairs Father Bill could hear the unearthly banshee wail of the mourners. So she was dead, then. The boy hadn’t told him. The boy might not have known.
The priest walked into the room and he wondered how many times he would have to look upon such scenes before he died. Three neighbor women stood at the foot of Mary Malone’s bed, keening. The sound never failed to sicken the young priest, often as he heard it, the low, wavering, half-whine, half-wail of it, a noise that might come winding right down the dark haunted corridors of hell itself. He wondered what good it did, this keening, or who it helped.
Then Father Bill saw Lily.
She sat in a corner on a low stool, and in her thin arms she held a rag doll, cradling it protectively. The girl looked at the mourning women and at her mother’s body without seeming to see them truly. The priest came up to her and touched her shoulder.
“God bless you, child, and I’m sorry for your troubles.”
Lily looked up at him, startled. The women who had come rushing, keening into the room had hardly spoken to her at all.
“Thank you, Father.”
He asked her many questions then, and Lily answered as best she could from the bottomless pit of her loneliness, from the icy prison of her fears.
“No, Father, we have no other family.”
They will turn us out into the streets, and Ma’s body with us, and we’ll all rot, and there’s be none to care nor remember us.
“Yes, Father, my dad is buried in the Twelfth Street ground.”
And who would pay the gravediggers, not to say the coffin-makers? A pauper’s funeral Ma would be having, and for sure, to the eternal shame of all of them!
Finally Father Bill made some sense of the tragedy, and arranged that the two children would spend the night with old Mrs. Flannagan, who lived across the hall. He said the prayer for the dead, and spoke softly to Lily and her brother.
“I’ll see to it, children, that your mother gets a decent burial, and that there will be a place for you both in St. Paddy’s.”
For a moment neither Lily nor Fergy could think of a word to say. Finally, it was Lily who answered softly, “Thank you, Father, and God bless you.”
She felt Fergy tensing beside her, and feared for some outburst, for when he was angry her brother cared naught for any authority, be it that of God or man.
But Fergy said nothing, and soon the priest was gone, and the mourning women too, soon to come back, Lily knew, to dress the corpse in the time-honored Irish fashion.
Now they were alone, for the first time, with their mother’s body.
Lily sat down on her stool and sighed.
Fergy turned to her as though she’d struck out at him.
“Dammit to hell, Lil,” he said, “we deserve better than this!”
Whatever Fergy gets, Lily thought almost idly, he thinks he deserves a better break. Luck might have been invented for the personal use of Fergus Malone, Junior.
But all Lily said was: “Hush, Fergus. She wouldn’t like to hear you taking on so.”
“And is she going to rise out of the grave and save us from the damned orphanage, I ask you?”
“I’m sorry about the penny.”
Fergy softened then, and knelt beside his sister, and put an arm awkwardly around her thin shoulder.
“Ah, Lil, dear, it isn’t the damned penny. It’s what may become of us, can’t you see?”
“Well go to St. Paddy’s.”
As she said it, all of Lily’s fears came galloping back at her: the stories about strange vices among the nuns and priests, the rumors of beatings and worse for the children, of poisoned food, and of boys and girls who entered the gates of St. Paddy’s never to be seen again.
“Or to the workhouse,” said Fergy bitterly, “or to the damned heathen Protestant orphanage where they put the devil right in you day and night. Ah, well, then, St. Paddy’s may be better than the street at that.”
Lily knew about the workhouse, and the Protestant orphanages, and she knew far more than she cared to about the street It was the workhouses they all feared most children and grown-ups too, where the dregs of the earth sat picking oakum ’til their fingers bled, where they got thin gruel if they were lucky, and death came for the luckiest. And the Protestant orphanages existed for no other reason than to seduce good little Catholics from the faith and turn them, forever damned, into the paths of sin and corruption.
Lily had feared St. Patrick’s orphanage, but now that she considered the alternatives, now that she had seen Father Gregory and heard the kindness in his words, it seemed to her that St. Paddy’s might not be so bad a thing after all.
The worst thing in the world had already happened to Lily. Both of her parents had left her, and for no fault of her doing. She looked at her brother, still dirty from running in the street and decided she loved him more than anything in all the world.
“You must wash yourself,” she said softly, “for the funeral.”
Old Mrs. Flannagan welcomed them into her little room, where they would sleep on folded blankets on the floor. The neighbor lady got some food together and insisted that Lily and Fergus split the pear. It tasted bitter to Lily, for hadn’t she first looked on the thing as a gift from St. Jude, and hadn’t St. Jude betrayed them?
After the simple meal Mrs. Flannagan and some other neighbor women joined to help make Mary Malone’s corpse ready for the grave. Lily and Fergy stayed in the Flannagan apartment and said very little, too well aware of what was happening in their former home across the hall, and what the morning would bring.
At last Fergy dropped off to sleep.
But for Lily the night moved slowly, and it seemed to be approaching dawn at a mourner’s pace, measured and sad, black outside and blacker within.
