Mark went over to the suites and stood face-to-face with Greg. ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked.
Greg was holding one of the seat cushions and pulling roughly on the button to see would it come out.
‘How much?’ he asked simply.
Mark looked over Greg Smyth’s shoulder at Sean, who promptly held up seven fingers. Mark took this to mean seventy pounds, but he wasn’t a market dealer’s son for nothing. ‘Ninety pounds a suite,’ Mark said evenly.
Sean put his hands up to his face.
‘No! I wouldn’t pay any more than eighty,’ Greg Smyth answered very off-hand.
Mark extended his hand and simply said, ‘Done!’
Greg Smyth took Mark’s hand, smiled and turned to Sean. ‘I’ll take as many of these as you can make, Sean.’
Suddenly the empty factory erupted with cheers, and bodies rushed from every comer. Mark emitted a couple of short bursts of nervous laughter which turned into hearty laughter as the older craftsmen gathered around him, patting him on the back. Then he glanced towards Sean’s office and saw Betty Collins standing at the doorway. Her eyes were watery. She was tired, but her smile was nearly the width of the doorway. Mark returned the smile, then raised his fist in the air and exclaimed, ‘Yes!’
Chapter 7
LONDON
MANNY WISE LIKED TO DO THIS. Having just stepped from the shower in his beautiful apartment on the Edgeware Road he now sat naked on his leather office desk, a King Edward cigar in his left hand and a glass of Scotch and ice in his right. He sat entranced, with a smug smile on his face as if he were taking in some important programme on the television. This wasn’t the case, however. Manny had opened his safe door and he now sat staring at the piles of money that lined the compartment. The Amsterdam connection had proved to be a winner. With the constant cheap supply of cocaine and heroin, Manny had set himself up with a nice little network of sales. He had four bars, one in Camden Town, one in Leytonstone, and two in Willesden that served as very profitable sales points for his merchandise. He also had about a dozen young boys, most of them runaways or homeless boys from Ireland, who had got off the boat in Liverpool ready to dig for gold in the streets, and as always happens very quickly found themselves homeless and penniless and most were glad to trade in the ‘white death’ for a taste of the good life. Unfortunately most of the salesmen became users and what they made - instead of going into bettering their lives - went straight up their nose or into their arm. Manny Wise cared not one iota about this. His bottom line was profit, regardless of the cost in human misery. The only human being Manny Wise cared about was Manny Wise.
Manny stood and walked back into the bathroom. The full-length mirror there didn’t flatter him at all; his arse was beginning to spread and when he turned sideways he looked as if he was in the later stages of pregnancy. He moved from the bathroom back to the drinks cabinet and dropped some ice into his glass, over which he poured yet another Scotch. He then walked to the window and looked down on the Edgeware Road.
The unmarked police car was there where it always was, right across the road outside the Chinese restaurant. The police officer in the passenger seat looked up at the window. Manny quickly whipped the curtain back and wiggled his penis at the officer, giving him a big smile. He enjoyed taunting the police. Manny Wise was now one of the Big Boys, no longer a pawn in the game. He was now a big player and, he believed, untouchable. Manny’s doorbell rang. He slipped on a silk boxer’s robe, took a mouthful of Scotch and casually walked to the apartment door. The sight of the young man outside drew a smile from Manny.
‘Joe!’ he announced. ‘You’re looking great.’ This was a lie. The young man standing at the door looked dreadful. Thanks to his now developed drug habit, he had lost interest in his own appearance, and no longer washed, no longer worried about how he dressed. His cheeks were sunken and his teeth yellow from lack of nutrition, for Joe had long since stopped worrying about food too. Joe Fitzgerald, or whoever he was — for the young men that Manny recruited used more than one name as they moved about the city of London signing on for benefits — was one of Manny’s runners.
