Collected Stories (120 page)

“Dadda,” I said in a whisper, pulling him by the sleeve, “do you know what Dickie Ryan was singing?”

“Hold on a minute now,” he said, beaming at me affectionately. “I just want to illustrate a little point.”

“But, Dadda,” I went on determinedly, “he was singing ‘We'll hang William O'Brien from a sour apple tree.'”

“Hah, hah, hah,” laughed my father, and it struck me that he hadn't fully appreciated the implications of what I had said.

“Frank,” he added, “get a bottle of lemonade for the little fellow.”

“But, Dadda,” I said despairingly, “when I sang ‘We'll hang Johnnie Redmond,' John P. told me to shut up.”

“Now, now,” said my father with sudden testiness, “that's not a nice song to be singing.”

This was a stunning blow. The anthem of “Conciliation and Consent”—not a nice song to be singing!

“But, Dadda,” I wailed, “aren't we
for
William O'Brien?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he replied, as if I were goading him, “but everyone to his own opinion. Now drink your lemonade and run out and play like a good boy.”

I drank my lemonade all right, but I went out not to play but to brood. There was but one fit place for that. I went to the shell of the castle; climbed the stair to the tower and leaning over the battlements watching the landscape like bunting all round me I thought of the heroes who had stood here, defying the might of England. Everyone to his own opinion! What would they have thought of a statement like that? It was the first time that I realized the awful strain of weakness and the lack of strong principle in my father, and understood that the old bandroom by the bridge was in the heart of enemy country and that all round me were enemies of Ireland like Dickie Ryan and John P.

It wasn't until months after that I realized how many there were. It was Sunday morning, but when we reached the bandroom there was no one on the bridge. Upstairs the room was almost full. A big man wearing a bowler hat and a flower in his buttonhole was standing before the fireplace. He had a red face with weak, red-rimmed eyes and a dark mustache. My father, who seemed as surprised as I was, slipped quietly into a seat behind the door and lifted me on to his knee.

“Well, boys,” the big man said in a deep husky voice, “I suppose ye have a good notion what I'm here for. Ye know that next Saturday night Mr. Redmond is arriving in the city, and I have the honor of being Chairman of the Reception Committee.”

“Well, Alderman Doyle,” said the bandmaster doubtfully, “you know the way we feel about Mr. Redmond, most of us anyway.”

“I do, Tim, I do,” said the alderman evenly as it gradually dawned on me that the man I was listening to was the Arch-Traitor, locally known as Scabby Doyle, the builder whose vile orations my father always read aloud to my mother with chagrined comments on Doyle's past history. “But feeling isn't enough, Tim. Fair Lane Band will be there of course. Watergrasshill will be there. The Butler Exchange will be there. What will the backers of this band, the gentlemen who helped it through so many difficult days, say if we don't put in an appearance?”

“Well, ye see, Alderman,” said Ryan nervously, “we have our own little difficulties.”

“I know that, Tim,” said Doyle. “We all have our difficulties in troubled times like these, but we have to face them like men in the interests of the country. What difficulties have you?”

“Well, that's hard to describe, Alderman,” said the bandmaster.

“No, Tim,” said my father quietly, raising and putting me down from his knee, “'tis easy enough to describe. I'm the difficulty, and I know it.”

“Now, Mick,” protested the bandmaster, “there's nothing personal about it. We're all old friends in this band.”

“We are, Tim,” agreed my father. “And before ever it was heard of, you and me gave this bandroom its first coat of paint. But every man is entitled to his principles, and I don't want to stand in your light.”

“You see how it is, Mr. Doyle,” said the bandmaster appealingly. “We had others in the band that were of Mick Twomey's persuasion, but they left us to join O'Brienite bands. Mick didn't, nor we didn't want him to leave us.”

“Nor don't,” said a mournful voice, and I turned and saw a tall, gaunt, spectacled young man sitting on the window sill.

“I had three men,” said my father earnestly, holding up three fingers in illustration of the fact, “three men up at the hours on different occasions to get me to join other bands. I'm not boasting. Tim Ryan knows who they were.”

