Strumpet City

by James Plunkett

  They all turned together to look at him.

  ‘What devil’s work is this?’

  It was the voice of the Pulpit. They stopped. Their eyes fixed on his priestly collar, then moved almost in unison to their spokesman. The sergeant squared his shoulders.

  ‘We’re only doing our duty, Father.’

  ‘Duty.’

  ‘This man here intimidated another and prevented him from attending his work. When we called to question him in the course of our duty he became violent and refused to co-operate.’

  ‘Indeed. And for that reason you terrify his wife and deliberately destroy his property.’

  ‘That was in the course of the struggle.’

  ‘Was this hulking brute here breaking up a table in the course of the struggle?’

  ‘That was in the heat of the moment, Father.’

  ‘You’re a glib-tongued, lying rogue,’ Father Giffley said. He crossed the room and stood over the two policemen.

  ‘Release that man,’ he ordered.

  The policemen obeyed him. Fitz straightened his arms. The agony of doing so was almost worse than what he had endured when they had twisted them behind his back. Mary rushed over to put her arms about him and then to wipe his face. She was sobbing uncontrollably.

  ‘Now get out,’ Father Giffley said to the police. The sergeant began to bluster.

  ‘We have our duty to do . . .’ he said.

  Father Giffley strode across to him.

  ‘If you delay another moment,’ he said, ‘I’ll have you put behind bars yourself for what you have done to these people. I intend to report everything I’ve seen.’

  ‘I mean no disrespect to your calling, Father . . .’

  ‘Go,’ Father Giffley ordered.

  The sergeant signalled to his men. They left.

  Father Giffley took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Mary.

  ‘Use this,’ he said, ‘attend to your husband’s injuries. What’s your name?’

  ‘Fitzpatrick, Father.’

  ‘Fitzpatrick. I intend to report what has happened. Perhaps we should call an ambulance?’

  ‘I’m all right, Father,’ Fitz said.

  ‘Very well.’

  Father Giffley took a pound note from his pocket and left it on the mantelpiece.

  ‘A little assistance,’ he said, ‘you’ll need it.’ He turned about at the door and said to them:

  ‘Have courage.’ Then he left.

  The people had come back into the house and were crowding the staircase and the hall. He went grimly through them, neither turning his head nor acknowledging what they said to him. When he reached his cab he said to the driver.

  ‘Take me to Liberty Hall.’

  ‘Liberty Hall?’

  ‘Isn’t that Mr. Larkin’s headquarters?’

  ‘It is, Father.’

  ‘Very well. Take me there.’

  The void was forgotten, yet the streets that moved past the narrow window of the cab were not altogether real. There was too little of them to be seen at any one time; a patch of cobbles, an open door, railings from which a child, seated on a rope swing, bobbed once into sight and was whipped away. He opened the window wide and leaned nearer to it and that was better. The smell of sea and shipping came to him. He saw the surface of the river tormented by the wind, the funnels of ships against the threatening sky, gulls rising against it and being whirled backwards; and at last, the squat building by Butt Bridge with the words over the door that appeared in the papers day after day: Liberty Hall.

  ‘Wait for me,’ he said.

  There was the unfailing queue for food and soup. He passed them. In the hallway and on the staircase the smell of cooking and of ill fed bodies intermingled. He knocked on a door which was opened by a man in the working class uniform of cap and knotted muffler.

  ‘I wish to speak with Mr. Larkin.’

  ‘Who shall I say, Father?’

  ‘Father Giffley of St. Brigid’s.’

  ‘Please wait here, Father.’

  He stepped inside. It was a long room overlooking the river. There were rough benches about the walls and a long table in the centre. In anticipation of the outcome of the forthcoming trial for sedition men were preparing rough posters and fitting them to poles. One lot read ‘Release Larkin’. And another ‘Larkin gaoled by Lloyd George’. There was a third:

  ‘British Comrades

  No Larkin

  No Lloyd George’

  The man returned and said, ‘This way, Father.’ He opened the door of an inner room, nodded to Father Giffley to enter, closed the door behind him.

