The Guns of Easter

by Gerard Whelan

  The best thing in the room to start Jimmy thinking was what Ella called ‘that old clock’.

  The numbers on the clock’s face were in the form of letters, like the letters after the king’s name that were really a number. That was how the Romans had written numbers, Da told Jimmy one time. The Romans were people who’d been around a long time ago. They’d never come to Ireland, but once they’d owned Britain just as Britain now owned Ireland.

  Long ago, when the clock had stopped, its hands had been pointing at five to twelve – XI to XII, the Roman numerals on the face said. Five minutes to midnight, Ma would say when she was telling the girls the ghost stories they loved. It was a joke in the house, the fact that the clock always showed the same time. Jimmy could remember Da coming in at night and looking at the clock in mock surprise.

  ‘Janey mack!’ he’d say. ‘Is that the time? I’m late!’

  And the children would laugh at his foolishness, while Da let on not to know what they were laughing at. Even when there was no money, Da could always make them laugh. In the old days they all missed the clock whenever it was pawned. The old pawnbroker, Mr Meyer, was an admirer of fine objects. He liked Ma, and he collected clocks. One time he offered Ma five pounds for it, to add it to his collection. But Ma explained to him that it was her heirloom. She’d got it from her own mother, who’d got it from hers. It was a reminder of the time, long ago, when her family had money for such things. So Ma refused to sell the clock, though she’d been very tempted.

  Mr Meyer always gave Ma a few shillings when she came to pawn the clock, even though she wouldn’t sell it. He liked to look at it, he said; and he could be sure that she’d always find money to redeem the pledge. Once, when she was late with the money, she’d gone to the pawnshop with Jimmy and she’d been almost in tears.

  ‘I suppose it’s yours now by law,’ she said to old Meyer. ‘I should have sold it to you when I had the chance.’

  Mr Meyer was horrified. ‘My dear lady,’ he said, in his high voice with the heavy foreign accent. ‘How could you think me so cruel? I know how much you love that clock. How could I cheat you of it?’

  Mr Meyer’s shop was gone now. It had closed shortly after the start of the war. A mob of people threatened him, and threw stones through his windows. They thought Mr Meyer was a German, and they didn’t like Germans because they were at war with Germany. They’d been told that Germans were cruel to defenceless people.

  In fact Mr Meyer wasn’t a German at all. He was from Russia, but had lived in Austria. He was Jewish, and had left Austria because many people there didn’t like Jews. This was fine by him, he said, because he didn’t especially like Austrians himself. But he hadn’t tried to explain any of this to the people in Dublin who threw stones through the windows of his shop.

  ‘You cannot explain things to a mob,’ he told Ma when she said how sorry she was about it all. ‘In any country, a mob is just a mob.’

  Mr Meyer took his savings and retired to some place over in the west of Ireland, where he lived happily now by the sea. One day Ma had met him in Sackville Street, when he was up shopping in Dublin. He told her he was very happy in his new life. Around where he lived now, he said, the people were in favour of Irish freedom. They hated the British, and because the Germans were fighting the British they loved the Germans. They were very friendly to Mr Meyer because they too thought he was German.

  Mr Meyer didn’t try to explain himself to these people either. He thought it was funny that whether he was loved or hated, it was always for being something that he really wasn’t.

  ‘I have lived now for sixty-five years,’ he told Ma, giving her sixpence for the children. ‘I have lived in six countries and I have learned only one great lesson in my life: people are crazy. Teach your children that lesson and you will save them a great deal of trouble.’

  The clock that Mr Meyer liked to look at had fine crystal glass on its face. When you looked at it, with its glass and metal gleaming in the light, it held your attention. It seemed to belong to another time and place, somewhere lighter and sunnier than the world Jimmy knew. It made you think of knights and dragons and big houses and princesses, such as Jimmy had seen once when his father took him to the Christmas pantomime in the days when they’d had money for such things.

