The Abstainer

by Ian McGuire

  “Why would a policeman have any need of an attorney?” she says. “That don’t make any sense.”

  Newly smiles again and says that the situation is certainly unusual, but he can explain it easily enough if she will allow him. He has a slow, defusing manner as if he is used to being disliked or mistrusted. She steps aside and lets him into the hall. There is no fire left in the front room, so they walk back into the kitchen. He puts his hat on the table and tilts his umbrella against the wall. Rose offers him a chair by the stove and he thanks her and sits down. “Tea?” she says, but he declines it with a small shrug.

  “Where has Jimmy gone? Why could he not come here himself?”

  Newly nods as if to concede that her question is a reasonable one to ask. His face is creviced and dusty, and his thin lips are pale on the outside but darker within. He reminds Rose of a church organist or a schoolmaster gone to seed.

  “This will no doubt come as a surprise to you, Miss Flanagan,” he says, “but Mr. O’Connor is currently confined in the New Bailey Prison over in Salford. He’s been charged with the theft of a police firearm, and the magistrates have remanded him for trial at the spring sessions. I am hopeful he will be freed when the case comes up, since the accusations against him are weak, but, until then, the prison regulations require that he be treated as a felon. His freedoms are severely limited: He cannot receive visitors, except for his legal representative, and he cannot send or receive any letters at all.”

  Rose stares at him, then shakes her head. What he is telling her sounds so strange and unlikely that she is tempted to laugh.

  “How can they put a policeman in jail?” she asks. “Isn’t that against the law?”

  “Mr. O’Connor is not, strictly speaking, a policeman any longer; he resigned from his post, but even if he were one, that doesn’t give him immunity. A crime is a crime just the same, whoever commits it. That’s what the law says.”

  She still can’t believe what she is being told. It seems impossible to her that O’Connor’s fortunes could have changed so rapidly, but then she remembers what he told her in the tearoom about Maybury and the others—how they ignored all his good advice and treated him like dirt.

  “Someone’s took against him then, because of where he’s come from. He told me how it was at the Town Hall. He has no friends there at all. The English don’t see him as an equal. Something has happened, I’ll bet, some other fellow has broken the rules, and he’s being made to take the blame for it.”

  “There’s some truth in that,” Newly agrees. “Usually a man would be dismissed from his post or merely reprimanded for what Mr. O’Connor did, not threatened with jail, but feelings have altered since the recent Fenian murders. Forgiveness and understanding are in short supply these days. They say he stole a pistol, when all he did, in truth, was borrow it for a while without asking the proper permissions. He had taken a drink at the time, which doesn’t help our cause, but no harm was done and no one was injured. It was a foolish mistake, no more than that, but in the present climate, if you’re searching for a scapegoat, it’s the kind of thing that can be made to sound a lot more sinister than it was.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “Sunday last. In the evening, while they were out searching for the men who murdered Constable Malone.”

  “I saw him the day after. He came to the place I work, the Spread Eagle Hotel. He talked about leaving the police, resigning his post, but he didn’t say he was in any kind of trouble.”

  “He didn’t know it then. He went back to the Town Hall the next day not suspecting anything was wrong. They started asking him some questions, and when he got up to leave they put him in the cells. It’s a man named Thompson, an inspector just come up from London, who’s the cause of it all. He has a belief that Mr. O’Connor is a traitor, that he was colluding with the Fenians somehow, but he has no evidence to prove it, so the accusation of robbery is the best he can manage. This Thompson looks the part, they say, and he convinced the magistrate easily enough, but when it comes to the sessions it’s another story. A good barrister will better him, I’m sure of it.”

  Rose frowns and shakes her head. She remembers the bloodstain on the sleeve of O’Connor’s coat. He risked his own life for them, she thinks. He might have been killed, and now they’re calling him a traitor. That’s the kind of thanks you get.

  “How is he coping in the jail?” she asks.

