After the Wake (2 page)

Over Mrs. Murphy’s bed hung a picture of a person wearing a red jacket and a white head. When I was small I thought it was a picture of herself, but she laughed one day and said no, that it was Pope Leo. Whether this was a man or a woman I was not sure, for his red cloak was like Mrs. Murphy’s and so was his white head.

The day I was five, Mrs. Murphy said we must go over to Jimmy the Sports for a quick one, the day that was in it.

‘While I’m putting on me clothes, you can be giving the cat her bit of burgoo*.’

I got up the saucerful of porridge and put the milk on it, and called under the bed, ‘Minnie Murphy, come out from that old shoe-box at once, and eat your breakfast’.

‘Before
he
eats it,’ muttered Mrs. Murphy to herself putting a skirt on over her head.

I was caught once, sitting the far side of a plateful of lights* with the cat, but that was a long time ago, when I was only three: we eating, share and share alike.

We got out of the parlour all right, and into the hall. Someone had left a pram in it and Mrs. Murphy gave it a blessing when she nearly fell over it. She
supported herself going round it, and opened the hall-door. Going down the steps into the street, she rested her hand on my head. I didn’t mind for she was very light, and it was easy for her to reach me, though I was not that tall, for she was bent nearly double since the winter.

Half-way up the street, she sat on the steps of 16 and said I was to run on up to the corner for a quarter ounce of white snuff.

I had to wait my turn in the shop. There were women in front of me.

‘I says to myself when I seen her,’ says one woman, ‘the dead arose and appeared to many.’

‘It’s all very fine and large,’ says the other old one, ‘but I’ve had her in the Society since before the war. If she dropped dead this minute, God between her and all harm, I’d still be losing money. When she got over the Spanish ’flu, and was missed be the Tans* on Bloody Sunday, I said it was only throwing good money after bad, and I’d cut me losses and let the policy lapse, for nothing less than an Act of God or a hand grenade could make a dent in her.’

‘Ah sure, what nicer am I? And we’re not the only ones. There’s more money invested in old Murphy nor the G.S.R.*’

The shopman looked over the counter at me, ‘Well, me little man?’

‘A quarter ounce of white snuff.’

The women nudged each other, ‘And how’s poor Mrs. Murphy today,
a
mhic*
?’

‘She’s powerful.’

‘God bless her and spare the poor old creature.’

‘Barring the humane-killer,’ muttered the other old one, and they went out.

In the pub she sat in the corner and ordered a bottle of stout for herself and a dandy glass of porter for me.

‘An orange or something would be better for the child,’ said Jimmy the Sports.

‘The drop of gargle will do him good,’ said Mrs. Murphy, ‘it’s only a little birthday celebration.’

‘You must be the hundred,’ said Jimmy the Sports.

‘I’m not,’ said old Murphy, ‘nor nothing like it. I was born in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-seven.’

‘You’d remember the famine then,’ said Jimmy the Sports.

‘We were respectable people round this street and didn’t go in for famines. All shut hall-doors that time. Down in Monto* they had the famine. They didn’t do a stroke of work for months only unloading the stuff off of the boats. The people that brought it over didn’t mind. It was for the hungry Irish, and it saved them the trouble of going any further with it. They had the life of Riley down on the quay, while it lasted.’

Jimmy the Sports ground his teeth and looked as if he might cry. ‘God forgive you, and you an old woman. My poor mother fell from her own dead mother’s arms outside Loughrea workhouse.’

Mrs. Murphy took a pinch of snuff. ‘Well, we all have our troubles. If it’s not an ear, it’s an elbow. What about the gargle?’

Jimmy the Sports put them up and she paid him. ‘Sorrow sign of famine on you anyway, Jimmy. The land for the people,’ she muttered to herself, ‘will you ever forget that?’

We spent a bit of time in Jimmy the Sports and
then went back down the street. I walked in front for her to lean on my head, slow and in time with her. The pram was still in the hall, and she muttered a few curses getting round it, but the baby from the back drawing-room was in it this time, and she leant a minute on the side looking in at him.

‘What’s this the name of that crowd that owns this child is?’

‘It’s Rochfords’ baby,’ said I. ‘Out of upstairs. He’s only new out of the Roto* this week.’

‘How do you know he’s out of the Roto?’

‘I heard my mother and them saying it. That’s where all babies are from. They have pictures there too.’

She waved her hand. ‘Shut up a minute, can’t you?’ She put her hand to her forehead. ‘That’d be Dan Rochford’s son’s child, or his child maybe.’ She fumbled in her handbag. ‘I’ve two thrupenny bits. Here, take one of these in your hand. It has to be silver. Put it in the baby’s hand and say what I say: “Hold your hansel, long life and the height of good luck to you.” Come on.’

