At the inquest, the inspector confirmed the agent’s statement. Yearling, reading it, knew that the collapse had been so complete that there could be no evidence left to prove or disprove the inspector’s assertion. Later he received a letter from Bradshaw. He had been too shocked to attend the inquest, he said. He was taking Mrs. Bradshaw abroad for an indefinite period. His agent would handle all that was necessary. He would write soon.
The news headlines of the same day announced the opening of a relief fund.
‘Freeman-Telegraph
Shilling Fund
For Relief of Sufferers
Homeless Families
Destitute Orphans
An Urgent Appeal’
Yearling put Bradshaw’s letter aside and subscribed a thousand shillings. Then he thought again and sent on another thousand shillings, this time with the specific request that it should go to the family of the boy Eugene Salmon. After that he took a walk by the harbour, passing the ruins of the collapsed houses, about which the workmen were building a hoarding. It was a grey day, cold, with a mist blowing in from the sea. He walked towards Sandycove, remembering an October sunset of an earlier year, when the sea had drawn his thoughts towards England and a remote past and Father O’Connor had offered him God as a consolation, as though Christ could be passed around like a plate of sandwiches. The sea again compelled his attention, pounding in now through its grey mist and breaking on its grey rocks, an age old motion, dragging the pebbles after it in its backwash, full of terrible strength but not a brain in its vast bulk, a slave played on by every wind. The wind too was a slave, compounded out of combinations of hotness and coldness. What was there left now of school or university? No wisdom, little companionship, and memories only of an odd escapade. Two sentences ran in his head without relevance, mnemonics taught him by his music teacher when he was a child of about twelve.
‘Good deeds are ever bearing fruits’—the sharp keys.
‘Fat boys eat and drink greedily’—the flat keys.
The information had been useful.
On his return journey he made a slight detour in order to pass the Bradshaws’ house. It was boarded up and he stood to look at it. He regretted the piano inside, now silent, and the absence of the gentle woman who had played it. There was no longer anyone to bring flowers to.
Mary saw it boarded up too. She came to it, unsuspecting, at dusk on a Sunday afternoon. The gate creaked as she opened it, the carriage way was littered with leaves that had been left to rot. In places the wind had piled them into black hillocks. The window that had once framed a view of the splendours of Edward VII was shuttered. She knocked at the side entrance as a matter of form, knowing there was no one at all to answer and knowing too that its clamouring would fill her with terror. There were ghosts inside, ghosts of the Dead, left-behind ghosts of the Living. She forced herself to wait a little while, feeling a shutter might jerk open and that Mr. Bradshaw would glare at her from a curtainless window. She did not dare knock again at the basement door. She feared Miss Gilchrist’s face.
Lamplight and candles showed in the windows of Chandlers Court when she returned home. Rashers limped into the hallway just a little ahead of her, his sandwich boards laid aside because it was Sunday.
Fitz was reading by lamplight. He had the kettle boiling for her on the fire. When he saw her face he left down his book.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘They’ve gone.’
‘The Bradshaws?’
‘The house is all boarded up,’ she said. Her voice was very quiet.
She began to prepare the tea. For the first time since the lockout had begun she had returned empty-handed. The consequences troubled her.
‘It never crossed my mind they’d go away,’ she said to him.
‘It crossed mine,’ Fitz confessed.
‘We’re going to miss their help,’ she said.
He knew that. The furniture, the flooring even, all had come from Mrs. Bradshaw. Food too and at times, he suspected, money. She took down the mugs the children used and put them on the table. Then she sat down suddenly and began to cry. He went to her.
‘Mary,’ he said, ‘we’ll manage. Don’t let it upset you.’
‘You know what’s going to happen,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but we’ll weather that. Others have gone through it already.’
She meant that now the furniture would begin to go, piece by piece, the pictures off the wall, the ornaments she prized because they gave the room an air of comfort and sufficiency.
‘What will we do?’ she asked.
‘We’ll have our tea,’ he told her, ‘it’s not the end of the world.’
He took over the laying of the table and began to cut the bread.
‘Where are the children?’ she asked after a while. She had stopped crying.
‘With Mrs. Mulhall.’
‘I still have the money for their fare . . .’
‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘that’s the only real worry looked after.’
‘Yes. My father would take care of them.’
‘If it comes to that,’ he said, ‘but it may not.’
‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘When you feel the time has come—say so. Is that all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said. She took over the making of the tea again.
‘This will be ready in a moment,’ she told him.
‘I’ll go up and call the children,’ he said.
When he had gone she paused for some time to measure their new situation. She turned down the lamp a little to husband the oil. Then she resumed her work.
When it became necessary Mrs. Hennessy conducted her to the pawnshop. They packed the pram with two chairs and a small selection of ornaments. Rashers was ringing his bell and entertaining the queue. His sandwich boards announced to the world that the value obtainable at The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment was superior to any other in the city. He had a rigmarole which he repeated over and over again. As Mary and Mrs. Hennessy joined the queue he rang his bell and called out to them.
‘Now ladies step along lively with no shovin’ and no pushin’. First come first served. Don’t give the polis the impression that The Erin’s Isle Pawnbroking Establishment is the scene of an illegal assembly.’ Then he rang his bell louder and bawled out generally. ‘Hay foot straw foot, Step along and see a live lion stuffed with straw, Eating boiled potatoes raw. Have yiz e’er a blanket to pawn or sell—e’er a table or e’er a chair? Best prices in town for pairs of ornamental pieces.’
‘That fella has a slate loose,’ Mrs. Hennessy decided.
‘I heard that, ma’am,’ Rashers challenged her.
‘It matters little to Ellen Hennessy whether you did or not,’ she said.
‘But I’ll not take issue on it,’ Rashers told the queue, ‘because her husband did his bit in Sackville Street on Bloody Sunday.’
‘What happened him?’ a voice asked.
‘He was walked on be a horse,’ Mrs. Hennessy told her.
‘Which is not half as sore as being walked on be an elephant,’ Rashers said generally. He went off, ringing his bell in triumph.
They queued for over two hours. The women discussed the food kitchens and the arrival of scabs from England. They talked about the health of each other’s children and the way to drive a good bargain with Mr. Silverwater and his assistants. ‘Don’t go near the son if you can avoid it,’ they advised Mary, ‘he’s worse than the oul fella.’ She waited and listened and tried to forget the two chairs and the other articles that were lying in the pram. In bits and pieces from week to week her home would be eaten away. She was standing in line for the first time with the half starved.