Rescue workers were everywhere among the pile of rubble. Above them, in the light of the acetylene lamps, Yearling saw the skeletons of the two houses, their rooms and stairways laid naked by the collapse of the wall. Twisted beams and broken floors and masonry hung at dangerous angles. From time to time pieces of brick and wood were wrenched loose by the wind and raised a cloud of dust as they fell. Among the ambulances and fire brigade engines were vans from the Gas Company and the Waterworks. Firemen had rigged the hoses in readiness against an outbreak.
‘But not fast enough, it seems,’ Yearling said, when two more bodies were released from the debris.
‘Old people,’ the sergeant said, ‘or a mother trying to save her children.’
Father O’Connor had gone in among the injured. Two other clergymen were already busy. They said to him:
‘The dead have been attended to.’ He went down the line to a young woman whose dark hair was matted with blood. He gave her absolution. But she was barely conscious and kept saying over and over again: ‘The children . . . the children.’ As the rescuers worked, a guard with each party kept watch for signs of a further collapse. Bradshaw shuddered and touched Yearling’s arm.
‘They were passed as safe only a month ago. I have the inspector’s letter.’
‘Of course,’ Yearling said. Then he said: ‘You should go home.’
‘How can I leave?’
‘There’s nothing further you can do. When they want you they’ll call on you.’
They were rejoined by Father O’Connor.
‘I’m telling Ralph he should go home.’
‘Of course,’ Father O’Connor agreed. ‘Mrs. Bradshaw will need you.’
‘It’s the railway being so close,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I’ve written several times to them. The vibration affected the foundations.’
They brought him home. Yearling insisted on driving Father O’Connor back to town.
‘Do you think it was the railway?’ Father O’Connor asked.
‘It was neglect and old age,’ Yearling said grimly.
‘But they were passed as safe.’
‘They were condemned long ago—and then reprieved because Ralph knew the right people.’
‘I refuse to believe it,’ Father O’Connor said. He thought of the young woman who had been calling without cease for her children. Would they be found?
‘If there’s an investigation and the truth comes out,’ Yearling said, ‘Bradshaw and certain other gentlemen will be in trouble.’
Father O’Connor said nothing, his mind still occupied with the badly injured woman. He had ministered to her impulsively, without his usual horror of suffering. Pity and compassion and his priestly office had filled his thoughts. For the first time in his life the sight of blood had not frightened him.
The papers said:
‘Appalling Disaster
Tenements Collapse
Families Buried in Debris
Several Killed and Injured
Ruins in Flames’
The fire, Yearling gathered, had broken out after midnight when a tunnel made by the rescuers let air into the smouldering ruins, but the fire brigade kept it under control. A boy of seventeen, Eugene Salmon, who had rescued several children, was killed himself while trying to carry his little sister to safety. A reporter of Freeman’s Journal wrote: ‘The two houses numbered 66 and 67 were owned by Mr. Ralph Bradshaw who is also the owner of extensive property elsewhere in the city. His agent, Mr. H. Nichols, informed me yesterday that about two months ago, an official inspection of house No. 66 had been made and he had been directed to carry out certain repairs. This he had done and he states that the improvements were effected to the satisfaction of the inspector.’
At the inquest, the inspector confirmed the agent’s statement. Yearling, reading it, knew that the collapse had been so complete that there could be no evidence left to prove or disprove the inspector’s assertion. Later he received a letter from Bradshaw. He had been too shocked to attend the inquest, he said. He was taking Mrs. Bradshaw abroad for an indefinite period. His agent would handle all that was necessary. He would write soon.
The news headlines of the same day announced the opening of a relief fund.
