The Young Wan

by Brendan O'Carroll

  “Don’t be so silly. Why would the woman say it if it weren’t the truth?”

  “Because she’s a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing busybody gossip who thinks there’s no steam from her own shite. That’s why!” Connie leaned her arms on the table. “Now, you listen to me, Mr. Big Fucking Union Man, I know the scent of me own children. I could pick them out of a crowd in an unlit coal mine. If that girl was drinking today, I’d have smelled it. And I smelled nothing!” Her voice lowered. “Which is more than can be said for you, Bosco Reddin.” Connie rose from the table and walked to the cooker, over her shoulder firing a one-word question: “Tea?”

  Bosco put his head in his hands and began to weep like a little baby. Connie went back to the table and stood over the slumped figure that she knew at heart was a good man. She ran her fingers through his hair.

  “I was angry,” Bosco sobbed, “I was disappointed.” He looked up into her face. Connie placed her hand beneath her husband’s chin and looked into his eyes.

  “No. Not disappointed. You were scared, Bosco. You were terrified. Your little baby girl will be a teenager in less than a year, and like every father before you and those that will come after, you were scared.” Bosco began to nod his head, and now the tears flowed freely down his face. Connie stooped and took his head on her shoulder and let him cry like a little boy. She brushed the back of his head softly, saying, “There, there, there,” as she would to a child. A child, she thought. Was this man of hers ever a child? She stood there holding on to him for dear life until the high-pitched sound of the kettle as it whistled interrupted them. Connie released Bosco from her arms.

  “That union will be the death of you,” Connie muttered as she filled Bosco’s billycan with tomato soup.

  “Give us a bit of bread with that,” Bosco asked, ignoring her words. He was busy lining the inside of his jacket with newspaper. It was going to be a long, cold night; the newspaper would provide much-needed insulation and heat.

  “Is there no one else that can do a night picket except you?” Connie asked, not giving up. She was now buttering the thick slices of batch loaf. Again Bosco ignored her.

  “Is there a heel in that?” Bosco asked. Connie held the heel, the end cut of the loaf and the thickest slice, up in the air where Bosco could see it. She offered it as evidence.

  “Thanks.” Bosco smiled again and winked.

  “I’m serious, Bosco, it can’t be just you all of the time.” Connie was not just idly moaning, she was genuinely upset. Bosco saw this and walked to her. He slid his arms around her waist from behind. Gently he kissed the back of her head and closed his eyes as Connie’s distinct scent filled his nostrils. When he spoke to her his voice was soft.

  “Do you remember that first time you saw me speak, Connie? It was in the Gravediggers Pub,” he asked and answered.

  “Yes, I do,” Connie answered. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back so that both their cheeks touched. “Young Liam Casey’s funeral, Lord rest him,” she added.

  “Wasn’t I brilliant, Connie?” he asked. And felt her cheek swell as a smile broke on her lips.

  “Fishing for compliments, are we now?” She scorned him, but playfully.

  “No, love, I just want you to remember it, and remember it well. Because on that day and in that speech I made promises. Standing beside the dead young boy’s father, I made promises, and I aim to keep those promises, Connie. No matter if that means standing with the men to whom I made them throughout every night, in any weather, on any picket. Can you understand that, love? Can you, Connie?” She turned, defeated. And they kissed. When the kiss ended she held on to her man, tightly, and he to her. She whispered, “Kiss the girls good night before you go; they’re awake, and upset.” And they parted.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bosco stood outside the girls’ bedroom for a few moments. He could hear his daughters talking softly. He waited a moment to compose himself. In the girls’ bedroom the conversation was very serious. Agnes, still with her back to Dolly, had tried to ignore her, but there was no escaping her sister’s chat.

  “When you go to Canada, the wolves will eat you,” Dolly announced.

  “No, they won’t.” Agnes was tired and sleepy.

  Dolly, however, was in the wide-awake club. “They will. Wolves can smell if you’re afeared, and they eat you then,” Dolly insisted. Agnes didn’t reply. Dolly went on. “They start with your tummy, because that’s the softest part.” Dolly now began to mimic wolves eating. “Chomp, chomp, and your belly’s gone.” Dolly licked her lips. “Mmmmm, they’ll say, that was nice; now we’ll eat her diddies.”

  Agnes turned. “Will you shut up?” With the onset of early puberty, Agnes was the only child in sixth class with breasts—or “diddies,” as Dolly, and most young girls, referred to them—and she was not at all happy about it. Especially after Marion’s story about her Auntie Tessie’s drooping mammaries. The bedroom door squeaked open slowly. A crack of light shone across the room onto their bed. Framed in the light stood the silhouette of the girls’ father. Dolly sat up. Agnes, still smarting from her father’s slap, turned back to the wall. Bosco walked in and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I just came in to say good night to my girls,” Bosco said softly.

  Dolly stood in the bed and wrapped her arms around her father’s neck. “Good night, Daddy,” she squealed. Bosco hugged his youngest girl, and as he did so, he had his eyes on Agnes’ back.

  “Good night, Aggie,” he said to her back.

