Irregulars (19 page)

26

O
’Keefe and Just Albert make little progress.

After dropping the photograph of Nicholas Dolan at the Fine Print shop on Camden Street and delivering Nora to the hotel, he’d collected Albert at Ginny Dolan’s house. The woman herself had been out, and O’Keefe had been glad not to have to report their lack of headway in person, though no doubt Just Albert had already done so.

They pass the rest of the morning and afternoon questioning newsboys who sell or hand out republican news sheets, learning only that it had been some months since Nicholas had done anything on the papers—selling or postering for the anti-Treaty side was punishable by imprisonment—and that rumour has it he had moved up to working for O’Hanley himself, since the wily brigade commandant had returned to Dublin. Nothing in it they don’t know already.

O’Keefe remarks to Just Albert just how much it would mean for a boy of Nicholas’s age to serve under a hero like O’Hanley.

Albert spits on the cobbles. ‘And I give a ha’penny fuck about the fella? This O’Hanley puts Nicky in harm’s way and he’ll be a hero floating face down in the Liffey.’

They move on down Talbot Street and receive hard looks from some men on the corner of Marlborough Street as they question another newsboy. One of the men approaches them, as the boy shakes his head and moves on, and demands to know what their business is. Just Albert tells him, and asks the man does he know anything about the missing boy, seeing as he is so alight with knowledge of what transpires on Talbot Street from his perch on the corner. The man huffs, offended, and asks the staring Just Albert who he thinks he is to be asking questions of people. He glances back at his friends, who avoid his eyes, and then says he knows nothing before skulking away. O’Keefe wonders does the bold cornerboy realise how lucky he is to depart a confrontation with Just Albert with only his pride wounded.

Albert stews in silence for the rest of the afternoon. O’Keefe can sense the raging thrum of tension in the man’s posture, in his movements. Nothing will satisfy him except finding the boy, but he will settle for a ruck.

Just Albert says, ‘Two fuckin’ streets away from Monto we are, standing here with our pricks in our hands and not a drop of piss to show for it. You’re the copper, Mr O’Keefe. What should we be doing next?’ He looks up at O’Keefe, squinting, head cocked.

In his face, O’Keefe now sees something more than just anger or frustration. He sees worry. Fear.

‘
Former
copper, Albert,’ he says evenly. ‘And even if I was still a copper, I’m not sure there’s anything the whole of the DMP or Civic Guard—or whatever they’re calling it now—could do to find the lad if he doesn’t want to be found. He’s in deep, obviously, if he’s running with O’Hanley. Sure, the whole Free State army and every one of its spooks is looking for the commandant and can’t find him. What does that say about our chances?’

The doorman lights a short cigar. ‘I don’t care a shite what it says. We need find Nicky.’

O’Keefe recalls the urgency, the worry, he had felt for the boy the previous evening when they had met the gun dealer, but he does not feel it now. He lights a Navy Cut, strange happiness simmering in his heart. It is the rare light of the October sun, perhaps, but more likely it is the prospect of meeting Nora Flynn again. A glowing anticipation as warm as the sun on his back, like he hasn’t felt in years. Dropping her at the hotel that morning, they had agreed that he’d call in that evening to deliver the copies of the photograph, and she’d hinted that she might like to go for another spin.
Maybe
, she had said, but she’d smiled when she said it.

Just Albert squints up at him as if trying to read his thoughts. ‘Did you hear me?’

‘Of course I heard you, Albert. I’m only thinking that maybe Mrs Dolan needn’t be so worried. There’s no one would harm a youngfella if they can help it, war be damned.’

But as he says this he knows it’s not true, and guilt snags on the lie—guilt that his own heart is lighter today than it has been in months while Albert’s and Ginny Dolan’s are heavy with concern. But such is the way of things. Around every corner, in every tenement and cottage, every hospital and battlefield, someone, somewhere is dying, some tragedy is being wrought, and yet the world goes on. Men and women meet. Babies are born and pints sunk and horses run; books read and children fed and socks darned. Men are killed and he himself has killed his share of them. His brother cut to ribbons. Boys are lost and boys are found. But the world carries on, O’Keefe thinks, and sometimes the sun shines and a woman smiles at you.
Enjoy when you can, endure when you must.
Where had he read that?

