Strumpet City (33 page)

‘In what way?’

‘Asking women if their husbands are on strike and telling them they’ll get nothing if they are.’

‘Those are my instructions.’

‘If they are they’re no instructions for a priest to give.’

‘You are being insolent now.’ The tone had changed.

‘Mr. Doggett’s fond of saying that too.’

‘Mr. Doggett?’

‘The boss. He locked us out twice in the past twelve months. We gave him his bellyfull.’

‘You keep saying “we”. Who are “we”?’

‘Myself, the other carters, Jim Larkin.’

So it had come into the room to him. All that he had read, all that he had heard from the platform when on impulse he had followed the procession, was standing in the room with him. He should have recognised it earlier.

‘If you follow Mr. Larkin, you have no business coming to me.’

‘I’m a Catholic. I don’t want to be made ashamed of my Church.’

The voice had grown angry. Father O’Connor’s first impulse was to order the man to go. He changed his mind. He had learned that he was unable to do such things without losing dignity. He could never impress or terrify as Father Giffley could.

‘You are the one who should be ashamed,’ Father O’Connor said. ‘You are turning your back on the Church to follow her enemies.’

‘I thought the Church should be on the side of the poor.’

This was no ordinary workman.

‘And so we are,’ Father O’Connor said, gently.

‘You couldn’t be. You backed Mr. Doggett. You back the landlords. You told Timothy Keever to see that anyone on strike was left to stew.’

‘Socialism is an evil doctrine and Mr. Larkin is one of its propagandists. It attacks property and the Church Herself. If you are a Catholic you should do what the Church tells you. You must trust the wisdom of your priests.’

‘In their proper sphere, Father.’

Father O’Connor recognised the phrase. It came from the platforms. This illiterate man was beginning to consider himself competent to determine the sphere of the Church’s influence, to place bounds to the radiation of a wisdom that was nineteen centuries old. How could he explain the arrogance of that?

‘You are misled and I am sorry for you. Now I must ask you to leave.’

The man went quietly, too quietly. He closed the door behind him without another word. Father O’Connor remained in the visitors’ room for some time. The bishop had spoken out clearly about this new movement. Priests all over the city had preached on its evils. There could be no misunderstanding. But something was going wrong. Humble people were no longer listening. Were they beginning to believe the Reformers, to think that a world without God could be turned into an Utopia? He took out his pocket book and wrote carefully:
‘What shall it profit a man if, gaining the whole world, he suffereth the loss of his own soul.’
He would use it as the text for a future sermon.

It was raining. Cabs and occasional motor cars splashed through muddy streets. The gas-lamps steamed lightly. Mulhall pulled his cap down on his forehead and turned up the collar of his jacket. He felt warm inside him, in spite of the chill of the rain. It was the battle glow. It showed in the line of his jaw and the set of his shoulders. He was the father of the old women who passed him with shawls drawn tight over their heads. He was brother to the old men who sheltered against public house fronts and waited, hopefully, for someone who would bring them in for a drink and maybe a smoke. He was God, and the small boy who passed pushing a battered pram was his creature. Rain had plastered the boy’s hair about his face and the pram was piled with rain-soaked firewood. It was his creature and all his creatures were wet, cold, hungry, barefooted.

They would change that. Not by talk though. Do something. Keep on all the time doing something. Even if it led to trouble. Trouble attracted attention. People you wanted to rouse always took an interest when you did something. There were ways of dealing with Keever. Put the fear of God into others who might feel like following his example.

Mulhall went in for a drink. He wanted to think and he wanted to consult the clock. It was nearly half past eight. He said to the curate: ‘Your clock right?’

‘Ten minutes.’

‘I’ll have a half of malt,’ he decided.

He was in Keever’s district. A turn off the main street and he would be among the warren of cottages that ended with their backs against the railway line. The trouble was, he was not quite sure of the address. The curate, bringing the whiskey, remarked: ‘That’s a bit of a sprinkle.’

Mulhall looked round at the long windows. Rain was beating against them.

‘A good night,’ he said, ‘for ducks.’

‘Keeps the customers indoors.’

Keever was likely to be at home. It would be worth trying.

