The Minstrel Boy

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Mullen. I have the key. I’ll go in and see to the child.’

  He opened the door and went in. When the child saw him it muted its cries to a little whimper. Quick he set to and, since there was no milk in the cupboard, heated some of the prepared cereal that the baby seemed to prefer to the milk, and when it was ready he fed her with tiny spoonfuls until she was satisfied. Then he must change the napkin. He lifted her from her cot and carried her to the living room, where the better light from the large windows would enable him to see what he was doing in this complex operation.

  He had barely removed the soiled diaper and begun to clean the little soiled bottom when the door bell rang. He thought, with relief, that Mrs Mullen had come to his aid, and called:

  ‘Come in!’

  But it was not his friendly neighbour who entered. There, in the doorway, stood Mrs O’Brien and the Canon.

  ‘May we come in, Desmonde? Mrs O’B. and I are in town buying some fine linens for the new altar rails. And we couldn’t go back without giving you a call.’

  ‘Please come in,’ Desmonde said faintly. ‘As you see, I’m rather busy at the moment.’

  ‘Enjoying the pleasures of a father,’ said the Canon, as the baby, naked and unattended, began to howl in misery.

  ‘Let me, please, Desmonde. Please, where is the bathroom? Through there?’ Quickly Mrs O’Brien stepped forward, lifted the child, whipped the obscene napkin from the table and disappeared. The Canon then came in and closed the door, sat down, and in silence viewed the stale end of loaf, the half empty pot of cheap jam and the dirty tea cup.

  ‘Well, lad,’ he said at last, ‘I see you’re not only in the headlines, all over Ireland, but at home, by the look of it, you’re on the verge of starvation. You’re pale, thin, hollow cheeked, a miserable shadow of what ye were when I had the pleasure of knowing ye. But then ye have the recompense of all the joys of a faithful loving wife. We spotted her at the Hib on our way out, in the lounge at an early drink, lookin’ like the Queen o’ Sheba, with three of the flashiest young toughs ye’d ever meet at the Baldoyle Races.’

  Desmonde remained silent.

  ‘’Tis wonderful, of course, the true nobility of sacrifice for love. To abandon your religion, your vocation, your splendid standing and propriety in the church, in fact everything, all for the sake of some sexy little bitch that got round you in a weak moment in the dark. Are you still proud of it? Or, now, do you think it was folly?’

  Desmonde did not raise his head.

  ‘Not folly,’ he muttered. ‘Madness. And how savagely I have been punished.’

  ‘If only, when ye felt the need of a bit of lovin’, why did ye not turn to Madame? She was completely gone on you, head over heels. Then, when the first flurry was over, ye could have settled down quietly, in loving friendship, and nobody a bit the wiser. After all, didn’t some of our best Popes have their women, in the good old days? But no, you chose to play the gentleman, the hero, all for a worthless little bitch who has dragged you down to her own level, to the gutter, and will now, sure as God’s in Heaven, give you the soldier’s farewell.’ Desmonde remained silent. The Canon continued: ‘A true daughter of her mother, who left a decent husband to run off with a worthless scamp who had his will of her for a few months, all over Europe, then left her without a penny, in the middle of nowhere.’ He paused. ‘ She threw herself under a train in Bregenz station.’

  A long silence followed, then the Canon exclaimed with a sigh so deep it was almost a groan:

  ‘If only ye were back in Kilbarrack with me, lad. Just up from your own good Mass, or from teaching your little Communion class, and were sat down at the table and I was slashing the carver into a lovely leg o’ lamb, all crisp sand cracklin’, cooked to a turn by Mrs O’B., and you were due for a quiet afternoon stroll to Mount Vernon for tea and music with Madame, and the Archbishop had just sent me a letter full of your praises … making me as proud as if ye were my own son … Oh, God, it fair breaks my heart to think of it …’

  He broke off. A long pained silence followed, broken only when Mrs O’Brien came back into the room.

  ‘Well now,’ she said cheerfully, ‘Baby’s all cleaned up and washed and is cosy in her cot, almost asleep.’

  Abruptly the Canon stood up.