He takes a long pull on his Player’s. ‘You know I want to find him, and maybe we will. But we might have to accept as well … Mrs Dolan might have to accept … that the boy made a choice to go off with the Irregulars and that he’ll come back in his own time. When the fighting is finished or he’s pulled by the Free Staters.’

‘Or shot,’ Just Albert says, tossing down his cigar. ‘They’re shooting lads they find carrying weapons. Doing it on the sly at the moment but there’s talk of making it law. Nicky was carrying guns for them boys.’

‘He was carrying a gun
because
he’s a boy, Albert. That’s why. Because they’ll
not
shoot a youngfella for carrying. The people won’t stand for the likes of it.’

Just Albert lowers his head and stares at his boots. ‘You’ve been around Monto as long as I have, you learn there’s not a lot that people won’t stand for, once it doesn’t happen to them.’

Evening lowers, and before it closes O’Keefe and Just Albert collect the two hundred printed posters of the boy’s photograph. O’Keefe pays for them out of his own pocket, insistent that Ginny Dolan get every penny of her expense roll returned to her because, more than likely, he feels he will have little or nothing to show for it. The posters are of good quality, and O’Keefe’s address, as well as Ginny Dolan’s, is printed at the bottom of the page. A reward is offered for any information leading to the boy’s whereabouts. O’Keefe had debated the wisdom of doing this, knowing that the prospect of payment brings out the loonies, increasing the possibility of chasing ghost boys conjured by the crooked or greedy or mad. But Albert approves, thinking it better than nothing and telling O’Keefe that Ginny Dolan will pay more than he might imagine for Nicky’s return. They make their way on the Trusty back to Talbot Street and employ a dozen newsboys to poster the city.

Job done, Just Albert looks at the sky, then at O’Keefe. ‘We should be doing something else. Talking to people.’

‘We are doing something, Albert. Posting the photograph around town is a good thing. If anyone knows anything, the reward might tempt them to tell us.’

‘Fishing for touts.’

‘You could say that. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can drum up a contact in the Irregulars who might be able to get a message to the boy at least.’

‘Good luck with that. They’ll be eager to speak with a copper.’ There is bitterness in his voice.

‘
Former
copper, Albert. I was only thinking aloud.’ O’Keefe is silent for a moment before speaking again. ‘We could go to the DMP. They might …’

‘No police. Mrs Dolan was clear on that. We find him, not them.’

‘They might be better able …’

‘And then Nicky eats a bullet for a rat? Imagine they did find him and found other rebel lads along with him. He’d be shot by his mates in the Irregulars or live his life with the shame of fellas thinking him an informer. No police.’ Just Albert squints up at O’Keefe, his face set in a way that says there will be no more discussion of the matter.

27

T
he reception hall of the Achill Guest House and Baths is all exposed brickwork, holy statues and cold, parquet tile floor. A sagging line of half-drunk and hungry men extends out of the front door and Jeremiah Byrne is amongst them, waiting until the man behind the wire cage of the cashier’s desk is occupied by one of the sots in the queue.

‘You,’ the man in the cage says. ‘You know I’ll extend you no favours, McPhail. No favours at all unless you’ve the scratch to warrant them, and since you haven’t had a ship since the war, I know you’ve nothing and may shove off with yourself.’

‘What, here’s me only arriving in and already you’re slandering me? You fuckin’ goat’s poxed cunt of a bastard son of a tinker bitch.’ The drunk, McPhail, raises his arms, grabbing the wire mesh of the cage with hands like claws, as if to wrench the cage from its frame. He continues his rant, as Jeremiah had hoped he would, raising himself to his full height, a large man in a tattered black overcoat and sailor’s cap, the coat open now like bat’s wings, blocking the cashier’s view of the foyer.

Jeremiah ducks low and darts across the reception hall as the drunken man calls the cashier every common slur and curse, including some that Jerry has never heard before.
Sailors are like that
, he thinks, hearing the drunk call the cashier a ‘whore’s rusted seed pipe’ as he turns into the main hallway of the doss-house. Others in the queue may have seen him, but fuck them. Few of them had never pinched a free doss somewhere, and they would rather sleep with both eyes shut than spend the night waiting for a youngfella like himself to creep up on them in the dark and slit their throats for a touting, Turk informer. Jeremiah isn’t half worth wasting their own sad, few coppers of kip on.

