Goodbye to the Hill

by Lee Dunne

  When I got home, I told Ma about the Barney in the shop. She told me not to worry, that it didn’t matter. The job in the office had to come first, she said, and there was no point in trying to cut myself in half for an extra few bob a week. So I began one job in the morning and finished another the same evening. One way or another, it had turned out to be a busy Monday.

  After tea I went up on the bus to see Mrs. Kearney. I was relieved of the annoyance that Missus Newspaper had brought out of me, and I was glad about that. It was good to be able to bounce back after a row or a fight.

  Mrs. Kearney was glad to hear that I’d gotten on so well in the office, and from the way she went on you’d have thought that, within eighteen months, I’d have been running the place. Still, whether she talked rubbish or not, she was a great woman for giving you a lift when you were down, and when I told her about losing the paper round she gave me five bob on the spot and told me she could afford to give me that much each week. That was a real break, because the job in the butcher’s was out too, now that I had to work on Saturday mornings.

  I told her how grateful I was, acting my head off as I said it, and by the time I finished I nearly had myself in tears, let alone her. But I meant what I said. She was good to me, and a few minutes later when she leaned over to be kissed and she ran her hand across the flat of my stomach, I knew she was dying for it.

  This was one of the things I liked best about her. When she wanted to have sex she never made any bones about it. As a matter of fact, if you didn’t give it to her she was quite prepared to help herself.

  She was a decent woman all round, full and generous in her every action and she taught me that there was more to love-making than just pushing and pulling. She coached me to take my time, teaching me to resist the urge to rush like a bull at a gate. She put a lot of effort into me, Mrs. Kearney did, and yet, during all the time I was lying there with her that night, I was thinking of a little blonde with blue eyes and a tight yellow sweater, and her name was Maureen.

  Chapter 6

  On the Tuesday morning I didn’t get up until eight o’clock, and for me this was a real luxury.

  Going down into town on the bus, I thought about how much things had changed for me in the past week, and there was no denying it was all on account of Harry Redmond.

  He’d talked me into going for the interview and he’d coached me on what to say, even down to the bastard bit about the birth certificate. So, getting the job was pretty much his doing.

  Next thing, I’d lost the paper rounds, and the butcher’s job was gone on account of the Saturday mornings in the office.

  But, now, out of the blue, there was a new income of a dollar a week from Mrs. Kearney, and I’d had a good sleep in for the first time in years.

  And I had a new suit and shoes and shirt, so was it any wonder that as the bus pushed down through Aungier Street, and on towards the city itself, life felt good to me? It would have been perfect altogether if only I didn’t have to go back to The Hill at the end of the day.

  Dreams and more dreams, all the way to work I just sat there dreaming, wishing that this would happen and that would happen, and that everything would be a step away from the flats, and the hungry little kids, and the open dustbin in the hallway, and the women up the pole all the time, and the rows and fights that went on all around me every time I went back to The Hill.

  No surprise that by the time I got to the office I was fed-up. It was as bad as that, I couldn’t even sit and dream without The Hill bringing me back down to a reality that I hated.

  In the office, I was preparing the hand delivery envelopes when this fella I hadn’t seen before came up and introduced him self to me.

  His name was Larry Deegan and he was a trainee inspector. He’d been out with a client all day Monday, which was why I hadn’t seen him. He was a slim version of Victor Mature, about twenty six, and we were friends from that first handshake.

  He was very different to Jack Sloane. Jack was one of the best but there was something slick about Larry that appealed to me. And when, later in the day, I saw how he handled Cahill he was a hero in my eyes, especially since he wore a suit that had been made to measure, and he smoked American fags.

  At least three of the mots in the place were after him and he knew it. He used to give them plenty of chat, but I don’t think he ever bothered with any of them. The one on the switchboard used to pull her stockings up, all the way, when he was talking to her, and he used to grin at her and say: ‘Nice pair of pins you got there, kid,’ and she used to be double-choked at the way he said ‘kid’.

  Mr. Hayes called me in that morning and he shook my hand and asked me to sit down. I was really grateful to that man. He just had a way of making you feel that you mattered a bit.

  ‘Well, Mister Maguire, are you going to be happy with us?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir, I love the work and everybody’s been very kind.’

  ‘Good,’ he smiled, and opened a packet of cigarettes. ‘Would you like to smoke, Mr. Maguire?’

  ‘No, thank you very much all the same, sir.’ Redmond had told me to always refuse fags from a superior.

  Mr. Hayes spoke again when he had the cigarette burning. ‘How are you going to manage your paper round, now that you’re here with us, Mr. Maguire?’

  ‘Oh, I gave it up last night, sir.’

  When he looked at me he seemed a bit surprised. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, sir, the job here in the office has to come first. I know that if I’m going to get on I’m going to have to work hard. I want to be able to concentrate on insurance and I hope to get into the Technical School in Rathmines very shortly.’

  After that mouthful I took a deep breath, only hoping that I hadn’t gone too far with the bullshit. He looked a bit puzzled again. He couldn’t figure me out. But then it was Redmond and me that he was up against, which was a different matter altogether.