“I do, I do,” said the bandmaster.

“And I wouldn't,” said my father passionately. “I'm not boasting, but you can't deny it: there isn't another band in Ireland to touch ours.”

“Nor a cornet player in Ireland to touch Mick Twomey,” chimed in the gaunt young man, rising to his feet. “And I'm not saying that to coddle or cock him up.”

“You're not, you're not,” said the bandmaster. “No one can deny he's a musician.”

“And listen here to me, boys,” said the gaunt young man, with a wild wave of his arm, “don't leave us be led astray by anyone. What were we before we had the old band? Nobody. We were no better than the poor devils that sit on that bridge outside all day, spitting into the river. Whatever we do, leave us be all agreed. What backers had we when we started, only what we could collect ourselves outside the chapel gates on Sunday, and hard enough to get permission for that itself? I'm as good a party man as anyone here, but what I say is, music is above politice.… Alderman Doyle,” he begged, “tell Mr. Redmond whatever he'll do not to break up our little band on us.”

“Jim Ralegh,” said the alderman, with his red-rimmed eyes growing moist, “I'd sooner put my hand in the fire than injure this band. I know what ye are, a band of brothers.… Mick,” he boomed at my father, “will you desert it in its hour of trial?”

“Ah,” said my father testily, “is it the way you want me to play against William O'Brien?”

“Play against William O'Brien,” echoed the alderman. “No one is asking you to play
against
anyone. As Jim Ralegh here says, music is above politice. What we're asking you to do is to play for something for the band, for the sake of unity. You know what'll happen if the backers withdraw? Can't you pocket your pride and make this sacrifice in the interest of the band?”

My father stood for a few moments, hesitating. I prayed for once he might see the true light; that he might show this group of misguided men the faith that was in him. Instead he nodded curtly, said “Very well, I'll play,” and sat down again. The rascally aldlerman said a few humbugging words in his praise which didn't take me in. I don't think they even took my father in, for all the way home he never addressed a word to me. I saw then that his conscience was at him. He knew that by supporting the band in the unprincipled step it was taking he was showing himself a traitor to Ireland and our great leader, William O'Brien.

Afterwards, whenever Irishtown played at Redmondite demonstrations, my father accompanied them, but the moment the speeches began he retreated to the edge of the crowd, rather like a pious Catholic compelled to attend a heretical religious service, and stood against the wall with his hands in his pockets, passing slighting and witty comments on the speakers to any O'Brienites he might meet. But he had lost all dignity in my eyes. Even his gibes at Scabby Doyle seemed to me false, and I longed to say to him, “If that's what you believe, why don't you show it?” Even the seaside lost its attraction when at any moment the beautiful daughter of a decent O'Brienite family might point to me and say: “There is the son of the cornet player who betrayed Ireland.”

Then one Sunday we went to play at some idolatrous function in a seaside town called Bantry. While the meeting was on my father and the rest of the band retired to the pub and I with them. Even by my presence in the Square I wasn't prepared to countenance the proceedings. I was looking idly out of the window when I suddenly heard a roar of cheering and people began to scatter in all directions. I was mystified until someone outside started to shout, “Come on, boys! The O'Brienites are trying to break up the meeting.” The bandsmen rushed for the door. I would have done the same but my father looked hastily over his shoulder and warned me to stay where I was. He was talking to a young clarinet player of serious appearance.

“Now,” he went on, raising his voice to drown the uproar outside. “Teddy the Lamb was the finest clarinet player in the whole British Army.”

There was a fresh storm of cheering, and wild with excitement I saw the patriots begin to drive a deep wedge of whirling sticks through the heart of the enemy, cutting them into two fighting camps.

“Excuse me, Mick,” said the clarinet player, going white, “I'll go and see what's up.”

“Now, whatever is up,” my father said appealingly, “you can't do anything about it.”

“I'm not going to have it said I stopped behind while my friends were fighting for their lives,” said the young fellow hotly.

