Strumpet City

by James Plunkett

  ‘Red, white and blue,’ Rashers said, ‘the colours of loyalty.’

  ‘My husband doesn’t hold with England,’ Mrs. Bartley said.

  ‘That’s been catered for,’ Rashers explained, showing her a sample, ‘the green ribbon is for Ireland.’

  ‘It doesn’t match up, somehow.’

  ‘It never did, ma’am,’ Rashers said. ‘Isn’t that what all the bloody commotion is about for the last seven hundred years?’

  ‘Wet your tea before the water’s gone cold for you.’ Rashers reached behind his pillow and brought out a tin from which he took part of a loaf, a tin of condensed milk and a jampot. He took out a cold potato too, but put it back. The rest he left on the straw beside him.

  ‘I brought you some bread.’

  ‘I have some,’ Rashers said.

  ‘It’s as hard as the rock of Cashel,’ Mrs. Bartley pronounced, having felt it.

  ‘It’ll soften up when I dip it in the tea,’ Rashers explained. ‘I’ll keep yours for afterwards.’

  Mrs. Bartley sighed and handed him the spoon. He put in the tea.

  ‘What’s it doing out or what?’ he asked conversationally as he drank. He meant the weather.

  ‘It’s dull. I wouldn’t say it was a bit promising.’

  ‘Let’s hope to God the rain keeps off,’ Rashers said. ‘They’re more given to buying favours and things when it isn’t raining.’

  ‘Are you taking the dog?’

  ‘And have him walked on?’ Rashers asked.

  ‘If you’re not I’ll give him a little something later on.’

  ‘You’re a jewel.’

  ‘So long as he doesn’t take the hand off me in the process.’

  ‘Is it Rusty?’ He called the dog to his side.

  ‘That’s Mrs. Bartley,’ he explained to the dog, ‘and if you don’t know her by now you bloody well ought to. She’s to come and go as she pleases.’ He patted the dog and looked around at the empty floor.

  ‘He thinks you have your eye on the furniture,’ Rashers added. Mrs. Bartley laughed aloud.

  ‘Is the husband working again?’ Rashers asked.

  ‘All last week, four days this week and a bit promised for next.’

  ‘Look at that now,’ Rashers approved, ‘isn’t he having the life of Reilly.’

  Mrs. Bartley said the children might be calling for her so she would leave the spoon and the can and get them when she was bringing down the scraps for Rusty. She hoped God would give him good luck with his selling.

  ‘I’ll be rattling shilling against shilling when I get home,’ Rashers said, ‘and the first thing I’ll buy is a tin whistle.’

  ‘You never found the one you lost?’

  ‘Never,’ Rashers said, ‘neither sign nor light of it from that day to this.’

  ‘Bad luck to the hand that took it.’

  ‘May God wither it,’ Rashers said. He had lost his tin whistle after a race meeting nearly a year before.

  ‘It was the drink, God forgive me,’ Rashers confessed.

  ‘It’s a very occasional failing with you,’ Mrs. Bartley said indulgently.

  ‘Drink and the sun. After the few drinks I lay down in the sun and it overpowered me. When I woke up the whistle was gone.’

  ‘The children miss it most of all,’ Mrs. Bartley said, ‘they loved you to play for them.’

  ‘Rusty too. I used to play to the two of us and we were never lonely.’

  ‘The best music you ever had is the bit you make yourself. It’s a great consolation.’

  ‘For man and beast alike, ma’am,’ Rashers assented. Mrs. Bartley had a very proper understanding of the whole thing.

  When Mrs. Bartley had gone he got up and began to pull on socks, thinking of the whistle he had lost. It had been given to him by Mrs. Molloy, the woman who had reared him. It had earned him coppers at football matches and race meetings. His ambition was to replace it when he had the money to spare. He looked down at his socks and for the moment he forgot about the tin whistle. Both socks had holes in the toes and heels. He thought about that and took them off again. Then he put on his boots. They felt hard and uncomfortable for the amount of walking he would have to do. He took off his boots again, put on the socks and then put on his boots once more. He stood up and stretched. When he yawned, the few rotten teeth seemed very long because the gums had shrunk back almost to the roots. He took his overcoat from among the rags on the bed, tied it about his middle with a piece of cord and took his board with the coloured favours. He put a bottle and the bread into a short sack which he secured so that it hung from his waist. He shut the door on the dog, which whined, went up the decaying stairs, past the pram in the hallway and down the steps into the street.