‘Freeman-Telegraph
Shilling Fund
For Relief of Sufferers
Homeless Families
Destitute Orphans
An Urgent Appeal’
Yearling put Bradshaw’s letter aside and subscribed a thousand shillings. Then he thought again and sent on another thousand shillings, this time with the specific request that it should go to the family of the boy Eugene Salmon. After that he took a walk by the harbour, passing the ruins of the collapsed houses, about which the workmen were building a hoarding. It was a grey day, cold, with a mist blowing in from the sea. He walked towards Sandycove, remembering an October sunset of an earlier year, when the sea had drawn his thoughts towards England and a remote past and Father O’Connor had offered him God as a consolation, as though Christ could be passed around like a plate of sandwiches. The sea again compelled his attention, pounding in now through its grey mist and breaking on its grey rocks, an age old motion, dragging the pebbles after it in its backwash, full of terrible strength but not a brain in its vast bulk, a slave played on by every wind. The wind too was a slave, compounded out of combinations of hotness and coldness. What was there left now of school or university? No wisdom, little companionship, and memories only of an odd escapade. Two sentences ran in his head without relevance, mnemonics taught him by his music teacher when he was a child of about twelve.
‘Good deeds are ever bearing fruits’—the sharp keys.
‘Fat boys eat and drink greedily’—the flat keys.
The information had been useful.
On his return journey he made a slight detour in order to pass the Bradshaws’ house. It was boarded up and he stood to look at it. He regretted the piano inside, now silent, and the absence of the gentle woman who had played it. There was no longer anyone to bring flowers to.
Mary saw it boarded up too. She came to it, unsuspecting, at dusk on a Sunday afternoon. The gate creaked as she opened it, the carriage way was littered with leaves that had been left to rot. In places the wind had piled them into black hillocks. The window that had once framed a view of the splendours of Edward VII was shuttered. She knocked at the side entrance as a matter of form, knowing there was no one at all to answer and knowing too that its clamouring would fill her with terror. There were ghosts inside, ghosts of the Dead, left-behind ghosts of the Living. She forced herself to wait a little while, feeling a shutter might jerk open and that Mr. Bradshaw would glare at her from a curtainless window. She did not dare knock again at the basement door. She feared Miss Gilchrist’s face.
Lamplight and candles showed in the windows of Chandlers Court when she returned home. Rashers limped into the hallway just a little ahead of her, his sandwich boards laid aside because it was Sunday.
Fitz was reading by lamplight. He had the kettle boiling for her on the fire. When he saw her face he left down his book.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘They’ve gone.’
‘The Bradshaws?’
‘The house is all boarded up,’ she said. Her voice was very quiet.
She began to prepare the tea. For the first time since the lockout had begun she had returned empty-handed. The consequences troubled her.
‘It never crossed my mind they’d go away,’ she said to him.
‘It crossed mine,’ Fitz confessed.
‘We’re going to miss their help,’ she said.
He knew that. The furniture, the flooring even, all had come from Mrs. Bradshaw. Food too and at times, he suspected, money. She took down the mugs the children used and put them on the table. Then she sat down suddenly and began to cry. He went to her.
‘Mary,’ he said, ‘we’ll manage. Don’t let it upset you.’
‘You know what’s going to happen,’
she said.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but we’ll weather that. Others have gone through it already.’
She meant that now the furniture would begin to go, piece by piece, the pictures off the wall, the ornaments she prized because they gave the room an air of comfort and sufficiency.
‘What will we do?’ she asked.
‘We’ll have our tea,’ he told her, ‘it’s not the end of the world.’
He took over the laying of the table and began to cut the bread.
‘Where are the children?’ she asked after a while. She had stopped crying.
‘With Mrs. Mulhall.’
‘I still have the money for their fare . . .’
‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘that’s the only real worry looked after.’
‘Yes. My father would take care of them.’
‘If it comes to that,’ he said, ‘but it may not.’
‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘When you feel the time has come—say so. Is that all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said. She took over the making of the tea again.
‘This will be ready in a moment,’ she told him.
‘I’ll go up and call the children,’ he said.
When he had gone she paused for some time to measure their new situation. She turned down the lamp a little to husband the oil. Then she resumed her work.