  ‘Then we’ll be off, Mrs O’B. There’s no more for us to do here. The mischief is done and canna’ be undone. Good-bye, Desmonde dear, and God succour you.’ He made the sign of the Cross over the bowed figure at the table and turned to the door.

  ‘Good-bye, dear Desmonde,’ murmured Mrs O’Brien. ‘I pray for you every night and will never forget you.’

  When they had gone Desmonde made an effort to throw off the misery into which the Canon’s melancholy soliloquy had plunged him. He got up and went into the bedroom, where the little one, freshly bathed and neatly tucked into her cot, was fast asleep. The room had been tidied and the bed properly made up, something of a novelty, since the sheets were usually flung back in a tangled bunch. The bathroom, too, had been cleaned, the towels straightened out, the soap and sponge retrieved from the bottom of the bath, and correctly placed in the wash basin. And there, on the little shelf above the basin, tucked in beneath a tube of toothpaste, was a brand new five pound note.

  This was the last straw, the final touch of loving pity and compassion, that broke through Desmonde’s self-imposed restraint. He returned to the living room, sat down at the table, put his head in his hands and wept, bitterly, bitterly, he wept.

  At last he pulled himself together and forced himself to think of the future. The envelope from Dr O’Hare contained twenty-five pounds. His reserve of fifty pounds, carefully preserved in his suitcase, and the five pounds from Mrs O’Brien, made altogether a total of eighty pounds. The rent of the house was paid until the end of the year. At least he was not insolvent. He unlocked the suitcase, put the twenty-five pounds in the pocket of the lining with the original fifty, locked the case, and with the five pound note in his pocket went out, and along the street to pay the grocery bill.

  ‘I was afraid ye had forgotten it, sir,’ remarked the shopkeeper, when the note was placed on the counter. ‘Let’s see, now. You have seventeen and ninepence coming back to you. Shall I send the morning milk round to you again?’

  ‘If you please. And some of these apples you have over there. I’m sorry for the delay.’

  ‘No harm done, sir. Whatever they may say of ye, the name o’ Fitzgerald is good enough for me. Let me give you one of the apples, on the house. They’re first of the season’s Cox’s.’

  With the apple and seventeen and ninepence in his pocket Desmonde left the shop and went home, relieved, on his arrival, to find Mrs Mullen in the house.

  ‘I thought you might be needing a bit of a hand, sir. You’ve had lots of callers. Can I do anything?’

  ‘If you would keep an eye on baby, Mrs Mullen, I’d like to go out for a couple of hours. I’ll give you the key of the house.’

  ‘Ay, sir, go and get some fresh air to yourself. For in God’s truth ye’re not lookin’ at all well.’

  Desmonde handed over the key and went out, with a strange sense of escape, as he slowly set out for his inevitable resort where, as a boy, he had so often walked with his father.

  The afternoon was fresh and fair, the park deserted and, though he felt he should walk, he soon was seated in his usual secluded corner, with trees around and the songs of the birds to soothe him. He ate the apple, skin and all, threw the core to some friendly sparrows, lay back and closed his eyes. Soon he was asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  It was not a lazy sleep but, so poor was Desmonde’s physical state, a sleep of sheer exhaustion, a benign blackout that lasted a full three hours. Twilight was falling as he awoke and hurried to the park gates, lest he be shut in for the night. Then, at a more moderate pace, he started on the return journey to the Quays and reality. He felt better, and better able to face whatever lay in store for him.

&n
bsp; As he approached his house he saw that Mrs Mullen was again on patrol, now always a presage of evil. She half ran to meet him.

  ‘Oh, God, sir, thank God you’re back. I’ve been at my wits’ end. What’s happened wouldn’t bear repeating.’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘Just after ye’d gone your lady came back in a flash little car, driven by a flash lookin’ man. Into the house she swept, and in no time at all she was out again with her luggage, then in again for a longer time, then out with more things, and baby, wrapped in a blanket. Into the car they crowded with everything in the boot o’ the car, or packed in the seat behind them.

  ‘”Where are ye off to, madam?” I ventured to call.

  ‘”To Cobh Pier,” she called back, tipsy like. “And to hell with you, and the rest of you, old bloody Mullen.”

