‘God knows I’m fond of the old woman, she is quite devoted,’ Bradshaw continued. ‘If she remains as she is and we have to part with her it will be a terrible upset.’
Father O’Connor wanted to speak for her. The suggestion that she should be kept in the house no matter what the outcome of her illness came several times to the tip of his tongue. He could not say it. He told himself it would do no good. It would only make Bradshaw regard him as an incorrigible fool.
‘We can only pray,’ Father O’Connor said. ‘Prayer works wonders.’
The dilemma haunted him as he walked home. It seemed insoluble. If the old lady remained incapable, only Bradshaw’s generosity would stand between her and the workhouse; and Bradshaw, Father O’Connor knew, was incapable of charity in so large a measure. Indeed, Father O’Connor reminded himself, God did not demand it of his children. And yet, given certain circumstances, was not something required, in all justice, over and above the meticulous discharge of a contract? St. Thomas had somewhere discussed the matter. Father O’Connor tried but failed to remember specifically.
The streets were deserted, the bulk of the church looked black and forbidding, the wind was cold and burdened with rain. Father O’Connor went through the side gate and heard it groan as it shut behind him. What he could have said on the old woman’s behalf he did not know. He only knew that he had not said it. He walked along the narrow, tree-lined approach, his shoulders hunched, feeling like Judas.
‘What time is it?’ Miss Gilchrist asked.
‘Almost midnight.’
‘You should get to your bed.’
‘Presently,’ Mary said, ‘when you’ve had your milk and settled down for the night.’
The wind was making a great noise outside, bullying the trees and driving the rain against the windows. Sometimes the lamp dimmed and then brightened again, sometimes a gust beat down on the fire and sent a puff of smoke into the room. Mary watched the saucepan of milk, which for convenience she was heating at the bedroom fire. Miss Gilchrist returned to her chosen topic, Father O’Connor’s visit.
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘About what?’
‘About your trouble.’
That was the phrase she had found for Mary’s loss of favour.
‘Not a word. Perhaps he didn’t know.’
‘Nonsense,’ Miss Gilchrist said, ‘of course he knew.’ She lay staring at the ceiling, a whitewashed one on which the beaded lampshade cast restless patterns. They were faces, flowers, animal shapes.
‘He’s kind. If you’d mentioned it to him he would have put in a word with the boss about you.’
‘I don’t want him to.’
‘But what will you do?’
Mary did not know as yet. First she must see Fitz. The milk bubbled around the edges and she took it away from the fire. Fixing Miss Gilchrist’s pillows, Mary sat down at the bedside and they both drank. The room was cosy, yet in some subtle way it had changed. It was no longer a place in which she was accepted and approved. The furniture, the sick-room utensils, Miss Gilchrist’s rebel, were no longer part of her life. They surrounded her like enemies. She had a home no longer. Even outside the house everything had changed. At mass on Sundays she saw people she knew and thought they looked strangely at her. It made her hate them and brought her several times to the verge of tears.
‘What can I do?’ she said at length. Except get away. That meant home. She would feel unwanted at home too. And neighbours would gossip in the small townland.
‘Father O’Connor is the man to go to,’ Miss Gilchrist said again, just before Mary settled the clothes about her and she began to fall asleep. ‘He won’t let you down.’
Mary turned down the lamp. The clock said midnight. She took the glasses and left on tiptoe, pausing for a moment on the stairs to assure herself that the house was sleeping. It was hard to unbolt the kitchen door without making a noise, but she succeeded at last. She closed it behind her, hoping the latch, which often slipped, would hold against the wind. The cold sting of the rain made her catch her breath as she hurried down the length of the garden. She opened the garden gate and stared into the darkness. Coming from the lighted house made it impossible to see anything. She started with fright when Fitz stood suddenly close to her.
‘Mary,’ he said.
She turned to him and he folded her tightly in his arms. After a moment she said: ‘Not here. Come inside.’
