She held his fingers for a moment. She noticed that he, too, savaged his nails.
‘Are you still at school?’
She blushed and then scowled.
‘Of course you’re not.’ He answered his own question quickly. ‘You just look young … well youngish. Let’s say that.’ He leaned towards her and grinned. ‘Let’s settle for youngish.’
‘I’m eighteen,’ she said severely. ‘Only just though. It’s a terrible thing to look young. Nobody takes you seriously.’
The waitress came back with two cups of coffee, which she placed on the table. That meant that he had two cups of coffee steaming in front of him.
‘Thank you,’ they both said simultaneously, then they laughed.
‘That’s a magic,’ said Nancy. ‘You can have a wish. We can both have a wish, but we mustn’t tell …’
He held out his hand and she took it, and they both wished for a moment.
Nancy wished the same wish that she had wished for years, that Harry might one day love her, then for the first time she regretted having wasted a perfectly good wish on a lost cause. She wondered what Joe Mulhare had wished.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m eighteen too.’
‘Well honestly …!’
‘I’m nearly nineteen. I’ve had a very full life. That’s why I have that look of wisdom round my eyes.’
She burst out laughing. He fiddled with the book on the table and then picked it up and put it in his pocket.
‘What are you reading?’
He looked a little embarrassed.
‘Hamlet.’
‘Hamlet?’
‘Have you ever seen it?’
She shook her head. ‘No. We read it at school. Round the class, you know, I was Claudius. I always get the horrid people to play. I must have an evil personality. Hamlet this pearl is thine; here’s to thy health …’
She lifted her cup and toasted him.
‘I’d give a lot to see that play. It’s great stuff,’ said Joe.
‘What do you do? You know … work?’
‘Well at the moment I’m fully occupied in reading Hamlet and fighting for freedom.’
‘Don’t be silly …’
‘What do you mean, don’t be silly! Isn’t that enough for anyone? I bet it’s more than you’re doing.’
‘Well… yes … but …’
‘But what?’
‘Oh just but … How do you earn your living is what I meant?’
‘I don’t. I live on charity. I thought of going into the railways, but I didn’t like the idea of spending the rest of my life punching tickets.’
‘I thought all boys wanted to be engine drivers.’
He dropped two lumps of sugar into his second cup of coffee and watched the disturbance in the cup for a moment.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘A lot of them do right enough. It doesn’t appeal to me any more.’
He tasted the coffee. ‘My father died in prison.’
‘Oh! How awful! I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be sorry. He was a good man. I see by your face that you don’t realise that sometimes good people end up in prison.’
‘I …’
‘I don’t know why I’m telling you, but I am.’
They both gulped at their coffee.
‘He was a union man. He came from Belfast. That’s a funny old place up there. A lot of union fellows came from there. They put him in prison during the lock-outs and … well … he died. He was never very strong. I thought … as you asked me … when I got to thinking, that was … that I’d try and do something that he’d have liked me to do. Not just punching tickets. So … do you understand?’
‘Well …’
‘No,’ he said gloomily. ‘I don’t suppose you do.’
He looked more like a rabbit than ever. She had a strong impulse to touch him. To stretch out her hand and stroke his arm. She picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee instead.
‘Why should you?’
‘I’d like to understand. Believe that.’
‘You see, when people ask for rights and don’t get them, then they have to fight. I think he would have understood that.’
‘And supposing you don’t get them even if you do fight?’
‘You go on. There’s always someone left to go on.’
‘Oh dear! Yes. I suppose there is. Perhaps you’d be better off punching tickets.’
He grinned. ‘That’s what my mother says. Lookit, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s got into me. I don’t usually moan or groan.’
‘It must be too much Hamlet.’
‘Maybe. How come you’re mixed up in all this anyway? Your sort usually keep their noses clean.’
‘I’m just doing a kindness for a friend … more an acquaintance … perhaps that would be the right thing to call him.’
‘Yes. An acquaintance. He doesn’t allow himself friends.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘No. Not me. I just run messages too. They say he’s English.’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘He’s not one of us anyway. One of the people.’
‘Everybody’s one of the people.’
‘Ah no! That’s not true. You know it’s not true. There are some people who just see a lot of other people as animals. Nothing more than that, animals without minds or feelings. Use them, like animals, and throw them away when they become useless. Sick, old. There’s dogs in this country treated better than a hell of a lot of the people. That’s what my father used to say. I don’t remember him very well, but I remember a lot of the things he said. I remember when they came to tell us he was dead. My mother cried … and cursed.’
‘The people who put him in prison?’
‘No. Him. She was up from the country and she could be very free with the curses. She stood in the middle of the room and screamed dreadful curses. She felt she’d been deserted. It was frightening at the time. It upset the neighbours.’
‘What a strange thing to do!’
‘She always felt he ought to leave things alone. Mind his own business. He had enough on his plate without taking on the world. Wasn’t he lucky enough to have a job; he should thank God and get on with it. Not be making enemies. She shouted it at him daily. I never could understand why they had to shout.’
