Heaps of Trouble (2 page)

As I stood in the shop that night before leaving it for the last time, just thinking about the accident immediately brought the smells of burning flesh and hair rushing back to me with such an intensity that it threatened to completely overpower me, causing me to gag in an attempt to avoid throwing up. I floundered in the darkness as I tried to be free of the awful memory and stumbled over a crate that the workmen were using as a dining table, knocking the empty cups onto the floor. Suddenly I realised gratefully how hungry I was and decided to escape around the corner to the local chipper.

When I left the shop it was if I was seeing the street for the first time; or maybe it was because I knew that I was finally leaving that I was more in tune to its sights and sounds. The Emmet Road of my childhood was similar to any other part of suburban Dublin, in so far as it was comprised of a collection of shops that sustained the necessities of life. It had a post office, food and vegetable shops, a large hardware store, clothing shops, bicycle and toyshops and, of course, included a good selection of pubs and chippers. The only blot on the fairly respectable face of the neighbourhood was Keogh Square – when I was a kid it was probably one of the worst slums in Dublin.

Officially Emmett Road began at Kilmainham traffic lights and, in good old Irish fashion, terminated at the Black Lyon pub where there was another set of lights, making the road about a mile in total. Our shop was in the middle of a new cluster of three ‘purpose-built' shops, which were two-storey structures, complete with flat roofs. These shops were bounded by Ward's pub on the right side and, on the left, by what was then CIE's largest bus construction and maintenance yard in the country. The entrance to the CIE compound was off the main road down a narrow street named Spa Road, but their factory sheds took up a large part of the remainder of our side of the road and wrapped around behind the three shops. By the time I reached the age of being able to take note, the large doors of the sheds that fronted the main street had been boarded up with sheets of galvanised iron. The only hint of their original purpose was the rusted tram tracks of a bygone era, which appeared from under the main doors like octopus tentacles imbedded in the cobbled stones that (back then) covered the length of the street.

The small concrete backyards at the rear of the shops, while being divided from each other by 8-foot high block walls, had 20-foot walls at their rear. These three yards, owing to their walled enclosures, resembled small prison yards and it was only in the height of summer that any sunlight would filter its way in.

Our shop address was 124E Emmett Road, with D and F being to the left and right of us, and it was the only one in the street that did not announce to the world the family name, since the parents had simply called the shop ‘Everybody's'. As well as the toys and sports equipment, there was also a drapery section for children's clothing that sold a great selection of girls' frilly frocks.

From the moment I started school at the age of four I was the envy of every other kid in the street, since they naturally thought that I was allowed to play with all the toys. But, with the strict mother I had, nothing could have been further from the truth, as it was a case of ‘you can look, but do not touch'. Emphasised by a swish of the bamboo cane that she always kept in my view, under one of the shop counters, and of which I was on the receiving end on many an occasion.

124D was a bicycle shop owned by a very tall and thin man called Power. 124F was a vegetable outlet, owned and run by the Finnegans who were originally from the ‘country'. The layout of the three shops was identical: on the outside each had two large shop windows on either side of the double access doors. To one side of each of the shop fronts a hall door gave access to the living quarters. An interior door connected the shop to the living/kitchen area, and my mother usually left this open so she could sit and gossip with her friends at the kitchen table or prepare food, while still being able to keep an eye on the shop. Or, when we aspired to a shop assistant, keep an eye on her.

Across the street and slightly to our right stood the Inchicore Workman's Club. The intended use of the building, as the name suggests, was to offer a refuge for the working man on his way home from completing a hard day's graft, and the only entry was through a locked door, guarded by a very diligent porter. The building housed a huge and comfortable bar, complete with one of the first television sets to come into the area, and a snooker room with two state-of-the-art, competition-size tables. Upstairs there was another bar and a very large lounge area where the men could, if they so wished, entertain their wives or lady friends – in the days of my childhood, women were not allowed into bars. Finally, just in case this was not enough, the cellars held yet a third bar and a multitude of dartboards. However, as the place was always packed, morning, noon and evening, somewhere along the way the concept of offering a haven for the hard-working man had clearly been lost. It became a bolt-hole for all the men of the area skiving off work, who knew that once inside its bolted doors they were safe from any person trying to track them down, especially their wives or kids. Needless to say, on moving into the area, my father's first task was to go and join up there.

From a social and pecking order point of view, the most important shop on its side of the road was Malloy's sweet shop. Mrs Malloy was a lady who considered herself amongst the ruling upper class of the street. This self-assumed ascendancy stemmed from the fact that the Malloys were the longest serving shop owners and not ‘blow-ins', as the newer arrivals on the street were dubbed. Her claim must have had some impact on my mother, as she spent part of every day visiting and gossiping with Mrs Malloy. At the same time the mother was able to keep her eye on our shop-front door, so that if anybody went in she could bolt across and serve him or her before they had a chance to rob the place blind. But I think the most important factor that enabled Mrs Malloy not only to claim, but also maintain, her position was that her husband was Inspector Malloy of the Gardaí. To have an inspector of the Gardaí living on your street, well, at that time it practically gave you immunity for all crimes committed.

As Emmett Road was one of the main thoroughfares between the capital and the rest of the country, the street was always busy. At all times of the day there was hustle and bustle with people shopping and commuting to or from work. The CIE compound employed a lot of people and the street prospered from having this workforce nearby, especially the pubs. Come teatime, the street would clear as if a curfew had been suddenly imposed, until around ten in the evening it filled up again with men on their way home from having spent their last few hours drinking away the money earned for that day's toil.

