‘And why not,’ Father Giffley said. He closed his eyes and spoke aloud the verses of the Litany that came to his mind. ‘Heart of Jesus, filled with reproaches: Heart of Jesus, bruised for our crimes: Heart of Jesus, made obedient unto death.’
He stopped and gestured to a chair.
‘Sit down, John.’
Father O’Sullivan took the chair. He was always at ease in his parish priest’s presence, even when Father Giffley used him as the butt of his humour.
‘I want to tell you that I am going mad, John. Will you join me in a glass?’
‘Not now, thank you,’ Father O’Sullivan said. He looked to one side, not to evade, but to hide the sadness which he knew might show itself.
‘Why don’t you look at me, John?’
‘I took back the veils and the surplices from the children tonight,’ Father O’Sullivan said gently. ‘All the surplices were returned, but two of the veils were not.’
‘The boys’ surplices are always fully accounted for, aren’t they?’ Father Giffley said. ‘The veils are more uncertain. The little girls steal them. They woo men as they woo God—with raiment. I am not disturbed. Buy two more.’
Father O’Sullivan watched as the other rose and took whiskey from a cabinet. He saw him pour a measure and then add a little water from the jug on the table. As he did so, Father Giffley said:
‘Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills
Heart of Jesus, patient and full of mercy.’
He drank. He regarded Father O’Sullivan over his glass with amused affection. ‘You have no pamphlet of your own published yet?’
‘When I finish them they are never good enough.’
‘Will you be here during the evening, John?’
‘All of it.’
‘Then go and bring me your last effort and I’ll read it and send for you and we’ll discuss it. I’ll give you a frank opinion.’
Father O’Sullivan was surprised. Father Giffley had never offered to read anything of his before. Pleased, he went to his room and returned with the neatly written pages, to find Father Giffley pouring himself another glass. His mood had changed. He was staring through the window at the bunting which decorated the path about the church which the Corpus Christi procession had followed.
‘Leave it with me,’ he said. Father O’Sullivan placed the manuscript on the table beside him and withdrew.
Fitz washed when he got home, made tea for himself, then attended a meeting of his section that had been called to organise support for a strike in one of the timber yards. Mulhall took the chair, while Joe sat beside him on the platform making notes. It was becoming a routine now: the resolution of support, the decision not to pass pickets and not to handle goods moved from the yard by non-union labour. There were three further resolutions of sympathy and pledges of support for comrades on strike in England. Then they retired to Tobin’s of Townsend Street, because Pat had backed the winner of the Derby and offered to treat them.
‘Tagalie,’ Pat said, when they were sitting with pints of porter in front of them, ‘it was a certainty.’
‘The only filly in the race,’ Joe pointed out.
‘What price?’ asked Mulhall.
‘One hundred to eight,’ Fitz supplied. He had read the results on the job:
1. Tagalie 100-8
2. Jaegar 8-l
3. Tracery 66-1
Sweeper, an American horse, had been favourite at two to one.
‘You had courage, anyway,’ Mulhall said, ‘backing the filly.’
‘He has a weakness for fillies,’ Joe commented.
‘The jockey was J. Rieff,’ Pat challenged, ‘and I wonder if the name conveys anything to any of you?’
They thought about it but eventually had to admit that they could find no particular significance in it.
‘What was the winner of the 1907 Derby?’ Pat asked.
‘Boss Croker’s horse, Orby,’ Mulhall answered. Then he clapped his fist against his knee and added: ‘Begod, I remember—it was ridden by J. Rieff.’
It came back to the rest of them then. Joe said it was only a fluke that a filly should win against nineteen others—all colts.
‘Fluke or no fluke,’ Mulhall said, raising his glass again to Pat, ‘we’re all having a drink out of it.’
He looked over to Fitz for approval. Increasingly now, Fitz had noted, Mulhall, who took the lead in most of their discussions and decisions, looked to him for support and approval. They began to talk about the court of inquiry which was investigating the Titanic disaster of the previous April. Joe said the captain had brought the curse of God on his ship by boasting that even God couldn’t sink the Titanic. The Orangemen who built it had let loose the most terrible blasphemies against the Catholic Church. It was a well-known fact that the Titanic job was labelled No. 3909. If you held the number 3909 up to the mirror it read POPE. That was done deliberately so that the Titanic would be built under the slogan of ‘No Pope’. Mulhall said they were a notorious anti-Catholic crowd, the mob up in the North.
They were beginning to discuss this when a man who was not of their company intervened and said: ‘I hope I’m not interrupting . . .’
Then he said he had heard their talk about the Titanic and asked if anyone of them could say how many people had been drowned. When no one could remember precisely, he told them the number had been one thousand five hundred and ninety-four.
‘And here’s a very interesting thing a man showed me,’ he said. Taking out a cigarette packet, he wrote on the back the figures 1594 and showed it to them.
‘Now,’ he asked, ‘what’s the first, fifth, ninth and fourth letters of the alphabet?’ Without waiting he wrote them down under the numbers.
1594
AEID
Then he said that by a remarkable coincidence these letters spelled out an answer to the pro-British attitude and anti-Nationalist sentiments of the Orange shipwrights. ‘A.E.I.D.’ he said. ‘All England Is Damned.’
They agreed that it was an extraordinary coincidence.
‘It ties in with your friend’s information about the “NO POPE” slogan,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d show you.’
When he had gone Mulhall said there was something very queer about the whole business of the Titanic; pride always went before a fall. Fitz smiled quietly. Joe said the owners and the workers flew in God’s face. Pat looked at him pityingly and said:
‘All England is damned. Do you believe that nonsense?’
‘It may be nonsense,’ Joe insisted, ‘but it’s a very extraordinary coincidence.’
‘That fellow made it all up out of his head,’ Pat said. ‘He’s one of Arthur Griffith’s mob—a bloody Sinn Feiner.’
‘What’s wrong with Sinn Fein?’
‘They’re against you and against Larkin!’ Pat shouted at him. ‘That’s what’s wrong with them.’
Mulhall intervened.
‘If you don’t keep your voices down,’ he warned them, ‘you’ll get us all flung out.’
Mrs. Bradshaw attended the Corpus Christi procession at Kingstown Church and after it she had a number of the children for a little party. She had sandwiches and cakes and jellies for them, all prepared by herself. Making such things for children gave her great pleasure. At first she meant to have fruit as well, but decided against it on the advice of her husband, who reminded her that fruit was golden in the morning, silver in the afternoon, but lead at night. It had been a maxim of his mother’s, he said. Yearling had agreed to take them all home afterwards in his motor car. Games were in progress in the garden when he arrived and as he opened the gate a small boy tumbled out of a tree above him and landed at his feet. Yearling picked him up, made sure he was undamaged, and gave him a shilling to be good in future. He found Mrs. Bradshaw trying very hard to supervise the proceedings.