‘Perhaps he’d still be alive if he’d listened to her.’
‘Perhaps, but I like him better the way he was.’
‘Dead.’
‘Even if he is dead. He’s probably better off dead.’ He laughed. ‘Forming the heavenly hosts into trades unions. God, I can see him!’
‘Better working conditions for cherubim and seraphim.’
‘Shorter hours for archangels.’
He looked at her in silence.
‘I like you. There’s something about you. You’re not one of us but …’
‘I …’
‘You aren’t. But you could be for us. That’s what matters. Drink up your coffee and we’ll go for a ride on a tram.’
He clicked his fingers again for the waitress.
‘Or maybe you don’t like trams? Maybe you’ve got things to do?’
She shook her head.
‘I love trams. I have to catch the quarter to six train home though.’
‘Bill, miss.’
He was eating the sugar at the bottom of one of his cups with his spoon.
‘We’ll go out to Dalkey on the tram and you can get your train from there. We’ll sit on the top and you can let your hair blow over the side. It’s great to meet a girl who hasn’t cut her hair off. They’re all at it. Crowning glory, my mother calls it. She nearly had a fit when my sister came in with her hair up to her ears.’
‘Did she curse her?’
He laughed.
‘She saves her curses for catastrophes. If you use a curse too often you sort of weaken its power.’
He took the bill from the waitress and winked at her. ‘Go raibh maith agat
.’
She drooped her eyes disapprovingly.
‘None of your dirty talk in here.’
She walked away, offended.
He looked across at Nancy and laughed.
‘There’s a girl with a suspicious mind. All I said was thanks.’
‘It was the look in your eye that gave her ideas.’
She gathered up her bag and the parcel of library books for Aunt Mary.
He had a cap, which he put on as they left the cafe. She wondered if it had holes for the ears that she felt must be pushing their way up through his disordered hair. He didn’t bother to walk on her outside as Harry always did, making a point of always manoeuvring her to the inside of the pavement. Two small girls in bare feet held out their hands.
‘Lady …’
She paused for a moment wondering if she had any coppers in her purse, but he pulled at her elbow.
‘Come on.’
‘Lady …’
One of the children, noticing her hesitation, ran a few steps after her.
‘Lady …’
‘Where’s the point?’ he said.
His arm was firmly through hers. He walked quite quickly, his head hunched down into his shoulders, perhaps to alleviate the discomfort of his stiff collar.
‘One day there will be no beggars.’
‘But now …’
‘A couple of pennies from you doesn’t help.’
A very tall policeman ordered them across the road with a wave of his white gloved hands. A young man in a motor hooted impatiently as the crowd rushed forward. Two huge horses pulling a dray shifted from foot to foot, their harness jingling as they moved. The drayman wore a sack over his head and hanging down his back. A lorry full of auxiliaries, ignoring the policeman, edged its way through the crowd. A tram came round the corner from College Green.
‘Run,’ said Joe.
They ran along the narrow pavement, Joe pulling her along by the hand, and clambered on to the platform of the tram.
‘Nancy.’
Startled at hearing her name called, she nearly dropped the library books. She looked round. With a crackle from the overhead wires the tram lurched forward. Harry was standing on the pavement.
‘Nancy …’
He took his hat off.
‘Oh, hello.’ She smiled as casually as possible.
‘What on earth …!’
‘Up, up, up.’ Joe shoved her towards the stairs. The tram swayed. Harry stood, hat in hand, looking after them. They climbed the stairs and lurched forwards to the front seat. Above them the trolley sparked and crackled as they turned the corner into Nassau Street.
‘What an unfortunate happening!’
She settled herself into the seat and Joe sat down beside her.
‘That fellow?’
‘He’ll fuss. He’ll ask all sorts of stupid questions. Who you are? Where were we going? Why this? Why that? He’ll probably tell Aunt Mary.’
Below them in College Park they were playing cricket. A tall white figure ran, bat outstretched. There was a touch of turning colour in the heavy green of the trees.
‘What’ll you say?’
‘I’ll think of something.’ She smiled. ‘I’m jolly good at inventing things. I have to be. I lead a very sheltered life. All my movements are catalogued.’
‘No harm, for a young one like you with not much sense.’
They smiled at each other.
The journey took the best part of an hour. The wind reddened their faces and once almost got away with Joe’s cap; but he felt it lifting from his head and grabbed it in time.
In Kingstown the tram stopped for a ten-minute rest. Down the road to the left they could see the yachts bobbing gently in the harbour. A couple of auxiliaries came up the stairs and walked along between the seats, looking casually at the passengers. Nancy tried not to think of the envelope in Joe’s pocket. No one looked at the two men, their guns in their hands ready for using. No one spoke until they had climbed down again and stepped on to the road.
‘I hope I haven’t wasted your afternoon?’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t say it has been wasted.’ He smiled at her.
