Shamrock Green (34 page)

Granddad had followed them upstairs. He had taken drink with supper and was more sensible because of it. He had put an arm about her shoulder and had let her weep into his big protuberant belly.

She wasn't crying for Sean. She was crying for Mr Whiteside, for Fran and her mam, because the novelty of being in her grandmother's house in Towers had worn off and she wanted to be back in the Shamrock with Mam and her daddy, to be eight or nine again, not coming up for twelve. But when she caught herself wishing that none of it had ever happened, she felt as if she were betraying Turk and Charlie and Jansis, and that made her feel even worse. She had wept so sore that Gran had left the baby and scurried downstairs and had come back with milk in a glass, milk that tasted sweet and sharp because, Granddad had told her, it had a spoonful of brandy in it and wasn't she the lucky girl to be having brandy for a nightcap at her age.

‘You, look out for the baby,' Gran had told Granddad. ‘Don't sing to him.' Then she had detached Maeve from her grandfather's stomach and had led her to a bedroom at the back where the bed had been freshly made up, a stone pig put in to warm it and the sheet turned down in a vee, the way Mam did for guests when they weren't too busy.

The room was plain with a slope to the ceiling and a window with floral curtains, tied back. She had looked out on fields, clouds and a blink of sun on the horizon, all watery with rain. The bed was broad and soft. Gran had put the glass on a whatnot by the bedside and had gone away again. Maeve had sat on the bed, too sleepy to feel sorry for herself, but when she'd closed her eyes she'd seen the soldiers again, lots of soldiers in khaki uniforms dragging her mother away, and Fran, crouched like a hunchback, shouting and spitting at the peelers. She had seen the dead horse, its legs jutting into the air, and the winding road to Malahide and the weaselly man with the whip, and she was suddenly chasing the hack down the empty road while it clipped away into the distance with Sean inside, growing smaller and smaller and smaller.

‘Wash your face and put this on,' Gran told her.

Water in a basin, a face-rag, soap, and a clean, patched shift that her grandmother laid across the bed; Maeve blinked and rubbed her eyes.

‘Go on,' Gran said. ‘You're not going to bed with a dirty face.'

‘She hasn't come for us, an' it's nearly dark.'

‘If she isn't here in the morning,' Gran said, ‘I'll send his lordship up to town to find out what's going on.'

Maeve nodded, too weary to sustain fear for long. She took off her dress, washed her face at the basin and dried it on a towel. Veils of rain had obliterated the blink of sunlight and it was near night now, near dark. Gran struck a match and lit an oil lamp. The room became warm.

‘Do they say you're like her?'

Maeve glanced up. ‘Like who?

‘Sylvie – your mother.'

‘Aye, some folk do.'

‘You're not,' Gran said. ‘You're more like he was at your age.'

‘Daddy, you mean?'

The wrinkle down each side of Gran's mouth deepened.

‘Aye, your daddy. Do you write to him at the front?'

‘He never writes to me,' Maeve said.

‘He's angry with you.'

‘I know,' Maeve said. ‘I didn't try to make him angry, though.' She lifted the patched shift from the bed. ‘Was this his room?'

‘He slept down below with the boys,' Gran said. ‘This was the girls' room. Winn and Blossom shared it first of all, then Rena and Roberta.'

‘I've never met any of them, have I?'

‘No,' Gran said.

Maeve took off her stockings and underthings and slipped on the long shift. It fell about her loosely, covering her feet. She put her hands across her chest and sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘I had a sister once who was fiery, like you.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘She died young.'

‘Before you married Granddad?'

‘Just before.'

‘In Glasgow?'

‘Aye, in Glasgow.'

Maeve felt no connection to the family that lived across the sea in Scotland. Her mother refused to talk about them and Daddy had never said much about his time in Glasgow. If she hadn't been so sleepy she would have asked Gran to tell her about them. She climbed into bed, put her head on the soft pillow and looked up at her grandmother.

‘Sleep tight, wee lassie,' Gran McCulloch said and, to Maeve's surprise, kissed her quite fondly on both cheeks.