  Sometimes the stories that Jimmy told himself in his thinking game even included the clock itself. Then the clock became the priceless treasure that he – Sir Jimmy of Dublin – guarded with a flaming lance from evil knights and great winged dragons that breathed fire and smoke. What a dragon might want with a clock Jimmy didn’t know, but then that was one of the great things about the thinking game: you didn’t have to worry about awkward little questions. In the thinking game you were the boss, and things were simple.

  Jimmy sat in the rocking chair and stared at the clock. He tried to think of nothing, either good or bad. Soon the noises from the street outside were fading and he was getting closer to the little room in his head. But then the door of the real room opened and Jimmy was suddenly back in the shabby world of reality. He blinked uncertainly. It was like waking up from a deep sleep. When he looked around he saw his uncle Mick standing in the doorway staring at him. He looked miserable.

  5

  UNCLE MICK

  MICK GLANCED AROUND THE ROOM. ‘Where’s your Ma?’ he asked.

  ‘Gone up to Doyles’,’ Jimmy said.

  Mick came in and closed the door behind him.

  ‘I lost my temper earlier on,’ he said. ‘Your Ma does that to me sometimes.’

  ‘Sure she does it on purpose,’ Jimmy said. ‘You know that. You’re worse to let her annoy you.’

  Mick threw his cap on the table and sat down. He scratched his head and tried to smile his special big smile at Jimmy. Whenever Mick smiled his big smile Jimmy could feel his own lips smiling back even if he wasn’t in a very good mood. Mick had that effect on a lot of people. Nearly everyone liked him except, Jimmy sometimes thought, Ella; but then Ella didn’t seem to like anybody, so she didn’t really count.

  Today there seemed to be something wrong with Mick’s big smile. It was forced and hollow.

  ‘If she’s up in Doyles’ then she’ll know my news already,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ Jimmy said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Wrong?’ Mick looked upset. ‘I don’t know anymore what’s wrong or right, Jimmy. Paddy Doyle is after joining up.’

  ‘Tommy’s Da? You must be joking. He’s a mad rebel. He always says he’ll die before he takes the king’s shilling. That’s what he calls joining up, Tommy says.’

  ‘Oh I know what Paddy always says, Jimmy. He had rows with your Da after he enlisted and told him what he thought of him.’

  ‘Then how could he join the army?’

  Mick shook his head. ‘It’s the daughter – though I suppose that was only the last straw.’

  ‘Alice? What about her? I know she was sick again.’

  ‘She very nearly died, Jimmy, and they hadn’t a halfpenny to get a proper doctor. Paddy said he hadn’t even the money to bury her. She’d be put in a paupers’ grave without even a headstone over her. He could stand the poverty himself, but he couldn’t stand the effect on the childer. That’s how they get you, he said.’

  ‘But there’s work to be had now, since the war started. You always get work.’

  Mick was a casual labourer, which meant that he didn’t have a steady job; but he was young and strong, and so he could always get work. Sometimes he worked on the docks, loading or unloading ships. Sometimes too he worked in the stables in Guinness’s brewery, where Ella’s husband Charlie was a clerk. Mick helped to look after the great horses that pulled the brewery carts. He had a natural talent with horses. Once he’d taken Jimmy along to see the carts being loaded. Being so close to the big animals made Jimmy a bit nervous, but Mick handled them with ease.

  The war had been good for work because so much material had to be shipped to the army in France, and of course the
re were less workers around because so many men had joined the army in the first place. When Jimmy first heard this he thought that maybe now Da could leave the army and come home, because at last there would be work for him too. But Ma told him that this wasn’t possible – you didn’t just leave the army like a man might leave a job he didn’t like.

  ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘the bosses here still hate him. He was too much of a trade union man.’

  Jimmy remembered that Paddy Doyle had been a union man as well – he’d been very involved in the 1913 strike, like Da. If Da was on an employer’s blacklist then Paddy Doyle would be on it too. It was awful to think that all these men were still paying for something that had happened years ago. All they’d ever wanted was a decent wage.

  ‘I met Paddy in the pub last night,’ Mick said. ‘He was very drunk. He was so miserable I thought Alice was after dying. When I asked him what was wrong he looked up at me and he said, “I’m a dead man, Mick Healy. Worse, I’m a hypocrite.” He’s convinced he’ll die in the war and he even thinks he deserves to for joining the army at all.’