When it became necessary Mrs. Hennessy conducted her to the pawnshop. They packed the pram with two chairs and a small selection of ornaments. Rashers was ringing his bell and entertaining the queue. His sandwich boards announced to the world that the value obtainable at The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment was superior to any other in the city. He had a rigmarole which he repeated over and over again. As Mary and Mrs. Hennessy joined the queue he rang his bell and called out to them.
‘Now ladies step along lively with no shovin’ and no pushin’. First come first served. Don’t give the polis the impression that The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment is the scene of an illegal assembly.’ Then he rang his bell louder and bawled out generally. ‘Hay foot straw foot, Step along and see a live lion stuffed with straw, Eating boiled potatoes raw. Have yiz e’er a blanket to pawn or sell—e’er a table or e’er a chair? Best prices in town for pairs of ornamental pieces.’
‘That fella has a slate loose,’ Mrs. Hennessy decided.
‘I heard that, ma’am,’ Rashers challenged her.
‘It matters little to Ellen Hennessy whether you did or not,’ she said.
‘But I’ll not take issue on it,’ Rashers told the queue, ‘because her husband did his bit in Sackville Street on Bloody Sunday.’
‘What happened him?’ a voice asked.
‘He was walked on be a horse,’ Mrs. Hennessy told her.
‘Which is not half as sore as being walked on be an elephant,’ Rashers said generally. He went off, ringing his bell in triumph.
They queued for over two hours. The women discussed the food kitchens and the arrival of scabs from England. They talked about the health of each other’s children and the way to drive a good bargain with Mr. Silverwater and his assistants. ‘Don’t go near the son if you can avoid it,’ they advised Mary, ‘he’s worse than the oul fella.’ She waited and listened and tried to forget the two chairs and the other articles that were lying in the pram. In bits and pieces from week to week her home would be eaten away. She was standing in line for the first time with the half starved.
‘Your poor children will begin to feel the pinch now,’ Mrs. Hennessy said.
‘If it gets worse I might send them away,’ Mary said.
‘And where would you send them?’
But Mary was sorry she had spoken at all.
‘It’s something I’d have to speak to my husband about first,’ she said.
Rashers limped his way through the poorer streets of the city, ringing his bell and giving out his rigmarole to keep his spirits up and fight the fatigue and the monotony.
‘Step up and see a live lion stuffed with straw, Eating boiled potatoes raw. Have yiz e’er a blanket to pawn or sell, e’er a table or e’er a chair? Best prices in town for pairs of ornamental pieces.’
A policeman threatened to take him in for disturbing the peace. For a while a gang of children followed him, attentive and curious. When he got back to Chandlers Court it was dark. He met Hennessy and sat down wearily on the steps.
‘Sit down and have a chat.’
‘I can’t,’ Hennessy said. ‘I’ve got to go out to do a bit of a job.’
‘At this hour of the night?’
‘It’s a class of a watchman’s job,’ Hennessy said.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Crampton’s near the Park.’
‘You’re well got there.’
‘I know one of the foremen.’
‘I thought Crampton’s men were locked out?’
‘This is only a casual class of a thing,’ Hennessy said uneasily, ‘a watchman’s job.’
‘I’d be careful, all the same,’ Rashers warned him. ‘You don’t want to be dumped into the Liffey for being a scab.’
‘There’s no picket,’ Hennessy said. ‘I’m not passing any picket.’
‘Are there polis guarding it?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’
‘That’s an ill-omened brood, the same polis,’ Rashers said. ‘One of them threatened to run me in today.’
‘What for?’
‘For ringing my bell in the pursuit of me juties. He asked me did I think I was a bloody fire brigade.’
‘A smart alec,’ Hennessy said with sympathy. ‘I’ve met that kind myself.’
Rashers became enraged.
‘In this kip of a city it’s regarded as a crime for a poor man to go about his lawful occasions. The rich can blow factory hooters and sirens and motor horns and the whole shooting gallery. But when a poor man rings a bell for his livelihood it’s regarded as illegal.’
