“You could, Ma,” I answered.
“I had a bit of cabbage last year. Do you remember?”
“I don’t, Ma,” I said.
“You ate it, didn’t ya?”
“I suppose I did.”
“What about Mick’s hens? I wish he’d let me cook one of them,” she said, continuing to look at the two birds in the back yard. “There’s a bit of bacon in the oven – will you bring it to me?”
I went to the kitchen, opened the oven door and took out a plate that had a thick slice of bacon on it. My mother took out her false teeth and put them into her cup of tea. She bit into the bacon with her gums but she couldn’t get a grip on it. The bacon slipped from her mouth. She picked it up again and held it with her fingers. She struggled with the piece of bacon like a dog chewing and snapping when it’s been fed too big a piece of meat. Paddy then walked upstairs to cover his head with the bed-sheet.
My mother walked over to the small colourful statue of the Infant of Prague. Its little painted blue eyes seemed to be glaring at me, telling me that everything was fine and not to worry.
After a moment Molly began to mumble. “Child of Prague, open your holy eyes to show me son the way. This son of mine doesn’t know any better. He’d just as soon hang around with loafers and sit on the street corner listening to the Devil talk, with all them no-good whelps who don’t want to pray, work or find a job. Child of Prague, guide his way to finding the light of our beloved Jesus the Son of God Almighty. Wouldn’t he be better off in that nice little job than idling about on the street? Child of Prague, help this son of mine find his way!” Molly then turned away from the statue and faced me. “You must have done something wrong. You got cheeky with the hall porter, didn’t you?”
I turned around from the fireplace and looked at my mother. “I’m sorry, Ma. I am sorry for what’s happened. I made a mistake.”
As I was attempting to defend myself my father came downstairs again, reached out to me and shook my hand.
“Welcome to the Land of Unemployment,” he said.
I held on to his hand for as long as I could and then let it go.
“Don’t be bothered, son. You have the rest of your life to find another job.”
My mother took her hat and walked towards the front door. She stopped, turned around and called out to me, “I’m goin’ to say a few prayers!”
I could see the deep look of disappointment in her eyes.
After a few moments of silence my father retreated upstairs to the bedroom. I remained alone staring into the fireplace.
In 1953 my brother Michael, who had turned sixteen, decided he’d had enough of Dublin. The place was “too bleedin’ small” for him, he said repeatedly. Several of Michael’s friends had gone to England and had jobs in factories and were earning money. When they were in Dublin they hung around street corners and gambled the few pennies they got from the Dole by playing cards or ‘pitch and toss’. The Dole was public assistance and enough to keep you from dying. When Michael’s friends came back from England for a visit they had suede shoes and silk shirts with colourful ties and talked about the money that could be made working in the factories in Manchester and Birmingham. Billy Breen and Seán Doyle came back and said it was like having landed on the Moon or someplace in Hollywood. Seán told Michael how easy the women were and that the Catholic Church wasn’t on every corner keeping an eye on you. The stories convinced my brother to give up his job as a house painter and set out for England.
Michael had only one problem – he didn’t want to go alone – so he convinced me to accompany him. I didn’t tell my parents.
“What time is the boat?” I called from the kitchen.
“The boat leaves at seven,” he called from the toilet. “We have to be there half an hour early.”
I turned on the tap to drink some water. Michael came in, fastening up his trousers.
“Are ya ready yet?”
“I’m ready,” I said.
Down at the North Wall dock a herd of cows were led onto the boat. As they ran across the gangplank the frightened animals began to scutter. The smell of the cow shite was everywhere.
My brother and I stood back a bit from the crowd and watched. I put my brown suitcase with an old necktie of my father’s tied around it near my feet. A man was talking to a young girl and I heard him saying, “Did ya bring yourself any toothpaste?” Why would anyone who could afford toothpaste be going to England on the cattle boat? The dockside was full of fathers and mothers and wailing girls all kissing goodbye and hugging each other. Most of them were in tears. Where did they find the love they had for each other and what was it that caused them to have it? My brother and I didn’t have anyone to hug and cry and say goodbye to. We hardly even talked to each other. I began to imagine what my mother and father would say when they saw that my little bed was empty. In the back of my mind I hoped my mother wouldn’t throw away my old blanket. It had covered me for the last ten years. I was so used to it I could hardly fall asleep without it being next to me.
Somebody across the street was singing ‘The Girl from Donegal’ to an accordion, about the girl’s heart being broken when her boyfriend sailed away to foreign lands. It was an odd song to be singing to people who were going off to England. The moans and the noise from the confused cows and horses blocked out the accordion player on the dock. After all the animals were in place the ship’s horn blasted the signal for everybody to board. We picked up our luggage and joined the queue.
The boat pulled away and Dublin became dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. Very soon I was sailing across the Irish Sea to England. The place my father had gone to join the army many years earlier. Looking around me I knew things couldn’t have changed too much since his time. A man came around selling tickets for bunks to sleep in for two-and-sixpence extra. Some of the passengers rushed to buy a bunk. I was glad because it left the deck with a bit more space to sit down on. Most of the people were standing up to save money till they landed. Later the smell of tea came from the cabin and everyone rushed down to buy a cup. We went down and bought a cup of tea for a tanner and a biscuit.
