‘That’s right,’ he howled, ‘laugh. That’s all you were ever good at. A lousy lot of laughing loyalists. By Jasus, if I get my hands on that slippery fingers I’ll have his sacred life.’
Rashers pushed violently to force a passage. He swore at those in his way. His struggles and his curses attracted a widening circle of attention, until a section of the crowd opened and a policeman appeared. Rashers in his excitement gripped him by the tunic. The policeman pulled his hand away and caught him by the collar.
‘What’s all the commotion?’ he asked. Rashers squirmed.
‘I’ve been rooked by a bloody pickpocket,’ Rashers said, ‘while you and your like were gaping at his shagging majesty.’
‘You’d better come with me,’ the policeman said, twisting up Rashers’ coat.
‘What for?’ Rashers bawled, ‘for being bloodywell robbed, is it?’
‘And watch your language,’ the policeman said.
Rashers turned in his grip to fix a vicious eye on him.
‘That’s all you and the likes of you were ever good at,’ he said, ‘manhandling the bloody poor.’ He clawed at the policeman’s uniform, dislodging a loose button. The policeman’s face became thunderous.
‘Shut your mouth,’ the policeman said.
‘Shut your own,’ Rashers yelled. There was a line of foam about his lips. The policeman slapped him hard on the side of the mouth and twisted his arm. Rashers yelled with pain. Then the policeman began to hustle him through the crowd. They parted respectfully. Mary followed. The policeman was making a road for her which would lead eventually to Fitz. As she walked she caught glimpses now and then of Rashers. The blood on his mouth increased the pallor of his skin. His eyes were half closed and his teeth were clenched tight. Yet in the line of his jaw there was something unbreakable and defiant, a spirit which could bear with suffering because from experience it knew that it must eventually, like everything else, have an end. At the edge of the crowd Mary stood and stared after the policeman, wanting to do something for Rashers, to help in some way. But she could think of nothing to say that would be of any use. After a while she gave up and turned in the direction of Butt Bridge.
Rashers was brought to College Street station, where the duty sergeant glanced at him over a sheaf of reports.
‘What’s this?’ he asked the policeman.
‘Obscene language and conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace.’
The policeman wiped sweat from his face. The day was too warm for even mild exertion.
‘Drink, I suppose?’
‘Drink how-are-you,’ Rashers said. ‘I was lifted of nine and fourpence by some louser of a pickpocket.’
The sergeant looked at the policeman.
‘That’s as may be,’ the policeman said, ‘but what about this?’
He pointed to his uniform where the button was missing.
‘I see,’ the sergeant said, ‘another George Hackenschmidt.’
The policeman smiled at the reference to the popular wrestler.
‘The real thing, Sergeant,’ he confirmed.
The sergeant relished his joke again.
‘What else?’ he asked.
‘For one, the use of an inflammatory expression.’
‘To wit?’ asked the sergeant.
‘Lousy loyalists.’
‘Better and better,’ said the sergeant.
He turned furiously on Rashers.
‘So you’re a bit of a Republican too,’ he said. Rashers made no answer.
‘Name?’ the sergeant barked.
‘Tierney.’
‘Christian name?’
‘Rashers.’
The sergeant put down his pen.
‘They never poured holy water on the likes of that,’ he said.
The policeman took a hand.
‘Give the sergeant your proper Christian name,’ he ordered.
‘I haven’t got a Christian name.’
‘Then you’d better bloodywell find one,’ the sergeant said. He had grown red and angry. He turned to the policeman and added, ‘Lock him up inside there for a while. Maybe it’ll jog his memory.’
Rashers was put in a cell. It had a rough bed which he sat down on gratefully. The socks were cutting into his feet. He ached all over. At intervals they came to demand his Christian name. He was afraid to invent one because that would convince them that he had been stubborn in the first instance. He kept answering ‘Rashers’. They determined to be as stubborn as he was.
Mary saw Fitz from a distance. He was leaning on the wall of the river. At the sight of him she hurried her step.
‘You got away,’ he said, looking down at her.
She smiled up at him and touched his hand lightly.
‘I very nearly didn’t. The tram was held up and then I got mixed up with the crowds.’
She wondered why he was staring at her coat. She looked down and saw the ribbons.
‘Oh, those,’ she said. ‘I bought them from an old man. He looked hungry.’
She wondered if Fitz had been waiting long.
‘Did you see the procession?’ she asked.
‘I stayed here in case I’d miss you. I heard the bands, though.’
‘It was impossible to see anything. The crowd was frightening.’
‘Where would you like to go?’
‘I don’t mind. Somewhere quiet.’
‘The prison ship? It’s just down beyond the Custom House.’
‘No—not that.’
‘You’ve changed your mind.’
‘The old man who sold me the ribbons was hit on the mouth by a policeman and his arm twisted until it was nearly broken. I don’t want to see anything today that would remind me of that.’
‘Poor Mary,’ Fitz said, taking her arm gently.
