When he got back the office staff were assembled already in No. 1 House.
‘You organise this lot,’ Carrington said. ‘I’ll look after No. 2 House. There’s a cup of tea ready for you when you get them working.’
‘Right,’ Fitz said.
He divided them, putting some on the skips and giving shovels to others. Then he explained what was to be done, and at what times. He appointed a senior clerk to direct the rest. He watched them charging the furnaces and showed them how to dress the fires lightly. The heat was to be brought down, he told them, a little at a time and with care. They understood what was at stake and grasped the system quickly. When the initial confusion and awkwardness had been overcome, he left them at it and went to find Carrington.
Carrington’s gang had not yet arrived. He poured tea from a billycan for Fitz and asked:
‘How’s it going?’
‘Smoothly enough,’ Fitz said. ‘They’ll get the heats down without damage.’
‘Fine,’ Carrington said.
Fitz took the tea. It was thick and brown. Carrington made tea in the way of the workers: tea leaves and sugar all in together, with a lacing of condensed milk. It had the taste of the job off it, of coal fumes, of sweat, of furnace-house gossip. Carrington said:
‘You’ll have to keep an eye on them, just the same.’
Fitz drank his tea, thinking his way ahead.
‘They’ll fold up after a while, of course,’ Carrington pursued. ‘Enthusiasm is no substitute for experience.’
He took his tea.
‘Muscles too soft,’ he explained.
‘They’ll manage,’ Fitz said.
‘With a bit of guidance,’ Carrington said, indulgently.
‘Well,’ he added, when Fitz did not seem disposed to talk, ‘better get back on the job I suppose.’
Fitz examined his cup. There was a residue of liquid in it, enough to wash the tea leaves from the sides as he tilted it about and about. He considered carefully and said:
‘I won’t be going back to the job.’ He had the feeling of pushing a bolt on a door firmly home, or making a will. Carrington said nothing for some time. He, too, was feeling his way.
‘You realise what you’re doing?’ he said at last.
‘Perfectly,’ Fitz said.
‘There’s a chance, sooner or later, they’ll show a little mercy to the others. But they’ll never forgive a foreman. If you quit now you’ll walk through that gate for the last time. You’ll never get back.’
‘I know that,’ Fitz said.
‘Then why do you have to be such a fool?’
Why? Personal pride, or the hope that at the end of so much travail, somewhere in the unseeable future, there would be a change in the world. He had seen a man suffer and afterwards he had picked up two dismembered feet and wrapped them in a sack.
‘I couldn’t leave the union now,’ he said. ‘People who were never in it and never intended to be in it are locked out because they won’t sign a bit of paper promising never to join it.’
‘They’ve the prospect of getting back,’ Carrington said. ‘You’ve none.’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we meet it,’ Fitz said. He pushed the cup away from him and stood up.
‘See you sometime,’ he said.
Carrington offered his hand. Fitz shook it.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
He left the house, crossed the empty yard and went through the gateman’s hut into the street. The notice of the lock-out was still posted on the main gates, which were closed.
By the end of the week Bullman had assembled the facts for his Board. The four hundred firms in membership of the Employers’ Federation had stood firm, thirty-two trade unions had joined with the Larkinites in refusing to sign the form. The lock-out was general throughout the city. They must act from now on in consort with the rest of the employers. They would have financial support from employers in England. Gates closed, machinery came to a standstill. The city of Dublin was practically paralysed. It was reckoned that about twenty-four thousand men were involved. In a matter of days the streets filled with the hungry hordes Rashers had feared.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mary, alone with the sleeping children, sat at the window overlooking the street and felt the dusk growing in the room about her. At first she had been occupied by the children playing in scattered groups below, until in twos and threes they were called away and there was nothing left to watch except the changing tones of pavement and housefront as the shadows of late evening began their transformation. It was September and already the dusk came perceptibly earlier. Soon the women, meeting each other, would remark: ‘God bless us, but aren’t the evenings closing in.’ Soon would come the colder weather and the need for fires. With half the city idle, what was to happen then?
The thought remained to trouble and preoccupy her. Fitz’s promotion to foreman had brought not only extra money and a little more comfort but a place in the world that was better and more secure than any of her neighbours. He could have left the union when he was promoted. Foremen, she had thought, were above unions. Yet he had come out with the rest, and in doing so put everything she had and all she hoped for in jeopardy—her children’s future, the possessions she had gathered to make a home with, the small weekly amounts she was beginning to save. It was not in her nature to question his decision, yet the consequences of it distressed her. Hunger and want were again part of her world, twin possibilities that threatened in her moments of solitude and were now calamitous presences in the shadowed corners of the street.
A tapping at the door roused her. She realised that someone was calling her.
‘Mrs. Fitzpatrick, are you within?’
She recognised the voice and for a moment hesitated. Then she called, reluctantly.
‘Come in—Mrs. Hennessy.’
The woman opened the door and poked her head around it, peering into the gloom.