Manny knew the boy as Joe Fitzgerald. He had met him in Liverpool Street station, a great recruiting spot for young derelicts. It had taken Manny just a cup of coffee and a five-pound note to lure what was once just a young petty criminal into the world of big drugs business. Although Joe was a likeable young man, Manny wouldn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, in fact at this moment in time Manny had no-one he could trust. He often bemoaned this, as he believed that every arch criminal, or as he would describe himself, ‘big businessman’, should have a right-hand man. Manny had yet to find one, although he reasoned that anyone who would be good enough to be Manny Wise’s right-hand man would hardly be found sleeping in a cardboard box or starving in Liverpool Street station.
With the cigar stuck in the side of his mouth Manny instructed the young boy to wait in the hallway.
‘I have a couple of little packages for you. One to go to Leytonstone and one down to Camden Town.’
‘Sure, Manny, sure.’ The young man was shaking and his eyes danced in his head. ‘The Old Bill are parked across the road, Manny,’ he added.
‘Don’t you worry about the Old Bill, my son. You just worry about getting your fuckin’ arse to Camden and Leytonstone.’
The young man dropped his head and quietly said, ‘Okay.’
Manny returned to his study and rummaged in the safe, lifting out two tinfoil packages neatly double wrapped in cellophane. As he lifted the packages from the safe, he noticed the now-yellowing envelope that read ‘Dublin Papers’, and he smiled to himself as he closed the safe door and spun the combination lock. As young Joe Fitzgerald left the building by the back entrance, Manny was already sitting feet up at the television, finishing his Scotch and scratching his scrotum.
Chapter 8
DUBLIN
THE CLINCHING OF THE SMYTH & BLYTHE order was just the beginning of a few weeks of intense work for Mark. All but a quarter of the factory had to be modified to suit the new formula of cut, assemble and cover. The other apprentices at Wise & Co. were a great help, as most of them were learning about this new system in college. The older tradesmen, however, withdrew to the remaining quarter of the factory space where they continued to turn out classic hardwood furniture.
Mark was consistently in the top five percent in his woodwork class. In the beginning of his second year in college he had decided to take another course, business studies. This delighted Agnes, as she now felt that not only would the Browne family turn out a tradesman but also a businessman. Mark was a natural at the business studies and in his first year he excelled. His teachers put it down to study, but Mark knew it was down to his mother’s pedigree in street trading. So, as well as modifying the factory to cope with the target he had set of a hundred suites per month, Mark also needed to modify Wise & Co.’s business slightly.
He discussed this at length with Mr Wise and Sean McHugh, expressing his opinion that, were the soft furnishings side of the company to trade under a different name and as a different company to Wise & Co., then the hard furniture section could carry on, even in a modified way, without being ‘tainted’ by the image of cheap furniture. Both men agreed, and Mr Wise was particularly proud of Mark for making the effort to maintain the name of Wise & Co. and to associate it only with quality furniture. He insisted that since Mark had ’taken the ball’ he should now run with it himself, and he told Mark he would leave it to him to organise and arrange this new company in his name. Benjamin Wise knew exactly what he was doing - he was grooming the young man so that he would be ready eventually to take over the entire business.
Mark contacted Michael Fox Jnr., the family solicitor. There were two contradictions here. Firstly, although he continued to use the ‘Junior’, Michael Fox, in his mid-sixties, belied the title. Secondly, to refer to him as the Browne family solicitor was a bit of an exaggeration. The man had bee
n used on only one occasion by the Brownes and that was when Simon went to court for playing football in the street. But he was the only solicitor Mark knew. Mark wished to form a new company specifically for the soft-furnishing side of Wise & Co.’s business. This presented little problem to Mr Fox, the only slight hiccup that arose was when Mr Fox asked Mark what he wished the company to be called. After a few moments’ thought, Mark said, ‘Senga Soft Furnishings Limited’, and smiled contentedly to himself.
Later, Mr Wise was the only one to spot that the name was ‘Agnes’ backwards, which, Mark said, was no reflection on his mother’s personality!