Lily lay still, and the thoughts that crept through her head were sad, sad thoughts. Maybe it’s true, what they say, that Ma has gone to a better place, all shining and fine and the angels singing for her, and Dad too, waiting with his big smile, arms reaching, those big green eyes flashing bright. I have his eyes, she thought, people are forever saying that. Jade green, they say, the spit and image of her dad. But the eyes were not enough, I want the laughter, too, and the joy of him, and where has all that gone now but to the cold grave?
They have all left me, and what did I do to deserve that?
Lily could hear the voices from across the hall, keening, chatting, and the sounds of women moving about doing the secret things women do at such times, the priestesses of death. They’ll sell us up, for the burying money. And little enough they’d find to sell, for hadn’t it all gone to the pawnbroker’s and the rag shops? Ma’s thin gold wedding ring had kept them near two months, then their winter coats, then
blankets. All the selling-up would do would be to clear out the little flat for its next victim.
Lily realized that never again would she sleep under this roof, and she realized, too, that this was not, in truth, a thing to make her sad. For what good had ever come to her here?
The last church bell Lily remembered hearing chimed five times. Then she dozed off at last and slept, if not deeply, at least for a little.
Fergus woke her gently at eight.
“Come, Lily,” he said, touching her shoulder. “’Tis time.”
So it had happened. While she drifted into sleep, while her guard was lowered, the dreaded day had crept up on her just as she feared. Lily blinked her eyes open, not knowing what unspeakable catastrophes might await her glance. But the dingy little room was still there, and Fergus, splashing his face with water from a chipped white pitcher, and old Mrs. Flannagan, in the eternal black, moving silently in the shadows and almost indistinguishable from them.
Lily lay on the hard floor for a moment and tried the old trick of closing her eyes more tightly than ever in hopes that the day would roll back into night again. The trick, as usual, failed to work. Then she got up, shivering in her shift, and followed Fergus at the pitcher. From the shadows came the well-meaning croak of old Mrs. Flannagan.
“They’re coming,” she said, “at ten.”
Lily knew about the undertakers. Dylan Brothers had set up their undertaking service only lately, the first in the city, too, and quickly had earned a reputation for decent burials at honest prices. How the Malones could afford Dylan Brothers or anything else was a mystery to Lily, who knew how very little was left in her mother’s sugar bowl. Maybe the Red Rovers had passed the hat once again, out of respect for Big Fergus. The neighbors, as always happened when very poor people died, would help any way they could. But the sum of all their charity might not pay for a Dylan Brothers funeral, for most of the neighbors were just as badly off as the Malones had been, or worse, and had trouble enough of their own.
Lily got herself dressed, slowly, in her only black dress, a winter churchgoing dress, much patched now, and the stockings so mended there was more darning to them than stocking. Thin as she was, the dress was tight on her now. And who will darn for me now, she thought, or let out my dresses, or cook, or sing the old songs?
Fergy sat in Mrs. Flannagan’s best chair nibbling on stale bread and jam, and looked at his sister. Jesus, and wasn’t she a tiny little thing, more like a bird than a girl, looks a damn-sight younger than going on eleven. There she was, all he had in this bloody world but for his luck and the sure knowledge he’d make something of himself, if they’d give him so much as half a chance. Not that he’d been given a thing but trouble to this date. He was always being blamed for things, even though they weren’t his fault He’d been caught and blamed so many times for mischief he hadn’t really done—not on his own, anyway—that he’d long since decided, damn-all, he’d do his worst. And now this, this final stroke of bad luck, Ma going like she did, after Dad. Fergy felt the anger coming in him just at the thought of it. There was no justice, none, and that was that. You had to make your own luck in this world, take the breaks and run with them. If you got a break, that is. He saw Lily, and the rage in him turned all soft and protective. He’d take care of her, sure as God made trees grow. And when he was rich, Lily would have a palace to live in, not some old damned orphanage, and coaches with footmen, and jewels big as hen’s eggs shining on her.
He smiled at Lily and, faintly, she returned his smile.
All at once Fergy felt better. Luck or no luck, the future was his, and starting right now, and coming fast.
All he needed was one break.
He remembered the day he’d taken Lily to see the statue. The kid had no idea in the world what he was up to, but Lily came with him anyway, laughing, hand in hand, glad of his company.
He led her through the crowds down to the corner of Bayard and Bowery, and suddenly there they were, looking across Bowery at the splendid gleaming white front of the North American Hotel, a full five stories tall and bursting with activity.
“Well, Lil, what do you think of it?”
“’Tis beautiful, very grand.”
“He had it carved from the very same tree.”
“What tree?”
“The statue. It’s carved from that tree.”
“Are you fooling me?”
“Look up on the roof, there, girl, to the right!”
Lily’s eyes traveled up, up the five stories of the great hotel to the rooftop, and there, sure enough, perched on the very peak of the roof, stood a wooden statue of a ragged young boy holding a flagpole in his left hand.