The room was crowded with people sitting on the floor, babies running up and down everybody’s legs. Some of the passengers were Travellers. That’s what they called themselves but my mother and father and everybody else who lived in my neighbourhood and on my street called them gypsies because they lived in caravans and wandered from town to town all over Ireland without having any one place to live or stay. They were also known as tinkers or knackers. They wouldn’t stay long in any one place. Their address was always the next town. They had wild-looking horses that roamed into gardens and ate the grass, and dogs that were scraggly and starving half the time. Because they begged from poor people they were considered stupid as well. Whenever they came wandering in our neighbourhood, me and everybody I knew hid away. They knocked on doors and asked for money or food. The men in the caravans used to mend pots and pans. If they got enough old pots and pans to repair they’d start a big fire and melt down tin to repair them – that’s why they were called tinkers. Sometimes the fires got out of control and the fire brigade had to be called to put out the flames. What would they be going to? Who would be waiting on the other end of the journey?
They sat on the floor, drank as much porter as they could, sang songs and begged for money. After they finished singing the mothers sent their rag-wrapped and shoeless children around the crowd of other passengers to see if they could cadge or shake any money out of them. A few tried to pick pockets but were caught and sent away with a slap on the face or a kick in the arse.
Most of the passengers didn’t have a penny to spare. Practically everybody on board was making the journey to England to find employment. Half of them had to borrow the fare. Few even had luggage or suitcases. Brown-paper bags and sacks held all their worldly goods. The possessions generally consisted of a pair of hobnailed boots and a shirt as well as heavy tweed trousers. Some who had made the journe
y before talked about England and what it was like there. The younger fellas who had been to England wore fancy clothes. Thick-soled suede shoes and stovepipe trousers, blue jackets with black velvet collars. Everybody called them ‘Teddy Boys’. The Teddy Boys liked to dress up. They were more interested in looking fancy than anything else. The first thing they bought when they got money in England was a shiny blue suit with a black velvet collar. Having a Teddy Boy suit was a mark of success. The fancier the clothes and shoes the more it reflected success in England. If they had a white silk shirt it meant they earned more money. Every so often I’d see older boys from my neighbourhood back from England and they’d all be wearing the Teddy Boy suit and crepe-soled shoes. Once you saw them you knew they’d been to Birmingham or Manchester or Liverpool. My brother Michael wanted to be a Teddy Boy. He talked a lot about getting a blue suit with a velvet collar and a black shirt with a white tie.
Michael also loved to sing but he wouldn’t sing in front of anybody. If you weren’t looking at him he’d break out into song and would continue singing until you turned to look at him. As soon as he saw you looking at him or even asking him the name of the song he’d stop instantly. It was as if he was caught stealing. My brother was different from me in a way that was almost like my mother and father were different from each other. I believed my father and I were always looking for something fairer and brighter in our lives but felt we could never attain it. Michael and my mother had a tighter grip on their reality and didn’t seem to question it much. This evening on the cattle boat bound for England Michael was much more certain about his ambitions. He said when he got to England he’d look for Billy Breen or Seán Doyle.
“Are they in Liverpool?” I asked him.
“I think they are.”
I got the feeling he didn’t want to tell me where Billy and Seán were. They were pals of his who went to England a year or so earlier. They came home one Christmas wearing their Teddy Boy suits and crepe-soled shoes and acted like returning millionaires. The girls stuck to them like flies to flypaper. Michael wanted to be part of that.
“What kind of jobs have they got?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Billy and Seán.”
“They’re workin’ in a factory some place.”
“Where?”
“How do I know?”
“How’re you goin’ to meet them if you don’t know where they are?”
Michael walked away from me. I got the feeling he didn’t want to tell me anything. I even got the feeling that he didn’t want me with him.
“I want to go with you,” I said, frightened and on the verge of tears.
“Go where?”
“When you meet Billy and Seán. I know them too a bit, you know.”
“They’re older than you. What are you goin’ to do? Hang around cryin’?”
“I won’t be cryin.’”
“That’s what you say now.”
“Can I go with you?”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere!”
Michael turned and went down the stairs where most of the passengers were singing, smoking and drinking tea. I stood on the deck and began to feel sea sick. After a few minutes of trying not to cry, I burst out in tears.
An elderly man came up to me. “Are ya sea-sick, boy?” he asked.
I was too afraid to answer him and I went down the stairs after my brother.
Many passengers who sat in the hot steamy tearoom had girlfriends and relatives in different parts of England. Some talked about Manchester. Others knew Birmingham well.
