by James Hanley
Groups of men stood on the corners, and in the middle of the road. The boy hurried on. ‘Blue Bird Café,’ he kept saying under his breath. ‘That must be the big wooden hut on the plot of waste ground behind the tramway sheds.’ It was. There was no other café of that name in the whole city. Peter used to play on the ground where the rough dining-rooms now stood. As he came in sight of it, it began to rain.
The Blue Bird Café was an ordinary workmen’s dining-room. It was mostly frequented by the men from the tramway and loco sheds. Here one could bring one’s own meals, and obtain hot tea or cocoa from the counter. Coffee seemed never to have been heard of. For those who preferred the Blue Bird Café’s bill of fare, there were hot-pots, soups, tea and cakes. Most customers, however, brought their own food. The proprietress of this dining-room was a woman named Clara Lynch. To her customers she was simply ‘Clara’, though the local police had added to that the title of ‘The Amazon’. This had come about by reason of the prowess she had revealed on several occasions in dealing with unruly customers.
When Peter reached his caféw, he stood outside the half-open door. There were about a dozen customers there at the time. Mrs Lynch did not confine her clientele to loco workers or the tram-men. The Blue Bird Café welcomed everybody. Down-and-outs, tramps, occasional bookmakers’ touts, and more than one lady from the beat. Through the half-open door there now issued great clouds of steam that came from the three large urns on the marble counter. The dozen or so tables were equally marble-topped. Peter stood looking in. Conversation filled the long, low room, punctuated now and then by a sudden burst of laughter. What struck Peter most was the spitting. Everybody spat in the most audible manner. He could see Mrs Lynch, a tall woman with red hair, standing behind the counter. She leaned forward on folded arms. Peter went up to the window and looked in. A film of grease and steam covered it. The whole atmosphere reeked of steam. Maybe Clara’s customers felt themselves compelled to spit. He went to the door again and looked in. The sound of frying fat now appeared to overwhelm all ordinary conversation, as though at the moment the morsel of ‘best hake’ had been put into the pan everybody had ceased talking to hear the noise the fat made. Fried fish and chips was really an ‘occasional’, and only for special customers. Peter thought, ‘I wonder if he’s coming?’ There was something chilly and miserable about standing outside this long wooden hut. At that moment two things happened. Desmond arrived. And this time he did not shake hands, and Peter noticed it at once.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Been waiting long?’ He opened his blue overcoat and shook it vigorously, and a shower of rain-drops shot out. He wore a light grey cap. Around his neck was tied a white silk scarf. Desmond Fury never wore anything but a cap. Peter was without headwear, nor did he have an overcoat.
‘About twenty minutes,’ he was saying, when the noise of the sizzling fat itself was drowned by a stentorian voice calling out from within the hut:
‘I asked for China tea, and I’m going to bloody well get China tea.’
‘Let’s go in,’ said Desmond, and caught his brother’s arm. ‘I’m in a hurry.’
Desmond was always in a hurry to get off to some meeting or other. This was a purely imaginary meeting. Only habit made him say it.
They went into the café. Their entrance was not without significance, for a most delicate situation had arisen. The two brothers chose a table near the door.
‘Evening, Mr Fury,’ called out Clara from the counter. ‘Dirty, isn’t it?’
Desmond was an old customer. She had recognized him as he came in at the door. This she was able to do by looking through a hole in the brown curtain that hid the administrative side of the café from the customers. She now pulled the curtain back to extend her compliment to the customer and to see him comfortably seated. She did not seem to be interested in Peter. Mrs Lynch, however, did not pull the curtain right back, as this would have upset the delicate negotiations now going on between herself and a client. Judging by the state of the atmosphere, it would have been a feat in itself to sit down to a full meal. The air was thick with smoke, the steam rose triumphantly from the urns, and everybody talked. The fried fish and chips had now been served. Desmond made a hurried survey of the customers at the various tables. Nobody there whom he knew.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ll have some tea, and talk.’ He raised his hand in the air and called ‘Hilda! Tea and cakes for two,’ to which came a reply in a thin cracked voice, ‘Coming.’ Although he did not know it, Desmond had put a momentary spoke in the easy-running wheel.
Hilda was Mrs Lynch’s help. She was a young woman of twenty-eight. She was plain, modest, a good worker, and had a generous, willing spirit. Hilda lived always in the present. The future was something that did not interest her. It had no significance. She had no relations. She was without ambition. She now appeared with a tray which she laid on the table.
‘Evening,’ said Desmond. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Same,’ Hilda said, and smiled. She looked at Peter but her expression changed.
‘That’s hard lines, then,’ said Desmond, and as the young woman turned away he raised his hand and gave her a resounding clout on the rump. Her laughter increased. Then she vanished behind the counter.
‘Good girl, Hilda,’ said Desmond. ‘Do anything for a fellow.’ He began filling Peter’s cup. ‘You can always tell when Clara’s gay,’ he said.
Peter stared at his brother. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘He doesn’t look a bit different. Just as Mother said. A boor.’ How tall he was! And what hands! There was something aggressive about his very physicalness.
‘Let’s talk,’ said Desmond. He placed his elbows on the table and took stock of his brother.
