‘Your poor children will begin to feel the pinch now,’ Mrs. Hennessy said.
‘If it gets worse I might send them away,’ Mary said.
‘And where would you send them?’
But Mary was sorry she had spoken at all.
‘It’s something I’d have to speak to my husband about first,’ she said.
Rashers limped his way through the poorer streets of the city, ringing his bell and giving out his rigmarole to keep his spirits up and fight the fatigue and the monotony.
‘Step up 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.’
A policeman threatened to take him in for disturbing the peace. For a while a gang of children followed him, attentive and curious. When he got back to Chandlers Court it was dark. He met Hennessy and sat down wearily on the steps.
‘Sit down and have a chat.’
‘I can’t,’ Hennessy said. ‘I’ve got to go out to do a bit of a job.’
‘At this hour of the night?’
‘It’s a class of a watchman’s job,’ Hennessy said.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Crampton’s near the Park.’
‘You’re well got there.’
‘I know one of the foremen.’
‘I thought Crampton’s men were locked out?’
‘This is only a casual class of a thing,’ Hennessy said uneasily, ‘a watchman’s job.’
‘I’d be careful, all the same,’ Rashers warned him. ‘You don’t want to be dumped into the Liffey for being a scab.’
‘There’s no picket,’ Hennessy said. ‘I’m not passing any picket.’
‘Are there polis guarding it?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’
‘That’s an ill-omened brood, the same polis,’ Rashers said. ‘One of them threatened to run me in today.’
‘What for?’
‘For ringing my bell in the pursuit of me juties. He asked me did I think I was a bloody fire brigade.’
‘A smart alec,’ Hennessy said with sympathy. ‘I’ve met that kind myself.’
Rashers became enraged.
‘In this kip of a city it’s regarded as a crime for a poor man to go about his lawful occasions. The rich can blow factory hooters and sirens and motor horns and the whole shooting gallery. But when a poor man rings a bell for his livelihood it’s regarded as illegal.’
‘I’d a brush with one of them myself some weeks ago,’ Hennessy said. ‘A fella in plain clothes that was watching the food ships arriving. Asked for my name and address.’
‘I hope you gave him his answer.’ Rashers spat from the steps into the basement and peered into the darkness as the glob of mucous made its silent descent. It relieved his hatred of policemen. Hennessy decided it was not the moment for the whole truth.
‘I took him very cool,’ he told Rashers. ‘“Who are you?” I asked him—“and may I see your credentials, if you have any?”’
‘Did he show them?’
‘He produced them for inspection right enough,’ Hennessy lied. ‘He was a superintendent.’
‘That’s where the public’s money goes,’ Rashers complained, ‘paying thick-looking gougers from the country for spying on native-born Dublinmen. Did he try to interfere with you?’
‘He was objecting to me cheering,’ Hennessy said, ‘but I took him up on it. “So far as my knowledge of the matter goes, and correct me if I’m wrong, Superintendent,” I said to him—“but I’m not aware of anything on the statute books that makes it a crime for a man to cheer.”’
‘That was right,’ Rashers approved, ‘the nerve of the bloody rozzers in this city is appalling. Did he take it any further?’
Hennessy felt his powers of invention flagging.
‘No,’ he said, ‘the matter rested at that.’
‘Jaysus,’ Rashers said, ‘it bates Banagher. First they open your skull with a cowardly blow. And then they want to know your name, address and antecedents.’
He tried another spit, which sailed in a graceful arc between the railings. It pleased him.
‘Were you down at the food kitchens at all?’
‘Once or twice for curiosity’s sake only,’ Hennessy answered. ‘I’ve no union card.’
‘Did you ever see the Right Reverend Father Vincent Holy B. O’Connor down there?’
‘I can’t say I have.’
‘Well—I did,’ Rashers said, ‘three times.’
‘What brings him to those parts?’ Hennessy wondered.
‘It’s not the soup anyway,’ Rashers decided.
‘No,’ Hennessy agreed.
