Brendan’s attention became fixed on one protester, the only man who did not seem panicked. He remained in position before the bus, staring defiantly ahead amidst the melee. His cloth cap was pulled low and his clothes ragged, but Brendan knew that jaw and those defiant eyes. An aura seemed to protect him from the blows overhead. Here at last was the struggle Brendan had left school for, being played out at its most raw. It afforded him the chance to step from the pavement and sit down beside his brother as Art’s equal at last. Brendan kept telling himself that at any moment he would do so, but then a space cleared in the affray and a policeman glanced down at Art, baffled by the calm way he sat awaiting his fate. He aimed a blow and Art fell forward unhurriedly, sprawling onto the cobbles with blood seeping from his head. This blow activated the crowd’s sense of injustice. There were shouts with people pushing forward as the police started to make arrests. The bus driver was screaming, holding his eyes as he sat covered in shards of glass. Nobody remained on the bus. The woman holding the small girl hurried her away.
Amid the confusion Brendan saw two men lift Art and drag him into the shelter of the crowd. They moved quickly, anxious to get him to safety. One looked back at Brendan who followed. He lifted a threatening fist. Brendan slackened his pace but kept them in his sights as they hurried down a side street. They knocked at a house and were admitted. The door closed as Brendan approached. It reopened as he reached it and the man who had raised his fist grabbed Brendan’s jacket and flung him against a wall.
‘What do you want, you little police snitch? Lead the coppers here and I swear I’ll come after you. I never forget a face and I’ll break your legs. Understand? Now get the hell away.’
‘That’s my brother,’ Brendan said. ‘I want to see him.’
The men peered at Brendan. ‘Say something.’
‘What?’
‘Anything. Say “proletariat”.’
Brendan swallowed, being choked by the man’s grip. ‘Proletariat.’
The grip was relaxed. ‘That’s his favourite bloody word and I never heard anyone else make such a bloody mouthful of it as you. You must be his brother. Get in before the cops come.’
They entered a narrow hallway stinking of damp and boiled cabbage. He opened a door and Brendan saw an attractive girl of eighteen cleaning the wound on Art’s head.
‘You okay, Verschoyle?’ the man asked.
Art grimaced, but nodded.
‘Leave his skull alone for a minute, sis. He has a visitor.’
Art looked up to see Brendan holding a suitcase. He shook his head, annoying the girl who scolded him for not keeping it still.
‘What are you doing here?’ Art demanded. ‘You’ve run away from school, haven’t you? You bloody fool.’
‘Why am I a fool?’ Brendan was aggrieved.
‘Because they’ll blame me in Donegal for this as well. They’ll say I encouraged you.’
‘I didn’t think you cared what anyone thought?’
‘Of course I care. You’re my baby brother.’
‘Well, you’re wrong. Firstly, it has nothing to do with you, and secondly, I did not run away. I walked at my own pace. I gave Father my word to stay until I was sixteen. I am now a free man.’
‘You’re a child. They’d never forgive me for harbouring you.’
The girl lifted a bloodstained rag away from the wound and surveyed it. ‘Not too deep. You’re lucky. It was one soft baton or you have one hard head. Has your brother really run away from a posh boarding school? Funny, my ambition was always to run away to one.’
‘As what?’ her brother laughed, lighting a cigarette. ‘A cleaning lady?’
‘I have brains, you know, though God knows I must have lost them to start helping out your ragtail socialist friends. Are you saying I couldn’t hold my own in a class of posh bitches? I’d knock them dead. Now give me a ciggie.’
Art smiled at Brendan. ‘This is Ruth Davis. She’s been running a virtual field hospital in this kitchen all week.’
Brendan nodded, slightly bashful under her gaze, then attacked Art. ‘Did I ask you to harbour me? I’ve asked nothing of you, though I’ll take a bed for a few nights until I get sorted. Anyway, why send me pamphlets if you wanted me to believe in nothing? You opened my eyes and now what do you expect me to do? Stay in school and become a minion of the Empire?’
Art nodded, respecting his brother’s intensity. ‘All right. It’s inbred in me to feel responsible. What will you do?’
‘Live. All my life I’ve been sheltered. But I’ve never felt more alive than today. I want to dance.’
Art grimaced slightly and smiled. ‘Forgive me if I don’t waltz with you. My head is slightly sore.’
Satisfied that she had stemmed the bleeding, Ruth began to apply a makeshift bandage to Art’s head. ‘I’ll dance,’ she said. ‘Any Saturday night. I like a man who dances. The problem with revolution is that there’s too much talk and not enough dancing.’
‘I saw you being hit,’ Brendan confessed to Art. ‘I wanted to join you but I was too scared.’
The girl snorted. ‘You’d too much sense, more like.’
‘Leave it out, Ruth,’ her brother hissed.
‘It’s my kitchen, I’ll say what I like.’
‘Your time will come,’ Art assured him. ‘Today’s battle was lost. There was no point in joining in.’
‘There’ll be another one tomorrow.’
