I suppose that was generous but for some reason the offer did not immediately attract me. Dryly I said:
–I’d want to get to know those railway stations you mentioned last night in case I had to skip. In a hurry.
–Don’t talk rubbish. My operations are always within the law. But the British won’t be nervous because if the bobbies were after me and managed to close the roads and railways and the river, haven’t they the Tower of London to stuff me into? It’s just across the river from Tooley Street.
–Well, many a good Irishman spent a time there.
–True.
–And lost his life.
–Well, I’ll prepare and circulate a series entitled How To Escape From The Tower Of London. Three guineas for the complete course, with daggers, revolvers and rope-ladders supplied to students at very little over cost.
–Aw, shut up, I said.
When I got back from Synge Street that evening, everybody was out but a note from Annie said that my dinner was in the oven. Immediately afterwards I attacked my damned homework, for I had planned to spend the evening at a small poker school in the home of my school friend, Jack Mulloy. Did card games attract me much? I don’t know but Jack’s sister, Penelope, who served mugs of tea and bits of cake at ‘half-time’, certainly did. She was what was known as a good hoult, with auburn hair, blue eyes and a very nice smile. And to be honest, I think she was fond of myself. I remember being puzzled to think that she and Annie belonged to the same sex. Annie was a horrible, limp, lank streel of a creature. But she had a good heart and worked hard. Mr Collopy was fussy about his meals and though he dressed rather like an upper-class tramp, he had a horror of laundries and mass-washing. To participate in that, he held, was a certain way to get syphilis and painful skin diseases. Annie had to wash his shirts and other things, though he personally looked after his celluloid collar, which he washed with hot water every second day. She also had to compound various medicines for him, all of which contained sulphur, though I never heard what afflictions those potions were intended to remedy or prevent. In the last eighteen months or so, she was asked to undertake another duty to which she agreed willingly enough. The brother had given up the early-rising of his schooldays but would often hand Annie some money for what-you-know’ from his bedside. He was in need of a cure, and the poor girl would slip out and bring him back a glass of whiskey.
Mr Collopy came in about five o’clock, followed shortly afterwards by Annie. He seemed in a bad temper. Without a word he collapsed into his armchair and began reading the paper. The brother came in about six, loaded with books and small parcels. He naturally perceived the chill and said nothing. The tea turned out to be a very silent, almost menacing, meal. I kept thinking of Penelope. Tea with her would be a very different affair, an ambrosial banquet of unheard-of delicacy, and afterwards sweet colloquy by the fire, though perhaps with an undertone of melancholy. Was it easy, I wondered, or was it quite impossible to write really good and touching poetry. Something to reach the heart, to tell of love? Very likely it was quite impossible for the like of myself to attempt anything of the kind, though the brother could be trusted to explain the art and simplify it in six easy lessons by correspondence. Of course I never raised the matter with him, for he would only make me angry. Penelope? I meditated on the name. I remembered that Penelope was the wife of Ulysses and no matter how many libertines assailed her while her good man was away at the wars, she was ever faithful to him. She would consider yielding to their low and improper solicitations, she said, as soon as she had her knitting finished. Every night she would unravel whatever bit of it she had done during the day, so that the task was never accomplished. Just what was that as an attitude? Deep and pure love, of course. With more than a little touch of cunning, perhaps. Did my own lovely Penelope have both those qualities. Well, I would see her later on that night.
When the tea things had been cleared away, Mr Collopy resumed reading his paper but after a time, he suddenly sat up and glared at the brother, who was dozing opposite him at the range.
–I want a word with you, mister-me-friend, he said abruptly.
The brother sat up.
–Well? he said. I’m here.
–Do you know a certain party by the name of Sergeant Driscoll of the D.M.P.?
–I don’t know any policemen. I keep far away from them. They’re a dangerous gang, promoted at a speed that is proportionate to the number of people they manage to get into trouble. And they have one way of getting the most respectable people into very bad trouble.
–Well, is that a fact? And what is the one way?
–Perjury. They’d swear a hole in an iron bucket. They are all the sons of gobhawks from down the country.