  He was a man who thought the best of everyone and I felt a bit of a louse to be telling him all those lies, but there was nothing else I could do. If I told him the truth about losing the job because Cahill and his chatty pal kept me over an hour late, that would be knocking the manager on my first day in the office and, I couldn’t see that as being a clever thing to do. Anyway, with scheming always, to try and keep a tanner in my pocket, it was almost impossible for me not to slip a lie in here and there.

  ‘The firm would pay for evening classes,’ Mr. Hayes said. ‘Going to school after work is the way a lot of people have to do it, and it’s not a bad way.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘That’s more than I ever expected,’ and I thought to myself, Jesus, you’re not kidding!’

  Before the interview finished, Mr. Hayes told me to come and see him if I was in doubt about anything, that he would always be willing to help me if he could do so. And you could tell he meant what he said.

  ************

  Larry Deegan was still at his desk when I finished the post, just as Cahill put on his hat and coat and went out without so much as a good night. I couldn’t understand how anyone could be that kind of a pig, but whatever it was that was needed, Cahill had got more than his share of it. I was tying up the bundle of letters when Larry came up the office.

  ‘Do you drink, Paddy?’

  I grinned at him.

  ‘Does a fish swim?’

  We walked down to College Green together and I shoved the letters into the post box. Then we walked up Grafton Street to this little pub that Larry used.

  He didn’t seem the least bit surprised that I took a drink and later on he told me that he had started on the gargle as early as fourteen.

  He bought a round of Guinness and I told him that I wasn’t all that flush, which was true enough. I had about three bob which would buy a few drinks, but you wouldn’t be able to go mad on it. He wasn’t bothered, having
had a few quid off the horses in the afternoon, and he fancied a good drink.

  He gave me a cigarette and when I lit it I made sure not to swallow the smoke. Last time I’d done that I’d been sick all day. I didn’t care all that much for smoking, anyway, but it was an American cigarette, and at that time I was crazy about anything American. It must have had something to do with all those movies I’d been looking at all those years.

  ‘I like the office,’ I said, ‘but I’d like it even better if that bastard Cahill wasn’t there.’

  After I’d said it, I wondered if I hadn’t been stupid. I mean, I really didn’t know Larry, and it wasn’t smart to shoot off your mouth to just anybody.

  Larry seemed to read my mind.

  ‘Don’t worry about saying that to me. I couldn’t agree with you more if I was getting paid for it.’ He dragged deeply on the cigarette. ‘Thing is, though, not to let it bother you. He’s just not that important, he’s not even intelligent. Let’s face it - a well trained Alsatian could do his job. He’s just a bug, a tiny little bug, a peasant with a mind the size of a three penny stamp, and he uses his little bit of authority to take it out on people who are in no position to answer back.’

  He picked up his glass and drank deep. As far as he was concerned, Cahill was for the birds, and that night we didn’t mention his name again. I drank some of the stout and I made myself a promise not to let Cahill get my back up anymore. As Larry said, he was just a little snot, and he wasn’t worth the energy that I was prepared to waste on him. When I emptied the glass and put it down on the table it struck me that Larry had the same name as my kid brother who was stolen from us by the Consumption, and that made me double glad we were friends.

  For the rest of the week I didn’t see much of Larry. He was down in County Meath, trying to sell insurance to an American film producer who’d bought himself a stud farm or something. Like most Yanks, he was also trying to find the little thatched cottage in the hills where his grandmother had been born and reared amongst the pigs and the chickens. And when he found out that she’d really been born in Brooklyn or Manhattan he’d ignore it and still go on looking in Ireland, the biggest shop window in America.

  You could tell by the hum in the office that it was regarded as a big chance for the firm and for Larry. Cahill was bloody sarcastic about Larry’s chances of succeeding, laughing at the very idea of a trainee handling the job. But he was only choked that he hadn’t gotten the chance. He liked the thought of the commission that might be in it.

  The reason Larry was on it was because he’d made the contract himself through a cousin of his in the American Air Force. And when hen he got back, I was the first one he told that he had clinched the deal on the Wednesday and spent the rest of the week as a house guest to the Yank and his missus.

  It was good to have him back, and just wonderful to see Cahill’s margarine face go green when he heard that Larry had completed the business with no problem at all.

  For a while after that Larry had a vague American accent, and he wore a tie the Yank had given him. I liked it but it was so loud you could have heard it around the corner. And he was talking about getting laid and about playing the ponies and the next time we went for a drink he ordered whiskey on the rocks, with me thinking he was a head case until I saw the lumps of ice in his glass.

  While Larry had been away in County Meath I’d gotten to know some of the girls in the office a little better. They were all okay - the one on the switch was very tasty and, a cheeky cow, that you couldn’t help liking, and I was happier than ever in the job. And, like, lo and behold, I’d had a smile from Maureen Murphy in the little broker’s office, and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Not that I tried all that hard to do so.