  “He’s been ill with a fever and his spirits are much reduced. A prison is a fearful place, Miss Flanagan, it is designed to be fearful—that is its express intention. Mr. O’Connor is suffering there, as any honest person would, but he asked me to tell you that you have been on his mind a good deal and the thought of you has often brought him comfort.”

  “Is that his message for me?”

  “That’s a part of it. The rest is more particular.”

  Rose presses her lips together. She thinks of the New Bailey Prison, rising up from the banks of the Irwell, somber and massive, like the black weight of all the city’s griefs made visible. Even if they let him go, as Newly says they will, he will be tainted by what has happened, she thinks, invisibly weakened. Whatever troubles he had before will be magnified and made much worse.

  “When I heard you knocking on the door just now, I thought it was him,” she says.

  Newly nods and narrows his eyes in sympathy.

  “Then I’m sorry to disappoint,” he says. “I must make a very poor kind of substitute.”

  “How much did he tell you about me?”

  “He told me that he made you an offer of marriage, and you were thinking on it. He wants you to know that, given the changed circumstances, you should not feel under any obligation to make an answer now. As soon as he has secured his release, he will seek you out again to renew his offer. That will be the very first thing he does. He hopes you will give him an answer then, and the answer will be a happy one, but until that time you should consider yourself entirely free. That’s what he wanted you to know.”

  “Free to do what?” she says.

  “Your brother is dead, as I understand it, and your mother is infirm. If other possible sources of help appear, then you should consider them, at least. I believe that’s what Mr. O’Connor is meaning.”

  Rose straightens in her chair. She is taken aback by the coldness of the offer.

  “Does he give me up so easily as that?”

  “It is intended as a kindness, nothing more. He doesn’t wish your fortunes to be damaged by his stroke of ill luck.”

  Rose looks down at her hands—the broken nails, the red fingers roughened by work. Whichever way she turns there is only more heartache. She feels the wrongness of it all like an aching in her bones. She sighs slowly, then smooths her skirt and looks up again.

  “How long until the sessions meet?” she says.

  “Three months from now, in April.”

  “And what if he’s found guilty?”

  “It’s not likely he will be. This Thompson is playing games with him, I think.”

  “But what if he is?”

  Newly pauses and wipes his bony hand across the wooden tabletop.

  “If he is, the sentence will be a year at least, possibly longer.”

  After Newly leaves her, Rose goes back into the kitchen and sits there looking at the fire. She reminds herself that she is still young and that nothing has been decided yet. She can do as she wishes. She thinks about this for a long time, then stands, lights a candle, and goes upstairs. Tommy’s room is dark and empty still. It has not been touched since the murder. There is no lodger who will take it and she can’t bear to sleep in there herself. In the other bedroom, her mother is already snoring. Rose undresses quickly, pulls on her nightdress, and slides down into the cold bed beside her.

  CHAPTER 26

  They walk in circles: thieves and blackmailers
, sodomites and ponces, embezzlers, garroters, pickpockets and cracksmen, everyone different yet everyone the same. O’Connor stares at the hunched shoulders of the man in front and hears the cough-and-spit of the man behind. Their prison clogs clatter on the wet asphalt. Beside the path, where the guards stand, the winter grass is worn away to mud. All talk is forbidden; even a glance or a smile will be punished. After exercise, they go to the chapel, then on to the felons’ workshop—winding bobbins, picking oakum, the smell of creosote and the cold brown air full of dirt and dust.

  He meets Newly every other Wednesday in a timber-walled consulting room between the gatehouse and the governor’s office. They talk about the witnesses who will be called, the evidence, the likely barristers, what the judges might or might not think and say. Newly’s manner never varies, he is careful and calm to the point of dreariness, he speaks slowly and never strays from the matter at hand; but afterward, when their allotted time is up and they shake hands, O’Connor feels, always and despite himself, a moment of raw, unbridled sadness, as if he has just been separated from a lover or a dear friend.

  At night, he hears screams from the other cells, sobbing, the sound of quick footsteps and iron doors being slammed shut. The narrow cell is as cold as a tomb, and the thick darkness presses down on him like a fist. If he dreams, he dreams of Catherine, but mostly he lies awake gripped by fear, thoughts and memories threshing like steel blades inside his skull.