  ‘So off they went with a blare o’ the horn.’ Again she paused. ‘I’ve had a look in the house, sir. It’s like all the Furies of Hell were let loose in it.’

  Desmonde entered the house. The living-room looked a shambles – the table upset, chairs turned over, cutlery and china strewn on the floor. In the bedroom the crib was lying on its edge, blankets and sheets in a twisted knot upon the floor, and, on the chest of drawers, his two prized little pictures, the Bartolommeo Annunciation and the photograph of his mother, were totally destroyed, smashed, no doubt, on the hard edge of the chest, the glass broken, frames bent and twisted, the pictures pierced and torn beyond repair.

  Desmonde sat down on the mattress and silently viewed the damage, such an expression of wanton rage and actual hatred that his heart sank within him, in bitterness and pain. Suddenly a thought struck him. He jumped up, ran into the living room and flung open the cupboard door.

  His suitcase was still there, but the lock had been forced and hung limp and useless: He dropped to his knees and lifted the lid. His money was gone, gone to the last pound note. She had finished as she had begun, with unutterable selfishness and inherent unfaithfulness. She had cleaned him out.

  He was still on his knees and motionless, a petrified figure, when Mrs Mullen came into the room.

  ‘Do get up, sir,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’ll send Joe in to clear up the mess. He’ll soon put things to right.’

  He permitted her to raise him, and to lead him to a chair, which she set back squarely on its four legs. There he sat, an acrid bitterness in his mouth and a chill sense of fear in his heart. No longer a priest, a schoolmaster sacked in disgrace, he had exactly seventeen shillings and ninepence between himself and starvation.

  A voice roused him:

  ‘Don’t take on, sir. I’ll have everything straight for you in no time.’

  Joe had come in and, in his shirt sleeves, had begun the work of restoring decency and order. Desmonde simply sat there in a state of dazed inertia. But when Joe had finished and both rooms had resumed their normal shape and form, he motioned Joe to sit near him.

  ‘Thank you, Joe, from my heart. I can’t understand why you and your grandmother are so kind to me. I’m not worth it.’

  ‘You are worth it, sir. And we’re truly sorry for you. Besides, we remember that your father was very good to us. When my widowed mother died he bought our house for us so that Gran should always have a roof over her head.’

  Desmonde was silent. Always his father’s virtue, distinction and nobility returned to confound him, and now more so than ever.

  ‘I would love to give you something myself, Joe. But I am absolutely and completely broke.’

  ‘I thought she would skin you to the bone, sir. We waiters at the Hib see and hear more than you would ever guess. We summed her up as a right bad lot!’ He paused. ‘Now that you’re up against it, have you any idea as to what you’ll do?’

  Desmonde shook his head slowly. ‘I’m down and out. With no way to pick myself up.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong there, sir,’ Joe exclaimed, then hesitated. ‘You forget about your gift in your voice – I read all about it in the Chronicle, and I believe I could get you a job.’

  Desmonde looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘It’s like this sir. Up at the Hib in the big lounge after dinner it’s usually chock full, and Mr Maley, the manager, very often has an artiste in, to sing or play to the customers. Last winter we had Albert Sammons the violinist. So if you’d permit me to talk to Mr Maley, he might give you an engagement.’

  Desmonde was silent. To sing in a pub, had he fallen so low? Better to sing in the streets. And why not? He had an impulse to degrade himself still further. Yet the reality was not quite so bad the Hibernian was a first class hotel patronised by the best of Dublin society and by many distinguished visitors. Above all, he urgently needed work, not only because he was destitute, but as an escape from the brooding solitude that now hung over him.

  ‘Joe, you are a real friend,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll come to the hotel with you any time you say, and take my chance with Mr Maley.’

  ‘Right you are, sir. He’s a fine man, is Mr Maley, I’ve a feeling he’ll take to you in your distress.’ He paused. ‘Could you manage to come up around four o’clock tomorrow afternoon? Tog yourself up nice and quiet, try and look your best.’

  Desmonde nodded and held out his hand. ‘I’ll be there.’

