Wheels Within Wheels

by Dervla Murphy

  When we returned to the sitting-room Zog had caught his prey and was devouring it on the window-sill. Jeff cuddled and consoled me exaggeratedly while upbraiding my parents for treating their little innocent so harshly. I had never before heard grown-ups disagreeing openly about child-control and was fascinated by the new vistas of adult fallibility thus opened up.

  Not long after this I nearly joined the angels by drinking half a bottle of neat whiskey. Had I gone on a similar binge in Lismore I would almost certainly have died. As it was, an ambulance rushed me to hospital where I recovered with a speed that ominously foreshadowed an infinite capacity for strong liquor. But the most significant aspect of my adventure was lost on me at the time. I had come upon this half-bottle not in the sideboard, amongst the genteel decanters of sherry and port, but at the bottom of my grandmother’s wardrobe.

  Given Jeff’s views on sex, as transmitted to my mother, she must have been an insipid bed-mate. It is therefore not surprising that my grandfather quietly maintained a second establishment in Paris, where his business took him with convenient regularity. Not long before his death he told my mother that five children had been born of this union – obviously his true marriage, in every sense but the legal.

  At the age of forty-nine my grandfather was ‘requested to resign’ because of his hard drinking. My mother then had to return from Munich, where she had just begun to train as a singer. Her two elder brothers had already completed their education, but the younger boys had to be transferred from their Jesuit college to a free day-school. Then the Ford had to be sold, the servants dismissed, the telephone disconnected and the silver pawned. My grandfather could afford to go to Paris only very occasionally – when his mistress sent him the fare – and he was continually exposed to his wife’s contempt. A proud man, he felt his degradation keenly. No one then thought of alcoholism as a disease and he was very conscious of being despised. He drank even harder and borrowed more and more frantically. Meanwhile the family was being kept by his port-sodden father, who had recently inherited a comfortable income from one of the sisters amongst whom his patrimony had been divided when he embraced his kitchenmaid.

  My grandfather was declared bankrupt two years after his dismissal – or ‘resignation’, as the nicer members of his family chose to call it. A year later his father died and on the way back from the funeral he paused to light his pipe, sat unsteadily on a wall by the Royal Canal, toppled over, struck his head on a stone and was drowned in eighteen inches of water. Very strangely, for the spot was nowhere near their home, my mother chanced to be passing and witnessed his body being lifted onto the pavement. He was already dead. But for the first ghastly, absurd moment what most upset her was the stench of the slimy weeds that clung to the corpse’s impeccable morning-suit. Even when bankrupt her father had remained something of a dandy.

  My mother and he had been exceptionally close – hence Jeff ’s dislike of her daughter – and I heard him spoken of so often during my childhood that I now find it hard to believe I never knew him. Obviously father and daughter were very alike though luckily my mother’s penchant for gracious living was tempered by an awareness that one cannot live both honestly and graciously on a few hundred pounds a year.

  For both our sakes, my mother preferred me to spend more time with my paternal grandparents than with herself and Jeff. A fifteen-minute tram-ride took me from Kenilworth Park to Charleston Avenue so I could still see my mother almost daily. But though the spatial distance between the two households was slight the spiritual distance was vast.

  At Charleston Avenue there was poverty, too, but it was happy-go-lucky rather than gloomy and self-pitying. The house was shabby, dark, damp and cramped – yet comfortable. It might have seemed less cramped had there been fewer tottering piles of books on every flat surface. The uninitiated sometimes hinted that a week spent tidily arranging these volumes would make life less inconvenient – not to say perilous – for all concerned. But the initiated knew that the volumes were already arranged to my grandfather’s satisfaction and that from amidst the seeming chaos he could at a moment’s notice produce any required work, whether on the Birds of Patagonia, the History of Printing in North Africa or the Bogotrid Sect of tenth-century Bulgaria. I remember that all ornithological tomes were stacked high on the first four steps of the second flight of stairs. Lord Brougham (Collected Works of) towered beside the lavatory and countless volumes of scriptural commentary had to be removed from the bed in the spare room before I could lie down.