They went up the garden together until they found cover under a tree. It was no longer much protection against the driving rain, but it held off the wind a little and hid them from the roadway. Fitz took her in his arms again and she said: ‘My darling, I kept you waiting, and you’re soaked.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Fitz said.
She kissed him in sudden abandon, his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, finding them cold and soaked with rain. Then she began to cry.
‘Tell me what has happened.’
She told him. For the first time in many days she found love offered to her in place of hostility. Under a dark tree, in the wind and the rain of a December midnight, there was the feeling of home. She had been exiled from that for longer than she could bear. She clutched him desperately and said: ‘What am I to do?’
He held her for a moment in silence. Then in a voice which was unexpectedly calm and firm he said: ‘You mustn’t go home.’
‘No.’
‘Because if you do they’ll keep you there. We might never see one another again.’
‘Where else can I go?’
‘You can stay with the Farrells and I can find some other place for a while.’
‘Will they agree?’
‘Of course they’ll agree.’
She had never had a problem of any importance to put to him before. His assurance was a new quality at which to marvel.
‘You can stay there until we can arrange to be married.’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, ‘but how?’
‘Give me just a little time to arrange it,’ he said, ‘I’ll leave word for you and when I do all you’ll have to do is walk out as you did tonight.’
‘What about my father?’
‘You can write to him to tell him you’re safe. We’ll be married before they can do anything about it.’
She said: ‘It all seems simple now when you are with me. But when you’re not here I’m going to be afraid.’
‘Don’t you want to come with me?’
‘How can you ask?’
‘Then there’s nothing to be afraid of. From the moment you leave here I’ll be with you.’
The leaves above them shook furiously and the dislodged drops soaked both of them. Mary shivered and said: ‘I must go. They might miss me.’
‘I’ll send word,’ he said.
‘Tell me you love me.’
‘I love you.’
‘Think of me later and say it too.’
‘I’ll say it all the way home,’ he answered.
He waited until she had gone into the house and the candlelight showed in her window. Then he went off. She thought of him battling his way back to the city, his head down against the rain. His confidence had reassured her. The future no longer filled her with dread and uncertainty.
In the first days of the New Year Mary left the Bradshaws’ home for ever. She met Fitz once again in the garden and closed the gate quietly, this time from the outside. She had a small case of belongings and sixteen pounds, the fortune she had managed to save. They walked all the way to the city, a journey which took over two hours. When they reached the Farrells’ house Mrs. Farrell was waiting with tea for them. She asked no questions.
The next day Fitz moved to a room elsewhere and Mary wrote two letters. The one to her father assured him that she was safe and that he must not worry about her. The one to Mrs. Bradshaw found the house in chaos for want of servants, a troublesome situation which continued for a couple of weeks, when suitable new recruits were eventually found. Miss Gilchrist’
s partial paralysis remained, until in the end Mr. Bradshaw made up his mind. Her removal to the workhouse upset Mrs. Bradshaw for several months.
CHAPTER FIVE
Winter was always the worst time in that city. In autumn the trees along suburban roads were venerable but elegant; in winter they were gnarled and ragged ancients, with rheumatic knuckles and bones. The large houses became draughty and hard to heat; the young children on their way to Miss Tieler’s ballet and dancing class in Molesworth Hall wore gaiters over thick stockings and top-coats over jerseys and shawls, so that when they alighted from trams and cabs they were recognisable because of their enormous size. In the mornings just at the breakfast hour the poor searched diligently in the ashbins of the well-to-do for half-burnt cinders and carried sacks and cans so that as much as possible of the fuel might be salvaged. The ashbin children were pinched and wiry and usually barefooted. They lived on the cast-offs. They came each morning from the crowded rooms in the cast-off houses of the Rich; elegant Georgian buildings which had grown old and had been discarded. The clothes they wore had been cast off by their parents, who had bought them as cast-offs in the second-hand shops in Little Mary Street or Winetavern Street. If the well-to-do had stopped casting off for even a little while the children would have gone homeless and fireless and naked. But nobody really thought about that. These things Were.