Whilst they talked, negotiations had come to a head behind the counter. Hilda had gone into the back room. Hidden behind the curtain was a seedy-looking clerk named Mr Sandys. Mr Sandys was feeling passionate. Mrs Lynch wished to direct this into the right channels for a certain financial consideration. Mr Sandys had done his part. Hilda was willing to oblige, and at this very moment had put her head out of the back room and beckoned. Mr Sandys, highly excited and now visibly trembling at the very thought of a possible excursion to Nirvana, had taken off his coat and was ready to go forward, when the whole café seemed to quake as the burly-looking tram-driver who had a few minutes ago vociferously demanded China tea now woke up from his doze and repeated his request. He was about fifty years of age. His face had that puce-like colour that one comes to associate with tram-drivers. ‘Where’s that China tea?’
Everybody looked at him. Even Desmond and Peter stopped talking and turned round in their chairs. At the same time the curtain behind the counter was quickly pulled back to reveal Mr Sandys going forward holding up his trousers. Attention was immediately diverted from the tram-driver to Mr Sandys. But he had passed into the back room. The curtain rolled back. Everybody remained silent. Now the curtain was flung back again and Clara appeared. She made a rush towards the table where the man sat thumping its marble top and still loudly demanding China tea, which the Blue Bird Café did not stock. When Mrs Lynch seized the man by the back of his collar and dragged him to his feet, there was only one surprised person in the café. That was Peter. And his surprise increased when without any hesitation Mrs Lynch dragged the half-tipsy tram-driver to the door. She let him fall to the floor whilst she opened wide the door. Peter laughed. A moment later the awkward customer found himself sitting on the grass verge outside the café. Mrs Lynch by this feat seemed to have consolidated the title which the police had given her. She banged the door to, and once more vanished behind the curtain. Order had been restored. Everybody settled themselves down again. Peter thought, ‘Yes, Hilda is a good girl. Most obliging.’ Suddenly he laughed.
‘What are you laughing at?’ asked Desmond. He lit a cigarette.
‘Nothing,’ he said. He fixed his eyes upon his brother’s face.
‘Have a cake?’
‘No, thanks,’ replie
d Peter. He was content to take his tea, to stir it slowly, and to stare at his brother. He now felt like a truant schoolboy who, prior to being taken to the Reformatory, is being given a little refreshment by his generous escort.
‘I’m surprised to see you,’ exclaimed Desmond. ‘Never thought I would see you back. However – how’s Mother?’ Then he leaned back in the chair and assumed a contemplative attitude. It gave him a rather comical appearance, for when lost in thought he had a habit of caressing his upper lip with his tongue.
‘Mother is out,’ replied Peter. ‘She had to go to town to the shipping office. She’s been out all day.’ He never took his eyes from Desmond’s face. It seemed to him a hard, brutal face. It lacked refinement, sensibility.
‘Poor Mother!’ Desmond said. ‘Always out. Always trapesing somewhere. Never seems to get tired. We don’t get on together now. But I dare say she has told you.’ He threw the cigarette away. ‘Aren’t you having a cake?’ he asked.
Peter gave one look at the cakes. Mrs Lynch had retrieved them from the window, where they had lain all day. ‘No, thanks,’ Peter said.
Desmond laughed. He picked up a scone and tore it in two. In that little action Peter had seen mirrored the difference between them. He looked at Desmond’s hands. There had always been a difference between Desmond and the rest of the family. He saw it now. Slowly his eyes travelled up his brother’s body and came to rest upon his face. Now he nodded his head.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I already know about that. About everything.’ He had drunk his tea, and now pushed the cup to one side. His hands rested on the table. The difference in their hands seemed to cry aloud to each other. Suddenly he drew them from the table. He felt they should not be there. Those huge hands seemed to threaten. At any moment they might dart forward and grip his own. They challenged one’s right to the table. As Desmond ate, Peter watched the muscles of his jaw move. When he drank tea he made a peculiar sucking sound with his mouth. Yes. Desmond was different. But he hadn’t changed. Not a bit in all those seven years.
‘And what about you?’ asked Desmond, thinking, ‘Nearly as tall as me – and the dead spit of Mother.’
‘About me!’ The boy paused as though considering the matter. ‘Oh well! As I told you last night, I ran away from the place. I got fed up with it – I …’
‘I did hear from Postlethwaite’s son that you had come home, but I never believed it. And now he tells me Aunt Brigid came over with you. What brought her over? I thought she and Mother were through with each other.’
‘She came over to see Grand-dad, I suppose,’ replied Peter. ‘She isn’t with us now.’
‘Oh!’ Exclamation of surprise from Desmond.
‘She’s with Miss Pettigrew. We had no room for her,’ said the boy. And now he didn’t want to talk about himself any more. He wanted to talk of other things. The strike, how Desmond liked his new job, and Mr Kilkey and Mrs Fury. A tall order. That other thing was a pure cod. Worse than gaol. Desmond leaned forward in his chair, and gripped the boy’s arm. Slowly his hand worked its way down to his brother’s, which it now gripped and held.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A cod! A bloody cod! A cod for your mother too. Crucifying herself for a cod! That’s how it is, isn’t it?’ He smiled, so that for a second the boy glimpsed the two rows of strong, almost perfect teeth. ‘What does she think of it?’