‘No.’ Art went to touch his head and Ruth gently slapped his hand away. ‘The workers are being betrayed. Ever since this strike started the Trades Union Congress have been seeking a compromise. They can’t see that this is our chance to galvanise the proletariat into one huge push forward. If it happened in Russia it can happen here. But the lackeys are already looking for a way to capitulate. The miners will wind up standing alone again.’
‘What would you have us do?’ Ruth said. ‘The strike is crumbling. If the TUC don’t back down, ordinary workers will simply leave their unions. A compromise must be found.’
‘I don’t believe in compromise,’ Art insisted.
‘That’s because hunger is a novelty for you.’ She tilted his head to tie the bandage.
‘If we lose this strike,’ Art said, ‘the revolution in England is finished before it has even begun.’
‘Maybe I don’t want a revolution,’ Ruth snapped. ‘I want a wage that lets me fill my belly and go out dancing at weekends with a good-looking fellow like your brother. If you want every girl in London to join your revolution then produce a hundred bashful lads like him.’ She laughed teasingly. ‘I believe he’s blushing. What’s his name?’
‘My name is Brendan,’ Brendan said, annoyed that his cheeks were red.
‘You’re probably not used to girls in boarding school, Brendan. You might not know one end of us from the other. Are you sticking around London or tramping off to Russia like your brother?’
Brendan stared at Art. ‘Are you going to Russia?’
‘If there’s nothing to fight for here. I want to see it for myself like Ffrench did. But I’ll introduce you to people before I go.’
‘I’ll give him the guided tour,’ Ruth teased. ‘Parts he didn’t even know existed.’ She inspected her handiwork. ‘I think you’ll live with that thick skull of yours. Now scarper out the back way before my father comes in.’ She looked at Brendan. ‘You are a bloody fool. Go back to school and learn sense. He’ll lead you astray.’
Brendan smiled. ‘Maybe I want to be led astray.’
‘You have my address.’
Brendan held her gaze so that it was she who blushed. ‘What age are you?’ he asked.
‘Eighteen. Old enough to know not to cradle snatch.’
‘I climbed out of my cradle long ago.’
‘You needn’t think of climbing into mine. Still, you have nice manners and clean nails. I always knew I’d meet a man one day with clean nails. Keep your brother out of trouble until he gets home at least.’ She turned to the man who had
let Brendan in. ‘Joe, give Art the loan of a cap: his own is covered in blood.’
They climbed over the scullery yard wall and dropped into an alleyway, with Art unsteady on his feet. Joe went to the corner and waved, indicating that no police were about.
The cap covered Art’s wound and once they merged back into the crowds there was nothing suspicious about them beyond the contrast in their dress.
The broken glass had been swept up and blood on the cobbles was the only sign that an altercation had occurred. A bus passed unhindered. The British Gazette was right after all in that the strike was crumbling. But correct about nothing else. Maybe this strike was not the decisive moment but a dress rehearsal like the 1916 Rising had been in Dublin.
Art was sombre, but Brendan did not know how to be downhearted. He could remember being carried on Art’s back along the stones on Mr Ffrench’s pier and it felt good now to stride beside him through these London streets, two grown men and comrades, desperadoes avoiding the law.
Art stopped at a doorway and led the way up four flights of stairs to a tiny attic flat. He indicated the patch of floor that was the only place where Brendan could sleep, then asked Brendan to excuse him while he lay on the bed. Brendan knew that his brother’s head was throbbing, although Art did not complain. Art turned his face to the wall and Brendan sat quietly on his suitcase so as not to disturb him. Tomorrow he would write to Father and begin to make plans. But for now he just wanted to sit and stare out of this attic window at the London streets that seemed to stretch away for ever like the infinite possibilities of his future.
TEN
The Turf Cutters
Donegal, 12 September 1927
Mr Goold Verschoyle had not set foot in the police headquarters in Donegal town since the day in 1919 when he went to pay his respects to the Royal Irish Constabulary sergeant shot dead by the IRA in front of his children. The crest and uniform had changed since then, but the Free State civic guard sergeant who knocked on the Manor House door was a similar decent type to his slain predecessor. It was hard to believe that he had been a guerrilla desperado hiding in the hills less than a decade before.
Civil war hatred still simmered and remnants of the Diehards had assassinated the Vice-President of the Free State Executive two months ago as he walked home from Mass. Special courts had been established in response to this atrocity, but generally there were few signs of trouble and none in Donegal until Art returned home two days ago for his sister’s wedding and met up with Mr Ffrench.
To minimise the attention that his presence would attract, the sergeant had left his bicycle at the Dunkineely barracks. Mr Goold Verschoyle was grateful for his discretion because the Manor House was crowded with wedding guests, with more staying nearby at Hill’s Hotel. The sergeant explained the situation in a low voice and Mr Goold Verschoyle thanked the man for directly approaching him, although aware that this diplomacy would also ensure a lift and so save the sergeant a long cycle up into the hills. The sergeant declined his offer to wait inside the house, saying that he would return to the local barracks.