–I mentioned Sergeant Driscoll of the D.M.P.—
–The wilds of Kerry, I’ll go bail. The banatee up at six in the morning to get ready thirteen breakfasts out of a load of spuds, maybe a few leaves of kale, injun meal, salt and buttermilk. Breakfast for Herself, Himself, the eight babies and the three pigs, all out of the one pot. That’s the sort of cods we have looking after law and order in Dublin.
–I mentioned Sergeant Driscoll of the D.M.P. He was here this morning. Gold help me, being interviewed by the police has been my cross, and at my time of life.
–Well, it is a good rule never to make any statement. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Say that you first must see your solicitor, no matter what he is accusing you of.
–Accusing me of? It had nothing to do with me. It was you he was looking for. He was making inquiries. There may yet be deleterious ructions, you can take my word for that.
–What, me? And what have I done?
–A young lad fell into the river at Islandbridge, hurt his head and was nearly drowned. He had to be brought to hospital. Sergeant Driscoll and his men questioned this lad and the other young hooligans with him. And your name was mentioned.
–I know nothing about any young lads at Islandbridge.
–Then how did they get your name? They even knew this address, and the Sergeant said they had a little book with this address here on the cover.
–Did you see the book?
–No.
–This is the work of some pultogue that doesn’t like me, one that has it in for me over some imaginary grievance. A trouble-maker. This town is full of them. I’m damn glad I’m clearing out. Give me a blood-thirsty and depraved Saxon any day.
–I’ve never known you not to have an answer. You are the right stainless man.
–I refuse to be worried about what brats from the slums say or think, or at country rozzers either.
–Those youngsters, Sergeant Driscoll said, were experimenting with a frightfully dangerous contraption, a sort of death machine. They had fixed a wire across the Liffey, made fast to lamp-posts or trees on either side. And this young bosthoon gets his feet into a pair of special slippers or something of the kind. What do you think of that?
–Nothing much, except it reminds me of a circus.
–Yes, or The Dance Of Death at the Empire Theatre at Christmas. Lord look down on us but I never heard of such recklessness and sinful extravaganza. It is the parents I pity, the suffering parents that brought them up by wearing their fingers to the bone and going without nourishing food in their old age to give the young pogue-mahones an education. A touch of the strap, night and morning, is what those boyos badly need.
–And how did one of them get into the water?
–How do you think? He gets out walking on this wire until he’s half-way, then he flies into a panic, gets dizzy, falls down into the deep water, hitting his head off a floating baulk of timber. And of course not one of those thooleramawns could swim. It was the mercy of God that a bailiff was within earshot. He heard the screaming and the commotion and hurried up. But an unemployed man was there first. Between the pair of them they got this half-drowned young character out of the river and held him upside-down to drain the water out of him.
–And the pinkeens
, the brother interposed.
–It was a direct act of Providence that those men were there. The high-wire genius had to be lurried into hospital, Jervis Street, and there is no need to try to be funny about it. You could be facing murther today, or manslaughter.
–I’ve told you I had nothing to do with it. I know nothing. I am unaware of the facts.
–I suppose you’d swear that.
–I would.
–And you have the brazen cheek to sit there and accuse the long-suffering D.M.P. of being addicted to perjury.
–And so they are.
–Faith then, and if I was on the jury I would know who to believe about that Islandbridge affair.
–If I was charged with engineering that foolish prank, I would stop at nothing to unmask the low miscreant who has been trying to put stains on my character.
–Yes, I know right well what you mean. One lie would lead to another till you got so bogged down in mendacity and appalling perjury that the Master of the Rolls or the Recorder or whoever it would be would call a halt to the proceedings and send the papers to the Attorney-General. And faith then your fat would be in the fire. You could get five years for perjury and trying to pervert the course of justice. And the same Islandbridge case would be waiting for you when you came out.
–I don’t give a goddam about any of those people.
–Do you tell me? Well, I do. This is my house.
–You know I’m leaving it very soon.
–And Sergeant Driscoll said you were to call at College Street for an interview.
–I’ll call at no College Street. Sergeant Driscoll can go to hell.