‘I’d a brush with one of them myself some weeks ago,’ Hennessy said. ‘A fella in plain clothes that was watching the food ships arriving. Asked for my name and address.’
‘I hope you gave him his answer.’ Rashers spat from the steps into the basement and peered into the darkness as the glob of mucous made its silent descent. It relieved his hatred of policemen. Hennessy decided it was not the moment for the whole truth.
‘I took him very cool,’ he told Rashers. ‘“Who are you?” I asked him—“and may I see your credentials, if you have any?”’
‘Did he show them?’
‘He produced them for inspection right enough,’ Hennessy lied. ‘He was a superintendent.’
‘That’s where the public’s money goes,’ Rashers complained, ‘paying thick-looking gougers from the country for spying on native-born Dublinmen. Did he try to interfere with you?’
‘He was objecting to me cheering,’ Hennessy said, ‘but I took him up on it. “So far as my knowledge of the matter goes, and correct me if I’m wrong, Superintendent,” I said to him—“but I’m not aware of anything on the statute books that makes it a crime for a man to cheer.”’
‘That was right,’ Rashers approved, ‘the nerve of the bloody rozzers in this city is appalling. Did he take it any further?’
Hennessy felt his powers of invention flagging.
‘No,’ he said, ‘the matter rested at that.’
‘Jaysus,’ Rashers said, ‘it bates Banagher. First they open your skull with a cowardly blow. And then they want to know your name, address and antecedents.’
He tried another spit, which sailed in a graceful arc between the railings. It pleased him.
‘Were you down at the food kitchens at all?’
‘Once or twice for curiosity’s sake only,’ Hennessy answered. ‘I’ve no union card.’
‘Did you ever see the Right Reverend Father Vincent Holy B. O’Connor down there?’
‘I can’t say I have.’
‘Well—I did,’ Rashers said, ‘three
times.’
‘What brings him to those parts?’ Hennessy wondered.
‘It’s not the soup anyway,’ Rashers decided.
‘No,’ Hennessy agreed.
‘It’s no charitable thought that moves him—that’s a certainty; a long cool drink of holy water is the most you’d ever get off that fella.’ Rashers screwed up his eyes. ‘It often struck me he might be a spy for the archbishop.’
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ Hennessy said, ‘Dr. Walsh is a decent man.’
‘They’re all the wan in this city,’ Rashers said, ‘condemning the poor and doing the unsuspecting Pope out of his Peter’s Pence. I suppose you wouldn’t have a cigarette to spare?’
‘Not till Friday—payday,’ Hennessy said.
Rashers nodded in sympathy.
‘The same as myself.’ He rose from the steps. It cost him so much effort that Hennessy had to help him.
‘Don’t get into any trouble over that job,’ Rashers warned him. ‘Watch yourself now. And make sure it’s above board.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Hennessy assured him.
But he was worried and decided to say as little about it as he could. Crampton’s men were locked out. But there was no picket and he was not replacing anybody. He brooded over it as he walked along the quays, the river keeping him company for almost a mile. When he turned eventually into the back streets they were dark and unusually quiet. They oppressed him with their air of misery and hunger. His own children were sleeping on the floor and his wife had only an upturned box to sit on because the last of their few chairs had now been sold. The stump of a candle that guttered in the centre of the table could not be replaced until payday.
The neighbours were no longer able to spare anything. Something had to be done.
In the foundry Carrington, with the help of the clerical and supervisory staffs, was still managing to keep the furnaces on slow heat. An unanticipated problem was rust. It attacked idle machinery with a persistence that defeated all his efforts. Where he discovered it, he got the staff to treat it with sandpaper and oily rags, yet it threatened always to gain the upper hand. The overhead wires that fed the Telpher became slack after a stormy night and had to be left that way. A faulty gutter caused a patch of dampness to disfigure the wallpaper in the boardroom. He could do nothing about it despite Mr. Bullman’s repeated instructions. There were ladders, but nobody who could be trusted to work at such a height.
Strumpet City Page 46
