‘What do you mean?’
‘You could take off your hat,’ she said. He groped and was surprised to find it poised on the back of his head. He dropped it at his feet.
‘I brought off a sixpenny treble at Fairyhouse: Axle Pin at sevens in the Farmers Plate, Lord Rivers in the Irish National at tens and all on to Little Hack the Second in the King’s Cup. He came up at sevens.’
‘What did you make?’
‘Fifteen pounds eight shillings,’ Pat said.
‘Out of sixpence?’ Lily asked.
‘Out of a little crooked sixpence,’ Pat said. He found it hard to believe himself. He held his glass up in front of him and nodded his head at it several times.
‘What have you left?’ Lily asked.
‘Count it,’ Pat invited. ‘It’s in my back pocket.’ She took the trousers down and emptied the contents on to the table.
‘I declare to God!’ she exclaimed. She counted eight pounds and some odd shillings.
‘What happened to the rest?’
‘I bought a wedding present for five pounds. A clock.’
‘You should have your head examined with what’s left,’ Lily said, outraged.
‘It was for a friend,’ Pat said.
‘Who’s the friend?’
‘Bob Fitzpatrick. They were married this morning and after breakfast they went out to Howth.’
A thought struck him.
‘Were you ever in Howth, Lily?’
‘What would I be doing in Howth,’ Lily answered.
‘It’s a beautiful place. It sticks right out into the sea. You can see the whole Bay from the cliffs, and the Dublin mountains all around it.’
‘I was there once or twice,’ Lily said. ‘The cliffs made me dizzy.’
‘Then the gardens,’ Pat said, ‘with the dandderodents, the rhodadandins . . . what the hell do you call them . . . the flowers.’
‘I’ve seen them,’ Lily said, ‘but it must be years ago.’
‘Come with me tomorrow.’
‘Are you retiring from business?’
‘There may be a bit of a lock-out tomorrow.’
‘You’d better wait and see,’ Lily suggested sensibly.
‘Or the day after. Or the day after that again.’
‘Or next Christmas,’ Lily prompted. She saw he was full of drink.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Pat said, ‘hold four pounds out of that for me and we’ll go to Howth next Sunday.’
Lily took the four pounds.
‘I’ll keep it for you,’ she said.
‘If you have to spend some of it it’s all right. Give me another drink.’
‘You’re crooked already.’ But she poured it.
‘I’ve no bed for tonight.’
‘You can stay here. But no monkey business.’
‘You don’t love me any more,’ Pat accused.
‘I don’t love anyone any more,’ Lily said, suddenly weary. ‘I feel bloody awful.’
‘Have another drink.’
‘Two is enough. Any more kills me.’
This was unusual. Pat looked at her unbelievingly. Then he shrugged and said: ‘Please yourself.’ He began to take his own. The heat of the fire helped the effect of the alcohol. Lily was sitting opposite again. He was becoming drowsy and found it hard to keep her in focus. They had grown up together, played together, found out the usual things together. The boys liked Lily. She wandered around with them and when they dared her she stood on her hands for them. The boys shouted ‘I see Paris’ when her bloomers showed and the other girls tried to be scandalised. They both came from a world where very little ever remained to be known after the age of twelve or thirteen.
‘What’s the strike?’ Lily asked.
‘For a proper rate—three shillings.’
‘Three shillings a week?’
‘No—three shillings they owe us for overtime.’
‘A strike for three shillings?’
‘For principle.’
‘It takes a lot of principle to fill a pint,’ Lily said.
‘You never think of the world you live in, Lily,’ Pat said, ‘that’s what’s wrong with you.’
‘I know what’s wrong with me,’ Lily said, ‘but it isn’t that.’
‘You never ask yourself why the poor are poor. You see the quality going off to balls at the Castle and receptions in the Park. Will Lily Maxwell ever do that?’
‘I’d look well, wouldn’t I?’
‘You’d look as well as the next and better if you had their advantages.’
‘That’s the way God made the world,’ Lily said. ‘You’d better lodge your objections with Him, not with me. I have my own troubles.’
‘All that is going to be changed. We’ll have a revolution about that.’
Pat’s eyes were closing. Lily, watching the drunkenness slowly mastering his body and his thoughts, felt affection for him and asked: ‘Had you any definite date in mind?’
He opened his eyes and was puzzled. ‘What date?’
‘For all the changing you’re going to do.’
‘They’re going to lock us out. That’ll be a start.’
‘But no novelty,’ Lily said, thinking of the other strikes.
‘It’ll be changed. The expropriators are to be expropriated. Did you ever listen to that Connolly chap?’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Come to think of it,’ Pat said, ‘I haven’t seen him around this past couple of years. He wanted votes for women. That’s something should interest you.’
‘What would I do with a vote?’ Lily asked.
‘Vote for the socialists. I’m a radical socialist. I believe we should hold everything in common, even our women.’
‘Is your friend Fitzpatrick a socialist?’
‘Fitz is all right. He’s going to stand by us.’
‘For your three shillings? He must be as mad as the rest of you.’
‘He’s the heart of the roll—the flower of the flock.’
‘Try holding his woman in common and see what happens,’ Lily invited. ‘God, that’s an explosion I’d love to watch!’
‘Give me another drink,’ Pat said.
‘If you go to bed,’ she promised.
He was agreeable. She helped him to undress. When he had stretched out beneath the covers she made an elaborate show of pouring whiskey into a glass. But she kept it in her hand while she sat at the bedside and made no move to give it to him.
‘It’s a bitch of a city, Lily,’ he said to her.
‘It’s no great shakes,’ Lily agreed.
‘More babies die in Dublin than anywhere else in Europe—did you know that, Lily?’
‘All babies die,’ Lily said, ‘when they reach the right age.’
‘More men and women too. Does the Lord Lieutenant care? No. Does the Government? Do the employers? Does God?’
‘I’d leave Him out of it,’ Lily said.
‘All right. Leave Him out of it. Do the others?’
‘You should go asleep.’
‘If you get in beside me.’
‘I told you there’s something wrong with me.’ She half shouted it at him.
‘Where’s my drink?’
‘I have it here for you.’ But she kept it in her hand.
‘Take Lord Aberdeen. Does he care?’
‘I’ll ask him the next time I bump into him,’ Lily said.
‘You haven’t got into bed, Lily.’
‘Take your hour, can’t you.’
She was watching him, watching the sleep stealing over and through him. She was reckoning the moment of its victory. His speech became thick and blurred.
‘We’re going to tear it all down,’ he said, ‘tear it all down. Like that.’
He tried to make a descriptive movement with his hands. They barely stirred. Lily looked at him for some time with lonely affection. She said: ‘You couldn’t tear down wallpaper.’ He was asleep. The stupor had won. He lay stretched with his mouth wide open. She drew the covers to his chin and bowed her head against the bulk of his body.