  ‘But if he’s sure he’ll be killed,’ Jimmy said, ‘what’s the use of joining up?’

  ‘While he’s alive the family will get the separation money,’ Mick said. ‘If he dies they’ll get a pension. He thinks it’s all he can do for them now – give his life. And he hates himself for the way he’s doing it.’

  ‘But …’ Suddenly Jimmy stopped talking. He’d been struck by a terrible thought. ‘Mick,’ he said, ‘is that what Da is doing? Is he gone out there expecting to die too?’

  Mick looked completely miserable. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It could well be. Your Ma was right, Jimmy. She said I didn’t understand. Listening to Paddy opened my eyes to some things. He talked about your Da last night. “James Conway is the bravest man I ever met,” Paddy said. “When he saw what he had to do, he just did it. And here am I driven to it in the end, and complaining about it.” It was terrible to listen to him, Jimmy.’

  But Jimmy wasn’t listening to Mick any more. His mind was whirling. ‘Mick,’ he said, ‘do you think Ma knows this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Your Da would never say it to her, but she’s not a fool.’

  In his mind Jimmy saw the dreams he’d had of himself as a soldier for England, dressed in khaki and dug into the trenches fighting for a good cause. He saw the dreams shatter and disappear, and there was nothing in their place except the reality of hunger and poverty and dirty streets, and people doing terrible things because they had no choices.

  ‘Mick,’ he said, really wanting to know. ‘Are there any good causes? Ones worth dying for?’

  Mick thought before answering. Jimmy knew that he was thinking of his own activities in the Citizen Army, of all his old talk about freeing Ireland and about justice for the poor workers. When he finally answered, he sounded every bit as uncertain as Jimmy felt.

  ‘I don’t know any more, Jimmy,’ Mick said. ‘I used to think so, but now I just don’t know.’

  6

  FAIRYHOUSE DREAMS

  THE NEW IDEAS ABOUT HIS FATHER drove all the good feelings out of Jimmy’s head. After Mick left he tried to start his thinking game again, but it was no use. All that he could think about was Da, going off to a war that he didn’t believe in, in a uniform he despised, so that his family could have some money. This was the simple reality, not just for Da but for many others. Only his own foolish dreams of glory had kept Jimmy from seeing the truth before.

  He tried to hide his misery from Ma when she got back with the washing. She could see that there was something wrong, but she decided not to pry. He must, she thought, be thinking about that poor old man yesterday.

  Lily Conway had not been as surprised as her brother and son to hear that Paddy Doyle had joined the army. He was an honourable man and a good husband. He’d tried in every way to provide for his family, but the small world of Dublin had kept him from doing it. Now he was taking the only way out. Her own husband had done the same thing. She hadn’t liked it, but people like them didn’t have many choices. Lily could see no dishonour in it. If she’d heard Paddy Doyle calling himself a hypocrite she’d have been shocked.

  Almost a week passed with Jimmy in the same awful mood. He didn’t go out, just sat staring out the window. It began to get on Ma’s nerves. She’d tried more than once to talk to him, to find out what was wrong, but got no good from the attempts.

  In the course of that week she hadn’t talked to her brother Mick. Ella called twice, but that was little cause for rejoicing. Ella was so wrapped up in her own troubles now that she hardly even listened when anyone else spoke. She just wanted her own complaining to be heard.

  Alice Doyle recovered from her fever. It had already been breaking on the day Lily collected the laundry, otherwise she wouldn’t have let the two girls up to Doyles’ at all. These fevers were always around in the cramped and dirty conditions of the slums. They went through the underfed children like wildfire, and always killed a few as they went. There was hardly a household she knew that hadn’t had a dead child at some time; her own family had, she knew, been very lucky.

  It was Mick who brought the change in Jimmy in the end, hard though that was to credit. Mick always wanted to help, and he did try his best; but he never knew how, and always seemed to get things wrong. This time though he came up trumps, and with a few words transformed her son from the moping nuisance he’d become into the most radiant boy in Dublin.

