Strumpet City

by James Plunkett

  He shouldered his walking stick and remembered the barometer in the hall. It had never been so wrong. As he walked back he said to Mathews:

  ‘Do you know the expression—wet and windy, like the barber’s cat?’

  ‘I know it well,’ Mathews confessed.

  ‘Why the barber’s cat, I wonder?’

  ‘A consequence of frugality,’ the poet explained. ‘Its staple diet is hair and soapsuds.’

  The explanation was unexpected but, on reflection, curiously satisfactory.

  ‘I see,’ Yearling said.

  The day which filled Yearling with nostalgia for the lost world of boyhood found Mr. Silverwater in a contrary mood. He was not a lover of sunshine. At the best of times it hurt his eyes. When unseasonable its unexpected warmth was uncomfortable. He was a man who regulated the weight of his underwear in accordance with the calendar on a rigid basis calculated over a lifetime. It was his misfortune to have a constitution intolerant of cold and an occupation which obliged him to work in what he was convinced was the draughtiest shop in Dublin. The unseasonable day caught him in two sets of vests and underpants, in addition to the usual jacket, waistcoat and woollen cardigan. The result was a feeling of prickly suffocation. He endured it. The alternative of taking something off would expose his health to the mercy of more seasonable temperatures likely (at the drop of a hat) to return. But the discomfiture preyed on his spirit. He snapped at his customers and drove ruinous bargains. He was not sure that he wanted custom. His shelves and his storerooms were choked with paraphernalia which, if the lock-out went on very much longer, would never be redeemed. On an already glutted market their present value was negligible. At lunchtime he discussed it with his senior clerk. They went through the storerooms together. There was too much in goods and too little in capital.

  ‘From Monday, Mr. Johnston,’ he decided as they were both opening the doors for the afternoon trade, ‘from Monday, business with regular customers only.’

  Mr. Johnston approved by nodding his head until it was in danger of flying off.

  The sound of Rashers’ bell in the distance held them listening for a moment in the shop door.

  ‘That’s another thing, Mr. Johnston,’ Silverwater said, but did not finish his thought.

  ‘Of course,’ Mr. Johnston answered, as though there could be no possible doubt about whatever it was.

  Rashers, who had no underwear at all, praised God for the heat of the sun. It would do him good; his cough, the creaking in his bones. He rang his bell at gatherings of men and women, at dogs that barked back in fury at him, at terrified cats that arched their backs and then shot away from him. He rang it for the amusement of the children. They no longer leered at him. His sandwich boards and his bell had transformed him into a person of consequence, someone they wanted to be when they grew up. Their admiration filled him with pleasure.

  At lunchtime he went to the waste lot where the man in the striped pyjamas still smiled from his perch on the unsinkable bovril bottle. The religious text had been changed. It now read: Take up your Cross, and follow Me.

  Rashers took off the sandwich boards and made a seat of an upturned bucket. He began his lunch. He had bread and dripping and a bottle of water. It was quiet and sunny. Three birds were dozing on a nearby chimney. They were silhouetted against the sun. He failed to determine whether they were gulls or crows. The grass at his feet and the warmth of the sun set him thinking of race meetings he had attended long ago, when he was active enough to walk long distances to play his tin whistle for the crowds and hardy enough to sleep at nightfall in the shelter of a ditch. Officers and their ladies, gentlemen with tall hats and binoculars, three-card-trick men, tipsters and fruit vendors. He had often bought himself an orange from one of their trays. If he had one now he’d eat it skin and all. A ditch was well enough in summer if you remembered to bring plenty of newspaper. One of these days, when the summer came, he’d buy himself an orange. To hell with the money.

  He put on his boards again and tested his bell. The birds rose from the chimney stack in fright. He was stiff from sitting. He put one foot carefully before him and then the other and after a few difficult steps walking became a simple enough matter. More or less. The bloody boards were a weight. Take up your cross was right. Here I come, Jesus, one front and back.