  “Good night,” he received in reply without her moving. Bosco held Dolly away from him and frowned at her.

  “Are you getting skinny, Dolly Reddin?” he asked, pretending concern.

  “Am I, Daddy?” Dolly asked, quite serious.

  Bosco looked her over and put a finger to his lips in thought. “I don’t know.” He snapped his fingers. “Just in case, you best go out to your mammy and get a piece of bread and butter, with sugar on it.”

  “Yes, please,” Dolly squealed, and was gone through the open door like a ferret, calling to her mother, “Mammy! Bread! Daddy said so.”

  When she was gone, Bosco stretched out his arm and touched Agnes on the shoulder. She winced.

  “I’m sorry, chicken,” he said.

  “Okay,” she answered, but still did not move.

  “I really am sorry, Agnes.” Bosco was close to tears.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Agnes answered, again without turning.

  “Yes, it does. I know I hurt you, and I know you’re in a place right now where it’s hard to forgive me. I slapped you because I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared.” Bosco was crumbling a little bit now. Even with her back turned to him, Agnes was becoming embarrassed.

  “Shut up, Da, it doesn’t matter.” She wanted him to stop.

  “Okay, love.” He rubbed her back gently and got up from the bed. At the door he turned and spoke. When he did, his voice was earnest.

  “Agnes, I will never slap you again.”

  Hearing this, Agnes turned and looked across the room into her father’s face. “Or Mammy,” she insisted. “You’ll never slap Mammy.” She was her father’s daughter.

  Bosco bowed his head. “Never.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise you, chicken.”

  “Okay.” Agnes smiled. “Good night, Daddy.”

  “Good night, my little darling.” Bosco smiled and left the room.

  Neither Agnes Reddin nor her mother would ever be slapped by Bosco again. But for all the wrong reasons.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Outside of the Parker-Willis Foundry, despite the damp and cold, the strikers were in an unusually buoyant mood. Earlier, some horse-and-carts had arrived at the picket with a gift from members of the Irish Confectioners Union. The bakers from the Johnston, Mooney, and O’Brien Bakery, on the far side of the river, had sent a huge load of two-day-old bread and half-stale cake down to the strikers. Those on picket duty filled their pockets to b
ring the food home. They were now munching on some of the old but tasty jam doughnuts. To the striking foundry workers, the bread and cakes meant much more than food. It was a show of support from union members in a completely different industry to their own, and knowing that the support was there was enough to bring high spirits to the picket line. There were about thirty men on the night picket this night. They had gotten some old oil barrels and punched holes in them. Full of blazing wood, they made fine braziers. There was no shortage of wood or scraps of coal along the docks. The men stood in groups around the barrels, their smiling faces lit, and warm, and there was the odd bout of laughter as stories were exchanged.

  On the far side of the wall, the mood was very different. The full moon hung over the foundry, and beneath it within the yard were many more men. These men stood in large groups. As orders were whispered from one group to another, there were nods of understanding.

  As Bosco turned into the street leading down to the foundry’s main gates, he noticed two things. First, for the first time since they had started the picket, there were no police. None. Second, where there would usually be thirty to forty men on the night picket, this night there were at least five times that many.

  Tommy Mangan met Bosco with the news and explanation of at least the second part.

  “Scabs?” Bosco asked, a little puzzled. “Are you sure?” Mangan nodded his head. He was adamant. The early shift, he told Bosco, had seen over a hundred men being brought in by truck through the main gates. Bosco mulled this over.

  “What’ll we do?” Mangan asked, breaking into Bosco’s thoughts.

  “Nothing for the moment.” Bosco was uneasy. “Let me think.” Very uneasy. Something wasn’t right. He began barking out orders:

  “Tommy, get all of the marshals together. I want to talk to them. Tell everybody to keep calm until I sort this out. All right?” Mangan nodded and was gone.

  Something is so not right, Bosco thought. But . . . what is it? Something is missing? It was not unusual for employers to bring in scab workers in an effort to break a strike. On the contrary, it was to be expected. But usually this was done in daylight, when there would be the greatest number of strikers about to see it. It was a tactic the employers used to intimidate the hard-line strikers and to scare the borderline workers into thinking they would lose their jobs. But why at night? And why sneak them in?

  Bosco was truly puzzled, but in the meantime he had more pressing matters: controlling his own members. When Tommy Mangan and the twenty or so marshals gathered around him, Bosco spoke to them. They listened intently to his every word.

  “I’m not quite sure what Parker-Willis is up to here. But, whatever happens, we’ve got to keep our side in order.” He looked at their faces. “Have any of you been drinking?” Three of the marshals slowly raised their hands. “Okay, you three go home now,” Bosco ordered.

  “What?” came a protest.

  “Look, if there is any trouble here, I don’t want the police to be describing us in the newspapers as a drunken rabble, okay? So go. Go now!” They left. “The rest of you, circulate among the men that are here and smell every breath. Anyone who has the slightest whiff of alcohol, send them home. Is that clear?” They nodded. They were not happy about it, but they nodded.