I tried to speak but the tears were choking me. I thought she would give me one of the thrupenny bits anyway. It was like a blow in the face to me, and I’d done nothing on her but walked nice and easy down the street when she leaned on my head, and went over and got the snuff.

She looked down at me, and I put the thrupenny bit into the pram, and turned my heart, and – cheeks and eyes all full of tears – ran through the hall and out into the street.

My mother only laughed and said it didn’t mean that Mrs. Murphy fancied the baby more than she did
me. It could have been any new baby. It was the thing to do, and I a big fellow that had run out of two schools to be jealous of a little baby that couldn’t even talk.

She brought me into Mrs. Murphy, and the two of them talked and laughed about it while I didn’t look at them but sat in the corner playing with Minnie Murphy who, if she was vicious enough to scrawb you if she thought she’d get away with it, didn’t make you feel such a fool. When my mother went I wanted to go too but my mother said Mrs. Murphy was sick and I could mind her till she came back.

Mrs. Murphy called me to the bedside and gave me a pinch of snuff, and had one herself, and the new baby went out of our heads.

The doctor came and said she’d have to go to the Refuge of the Dying. He told her that years ago.

Mrs. Murphy didn’t know whether she’d go or not. I hoped she would. I heard them talk about it before and knew you went in a cab, miles over the city and to the southside. I was always afraid that they might have got me into another school before she’d go for, no matter how well you run out of them or kick the legs of the teacher, you have to go sometime.

She said she’d go and my granny said that she’d order a cab from the Roto to be there in the morning.

We all got into the cab. Mrs. Murphy was all wrapped up in blankets. She didn’t lean on my head, but was helped by the jarvey, and off we went.

Going past a pub on the corner of Eccles Street, she said she didn’t like to pass it, for old times’ sake. My granny and Long Byrne and Lizzie MacCann all said they’d be the better of a rozziner*. And the jarvey came in with the rest of us. On the banks of
the other canal we went in and had another couple. We stopped there for a long time and my granny told the jarvey she’d make it up to him.

Glasses of malt she ordered, and Mrs. Murphy called on Long Byrne for a bar of a song.

The man in the pub said that it wasn’t a singing house, but Mrs. Murphy said she was going into the Refuge and it was a kind of a wake.

So Long Byrne sang, ‘When the Cock, Cock Robin, comes hop, hop, hoppin’ along,’ and
On
Mother
Kelly’s
Doorstep,
and for an hour it was great and you’d wish it could go on forever, but we had to go or the Refuge would be shut.

We left in Mrs. Murphy and waited in the hall. Long Byrne said you get the smell of death in it.

‘It’s the wax on the floors,’ said my granny.

‘It’s a very hard-featured class of a smell, whatever it is,’ said Lizzie MacCann.

‘We’ll never see her again now, till we come up to collect her in the box,’ said Long Byrne.

‘For God’s sake, whisht up out of that, you,’ said my granny, ‘people’s not bad enough.’ She fumbled with her handkerchief.

‘All the same, Christina,’ said Lizzie MacCann, ‘you’d feel bad about leaving the poor devil in a place like this.’

The jarvey was trying to smoke without being caught. ‘It’s a very holy place,’ he said, but not looking too sure about it.

‘Maybe it’s that we’re not that holy ourselves,’ said Lizzie MacCann. ‘We might sooner die medium holy, like.’

‘It’s not the kind of place I’d like to leave a neighbour or a neighbour’s child,’ said Long Byrne.

‘Oh, whisht your mouth,’ said my granny, ‘you’d make me feel like an … an informer or something. We only do the best we can.’

A very severe looking lady in a white coat came out and stood in front of us. The jarvey stuck the pipe in his pocket and straightened his cap.

‘Whars in charge of the peeshent?’ she says in a very severe tongue.

My granny stood up as well as she could. ‘I am, with these other women here. She’s a neighbour of ours.’

‘There are no admissions here after five o’clock. The patient arrived here in an intoxicated condition.’

‘She means poor old Murphy was drunk,’ says Long Byrne.

‘The poor old creature had only about six halves, the couple of glasses of malt we had to finish up, and the few bottles we had over in Eccles Street,’ said Lizzie MacCann, counting on her fingers, ‘God forgive them that’d tell a lie of an old woman, that she was the worse for drink.’

‘And I get a distinct smell of whiskey here in this very hall,’ said the woman in the white coat.

‘How well you’d know it from the smell of gin, rum or brandy,’ said Long Byrne, ‘Ah well, I suppose practice makes perfect.’

The woman in the white coat’s face got that severe that if she fell on it she’d have cut herself.

‘Out,’ she put up her hand, pointing to the door, ‘Out, at once.’

There was a shuffling in the back of the hall, and Mrs. Murphy came out, supported by two nurses.

‘I wouldn’t stop where my friends aren’t welcome,’ said Mrs. Murphy.