  At doors in the unexpected sun the old and the cripples had been left out to air. He greeted each of them. A Grand Day, he shouted. Thanks be to God, they shouted back. Or gave no answer but smiled. Or made no response whatever, neither hearing nor seeing him nor anything else, habituated to separateness, aware only of being put out and taken in like clothes off a line with each change of weather. When I can no longer fend for myself, Rashers prayed, then God, let me die.

  The thought stirred him to activity. His voice resounded in the street that had opened its hall doors to let in the sunshine.

  ‘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.’

  He worked contentedly through the afternoon, until at half past six or thereabouts his bell was heard once again outside Mr. Silverwater’s shop. By that time he was weary. He wondered about his dog, which had been locked up all day. He wanted to get home to it, to make himself tea with water which Mrs. Bartley wouldn’t mind boiling for him, to take off the boots which were crucifying his feet. There were no customers at that late hour. The interior of the shop was dark after the light of the streets. Mr. Johnston looked up from a ledger, blinking at him.

  ‘Tierney,’ he said, ‘Mr. Silverwater wants to see you.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the store at the back.’

  Rashers, used to the place now, lifted the counter panel and let himself through. He groped his way down a dim passage. Mr. Silverwater was trying to make sense of the conglomeration which had built up as a result of the lock-out.

  ‘You wanted me,’ Rashers said.

  Mr. Silverwater dragged his thoughts from the problem of his stock with some difficulty. He stared at Rashers.

  ‘I did, Tierney. Let me see. Yes. You can leave the boards and the bell here tonight.’

  ‘And what about the morning?’

  ‘You won’t need them. I’ve decided to stop this advertising.’

  ‘Are you not opening tomorrow?’ Rashers asked.

  ‘Our arrangement has come to an end,’ Mr. Silverwater said. He was still preoccupied.

  ‘Do you mean I’m sacked?’ Rashers asked. He was rooted to the ground.

  ‘You finish up tonight,’ Mr. Silverwater said, ‘Mr. Johnston will put away the bell somewhere. Give it to him on your way out.’

  ‘And my money—what about what’s due to me?’

  ‘Call at the end of the week for it,’ Mr. Silverwater said. ‘We’ll settle whatever you’re entitled to then.’

  Rashers felt an ache inside him, as though something were eating at the wall of his stomach.

  ‘Could I not finish out the week?’ he asked.

  ‘Not another hour,’ Mr. Silverwater said to him. He waved at the junk which surrounded them.

  ‘Do you think I can afford to take any more of it. The half of it will never be redeemed and there’s no one I know who would buy it. It’s regular customers only from this out. I’m busy now. Call back on Saturday for your money.’

  He turned his whole attention to his stock. Rashers tried to piece an appeal together. It was useless. The ache wouldn’t allow it. He stared foolishly at Mr. Silverwater’s back. He could think of nothing. In the end there was nothing to be done except to take off the boards and leave them against the wall. He went back through the passage and into the shop. Mr. Johnston was still engrossed in his ledger, staring hard at it in the poor light. Rashers put the bell on the counter beside him. He looked up at that but Rashers made no effort to talk to him. He opened the door of the shop and stepped out into the street. Dusk was settling over it and the pa
vement was giving back a little of the heat it had stored during the course of the beautiful, unseasonable day. Its ghost still haunted the sky. As Rashers limped his way slowly towards Chandlers Court, it faded away. The sick and the dying had been taken in again from the steps.

  In the night time hatred kept Mrs. Hennessy awake. She heard her children whimpering with hunger and cried out to God to curse those who had stopped her husband from earning. By day, though it tormented her unceasingly, she kept it hidden away. She searched out small charities and showered blessings on every giver. Her mouth seemed to have no lips at all, her eyes were those of a bird of prey. She borrowed daily and sent the older children out to beg. When hope of borrowing was exhausted she went into remote neighbourhoods where people would not know her and begged herself, until a policeman terrified her by asking her name and address.