He can still be unlucky, he knows, if he bumps into another of the house’s workers who gives enough of a toss to ask to see his rooming chit—the small paper ticket that changes colours each night of the week, indicating payment of doss fees. But there are ways around them if it happens, and most of the staff—kitchen women, mop men or coal boys—are known to care about as much as Jeremiah himself does, who has paid for what, once a fella doesn’t make more work for a body.

He stops in the dim, gas-lit hallway, letting his eyes adjust. The Achill is located on a laneway off the Smithfield markets, not far from where he pilfered the potatoes and onions for his sisters, what …?
Yesterday? The day before?
He has lost track of the days since he fled Uncle John Keegan and the suited men at his tenement. Since then, he has been sleeping rough, going with punters behind the market pubs for a bob or two, doing things he had thought he was finished doing when he’d discovered what could be done with a knife. With the few coins he earned he had eaten fish and chipped potatoes wrapped in newspaper from an Italian shop, using the rest for a bottle of fortified wine to drink against the autumn night. Now he is stiff and tired, craving proper rest and in need of money. And a knife.

The Achill is nothing like its beautiful Mayo island namesake. A doss-house, plain and simple—one step up from the poorhouse—a former lying-in hospital for women. It is one of the meaner of such establishments in the city, catering to single men who pay nightly for a dormitory bed and flea-sparked blanket. Clean sheets, when available, cost extra. A meal in the canteen, also extra, knife and fork available for a rental charge. Showers, located in the basement, extra again. But it is warm and dry and Jeremiah knows he can kip safely here. Once he’s inside, he need not pay for a bed and cozying around one of the coal stoves in the common rooms is free. A fella is meant to be eighteen years of age to bed down here, Jeremiah well knows, but he looks old enough if he wants to and has seen younger lads than himself behind these walls. More often than not, down in the showers.

He delays thinking of this and approaches a group of men gathered against the wall under one of the gas jets. His stomach growls. There are four men, one of them sitting on a bench built into the wall, the other three standing around him. Jeremiah takes out a cigarette as he approaches. He had dipped the packet from a man he’d serviced the night before, and now he has a flaring memory of the scent of sour beer, stale vomit and the bleachy taste of the man’s goo, his hand rummaging the punter’s pockets, coming out with half a box of Player’s and a broken-toothed comb. The cigarettes cost nearly as much as the punter had paid him for his suck.

‘Any yis have a light?’ he asks, sidling up, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. The men are mostly old enough not to be dangerous—broken-down dipsos, men in their thirties and forties, muscle eaten away and withered by drink, making them slump in on themselves, looking ancient and worn. Too slow by half to be a hassle, Jerry thinks, even without a blade on him. Yet.

‘Who’s the youngfella then?’ the seated man asks, looking up at him, and Jeremiah corrects himself.
This fella could do harm
.
Go easy with him, so
.

‘Thomas,’ he says. ‘Tommy Fallon’s the name.’

The man on the bench smiles, and Jeremiah can smell the reek of waning stout and whiskey rising from him.

‘A light is all. Have me an auld puff and then head down for a wash. Let the smoke take the edge off the hunger before me kip.’

‘No scratch for grub, youngfella?’ the seated man says, still smiling but something dark in his eyes under his dirty cap, heavy brows.

‘Not a bean,’ Jeremiah says. He has used this story before. It is his way of innocently announcing where he will be and what he needs, to the kind of men who might like to find him. It is safer this way. Courting fellas who might not want it could be ropey, some of them hating a lad for what he’s offering, others hating him for maybe wanting what he offers but despising themselves more for wanting it. And there are always those who hate a lad for charging for what they think is their right to take for free. No matter the reason, getting it wrong could earn a youngfella a bad beating or worse. Jeremiah had once seen a boy in the basement, a fella younger than himself, badly pulped for kneeling in front of a man who’d been eying him through the steam. That lad had read the signals wrong and paid for it with pints of his claret, spinning down the hair-gnarled drain of the doss-house showers.

‘No bean for a feed, so,’ the seated man says, striking a match off the stone bench seat and offering it to Jeremiah, holding Jeremiah’s eyes with his own until understanding has passed between them. ‘I may have a wash meself,’ he says, letting the match burn down to his thick, calloused fingers before blowing it out.

‘Nothing like a wash,’ Jeremiah says, as he moves off from the men, ‘for to keep a body clean.’