‘Come on so,’ says my granny.

When they got back to Jimmy the Sports, they had a few and brought some more over to Mrs. Murphy’s while they put her to bed.

Long Byrne said herself and Lizzie MacCann would look after her between them.

My granny liked laziness better than she did money and said she’d bunce in a half a bar* towards their trouble.

‘And it won’t break you,’ says Long Byrne, ‘damn it all, she’s not Methuselah.’

I awoke on the morning of the 7th February, 1940, with a feeling of despondency. I’d had a restless night and fell asleep only to be awakened an hour later by the bell that roused myself and 1,253 other prisoners in Walton Jail.

As I awoke the thought that had lain heavily with me through the night realised itself into words –
If
they
carry
it
out
… Just then I heard the shout ‘Right, all doors open. Slop out.’ …
they
will
die
in
two
and
a
quarter
hours.

Then another thought followed into my mind, ‘I might go down to Assizes to-day’. But I had said that every day since January 29, when I had been informed at the Committal Court that commission day for Liverpool Winter Assizes Court was six weeks off.

I rose and washed myself and settled myself to wait for the rattling of keys and opening of doors that would indicate that my breakfast was on its way. After breakfast I heard the call, ‘Right, R.C’s. Parade for Ash Wednesday Service,’ and when the other Catholic juvenile offenders of C wing had been marched away to chapel my cell door was opened and I was escorted there in solitary state. I went to my
usual place between Ned, a Royal Engineer from Carlow awaiting trial for housebreaking, and Gerry, a Monaghan lad of Republican ideas and of many convictions. A whispered conversation ensued.

‘Brendan,’ Gerry whispered, ‘they died two minutes ago.’

Down the long rows of brown-clad Remands and in the convicted pews where the blue uniform of the Borstal Boys contrasted with the grey slops of the Penal Servitudes one could see on every Irish face the imprint of the tragedy that had been enacted that morning in another prison and that was to every Irishman present a personal sorrow. Ned and Gerry nodded to me. ‘O.K., Brendan, say the word.’

I stood up in my pew and raised my hand in the signal we had agreed upon the previous Sunday.

‘Irishmen, attention!’

A rigid silence gripped the chapel. The warders stood bewildered. No doubt many of them thought it was a special ceremony of the Church in which the congregation took part. One young warder fingered his baton nervously.

‘Irishmen, attention!’

Ned and Gerry were already on their feet.

‘We will recite the
De
Profundis
for the repose of the souls of our countrymen who gave their lives for Ireland this morning in Birmingham Jail.’

Gerry (who knew it) began. ‘Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord …’ Back down the serried rows came the response, ‘Lord hear my voice’. An old Corkman serving seven years for manslaughter was standing in the back rows reserved for elderly Preventative Detentions. In front of him was a big Mayo lad awaiting transfer to Parkhurst or
Dartmoor. ‘And let my cry come unto thee …’

Suddenly the Principal Officer appeared to regain his composure. He shouted orders. ‘Remove Lawlor and Behan to their cells. Sit down the rest of you. Damn you! Silence!’

Soon I was struggling as two warders grabbed me. Ned, the big Carlow soldier, was fighting madly. Gerry’s head went down amid the impact of batons. The old Corkman I last saw as they were removing him, a scarlet gash showing vividly against his white hair. Raising my head I saw a baton poised ready to strike. I crouched, tensing myself for the blow, but it never came: the P.O’s voice cut in clear above the din. ‘Don’t strike Behan! He’s for court to-day.’

I was removed to my cell and told that I was damned lucky that I was being discharged that day as otherwise I would have been reported to the Governor with the others and have got No. 1 (bread and water) ‘to cool me off’.

Some hours later my door was opened and I heard the ‘away’ call: ‘Right, two away for Liverpool Assizes.’ I was one; the other was an alleged murderer whose trial was reaching its concluding stages. I was taken alone, however, to the reception room. There I saw six men standing in line and a seventh standing alone by the desk. He must be the alleged murderer. He smiled pleasantly and wished me ‘Good morning’.

I was motioned into one of a row of cubicles and told to undress and have a bath. Having bathed I returned to my cubicle and dressed. I had been wearing prison clothes, as my own had been removed for examination and analysis by Home Office experts.
With what a thrill of pleasure I now put my hands in my trousers pockets! I was next called out to sign for the money and sundries that I had had in my possession when arrested.

‘It’s a waste of time with you, Paddy, doing all this bloody signing. We all know damn well you’ll be back to start your twenty years!’

The warder winked at one of the escort.

‘What d’you reckon you’ll get, Paddy? ‘Anged, drawn and quartered, or just plain ’anging?’

‘Benefit of the Probation Act and ten shillings out of the Poor Box to mend my boots,’ I replied.

