‘It’s not worth half that,’ he said.
‘Two shillings,’ Pat compromised.
Mr. Donegan wrote a docket and handed him half a crown.
‘We’ll leave it the half-crown,’ he said easily. ‘Any sign of the work resuming?’
‘Not yet,’ Pat said, ‘but I’ll be back to you, whether or aye.’
‘Of course you will,’ Mr. Donegan said. A thought occurred to him. ‘Anything in the pockets?’ He ran his hands through them absentmindedly.
‘You might find a few holes,’
‘For ventilation,’ Mr. Donegan smiled. Then he frowned. ‘Don’t go getting drunk. There’s no nourishment in porter.’
‘There’s other things in porter,’ Pat suggested.
‘No’, Mr. Donegan denied. ‘Drink, like women, is a snare and a delusion. God bless you.’
‘God bless us all,’ Pat said.
He met Rashers on his way across town, recognising first the voice and then the bearded figure with the hand cupped against the side of the face and its feet planted in the gutter. The dog sat patiently, as though adjudicating.
‘Come all ye gallant neighbours come, and listen to my song
Of working men and women too who fight a cruel wrong
How sad their plight, this bitter night, deserted and let down
Their cause betrayed by foreign knaves which serves the British crown
O, do not trust unless you must the men that serves the crown.’
Pat slapped Rashers on the shoulder.
‘Come on. I’ll buy you a pint.’
‘I’d rather you forked out the tuppence.’
‘I’ll do both. Come on.’
‘You’re a decent Christian gentleman,’ Rashers said, following him, ‘and may you have the life of Reilly and a large funeral.’
He gave a jerk to the lead, bringing the dog reluctantly to its feet.
They went into the public house and ordered. Sunlight slanted through the windows and the air was warm and smelled a little of urine.
‘Where did you get the ballad?’
‘I made it up.’
‘Out of your head?’
‘Out of my heart,’ Rashers said, correcting him. ‘A ballad made out of the head is worse than useless. Here’s my best respects.’
He raised his pint.
‘A happy Christmas,’ Pat said.
‘We’ll see that too’, Rashers predicted, ‘when the working class comes into their own.’
‘We’ll have a statue put up to you in years to come,’ Pat promised, ‘and the people will gather from near and far to see the words spelled out on it in golden letters: Rashers Tierney, Bard of The Revolution.’
They both fell silent, picturing in their mind the stone tribute of Pat’s fantasy.
‘The only thing is,’ Pat amended, ‘they’d have to leave the bloody oul dog out of it.’
‘I seen a statue to a dog once,’ Rashers volunteered. ‘It was put up by a rich oul wan in memory of a pet terrier.’
‘And why not?’
‘It didn’t look right. I often wondered had she the priest to pronounce over it, sprinkling holy water and wishing it eternal rest, in secula seculorium.’
‘Maybe she believed in that thing about souls.
‘What thing?’
‘When you pass on you come back as an animal.’
‘You mean Rusty here mightn’t be a dog at all? He might only be somebody looking like a dog?’
‘Rusty could be Napoleon. Or Julius Caesar.’ Rashers looked down at the dog. It cocked its head at him, wondering if they were about to leave.
‘Poor Rusty,’ Rashers said, ‘it’s a bit of a come-down for you, whatever the hell you were.’
He patted the dog on the head. Pat looked for the public house clock and saw that it was half past eight.
‘There’s your tuppence,’ he said. ‘I have to be off.’
He finished his pint and went out. There seemed very little point in going to Lily’s room again, so he decided to kill time by walking down towards the quays. There were policemen everywhere in the streets, moving along in groups. He changed his mind about going to the quays and went in again to drink, this time with a man who was full of talk about the disturbances. When he came out it was half past nine. The streets had the late evening odour of dust, and an old man in a long black soutane was closing over the entrance doors to the Pro-Cathedral. One scraped its lock along the stone paved threshold, the other collided roughly with it and set up a thunder roll of sound that escaped from the church and echoed along the street. Pat, the drink moving in him, hurried his pace and headed directly for Lily’s favourite pub, where the curate said yes, she had been there on and off. His expression conveyed his conclusions about Pat’s reason for asking, but he went off polishing a glass and whistling. His customers’ business was their own, provided they conducted it in an orderly fashion. Pat took his drink and sat down to wait.
The pain inside him, which he had managed to forget in his talk with others, attacked him more fiercely now that he was alone. He looked at the fly-blown mirror with its lettered advertisement and recollected a night when Lily had asked to have it brought into the snug so that she could fix her hair. The curate did it for Lily, although he would have refused any of the others. Pat remembered her small, pretty face in it and the hands shaping the hair about it with movements that he loved. He had money that night after a lucky break with the horses, and they had gone to the Empire Palace Theatre afterwards to see James Fawn, the comedian.
Pat pushed the memory from his mind and was raising his glass when he heard the voice from the snug. He took his drink with him and walked down with it.
‘Lily,’ he said.
She started when she saw him at the door. He noted that too. It upset him. She stood waiting for her drink, drumming her fingers on the edge of the service hatch, unable to think of something to say that would be ordinary and usual. At last she managed, lamely, ‘Hello, Pat.’
She took her drink and sat down. He joined her.
‘I want to ask you something, Lily.’
‘You don’t have to sound like a bloody funeral about it.’
‘Why have you been avoiding me?’
She laughed falsely and said: ‘Are you getting ideas about yourself?’
‘For weeks I’ve been looking for you. You even got Maisie to put me off.’
She flushed angrily and he could see that her rage, too, was false. She was working it up purposely, a weapon of defence.
‘That’s something I want to have out with you, Pat Bannister. You’ve been following me around and asking every Tom, Dick and Harry about me, getting me talked about and making a holy show of me. What the hell ails you?’
‘I wanted to see you. About the few pounds you were holding for me.’
‘Four lousy pounds. Is that the extent of your trouble?’
‘Did you spend it?’
He said it casually, knowing now that she had.
‘You said I could.’
‘All of it?’
‘All of it he says. Four lousy pounds.’ Her vehemence surprised him. She looked tired and overwrought. In her eyes and on her face he saw the months of anguish and fear. They puzzled and touched him. He put his hand on hers.
‘It doesn’t matter if you needed it, Lily.’
‘I needed it,’ Lily said. ‘I bloody well needed it all right.’
Her voice was bitter, but it was more like her own. He had got nearer to the Lily he had always known.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy you a drink and we can talk.’
He rapped on the counter.
‘What’s the use of talk?’
‘What did you need it for?’
She froze again and said shortly: ‘Never mind what I needed it for.’