John lay down on his plank bed and pulled his blanket over him. In the darkness he addressed Groarke.
“Mike, d’you realize I’ve had it?”
“I’m going to sleep. No point in talking.”
“But my exam, Mike! The viva! I’m supposed to be taking it in eight hours’ time.”
“Eight weeks,” Groarke said.
“Even months. Mike, for God’s sake tell me what happens to political prisoners in a neutral country?”
There was a crash by the closet corner and they both sat up.
“What on earth are you doing, Jedrez?” John asked.
“You will remember your rank from now onwards, please,” came Jedrez’ voice. “As the senior member of the group I have appointed myself your commanding officer. You will address me as Colonel.”
Groarke swore to himself and there was silence. After a few moments during which Giertych could be heard breathing heavily and grunting as though he were exerting himself, Groarke asked, “Colonel, what are you doing?”
“I test the bars of this grating by standing on the closet seat, but it is insecurely fastened and I fall. However, the bars are cast iron only and give access to the ventilation system. There will be no need to use my file as the walls of the building are old. Providentially for ourselves the entire building is what the English Air Force calls ‘a piece of cake.’”
“File?” John asked.
“I always carry three. We will have an escape conference.”
“In the morning, Colonel?”
“In the morning, no. It is the duty of all nationals to seek escape. We have the alternatives of strangling the guard when he brings us our food in the morning, of starting on the construction of a tunnel before daylight, or of removing this grating when one of us, the thinnest and most agile, will volunteer to explore it.”
Groarke began to whimper. John hadn’t heard him do it for about two years; it was Groarke’s most helpless laughter. They listened to him as he rolled about either against the wall or on the planks of the bed.
The Colonel said, “He is ill, we must proceed with our discussion of the escape plans. I am now about to establish contact with any other prisoners in this building by means of Morse’s code system. Kindly remain quiet so that I may read any incoming messages.”
He tapped far into the night, having considerable difficulties in interpreting the messages which he said he was receiving from someone in a different part of the block. He blamed this on his poor English, though John, after disclaiming all knowledge of Morse and being made to listen for ten minutes, was more inclined to think the messages were coming from the Bridewell’s plumbing. However, it kept Giertych occupied; and eventually, to the rhythm of his file against the grating, Groarke and John fell asleep.
They were imprisoned for three days and nights during which the worst discomfort they suffered was Giertych’s incessant activity in connection with his determination to escape.
On the fourth morning, thanks to Colonel Galpin’s influence with the city’s Chief of Police, a keen racing man, they were driven in a closed van over to the Castle where a high-ranking official interviewed each of them in turn.
Palgrave was given dry sherry and biscuits. Groarke, as an Irish national, was permitted to return to his home after he had been strongly cautioned against any further escapades of a like kind. Giertych was escorted to the North Wall and put aboard the night boat for Liverpool; while John was told that in view of German protests about previous infringements of neutrality he would have to be dealt with severely. He would be allowed twenty-four hours to pack and pay his bills after which he must leave the country. He would not be given a re-entry visa to Eire until the conclusion of the war.
Groarke said, “It can be fixed all right. We’ll get on to Greenbloom at the Shelbourne.”
“No, thanks.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve finished, Mike. I made up my mind that first night in the Bridewell when I realized I’d ploughed Midder again.”
They were unshaven and hungry after the prison food. At Front Gate they got off the tram together and sheltered in the tunnel of the porch. People were hurrying across Front Square after lectures, their gowns flattened by the wind, their heads bent as they ran through the smart rain being blown in from the sea. At the other end of the tunnel, clerks and girls nipped out of their offices and shops for lunch in Brown’s and Switzers’. Two first-year medical students, talking shop, clattered well in step across the cobbles on their way to a date in Mitchell’s or the Country Shop.
“Aren’t you coming up to Greenbloom at the Shelbourne with me?” Groarke asked.
“Not now, I’m going to get packed.”
“I’ll ring him up, he’ll come down and pick you up. You’ve only got to introduce him to that little devil Galpin and between them they’ll fix your passport troubles inside twenty-four hours.”
“Try it if you like,” John said. “I’ll be in my rooms.”
Groarke left him to run out to the nearest telephone kiosk and John went back to his rooms. The sitting-room smelt damp and musty; the smell seemed to be in everything, in the black grate ready laid by the “gyp,” in the cushions and curtains, in the carpet itself where he had sometimes lain with Dymphna before the fire or in the summertime.
He went into his bedroom, collected her letters, some snapshots, the Knight of the Campanile tie she had given him and his two Honours certificates and the paper he had read to the Biological Association two years earlier. He burned the letters, snapshots and the tie, but retained the other things. He laid them with his notebooks and family photographs in the bottom of his trunk. Then he shaved in cold water and fried himself some bacon on the gas ring; he boiled a kettleful of water and made himself some strong Irish tea.