Mr Goold Verschoyle entered the morning room where his wife sat. Thankfully, Maud had returned home to ensure that the wedding progressed smoothly but his wife remained stressed, not least due to her worries about the suitability of Eva’s suitor who was currently reading the Irish Times in a deckchair in the garden, unaware of being observed from their window. The local children who had been playing on the tennis court when Mr Goold Verschoyle went to answer the front door were gone.
‘Your future son-in-law has a worrying temper,’ his wife announced quietly. ‘He flew into a frightful rage when the children disturbed him. He doesn’t approve of us allowing the locals free rein. I’m not quite sure he approves of anything we do. Isn’t it terrible, Tim? I’m handing my daughter into the hands of a man whom I like less the more I see of him.’
‘He loves Eva,’ her husband said. ‘Love goes a long way.’
‘He was not thinking of love when he drove such a hard bargain with his solicitor for the marriage settlement.’
‘At least he takes an interest in money,’ Mr Goold Verschoyle replied, rather half-heartedly. ‘Sometimes I wish that at least one of our children did. I have to go out in the motor.’
‘Now?’ Mrs Goold Verschoyle turned. ‘Why?’
‘Some things to sort out. I’ll get Thomas to drive.’ He didn’t want to say more and she knew not to coerce him into white lies.
He was relieved that his future son-in-law had not heard the sergeant’s knock. The rest of his wedding party were out shooting. He called Thomas and the boy, now a Trinity student, knew from his expression that there was trouble. They got the car and drove to the barracks.
Dunkineely was suspiciously quiet and he knew that people had retreated indoors to get a better view of what was occurring from behind their curtains. The sergeant waited in the doorway with his local counterpart. Mr Goold Verschoyle was relieved when only one of them climbed into the back of the motor, which suggested that arrests were not being considered, at least for now. The local civic guard stood watching the car drive out of sight. Mr Goold Verschoyle knew that once they were gone, doors would open with local people emerging to speculate about what was happening.
Thankfully, the local policeman would feel it beneath his station to gossip. Mr Goold Verschoyle admired this unarmed force – which the locals called the Garda Síochána – who had taken possession of the RIC barracks while the civil war was ongoing and slowly won people’s respect. Since de Valera had ordered his supporters to bury their weapons, sandbags no longer fortified the barracks. Police life had settled into a routine of summonses being served for petty offences and the cat-and-mouse game of trying to stamp out illicit whiskey-making. Thankfully the sergeant in the car was no promotion seeker looking for the attention of his Dublin masters. Maybe the fact of having seen so much fighting made him anxious for common sense to prevail.
Summer had once been the highlight of Mr Goold Verschoyle’s year, with his family returning from boarding schools and friends joining them for picnics, but now he dreaded having all five siblings under one roof. Last Christmas was marked by rows between Art, Thomas and Maud over Brendan leaving school. His youngest son looked remarkably happy since settling in London where he worked by day, studied electrical engineering at night and already seemed to possess more friends than Art. At Easter the rows had been about Art selling family heirlooms to donate the proceeds to the newly-founded Communist Party of Ireland which Mr Ffrench supported. Since their time in Russia the Ffrenches were evangelical in their praise of Comrade Stalin’s redistribution of wealth, with Mr Ffrench cursing his misfortune at being forced to leave Moscow to receive the medication which Imperialist doctors withheld from their Bolshevik brothers.
Mr Goold Verschoyle didn’t know if it was Ffrench who had lured Art out this morning or if it was Art who was a bad influence on his neighbour. Although Art had sworn to be on his best behaviour, Thomas – who also visited Bruckless House last night – said that they had ignited each other’s passions when discussing a letter in the Donegal Democrat from Mr Henderson, a local big farmer. Henderson’s letter accused the Free State government of Bolshevik sympathies in the compulsory provisions in the new School Attendance Bill. He demanded that these provisions not be applied to children of agricultural labourers because taxpayers’ money was wasted by keeping them in school until fourteen and it hindered the supply of cheap young labour. Henderson paid the worst wages of any Donegal farmer, allowing his men just twenty-nine shillings a week to keep their families alive.
Art had left home early this morning and his father would not have known his whereabouts if word hadn’t reached the sergeant about two men being seen in the fields urging farm workers to join the Transport Union.
The sergeant was too shrewd to discuss their mission as Thomas drove up lanes so deeply rutted that Mr Goold Verschoyle wondered if the axle might break. Instead he talked about old cures his
grandfather had sworn by and which he still believed had great merit. That the lick of a dog’s tongue provided great healing for a cut and a cobweb placed over it helped to freeze the blood. Whenever they passed men working in the fields, Thomas would stop and the sergeant got out to talk to them before giving Thomas fresh directions. Eventually they had to abandon the car and take to the bog on foot. They heard the commotion long before they saw anyone. Eight of Henderson’s men must have been sent to cut turf, but work was suspended while the labourers pelted wet sods at the crude bothy hut where Mr Ffrench and Art had taken shelter. The turf workers stopped as the sergeant approached. Sods littered the bothy entrance. An old man had piled a pitchfork with smouldering straw as if planning to smoke out the two men. He dropped the straw and two younger labourers sheepishly stamped on it. The sergeant was brisk.
‘What’s happening here, men?’
The Family on Paradise Pier Page 13