  It happened exactly a week after the affair of the Gorgeous Wrecks. The day started like any other recent one, with the girls squabbling and Jimmy sitting looking at the floor. Lily Conway, beset with worries of her own that she tried to hide from the children, was counting her coppers to see whether there was enough money for an ounce of tea and a loaf of bread.

  She stopped in the middle of counting and looked at the three children, the light of her life. She thought of her husband, and wondered where he was at that exact moment. Then she made herself stop thinking about him, as she always did, because at this exact moment he might be dying or terribly injured.

  The door opened and Mick sailed in. He was wearing the huge smile that everyone liked. When he walked into a room smiling like that the whole place seemed to light up.

  Lily was delighted to see him in this mood. Though he hadn’t called during the week, she’d seen him in the street a couple of times; but he’d looked every bit as miserable as Jimmy, and she hadn’t stopped to talk. She’d felt she had enough miserable people to deal with, and was having problems coping herself.

  Now all that seemed to have changed. Mick came in smiling and whistling.

  ‘Howya, Lil?’ he said. ‘And how are my dear nieces?’

  The girls ran over and hugged him. Jimmy, though, barely reacted. Mick escaped the girls and went over to the rocking chair.

  ‘I say, old fellow,’ he said to Jimmy in a mock English accent, ‘have I got news for you.’

  Jimmy looked up at him moodily. What news could Mick have? Nothing good, certainly. Jimmy said nothing.

  ‘You never mind that sulky young fella,’ Ma said. ‘We want to know, even if he doesn’t.’

  ‘I’ll tell you so,’ said Mick. ‘Though it concerns Jimmy more than the rest of you. The thing is, I’ve got some work at the end of next week.’

  Jimmy shrugged. That was hardly very exciting.

  ‘Do you remember,’ said Mick, ‘when I was working in the stables in the brewery?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ma said.

  ‘Jim?’ Mick said. ‘You remember the day that I took you to work with me?’

  Jimmy grunted.

  ‘Do you remember a man there by the name of Tandy? He was very taken with you.’

  ‘That was the man that said you should work with horses all the time,’ Jimmy said. ‘He gave me sixpence.’ It was the sort of thing that you’d remember.

  ‘The very man,’ Mick said. ‘Well, I met Mr Tandy the other day, and he said he could g
ive me a couple of days’ work.’

  ‘Grand,’ said Jimmy. ‘Good for you.’

  ‘At Fairyhouse,’ said Mick.

  Jimmy looked at him.

  ‘For the races,’ Mick said.

  Jimmy straightened in his seat.

  ‘And he said,’ went on Mick, ‘that I should bring along that bright nephew of mine to help me. “I’m sure,” he said, “the chiseler’d like to see the horses.” ‘

  Jimmy’s mouth dropped open. ‘Oh Mick,’ he said. ‘Are you codding?’

  It didn’t seem possible for Mick’s smile to get any bigger. ‘It’s true all right, young Jimmy,’ he said. ‘That’s if you want to go.’

  From her seat by the table Ma watched the transformation in Jimmy. His face lit up instantly, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. The miserable thoughts of the last week were driven away. Nothing else could have had such an instant effect. Fairyhouse was special – so special that the thought of really going there left no room in Jimmy’s head for anything else at all.

  In his mind’s eye Jimmy saw himself already at the races, helping Mick in the stables, chatting to jockeys and to the rich men who owned the winning horses.

  Not one of the boys Jimmy knew had ever actually been to Fairyhouse. Paddy Doyle had gone there once, years and years ago. Tommy Doyle still boasted of the fact, and described all his father had seen as if he’d seen it himself. That was all very well … but to go there yourself! That was like a story that Jimmy might invent in the thinking game. No, though: even Jimmy would never let his imagination go that far. It was one thing to dream of killing dragons, but it was unthinkable that anyone would ever ask you to go to Fairyhouse for the races.

  ‘Well?’ he heard Mick asking, as though from far away. Mick’s voice sounded amused. ‘Do you want to go or not?’