Groarke came in. He was looking damned awful, thin and scruffy, not filled out at all. His clothes were out at elbow; he looked like the old Groarke, much older and no more prosperous at all. He looked as hungry as ever.
He said, “I tried him but he’s not come back yet. Held up in London.”
“You mean Greenbloom?”
“He’s paid every damn one of my debts and he’s not come back. They don’t seem to know if he’s coming back at all.”
“Well, I’m not,” said John. “That’s quite certain. And I thank God for it.”
“Don’t be a damn fool. You can’t throw up five years. You’ve done well, you’ve only got to—”
“I said I thanked God for it. I do. I’ve used up something, or it’s used up me, a part of me that I didn’t particularly need. I’ll catch the Holyhead boat tonight. After I’ve seen the family I’ll go and stay with my brother David at Maidenford and get myself fixed up at one of the London medical schools. Professor Jameson said he’d help me get into one if necessary after that business with my paper to the Bi. I’ll qualify there. I’ll do well. I’ll never come back to Ireland again, or if I do I’ll come back bright and be sorry for no one.”
“A sadder yet a wiser man,” Groarke quoted with the old sting to his tongue.
“If I ever come back here, to this time of my life, I know how I’ll be; I’ll be a sad man who yet rejoices.”
Groarke hung about a little longer. He mooched about between the bedroom and the sitting-room watching John chuck things into his trunk.
“You’re sure you won’t one time suddenly change your mind—not when you get home and weigh everything up?”
“What do you think?”
Groarke looked across at him, “I don’t think you will,” he said.
“You got your change all right, didn’t you?” John reminded him, “in Grangegorman?”
“It was forced on me.”
“Who was to blame?”
“We’re young,” Groarke said. “With you, was it Dymphna?”
“She found a fault, that’s all, and exploited it for me. She might have found something good, profitable. She might have done but she didn’t; or if
she did, I can’t see it like that.”
Without colour, neither sneering nor smiling, Groarke said, “Sweet Molly Malone!”
“Molly Malone?”
“ ‘She died of a fever,’ ” Groarke quoted,
“ ‘And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone;
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying ‘Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!’”
John thought about it. “Too many ghosts in my life. There won’t be any time for them when I get started in London.”
Groarke looked at him, “Do you want me to come with you to the boat?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to lend me a little money. I haven’t changed Greenbloom’s cheque yet; I shan’t be able to get to a bank until the morning.”
They caught the small, late-Victorian boat-train at Westland Row and journeyed in silence. They rumbled out of the station, crossed the canal bridge, went by Boland’s Bread Mills and the Mungo Park Hospital with all its lights on. They could even see a consultant’s car drawn up in the yard and one of the housemen in a white coat having a smoke in the entrance; tiny.
When they drew up in Kingstown station to await the opening of the level-crossing to the quayside, Groarke changed his mind. He was looking hard again. He said, “I think you’re making a mistake.”
“It’s been made for me,” John said. “And, if you want to know, I like it. I’m glad. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next.”
Groarke got out onto the platform. The engine gave a tinny whistle and the carriage jerked forward.
“See you?” Groarke called.
John put his head out of the lowered window. He could smell steam and the sea. Up-quay, he could see the dark mail-boat ready for the journey back to Britain, blacked out fore and aft.
Not looking in Groarke’s direction, he called back, “See you.” And sat down looking for something: tickets, passport, identity card.
He started to collect his cases together.
A Note on the Author
Gabriel Fielding was the pen name of Alan Gabriel Barnsley, a British novelist born in Northumberland, England. His most famous works include In the Time of Greenbloom, The Birthday King and The Women of Guinea Lane.
Fielding’s father was an Anglican vicar at Hexham and his mother, Katherine Fielding Barnsley, was a descendant of the novelist Henry Fielding. Barnsley’s pen name was derived from his illustrious ancestor.
Barnsley earned a B.A. from Trinity College, Dublin in 1939, with prizes in Anatomy, Oratory and Biology. He graduated in Medicine from St. George’s Hospital, London in 1943. He was a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps in World War II.
His first book, The Frog Prince and Other Poems, was published in 1952 in England.
In 1966 Barnsley moved to the United States, where he was author-in-residence at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. He also became a full professor of English literature there, retiring in 1981 as professor emeritus. In 1964 he was awarded the W.H. Smith Award for The Birthday King, and for “the most outstanding contribution to English Literature over a two-year period” (1962-1963).
He was married to Edwina Eleanora Cook with whom he had five children. He died in Bellevue, Washington on November 27th, 1986.
Discover books by Gabriel Fielding published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/GabrielFielding
In Time of Greenbloom
The Birthday King
Pretty Doll Houses
Through Streets Broad and Narrow
For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain
references to missing images.
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain in 1960 by University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 1960 Gabriel Fielding
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eISBN: 9781448214174
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