‘Your husband is out?’
‘He is,’ Mary said.
Mrs. Hennessy, entering the room, let the shawl down from her head and settled it in folds about her shoulders.
‘Them oul stairs has me killed,’ she said conversationally. She was small and thin, with dark hair that was greying and a drawn yellow face. Her eyes, inquisitive and watchful, challenged the world to do its worst.
‘Can I help you?’ Mary said, waiting for the customary flow to start.
Mrs. Hennessy produced a jug from beneath her shawl.
‘I was wondering if I could borrow the loan of a sup of fresh milk for the baby,’ she said, ‘she’s too young for the condensed.’
Mary went to the press.
‘Wait till I tell you what happened,’ Mrs. Hennessy said. ‘There was a terrible commotion some hours back. Some bowsie put a brick through the window of Kerrigan’s dairy and there’s not a sup to be had there. Only for that I wouldn’t trouble you at all.’
Mary poured milk into the jug. Mrs. Hennessy, watching the operation closely, said: ‘The blessings of God on you.’ Then, as a quick afterthought, added: ‘You might lend me the loan of a cupful of sugar as well.’
Mary took the cracked cup which also appeared from under the shawl and filled it with sugar.
‘You’re far too generous,’ Mrs. Hennessy said, ‘and you’ll have it all back as soon as the tide turns.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Mary said, ‘don’t think of it.’ The quick and inquisitive eyes were taking in the room.
‘Did you hear what the police is up to?’
‘I did, indeed,’ Mary said.
‘Depredation and damage—that’s their programme now,’ Mrs. Hennessy said. ‘They’re breaking into the houses and smashing things and manhandling defenceless women and children. I know several this night that hasn’t a stick of furniture left whole—everything the poor souls ever had smashed into smithereens.’
‘God forgive them,’ Mary said. But she got no chance to say anything more.
‘God forbid
they’d ever break in here,’ Mrs. Hennessy continued, ‘and you with everything a body could want for. Sofas and chairs and table and nice pictures. They’d make short work of it all. Thanks be to God they’ll find little of value to damage in Ellen Hennessy’s caboosh, and what little there ever was is safely stored by now in The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment. That’s the advantage of having nothing. You can’t lose it.’
Then, after a breath she said: ‘Still—God is good.’
Mary said sympathetically: ‘Your poor husband is out of work again, I’m told.’
‘Is he ever in work,’ Mrs. Hennessy broke in. ‘He had a nice little job and, as usual, wouldn’t mind it.’
‘It was unfortunate,’ Mary said.
‘Wait till I tell you,’ Mrs. Hennessy said. ‘He goes off to Sackville Street a few weeks ago to see will Larkin turn up and comes home to me with his head in a bandage and his arm dislocated. “What happened to you Hennessy?” say I, when he came in the door. “I was caught in a charge in Sackville Street,” says he, “and got a belt of a baton. And when I fell I think I was walked on be a horse.” Right enough, when he took off his shirt he was black and blue all over. “That’s what you get,” says I, “for playing the Red Hand hayro. Now your wife and your unfortunate children can go hungry.”’
She gathered her shawl about her head once more.
‘I’ll go up now,’ she said, ‘and look after them. They’re all alone and like a bag of cats for want of a bit to eat. I’m more than obliged for the loan of the milk and the sugar.’
Then she surveyed the room again. Her eyes went from item to item, assessing each.
‘You have enough here to stave off the hunger for many a long day,’ she assured Mary, ‘and if the time ever comes when you have to start shifting some of it, just give me the word. Ellen Hennessy will see you get the right price in any pawnshop in the city. Don’t forget now.’
‘I won’t forget,’ Mary said.
She closed the door after Mrs. Hennessy and stood for a moment to wonder whether kindness or envy had inspired the other woman’s offer. God help her, she had little in her life to prompt her to generosity, with her husband who seldom worked and a family that kept increasing. Her life was a succession of childbirths, her days dependent on the pawnshop and reluctant little charities wheedled from her neighbours. If she was envious or grudging she had every reason to be.
Mary sat down at the window again, determined to be patient while she waited for Fitz to return from his meeting, trying not to lose hope among the ever deepening shadows of the street. What Mrs. Hennessy had looked upon as her guarantee against misfortune would be the misfortune itself, to part with the things she had gathered, to break up the home she had made through personal sacrifice and with the sympathetic help of Mrs. Bradshaw. That help, at least, would continue. Mrs. Bradshaw was a kindly woman. When she knew of the trouble she would do little things to help. For Mrs. Bradshaw had everything except children. That was the strange way the world worked. Mrs. Hennessy had too many. But that was the Will of God.