‘Do you know Timothy Keever? He works for Nolan & Keyes?’

‘I’ve heard talk of him.’

‘I’m looking for his address.’

‘Hold on,’ the curate said. He went off into the back of the shop. After a while he came back.

‘The basket boy works in the grocery end during the day,’ he said. ‘He knows the house.’

He gave Mulhall directions, tracing out the turns on the counter with a finger he had moistened in porter dribbles.

‘Number 43,’ he said at last, ‘here.’ He drew a circle on one of the lines.

‘Thanks,’ Mulhall said.

He went out into the street again. The rain drove hard against him. He bent a little towards it. Otherwise he did not mind it. All his life he had faced the weather from the seat of his cart. Wind, cold, rain, snow, they were enemies he had long mastered. Only children he pitied. And old people. Weather, among other things, killed both. One thing you couldn’t change. The weather. But you could protect them against it. Proper clothes would do it. Boots for the feet, coats for the body. The poorer and hungrier they were, the less fitted to stand up against weather. The poorer and the hungrier, the more often they had to face it. To chop up and sell firewood. To go out gathering the debris of the city. Who would stop that? Larkin would, with Mulhall doing his part in all the ways that he could.

He was among the cottages now. He looked out for street names. There was a lamp at each corner, but the name plates were hard to make out in the driving rain. He knocked at several doors for directions and went down street after street where cottages huddled under the downpour and overfull gutters splashed noisily. At last, in a cul-de-sac that the wall of the railway line sealed off, he found the house. Keever himself answered the door. Mulhall recognised him. He gripped him by the lapels and dragged him quickly into the street.

‘I want you,’ he said.

The cottage door, caught by the wind, moved slowly, gathered pace, closed with a loud bang.

‘Mulhall.’

‘You’re a scab, Keever.’

‘Let me go.’

‘Not until I show you and every other scab in this town what happens to strike-breakers.’

‘I’m breaking no strike. Let me go.’

They were against the railway wall. High, featureless, blackened with soot and rain, it rose above both of them. Keever braced himself against it.

‘You’re using charity parcels to break a strike.’

‘I’m serving the poor.’

‘You’re a liar. You’re selling them.’

Keever twisted but failed to free himself.

‘You’ll do six months’ hard if you touch me.’

‘Gladly,’ Mulhall said.

Keever pushed forward. Mulhall gave ground, then swung hard and connected. He dragged Keever to his feet again. They struggled together until Mulhall landed again. Then he began to beat up Keever, on the body, on the head, until Keever lay against the railway wall, rain and blood mixing together on his swollen face. He fixed Mulhall with eyes that were only half open. He struggled for breath.

‘Six months,’ he said.

Mulhall turned and left him. Halfway up the street he heard a door opening and a woman’s voice calling. Then he heard the woman scream out. He continued to walk at the same pace. He reached the corner, turned it, continued his deliberate stride.

In the morning the police came for him. They hammered on the door while he and his son were getting ready for work. They entered without ceremony.

‘I’ll go with you,’ he said.

Mrs. Mulhall sat on the bed. She was crying. His son looked on but said nothing.

‘Who’s this?’ the police said.

‘My son. He’s a messenger in the Independent.’

‘Where was he last night?’

‘In his bed. He’d nothing to do with it.’

They accepted that. Mulhall walked between them down the stairs and out on to the street. The sky was still dark, but the early-morning lamps shone out from windows above and about them.

‘You’ll be locked up for this,’ one of the policemen told him.

‘I’m not the first,’ Mulhall said, ‘and I won’t be the last.’

The lighted windows above and about him filled him with tenderness and smouldering anger. He was God and all his creatures were in bondage. He had been cruel, as God often seemed to be. But he had served them. When he came back he would serve them again. That was what his birth had been for. It was a good thing, in middle age, after years of despondency and search, to know why he had been born. He did not mind walking up the street, his arms pinioned by police; he would not mind the stares of the city as he was being dragged for trial. It did not matter, because he was entirely certain now about everything, about who he was and what God had made him for.