*   *   *

By the time Sylvie reached Endicott Street there were no soldiers to be seen and the sounds of gunfire had faded. Though she was leg-weary her head was absolutely clear and she knew precisely where she was going and what she intended to do when she got there.

There was nothing to be gained from denying that Fran was dead and the Shamrock in ruins. It could only be a matter of time before the rebellion was crushed and life got back to normal. Her life had not been ‘normal' since the day Fran Hagarty had stepped into it, of course, but she didn't grieve for him just yet; time enough for grieving after she had found Maeve and Sean.

Maeve was sufficiently level-headed to head for Towers. Home rule was all very well but when it came to the bit there was no tie like the tie of blood and even Kay McCulloch would hardly turn away her grandchild in a time of crisis.

Sylvie was tired and hungry. If she'd had any money at all she would have gone into one of the public houses and bought a penny pie or a pickled egg to keep her going. At this moment, though, she was as poor as any woman in the mansions and crumbling tenements.

It was still raining, though the sky had cleared a little to the west, but when she crossed the lane she found that Endicott Street was no longer dim and furtive and empty. Looters had been out in force across town and had trailed back to the tenements carrying shawls stuffed with stolen goods. Women and children had gathered outside McKinstry's public house to display their trophies, and the men, the loungers, were pawing through the litter of rugs, shoes, golf clubs, boxed toys and rolls of linoleum that were scattered on the pavement.

Out of habit she glanced up at Fran's window as she approached.

She half expected to see his pinched face watching out for her from behind the unwashed glass. There was no Fran, of course, only blank glass and the gloom of his cheap, inelegant eyrie.

She entered the hallway at the foot of the iron stairs.

The boy was clothed in a pair of chequered plus-fours two sizes too large for him. The trousers were held up by a scarlet sash that covered his belly and chest and his new, startlingly white gentleman's dress shirt. A silk top hat perched on his head and he had traded the bent whistle for a euphonium, brand-new and shiny. He pumped at the keys, blew out his cheeks and huffed and rasped mightily to despatch echoes into all corners of the building.

Holding on to the banister, Sylvie started upstairs.

She had hardly taken a step before a skinny blonde girl with a child in her arms appeared in the doorway on the left of the hall.

‘He's gone,' the girl called out. ‘Mr Hagarty ain't here.'

‘I know,' Sylvie said.

‘He ain't comin' back.'

Sylvie leaned against the rail. The light was sour but she could see the girl clearly enough, her upturned face, the silent infant in her arms wrapped not in newspaper but in a new striped bath towel. From the doorway peeped four or five small faces, pale and round as oatmeal puddings. The boy took his lips from the mouthpiece and gaped up at Sylvie, saliva glistening on his chin.

‘Who told you Fran isn't coming back?' Sylvie asked.

‘I know he ain't,' the girl said. ‘He never took you with him neither. He left you behind too.'

‘Where do you suppose he went?'

‘'Merica,' the girl said. ‘Fran's gone to 'Merica.'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘Told me.'

‘What exactly did he say?'

‘Gave me money for the babies.'

‘Yes, but what did he say?'

‘He allers gives me money when he goes to 'Merica.'

‘How much money did he give you?' Sylvie asked.

‘A lot.'

‘Five shillings, ten shillings?'

‘Lots o' pound notes.'

‘Why does Fran give you money?'

‘'Cause he's kind.'

‘Did he say he was going to America?'

‘He allers goes to 'Merica when he gives me money.'

‘But how do you know he isn't coming back?'

The girl shrugged. ‘Just do.'

It was on the tip of Sylvie's tongue to ask more questions but she was not at all sure she could cope with the answers right now. She nodded and went on up the spiral iron staircase to Fran's room on the top floor.

The door was locked, of course. She should have known it would be locked. She leaned over the railing and looked down into the hallway. The boy was seated cross-legged on the stairs, hugging the euphonium. She opened her mouth to call out to him then saw that the girl, still clutching the child, was toiling up the stairs to join her.