  “Then what?” one man asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Bosco answered, the concern obvious in his voice. “We wait. We wait and see what happens.” The men dispersed. Bosco was still uneasy. Within half an hour, anybody with drink even a sip of taken was gone home. But it made little difference. The word was now spreading throughout the tenements that the scabs had arrived at the foundry, and by daybreak the picket had swelled to over three hundred men. The marshals had given up smelling breaths, and Bosco could see that they were having difficulty controlling the crowd. He ordered a couple of the marshals to build a makeshift husting. They cobbled a stage of sorts together with a couple of barrels and a plank. Bosco climbed onto it and began trying to speak to the men.

  It was now 6:45 a.m.

  After he shouted for some minutes for attention, whispers of “hush” began to spread through the crowd, and they went quiet. They looked to Bosco.

  “Good morning, brothers,” Bosco began. “Well, now, if Mr. Parker-Willis wants to know for sure if we are united in this strike action, he need only look out of his window this morning!” This brought a huge cheer and a wave of shaking fists. Bosco raised his arms for quiet, and the crowd hushed again. He went on. “I would indeed like him to see this”—Bosco waved his arm across the crowd as he bellowed—“but I would like him also to see a group of workingmen that behaves with dignity and honor.” This got a few grumbles.

  “They’re fucking scabs!” a voice from the back of the gathering roared, bringing an even louder cheer from the crowd.

  Bosco waved his hands for quiet again.

  It was now 6:58 a.m.

  Eventually the crowd went quiet.

  “Listen to me. Please, listen to me,” Bosco implored. Suddenly there was a thud sound. It came from the inside of the twenty-foot steel doors, the entrance to the foundry. All heads swiveled toward the doors. There was absolute quiet, except for the squeak of footsteps on a wooden ladder. All eyes were now on the steel gates. Suddenly a head popped up over the top of the gates. Seeing what they believed to be one of the scabs, the crowd now went wild, screaming at the peeking head. A brick was thrown at the gates. It hit nowhere near the man on the ladder, but the bang of it hitting the gates was enough to get him to disappear. Cheers and catcalls followed the head’s vanishing. It was then that it dawned on Bosco. He knew what it was that was missing. It was the squeaking of the ladder rungs that brought it home. Noise! There had been no noise. If those men were scabs, brought in to work, why could he not hear them working?

  “Bully boys,” Bosco said aloud, but only he heard it. “Get back,” he screamed. Bosco now jumped from the husting and grabbed any marshals that were near him. “Clear the street,” he screamed at them. They looked back at him with blank, puzzled faces.

  “For fuck’s sake, clear the street,” he screamed. His voice drowned in the whistles and cheers. It was too late. At 7:00 a.m. exactly, the huge steel gates opened wide, revealing two hundred bully boys armed to the teeth. At first the strikers began to roar abuse at them, still thinking they were scab workers. But when the charge of the thugs came, the strikers got the message and bolted. Now the men at the front were trying to get away from the gates, while the men at the back of the crowd were pushing forward. The bully boys had their fish in the barrel. With adrenaline pumping, they laid into the strikers. In the mayhem that ensued, the air was filled with screams and roars of pain, and the sound of crunching as bones gave way under the heavy blows. Bosco was lifting and dragging fallen men from the ground all around him and pushing them toward the other end of the street. He screamed at them, “Run!” In his own ears he could hear the sound of his dying father’s voice whispering, “Run, Bosco. Run, son.” But he ignored it. A young man scrambling caught Bosco’s eye. He looked no more than twenty years of age. The boy was doing all right at first. Terrified, he was dodging blows from a chasing bully boy wielding a pickax handle with a six-inch nail hammered through the end of it. The young man skipped and ducked as the chasing bully boy swung the club with ease. All of this time, the young man was putting a little more distance between himself and his pursuer. Then the young man tripped and fell, and as he did Bosco recognized him. It was young Mick O’Malley, the bell-ringer. He had tripped over the body of an elderly man who was lying bleeding on the road. The bully boy saw his chance. He advanced on the young Mick. With an angry roar, Bosco advanced on the bully boy. Bosco got there first. He shoulder-charged the big man and sent him sprawling and tumbling across the street. Bosco then knelt beside Michael. He helped him to his feet. The young man was terrified. Bosco looked into his face.

  “Run, son. Go on, Michael lad, run,” Bosco roared. O’Malley’s eyes widened with fear as he saw th
e club come down on Bosco’s head. Two inches of the nail sank into Bosco’s skull. As Bosco slowly toppled forward, Michael O’Malley ran for his life.

  The newspapers the following day reported the attack. They said the “incident” was the result of the actions of a drunken group of strikers attacking the legitimately hired labor force of the Parker-Willis Foundry. The eighteen men that died did so, the paper said, because of the trampling of the rabble. There were to be no post-mortems held.

  Connie read this as she sat in the waiting room of the Richmond Hospital. She sat in silence and shock. The waiting-room door opened. Connie looked to the door in the hope that it was a doctor coming with news of her husband. It wasn’t. It was instead a pale-faced young boy. He introduced himself as Michael O’Malley; he was twenty years old, he said, and had been saved, he told Connie, by the intervention of her husband. He had been told that the man was taken here.