–Stop using bad, depraved language in this house or you may leave it sooner than you think. You are very much mistaken if you think I am content to be hounded and pestered by policemen over your low and contemptible schemes to delude simple young people—
–Oh, rubbish!
–And rob them, rob them of money they never earned but filched from the purses of their long-suffering parents and guardians.
–I told you I don’t know any simple young people at Islandbridge. And any young people I do know, they’re not simple.
–You have one of the lowest and most lying tongues in all Ireland and that’s a sure fact. You are nothing but a despicable young tramp. May God forgive me if I have been in any way to blame for the way I brought you up.
–Why don’t you blame those crows, the holy Christian Brothers? God’s Disjointed.
–I have warned you several times to stop desecrating my kitchen with your cowardly blackguarding of a dedicated band of high-minded Christian teachers.
–I hear Brother Cruppy is going to throw off the collar and get married.
–Upon my word, Mr Collopy said shrilly, you are not too old to have a stick taken to. Remember that. A good thrashing would work wonders.
He was clearly very angry. The brother shrugged and said nothing but it was lucky just then that there was a knock at the outer door. It was Mr Rafferty, who at first demurred at my invitation to come in.
–I was only passing, he said. I just wanted to see Mr Collopy for a moment or two.
But he did come in. I was happy to see that the hostilities within had suddenly subsided. Mr Collopy offered his hand without rising.
–Take a chair, Rafferty, take a chair. It’s a bit hash this evening.
–Yes indeed, Mr Collopy.
–Very hash.
–Will you join me in a smahan?
–Now, Mr Collopy, you should know me by now. Weekends only. It’s a rule and a cast-iron one. I promised the missus.
–All right, keep the promise. To thine old self be true. Thine own self, I mean. I’ll treat myself in God’s name because I am not feeling too good in my health. Not too good at all.
He rose to go to the press.
–You know what I called for, of course?
–Indeed and I do. And I have it here.
Having arranged a glass with the crock on the range, he pulled from the back of the press a long brown paper parcel, which he laid carefully on the table. Then he poured out his drink and sat down.
–The name they have for it, Rafferty, is worth remembering.
He turned to my surprise to myself.
–You there, he said. What’s the Greek for water?
–Hydor, I said. High door.
–And measuring anything, how did the Greeks get at that?
–Metron. Met her on. A measure.
–There now Rafferty, didn’t I tell you, what? That articles on the table is a clinical hydrometer. As we agreed, you are to bring it to Mrs Flaherty. Tell her to take careful readings day and night for a fortnight from next Saturday at noon. And keep the most meticulous records.
–Oh, I understand how important that is, Mr Collopy. And I’ll make Mrs Flaherty understand.
–In these modern times, you are damn nothing unless you can produce statistics. Columns and columns of figures, readings and percentages. Suppose they set up a Royal Commission on this thing. Where would we be if we couldn’t produce our certified statistics? What would we look like in the witness chair?
–We would not be very impressive and that’s a sure thing, Rafferty said.
–We’d look like bloody gawms. We’d make a holy show of ourselves before the world and people would ask each other who let us out. Isn’t that right?
–Too right indeed.
–And when Mrs Flaherty has given us her readings, we will give the next fortnight to Mrs Clohessy.
–Very good idea, Mr Collopy.
–And I predict one thing. When we have got all the readings and compared them, bedamn but you’ll find very little difference in them, only slight variations. We might establish a great new scientific fact. Who knows?
–Do you tell me that, Mr Collopy?
–I do, and that is the way the history of the whole world has been changed in the past. Patient men are looking for a particular thing, the answer to a profound difficulty. And what by the jappers happens? By accident they solve an entirely different problem. And I don’t care how many problems are solved with the aid of the clinical hydrometer so long as what we ourselves are so worried about is put right.
–Hear, hear, Mr Collopy. I’ll go off now, and straight to Mrs Flaherty’s.
–And God be with you, Rafferty. See you at our usual committee on Friday night.
–Right. Good night.
Just after he left, I went out myself. For I had a tryst with the Sors: and with Penelope.
