The Old Jest (15 page)

‘He reminded me of someone,' said grandfather.

Nancy felt herself go red.

‘Don't be silly. He was only an old tramp. He couldn't possibly have reminded you of anyone.'

She went upstairs to change into her tidy clothes.

At the first table on the right a young man was reading a book. A cup of coffee steamed on the table. The book lay flat beside it. He leant his forehead on his hand. She pulled out the chair opposite to him and sat down. He continued reading. Perhaps she'd got it wrong, she thought. She looked cautiously around. People were eating cream cakes with tiny silver forks.

‘Hello,' she said.

He looked across at her. His two top front teeth were rather large and came down over the outside of his lower lip as he smiled, giving him the look of a friendly rabbit.

‘Hello.'

He closed the book and pulled it slightly towards him with a nervous gesture, as if he were afraid she might steal it. He had curly brown hair that he had tried without success to control with a dose of hair oil.

‘Will you have a cup of coffee?'

‘Thank you.'

‘Or would you rather have tea?'

‘Oh coffee. It always smells so good here. So delicious …'

He nodded brusquely and began to click his fingers for the waitress.

‘Miss?'

Nancy opened her bag and felt in it for the letter. It was there all right. Safe. She held it lightly in her fingers inside the bag.

The waitress came over to them.

‘Yes sir?'

‘Two coffees, please. Would you like a cake or something?'

Nancy shook her head.

The girl went away, writing down their order on her little pad as she moved.

The young man ran a finger round the inside of his stiff collar. It was making a sore red mark on his neck. Nancy took the letter out of her bag and pushed it across the table to him. He took it quickly from her and put it, without looking at it, into the inside top pocket of his coat. He looked a little more relaxed.

‘Thanks.'

She gave him a little nod and wondered if that were all they were going to say to each other. She envisaged fifteen minutes of silent coffee drinking, each of them trying to pretend the other wasn't there.

‘What's your name?'

‘Nancy Gulliver.'

The teeth came down again over the lower lip.

‘I didn't know anyone really was called Gulliver. That's great. I've learnt something today. My mother always says you should learn something new each day.' He shoved his hand across the table for her to shake. ‘I'm Joe Mulhare. Howaya?'

She held his fingers for a moment. She noticed that he, too, savaged his nails.

‘Are you still at school?'

She blushed and then scowled.

‘Of course you're not.' He answered his own question quickly. ‘You just look young … well youngish. Let's say that.' He leaned towards her and grinned. ‘Let's settle for youngish.'

‘I'm eighteen,' she said severely. ‘Only just though. It's a terrible thing to look young. Nobody takes you seriously.'

The waitress came back with two cups of coffee, which she placed on the table. That meant that he had two cups of coffee steaming in front of him.

‘Thank you,' they both said simultaneously, then they laughed.

‘That's a magic,' said Nancy. ‘You can have a wish. We can both have a wish, but we mustn't tell …'

He held out his hand and she took it, and they both wished for a moment.

Nancy wished the same wish that she had wished for years, that Harry might one day love her, then for the first time she regretted having wasted a perfectly good wish on a lost cause. She wondered what Joe Mulhare had wished.

‘How old are you?'

‘I'm eighteen too.'

‘Well honestly …!'

‘I'm nearly nineteen. I've had a very full life. That's why I have that look of wisdom round my eyes.'

She burst out laughing. He fiddled with the book on the table and then picked it up and put it in his pocket.

‘What are you reading?'

He looked a little embarrassed.

‘Hamlet.'

‘Hamlet?'

‘Have you ever seen it?'

She shook her head. ‘No. We read it at school. Round the class, you know, I was Claudius. I always get the horrid people to play. I must have an evil personality. Hamlet this pearl is thine; here's to thy health …'

She lifted her cup and toasted him.

‘I'd give a lot to see that play. It's great stuff,' said Joe.

‘What do you do? You know … work?'

‘Well at the moment I'm fully occupied in reading
Hamlet
and fighting for freedom.'