  ‘Father Giffley,’ Larkin said, ‘please sit down.’

  ‘I would rather stand,’ Father Giffley said.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Father Giffley, face to face with the most talked about man in the country, remained silent. He saw a man of about thirty-five years of age, big physically, with a face which had a strong jaw and deep circles of tiredness under the eyes. A lock of brown hair fell across the forehead and had a streak of grey running through it.

  ‘Don’t hesitate,’ Larkin said, ‘I get at least three of your cloth here each week—all warning me of the devil and hell’s fire. What complaint against me have you?’

  ‘I have no complaint against you.’

  ‘You’ve come to offer to help me?’

  ‘I have,’ Father Giffley said.

  ‘A number of priests have done that, too. For their own sakes I send them away.’

  ‘There is something I need advice about,’ Father Giffley said. ‘Today, in one of the houses in my parish I found a body of police who were acting like blackguards. They had beaten a man and terrified his wife and children. When I arrived they were wantonly destroying every stick of furniture.’

  ‘Didn’t you know that it happens all the time?’

  ‘Perhaps I did. But I had never witnessed it before. I intend to lodge a complaint and if necessary, give evidence. I want advice on how best to go about it.’

  ‘It would do no good.’

  ‘It can be tried.’

  ‘It has been tried countless times already,’ Larkin said, ‘by eminent men who have courage and sympathy. And by a few men of your own calling too, Father. Nothing is ever done, because the Government is committed to the employers and the police can indulge in any lawlessness they like so long as it’s aimed at the poor.’

  ‘Then I’ll take part in your protest march,’ Father Giffley said, ‘and condemn it from your platform.’ It was the voice of the Pulpit again, determined, authoritative, loud enough to fill a church. But there was a note in it which brought Larkin to his feet. Father Giffley’s face was red and its muscles were no longer under his control.

  ‘Father,’ Larkin said, ‘I’m grateful for your offer, but it wouldn’t be wise for either of us. Now let me thank you and see you safely down the stairs.’

  Father Giffley did not move. He was angry. He was ashamed. It was a shame he had never experienced before, a dark tide of shame from the half-world he had tried to defend himself against all day. It flowed noiselessly into him and filled him, engulfing everything. He began to sob, but without tears. Larkin put his arm about his shoulder. Father Giffley said:

  ‘Don’t come with me. Please continue with your work.’

  The cabman was still waiting for him. There was no rain now. The wind had bundled it away. They set off once more through streets that were growing dark with evening, so that their disconnected fragments jolting past the window were too dim to have any impact. He was grateful for that. He listened to the grinding of cobbles, the swish of puddles beneath the wheels. The need to drink again became pressing. He tapped the glass.

  ‘You may let me down,’ he said, ‘I’ll walk a little.’ He paid off the cabdriver, then took his bearings. He was on the riverside again. The waters, still tormented by the wind, were criss-crossed with laces of foam and slapped angrily against the berthing walls. They stretched before him,
drawing his eyes with them as they widened and outran the massive confines of the quays and merged into darker, undisciplined spaces of the bay. It was a vista of cold, grey tones. A lamplighter, moving at a distance ahead of him and to his right, lifted his long stick with its taperlike flame and added bead after bead to a chain of softly glowing lamps. The melancholy became unbearable. He hastened his steps. The windows of a public house relieved the gloom of a side street. He passed the large swing doors and found what he wanted, the small, discreet entrance marked—Snug.

  There was a slide in the wall which opened when he tapped on it.

  ‘Whiskey,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll put a match to the gas for you,’ the barman offered.

  ‘No, no—leave it as it is.’

  The partition dividing the snug from the bar did not rise all the way to the ceiling. The light that spilled over was enough for his purpose; it was insufficient to betray his features or his calling.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the barman said. He brought a glass of whiskey which Father Giffley raised to his lips, then lowered without tasting to say quickly before the barman could turn away: ‘Bring me another.’

  Some time later he sat down. He slept a little and seemed to dream. He heard the door open, heard a scuffle and smothered laughter and then a woman’s voice said:

  ‘Oh Jaysus, stop, look, there’s someone there.’