  Some days, he is filled with indignation and anger, he feels misused and on the edge of violence; it is all he can do to contain his rage. But on other days, he drops into a nerveless, helpless lassitude. He thinks of everything he has done and not done, his mistakes and failures, his painful history, and he wonders if this punishment is what life demands. Is this the fate that has been waiting to embrace him? Is this his purest patrimony come at last? He has been in the New Bailey Prison for two months already, and sometimes he fears he is losing his mind.

  Fazackerley arrives unannounced just after breakfast one morning. O’Connor is cleaning his cell—sweeping the slate floor and rolling up the blankets and mattress—when the door opens. Fazackerley looks tired and gloomy. His blue eyes are framed with gray. He steps into the cell, removes his dented bowler, and pushes the limp hair back off his wide forehead.

  “I would have come before,” he says, “but they wouldn’t let me. It’s a shame what they’ve done to you, Jimmy, a shame. I told that to Thompson. I said it to his face.”

  “And how did he answer?”

  Fazackerley shakes his head.

  “He’s the new broom, ent he? The worse he makes us look, the better it is for him. He’s got his eye on Maybury’s job for sure.”

  “Chief of detectives?”

  “He might even get it. I think he will. They’re in such a fucking panic now.”

  O’Connor offers Fazackerley the stool from the corner, then finishes rolling the mattress and sits down on the edge of the bed. The cell door is still wide open, and he can see the kitchen trusties stacking empty food trays on the landing opposite. There is the usual breakfast smell of oatmeal skilly and night soil.

  “I brought you some bacca,” Fazackerley says. “Here.”

  He gives the twist to O’Connor and O’Connor sniffs it and nods.

  “I would have stopped all this if I could, Jimmy. I hope you know that, but there was nothing I could do.”

  “You warned me about Thompson. I do remember that.”

  “I should have told you to get out while you still could.”

  “Newly tells me that you’ll be a witness at the trial.”

  “I will. Of course. If it comes to that. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  Fazackerley looks around the cell and rubs the point of his chin against the back of his hand.

  “Belle Vue is a better place than here,” he says. “It’s cleaner, and they let you keep your own clothes when you’re on remand. You should ask for a transfer. You’d feel more like yourself in your own clothes, I’d bet.”

  “It’s not the clothes that’s the problem.”

  Fazackerley smiles for a moment, then stops himself. He puts the bowler down on the floor by his feet and rubs his hands on his thighs as if trying to keep them warm. His overcoat is still wet from the rain, and he smells of tobacco smoke and the winter air.

  “We’ll get you out of here one way or the other,” he says.

  O’Connor wonders why he has come. He must have bribed a guard or been given permission from the magistrate, so there must be something particular he needs to say, something that he couldn’t say through Newly.

  “Have they found Stephen Doyle?” he asks. “Do they need me to talk to him?”

  Fazackerley tilts back on the low stool and looks surprised, as if the conversation has taken a confusing turn. He shakes his head and tugs down on one ear.

  “They’re still looking, but he could be anywhere by now.”

  “I’m the only one who knows him. The only one who’s seen his actual face. You remember that?”

  “I do.”

  Fazackerley sniffs and looks down at his feet. If it’s not Doyle he’s come about, O’Connor thinks, then what could it be?

  “Have you heard from Michael?” he asks. “Did you meet with him yet?”

  When Fazackerley looks up, his face is different: darker, more strained.

  “It’s Michael Sullivan that I’ve come to talk about,” he says.

  “Is he in trouble? Does he need our help?”

  Fazackerley doesn’t answer straightaway. O’Connor watches him for clues. A guard walks past, pauses to look inside the cell, then continues walking. The long innocent moment holds them in its gentle hand, then lets them go.

  “Yesterday morning a fellow found a body on the waste ground near Stanley Street,” Fazackerley says. “Someone had tried to bury it, but they hadn’t tried too hard. The state it was in, looked like some dogs had got to it. I’m sorry, Jimmy.”