The driver got down from his platform and twitched at the rope that held the trolley in place. There were more sparks.
‘Isn’t it amazing,’ she said. ‘All those sparks that keep us rushing along. Wouldn’t you like to drive a tram?’
‘No. I’d prefer a train. I’d find all those same old streets depressing, and the crowds, and stopping all the time to let people on and off. An express train. Tearing through the countryside frightening the cows.’
‘It shows how little you know about the country if you think that cows are frightened of trains. They don’t mind them at all.’
‘Well just tearing through the countryside, then, blowing my whistle, leaving everything else behind.’
The tram, rested, began to sway forward again along the narrow street.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever meet again.’ He spoke suddenly, his voice low.
‘You never know.’
He took off his cap and looked inside it for a moment, as if the words he wanted to say were written in there.
‘That’s always one of the troubles with life. People get thrown about a lot. Here, there and everywhere. I’d like to meet you again.’ He put the cap back on his head and looked at her. ‘I don’t mean tomorrow. Not now, in a while, when …’
‘When what?’
‘When we know a little more. When …’ He made a gesture with his hands.
‘Yes. I’d like to as well.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
He smiled.
‘Then it will happen, so it will. Remember that.’
He took his cap off again and with a sudden gesture threw it over the side of the tram. It fell to the ground and blew into the gutter, avoiding the wheels of a bicycle.
‘I hated it,’ said Joe. ‘Absolutely hated it.’ He took her hand and held it.
‘What’ll your mother say?’ She was laughing as she spoke.
‘She’ll give me one all right with her fist and then she’ll go out and buy me another. She thinks I’ll die of cold or consumption or something if I go around with a bare head.’
‘She sounds a bit like Aunt Mary. You must be a real trial to her.’
‘Yeah, I expect so. She hates to think I might end up like my father. She’s a good woman though.’
‘I’m sure she is.’
‘So when I come up to you one day and say hello, Nancy, you’ll remember me, won’t you?’
‘The boy, whatshisname, who threw his cap out of the tram. What is his name?’
‘Anything. Just remember me.’
‘Yes. I will.’ She crossed her heart with her right forefinger. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
He looked surprised. ‘You say that too?’
‘Everyone says that,’ she said with conviction.
‘I’ve often thought I’d like to go to college. Get a bit of education into myself. Learn a lot of long words so I could dazzle people in the years to come.’
‘You could just buy a dictionary.’
‘You know … Nancy.’ He squeezed her fingers. ‘I’d like to write … that’s what I’d really like to do … but I’m afrid of making a bloody eejit of myself.’
‘I’d like to write too … but I’m afraid I’ll never find anything to write about.’
‘I’ve never met anyone else who wanted to write.’
‘No more have I. Potential writers are thin on the ground. Particularly where I come from.’
They looked at each other, amazed.
‘I have this sort of notebook where I write things down. A diary. Not exactly. I put things down so I won’t forget. Forgetting is so easy.’
‘Will you put down about me?’
She blushed.
‘Well, it’s a thought diary rather than a happenings diary. I’m getting a little fed up w
ith it.’
‘Just make a note of my name. I’d like to think of it written there in your book.’
She smiled.
‘I remember when I was about ten I thought this boy was marvellous and I used to write his name on bits of paper, over and over again, and then tear them up and throw them in the fire. Did you ever do that sort of silly thing?’
‘What was his name?’
She thought for a moment.
‘Do you know, I honestly don’t remember. I only met him once at tea with some friends.’
She burst out laughing.
‘Isn’t that silly? And I really thought he was the most wonderful boy in the world. I thought about him for months. Had great dreams.’
‘You just make sure you write my name down and don’t throw it in the fire.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ she said abruptly.
‘Yes.’
Neither of them spoke for a long time. He looked abstractedly at the passing houses and kept squeezing away at her fingers.
‘What does your mother think about you being … well … you know … mixed up …?’
He looked shocked.
‘God, I couldn’t tell her a thing like that! She’d have a fit!’ He grinned. ‘I’ll tell her when it’s over. When we’ve won. I’ve a brother in the army. He fought through the war. He’s a sergeant now. He tried to persuade me to join up when he was home on leave a couple of months ago. He said I’d like the life. He’s a decent enough skin.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said nothing on earth would persuade me to take the King’s shilling and my mother said better the King’s shilling than nobody’s shilling at all. That’s Declan. My sister’s called Madge and she works in Clery’s. I’m the youngest. The bad one.’
‘Now I know.’
‘Yes. Now you know.’
The tram stopped and the conductor rattled on his bell to tell everyone to get off.
‘Dalkey,’ he shouted. ‘Dalkey.’ He jumped down and began to transfer the trolley arm from one end of the tram to the other.
Nancy and Joe were the only passengers left on top. They went down the stairs. The driver was standing on his platform reading a newspaper.
‘Do you know the way to the station?’ Joe asked her, as they stepped down on to the road.
She nodded.
‘I’ll go back on this tram, so … if you’re all right.’
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