‘Yes, if you can slip that stuff over on old Mr. Justice Who-is-it, all about you bein’ only sixteen years of age and so on! What is your age, Paddy – straight-up – between what’s present like.’

‘I was born the ninth of February, nineteen twenty-three.’

‘Yes? I bet you was sixteen when Charley Peace was president of the Everton Valley Band of ’Ope. Oh well! Argue it out between yourself and Mr. Justice Who-is-it.’

And I stood aside.

‘Here’s the other one for Assizes, Jack!’ shouted the second escort. ‘O.K., Crippen! Come along.’ We went along. Instead of going in the Black Maria we travelled to the city in a small police car. I took stock of my companion and thought that despite the ordeal of a four days’ murder trial he appeared extraordinarily calm. He inquired where I was from and seemed surprised when I told him the nature of my offence. I was wondering in what form to put my own question, for it seemed rude to ask ‘Who did you kill?’ At last I found a more delicate formula. ‘Who
was the deceased concerned with your case?’

‘Oh!’ he answered, ‘my wife was found about three months ago with her head battered in,’ quite as if it happened by act of God. ‘As we had quarrelled some days before it was not unnatural for the authorities to charge me. But, of course, I shall be acquitted.’

He spoke with such evident sincerity that when I read later an account of his execution I wondered if he had been guilty after all.

My cell at George’s Hall was quite unlike those I had known in either prison or police-station. It had a barred door similar to the prison scenes in an American film. On the walls were the usual inscriptions. ‘J.S. stole a lady’s watch to keep it safe. 3 years P.S. 15-4-35.’ In addition were inscriptions by Irishmen who had been sentenced at the previous Assizes. ‘We ask no quarter – we seek no compromise. Stephen Casey.’ Steve had been acquitted and was now home in his native Meath. ‘Jim Flynn, 5 years P.S. Dublin Brigade.’ Jim was a lad from Ringsend and had been a particular friend of mine. He was in Maidstone. ‘Jerry Robinson. Operations Officer. South Wales. 15 years.’ They had dealt with him rather severely, probably on account of his nationality: he was an Englishman.

I scratched my own inscription, a quotation from Pearse: ‘We cannot be beaten because the cause we serve enshrines the soul of Ireland.’ Under it I wrote my name and left a space for my sentence. The P.O. brought some coffee and bully-beef sandwiches. The alleged murderer had his food sent in by relatives. He asked me if I would like some banana sandwiches.

‘Take the lot, son, It’ll be a long time before you’ll get the taste of skilly* out of your mouth.’ 

Amid a fanfare of trumpets the judge entered and seated himself. Then the clerk, magnificently arrayed in what appeared to be a red hunting jacket, began the list of alleged offences that constituted the bone of contention between the King and myself. I refused to plead and the prosecuting counsel, dressed in his officer’s uniform, began his case. He spoke quite without passion, called his witnesses and in about two hours the case was nearly settled. I had expected a jury of twelve, but could only count eight, including three women. I wondered if any of them were annoyed with me for upsetting the routine of a shop or office. A young man of about eighteen sitting beside the judge smiled and winked at me in a comradely fashion. When the jury had returned their verdict, which they did without retiring, the Judge asked if I had anything to say before he passed sentence. I proceeded to speak and he interrupted me and told me that what I was saying wasn’t likely to induce him to give me a light sentence. However, I had learnt that speech off by heart and thought it rather good and I did not intend to be sentenced without getting the worth of my money, so I told him that if it was all the same to him I would prefer to continue. When I had concluded he began himself by saying that he felt that the laws regarding the sentencing of juvenile offenders were inadequate to deal with a case like this. He made a fine speech in which he showed an acquaintance with Synge and concluded by saying that unfortunately the aforesaid laws regarding juvenile offenders did not allow him to give me the fourteen years’ penal servitude which he remarked (entirely without malice) I deserved.
The only sentence he could give me there was three years’ Borstal detention.

As I passed down my murderer friend was on his way to the dock. I shook hands with him and wished him luck. He smiled confidently, waved his hands and shouted ‘Good-bye.’ ‘I hope so,’ I murmured, ‘for your sake.’ Two and a half hours later he was removed prostrate from the dock and left in a cell next door to me. On the return journey we spoke little and even the escort conversed in subdued tones. It was like going to a funeral. As we parted finally he smiled wanly as he looked me straight in the face. ‘Good luck, Paddy.’

‘Right, one away Borstal landing Y.P. wing,’ and in a softer tone: ‘one away to D 2 14.’ (The number of the condemned cell.)

As I lay in bed I calculated, as hundreds must have done in the same place, ‘How soon will I get out?’ I worked it out that with a bit of remission I would be released in January, 1942. I settled down for sleep. Somewhere on Merseyside a church bell rang out. It was nine o’clock ….