Peter coloured up. ‘Are you another?’ he asked. ‘Is one never to hear the last of it?’
‘What!’ said Desmond. ‘What’s that, little boy? Has seven years of college taught you nothing? Are you still suffering from your sensibilities? You had no right to go. I said so long ago. I had three years of it in Hatfields. I thought your mother was light in the head. Anyway I got out. So did Maureen. It was just impossible to live there any longer. And anyhow I had to go some time or other. But I’m not going to preach. I’m not one of those sort. You take my advice. Go and work. Finest thing you ever did in your life. It cures everything, and besides, just think of it. As you went up, higher, higher, another went down. Understand that. Down. What does Dad know? Nothing. He never did know anything – always at sea. But I knew, and your sister knew. Some day you’ll hear that story. Aye, and Mother knows. I never in all my life saw anything like it. She would have given her blood for you – and Christ – Christ – it was tragic, because we knew it was a cod. I don’t blame you, Peter. Not a bit. You took a chance. It’s only a chance that any boy would take to get away from this bastard place. No. I’m with you there. I remember when I was at school I wanted to be something. But I couldn’t do anything. I was building castles in the air, for nothing. You wanted to get away. Oh, I know! And hundreds, thousands of women like Mother are doing the same, hoping, clinging like leeches, bitten with this crazy idea of giving sons to God! I don’t believe in all that rot. Not a bit. You know I don’t. But even worse, your mother wouldn’t even be told. It was wicked – really lousy – it was madness. Poor Mother! Only one thing worries her. Heaven –’ Desmond laughed. ‘Heaven!’ he said. His whole body shook, his laughter increased, he couldn’t stop laughing. Customers were staring at him. Suddenly he got up. ‘Come,’ he said. Peter got up and followed his brother to the counter, where he paid his bill. Mrs Lynch looked curiously at Peter. ‘My brother,’ Desmond said, and gave Peter a pat on the back. ‘Nice lad. Just home from college.’
They left the café and stood on the edge of the grass plot.
‘What a lousy night!’ said Desmond. ‘This way,’ he said. Peter thought there was something peculiarly off-hand about his brother’s manner. They walked down behind the tramway sheds.
‘Who was the man who went down under that goods train the other night?’
Desmond pulled up. ‘Were you there?’ he asked.
‘No. I was watching them from the wall at the back of Maureen’s house.’
‘Oh, that silly swine! He’ll get killed one of these days,’ Desmond replied.
‘How long do you think this strike will last?’ asked Peter. He took a cigarette from his brother.
‘Months.’
‘Months! All that time?’
‘Why not?’
They passed through Price Street, turned left, and pulled up outside Desmond’s home. The man took a key from his pocket and opened the front door. They passed into the house.
‘Shut the door,’ Desmond said. He hurried into the kitchen to light the gas.
‘Ah!’ thought Peter. ‘At last! Mother will never know.’
Desmond had lit the gas. Peter went into the kitchen, pausing for a moment to look round. The houses in Vulcan Street were no different from the houses in Hatfields. They had six rooms. Although the kitchen in which he stood looked larger, it was purely because of the way its furniture had been arranged. The fire was low in the grate.
‘Sit down,’ said his brother, and went out to get coal for the fire.
The boy sat down. He looked round. The walls were bare. There was a table in the centre of the floor, covered with cheap American oilcloth. Four chairs lay against the wall. At one side of the kitchen stood an oak dresser upon which were two green vases, a dog of the same colour, and a small cabinet-box which Mr Fury had brought from Japan at one time. The dresser was now littered with newspapers, letters, typed documents, the pages of which were covered with tea-stains. Hairpins, feminine combs, and powder-boxes lay scattered about. Upon the top shelf some loose coins lay as though hastily thrown there. Peter now looked up at the mantelshelf. Excepting for two tea-caddies, it was bare. Above it there hung a framed photograph of Keir Hardie. Mr Hardie was wearing his cap. Desmond having refuelled the fire began to poke it.
‘You ought to get Dad to make you a blower like ours,’ said Peter.
‘Yes,’ said Desmond.
He seemed particularly keen to get a blaze into the grate. He was in his shirt-sleeves, which he had rolled up to the elbow. He put the poker down, sat back in the chair and sighed. It was the sigh of a man who is glad to get his great bulk comfortab
ly fixed in a chair. This armchair creaked beneath the weight. His shirt was open at the neck.
‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘Here we are! Tell us something about yourself. What did you do all those seven years?’ He looked at the boy.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I’m sick of that. Everybody knows why I left there.’
‘I should have thought you would have thought twice about seeing me,’ remarked Desmond with a loud laugh.
‘I came to see how you were getting on,’ said Peter.
‘Oh! I’m getting on all right now,’ replied Desmond. ‘Somehow,’ he was telling himself, ‘somehow there’s a mistake here! Yes, I’m sure there is.’ He slapped his hand on his knee. ‘What were you expecting to see? A palace? Tell me. You look a bit disappointed about something.’
