‘I haven’t blamed him at all,’ Father O’Connor said, ‘he’s not exceptional.’
Yearling tasted his whiskey and, in the half-light that lay about them, took in the sad, white face of the man he had been playing music with. In spite of the tired lines and the pallor, the face was ridiculously young. Did celibacy keep them that way? Or holiness? They read a lot of intellectual stuff which ought at least to give the eyes the set of learning. It had left no mark on this man. Nor had music. He was certainly musical. Tomorrow morning, the fingers that had been so competent on the keyboard and were now white about the stem of the wine-glass would break the wafer that they believed was the Body of Christ. If it was, how could they bear to break it. Cr-a-a-ck. Just like that. Yearling knew. The girl he had known in London had been a Catholic. He had seen for himself.
‘Shall we play some more music?’
‘There’s nothing I’d love more, but I really must watch the time.’
‘You’re not drinking your wine.’
‘I’m not used to it.’
‘Don’t you have it every morning?’
Father O’Connor’s understanding grasped the point slowly. ‘It’s not quite the same thing,’ he said. He spoke with difficulty. A great gap had opened between them, of which only he was aware. Yearling, faintly smiling in the twilight, relished his whiskey. It was loneliness, then. And for ever. No company in the Bradshaws, whom he admired only for good taste and smooth manners, none in Father Giffley, whom he tried hard not to despise or Father O’Sullivan who had a dull mind, none in the ragtag and bobtail of his parish, for whom he had a dutiful love which shrank at every physical contact. And in Yearling, below a now more clearly understood level, no companionship. No real understanding between himself and the poor, or between the world of poverty and the world of comfort. He had left a gracious way of life to do what his heart told him was God’s will, and all he had found so far was disrespect, humiliation, an inner disgust. The devil worked more successfully than he, and the people looked to agitators for deliverance. He had been on the point of telling Yearling about that, of expressing a little of his aloneness and disappointment. Now it was impossible. His unhappiness grew until it became physically painful.
‘I’ll play for thirty minutes,’ he said. It would stop the ache, a temporary sedative. Unintentionally he emptied his third glass of wine.
‘Excellent,’ Yearling said, moving for his ’cello. On his way he rang for lamps. He was nervous of gas and electricity had not yet attracted his consideration.
They jammed the street in front of the station, a jumble of torches and banners, a tightly packed array that had generated a soul and a mind of its own, capable of response only to simple impulses, able to move itself, to emit a cry, to swing right or left, to stop altogether. They had come out en masse from the hovels and tenements, disrupting traffic, driving the respectable off the sidewalks. Their sudden arrogance was astonishing. Here and there Father O’Connor recognised a face. He stood on the steps leading down to the exit, knowing it was useless to try to pass through. The dizzy feeling which had made him so uncomfortable in the train attacked him again. It was dark, yet the street seemed unusually bright and certain faces seemed larger than others. He recognised Fitzpatrick, whom he had known for a long time, without pretending to; he knew the big man who walked by his side; he knew Rashers and the sickly little man who kept him company. ‘Release Larkin’ the banners said. ‘Arise, Ye Slaves’. They turned confusingly this way and that above the shoulders that bore them. The flaring torches were a melodramatic touch and, he thought, dangerous. He wondered how they were made. He stood with the other passengers on the steps—behind him the station where gas-lamps with pendant chains spread a sickly light between the platform and the soot-blackened canopy—in front of him the mob, the torches, the banners.
‘Stick close to me,’ Rashers advised.
Hennessy, already pressed painfully against him by the pressure of bodies, his arms pinioned and his hat coming down over his eyes, answered obscenely. It was a rare thing in Hennessy.
‘I’m surprised at you,’ Rashers said. He had the whistle under his coat and wrapped around it the paper with the words of his new ballad.
‘Wait’ll I sing my song for them,’ he said.
‘You’ll never be able to sing in this mob.’
‘Passed unanimously.’
‘Then what the hell are we getting walked on for?’
‘To be ready with the song when they reach Beresford Place before the speechifying starts.’
‘Did you see who was on the station steps?’
‘Give over gasbagging. I’m putting the words through my mind.’
‘Father O’Connor.’
Rashers, disturbed by the information, hesitated for a moment and was trampled on immediately. When he had released his feelings in a flow of bad language he asked:
‘Did he see us?’
‘How do I know?’
‘If he did I’ll never get the job back.’
‘Of course you’ll get the job back.’
‘The clergy is always giving out the pay about us socialists.’
This was news to Hennessy.
‘I never knew you were a friend of the cause.’
‘In times of crisis,’ Rashers said, ‘I’m a stalwart.’
‘When there’s a bit of money to be made out of trials and tribulations, I suppose.’
‘As Bard of the Revolution,’ Rashers said, remembering Pat’s phrase.
They reached a street junction and the pressure eased. Those at the sides held back, then fell in ranks behind the main body, five or six abreast.
‘It’s a great turn-out,’ Mulhall said to Fitz. He was a mountain of satisfaction.
‘Half of them are gapers.’
‘Some of them will join up.’
‘How many?’
‘Enough for our purpose.’
At least there had been a swing in public opinion. It was easy to judge that in the suddenly increased response to the collection boxes.
‘Maybe,’ Fitz said.
Mary would be by herself, looking down on the quiet back street, the room in half light about her because she would be saving oil by doing without the lamp. For him there was the excitement to keep the anxieties from growing too powerful. Tonight, when he felt the drag of the loaded shovel on his shoulders and the sweat trickling down his body, there would be the roar of the furnaces and at break times the conversation of his mates. She would be alone, with the two children of their marriage near at hand to keep doubt and fear in her heart.
‘They’ve been slow enough about joining,’ he added.
‘After this they’ll flock to us,’ Mulhall said. He was smiling and full of confidence.
At Beresford Place they formed into a meeting before the derelict block of buildings that had once been the Northumberland Commercial and Family Hotel. The torches went out one by one, night crept up the river and spread over the city. People in trains that passed from time to time across the loop-line bridge leaned out of windows to look down at the packed street while for some moments the speaker gesticulated and was unheard because of the trundling carriages. At half past eleven Fitz said to Mulhalclass="underline"
‘I’d better move. I’m due in at twelve.’
Mulhall nodded.
Fitz worked his way slowly through the crowd, which was still dense. He was tempted to go home, to pick up on the sleep he had cut short in the daytime in order to walk the streets with his collection box, but he could not afford to lose a night’s pay.
Touching his pocket to feel if his supper was still there, he began to cross the bridge. To his left there were berthed ships, lying idle and deserted on the low tide. At the far end of the bridge a figure leaned on the parapet. At first he paid no attention, thinking it was a down-and-out or a drunk, using the parapet to rest against, but when he came abreast he realised that it was a priest. He went over and touched the shoulder.