Maggie's Breakfast (20 page)

A voice called from the door. “There’s a union meetin’ on Tuesday! Make sure you’re all there. I hear’ there’s strike talk.”

“Who told you that?”

“I heard it.”

“Is it true?”

“They want to strike at the Gresham and the Hibernian hotels but not here. If you don’t speculate you won’t accumulate. If you don’t court you’ll never
marry.”

The old man turned back to me. “Christ, I’m glad to be out of this stiff collar. I’ve a fuckin’ rash around me neck from wearin’ it.”

“Go to the doctor?”

“Welsh? I mean Walsh?”

“What?”

“Are ya happy at your work?”

“I am.”

“That’s the lad. Keep it up and you’ll be in the union before long. How long have you been here now?”

“A month.”

“Good Christ, time goes fast, doesn’t it?”

Other voices flying about the place.

“Don’t leave dirty dishes lyin’ about. The bleedin’ things stack up and fall all over the fuckin’ floor.”

“Make sure the station is always clear and clean. No pots, pans or dishes. Get them on the tray and back into the kitchen in a hurry.”

“All we need is that Frenchman to come over and inspect our station. Out you’d go in a flash. He wouldn’t waste a sneeze in firing you.”

“Who?”

“Him! Louis, the head waiter! Fuck him! Everybody who works here! Fuck ’em all!”

“What are you doin’, Walsh?”

“Changing. I’m off work till tomorrow.”

* * *

I loved my job. It felt as if I now at last had a family, the members of which took the time to talk to each other. What’s more, we laughed and joked together. Without
being fully aware of how to live a normal life of reasonable contentment, most everyone in my family, knowingly or not, did their best to make each other unhappy. My five sisters, three remaining
brothers and me were soaked in my mother’s perception of living when it came to accepting and liking each other, and any suggestion or impulse that led to a sense of mutual happiness was
ignored as if it was some kind of ailment or illness or a threat to what lay ahead in the afterlife. With the exception of my sister Rita who had a natural kindness about her, we begrudged each
other very conceivable friendly positive thing that might result in anyone being happy or comfortable for five minutes. Happiness only happened to other people who had strayed away from the
teachings of the Church. In my house, for the most part, happiness meant that one was not living up to the religious standards set by my mother. Any kind of human emotion or caring for one another
was likely to remind us that it was the wrong road to Heaven. The deep belief that pleasure was an enemy permeated almost everything we did and thought. It kept us from knowing and supporting each
other. It excluded us from just about everything that was collectively comfortable. We all had a full-time job in disassociating ourselves from any kind of gratification, contentment and joy.
Affection was a foreign concept. Even the air in the household was filled with distrust. My brothers and sisters were so alienated from each other that they lost their ability to share the personal
and private pain they were suffering. Wanting and wishing for any kind of mutual affection were thoughts that led to the plucking of the feathers of the wings we all thought we had growing out of
our shoulder blades. With feathered wings we could all fly away to eternal paradise when life on earth ceased. Without wings we were all condemned to Hell where we’d be roasted like chestnuts
in a never-ending inferno. In a strange and almost incomprehensible way the alienation in my family gave my mother hope. She believed that her way of bringing up her children was the way God and
the clergy wanted it and as such she felt she had contributed to the creation of a new sacrament.

* * *

“
Garçon, garçon! Ici! Ici!
” Louis the French maitre ’d ran out of the tea lounge.

I was about to turn the pastry dolly into the dining room when the Frenchman grabbed me by the back of the neck.

“Where you go?” he asked me.

“The dining room,” I answered.

“
Allez-vous
back to the tea lounge!” He turned the dolly and pushed me towards the tea lounge.

A group of people were sitting next to the big window. A few of the men were wearing turbans and several of the women were dressed in long flowing robes. I was reminded of the film
Gunga
Din
. As I stood staring at the group, Louis tapped me on the shoulder.

“Serve! Go! Show the pastries, please!”

I moved forward with the pastry trolley.

A very dignified woman remarked, “My, look at all of this! Do you bake them all here?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t want to tell her the bakery oven in the hotel had broken down and the pastries were shipped in from Bewley’s Bakery on Grafton Street.

“Oh, I love these!” She reached forward and took one of the almond ones.

At that a man with a yellow turban on his head reached over and grabbed the remaining almond pastries.

“I’ll get more,” I said to the lady.

I was about to rush back to the kitchen to replenish them when the woman in question quietly took hold of my arm. “Not to bother. No need to.”

I was glad she said that because I didn’t want to tell her about the broken-down oven.

The man who’d swiped all the almond pastries placed one in front of the woman. “Here you are, Indira.”

The woman smiled at him and smiled at me. She then placed a pound note in the palm of my hand.

When I returned to the dining room I was met by Louis.

“Everything good?” he asked.

“Yes. I got a pound from the woman with her back to the door.”

“That woman is Indira Gandhi, the daughter of the Indian Prime Minister,” Louis said and walked away from me.

* * *

I had barely unclasped my bow tie from around my shirt collar when a tray with a bottle of whiskey was put in my hands. I was told to rush it up to the large meeting room on the
second floor. After a few leaps and a dash I knocked on the door and stuck my head into the room.

A man sitting at the head of the table, smoking a cigar, called to me. “There you are, lad! Come in.”

I stepped into the room and noticed everyone had a note pad in front of them. There was a woman, quite short, sitting in front of the big window holding a young girl.

I put the whiskey bottle down on the sideboard where there already were glasses and a big jug of water.

The man turned to the woman. “What’ll you have, sweetheart?” he asked.

The woman responded, “Lemonade for both of us.”