Little was seen of Mark in James Larkin Court over that few weeks as he worked night and day to hammer the factory into a routine where a hundred suites a month would be no problem. Mark had also partitioned off another section of the factory floor where he had installed three second-hand Singer industrial sewing machines that Sean McHugh had purchased at a very reasonable price. Maggie Collins had not been too pleased when Betty told her that she intended to work in Wise & Co. as one of the three machinists. Mark had also convinced Sean to employ two cutters and three labourers, bringing Wise & Co.’s total staff up to twenty-six, the first rise in personnel the factory had seen in over fifteen years. Betty Collins was enthusiastic about the challenge and rose to it like a salmon to a mayfly. She worked long hours. Her bubbly personality kept everybody up, and, as a bonus for Betty, for the first time in her young life she was in love!
The absence of Mark from the home was a bit of a downer for the kids. Cathy, although she pretended to be disappointed, was quite happy with finishing second in the downhill go-cart race. But when she had burst in that Saturday to announce the result, Mark had not been there. Dermot too was missing Mark’s company and now spent more and more of his time roaming the shops of Dublin relieving them of their goods in some of the most ingenious of fashions. Rory felt he had nobody to turn to with his fear of coming home each night. Twice more he had been chased by gangs of skinheads and on the last occasion just barely escaped. He longed for the summer so that he could walk home in the daylight. Agnes had now extended Frankie’s ‘period’ by another month, but made it very clear that this extension was a temporary reprieve, not a change of mind. Agnes’s most pressing concern was young Simon. Following her decision on Frankie, Simon saw the opportunity for him too to depart school and get a job. This didn’t go down well with Agnes at all. Frankie, she explained to Simon, was being thrown out of school, where the teacher had described Simon as a slow but lovable pupil. Nevertheless, Simon stuck to his guns and had now fixed himself up with an appointment for an interview for a job as a porter in St Patrick’s hospital.
Having just broken this news to Agnes, Simon sat awaiting her pronouncement on it.
‘So yeh’ve got yourself an interview?’ Agnes asked.
‘Ye ... ye ... ye ... yes, Ma ... Ma ... Mammy,’ Simon tried to be as firm as he could.
‘D’yeh realise what an interview means?‘
Simon looked at his mother blankly, not really understanding the question.
‘The man ...’ she began slowly, ‘will ask you questions.’
Simon’s brow rose, his mouth hung open and he slowly nodded his head.
‘And you will have to answer them - speak to him.’
‘Su ... su ... so?’
Agnes leaned over and placed her hand on Simon’s hand. ‘You have a stutter, luv,’ Agnes exclaimed, as if it were going to be a surprise to Simon.
‘Su ... su ... su ... so?’
Agnes was trying to be as gentle as she could. ‘Do you not feel a stutter might affect your chances of gettin’ the job?’
‘Na ... na ... no, wa ... why should it?’ Simon asked, quite genuinely not seeing a problem.
Agnes exhaled. ‘Jesus, son. If someone needs a bedpan and calls you, by the time you say wa ... wa ... wa ... what d’yeh want, they’ll have shit in the bed!‘
‘Mm ... Mm ... Ma! ... I’map... p ... porter, not a bl ... bleedin’ nu ... nu ... nurse.‘
Agnes had to acknowledge the boy’s resolve. ‘All right. Of course I wish you well, I’m just afraid of yeh being disappointed, that’s all. If you get the job yeh can take it.’
The boy smiled and hugged his mother. ’D ... d ... don’t worry, Mam, I ... I’ll get the job!‘ Simon declared confidently.
Ten days later Simon was standing in the toilet just off the personnel office of St Patrick’s hospital. Outside in the waiting room there were twenty other hopefuls for the porter’s job. Simon looked at himself in the mirror. With a hand each side of the sink he leaned close to his reflection and inhaled deeply.
‘How ... now ... brown ... ca ... ca ... cow!’ he said to his reflection. Once again he inhaled deeply. ‘Around the rugged rock the ra ... ra ... ragged ra ... ra ... rascal ra ... ra ... ah, fuck it!’
Behind him in a cubical the toilet flushed, the door opened and out strode a young man, maybe a year or two older than Simon. The fellow walked straight to the exit door, opened it, then turned to Simon, paused for a moment, and said, ‘Fuck me! I can see I’m up against it!’ He laughed as he exited.