  The children in Chandlers Court jeered after him, but Rashers was used to that and scarcely heard them. He had already mapped out his journey in his mind. He would go over the iron bridge, through Ringsend and out the Strand Road to Merrion Gates. There would be a crowd there and on the way he could root in the ashbins of the big houses facing the strand. There were always scraps to be found that way. He could use the side streets to contact the crowds at various points along the route. It would be a long walk. By the time he got back from the procession to the Viceregal Lodge he would have covered ten to fourteen miles. But if he sold all his favours he would earn ten shillings. Rashers kept his mind on that. He deviated only once from his planned route and that was to look for some minutes into the window of McNeill’s music shop. It was still closed, a dingy little shop, with one dusty window and a small entrance door which needed painting. In the window, among instruments of a more aristocratic kind, there was a board displaying tin whistles. It said:

  ‘Superior toned Italian Flageolets.

  Price: One Shilling’

  They were masterly looking instruments, and ought to be, Rashers decided, at such an outrageous price. He stared at them for some time. Then he caught sight of his own face and the reflection of his favours in the glass window. He turned away.

  The morning air had a sulphur smell about it, a compound of mist from the river, smoke from the ships, slow-drifting yellow fumes from the gas works. It was like the look on Rashers’ face. Hungry, dirty and, because so many things conspired to kill him, tenacious. His beard straggled. His gait was uncertain. He dragged his fifty years in each step forward through the streets of his city. She had not denied him her unique weapons. Almost from birth she had shaped his mind to regard life as a trivial moment which had slipped by mistake through the sieve of eternity, a scrap of absurdity which would glow for a little while before it was snatched back into eternity again. From her air, in common with numberless others about him, he had drawn the deep and unshakeable belief that the Son of God loved him and had suffered on earth for him and the hope that he would dwell with Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother in Heaven. His city had never offered him anything else. Except her ashbins.

  At the sweetshop Mary found her note had been collected and that one from Fitz had been left in its place.

  ‘He called last night,’ Mrs. Burns said, handing it to her.

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘It must have been about nine.’

  Mary tried to remember what she had been doing at nine o’clock the previous evening. She remembered that she had been talking to Miss Gilchrist over a cup of cocoa. She remembered the scrubbed surface of the table, the sad, evening light outside, Miss Gilchrist’s talk of Fenians.

  ‘He was on his bicycle,’ Mrs. Burns volunteered.

  ‘Had he been swimming?’

  ‘He must have been. He had his togs wrapped about the handlebars.’

  ‘He was probably at Seapoint. Thank you, Mrs. Burns,’ she said, and went out into the street. She was suddenly shy of Mrs. Burns. The note read:

  Dear Mary

  I’m going on at twelve tonight, finishing at twelve tomorrow. I’m hoping you will be free. You remember you said you might. I’ll be at the usual place from two o’clo
ck. Even if it is much longer than that before you are free don’t feel it would be too late. I’ll wait.

  What do you think of the decorations?

  Fitz

  PS. Give my regards to King Ed.