12
THE old kitchen seemed the same but the brother had gone, and with him those stormy little scenes with Mr Collopy. I am sorry I cannot present an interesting record of the events and words of his actual departure. He had stressed with Annie the great importance of an early knock so as to make sure he would catch the morning mail boat from Kingstown to Holyhead. Annie did her duty but she found nobody in the brother’s bed nor any sign of his packed belongings. He had stolen away some time in the night, perhaps finishing his last Irish sleep in somebody else’s house or, perhaps again, marking his departure with a valedictory carousal with his cronies. I felt offended that I should have been included in his boycott for I felt I had something of the status of a fellow-conspirator, apart from being his brother, but his mysterious exit infuriated Mr Collopy. I never knew quite why, but I suspected that he had planned a magnanimous farewell, a prayer of God Speed and perhaps the present of one of his prize cut-throat razors. Mr Collopy was ever fond of an occasion, and with encouragement, alike from the company and his crock, he could attain great heights of eloquence. The showman in him had been slighted and he was very offended. He casually asked me whether the brother could be expected back on a visit for Christmas but I truthfully replied at the time that I had no idea. Annie seemed to take no notice whatsoever of this change in our house, even though it meant less work for her.
About three weeks after the brother’s flight, I received a letter from him. It was in a
costly long envelope, in the top left-hand corner of which were intertwined the letters L.U.A. (I was amused afterwards to notice in an Irish dictionary that lua means ‘a kick’.) The notepaper inside was very thick and expensive, indeed it was noisy to unfold. The heading, in black, shining crusted letters was LONDON UNIVERSITY ACADEMY, 120 Tooley Street, London, S.W.2. Down along the left margin was a list of the matters in which the Academy offered tuition—Boxing, Foreign Languages, Botany, Poultry Farming, Journalism, Fretwork, Archaeology, Swimming, Elocution, Dietetics, Treatment of High Blood Pressure, Ju-Jutsu, Political Science, Hypnotism, Astronomy, Medicine in the Home, Woodwork, Acrobatics and Wire-Walking, Public Speaking, Music, Care of the Teeth, Egyptology, Slimming, Psychiatry, Oil Prospecting, Railway Engineering, A Cure for Cancer, Treatment of Baldness, La Grande Cuisine, Bridge and Card Games, Field Athletics, Prevention and Treatment of Boils, Laundry Management, Chess, The Vegetable Garden, Sheep Farming, Etching and Drypoint, Sausage Manufacture in the Home, The Ancient Classics, Thaumaturgy Explained, and several other subjects the nature of which I did not understand properly from their names. What corpus of study was alluded to, for instance, in The Three Balls? Or Panpendarism? Or The Cultivation of Sours?
Here was the letter:
‘Sorry I could not write before now but I was terribly busy not only settling in at Tooley Street and organizing the office but also meeting people and making contacts. I suppose everybody got a bit of a shock when they found the bird had flown that morning but I could not face a formal farewell with Collopy puling and puking in the background with tears of whiskey rolling down his cheeks and gaunt Father Fahrt giving me his blessings in lordly Latin and maybe Annie quietly crying into her prashkeen. You know how I dislike that sort of thing. It makes me nervous. I’m sorry all the same that I had to be a bit secretive with yourself but the plans I have been working on made it essential that Collopy would know nothing because he has a wonderful gift for making trouble and poking his nose in where it will deluge everything with a dirty sneeze. Did you know that he has a brother in the police at Henley, not far from here? If he knew my exact address—which in no circumstances should you reveal to the bugger—I am sure I would have the other fellow peering around here, and for all I know he may be worse than Collopy himself. Needless to say I did not use any of the addresses the Rev. Fahrt gave me, for Jesuits can be a far closer police force than the men in blue. When I get things more advanced you must come over and give me a hand because I know this industry I’m entering on is only in its infancy, that there’s bags of money in it if the business is properly run, and plenty to go round for everybody. It’s a better life here, too. The pubs are better, food is good and cheap, and the streets aren’t crawling with touchers like Dublin. Information and help can be got on any subject or person under the sun for a quid, and often for only a few drinks.
The Hard Life Page 7