Sometimes she had tried to imagine what it would be like to change places with Mrs. Bradshaw, to sit in a beautiful house looking out at the garden, with a bell near at hand to summon a servant to open the windows when the room grew warm with the sun, or to close them when the evening air became cool. To give orders about the meals. And to arrange the flowers—saying this should go here and that should go there. To play the piano when there was company. To dress elegantly for the theatre. To wash with delicate soaps. To carry a pretty purse of notes and sovereigns. And she would have education. And she would speak with a beautiful accent. But she would have to have been born differently, never knowing her father, or her mother who was dead. And she would have no children. And she would have Mr. Bradshaw. No.
She heard Fitz on the landing outside and heard him opening the door.
‘You’re sitting in the dark,’ he said.
She looked round, noticing for the first time that by now there was hardly any light falling into the room. She rose and said: ‘I’ll light the lamp. How did your meeting go?’
He left his cap on the dresser, a habit she had given up trying to cure him of. He saw her hair falling forward across her cheek and saw the outline of her features in the lamplight and remembered their wedding night.
‘They’re releasing Larkin,’ he answered. ‘The Government have stepped in.’
That was probably good news. She did not know the ins and outs of the trouble.
‘That’s good,’ she said.
‘And the strike pay will be ten shillings a week—for a while at any rate.’
‘Is it going to go on, do you think?’
‘They say it can’t,’ Fitz answered.
She was aware of him watching her as she bent over the lamp. She knew he was watching her closely. He was troubled. She felt that too.
‘But you think it will,’ she said, knowing by his tone.
‘Yes,’ he said.
She put the chimney back on the lamp and adjusted the wick.
‘What are we to do, Fitz?’
He had been thinking about that for some days. The only hope had been that the general refusal would lead to a withdrawal of the form and a return to work until the whole thing had been argued out. But that had not happened. Instead the employers had hardened in their attitude.
‘As well as releasing Larkin, the Government have promised an inquiry,’ he said.
‘Please God something will come of it.’
‘I doubt it,’ Fitz said bitterly. ‘If they want the thing settled why don’t they withdraw the help of the military and the police. We might have some chance of making the Federation listen to us.’
He had not answered her question. What were they to do if it dragged on? But she knew the answer. She had seen it happen to others countless times before. The homes, piece by piece, would go to the pawnshops. That was what Mrs. Hennessy had meant. The grocers, for a while, would give a little credit. The moneylenders would step in, taking a profit in keeping with the risk.
When the chimney had heated and there was no danger of cracking it she turned up the wick to its full strength. It made the transition from evening to night seem quite sudden. But the yellow glow of the lamp was more cheerful than the dusky half-light. She began to cut bread and to make him cocoa.
‘Maybe you should spare it,’ he suggested.
‘We still have our savings,’ she said, ‘and I shouldn’t complain. We’re better off than most poor souls.’
They sat down to table together. He had been over with Mulhall to tell him the latest and now he told Mary about Mulhall, how he looked, what he said, what Mrs. Mulhall had said, how he thought she would fare now that Willie and her husband were both idle. It was the small talk they always indulged in over supper. But tonight the full meaning of what was happening seemed to sit along with them. He had to say something about it.
‘You’ve never asked why I wouldn’t leave the union,’ he said.
She surprised him by saying: ‘It’s because of Bernard Mulhall. I didn’t have to ask.’
Her voice was gentle and sympathetic and he knew she was thinking not of the accident only but of what the Mulhalls were left to face.
‘Mulhall was a tower of strength,’ he said.
He would never betray Mulhall’s trust. But it was not altogether that. There were Pat and Joe and the men who worked with them. There were Farrell and the dockers and thousands of others throughout the city, some long resigned to perpetual squalor as to the Will of God, others rebelling with recurring desperation whenever there was a leader to lead them. Never before had they stood so solidly together. He said to Mary:
‘The men in the despatch department of the Tram Company were dismissed simply for belonging to Larkin’s union. There was no other reason. The tram men had to support them. Then this form was issued to everyone all over the city. The rest of us had to take our stand with the tram men.’
&
nbsp; ‘I thought you wouldn’t be asked to sign it?’ she said.
‘I wasn’t,’ he admitted, ‘but I couldn’t stay in when the others were locked out. I couldn’t do that.’
‘I know you couldn’t,’ she said.
‘Are you angry?’
‘No. I’m glad you wouldn’t do something you knew you shouldn’t do. In the long run it wouldn’t work out.’
The gratitude in his face moved her deeply. She came to him and kissed him. Then she said:
‘The children are the real worry.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘I was thinking about it before you came in. If we put a little of what we have aside—and never touch it, no matter how bad things may be—we’ll know that if the worst happens we’ll be able to send them to stay for a while with my father.’
‘We’ll do that,’ he agreed. Then he thought about it and added:
‘You could go with them yourself too. That’d be better still.’
‘I wouldn’t leave you here alone,’ she said.
He held her to him and said no more. If things became very bad he could talk to her again about it. They must wait. The gates were closed. The keys that could open them were in other hands.
‘You’ve taken a weight off my mind.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said.
She knew he would have acted as he did whether she approved or not. But she was happy she had spoken. She was close to him and part of him. That was what she wanted.
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