‘Don't be silly …'

‘What do you mean, don't be silly! Isn't that enough for anyone? I bet it's more than you're doing.'

‘Well… yes … but …'

‘But what?'

‘Oh just but … How do you earn your living is what I meant?'

‘I don't. I live on charity. I thought of going into the railways, but I didn't like the idea of spending the rest of my life punching tickets.'

‘I thought all boys wanted to be engine drivers.'

He dropped two lumps of sugar into his second cup of coffee and watched the disturbance in the cup for a moment.

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘A lot of them do right enough. It doesn't appeal to me any more.'

He tasted the coffee. ‘My father died in prison.'

‘Oh! How awful! I'm sorry.'

‘No need to be sorry. He was a good man. I see by your face that you don't realise that sometimes good people end up in prison.'

‘I …'

‘I don't know why I'm telling you, but I am.'

They both gulped at their coffee.

‘He was a union man. He came from Belfast. That's a funny old place up there. A lot of union fellows came from there. They put him in prison during the lock-outs and … well … he died. He was never very strong. I thought … as you asked me … when I got to thinking, that was … that I'd try and do something that he'd have liked me to do. Not just punching tickets. So … do you understand?'

‘Well …'

‘No,' he said gloomily. ‘I don't suppose you do.'

He looked more like a rabbit than ever. She had a strong impulse to touch him. To stretch out her hand and stroke his arm. She picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee instead.

‘Why should you?'

‘I'd like to understand. Believe that.'

‘You see, when people ask for rights and don't get them, then they have to fight. I think he would have understood that.'

‘And supposing you don't get them even if you do fight?'

‘You go on. There's always someone left to go on.'

‘Oh dear! Yes. I suppose there is. Perhaps you'd be better off punching tickets.'

He grinned. ‘That's what my mother says. Lookit, I'm sorry. I don't know what's got into me. I don't usually moan or groan.'

‘It must be too much
Hamlet.'

‘Maybe. How come you're mixed up in all this anyway? Your sort usually keep their noses clean.'

‘I'm just doing a kindness for a friend … more an acquaintance … perhaps that would be the right thing to call him.'

‘Yes. An acquaintance. He doesn't allow himself friends.'

‘Do you know him?'

‘No. Not me. I just run messages too. They say he's English.'

‘No. I don't think so.'

‘He's not one of us anyway. One of the people.'

‘Everybody's one of the people.'

‘Ah no! That's not true. You know it's not true. There are some people who just see a lot of other people as animals. Nothing more than that, animals without minds or feelings. Use them, like animals, and throw them away when they become useless. Sick, old. There's dogs in this country treated better than a hell of a lot of the people. That's what my father used to say. I don't remember him very well, but I remember a lot of the things he said. I remember when they came to tell us he was dead. My mother cried … and cursed.'

‘The people who put him in prison?'

‘No. Him. She was up from the country and she could be very free with the curses. She stood in the middle of the room and screamed dreadful curses. She felt she'd been deserted. It was frightening at the time. It upset the neighbours.'

‘What a strange thing to do!'

‘She always felt he ought to leave things alone. Mind his own business. He had enough on his plate without taking on the world. Wasn't he lucky enough to have a job; he should thank God and get on with it. Not be making enemies. She shouted it at him daily. I never could understand why they had to shout.'

‘Perhaps he'd still be alive if he'd listened to her.'

‘Perhaps, but I like him better the way he was.'

‘Dead.'

‘Even if he is dead. He's probably better off dead.' He laughed. ‘Forming the heavenly hosts into trades unions. God, I can see him!'

‘Better working conditions for cherubim and seraphim.'

‘Shorter hours for archangels.'

He looked at her in silence.

‘I like you. There's something about you. You're not one of us but …'

‘I …'

‘You aren't. But you could be for us. That's what matters. Drink up your coffee and we'll go for a ride on a tram.'

He clicked his fingers again for the waitress.

‘Or maybe you don't like trams? Maybe you've got things to do?'

She shook her head.