  I loved that spare room. Narrow corridors between piles of desiccated books led to the two beds and even before I could read I got high on the pungent mustiness of ancient volumes. On summer evenings I used to slip out of bed and move cautiously about the room, picking up and stroking and glancing through volume after volume, pleased if I found illustrations but not bored if I didn’t. To see and touch and smell those books filled me with content, with feelings of joy and security and richness. And also – even at four and a half – with ambition.

  I perfectly understood my grandfather’s triumph when, at the end of a long day in the second-hand bookshops on the quays, he came trudging home hidden behind a pile of bargains. This, as far as he and I were concerned, was what life was all about. Therefore I have always relished The Tale of Pappa’s Trousers.

  Once upon a time Granny gave her spouse enough cash to buy himself a very necessary pair of everyday trousers. (For obvious reasons he was not normally entrusted with such large sums of money.) Wearing his Sunday suit, because he had nothing else fit to wear, he set off for wherever the cheapest men’s clothing was to be had. But unluckily his route took him onto the quays and there he chanced to notice the ten-volume 1840 edition of Sismondi’s Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, elegantly bound and without a blemish. It cost considerably more than he had in his pocket, but he judged it to be a bargain and acted with a decisiveness that had it been otherwise directed might have made him a rich man. Nearby was a second-hand clothes shop where he quickly flogged his Sunday suit and bought threadbare trousers for a few shillings. The substantial balance, added to his original allowance, just about paid for Sismondi and his tram fare home. He arrived at Charleston Avenue in a state of advanced euphoria. But as he was also in his shirt-sleeves, and very nearly indecently exposed, it is not surprising that his wife failed to appreciate the Histoire des Républiques Italiennes in ten vols.

  Not that my grandmother could afford to criticise Pappa’s obsession: her own was no less uncontrollable and, at least to me, a good deal less understandable. She played bridge, almost literally without ceasing. Naturally I found this a bore, yet I do not remember regarding as abnormal the fact that she and her cronies ate, drank and slept according to the fall of the cards. They might be retiring as I crept downstairs at 7 a.m. to play beneath the overgrown laurel bushes in the back garden. Or they might be in full cry at lunchtime, in which case Pappa and I would quietly settle down to a snack of bread and very ripe Stilton. (So ripe that it had been bought at half-price.) It was not uncommon for the cronies to sleep on divans in the sitting-room, lest their departures and returns might waste time.

  Who cooked and washed up? (it was evident that nobody cleaned). I can recall no maid or daily, yet neither do I remember ever going hungry. However, the permanent state of the dining-table proved the subordinate rôle played by food in this household. It was a large table and my memory is of one sordid, crumby corner grudgingly left clear of books and journals and sheaves of notes written in Pappa’s tiny, precise hand.

  Pappa – when not delivering philosophy lectures at University College Dublin – was generally understood to be writing A Book. Its subject, however, was never disclosed. My guess would be that he started several books on diverse subjects and finished none of them for lack of mental stamina – or possibly for lack of physical stamina. As a captured Old IRA volunteer, he had been on hunger strike in England for six weeks during 1918, in a bid to have his status as a political prisoner recogni
sed, and this effort at the age of forty-eight had permanently damaged his health. During the same period his wife had also been ‘inside’, as a leader of the women volunteers, Cumann na mBan, and a boundless nationalistic fervour was the couple’s only obvious common trait. Yet they were very happy together, each amiably tolerating the other’s foibles, and they gave my mother a taste of easy-going affection such as she had never enjoyed in her own home.

  The flavour of that affection is well conveyed by the letter which Pappa wrote to my father for his twenty-first birthday, which was celebrated in Bedford jail. (My father had been sentenced to three years for concealing weapons and ammunition in his back garden.)