They decided against going to Phoenix Park because the garden party at the Viceregal Lodge was bound to attract numerous sightseers. Fitz suggested a walk along the sandbanks beyond Pigeon House Fort. They took the tram as far as Irishtown and when they reached the seafront they took off their shoes and began to walk together across the ebbed strand. It was a mile or more to the sandbanks. They waded through pools in which the water had grown warm from the strong sun and crossed swift-flowing rivulets which had worn deep channels in the sand. Behind them the houses along the front grew tiny with distance. Far out in front of them they could discern the thin white edge of foam and beyond it the calm water of the open sea. The sky was high and blue and immense.
‘Watch out for shells,’ Fitz said over his shoulder.
She smiled to let him know that she remembered.
He took her hand. At the touch of his fingers on hers they both stopped. In a moment he had come close to her. His face, above hers, was dark against the sun; but hers was radiant and expectant, her mouth half open, her eyes closed. Alone in the centre of the sun-filled strand they kissed. Her own love frightened her. She said:
‘What is going to become of me if I keep on loving you like this?’
He held her to him, repeating her name. After a while she released herself gently and they walked on again, hand in hand, until the sand became dry and after that fine and shot through with silver specks which clothed their feet. They climbed among the hillocks of strong, sparse grass and sat down. Behind them the narrow breakwater reached out a further mile into the sea, dividing the river at their backs from the strand in front of them, keeping navigable depth for the shipping traffic of the Port of Dublin. The strand they had just crossed was sunlit and empty. They were quite alone.
‘Were you waiting a long time?’ Mary asked.
‘Not very long, but I was a bit afraid Miss Gilchrist had taken the day herself and left you stuck in the house.’
‘She wouldn’t look at the King. She’s a Fenian.’
‘All the Fenians are dead and gone.’
‘Not for her. She keeps a picture of one of them in her room. They used to call at her house when she was a child in Tipperary. She tol
d me she once saw the watchfires lit on the hills and it was a signal for a rising against the British.’
‘I’d like to have seen them myself,’ Fitz admitted.
‘It does no good,’ Mary said.
She had brought some sandwiches with her, which she had filled with left-over meat. Fitz had a bottle with milk and also some oranges. They began to eat. The walk across the strand and the salt flavour of the air lent an edge to their appetites.
‘Ham,’ Fitz remarked appreciatively. He bit into the sandwich.
‘Pity it’s not tomorrow,’ Mary said. ‘They’ll have chicken tonight, for Father O’Connor and Mr. Yearling.’
As Fitz took another, a thought struck him.
‘If they ever want a butler, let me know.’
He broke a piece of bread and threw it lazily across the sand towards a gull which had been resting, its head tucked in tight against its shoulders. The gull was awake immediately. It stalked across and began to eat.
‘It’s beautiful here,’ Mary said.
‘As nice as Cahirdermot?’ Fitz asked.
‘Different. We had only mountains and fields. There was a river too, of course, but only the boys used to swim.’
They finished their meal and walked across to where firmer sand began beyond the tide-mark. At a pool left by the tide they knelt close together and peered among the rocks and seaweed. A dead crab, tangled in a frond of seaweed, swayed gently beneath the surface. It was a small, green crab, its upturned belly showing the V-shaped cut in its shell. Fitz pointed at this.
‘That’s where he keeps his money.’
Mary saw his face reflected in the pool, so close to her own that they might have been painted together on a medallion, against a background of blue sky and barely discernible wisps of white cloud. Fitz, she knew, was telling her something he had believed as a child. She had often wondered about his childhood, about his growing up in the noise and bustle of the city, about his work among trundling carts and swinging cranes and furnaces so huge that when he told her of them she thought of hell and its fire. How had he remained gentle and kind through all that? Perhaps it was because of the sea and the strand, the beautiful summer strands where even the poorest child could wander and hunt in the pools for crabs, hoping some day to find one that carried money in its purse. She rested her head against his shoulder, linking her arm through his.
‘You believed the funniest things when you were a child. You must have been happy.’
‘I’m happier now.’ Fitz pushed her hair back from her face.
They rose and began to walk again. Far away, near the Martello Tower at Sandymount, tiny figures on horseback moved to and fro. The young ladies from the riding schools of Tritonville Road were exercising on the sands. They went back again among the coarse grasses of the sandbanks. When they were seated a moment Fitz drew her down until they were lying side by side.
After what seemed a long time he said:
‘You love me?’
He had withdrawn a little to ask her and she could see his face. Its tenderness brought her near to tears. She nodded.
‘Say it.’
She paused a moment and then said:
‘I love you.’
‘And you’ll marry me?’
I’ll marry you.’
He drew something from his pocket and held it towards her. It was a ring.
‘I know you can’t wear it yet about the house, but I’d like you to take it and keep it with you.’
She put it on her finger.
‘It’s not a very dear one,’ he said humbly. Again the tears gathered because of the way she felt.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
She wanted to give him something in exchange, a memento which would stand ever afterwards for the happiness of the day. She had nothing with her.
They delayed until the edge of the incoming tide was less than a hundred yards away. It approached slowly over the flat sands, rimmed by an edge of white foam. Here and there streamlets, like the scouts of an approaching army, crept forward in advance of the main body. It was time to go. They left the sandhills and climbed up on to the breakwater which was as wide as a road but unevenly surfaced, for the foundations had moved and the great granite blocks which comprised it had angled in places. Sand and fragments of shells, the remnants of winter storms and furious seas, filled the gaps where the granite had parted.