  “Michael’s body?”

  Fazackerley nods.

  “By the coal wharves?”

  “That’s right. Near the Bolton Canal, not so very far from here.”

  O’Connor knows the feeling from before: numbness first, then pain. Sorrow like a crevice cracking open inside him. Like a blind, furious animal released from its cage.

  “How was he killed?”

  “Shot once in the head, but they beat him pretty bad before that.”

  “He should have taken his chances in New York.”

  “We couldn’t know.”

  O’Connor reaches his arms across his chest and hugs himself tight. He leans forward and waits for the feelings of sickness and dizziness to lessen. Fazackerley sniffs, then takes a grubby handkerchief from his jacket pocket, wipes his nose with it, and puts it back.

  “It was Doyle who killed him, but Peter Rice and Jack Riley were there too. We found blood in one of the railway arches near where Michael’s body was found. The fellow who rents the arch is named Dixon. At first, he claimed someone had broken in, but when we told him he’d hang for the murder, he changed his mind quickly enough. This Dixon’s nothing, just a filcher from Salford. Doyle found him one night in the vaults on Sidney Street and paid him to rob you. Then later, when they needed a place to hide, he called on him again. He’s not a Fenian, he’s not even Irish, but he was there and he saw everything that happened. According to Dixon, Doyle believed what you told him at first. He thought Rice was the traitor, but then Rice convinced him it was Michael. Somehow, they’d found out that he was your nephew. I don’t know how. Michael tried to deny it, Dixon says, but they got it out of him in the end.”

  “When did they do it?”

  “The first night after Frank Malone was shot.”

  O’Connor clenches his face as if in sudden pain. He looks up at the whitewashed ceiling and groans.
The bell rings for morning exercise and the guards on the landing start shouting out the numbers.

  “They arrested Jack Riley at the alehouse last night. Peter Rice has disappeared for now, but he won’t get far. They’ll both go on trial for conspiracy to murder, and with Dixon as witness it’s likely they’ll hang for what they did. Doyle’s long gone, but that doesn’t worry Thompson much. Two dead Fenians will do the trick for him; it doesn’t matter who they are or exactly what they did. He sees it as a stroke of good fortune.”

  “If I’d kept watching the butcher’s shop that night, I might have stopped it.”

  “They would have killed him anyway, Jimmy.”

  “I could have followed them to the railway arch.”

  “If you had, they would have shot the both of you together. We’d have two bodies lying side by side in the morgue instead of one.”

  A guard comes to the door and tells Fazackerley that he will have to leave soon, and Fazackerley thanks him and then waits for him to go.

  “I talked to Thompson before I left the Town Hall this morning. He won’t admit he was wrong about you, even now, but he agrees that whatever happened with the gun doesn’t matter anymore. We’ve got our eyes on bigger things now. He’s going to write to the magistrate to ask for you to be allowed out of here on bail, and when the case comes to the sessions, they won’t be offering any evidence. It may take a day or two, or a week at most, but you’ll be freed quite soon.”

  O’Connor shakes his head. He closes his eyes tight, then opens them again.

  “It’s not right,” he says.

  “It’s never right, Jimmy. It’s better, or it’s worse sometimes, but it’s never right. You must know that by now.”

  * * *

  —

  One side of the exercise yard is in shadow, and the other is lit by the weak winter sun. O’Connor walks in slow circles with the other prisoners, into the brightness then out again. Warm and then cold, the same each time. When the guards are not looking, the man behind him whispers urgent questions: My name is Ezra, he says. What is your name, my good friend? I am a coiner. What are you? O’Connor hears him well but doesn’t answer. The man in front has a withered right leg; his body tilts and sways as he walks. The circle turns again: shadow and then light, walls and then sky, brown smoke leeching from the chimneys and clogs rattling on the wet asphalt. A dog barks somewhere. Crows hunch like sentries on the ridge tiles. Everything different, he thinks, but everything the same. Time becomes memory, and memory becomes the ditch in which we drown.