On weekends especially, from my bedroom, I could chart their progress along the street by their singing, which started as a soft murmur, rising to a full crescendo as they drew abreast of our shop, before fading away into the night as they passed on. It was always the same collection of songs, which I learnt off by heart from listening to them so regularly. ‘Danny Boy' was the favourite, with ‘Kevin Barry' and ‘Molly Malone' running a close second and third. Some of the men were quite good singers with clear baritone voices. As they approached the high notes while staggering up the street, they would stop and – with splayed feet, tightly clenched fists, eyes squeezed shut, and their heads flung back – cascade through those top notes on quivering vocal cords. Then once again continue on their way, as if they had achieved a stunning victory. The odd night a fight would break out, usually while they waited to catch the last bus home at the stop across from our shop. These arguments tended to be more vocal than physical and would continue after they had boarded the bus. I watched their antics from my bedroom window, drawn like a moth to a flame by their raised voices.

‘Who are you calling a fecker? You bleeden' fecker.'

‘D'ya want a bleeden' clout across the ears, or wha'?'

‘Jaysus, you, you and whose bleeden' army?'

And with that one of them would try to remove the heavy CIE-issue coat he was wearing, which would snag around his shoulders, self-inflicting a handicap by restricting his arm movements. The two of them would then begin to dance around the bus-stop pole, resembling two fighting cocks shaping up to each other. The one with his arms restrained by the coat would try to keep his balance while attempting to throw punches. At the same time, the other, knowing that his adversary was disabled, would continue to taunt him.

‘Come on then, ya old fecker, bleeden' well hit me, then.'

‘Jaysus, you just bleeden' well hope that I can't get this bleeden' coat off.'

Eventually the bus would arrive, temporarily drawing a truce while they prepared to board. More than once I saw a bus take off only to screech to a halt a few yards further up, whereupon the two drunks would be catapulted off onto the street by an enraged conductor. The two adversaries, now brothers in arms at the indignation of being expelled from public transport, would vent their rage at the departing bus and continue walking home, arms around each other – from quite a long way off you could still hear their commiserations.

‘Fuck bleeden' CIE's run by a bunch of tossers.'

‘Jaysus Mikey, you're bleeden' rite there, Jaysus, haven' I got a cousin working there and he's a rite tosser.'

‘Feck, is that a fact?'

‘Jaysus, did I tell you abou' the time he and his missus called to our house and…?' And there the voices would fade away into the night.

When I was still wearing short pants the majority of the population of Inchicore lived in Keogh Square, and the Eastern Health Board dispensary was their only lifeline in respect to social welfare payments and food vouchers. Since the father was the Home Assistance Officer, he alone held the power over who was entitled to these government handouts. The dispensary was a leftover from the time of the British occupation and consisted of a large, square structure enclosed on all sides by a very high stone wall, built to withstand a siege from a determined enemy. Here, also, were housed the doctors, nurses and pharmacy needed to sustain a welfare system on the edge of an impoverished area.

I believe, from what I saw and heard, that he tried to distribute the funds at his disposal in a fair and equal fashion. After he watched the men folk of the poorer families wait at the gate of the dispensary and take the home assistance allowance money away from their wives in order to squander it on drink, he himself instigated the food-voucher system. Instead of money, the father issued a food voucher that could be cashed at the local shops, but only in exchange for food. He then visited every shop at the end of each week, tallied the amount of vouchers and reimbursed the shop owners with cash.

Frequently, after he had issued the voucher to the wife, an enraged husband would storm back into the dispensary to abuse him and demand money, ‘not a fuckin' bit of bleeden', useless paper'. But he had an aura of authority that he could exert by his sheer presence alone, which would make the most hardened street fighter back down and retreat mumbling – even though the father was not a heavy or large man by any means.

Many a week the local residents laid siege to the dispensary and the father would have to declare a ‘state of emergency'. This was a terminology that the staff of the dispensary constantly joked about, as a way of covering up the seriousness of the situation. Wednesday was ‘Home Assistance' pay out day and often the money did not arrive in time from head office on James Street, resulting in the father, doctors, pharmacists and nurses having to barricade themselves indoors. After many frantic phone calls the arrival of the money or the police – depending on which turned up first – would dictate how the day ended.

If the money arrived quickly, the disturbance would immediately stop and everybody would return to normal as if nothing had happened. However if the police got there first the dispensary would remain closed for the rest of the day, until (as the father always put it) ‘with the night comes council', and business would resume the following day.

After a while he got smart and, if by eleven in the morning there was no sign of any shillings coming from head office, he would advise his henchman John to tell the masses gathered in the large waiting-room that he had been called away on an emergency. Temporarily pacified with this excuse, they would wait patiently while the father slipped out the back door, cranked up his Vespa moped scooter, and drove off to head office to collect the money in person. He would return with the Bank of Ireland moneybags swinging from the Vespa's handlebars, proclaiming to the entire world that he was carrying cash. Back in the 1950s no one dared waylay the Home Assistance Officer, as everybody knew that if the money was ‘nicked' that would be that, nobody would get anything, as there would be no more funds forthcoming.

What a conflict of social standards Inchicore was back then; an enigma of contradiction. First there were the shop owners who believed themselves above the rest of the populace and deemed that they were offering the public a service – at their discretion. Then the middle-class families who lived out their lives with an Inchicore address; to outsiders the mere name conjured up images of nightly fights, muggings and general bedlam. And, slapped right in the middle of the whole lot, bordered by the canal and Emmett road, was Keogh Square, one of Dublin's worst slum areas, left to fester and grow by a 1950s government that had no immediate solution for the problem.

*

As I walked back to the shop with my burger and chips tucked under my arm, I became aware that the appearance of our street had not really changed much over the years that I had lived there. The CIE compound appeared a bit more run down than previously, but otherwise everything else was the same. But, behind it, the grim reality of Keogh Square was long gone and had been replaced by blocks of council flats, now called St Michael's Estate.