He soon learned not to look back at all. After a week the wobbles were noticeable only when he was starting off or stopping. A publican, by arrangement with the butcher, decided to use him in the night hours to deliver and collect bottles, so that he had two jobs. On Christmas Eve the butcher, a kindly man who knew there were several children, gave him a round of meat for the family dinner. The publican, not to be outdone, threw in a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of Tawney wine. Before going home Hennessy spared a little of each for Rashers, topping up the bottles with water so that his wife would not know.
For Mary it was the best Christmas she could remember. She bought holly to put around the walls, she had mottoes over the fireplace which read ‘Happy Xmas’ and ‘God Bless Our Home’. They were painted in green and red and yellow on rectangles of glossy black oilcloth. Mrs. Bradshaw sent a cake and a sovereign. For the first time she made Fitz play Santa and put little sixpenny toys in the children’s stockings. She had a sprig of mistletoe hung up too, which Pat took advantage of when he called to wish them the compliments of the season. He stayed for the meal, with Mrs. Mulhall and Willie, whom Mary had invited over because for them it was a sad time. In the evening Joe called. So, too, did Mr. and Mrs. Farrell. Farrell looked very much older, but he was still working on the docks and Mary was very much moved to see them again, remembering the time she had stayed with them in the first months before her marriage, remembering too the wintry seas almost outside the house and the driftwood on the strand brought in by the tide after the dreadful storm. They had drink too and sang songs. Pat persuaded Mrs. Mulhall to sing, but in the middle of it she began to cry, because she knew only one song and that was the song Bernie loved, and the thought of it all became too much for her.
‘You’ll have him back home soon,’ Pat comforted her, ‘and isn’t that something to look forward to.’
‘If God will spare him to me, that’s all I ask,’ she said, ‘we’ll manage the rest somehow.’
Pat said there could be no doubt about it now. The shock was the worst thing and once he’d weathered that, he’d weather the rest. Fitz said so too, though he knew that Mulhall was still lying in the shadow of death and felt it might be better, when all was said and done, if God decided to take him. She was reassured and asked them not to mind her and said she was sorry to spoil their pleasant evening.
Then the Christmas season had gone. Mary took the mottoes from the wall and threw the holly on the fire. As it blazed and sent its aromatic smoke about the room, she dreamed of what the year might bring. Fitz was a foreman now, with a foreman’s wages. They might get a little cottage of their own somewhere, away from the squalor and tragedy of Chandlers Court. Mrs. Bradshaw was her friend, generous, thoughtful, a person of influence in Fitz’s employment. That was the important thing, to have a friend in high places. The future was going to be happy. She sat down in the lamplight and began to write another letter, this time to her father, telling him how well the children were, how nice Christmas had been and all the great news that he would be so delighted to hear.
For others there was less to look forward to. First the publican decided the time had come when there was no longer any need for an extra porter; then the butcher, despite a kindly sympathy, had only three days a week to offer; then week-ends only; then, with regret, nothing. The city, its spending over, closed its purses to Rashers. January spread its dark skies above the children whose little bodies were bent over the ashcans. A series of shipping strikes marked the resumption of the dogged fight against long hours and inadequate wage packets. People who had overcoats kept them buttoned to the chin. In the mornings their eyes saw nothing except the lighted windows of their business places and in the evenings nothing but the lighted windows of home.
‘The supports are moving,’ Bradshaw said, leaving the letter on the breakfast table. She waited for him to continue, but he had huddled back into his chair.
‘What supports, dear?’
‘Good God—the supports they put up to strengthen the walls of the houses—what other supports?’
‘Is the letter from your agent?’
‘Who else do you imagine would write to me about the damned supports?’
‘How could I know,’ she said gently, ‘you didn’t explain who the letter was from. You simply said: “The supports are moving.”’
He had picked up the paper. It was February. The shipping companies, he read, had settled up with the men. It was an unusually generous settlement. It amounted, Bradshaw considered, to a complete and abject surrender.
‘The supports of the whole world are moving, if it comes to that,’ he said gloomily.
She clicked her tongue in sympathy. She had no idea what this latest remark was about, but he seemed so miserable. The room was cold and he disliked cold intensely. Agents’ letters always made him miserable too. Why he did not sell the houses she could not imagine. It cost so much simply to keep them standing that no matter how many he crammed into them there seemed to be very little money left over. She had dared to hint her view to him once or twice, but when he growled back at her she had to confess that she knew little or nothing about such things. He dropped his paper for a moment.
‘I think it a very odd thing.’
He said nothing further, so that in the end, although she was quite afraid to do so, she asked:
‘What is that, dear?’
‘About Yearling.’
‘Is there something odd about him?’
‘He hasn’t called to see us for several weeks.’
‘I noticed that too.’
‘That’s what I think very odd.’
‘I was thinking so too.’
‘You never said so,’ he said, accusingly.
He was working himself into a state of misery and ill feeling which, if she allowed him to go on, would last all day. That would be very bad for his health.
‘I thought perhaps I was only imagining it,’ she said, hoping to humour him.
‘I don’t see how you could imagine that Yearling hadn’t called. You could imagine someone had called even if someone hadn’t. But to think you imagined someone hadn’t called seems . . .’
‘I know dear . . . that was a stupid thing to say.’
‘Preposterous. However, I suppose I shouldn’t worry.’
‘You mustn’t.’
‘Did you ever notice the way he treated my whiskey?’
‘I remember he used to drink rather a lot.’
‘Guzzled it,’ Bradshaw said. ‘What’s the use of making excuses for him?’
‘He played the ’cello very nicely,’ she remembered. Sadly. If the summer would only come quickly. Then at breakfast they could look out on the flowers in the garden, gay and full of colours. In winter the french windows showed you too much of the desolate skies and let in draughts all the time.
‘His tone is very rough at times,’ Bradshaw objected, ‘and when he becomes engrossed he breathes very heavily. I always found that very distracting.’
‘He doesn’t realise it, of course.’
‘In addition, he’s too Liberal—far too Liberal.’
‘He likes a generous measure,’ she agreed.
‘I mean his politics—not the whiskey,’ Bradshaw exploded. He was sick to death of these misunderstandings. He tapped the newspaper. ‘He has liberal opinions which lead to this. If it goes on Mr. Larkin will be cock-o-the-walk.’
She had not read the paper as yet and so could not know what latest villainy of the labour leader Bradshaw had in mind.
‘He expresses strong sentiments,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think . . .’ She hesitated.
‘You sometimes think what?’ he demanded.