The justice said it was a disgraceful charge. He had beaten a man whose only sin was to work in Christian charity for the welfare of others. He had insulted, by his conduct, the person of a priest. His conduct was an example of what could be expected in the future from an anarchical movement, if decisive steps were not taken to suppress it. Mulhall said nothing in defence. He was sentenced, as Keever had predicted, to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

Father O’Connor mounted the steps to the pulpit and looked at the congregation for some moments with unusual gravity. He had already assisted Father Giffley with the distribution of holy communion, because it was the monthly mass of the men’s sodality and there were many communicants. Behind him Father Giffley sat to the side of the altar, his biretta on his head, his hands resting palms downwards on each knee, his head slightly bowed. Father O’Connor read the notices and the names of those who had died recently or whose anniversaries occurred. Then he signed himself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and began to speak.

‘My dear brethren: For some time I have had it in mind to talk to you on a subject which has been a source of ever-increasing distress, not only to me, but to those in Holy Orders who are far above me in holiness, in wisdom, in experience. I might have continued to hesitate in the hope—indeed, in the confident belief—that the advice of your priests would triumph over the promptings of evil men. I refer to those who have been working among you for some years now to spread discontent and a godless creed.’

He stopped to assess their measure of attention. It was not great. The hour was early, they had come without breakfast to receive holy communion, the church was damp and unusually cold. The odour of tightly packed bodies made the air unpleasant. Throughout mass someone had been coughing persistently. It began again now in the silence. A chorus of coughs and snuffles responded. Father O’Connor found it necessary to raise his voice.

‘Our hopes have not been fulfilled and our advice has gone unheeded. Only a few days ago, in this parish of ours, a good and conscientious man suffered a brutal assault.’

The coughing stopped. He had their attention.

‘The hand of the law has reached out to the perpetrator of this outrage; he is now paying the penalty. With him—we need not concern ourselves any further. But what must concern us very deeply indeed is the reason given for the attack I have just mentioned. The reason put forward was that the unfortunate victim was attempting to interfere against a strike engineered by professional exploiters of discontent. The allegation, of course, was not true. The man was simply performing a Christian duty, distributing charity in Christ’s name, offering a little relief to the destitute. But the incident serves well to illustrate the attitude of these self-styled Reformers towards any activity of religion. It shows their hatred of it, their anger at it, their determination to oppose the work of God at any cost and in any shape or form.’

That rang effectively. He paused, but it was spoiled again by the long rasping coughs of one man. Before the rest began unconsciously to join him, Father O’Connor spoke.

‘It is a wet morning, my dear brethren, you have risen early to fulfil your duty to God, I will not detain you now by speaking at length on this subject. I only ask you to keep it in mind for what it is—an insult to God and an insult to those who were ordained to preach His gospel. When next these men urge you to extreme courses, when they try to win your support and your confidence, when they declare—as they have done—that they respect religion and seek only the order that is God’s—when they do this recall the incident I have referred to, and the many others that have occurred throughout our city. You will know then where they really stand. You will be able to see that for all their fair words and protestations of concern for poverty and hunger, they are enemies of God and of His Church. In that way you will keep to Truth. And you will ensure that no more unfortunate victims will suffer physical assault at the hands of God’s enemies.’

That seemed to be enough. Father O’Connor allowed his eyes to rest steadily on the upturned faces for some seconds. Then he signed himself very deliberately, saying again: ‘In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’

They answered ‘Amen’.

Rashers got up to leave as Father O’Connor did. The cough phlegm in his throat thickened and refused to be dislodged. He struggled so hard for breath that he almost fell. A neighbour grasped him by the shoulders and led him outside. Rashers nodded his thanks, then leaned against the arch of the porch on his own. The rain clung to his unkempt beard but the air was cool and moist and easier to breathe. He gulped at it until he felt its cold bulk on his lungs. He rested, coaxing his heart to find a slow, regular beat. Soon mass would be over, the people would come crowding about him. They would look at him, some of them with pity. That was something he never sought and did not like. If he had a drop of whiskey it might do the trick, straighten him out for the job of stoking the furnace which he had been unable to tackle early that morning. As the first trickle of the congregation began to move about him, he stirred himself and decided that he must ask the housekeeper. She was a kind enough woman.