  When Joe had gone Desmonde glanced at his watch. Almost eight o’clock. Exhausted, mentally and physically, he wanted only to rest. But first he forced himself to eat: a bowl of hot oatmeal and milk, followed by one of the apples sent earlier in the day, which Mrs Mullen had stowed away in the cupboard. He then took a hot bath and lay down on the big bed, conscious immediately of the peace, the blessed quiet and roominess, the divine solitude of lying alone and unmolested, in the slow search for sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  At ten minutes to four o’clock next day Desmonde set out for the Royal Hibernian Hotel. He had shaved and groomed himself with more care than he had lately come to bestow on his appearance. He had brushed his sadly neglected shoes until they shone, and put on his best Italian suit with a soft collar and dark tie. Let it be admitted: although frightfully pale, he was as handsome as ever, and so young looking he seemed little more than a stripling. He was in fact not yet thirty years of age.

  Outside the hotel the usual string of cars was lined up, some small and ordinary, others larger and of a more distinguished lineage. He went in and passed through the entrance hall to the lounge, directed thereto by the chatter and hum of many voices. The place was indeed crowded, mainly with women, for this was the fashionable hour for tea in Dublin, and the Hibernian the fashionable resort. Desmonde remained standing outside. Threading in and out of the tables he could see Joe who, obviously expecting Desmonde, soon caught sight of him and presently came over.

  ‘You’re looking grand, sir. And there’s a lovely crowd here today. I’ll send a word to Mr Maley that you’re here.’

  Desmonde waited, still standing, and presently Mr Maley came towards him. The hotel manager was a well set-up man of fifty or thereabouts, with a commanding presence and an expression firmly indicating that he would stand no nonsense. He looked Desmonde up and down, and said finally:

  ‘You have had your troubles. Joe tells me you are practically down and out.’

  ‘Your information is correct,’ Desmonde said.

  A pause. The reply had created a favourable impression.

  ‘Well, there’s your audience. Get in and show me what you can do with them. I’ll sit here to watch and listen.’

  Desmonde inclined his head and without a word walked, firmly to the platform, no more than a foot high, on which stood the grand piano. His appearance had caused an immediate cessation of the chatter, followed by the murmur of many whisperings. Desmonde waited until this too had ceased. Then he bowed and, in complete silence, sat down at the piano.

  His first choice, with an eye towards Mr Maley, was that lovely little song of Schumann’s, ‘Wenn ich in deiner Augen seh’. He sang it in the original German, softly and sweetly, as befitted the words, th
en, without pausing, passed immediately into the most tender of all songs, ‘Jeannie with the light brown hair.’ When this ended, in a silence of rapt attention, he was obliged to stop, so warm was the applause. Across all the upturned faces Desmonde could see that Maley was smiling and applauding vigorously.

  Desmonde gave no sign whatsoever of gratification at his success but continued with his programme, wisely interpolating his Irish ballads with German lieder, ‘Der Lindenbaum’ and ‘Frühlingstraum’. How often he was obliged to stop for spontaneous and prolonged applause need not be recorded. But when he ended with his favourite ‘Tara’ and immediately stepped from the platform, so demanding were the cries for an encore that he was obliged to return to sing the last verse again. Only then was he free to escape through the little side door at the rear of the platform that led into the waiters’ mess hall. And here he found himself face to face with Mr Maley, who pulled two chairs forward from one of the tables.

  ‘Sit down, Desmonde. Are you tired?’

  ‘Slightly, sir. And rather hungry.’

  ‘All that will be attended to, my boy. Now listen to me. I have the name of a fair and honest man and I will not, I say not, take advantage of your dire need. You gave a marvellous performance and I know what I’m talking about. I believe you could fill these rooms until people would be falling over themselves to get in!’ He paused, looking Desmonde in the eye. ‘Now what I propose is this. If you would sing at tea time for one hour and no more, for I don’t want to kill you, then rest in a room I will reserve for you and be served there with our full à la carte dinner and an appropriate wine, then, after another little rest, sing again for just one hour for the after-dinner crowd, I would be prepared to pay you thirty pounds a week, provided you stay with me the entire season, right through the Spring Show.’

  Desmonde had turned very pale. He murmured:

  ‘You are noble, truly noble. You know my absolute need.’