  Or thought he had. He could not be sure. There were three glasses of whiskey on the table in front of him, little yellow points of light in the semi-darkness. The bar had grown noisy, a persistent but sleepy noise that was now that of rough, confused voices, now the far off murmur of a church full of people at prayer. He took one of the glasses and swallowed. One little yellow point of light went out. He placed it sadly between the two that still glowed. He regarded it.

  Bloodied faces begged him to have pity on them, not to beat them, not to forget he was a man of God. A puppy that had been given to him in his father’s house when he was seven years old came and barked at him and wagged its tail and asked him to play. It was white with brown markings. The sister of the bishop threatened to report him. She was as hateful as ever. She told him he was a disgrace to the priesthood, one who consecrated Christ only to crucify Him. No wonder there was blood on everything he saw or touched.

  As she said this the two yellow points of light became red. He was about to shout at her. A voice advised him not to; he would be heard by others. Instead he raised one of the glasses with a sudden, defiant movement and swallowed. Thick, clinging, sickeningly warm, the taste of blood transfixed him. He spat out what he could. It was no use. The odour spread outwards and thickened the air about him. The semi-darkness became unbearable. He left down his glass and groped his way out to the street.

  A band was playing in the distance. At first he could hear only the rhythmic beating of the drum. He tried to ignore it, suspecting that the sound came from inside his head. But as it grew louder in volume and the brass and reed instruments added their voices he realised what it was.

  The footpath, still wet from the rain, glowed a little in the light of lamps and shopwindows. It had a tilt. He leaned sideways to balance, decided his direction, lurched forward. The wind caught him full in the face. It was the blow of a fist. He endured it. He was used to beatings; from superiors, from anonymous letter writers, from friends of the days of studenthood who had found it more prudent to forget him. The parish he ruled over beat and bruised him, with its hovels, its ignorance, its hunger, its filth. It had broken him with beatings. It had filled his mouth full of blood. He stopped at the corner, leaned against a wall, braced himself against the sudden lurch of the unstable street. The band approached.

  He would go immediately to his church. That was his refuge. But first the band. The bandsmen wore peaked caps and wide bandoliers of shining black leather. The brassy notes battered against the wall he was holding, making it beat like a giant pulse beneath his hand. The din grew and the bandsmen multiplied, until they spread in fanlike waves from the centre of the street to the wall he was leaning against. With shining bandoliers and sounding instruments they passed over and through him. The wall offered no resistance to them, they brushed by him without impact, they filled the street and the sky. The banners followed and whirled above his head like shrieking birds, the torches tossed and sparked and flared in long processions down corridors of his mind, boots pounded in streets of his being, the citadel in which he had barricaded the last of himself was assailed and shaken. He hid there, awaiting dissolution. Then the band passed.

  ‘Help the lock-out, Father.’

  Someone was rattling a box at him. He wiped the heavy sweat from his face, pushed the box aside, lurched forward in his effort to get quickly away.

  ‘Jaysus,’ the shocked voice said, ‘will you look at his Reverence—drunk as a lord.’

  The words cut into him like a knife thrust. He recollected himself, posed cunningly as an invalid, made use of his walking stick, simulated a limp. It took him, unnoticed for the most part, through the remaining streets. They were not, at that hour, populous. He crossed the granite flag with its worn depression, passed the holy water font with its green slime and found himself in the dimness and quietness he had desired. His church.

  He sat down. A woman, deep in prayer, knelt some distance from him. At shrines and side chapels candles, like gossips, bobbed numerous heads and held mischievous conversations. The sanctuary lamp, sign of the Real Presence, houseflag of the Lord God, showed a tiny point of flame above the high altar’s sacrificial slab. Christ was in residence. What was an altar, then? A monument to the world’s cowardice, where Holy men cringed to and propitiated God’s anger with the blood of others; saving their own skins with slaughtered bodies; with lambs, with doves, with the innocent blood of Christ Himself. The World—not Christ—judged, mocked, derided; the world trampled on the weak and battered in its rage at the faces of the defenceless; the world—not Christ—crucified, maimed, chastised with rods, demanded sacrifice. What priest could take the body of the world and break it between his fingers? How many desired to?