  She folded the note and saw that it was almost half past one by the town hall clock. Fitz would be waiting at the Liffey Wall, where Butt Bridge let the heavy traffic cross from the South Wall into Beresford Place. The sun was now full and warm in the cloudless July sky, so she travelled on the top section of the tram. It was open to the heat and the light. There was hardly anybody else. The trolley sang and rattled in front of her, bucking and sparking when the wires above it crossed at junctions, its great spring stretching and contracting like a concertina. She would be late, but Fitz would not mind. It was over a year now since their first meeting. It had happened at Seapoint too. She had gone down to the strand, passing close to a young man who was sitting on the rocks and who smiled at her. She ignored him. Down at the water’s edge she removed her shoes and began to paddle, holding her skirts away from the water but as little as possible because of the young man. He was watching her. Although there was no one else on the beach the situation did not trouble her. It had been a nice smile. She felt quite sure there was nothing to worry about and that the young man meant nothing more dangerous than gentlemanly admiration. It was nice to be admired from a respectful distance, to feel the water cool about her ankles and look down through it at the wrinkled sand. She paddled for half an hour and was on her way across the sand to fold a spot where she could sit and put on her shoes again when she walked on the shell. It cut deeply into the sole of her foot and when she felt the pain and saw the gush of red blood she cried out and stumbled. Tears clouded her eyes so that when eventually the young man bent over her she felt his presence for quite a while before she could see him clearly.

  ‘That’s a bad gash,’ he said, ‘let me help you.’

  It was embarrassing to sprawl with bare feet on the damp sand under the eyes of a complete stranger. She felt foolish and undignified. But when she rose and tried to walk by herself she was unable.

  ‘Look, I know something about this,’ the young man said.

  She made a rapid appraisal of him. He had a very pleasant face with dark hair and eyes which reflected kindness and concern. It was a good face. Everything was all right.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ she said.

  He drew her arm around his shoulder and put his other arm about her waist. That shocked her for a moment until she realised that it was necessary. He was half lifting her and his grip was firm. She could feel his body against hers. The sensation was pleasant. He released her when they reached the rocks and examined the cut.

  ‘Have you a handkerchief?’ he asked. His own was coloured and they thought it might be dangerous. She produced one which was too small to be of use. He went away some distance and returned with his towel which he tore into strips.

  ‘This’ll do the job,’ he said.

  Mary who found destruction of any kind unbearable, protested.

  ‘Your good towel, it’s a shame.’

  ‘What’s a towel,’ he said carelessly, and went on bandaging. It was a neat job. She found she could get her shoe on.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said.

  He smiled at her.

  ‘I look after the first-aid box and that sort of thing on the job,’ he explained.

  ‘You’re quite an expert.’

  ‘You’d better rest it for a while,’ he said.

  They sat together, silent.

  ‘I’m on shift work in Morgan’s Foundry,’ he said.

  ‘Are you long there?’

  ‘Three years constant. Of course I was casual before that.’

  ‘Casual?’

  ‘You stand at the gate every morning and at eight o’clock the foreman comes out and says “I want you, you, you and you.” ’

  He gave an imitation of the foreman singling out the lucky ones.

  ‘What happens if he doesn’t select you?’

  ‘You drift round to the quays and see if you can get work discharging. If you can’t you go home and hope for better luck the next time.’

  ‘But you don’t have to stand at the gate now?’

  ‘No. I’m constant in No. 3 house—a stoker.’

  He pulled up the left sleeve of his jacket. There was a long red weal on his arm.

  ‘That was a present from No. 3 furnace I got the other day. It empties hot ash on you if you don’t keep your eyes skinned.’

  ‘Did it burn through your jacket?’ she asked. She found it hard to believe.

  He hesitated. He put it as delicately as he could.

  ‘We don’t usually wear very much when we’re stoking,’ he said.

  She realised that he meant they worked stripped.

  ‘Well,’ she said, glossing it over, ‘I’m lucky you weren’t stoking today.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said.

  There was no mistaking what he meant.

  She was pleased but was careful not to betray it.

  ‘I think it’s time I tried to get home,’ she said, rising.

  He rose with her. Again she found it painful to put very much weight on her foot.

  ‘Let me help you,’ he said.

  She consented, but this time she managed by allowing him only to link her. They reached his bicycle and after some persuasion she agreed to let him take her on the carrier. When they reached Kingstown she made him bring her to Mrs. Burns’ shop, where they parted, Mrs. Burns undertaking to see her home. He said his name was Bob Fitzpatrick and he would like very much to meet her again. But she was doubtful.