‘It’s no charitable thought that moves him—that’s a certainty; a long cool drink of holy water is the most you’d ever get off that fella.’ Rashers screwed up his eyes. ‘It often struck me he might be a spy for the archbishop.’
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ Hennessy said, ‘Dr. Walsh is a decent man.’
‘They’re all the wan in this city,’ Rashers said, ‘condemning the poor and doing the unsuspecting Pope out of his Peter’s Pence. I suppose you wouldn’t have a cigarette to spare?’
‘Not till Friday—payday,’ Hennessy said.
Rashers nodded in sympathy.
‘The same as myself.’ He rose from the steps. It cost him so much effort that Hennessy had to help him.
‘Don’t get into any trouble over that job,’ Rashers warned him. ‘Watch yourself now. And make sure it’s above board.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Hennessy assured him.
But he was worried and decided to say as little about it as he could. Crampton’s men were locked out. But there was no picket and he was not replacing anybody. He brooded over it as he walked along the quays, the river keeping him company for almost a mile. When he turned eventually into the back streets they were dark and unusually quiet. They oppressed him with their air of misery and hunger. His own children were sleeping on the floor and his wife had only an upturned box to sit on because the last of their few chairs had now been sold. The stump of a candle that guttered in the centre of the table could not be replaced until payday.
The neighbours were no longer able to spare anything. Something had to be done.
In the foundry Carrington, with the help of the clerical and supervisory staffs, was still managing to keep the furnaces on slow heat. An unanticipated problem was rust. It attacked idle machinery with a persistence that defeated all his efforts. Where he discovered it, he got the staff to treat it with sandpaper and oily rags, yet it threatened always to gain the upper hand. The overhead wires that fed the Telpher became slack after a stormy night and had to be left that way. A faulty gutter caused a patch of dampness to disfigure the wallpaper in the boardroom. He could do nothing about it despite Mr. Bullman’s repeated instructions. There were ladders, but nobody who could be trusted to work at such a height.
Doggett, for the first time in his life as managing director, saw grass springing up between the cobbles in the loading yard. Winter would now arrest its growth, but its presence convinced him that, so far as he was concerned, things had gone far enough. The financial assistance he was getting from employers’ organisations in England helped him with the cost of keeping his staff locked out; it could not protect his premises and equipment from the ravages of disuse. He spoke about it at a meeting and framed a resolution calling for a determined plan to recruit free labour from England. There was no lack of support. He had the satisfaction of seeing his proposal adopted without having to stick his neck out by moving it himself. In the matter of militancy Doggett’s philosophy was to let others have the credit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Timothy Keever now toiled from seven in the morning until seven in the evening in the back portion of Xavier Broderick Sons & Company, Church Furnishers and Chandlers, Merchant’s Quay, for a weekly wage of fifteen shillings. After two weeks of the lockout Father O’Connor had used his kindly interest to secure the position for him. It was a non-union shop and the money was smaller than he had earned in Nolan & Keyes, but he was locked out with the rest and had no choice. There were compensations. He was out of the weather and the labour in the stores was mitigated by simple clerical duties which required him to carry at all times a heavy marking pencil and a fountain pen. These he displayed prominently in the breast pocket of his shop coat. There were disadvantages also. The clerical work, although it filled him with pride, took its toll in concentration and anxiety. His overseer was a foul-mouthed little man of atheistic and anti-clerical views and blasphemous observations to which he was provoked most frequently by the Holy Statuary that thronged both the stores and the shop. He passed discreditable remarks to Keever about the pious effigies of St. Joseph, the Little Flower, Blessed Martin of Porres, the Infant of Prague, The Virgin and even Christ the King. He suffered from stomach trouble and treated it by eating the charcoal which was sold for use in thuribles for the burning of incense, his belief being that charcoal was very good for flatulence. Keever shuddered at his talk and felt there could be no luck in a place where charcoal destined for a holy purpose was pilfered and consumed in such quantity. But he feared to risk his own security by objecting and had to be content to close his eyes and shut his ears.