‘Are you in a bad way?’
‘Bloody terrible.’
‘I’ll get the missus to send down one of the kids with a few cuts of bread and a cup of tea,’ Hennessy promised.
‘You’re earning, then?’
‘A few weeks.’
‘It makes all the difference,’ Rashers said.
Summer was now his bad time. Father O’Connor no longer needed a boilerman. There were too many beggars. People like the Gaelic League and the Larkinites, the St. Finbar’s Hurling and Football Club or the charitable societies were all joining in the competition for stray pennies. Besides, he was not as good at the walking as he had been. It was his chest. Sometimes in the heat he found it hard to get air into his lungs. Often he had to stop, his hand against a wall for support, while he struggled to breathe.
‘That’s what I was thinking about,’ Rashers said, not knowing that so far he had said nothing to Hennessy of what he was thinking about.
‘What was that?’
‘I’m getting the bronchitis bad.’
‘The weather will soon fix that up.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure. Look at King Edward. Weather or no weather, it bloodywell killed him.’
‘His heart was bad,’ Hennessy consoled.
‘And what’s to stop my heart getting bad?’ Rashers asked in a reasonable tone. Finding he had silenced Hennessy, Rashers dragged the cigarette and offered:
‘If a fellow only had a bit of capital he could set himself up comfortable enough.’
‘That’s right,’ Hennessy said. ‘I often thought myself if I had enough to buy an old ass and cart I’d be made.’
‘What would you do?’
‘Removals. Or selling coal blocks—there’s good profit in coal blocks.’
‘You’d have to hump all them sacks up all them stairs. Up and down and up and down all day. What I’d do is buy a barrel-organ and a monkey,’ Rashers said. ‘There’s great money in it and only a modicum of exertion.’
‘Monkeys is very hard to rear. I knew a man was put out of business by it. Three of them in a row kicked the bucket on him.’
Mary, sitting at the open window above them, heard the exchange and leaned out to identify them. She recognised Rashers first. He came in and out at such odd hours and kept so much to himself that she seldom saw him. Whenever she did she thought of the coloured favours and the blood on his mouth.
‘There’s a catch in everything,’ Rashers said, when he had considered the triple tragedy.
Nothing ever worked out. You went up with your tin whistle to a polo match in the Park, expecting a crowd, and found there was a reception at the Castle or cricket in Trinity College. The theatre queues were overworked and, worse still, overwatched by policemen.
‘There’s nothing but bloody beggars in this misfortunate town,’ he complained, ‘and what’s more, the half of them is illegitimate beggars, a crowd of amateurs with boxes for the Jim Larkin Defence Collection. It makes shocking inroads on the Rashers Tierney Fund.’
‘You won’t be troubled much longer from that quarter,’ Hennessy told him. ‘Larkin got twelve months’ hard today. That’s the news I had for you.’
‘Holy God—you’re codding me.’
‘Here’s the very man will tell you.’
Fitz had turned the corner. They watched his approach, but when he came abreast of them and climbed the steps he passed them with a nod. He had a collection box under one arm.
‘That’s another that’s in on the collection box act,’ Rashers said.
‘If I was you,’ Hennessy advised, ‘I’d make up another ballad. About Larkin going to gaol.’
‘Do you think they’d like it?’
‘They’ve gone so mad about Larkin now,’ Hennessy assured him, ‘they’d get down on their knees to lick it off the streets. That’s what I wanted to suggest to you.’
‘You’re a man of unusual sagacity,’ Rashers told him, admiringly. He began to finger the tin whistle again. Already his mind was at work. He was thinking hard. Hennessy, catching sight of Mulhall and Pat Bannister, rose and went down the street to join them.
Mary arranged a meal of bread and stew on the table while Fitz left the collection box on the dresser and went into the kitchenette to wash. When he was working she could manage, with difficulty, to provide three meals a day. They had tea and bread for breakfast and supper. The main meal followed a pattern she had picked up from the wiser among the older women—meat on Sundays, cold scraps on Monday, stew on Tuesday. On Wednesdays and Fridays she got herrings cheap. She usually managed to have bread and potatoes. Several times in their few years of marriage they had gone to bed hungry. It took a long time to recover from a strike, to pay off grocers, to clear themselves with moneylenders. She herself was always the first to go short and the arrival of the children made it harder. She watched them as carefully as she could. Whatever else suffered she had tried to give them fresh milk all the time, but once or twice she had found it necessary to water down the condensed milk for them, despite the advice of the doctor in the hospital. Advice was one thing—finding money another. When Fitz returned and sat down she took a little of the food herself and said to him: ‘I had a visitor today.’
‘Not Mrs. Hennessy again?’
Every other day Mrs. Hennessy came to borrow something—a sprinkle of salt, a few spoons of tea or sugar.
‘You’ll never guess,’ she challenged.
It was seldom she had news. She smiled, waiting for him to question her.
He thought and then said: ‘His Excellency, the Governor General.’
‘You’re not even trying.’
Because she wanted him to guess he made an effort, but after some further thought he said: ‘I give up.’
‘Father O’Connor.’
The news was unexpected. With satisfaction she saw him lay down his knife and fork. Then he said, critically, ‘It’s taken him long enough to find his way.’ He had never forgotten Father O’Connor’s advice to Keever.
‘He came about Miss Gilchrist. She’s in the workhouse.’
‘So that’s where they put her.’ He said it grimly. They had often wondered about her.
‘How long is she there?’
‘Over two years, he tells me. He wants me to visit her. I was thinking of going on Sunday.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll mind the youngsters.’
‘You won’t have a meeting or anything?’
‘I’ll mind them whether I have or not,’ he promised.
‘She always liked a pinch of snuff,’ Mary remembered, ‘I’ll bring her some.’
He nodded. She wondered what he had been doing all day. Walking the main streets with a box in his hand, sticking it under people’s noses, being told to move on by policemen, who were always ready to make trouble. She found it hard to understand what attracted him in the speechmaking and the upheavals or to see the sense in strikes which always lasted too long and brought too little in the end. It seemed more sensible to take the steady work when it was going and leave the quarrels to others. There were children now to suffer. But she said nothing of that to him either. He knew his own mind and she trusted him to do what was best. It was not her business. She took her empty plate to the dresser and as she shifted the collection box she noticed its weight.
‘You did well today,’ she remarked.
‘They sentenced him to twelve months this morning,’ he said. ‘The whole city is on our side since the news came out—even the silk hats. We’re having a protest march tonight.’
She heard his plate being pushed aside and went over to take it.
‘Are you going?’
‘I couldn’t miss it.’
That meant he would go on straight to the job. He was on night work.
‘I’ll make up your supper for you before I wash the dishes,’ she said, accepting his decision without comment.