“What does it mean?”
“It was his lucky tree, Lily Malone. That’s why I brought you here. To tell you the story of David Reynolds.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Well, years ago, Lil, he was a boy, see, not much older than me, and he ran away from home…”
“Why?”
“To seek his fortune, goose! Well, it was a long way from where he lived to here, and finally he came, near starving he was, like in the statue, all in rags too, and he leaned against a big tree that grew right on that spot, wondering what might become of him, when just at that moment along came a fine gentleman and asked the boy if he’d carry his trunk, and David Reynolds said sure, and the man gave him twenty-five cents. And what do you think he did then?”
“Took a room in the hotel?”
“Silly. The hotel wasn’t there yet. It was still a tree. He went and bought some apples. And he stood under that tree and sold the apples. Then he bought more apples…and some pears, too. Soon David Reynolds had a fine little fruit stand. Then a house. Then several houses. And at last he tore down all his houses and built this hotel. Isn’t it a fine place, Lil? And to build this great thing, they had to chop down his lucky tree, so he had it made into the statue, that all the world might know his story. So there!”
“’Tis a fine story, Fergy. Will you be having a fruit stand, too?”
“I might, I might.”
He remembered the day fondly, but the affection of his memory quickly turned bitter. How Lily had been caught up in his own excitement then!
“I have,” she had said gravely as they started to walk back home, “three pennies. And if you like, I will loan them to you, Fergy. It isn’t a quarter, but ’twould be a start.”
“Ah, thanks, you’re a good little thing, Lil. Maybe I’ll be taking you up on that one fine day soon.”
But somehow the fine day never came.
It never had, for Fergus Malone Junior. He’d leave one grand scheme half a-borning because another, finer scheme always seemed to come along, smiling and filled with promises and magic.
Well, Fergy thought, finishing the stale bread and washing it down with the last of the water, it’s just a question of time. My chance will come, and sure as there’s fires in hell, I will take it!
There was a loud knock at the door.
Lily thought the stranger looked just like what he was: a messenger from the grave. Tall and stern he was, and all dressed in black. The man from Dylan Brothers, come to take them away, and her poor mother too. Lily stood and she heard the words Mrs. Flannagan spoke, kind words, explaining why the old lady wouldn’t go to the grave with them, how she’d stay here and sort out clothes for them, so they’d be ready for St. Paddy’s, and for the selling-up that would come later. Later! Why wasn’t it later right now? Lily took her brother’s hand and followed him out of the room and down the stairs.
Everything about the funeral rig looked worn and cheap to Lily. The clothes on the tall man from Dylan’s were worn and didn’t fit him right. I’ll bet he took ’em off a dead man. The workhorse that pulled the cart they rode in was black and worn too, dusty with age. He moved with a slow and painful gait, as though he might be walking to his own grave. And the cart itself was a poor thing, a farmer’s wagon splashed with black paint. Only the inescapable di
gnity of death itself made them look like anything but a pack of beggars.
There were two carts.
One was the hearse, although “hearse” was by far too fine a name to give it.
The plain unpainted white-wood box that held Ma’s body was lowered onto the crude cart by two rough young men in shirtsleeves. It went on ahead. Lily and Fergy climbed up next to the driver of the second cart, and the sad old horse began his agonized approach to the funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s.
It was market day on Mulberry Street, and the stray pigs were having a field day, rutting everywhere, stealing fresh vegetables and arousing the wrath of shopkeepers. Lily was tempted to smile, seeing it all from the vantage point of the cart.
Then she remembered where she was, and why, and that the last time she had ridden on a wagon was five years before, going to her father’s funeral. What pain I might have been spared, had it been my own!
Mary Malone’s funeral, Lily knew, would be only a poor imitation of her father’s, for that had been a hero’s burial, all brass and glitter, and a glass-windowed hearse with six black plumes and four sleek black stallions all decked out in purple.
Still and all, the form of it would be the same, the burial mass at St. Paddy’s, the ride to Twelfth Street, the graveside prayers.
Lily closed her eyes to the bright summer morning and prayed. She prayed that it would be over quickly, and that she could manage to save her tears like Ma had asked.
The funeral carriage rounded the corner of Prince Street and Lily’s glance was drawn to the front of the orphanage as if magnetized.
My future home. She noticed that Fergy was staring at the place too, his green eyes dark with anger. She reached out and touched his hand. He withdrew it fast, as though the touch of her burned him.
Lily looked away.
So there was where I walked, only yesterday, and here is where I turned, and in a minute I’ll be walking down the selfsame aisle where I went to pray for a miracle. And did the saint betray me, or just not hear, or is it all some kind of testing, to see how much I can bear? It was easy enough for Lily to think of such questions, and many more besides, but the answers seemed to hover somewhere out of her reach, dancing elusively in the shimmering August sunlight.