  The woman in front had forgotten his presence, if she had ever been aware of it. Her prayers had stopped. He listened carefully and knew she was weeping. Her grief was soft and controlled, her sobbing barely audible. He raised himself with the help of his stick and went to her. He felt steady again. His mind was clear, untroubled, reasonable. He touched her shoulder.

  ‘For whom do you weep, my poor woman?’ he asked. His voice too, he was glad to discover, was entirely under his control again. He felt extremely well.

  ‘For my poor husband, Father.’

  ‘Has he died?’

  ‘He died on me two days ago.’

  ‘And have you buried him?’

  ‘He’ll be buried tomorrow after the ten o’clock mass.’

  ‘Then his body is in the mortuary chapel?’

  ‘It is, Father, we brought him here this evening.’

  ‘Then dry your tears and follow me.’

  She rose obediently. They went into the mortuary chapel where the coffin rested on trestles between four tall candles. Beads of holy water still besprinkled the lid. Father Giffley turned to her and said gently:

  ‘I’ll raise him up for you.’

  He smiled as he did so. It was a terrible smile. The woman backed away from him. He raised his voice to its pulpit pitch and shouted:

  ‘Lazarus—come forth.’

  The woman began to scream. Her terror echoed through the whole church.

  ‘Jesus,’ she screamed, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus . . .’

  He lifted his voice once more, so that their shouting intermingled in a nightmare of noise.

  ‘Lazarus—come forth.’

  Then he stretched out both hands and pushed the coffin from its trestles. It fell thunderously on the stone floor. The lid burst open. The corpse tumbled out and lay in a grotesque bundle on the ground. The woman’s screams became wilder.

 
‘Jesus, oh Jesus,’ she kept calling, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus . . .’

  Father O’Connor and Father O’Sullivan arrived together. It took them a long time to quieten her and then to persuade her to go into the house with the clerk to rest and recover. When she left they looked for Father Giffley. They found him eventually at the foot of the high altar. He was lying prostrate, his face downwards and his arms spread wide in formal veneration. He was either heavily asleep—or unconscious.

  On Tuesday morning at eleven o’clock Rashers knocked on the basement door and asked the housekeeper if he might speak with Father Giffley.

  ‘Father Giffley is not here,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Rashers told her, ‘he said I was to wait for him.’

  She looked at him peculiarly.

  ‘But Father Giffley isn’t here at all, at all. He’s gone away.’

  ‘Gone away?’ Rashers repeated. The housekeeper nodded. He hardly dared to ask the next question. He waited for some time, but the housekeeper volunteered nothing further. He said, fearful of the answer:

  ‘And when do you expect him back?’

  ‘He’s very sick, the poor man,’ the housekeeper said. ‘God alone knows when we might hope to have him back with us.’

  Rashers absorbed the information slowly. The pain in his heart made it difficult to speak. She closed the door.

  He went back again towards Chandlers Court. The streets were warm with unseasonable sunshine. It did not comfort him. A parade passed him but he paid no attention whatever to it. There was the usual band and the usual whirl of banners.

  ‘Larkin gaoled by Lloyd George’

  ‘British Comrades

  No Larkin

  No Lloyd George’

  The court had sentenced Larkin to seven months’ imprisonment. The news meant nothing to Rashers. He had no further interest in anything. Nothing mattered.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In December defeat became a certainty. It afflicted the streets and peered through the windows of tenements with a cold, grey eye. The grates were often without fire, the rooms without furniture. Hope flickered for a moment when the Archbishop of Dublin, moved by their hunger and distress and the nearness of Christmas, succeeded in assembling a Peace Conference. It failed almost as soon as it began. In London the British Trade Union Council met to consider a plea for sympathetic strike action. It was refused. They promised instead to increase the subsidies so that Dublin’s strike pay could be improved. The opposite happened. The subscription lists in the Labour papers grew shorter, the central strike fund dwindled almost to nothing.