The man took the cigar out of his mouth and turned to me. “You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Good. Okay. Now along with that whiskey we’re going to have two gin and tonics. Can you get me that, lad?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“It’s decided we’ll film in Cork,” the man with the cigar said.

For a moment I thought he was talking to me but he obviously wasn’t. I was so excited to hear this man talk about making a film in Cork I rushed back down the stairs and almost fell over
myself. The barman told me John Huston was the man in charge upstairs and if I hurried back up I might bump into Gregory Peck. Within minutes I was back in the big room, serving everybody around
the table.

Drinks served, they raised their glasses.

“Here’s to
Moby Dick
, Mr. Huston!”

“Gentlemen, I’ve a train to catch for Galway. When that script is typed up, will you send it to me as fast as you can?”

A few hours later I came back to pick up the empty glasses and bottles. There was no sign of Gregory Peck.

* * *

Montgomery Clift came into the tea lounge. A year or so earlier I had seen him in
Red River
, a cowboy film with John Wayne. And I’d recently seen him in
From
Here to Eternity
. I walked up to him and introduced myself.

“Hello, sir, I’m Gabriel Walsh.”

He looked at me as if wondering whether he knew me. “Oh,” he said with something of a pained look on his face. He then sat down. “Can I get something to drink?”

“Course you can, sir,” I responded. “What would you like, sir?”

“Bring me a brandy first, would you? Then I want . . . well, what? Get me a pot of tea and something to eat with it. Bring me an order of toast.”

I rushed back to the kitchen and placed the order. After a few minutes I was rushing back with his brandy and the tea and toast. I placed his order in front of him.

“Did you play the trumpet in
From Here to Eternity
?” I asked.

He looked at me and smiled. “Somewhat. I learned to play a little so that it would look like I knew what I was doing.”

I turned away from the table. By now the waiter was back from his cigarette break.

“What are you talkin’ to that customer for?”

“I only asked him a question.”

“Did he order?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Tea and toast. And a brandy.”

“Nothin’ else?”

“No.”

The waiter turned towards the kitchen.

“I got it for him.”

“You served him?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were out smokin’.”

“Why didn’t you wait?”

“He couldn’t wait. What did I do wrong?”

“Next time wait till I get back. I hope you didn’t mess up.”

“I didn’t.”

“Did you put a clean plate on the table and change the ashtray?”

I quickly picked up a clean plate and ashtray and darted back to the table.

“Sorry sir, just to make everythin’ a bit more tidy.”

Mr. Clift didn’t say anything.

I walked back to the waiter, leaned against the wall and looked back over at the film actor. I was happy I asked him the question.

“That’s the actor fella, isn’t it?” the waiter said to me.

“He’s Montgomery Clift. I saw him in the film
From Here to Eternity.
He said he only kinda played the trumpet in the film.”

“You asked him that?”

“I did. Can I ask him if he wants more hot water?”

“You’re the talky type, aren’t ya, Walsh?”

“Me?”

“No. Yes,
you
! Who’d’ya think I’m talkin’ to? Me arse?”

“Shhhh. He might hear you.” I was embarrassed.

“Fuck him. He’s a film star. So bleedin’ what?”

“He’s famous.”

“Walsh, before you piss in your trousers go over and ask him if he wants anythin’ else.”

I jumped at the chance to go back. The film star was looking in his notebook. I think he was looking at a map or something. I stood waiting for him to take his head out of the notebook. After a
moment he sensed me standing in front of him.

“Yes?” he asked calmly and quietly.

“Would you like more hot water, sir?”

“Could you get me a glass of orange juice?”

“Yes, sir.” I walked away.

“What does he want?” the waiter asked.

“He wants a glass of orange juice. Can I get it for him?”

“Go ahead.”

I ran to the kitchen and back with a glass of fresh orange juice for Mr. Clift. I rushed into the lounge and placed it in front of him.

“Thank you.”

“A pleasure, sir.”

I walked back to the wall. By now the other waiter on tea-lounge duty was back from his smoke break.

“Did I miss anythin’?” he asked the other waiter.

The other waiter pointed his finger at me. “Yeah. Walsh pissed in his trousers.”

“I did not.”

“You did so.”

“I didn’t.”

“What did you piss in your trousers for?”

“I didn’t.”

“Go down to the dressing room and change.”

“I didn’t piss in my trousers. He’s only jokin’.”

The two waiters laughed.

Mr. Clift turned, made a gesture with his hand.

“He wants his bill. Give him the bill, Walsh.”

I walked over to the table and stood at attention.

“Your bill, sir.”

“Thanks.”

I gave him the bill. He signed his name and left. I forgot to ask him for his autograph.

The morning staff at the Shelbourne Hotel might have regretted that they hadn’t had an extra pint or two the night before they came to work. The chitchat in the
dressing-room wasn’t about the smell of sausages coming from the kitchen or how long it took to cycle to work with a flat front tire. On this September morning it centred on the fact that a
certain woman had checked into the hotel the night before. Word about her arrival had spread faster than butter on a hot slice of fresh toast. While they dusted off their bow ties and climbed into
their serving suits, waiters and porters alike were having a field day with what they knew and didn’t know about Margaret Burke Sheridan.

Miss Sheridan’s presence in the hotel was enough to cause some staff members to call in sick and claim they had an early attack of the winter flu.

“The other night they were talkin’ about her on the wireless,” a waiter, polishing his black shoes, mumbled. “I wouldn’t touch anythin’ belongin’ to her
if you promised to canonise me.” The talk and reaction to Maggie’s arrival, even though expressed individually, was chorus-like and uninterruptible. Without apology or notice, one
comment was layered upon another.