‘I love trams. I have to catch the quarter to six train home though.'

‘Bill, miss.'

He was eating the sugar at the bottom of one of his cups with his spoon.

‘We'll go out to Dalkey on the tram and you can get your train from there. We'll sit on the top and you can let your hair blow over the side. It's great to meet a girl who hasn't cut her hair off. They're all at it. Crowning glory, my mother calls it. She nearly had a fit when my sister came in with her hair up to her ears.'

‘Did she curse her?'

He laughed.

‘She saves her curses for catastrophes. If you use a curse too often you sort of weaken its power.'

He took the bill from the waitress and winked at her. ‘Go raibh maith agat.'

She drooped her eyes disapprovingly.

‘None of your dirty talk in here.'

She walked away, offended.

He looked across at Nancy and laughed.

‘There's a girl with a suspicious mind. All I said was thanks.'

‘It was the look in your eye that gave her ideas.'

She gathered up her bag and the parcel of library books for Aunt Mary.

He had a cap, which he put on as they left the cafe. She wondered if it had holes for the ears that she felt must be pushing their way up through his disordered hair. He didn't bother to walk on her outside as Harry always did, making a point of always manoeuvring her to the inside of the pavement. Two small girls in bare feet held out their hands.

‘Lady …'

She paused for a moment wondering if she had any coppers in her purse, but he pulled at her elbow.

‘Come on.'

‘Lady …'

One of the children, noticing her hesitation, ran a few steps after her.

‘Lady …'

‘Where's the point?' he said.

His arm was firmly through hers. He walked quite quickly, his head hunched down into his shoulders, perhaps to alleviate the discomfort of his stiff collar.

‘One day there will be no beggars.'

‘But now …'

‘A couple of pennies from you doesn't help.'

A very tall policeman ordered them across the road with a wave of his white gloved hands. A young man in a motor hooted impatiently as the crowd rushed forward. Two huge horses pulling a dray shifted from foot to foot, their harness jingling as they moved. The drayman wore a sack over his head and hanging down his back. A lorry full of auxiliaries, ignoring the policeman, edged its way through the crowd. A tram came round the corner from College Green.

‘Run,' said Joe.

They ran along the narrow pavement, Joe pulling her along by the hand, and clambered on to the platform of the tram.

‘Nancy.'

Startled at hearing her name called, she nearly dropped the library books. She looked round. With a crackle from the overhead wires the tram lurched forward. Harry was standing on the pavement.

‘Nancy …'

He took his hat off.

‘Oh, hello.' She smiled as casually as possible.

‘What on earth …!'

‘Up, up, up.' Joe shoved her towards the stairs. The tram swayed. Harry stood, hat in hand, looking after them. They climbed the stairs and lurched forwards to the front seat. Above them the trolley sparked and crackled as they turned the corner into Nassau Street.

‘What an unfortunate happening!'

She settled herself into the seat and Joe sat down beside her.

‘That fellow?'

‘He'll fuss. He'll ask all sorts of stupid questions. Who you are? Where were we going? Why this? Why that? He'll probably tell Aunt Mary.'

Below them in College Park they were playing cricket. A tall white figure ran, bat outstretched. There was a touch of turning colour in the heavy green of the trees.

‘What'll you say?'

‘I'll think of something.' She smiled. ‘I'm jolly good at inventing things. I have to be. I lead a very sheltered life. All my movements are catalogued.'

‘No harm, for a young one like you with not much sense.'

They smiled at each other.

The journey took the best part of an hour. The wind reddened their faces and once almost got away with Joe's cap; but he felt it lifting from his head and grabbed it in time.

In Kingstown the tram stopped for a ten-minute rest. Down the road to the left they could see the yachts bobbing gently in the harbour. A couple of auxiliaries came up the stairs and walked along between the seats, looking casually at the passengers. Nancy tried not to think of the envelope in Joe's pocket. No one looked at the two men, their guns in their hands ready for using. No one spoke until they had climbed down again and stepped on to the road.