I asked my brother what the tinkers were doing going over to England. He told me they travelled all the time. It was their way of life. Some of them sitting on the floor had dogs tied with twine that were barking at everybody who passed them on the deck. Women wearing colourful woollen blankets around their shoulders with holes and food stains on them sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. They had big broad faces that resembled what I thought the wind would look like if I could ever see it. Wrapped inside the blankets, babies sucked on their mothers’ nipples. The cries of the children mingled with the sound of someone playing a mouth organ. I wanted to talk to the tinkers but I was afraid. Something about the way they didn’t care about anything or anybody made me want to be with them. I couldn’t understand my feelings at the time but I knew there was some connection in my wishes. I’d often heard it said that the Travellers were the original Irish who were thrown off their land when the English invaded Ireland years and years ago. They might have been the bearers of Cromwell’s curse and cruelty. The look on their faces and the way they walked and talked reminded me of Ireland itself. The wilderness, the forests and mountains of Ireland. They were fierce, windy. Wild, wet and warm all at once. Rain and sun mingled. Rainbows and mist and green hills and steep cliffs all crushed together by memories of a time gone by. It was as if they were walking talking trees. Wanting and aching and wishing and hoping. Abused and victimised and still resilient. Ghosts and shadows of another time who were left with the look of fear on their faces as well as a great strength and handsomeness. They had got used to owning nothing but the clothes on their backs and the caravans they roamed the country in. The life of detachment from anything official. From anybody in uniform. From stamps and lines and waiting rooms. From alarms and warnings. From threats of weather to obligations of holidays. From any need to be anywhere at a certain time. Had they discovered something since the days of their evictions? Had they stumbled upon some simple secret to life that most everyone else couldn’t see? Had detachment and homelessness forged in their hearts and minds the true way to live? I wondered if they knew how free they were. How unaffected they appeared to be by everybody else who looked at them and ran away in fear. Maybe it was the freedom they seemed to have in their life that made others afraid of them. I never was told why they were so bad. Everybody I knew looked down on them but some shadowy part of me longed to be with them. But I was shy and afraid to ever mention it to anyone.
The boat’s engines roared. The cows in the lower deck began moaning as if to protest against the journey to Liverpool. A few men sitting on one of the large wooden benches were pale and sad-looking. Across from them on the opposite bench others were singing and celebrating their departure from Dublin.
The journey was now real. The tinker children ran up and down the stairs, pulling at each other and fighting like scraggly dogs just let out of a kennel.
“Sit down for the love of God Almighty, will yis? Sit down!”
The women shook their shawls out and bits and pieces of bread fell to the floor. The children ran and picked up the morsels and ate them in a hurry. Their parents drank what remained in the small bottles of whiskey. Some of the men, by now half-drunk, fell over others already asleep, provoking yells and curses louder than the ship’s bellowing horns or the cows mooing below.
Michael found himself a chair and sat down with a cup of tea and a scone. I sat next to him and watched him drink his tea in silence. He didn’t appear to be worried about anything. I thought he was very brave.
I got a cup of tea and went up on deck again and saw seagulls flying low and landing on the railing. It was then I knew that we were very far out.
“Goodbye, Dublin – goodbye, Dublin!” I said.
Half-afraid, I sat down on a bench and sipped the warm tea I held between my hands. Wave after wave was bringing me closer to England.
Later, in the dark night, I thought of God again and began to talk to him: Somewhere throughout this pushing night you must be watching and smiling on this boat full of cows, horses and people. Whatever you do, don’t let this boat sink. I can’t swim that far back to Ireland. Whisper in my mother’s ear that we’re all right.
The silence on the boat didn’t last long. Those who were asleep were now awake. Voices got louder and began to sing. Cows mooed as if to complain. A child ran around the deck and a mother ran after him. Somebody said “How long does it take?” About fifty opinions followe
d. The sun was coming up and the deck was spread with tired bodies of people snuggling against each other.
“Birkenhead! Birkenhead!” a loud call woke me up.
Everybody jumped up.
“It’s England, it’s England!”
The land was there for everybody to see. Boats and ships and buildings could be seen from the deck. Seeing it was like discovering a missing piece to a massive jigsaw puzzle. England was a real place with real people. In about an hour we would be in Liverpool. We began to pass the shipyards and everything looked so big along the shore. We turned into a big dockside shed. It was a place for the cattle to get off. After that we were let off.
* * *
At Customs a screaming English voice attacked my ears. “Bags up ’ere! Anything to declare, lad?”
I just looked at him with gawking open eyes.
“Wot’s in the case, boy?”
“Everything,” I said.
“Give it ‘ere then. Where’s the key to it?”
I had forgotten that the old suitcase ever had a key.
“Get to it, laddio!”
I could see he was getting very impatient. “It’s open, sir,” I said.
He pulled at my father’s tie and searched my suitcase with his hand till he came to my bar of used soap. He pushed it out of his way and I had to rearrange my alarm clock and two fried-bread sandwiches.
When we’d both passed through the line, Michael asked me if I understood how these Englishmen spoke English. I’d heard enough English voices at the hotel and I wasn’t bothered at all.
My brother and I got lost trying to find Lime Street. Lime Street Station was as large as Liverpool itself but still we wandered from street to street looking for it. We asked everybody we saw. As we walked around in a circle I noticed the old taxis driving by. The damn things had no doors on them. At last we came upon a man who was sitting on a bench eating out of a brown-paper bag. Before my brother asked him anything he asked us for a light. We didn’t have any matches.
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