  One of the girls in our place, Mary Whelan, was a great skin. She had a big fresh Galway face and she was very nice to me in a nice big sister sort of way. Her father was an Inspector on the buses, which was a good job in Dublin, and she rode a bicycle with a cyclo-gear-three-speed and my tongue nearly fell out with envy whenever I saw her ride it home to lunch. I mean, if you were seen on a bicycle like that you were really treated as somebody.

  There was another mot there, Maria Daly by name, and she tried to be nice to me. But God, when she leaned over the desk to ask me how I was getting on, there was the most awful smell from her, and it was hard not to tell her straight that she needed a bath.

  Every time she talked to me the other females would be watching, and they’d have a laugh among themselves, but not one of them ever told the girl she had what you might well call serious body odour. And how she went about her business without realising it herself was a mystery to me. She must have had a blockage in her nose, as well as the B.O.

  Friday lunchtime we were paid and I felt very grown up to be getting my first-ever-pay-packet. It was a small buff coloured envelope with my name on it and when I opened it I found three small tickets inside as well as my pay slip. They were my admission tickets for to the Technical School for Geography, Commerce and English classes. I filled up when I read the words and I truly felt a bit lousy for lying to Mr. Hayes the way I did.

  The truth was that I never expected anybody except Ma to care whether I lived or died, so I was more than surprised and very grateful as looked at the tickets in my hand, knowing for sure that, I would use them.

  Mr. Hayes had made the first step for me. Now I’d show him that he hadn’t made a bad investment. I’d work hard and get good reports, so that he’d know I was trying my best. The night school idea might have started off as a lie but I vowed to myself that it wouldn’t end up that way.

  When I counted my wages I found there was thirty five shillings in the pay packet. I checked it again, and again, to make sure I wasn’t kidding myself. Then I looked at the slip. It said thirty-five shilling and just for once, I didn’t know what to think.

  When I knocked on the door of his office, Mr. Hayes called out to me to come in. He was on the phone, but looking up, he nodded his head to me and picked up a letter that was lying on the desk. He handed it to me without a word and I left the office, standing outside his door to read it. It was confirmation that my wages were to be thirty five shillings a week and not thirty as previously stated.

  It was all too much for me, and I had to hurry out of the office and into the washroom. I went into an empty closet and I just let go. The pain shot out of my chest, doing its own thing with me, and I couldn’t do a thing about.

  I was torn apart with the caring, if you like, the kindness of Mr. Hayes, and that was fair enough, But, I knew it was more than that as I tasted the guilt I felt for all the lying to Mr. Hayes, while, at the same time I knew that the tears wouldn’t change anything.

  I was tarnished, having had to scheme and connive for too long to able to switch it off like a light just because I came up against someone who was really decent.

  But, I believed as I washed my face in cold water, that in thanks to Mr. Hayes, I’d try to be the fella he thought I was, in relation to my work and the upcoming chance to study in the Technical School in Rathmines. It wouldn’t be easy but, I swore to myself that I was going to really go for all that had dropped into my lap,

  Kindness was a quality that I didn’t know much about. In fairness, I suppose Mrs. Kearney was kind, but she had her own reasons for it. I got some money out of her, and a meals and drinks that she willingly provided, and she had given me my first pair of long trousers, but, she expected payment. Skinny and all as I was, she expected payment in return, which when you think about it was fair enough.

  The only really kind person I’d ever known before Mr. Hayes was Ma. She was tough and angry a lot of the time but, if she had a fault it was her heart being as big as her body, like, there was no denying Ma was kindness, and she was love.

  Chapter 7

  Before I left the lavatory I scrubbed the face off myself to try and hide the red e
yes. And I filled a basin with hot water, dipping my hankie into it and pressing it against my eyes like a poor man’s hot towel.

  By the time I’d finished I didn’t look too bad and I didn’t feel too bad either. A good weep relieved pressure for me - and I though that if something has got to come out of your system it might as well come out through your eyes. It’s not so hard that way.

  Back in the office, Cahill gave me one of his critical looks. He was telling me not to be so bloody long in the future, but he didn’t say anything. I tidied up my desk and did a little bit of filing. Then I copied a proposal form, which brought me up to lunch time, and I had plenty to think about on the way home in the bus.

  The instant increase in pay, proving an extra five shillings a week, what was I going to do about it? Ma thought, as I had done myself, that I would be earning thirty shillings a week. Should I talk to her about it? Should I offer it to her? It was a difficult thing to decide just like that. I needed a little time to think.

  ************

  It was fish and chips from the Chipper for lunch, and when I got to the table Billy was already dug into his share. Josie wasn’t there. She worked over the north side of the city and it was too far for her to come home for lunch. I didn’t mind that, the less I saw of her the more I liked it.

  When Billy went out to the bog to read The Independent I asked Ma if twenty five shillings a week would be okay to her. She sat down facing me. ‘That won’t leave you all that much, will it?’

  ‘Ah, I’ll have enough, Ma. You know me, I can always pick up a shilling here and there.’

  She smiled and it was good to see. Since she’s lost Larry it wasn’t often that she smiled. The truth was she never got over him dying like that.

  ‘I’d like to buy a bike with the pocket money, Ma. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know son, getting into all that debt just for a bicycle. It’s not an easy thing to pay out every week.’