They stopped to watch a coal boat moving up river towards the bay. It glided full of peaceful purpose. The waves in its wake rolled towards them and broke at last against the stonework, a commotion about nothing. Screaming and swooping, the white gulls followed the ship.
‘How soon do you think we could manage?’ Fitz asked.
Mary wasn’t sure. They would have to save money. She told him she would not care to live in a house with others and of her hope that the Bradshaws would help them to get a cottage.
‘I have some money saved,’ she said.
Fitz had none. But his job was steady and, compared with most of the others, not badly paid. They talked until Mary, thinking once more of the time, said urgently:
‘Fitz, we must hurry.’
They began to walk again. In an hour they were back in the streets of the city and Fitz was waiting to see her on to the tram. She was pensive, thinking of the day they had spent together.
‘A penny for them,’ Fitz offered.
‘I’m feeling sad.’
‘About what?’
‘Our lovely day—all gone.’
‘There’ll be others,’ Fitz said.
‘Will you think about it—I mean tonight when you’re working?’
‘Nearly all the time.’
‘Here’s my tram,’ she said. On and off she had been wishing for something to give him and now the solution occurred to her. She took Rashers’ ribbons from her coat and pushed them into his hand. He looked at them, puzzled.
‘To remember,’ she said.
She was afraid he might laugh, or that he might think she was mad. Or, because he was not in favour of the King, that he might be angry.
He took them gravely and said:
‘I’ll keep them, always.’
Her heart quickened. She was filled with happiness.
He helped her on to the tram, waved, and was gone. She sat once more on the outside, hearing the trolley’s conversational humming and feeling the wind against her cheeks and hair as the tram battled its sturdy way towards Kingstown.
When the night sergeant came in at fifteen minutes past eight he put his helmet on the desk and looked around the office without a word of greeting for the young policeman who had risen behind his desk. The sergeant was a burly man with a very red face. He breathed heavily and mopped his brow. The policeman said:
‘Good evening, Sergeant.’
The sergeant looked at the coat-rack and then at the fireplace which was littered with cigarette stubs and empty cartons.
‘Has Dunleavy gone?’
‘Sergeant Dunleavy left sharp at eight.’
‘I see,’ the night sergeant said.
He loosened the neck of his tunic and, turning his back on the policeman, stared out of the barred window.
‘You were up at the hospital?’ the policeman asked.
The sergeant sighed heavily. ‘Aye. And Dunleavy knew that.’
‘He said he was in a bit of a hurry this evening.’
‘He might have waited the few minutes. I did it for him often enough.’
The policeman did not want any part in the quarrels of his superiors. So he said:
‘How was the youngster?’
The sergeant turned away from the window and looked at him.
‘It’s what we suspected. Meningitis.’
The poor little scrap,’ the policeman said, seeing the red face was tight with pain.
‘They’ll send for me here if there’s a change.’
‘Please God it’ll be for the better.’
‘No,’ the sergeant said, ‘
he’ll die. They always do.’
‘Is he the youngest?’
‘The second youngest.’
‘It’s a heavy cross for you, Sergeant,’ the policeman said.
‘It’s bad for a father, but worse again for the mother,’ said the sergeant.
‘It’s hard on the two of you.’
The sergeant went to his desk. He wrote Sergeant J. Muldoon on top of the duty sheet and then with an effort began to examine the papers in front of him. The policeman worked in silence. He could not think of anything to say.
‘What’s in?’ the sergeant asked him. He was finding it difficult to read the reports for himself. The policeman gave him particulars. Then he said:
‘We have a guest in cell No. 3.’
‘What’s he there for?’
The policeman told him about Rashers.
‘How long is he there?’
‘Since early afternoon.’
‘I’ll go and see him.’
Activity helped. The sergeant took the heavy key and went down a passage. The cell was in gloom. Rashers was stretched on the bed, asleep. The sergeant stood over him. Rashers’ heavy breathing reminded him of the child in the hospital, struggling for the life that minute by minute was being prised from his grasp. In an hour or two they would send for him to say that the end was near. He would stand and watch helplessly. There were no handcuffs to hold Death at bay. You could not lock Death up in a cell or let it off with a caution. It was the biggest thief of all.
The sergeant shook Rashers by the shoulder.
‘Wake up,’ he commanded.
Rashers stirred and sat up. He blinked at the strange sergeant.
‘A new one, be God,’ he said.
‘What’s this about refusing to give your name?’
‘I gave the only name I ever knew of,’ Rashers said. ‘Is it lies you want me to tell?’
‘What name was that?’
‘Rashers Tierney.’
‘Who christened you Rashers?’
‘The first woman I remember.’
‘Your mother?’
‘I don’t remember her.’
‘Who then?’
‘A little woman by the name of Molloy that lived in the basement of 3 Chandlers Court. I came to her at the age of four.’
‘From where?’
‘They never found out. Maybe God left me under a dustbin lid.’
Strumpet City Page 3