“There's no one fighting for their lives at all,” said my father irascibly, grabbing him by the arm. “You have something else to think about. Man alive, you're a musician, not a bloody infantryman.”

“I'd sooner be that than a bloody turncoat, anyway,” said the young fellow, dragging himself off and making for the door.

“Thanks, Phil,” my father called after him in a voice of a man who had to speak before he has collected his wits. “I well deserved that from you. I well deserved that from all of ye.” He took out his pipe and put it back into his pocket again. Then he joined me at the window and for a few moments he looked unseeingly at the milling crowd outside. “Come on,” he said shortly.

Though the couples were wrestling in the very gutters no one accosted us on our way up the street; otherwise I feel murder might have been committed. We went to the house of some cousins and had tea, and when we reached the railway station my father led me to a compartment near the engine; not the carriage reserved for the band. Though we had ten minutes to wait it wasn't until just before the whistle went that Tim Ryan, the bandmaster, spotted us through the window.

“Mick!” he shouted in astonishment. “Where the hell were you? I had men out all over the town looking for you! Is it anything wrong?”

“Nothing, Tim,” replied my father, leaning out of the window to him. “I wanted to be alone, that's all.”

“But we'll see you at the other end?” bawled Tim as the train began to move.

“I don't know will you,” replied my father grimly. “I think ye saw too much of me.”

When the band formed up outside the station we stood on the pavement and watched them. He had a tight hold of my hand. First Tim Ryan and then Jim Ralegh came rushing over to him. With an intensity of hatred I watched those enemies of Ireland again bait their traps for my father, but now I knew they would bait them in vain.

“No, no, Tim,” said my father, shaking his head, “I went too far before for the sake of the band, and I paid dear for it. None of my family was ever called a turncoat before today, Tim.”

“Ah, it is a young fool like that?” bawled Jim Ralegh with tears in his wild eyes. “What need a man like you care about him?”

“A man have his pride, Jim,” said my father gloomily.

“He have,” cried Ralegh despairingly, “and a fat lot any of us has to be proud of. The band was all we ever had, and if that goes the whole thing goes. For the love of the Almighty God, Mick Twomey, come back with us to the bandroom anyway.”

“No, no, no,” shouted my father angrily. “I tell you after today I'm finished with music.”

“Music is finished with us you mean,” bawled Jim. “The curse of God on the day we ever heard of Redmond or O'Brien! We were happy men before it.… All right, lads,” he cried, turning away with a wild and whirling motion of his arm. “Mick Twomey is done with us. Ye can go on without him.”

And again I heard the three solemn thumps on the big drum, and again the street was flooded with a roaring torrent of music, and though it no longer played for me, my heart rose to it and the tears came from my eyes. Still holding my hand, my father followed on the pavement. They were playing “Brian Boru's March,” his old favorite. We followed them through the ill-lit town and as they turned down the side street to the bridge, my father stood on the curb and looked after them as though he wished to impress every detail on his memory. It was only when the music stopped and the silence returned to the narrow channel of the street that we resumed our lonely way homeward.

Ghosts

F
OR
twenty-odd years we've always had Oorawn Sullivans for servants; why I don't know, unless it was the only hope of getting something off the bill. The Sullivans' bill went back long before my time. When one of them got married we took her younger sister, and when she died of consumption we took Kitty. The first week we had Kitty I found her with all the tea things down the lavatory basin, pulling the chain. She told me townspeople had great conveniences.

Then one Thursday last summer, Mary, the eldest girl, came in to do her bit of shopping. I always had a smack for Mary for the way she reared her family. I heard her whispering something across the counter to Nan about a bottle of whiskey and cocked my ears. Oorawn is the Irish for a spring, but it isn't only water that flows there. All the poteen they drink in our part of the country rises in Oorawn. When they have a wedding or a wake they come in for a bottle or two of the legal stuff and take care that plenty see them with it. A couple of days after they bring it back under cover and get credit for it. They call it “the holy medal.”

“What do ye want the medal for, Mary?” said I, taking a rise out of her. “Is it one of the girls getting married on you?”