Simon’s heart sank. He returned to the waiting room and sat down. Each time he caught the eye of the young man Simon would blush a little. He fixed his gaze on the door of the personnel manager’s office and waited.
The door opened and yet another young applicant left the room. This one looked a little dejected. Simon chastised himself for feeling glad at the applicant’s expression. The secretary entered the office and closed the door. She had brought in a new batch of applications. Minutes later she opened the door again and called, ‘Mr Simon Browne, please.’
Simon had been quite calm up to that — bordering on confident. He couldn’t explain what happened the minute he heard that young lady call his name. His legs turned to jelly, his stomach went queasy and he felt light-headed. He suddenly found himself closing the office door from the inside without remembering how he had got up and walked to the door at all. The room was sparsely decorated. There were four filing cabinets, dark green in colour, and beside them was a table stacked up with even more files. There was a huge map on one wall which took in counties Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Louth and Meath. The title on the map read Eastern Health Board Area. In the centre of the room was a well-worn dark brown wooden desk behind which sat a rather gaunt-looking man, wearing thick black-rimmed glasses. He had on a navy suit, blue shirt and tie, and had a head that refused to believe it was bald, with a thick growth of hair on each side and what looked like twenty banjo strings across the top. Without speaking, the man indicated a chair on the opposite side of the desk on which Simon promptly sat down. He remained quiet for a couple of moments while the man read the application form he held in his hands. Simon recognised his own writing on the back page. The bald man gently placed the application form on the desk in front of him, looked up at Simon and began.
‘Su ... su ... so ... yo ... yo ... you are Si ... Si ... Simon Ba ... Ba ... Browne.’
For a moment Simon was stunned. He slowly nodded his head in assent.
The man went on. ‘Su ... su ... so, wa ... wa ... why do you want to leave sa ... sa ... school, Si ... Simon?’
For the first time Simon spoke. ‘I wa ... want ta ... to wo ... work, and eh, an ... anyway mi ... my teacher sa ... sa ... says I’m a sl ... sl ... slow pupil.’
Simon started work as the new trainee porter in St Patrick’s hospital the following Monday.
That same week Agnes received a letter from her sister Dolly. Before even going on to tell Agnes of her latest complaint - a constant headache which she suspected was a brain tumour - Dolly expressed great delight that Agnes would be coming on a visit with young Trevor; and although Agnes had told Dolly in her letter of her bingo win, the two crisp $20 bills accompanied Dolly’s letter yet again. Within hours of receiving the letter Agnes set off to book her flights.
Constellation Travel in Liffey Street was owned and
run by the Donegan brothers, Joe and Tim. Along with the two men, bachelors and in their fifties, the company had only one other employee and that was Margaret Sharp, who did secretarial work for the men. On the day Agnes arrived at the office, Margaret was out sick and Joe was delivering tickets to a client across town. Tim was a little disgruntled - dealing with members of the public was not his forte, and he dreaded being left to mind the store. Tim was on the ‘phone when Agnes entered the office. He indicated as much to her and he hoped by the time he was finished his call that Joe would have returned. In the meantime, Agnes browsed through a couple of brochures, speaking the names of the destinations aloud.
‘Mag-a-loof. Jesus!’ She picked up another brochure. ‘Santa-pooz-na. Mother of God!’
Tim was now standing at the counter and by way of opening the conversation, he said to Agnes, ‘Well, Madam, fancy a trip to the sun?’ He smiled.
Agnes spun around to face him. ‘Oh God no, luv! I’d never go anywhere I couldn’t pronounce.’
‘Well then, what can I do for you?’ Tim suspected this lady was here to enquire about a trip to Lourdes. Another miracle-chaser, he thought.
Agnes placed her handbag on the counter and smiled at the man. ‘I want to go to Canada.’
Tim returned the smile. He took a pad and pencil and began to make notes. ‘Right, Canada. And where in Canada?’
‘Me sister’s.’
Tim looked up from the pad. The lady was still smiling, so this obviously wasn’t a joke. He tried again.
‘And where does your sister live?’
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