It was a bad time for the carters, rising by candlelight, shivering on their way to work before six o’clock, wondering would there be ice on the streets to keep the horses in the stables. And for the building trade, where every other day the weather became ugly and there was broken time. The dockers hated winter. They huddled in groups on the quayside and waited through interminable mornings for ships that had been delayed.
It was a bad time all round. The east wind beat in from the sea and drove under the arches of the river, so that when the gulls rose with a cry from the water it hurled them backwards in a high, swift curve. The Farrells’ house, where Mary continued to stay, quivered often at night because of the great beating of the sea. She had grown used to its sound while with the Bradshaws, but here it was nearer and more violent. Frequently, when she walked along the front in the mornings, she found the beach strewn with driftwood and debris. After a while she began to join others in collecting what could be used for fuel. At times, when she sat listening to the sea and the wind, her thoughts turned to the house in Kingstown and she wondered if Mrs. Bradshaw still complained of the draughts from the folding doors.
On one of the bleakest nights the great coal-stack in the foundry went on fire. Fitz, who was on duty, was called out a little after midnight by Carrington the foreman. At first there were no flames and the smoke could not be seen in the pitch darkness. But both recognised the smell, a particular odour which left a thick taste on the tongue. They traced it to the lower yard, after much uncertain groping and guessing. The smoke was heavy in the yard and hit them so suddenly that they both swallowed it and coughed. From the darkness beside Fitz, Carrington’s voice said: ‘It’s the coal-stack.’
It had happened before. Carrington, wondering if he should put the emergency routine into operation, hesitated.
‘I wonder how bad it is?’
‘We won’t know until we disturb it,’ Fitz said, ‘and when we do that it may be too late.’
‘I’ll see about getting the brigade,’ Carrington decided. ‘Take out enough of the furnace crew to rig up the lighting set and see about mustering extra help.’
A little later the city, huddled behind drenched housefronts, stirred to hear the clangour of bells in the empty streets. As the first engine swung into the yard the men were already moving the lighting set into position. A cloud of smoke, bent at an angle by the wind, showed up blackly.
‘Why the hell wouldn’t it happen in summer,’ one of the men said.
They had shovels ready and were crouching in the meagre shelter of the lamp supports. Sleet slanted intermittently, a curtain between the darkness and the lamps. The brigade men were in position with hoses ready.
The foreman had some words with the chief before he ordered the labourers forward. They dug gingerly, testing for the source of the fire and leaving small mounds of coal about the main stack. After a while one of the men, digging deeper than the rest, sprang aside and called out. A small tongue of flame licked upwards. Carrington said to Fitz:
‘You’d better call out help. We’ll need carters and more men to dig.’
Fitz found the list in the time office, where the timekeeper, half asleep over the fire, jumped up in alarm at his entrance.
‘Blast you anyway,’ he said. ‘I thought for a minute you were Carrington.’
‘I’ve come for the emergency list,’ Fitz said, ‘the main coal-stack is on fire.’
The timekeeper produced it from a drawer.
‘We use the carters from Doggett & Co.,’ he said. ‘Barney Mulhall is the man to see first.’
‘Have you his address?’
‘Chandlers Court,’ the timekeeper said, his eyes searching down the list. ‘Here you are—number three.’
Fitz took his bicycle and headed out into the streets. He was the only traveller. The city was dead and dark and windswept. In addition to the carters there would be labourers needed. He decided to call on Pat Bannister, with whom he had been sharing a room since Mary had gone to the Farrells. Pat was out of work because for the moment the storage yard of Nolan & Keyes was packed to capacity. He decided to call on Farrell too: he was still being ignored by the stevedores. There was at least a night’s work in it for each of them. The double line of tram-tracks gleamed wetly as he turned across them into Chandlers Court and found number three with difficulty. The hall door was closed over, but there was no lock and he pushed it in with his shoulder. A dog barked from the basement as he entered the hall. He climbed two flights. It was impossible not to make a noise on the bare boards and to stumble now and then on the uneven stairs. The walls in the dim light of the oil lamp he had taken from his bicycle were greasy and peeling. The smell of communal living lay heavily and unpleasantly on the landing. He knocked at the door of the two pair back and noticed that the paint was cracking and blistered as though there had been a fire.