  18 Garville Ave.

  Rathgar, Dublin

  15 Dec. 1921

  A Fearguis, a Mic mo Croide – Many very happy returns of your birthday, my darling boy! Fondest love and congratulations and thousands of kisses from your mother. May God bless and protect and inspire you: may he fill your heart with his wisdom, his love and his comfort. Connie, Kathleen, Conn and Auntie join with us, your loving parents, in wishing you joy on your coming of age and hoping you will have a long and happy life.

  I can scarcely realise that on tomorrow it will be twenty-one years from that joyous Sunday noon when I first heard your infant voice and held you as a tender babe in my arms – my first little son! Well, thank God, your conduct and character since that happy morning have never caused me a moment’s anxiety – on the contrary, my love and trust and hope and pride in you have increased from year to year and today these thoughts and feelings are a source of the greatest joy and thankfulness. I think it right to tell you this, so that you may read it on the day when you are standing on the threshold of young manhood.

  As I write this, An Dail is sitting to determine the most momentous question which had ever been considered by an assembly of Irishmen – shall the Treaty be ratified or not. I tried to put the best face on it for you in my last letter, but we cannot conceal the fact that it was a profound disappointment to most of us; and the more we look at it, the less we like it. It has one very big advantage and two very decided drawbacks. In the first place it provides for the withdrawal of the army of occupation from four-fifths of Ireland and enables us to set up our own army of defence, at least 40,000 strong, in the district thus evacuated – all this is to the good. But, we have not got a Republic and an absolutely sovereign state for four-fifths of Ireland – and we have got nothing at all for Ireland as a whole. We have not got a united Ireland – the Treaty recognises and sanctions partition. The President, Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack are opposed to ratification and many regard the Treaty as tantamount to a betrayal.

  It is uncertain therefore whether it will be ratified or not; or whether there will be an appeal to the country. Until ratification takes place, it is unlikely that the sentenced political prisoners will be released and consequently you may have to eat your Christmas dinner yet again in an English prison. But keep a stout heart. No matter what happens our position is greatly improved. It is difficult to know which to pray for – rejection or ratification; there is so much to be said both ways now. You must, accordingly, abate the ardour of your first enthusiasm: mine has cooled very rapidly.

  Perhaps you had best spend a week in London and have a look round. You may not get the chance again for a long time. It will be interesting in the future to look back upon what London was like when it was the capital of a big empire. Time is sure to bring many changes and in a few decades London may be a very different place.

  You might let me have a list of the things supplied to you by Wallace as I want to check the account he has sent in. Order from him whatever you want – food, tobacco or cigarettes: it is much quicker and handier than sending them by parcel post. Don’t hesitate to send for whatever you require. The books you requested last month are being sent today; your letter asking for them arrived after I had left for Rome. I hope that you will not have much time to read them in prison. God knows you must be heartsick of prison life, and with the prospect of a fourth consecutive Christmas in prison before you you cannot feel too cheerful. However, Nil Desperandum!

  We expect Connie home tomorrow or Thursday; she didn’t like her latest prison at all. We have a friend of hers staying with us now who was her cell-mate for a long time in the NDU. We had a letter from Conn yesterday, dated 3 Dec. and quite cheery. He seems to be in good form and is confidently awaiting his release before Xmas. He says he enjoyed your last letter.

  I got a pretty bad cold on my return from sunny Italy* but I am now recovered. I can arrange, later on, to meet you in Holyhead on your return journey.

  With fondest love and heartiest wishes for a Happy Birthday, Your affectionate

  Pappa.

  The earlier letter about the Treaty, in which Pappa had ‘tried to put the best face on it’, was written on December 8, 1921, and began:

  May God save and prosper the Free State of Ireland! You have no doubt heard the good news that a settlement has been agreed to between the English and Irish nations. It is not quite all that we had hoped it would be, but it is very good indeed and very much better than anything which seemed within the bounds of possibility a few years ago. And we have to thank you and the comrades with whom you fought for the magnitude of the victory. We have not succeeded in establishing an Irish Republic for a united Ireland, it is true. But we have got the real substance and can afford to wait a bit for the name. The sovereign independent Free State of Ireland will be in actual existence within a month and you will be coming back to live in that Free State which your courage and sacrifices have helped to create. So rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Let no disappointment cloud your joy or diminish your legitimate pride in what has been accomplished. On your return I shall explain fully to you the real value – as distinct from the paper value – of what we have won. I believe that the convicts will be released as soon as the Treaty has been ratified by An Dail and the English Parliament and that will be, probably, within a week.