  He made a great show of taking out his notebook and examining the point of his pencil.

  ‘Is your husband on strike?’

  ‘No, sir. He’s a decent man and they stopped him from going to his work.’

  ‘Who stopped him?’

  ‘A bad neighbour, sir.’

  ‘What name?’

  She hesitated. The notebook and the helmet terrified her.

  ‘A man named Fitzpatrick—and a butty.’

  ‘Where does Fitzpatrick live?’

  ‘In the same house as myself, sir.’

  ‘I see.’ She watched as the policeman wrote the information into his book. He closed it with a snap.

  ‘Be about your business now,’ he said to her. She hurried away. It was some time before it occurred to her that she had given information about her neighbours to the police. The thought brought her to a stop.

  The evening sky drizzled rain, leaving fog patches in laneways. She was more terrified now and still without food. The Protestant charities she could go to would want her to turn away from her religion and deny the Blessed Virgin. That would bring worse luck still. Temptation began to trail her through street after street. At the gates of St. Brigid’s she stopped again. She peered through the rain at the church. If her own clergy refused her, there would be nothing else left.

  The door of the vestry was opened to her by Timothy Keever.

  ‘Is Father O’Connor within?’

  ‘What name?’ he asked.

  ‘Mrs. Hennessy.’

  He thought he recognised her.

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Chandlers Court.’

  It was a street that was barred to him for ever.

  ‘And your business?’

  ‘I want a little help. I have a houseful of hungry children and my husband was stopped from working by a gang from the union. Don’t turn me away empty-handed.’

  ‘Who stopped him?’

  ‘Bob Fitzpatrick and Pat Bannister.’

  She had informed again. It was too late now to turn back. She heard Keever saying:

  ‘I may be able to help you. Come inside.’

  In the waiting room set apart for the altar boys he listened attentively to what she had to say.

  ‘Your husband is not in any union?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And the neighbours are against him?’

  ‘The most of them is, sir.’

  ‘Have you heard any talk among them about a scheme for sending children to England?’

  ‘There was a meeting about that only yesterday.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Liberty Hall.’

  ‘Father O’Connor has been hearing rumours of this for some time past,’ Keever said, ‘and if it’s true he’ll want to know everything about it.’

  ‘It’s true enough,’ she said, ‘the mothers were told that homes could be found in Liverpool for hundreds of the children.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who agreed to take part?’

  ‘A few weeks ago Mrs. Fitzpatrick told me she was thinking of sending her children away.’

  ‘To Liverpool?’

  ‘She didn’t say where. She said she’d have to ask her husband about it.’

  ‘I see,’ Keever said. It was his duty to keep Father O’Connor informed. The woman would be useful in the future.

  ‘I can’t assist you now,’ he told her, ‘because I’ve to wait here for Father O’Connor myself. But if you call to my house later—about nine o’clock—I’ll see you get a share of whatever help we can afford.’

  ‘The blessings of God and His Holy Mother on you for that.’

  ‘Say nothing to others about it,’ he warned her, ‘in case there’d be more blackguardism.’

  ‘I’ll say nothing at all,’ she assured him.

  He saw her to the door. He felt sympathy and pity for her. She closed her shawl against the rain and walked the streets aimlessly, wearing the time away until it was nine o’clock. She refused to think about what she had done. The hours stretched endlessly. She bore them rather than face her children empty-handed.

  Father O’Connor found Keever’s news confirmed in his newspaper. A Mrs. Rand and a Mrs. Montefiore had been organising accommodation for the children of the strikers in the homes of workers in England. The report said they had three hundred and forty offers already. The headlines and editorials reflected his own horror. Little Catholic children were to be sent to Protestant or even socialistic homes, regardless of the risk to their faith and their immortal souls. The scheme would be used as a trap by the proselytisers. Larkin had finally shown his hand.