The girl wasn't so young as all that. She was child-like and childish but well into her twenties. She wore a high-waisted skirt with a torn pocket, and a plain blouse. She pulled herself, one-handed, on to the narrow landing. The baby, somewhat older than his size suggested, gripped his mother's arm like a little monkey. He had a splash of jet-black hair and large dark brown eyes that roved curiously over everything that came within range. His silence, however, was unnatural and unnerving.

The girl tugged a key from her pocket and offered it to Sylvie.

‘You'll be needin' this, I'm thinkin'.'

Sylvie took the key and cupped it in her palm.

‘Who are you?' she said. ‘Tell me your name.'

‘Pauline.'

‘Pauline what?'

‘Pauline, sure an' I'm just Pauline.'

‘You live downstairs, don't you?' Sylvie said.

‘Aye, we all live downstairs, me an' the babies.'

‘How long have you known Fran?'

‘Years – years an' years.'

Again the question hung on Sylvie's lips. She wanted the girl to go away, to let her enter Fran's room alone. She hoped that seeing the bed, the little table, the typewriting machine, even the whiskey bottle, all intact would erase the image of Fran lying dead in the cobbled yard. She knew she couldn't alter reality but hoped she might be able to tamper with it, distort it just enough to get herself through this long and awful day. There was no being rid of the girl, though.

Sylvie unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The room smelled musty. The bed had been stripped to the mattress, sheets and blankets, even the quilted spread, stowed away. The typewriting machine had been covered with an oilcloth shroud and all Fran's papers were gone. She scraped open the drawers of the dressing-table and found them empty.

The girl had told the truth. Fran
had
intended to leave Dublin. She remembered the leather portmanteau and how he had refused to be parted from it, how it had stood close by the bed in the Shamrock while he and she made love.

Without turning, Sylvie said, ‘Is he Fran's baby?'

‘My baby.'

‘Is Fran the father of your child?'

‘All my babies.'

Sylvie swung round. ‘All? How many?'

‘He lookit after all my babies.'

‘Were they all his?'

‘All mine.'

‘Stop it,' Sylvie said. ‘You know what I'm asking? Are you Fran Hagarty's wife?'

‘I am, I am.'

‘Did he take you before a magistrate? I mean, do you have a certificate, a paper that says you're his legal wife?'

‘Fran says we're as good as married.'

‘Do you know he has another wife, a wife in England?'

Unabashed, the girl held the child in the crook of her arm with a casualness that Sylvie had never mastered. ‘Aye, he told me all about her.'

‘Did he tell you about his three sons?'

‘I gave him a son.'

‘You mean that boy downstairs?'

‘Algie? Nah, not Algie.'

‘Who is Algie then? Is Algie your brother?'

Puzzled by the question, the girl shrugged once more.

Sylvie didn't have the heart to tell her that Fran was dead. She wondered, though, what complications would arise from the manner of Fran's death, who would lay claim to his legacies and possessions. It occurred to her then that Vaizey did not intend Fran's body to be found and that the scribbler's estate might be tied up for years to come.

‘How many babies do you have?' she asked.

‘Nine,' the girl said.

‘You can't possibly have given birth to nine children.'

‘He brought them.'

‘Who brought them?'

‘Fran brought them.'

‘Are they his children?'

‘Mine, they're mine.'

‘To look after?'

‘Aye, to look after.'

‘Where did he get them? Where did they come from?'

‘The streets,' the girl told her. ‘He bringed them in from the streets.'

‘You mean they're orphans.'

‘Lost,' the girl said. ‘Lost till Fran found them.'

Sylvie swallowed. Had she misjudged Fran Hagarty? Had she seen only his selfishness and conceit, not the muddled humanity of the man? She seated herself on the end of the mattress and put her hands in her lap. She looked up at the girl who had begun to sway her slender body from side to side.

‘Did – does Mr Hagarty pay the rent for you?'

‘He don't have to,' the girl said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘It's his house.'

‘Are you telling me Fran owns the building?'

‘Aye, his house.'

‘But the other rooms…'

‘Let out.'

‘Let out to whom?'

‘Some men.'