  I have asked Mamma to send you on the biggest portmanteau in the house. Cord up all your books, make sure they are fastened securely and bring them all home safely.

  What had caused Pappa to change his attitude towards the Treaty so radically within exactly one week? ‘Putting the best face on it’ for a son in jail is not a sufficient explanation. Did the real ‘substance’ referred to on December 8 prove after all insubstantial? And was it in some way connected with the negotiations which Pappa had been conducting with the Vatican on behalf of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic? I have been able to find no answer to this question in the vast accumulation of letters and papers now in my possession.

  The convicts were not released before Christmas and on December 23 Pappa wrote to his ‘beloved son’:

  The Dail has not been able to make up its mind about the Treaty and last evening decided by 77 votes to 44 to adjourn its consideration of the matter to 3 Jan. So this means an end to all our hopes of having you home for Christmas. Poor Feargus! It is too bad, indeed; but never mind, my dear son, there is a good time coming and this is, I hope, the last big trial of the kind which the providence of God will permit to be inflicted on you. So keep up your heart and laugh English prisons to scorn. We were disgusted to hear that two extra days have been imposed on you for something which happened in Mountjoy before your transfer to Wormwood Scrubs. This is typical of English meanness, but let it pass. I was going to bring the matter to the attention of the IRA liaison officer, but on second thoughts I decided not to!

  The handling of the position created by the Treaty did no credit to the Dail: they have spent too much time discussing the pros and cons of theoretical points instead of addressing themselves to practical affairs. However, no human institution is perfect and perhaps we expected too much of our representatives. Opinion is settling steadily in favour of ratification and, although nobody is madly in love with the Treaty, there seems to be nothing else to do in the present circumstances but to accept
it.

  Four days later Pappa was writing again:

  It will be fine to have you home for New Year’s Day! You will see the first sun of 1922 shining on the slopes of Kilmashogue and lighting up the top of the Three Rock and flecking with light and shadow the little trout stream out of which you so often fished a breakfast for yourself and Kathleen. And a good deep draught of our sweet Irish air will soon make the blood again run freely and warmly in your veins.

  We are going down to Malahide this evening to see Cathal Brugha: he is greatly upset about the Treaty and thinks it ought not to be accepted on any account. Things are looking particularly ugly just at present. A double crooked game is being played against us and I should not be surprised if the Conference broke up this week. The Irish Bulletin got hold of a secret circular issued by the RIC Divisional Commander in Belfast organising a secret Orange army – and has published it! Of course the Cabinet will repudiate it but there it is and very significant, too. In addition the British Govt. is hastily pushing on the Partition Act arrangements to give Belfast full powers and in order to do so is committing all sorts of illegalities and riding roughshod over its own precious Act. So we are by no means within sight of a settlement yet. ‘Ulster’ has now been paraded on stage and the marionettes wave their wooden arms and shout ‘No surrender!’ in the approved Orange style. Of course in this case the benevolent English Govt., anxious to do its best to effect a settlement, finds all its efforts thwarted by the irreconcilable quarrels between Irishmen themselves. What can you do with a hopeless people like this except keep a tight grip on them to prevent their killing each other? If Irishmen could only come to some agreement among themselves and tell the British exactly what they do want – there would be no trouble at all. Everything that a united Ireland asked for would be granted on the spot! And so the old game goes merrily on – just for the moment. But the curtain is about to be rung down on this tragi-comedy and to be rung up on a different style of drama presenting some very novel features.