  The next day, much to her relief, he left a note for her at Mrs. Burns’. And the next day again. The little sweetshop became a sort of private post office. It had continued so as their meetings became more frequent and their love grew.

  The tram stopped short of the city centre and Mary had to get off. The royal procession had just passed, or was passing, or was about to pass, on its way to the Viceregal Lodge. The conductor was not sure. Mary forced her way through the crowd, which grew larger and less penetrable the further she went. Eventually she found herself jammed and immobilised. She thought of Fitz waiting at Butt Bridge and looked around desperately for a way out. There was none. She held tightly to her purse, remembering the newspaper warning about pickpockets. The royal occasion had drawn them in hundreds to the city. There were gentlemen in bowler hats, younger men in caps and knickerbockers, an odd policeman here and there keeping sharp eyes on the crowd. A ragged man with a beard was singing out a rigmarole to draw attention to the favours on his board.

  ‘One penny each the lovely ribbings. Red for royalty, white for fraternity, blue for Britannia and green for the beam of the fair isle of Erin. Buy your emblems of honour.’

  It was Rashers Tierney. He came towards Mary. It was part of his technique to be able to move in the densest gathering.

  ‘Buy a favour, miss,’ he said to her.

  She shook her head. She was thinking about Fitz.

  ‘For luck, lady,’ Rashers persisted. He held one up to her.

  There was something hungry in his face which moved her. She gave him a penny. He pinned the ribbons in her coat.

  ‘God bless and reward you,’ he said, moving on.

  She tried to do so too but made little progress.

  A band was approaching, unseen but faintly heard. Horses stamped and pennants, at a great distance, tossed in orderly file above the heads of the crowd. A cheer began, travelling through the street until those around Mary joined in. It was overpoweringly warm as the heat of packed bodies augmented the blaze of the sun. Yet there was a communicated excitement too which drew Mary to her toes. She found it hard to understand Miss Gilchrist’s bitterness against the King. Patriots had been put in gaol and banished into penal servitude, of course, but you could not expect a king or a queen to do nothing to people who openly threatened to take over the country themselves. The
y made beautiful speeches, the patriots. They defied their judges and said they preferred English chains or even the gallows to an English king ruling over Ireland. Yet when all was said and done what great difference would it make, whether King Edward or the others ruled over Ireland? Would the patriots come back and live in Cahirdermot, scratching for a living like her father and her father’s people? Kings built great cities and that was why there were aristocrats and gentry and after them business people and then shopkeepers and then tradesmen and then poor people like Fitz and herself. Who would give work if there were no kings and gentry and the rest? No one ever said anything about that.

  The band was now directly in front, so that now and then, between shoulders and heads, she caught the sudden flash of sun on the instruments. The roar of the people became louder and everybody said the King and Queen were at that moment passing. The men took off their hats, the crowd tightened and tightened. Mary looked behind and saw students clinging to the railings of Trinity College. They wore striped blazers and whirled their flat straw hats over their heads. Some of them were skylarking, of course, as young gentlemen always did on such occasions. One of them even had a policeman’s helmet wherever he had managed to get it. Mary felt the pressure easing and heard the notes of the band growing fainter, but the rhythmic chorus of carriage wheels over paving setts continued. People stopped cheering and talked to each other. Mary looked about once again for a way of escape. She frowned and bit her lip in perplexity, her thoughts so fixed on her purpose that at first the disturbance passed unnoticed. She felt the movement in the crowd for some time before the shouting of a raucous voice drew her eyes to her right. They rested on Rashers, who was pushing in her direction once more. There was a startling change in his face. It was working curiously and his arms were jerking with excited movements.

  ‘Come back, you bloody hill-and-dale robber,’ he was shouting, ‘come back with my few hard-earned ha’pence.’

  He stopped close to Mary and appealed to the crowd.

  ‘Why couldn’t youse stop him? What ails the world that youse let a lousy pickpocket past youse?’

  The people near him smiled. It maddened Rashers.