Mulhall finished his pint.
‘So we need a union of our own. Are you still backing us?’
Fitz, remembering the meetings, put aside his other doubts and said: ‘I’m with Larkin—all the way.’
‘Good,’ Mulhall said. He indicated the empty glass.
‘Have another.’
‘No thanks,’ Fitz declined. ‘I’m on shift at twelve. But we’ll talk again.’
‘I’m glad you’re with us,’ Mulhall said, ‘you’re important.’ He reached out his hand. It was a formality Fitz had not expected.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking it warmly.
‘I beg your pardon, Father.’
The paper lay on the breakfast table between them. Father O’Sullivan had the right to pick it up first, but the headlines had roused Father O’Connor’s curiosity. He reached out his hand.
‘Certainly,’ Father O’Sullivan said. He had a large, benevolent face.
‘Just the headlines.’
Father O’Sullivan motioned with a large benevolent hand to explain that it didn’t matter.
‘Strikes in Cork and Derry: Larkin’s Answer to exclusion from Conciliation Board. Expulsion Certain, confirms Sexton.’
It was everywhere, this upheaval, a symptom of materialistic thinking spreading through the whole of Irish society. He would give warning from the pulpit.
‘Thank you, Father,’ he said, not bothering to read further.
He saw now that it would have been a mistake to distribute the food to the strikers. It was as well they had refused. Relief would only prolong their miseries and strengthen the hold of their leaders. There were others who could be served, neglected and harmless creatures who were hungry too. The old. He should have thought in the first place of the old.
Near Christmas he told Hegarty and Keever to dispose of the parcels to the aged of the parish, provided they were not mixed up with the troublemakers. Keever made out his list. He was more prudent this time. The parcels were accepted gratefully. One learned, Father O’Connor reflected, however painfully, to separate the sheep from the goats. Some months earlier the true meaning of the phrase would not have been clear to him. Now he saw that it applied even to charity. It was sad. It was painful. It was true.
CHAPTER NINE
They sheltered in the gateway while the east wind, beating up the river, brought a sudden flurry of snow with it. Many of the gateways facing on to the river were closed. Once again, at intervals of a hundred yards or so, groups of carters were picketing.
‘A white Christmas,’ Fitz said, ironically.
Mulhall, looking at the cold, white spray that broke along the water, said: ‘And a hungry one.’
It was rough, being on strike for the second time within a few months. But the carters were a determined crowd. Larkin’s expulsion from the Liverpool union had left the road open for the formation of a union of his own. He had taken it. The carters were his first members.
‘Are you getting strike pay regularly?’
‘It hasn’t failed yet.’
‘Where does Larkin get it from?’
‘A mystery,’ Mulhall admitted, ‘but he always finds it somehow. Maybe the clergy are right. He’s in league with oul Nick.’
‘We had a meeting at the foundry last night,’ Fitz told him. ‘We’re all transferring to the new union.’
‘You had a hand in that, I’d say.’
‘I gave you a promise.’
‘That’s what I meant,’ Mulhall acknowledged.
‘It was easy. They all want to be with Larkin.’
‘When is it to happen?’
‘Tomorrow evening. We’re going over in a body.’
‘Good,’ Mulhall said, ‘we’ll all be together again.’
‘We can levy right away to help the strike fund for you fellows.’
Mulhall nodded. The curtain of snowflakes had thinned. The air became clear. They began to walk home together. It was a desolate walk, with the east wind freezing their limbs and putting an edge on appetites they could not hope to satisfy. The streets were muddy and scattered with puddles. One stretched almost the entire width of a laneway. Mulhall waded straight through but Fitz picked a passage around the edges. His boots were leaking.
Mary was almost certain she was going to have a baby. It was another strong reason for avoiding trouble. The savage militancy of the new movement had bothered him throughout the whole of the autumn. Many a time, while the city slept and he broke off stoking to eat the supper Mary had made up for him, he had stared at the glowing frames of the furnace openings which spread in line down No. 2 House, feeling the bond between himself and that glowing gallery of fires. When he fed them they in turn fed him; if he let them go out there would be nothing for the home and nothing for the table. Sooner or later Larkin would call on him again to starve them and starve in turn himself. Sometimes, when turning to say goodbye to Mary in the evenings he would see through the large windows behind her the roofs of houses on the far side, their broken slates a dark blue under a sky that was taking a long time to get rid of the day, and she would seem so lonely and unprotected that it felt like the act of a traitor not to grasp tightly for her sake to the little bit of security that offered. But he had come to see that the security itself was a mirage; people he did not know and would never meet decided its extent and continuance for reasons that suited only themselves. He and the others did not count.
On Christmas Day Mary gave half of what they had to the Mulhalls; Mrs. Bartley thought of Rashers and saved a piece of cake for him; Rashers, in turn, invited Hennessy to the boiler house of St. Brigid’s Church on the Feast of the Epiphany. Father O’Connor had re-employed him as boilerman for the season and the housekeeper had promised to give him his breakfast in the kitchen, a privilege of boilermen, which had become traditional in the parish. Hennessy waited for him in the boiler house itself. It lay under the back of the church, down stone steps that were surrounded by iron railings. A small furnace stood in the centre, and there was enough room to accommodate the couple of broken chairs between it and the coke from which Rashers fed it. He opened the door of the furnace and extended his hands to the warmth. Then he lit the candle which stood on a ledge in the stonework. The wavering light showed up walls that were thickly coated with black dust and ancient webs so encrusted that they hung like rags from the corners of the ceiling. He jumped when Rashers came suddenly behind him.
‘You took a start out of me,’ Hennessy confessed.
‘Sit where you are,’ Rashers ordered.
It was only a dirty hole under the church, but it was warm and dry and for a season it was his. The fact gave him the right to play host.
‘Did you hear the bell ringing?’ he asked.
‘I did. I’d want to be deaf not to.’
The bell of St. Brigid’s stood in the church grounds, a great bronze affair supported by bars which were imbedded in a stone pedestal.
‘That was me,’ Rashers said, modestly.
‘You rang it?’
‘The clerk said I could. Hanlon used to do it for him of a Sunday.’
‘And now it’s your privilege,’ Hennessy said. ‘Isn’t that a great honour—to be summoning near and far to the house of God.’
‘I knocked a bloody fine clatter out of it,’ Rashers boasted. ‘Got my feet against the stonework, took the rope in my hand and lay back.’
He gave Hennessy a rough demonstration.
‘It sounded very impressive,’ Hennessy confirmed. ‘Every clang caught me at the back of the throat.’
‘Here’s something else for the same place,’ Rashers said. He opened a newspaper and displayed slices of chicken and ham, which he had managed to hide away in the course of breakfast. When he had divided them with Hennessy he took a bottle from his pocket, removed the cork and passed it under Hennessy’s nose.