‘The build,’ Hennessy said immediately, ‘and the cane. Sure what would you be doing here otherwise?’
As he spoke Hennessy smiled. Yearling responded. His deception shamed him a little. Had he not enough advantage, without this. The crowd cheered again, still without help from Hennessy. Yearling, troubled a little by what he had done, said in a friendly tone:
‘Cheer away and never mind me. There’s no law in the book against cheering.’
‘I suppose there isn’t,’ Hennessy agreed. But he stayed silent. It would be unmannerly, to say the least, in front of a plain clothes superintendent.
That evening on the train to Kingstown he met Bradshaw. Opening his paper and sitting beside him he said:
‘Do I look like a superintendent?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Today I was mistaken for a superintendent of police. It’s a useful thing to know.’
He spread out the paper. There was a long report about the ship and the speeches. Larkin, thanking the workers of England for their magnificent support, had said:
‘You have broken the starvation boom.’
‘An odd name—The Hare,’ Yearling remarked.
‘I’ve been reading about that,’ Bradshaw said, ‘why don’t they mind their own business over there and leave us to mind ours. They are only prolonging the thing.’
‘It cost five thousand pounds.’
‘And a ship. Surely from their own point of view that’s a criminal waste. Why not send the money?’
Because a name on a subscription list meant nothing. But a ship sailing in with food while the bands played and the flags and the slogans waved above cheering crowds, that was poetry. Dublin—a besieged city. ‘You have broken the Starvation Boom.’
‘Do you remember Mary Murphy?’
‘Mary Murphy?’ Bradshaw repeated.
Yearling quoted:
‘Down by the river where the green grass grows
Where Mary Murphy washes her clothes . . . you remember?’
‘Ah,’ Bradshaw said, mystified.
‘She’s found a new sweetheart,’ Yearling confided. He returned to his newspaper and became engrossed, unaware it seemed, of Bradshaw’s occasional, anxious side-glances.
At the food kitchens of Liberty Hall Catholic families were selling their souls to self-professed socialists for a bowl of soup. Father O’Connor saw them frequently, for he found it difficult to stay away. They stood for hours, some of them from his own parish, with mugs, jamjars, anything at all that would serve to carry away what was being given out. Sometimes, instead of soup, they got small parcels of bread and tea and sugar. There was the usual joking, most of it vulgar, as was to be expected from them. He leaned on his umbrella at times to listen. He would have admonished them publicly, but he had been forbidden to intervene. He was not even allowed to give them counsel in his sermons.
‘I want no pulpit-thumping,’ Father Giffley had replied when he spoke to him about it. ‘Let them fight it out between them.’
That was early on in the trouble, when the three of them were seated, as was customary on Sunday evenings, in the depressing common room with its great centre table and heavy black armchairs and its enormous painting of the Crucifixion. The evening was warm and the fire made the air in the room stifling.
‘The situation is so critical,’ Father O’Connor pressed, ‘should they not be instructed in the dangers of socialism?’
‘They are very fully instructed in the dangers of socialism. The press instructs them daily. The Catholic papers do so weekly. The Jesuits have all relaxed throats running retreats. Every half-baked sociologist with a Roman collar thinks he does a service to Christ by upbraiding the destitute.’
‘I do not pretend to be a sociologist,’ Father O’Connor said coldly.
‘You must find it very lonely,’ Father Giffley snapped.
His face was red and the telltale vein in his temple was purple. He had been drinking heavily again. Father O’Connor struggled with his anger. It turned to contempt. He fought that too. The man was sick. In a reasonable tone he said:
‘If we learned that proselytisers were distributing food and preaching in the parish we would take action. The socialists are doing the same thing.’
‘No, it is not the same thing,’ Father Giffley said. ‘They do not pretend to show the road to heaven.’
‘Their principles are a danger.’
‘To whom—to Kingstown?’
Father O’Connor mastered himself.
‘To souls,’ he said quietly, after a brief pause.
‘There is a more real danger to souls and to religion than any socialist,’ Father Giffley said, rising. He walked over and stood above Father O’Connor. ‘And it is my present duty to tell you what it is.’
Father O’Connor dropped his eyes.
‘A heavy-handed pastor,’ he finished and strode away.
Father O’Connor kept his eyes on the fire, anticipating the violent slam of the door. He waited, confident. But there was nothing further until he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Father O’Sullivan.
‘Has he gone?’ he asked, looking up. Without waiting for the answer he looked around at the door. It was wide open. Beyond it he could see the hallway, which was empty. He looked back to Father O’Sullivan and said:
‘Was I in any way unreasonable?’
‘No, no indeed,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘not at all unreasonable.’
‘Then why am I treated like this?’
‘He is unwell. Please don’t let it upset you.’
‘I can endure the insults—they don’t matter. But what of our duty. If every parish and every Catholic publication is warning against Larkinism, surely it is our duty to give guidance to our own parishioners. Is that being a heavy-handed pastor—as he calls it?’ He appealed directly to Father O’Sullivan.
‘Are you yourself satisfied to remain entirely silent?’
‘His mind is better than mine,’ Father O’Sullivan answered simply. ‘I am content to leave it to his judgment.’
‘Judgment,’ Father O’Connor repeated. He looked up. ‘Is it judgment—or John Barleycorn? The man is half crazy. And you know it.’
Father O’Sullivan made a quick signal, cutting him off. The parish priest stood in the doorway. He had a hammer and a sheet of cardboard in his hands.
‘Am I?’ he said to Father O’Connor. He strode into the room.
‘John—a chair, if you please. Over here.’
Father O’Sullivan fetched the chair and placed it against the wall.
‘Now—your hand.’ He helped Father Giffley, who climbed on to it and swayed unsteadily for a moment.
‘This will serve to remind others, John, of my instructions.’
He placed the cardboard to the right of the picture of the Crucifixion and began to nail it to the wall. His shoulders hid it from their view. He grunted as he drove each nail home. Then he turned and said:
‘John—your hand.’
But while Father O’Sullivan was moving to his assistance he swayed and fell from the chair. The impact of his fall made the floor shake. They both rushed to him. There was a small cut above his eye, which bled a little. His face had gone pale. Then he opened his eyes and said:
‘I fell, John.’
‘Are you all right?’ Father O’Sullivan asked, distressed.
‘Perfectly.’ He summoned his will, levered himself on his elbows and smiled.
‘The just man of the Scriptures never touched a drop, John, yet we are told he fell seven times a day.’ They helped him to his feet. He would not allow them to see him to his room. To Father O’Connor he said:
‘If I am crazy, then I am crazy in good company.’
He held out his hand to Father O’Sullivan for the hammer, took it and left them. His gait was unsteady. Father O’Connor looked at the cardboard on the wall. Father Giffley had written on it in large letters with the red marking ink they used for parish notices.