‘Showing off,’ Mick said.
‘By reason of the missus taking in two lodgers recently,’ Harmless explained modestly, ‘they don’t always finish their breakfasts.’
‘I’m starting this afternoon,’ Pat said, answering an earlier question.
‘Dammit,’ Quinn said, ‘I’m using your horse.’
‘It’s all right. I can yoke up Mulcahy’s. The yard foreman said so.’
‘I wish you luck with it,’ Joe told him, ‘it won’t pass a pub.’
‘A sagacious beast,’ Harmless remarked. ‘I seen Mulcahy and that animal many a morning—and both of them with a hangover.’
The food tasted real for the first time in a long score of weeks. The tea was strong and sweet and hot. The stove blazed with familiar cheerfulness. There was an all pervading smell of horses.
‘What’s all the news?’ Pat asked.
‘Terrible weather. Floods all along the Shannon. You were well off to be inside.’
‘There’s bad foot-and-mouth disease down the country too. We’ve been keeping a sharp eye on the horses.’
‘That’s why Mulcahy’s out.’
‘Mulcahy hasn’t got foot and mouth,’ Harmless objected.
‘I mean the rain,’ Quinn explained, ‘too many severe wettings.’
‘They say Home Rule is coming.’
‘So is Christmas,’ Harmless remarked, looking sceptical.
‘I’m going by what’s in the papers every day.’
‘And I was remarking with regard to Sir Edward Carson.’
‘You think he’ll get Ulster excluded?’
‘Just so.’
‘Home Rule or no Home Rule,’ Joe said, ‘you and me won’t notice any great difference.’
‘Certainly,’ Harmless agreed.
‘And the union?’ Pat asked. ‘What about the union?’
‘Down, but not out,’ Quinn told him, ‘we’ll rise again.’
‘When the fields are white with daisies, we’ll return,’ Mick prophesied.
‘We’ve the members and the Hall still, anyway.’
‘All we’re short of,’ Joe commented, looking cynical, ‘is the money.’
‘Like myself,’ Harmless added.
The yard foreman blew his whistle.
‘Yoke up mates,’ Quinn said, shaking the wet tea leaves from the can into the fire, which sizzled and hissed and spat out angry spurts of steam at him.
He took his afternoon easily because he had to. The knack of shouldering sacks had not deserted him—after three or four journeys he was back again into a rhythm of lifting and turning that had been perfected over a lifetime. But his back and shoulder muscles gave him trouble and his legs, after a couple of journeys up narrow stairways, protested painfully at the weight of the load he had to carry. He also discovered that it was no slander to put it around that Mulcahy’s horse was fond of its beer. It stopped outside three public houses where it had come to regard itself as a regular and refused to budge until one of the curates brought out the dregs of porter from the pan.
‘A grand animal,’ one of them said, stroking it while it drank, ‘cute as a Christian.’
‘Cuter,’ Pat remarked, ‘a Christian would be expected to pay for it.’
He remembered Ballcock’s tip and tied the reins to a lamp-post.
‘Watch her for me,’ he said, ‘I won’t be a minute.’
The bookmaker’s office smelled of sweat and stale smoke. He studied the board over the shoulders of several others, then decided on a double—both at Leicester. He wrote, laboriously as always, a slip which backed two shillings win on Packleader and decided to double it with Revolution in the three fifteen, both at Leicester. Revolution took his fancy. He put the docket which the clerk gave him in his pocket and felt that the day was now normal.
Mulcahy’s horse was tonguing its lips appreciatively. He untied her and she moved off contentedly. He let her take her own pace while he rested his aching muscles and observed the ordinary life of the streets with affection and tenderness. He felt kinship with his city; with his fellow carters who always waved a greeting, with the trams and their hissing trolleys, with the ramshackle houses and the humble people who trudged on humdrum errands. At the end of the day he unyoked in the stables by lamplight. He was back now in the place fortune and habit had ordained for him. It was more than bearable. It was desirable. Joe came to him and said:
‘If you’ve nowhere to stay tonight, you could doss down with me.’
‘Thanks. I’m fixed up already.’
‘Sure?’
‘All arranged.’
‘What about money?’
‘That’s a different matter.’
Joe fumbled in his pocket and put a two shilling piece into his hand.
‘I can spare it,’ he said.
Pat watched the glint of it in the lamplight.
‘You’re a brick.’
They left the stable yard together and Joe told him about Fitz.
‘We were luckier here,’ he said, ‘there was never any mention of signing any form.’
‘Poor Fitz,’ Pat said, ‘he gets the rough end of everything.’
‘If we ever reorganise, it’s someone like Fitz who will have to do it,’ Joe said. It was one of the few ungrudging thoughts Pat had ever heard him express. He nodded agreement and decided he must see Fitz, if only to mention the possibility of three days casual work with Ballcock Brannigan.
At Chandlers Court his mood changed. There was a deadness about it now that evening had fallen. He hesitated to face the reproach of the bare room. Optimism had come easily to his mates. They had more time in which to adjust to the collapse, more days of routine to get used to streets without placards announcing meetings and flaunting the name of Larkin. In their company his renewed contact with the bits and pieces of everyday had filled him with joy. Now, in the evening light and the emptiness of the familiar street, pity possessed him for the people of his city and their defeat.
A dog shambling along the opposite pavement caught his attention. It was the first he had seen in months. It was old and wore the look of defeat too. A bent and bearded old man followed at a distance. He did not recognise Rashers until the dog had mounted the steps and disappeared into the hallway of Number 3. The name floated like a ghost into his memory.
‘Hi—Rashers,’ he shouted.
The bearded figure made no response. He peered more closely to be certain he was not mistaken. The change in Rashers shocked him. He shouted again. Rashers mounted the steps slowly and unhearingly.
‘How’s the Bard of the Revolution?’ Pat yelled.
It had a momentary effect. Rashers, now in the open doorway, paused briefly. Then he turned his back and with the same slow gait disappeared into the house.
‘Do you know him?’ the lamplighter asked. He had pulled up in front of Pat and was parking his bicycle against the footpath.
‘Rashers Tierney,’ Pat said.
‘That’s the label.’
‘Has he gone deaf or what?’
‘Not deaf,’ the lamplighter distinguished. ‘Disinclined. I’ve known Rashers this many a year.’ He reached upwards, expertly engaging the gas tap with the hook on the side of his long stick. He pulled downwards, then touched the mantles with the thin blue flame which danced at its tip. The gas popped. A pool of light surrounded them.
‘Do you know the people in Number 3?’
‘The most of them,’ the lamplighter answered, appraising his handiwork, professionally critical.
‘The Fitzpatricks?’
‘Two pair front,’ the lamplighter said immediately.
‘I’ve got a message for them but I don’t want to go in with it myself. Will you oblige me?’
‘Certainly,’ the lamplighter said.
Pat found the stub of a pencil but nothing he could write on. He took out the betting docket.
‘Half a minute,’ he said.