  Father O’Sullivan admitted the danger. The Catholic press seemed certain of it. There was little to be hoped for from Father Giffley. All he could expect from that quarter would be a snub. The notice hanging on the wall to the right of the picture of the Crucifixion still commanded him to be silent. He put the matter to Father O’Sullivan.

  ‘I think perhaps if you were to approach him.’

  ‘I wonder if I should?’

  ‘We have a duty. Surely you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘I think we must at least ask for a direction.’

  But he returned to report failure.

  ‘There is to be no preaching. We are still forbidden to take sides.’

  ‘Did you stress the danger of apostacy—that souls may be lost to us for ever?’

  ‘I told him I believed that possibility certainly existed.’

  ‘And what was his answer?’

  Father O’Sullivan hesitated.

  ‘He is a hard person to understand. He said it would be a poor religion that couldn’t stand up to a few weeks’ holiday.’

  ‘If that is the view he takes,’ Father O’Connor said, ‘we will be forced to act in spite of him.’

  Press reaction justified him. The editorials worked up a public outcry. A priest from Donnybrook led a picket of Catholic militants to patrol the quays and the railway stations, determined, he declared, to prevent the move by force if necessary. Other clergy joined with him. The archbishop addressed a letter to the mothers of the children. He asked them if they had abandoned their faith and put it to them that they could not be held worthy of the name of Catholic mothers if they co-operated. The headlines made a display.

  ‘Workers’ Children

  to go to England

  Catholic Mothers

  Archbishop’s Warning’

  Father O’Connor now knew where his duty lay. If he was forbidden the use of the pulpit, he could still make a physical protest. The souls of little children were at stake. His way was clear.

  The controversy took a dramatic turn which caused Yearling to consult Mathews. He wrote:

  My dear Mathews,

  I have just read that Mrs. Rand and Mrs. Montefiore have been arrested (!) and are to answer a charge of KIDNAPPING!!

  Can you throw any light on this? It seems quite preposterous. Is there anything I can do?

  This public pandemonium about Proselytising is beginning to irk me, pallid Protestant though I am. There was a verse in the Leader the other day

  �
�Where naked children run and play

  Oh, there we find the wily

  The slum soul-snatching bird of prey

  At work for Mrs. Smyley’

  Is it yours, by any chance?’

  B. Yearling

  Mathews answered:

  Dear Yearling,

  It is true that the two ladies in question have been arrested and are being held on the charge which you rightly describe as preposterous. It cannot possibly stand up, but it will keep them out of the way and I suppose the authorities find this a convenient device for upsetting our plans. It shows the lengths they are prepared to go to support the employers. To hell with them. I have volunteered with some others to conduct the children to the ships and the railway stations. Would you care to join us?

  The verse you quote shocks me. Naked children?

  Here is one from the pen of a humble, working class scribe. I read it in The Worker the other day.

  ‘A toiling and a moiling

  O what a life of bliss

  They’ll promise you heaven in the next life

  While they’re robbing you in this.’

  Robust and down-to-earth—isn’t it? He has all this religious hocus-pocus in shrewd perspective.

  T. Mathews

  Yearling thought about it. He decided to write again:

  My dear Mathews,

  Yes, I will join you. But as an observer. Let us arrange it.

  Yearling

  CHAPTER NINE

  Father O’Connor, having fortified himself with a substantial lunch against a day that he felt was going to be exacting and distasteful, went out into the streets of Dublin to do battle for God. He had rehearsed his motives meticulously to make certain they were sincere. They were. Catholic souls needed his intervention. Although the children of his parish might be of little consequence to the world they lived in: lowliest of the lowly born, illiterate, ill-used even, each was as precious to God and had as much right to salvation as the highest and noblest in the land. In that belief he would play his priestly part. He regretted only that Father O’Sullivan had not seen fit to join him.