After a while there were movements and a deep voice asked: ‘Who is it?’
‘Emergency call,’ Fitz answered, ‘Morgan’s Foundry.’
‘Hold your horses,’ the voice acknowledged.
Fitz waited patiently. Somewhere above a baby had begun to cry. It was remote yet it transformed everything. There was more here than darkness, than decay, than evil smells. Behind each of these peeling doors, from the ground to the top, there was a home. A man who was naked except for a pair of trousers which he held in position with one hand, opened the door and said: ‘Step in.’
Fitz hesitated.
‘Do as you’re told,’ the man insisted. He was obviously used to laying down the law. Fitz noticed his bulk and height. But there was a pleasant note in his voice. He was not a bully.
Mulhall made way for him and he entered the room. The atmosphere was close, but snugly so. The only illumination was the red glow of a lamp which stood on the mantelpiece before a statue of the Sacred Heart. A yellow circle of light wavered on the ceiling above it. As Mulhall pulled on his shirt there were movements in the far corner. A match gleamed and a gas ring threw a blue light. Mulhall, having pulled his braces over his huge shoulders, lit a candle and said:
‘What the hell are you at now?’
‘Keep your voice quiet,’ the woman whispered. She was elderly. Fitz knew by the voice and by her stooping movements in the combined light of candle and gas ring.
‘That’s herself,’ Mulhall said to Fitz, pulling on his socks.
The woman said: ‘You’ll waken the child.’
Mulhall chuckled deeply and said to Fitz: ‘The child is in the bed beyond there. He’s fifteen and nearly as big as I am.’
Fitz guessed at, rather than saw, a single bed in the far
corner.
‘What’s your name?’ Mulhall asked.
‘Fitzpatrick,’ Fitz said.
There were sounds near the gas ring; the thump of a kettle, the rattle of cups.
‘She’s making tea,’ Mulhall confided. He was having trouble with one of his boots.
‘It won’t take a minute,’ the woman said, ‘and you’ll be glad you had it when you face the street outside,’ Then she said: ‘You might ask the young man to take the weight off his legs.’
Fitz could see them better now. Mulhall had thick grey hair above a heavy forehead. The woman, a coat thrown about her shoulders, had once been tall. Her movements were gentle. In the candlelight her shadow bobbed from wall to wall as she put cups on the table and cut bread.
‘Sit over,’ she said.
‘Dear God,’ Mulhall protested, ‘a bloody coal-stack on fire—and she makes tea.’
‘Take it in your hand and swallow it.’ She listened to the wind for a moment and added: ‘It’s a terrible night.’
The second bed was in the angle between a small window and the far wall. Fitz could see it better now. There were movements from it and a boy sat up, blinking. He had a handsome face with dark hair tumbled about the forehead.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Emergency call,’ Mulhall answered.
‘I knew you’d wake him,’ the woman said. She turned to Fitz and explained: ‘The child is in the parcels department in the Tramway. He has a six o’clock start.’
The tea was sweet and hot—too hot. Mulhall emptied his into a saucer and drank it that way.
‘Do you need extra help?’
‘We could do with some,’ Fitz said.
‘Glory be to God,’ his wife said, ‘you’re surely not thinking of the child?’
Mulhall said to her, ‘Will you let me talk, woman.’ He glared at her for a moment over his shoulder. Then he spoke to Fitz.
‘There’s a poor divil upstairs with a wife and a couple of children. He could do with a night’s work.’
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