The Love Apple (10 page)

That night PJ decided to run away. His chance came several mornings later when the younger boys were sent to clear a field of stones. PJ asked to relieve himself and slipped into a group of hawthorn bushes on the hedgerow. On the other side of the trees was a ditch: PJ ducked into it. Crawling through the brambles he made his way along towards a spinney of trees. Once there he began to run and run.

PJ had no plan, no idea where he was or where he was running to. He just knew that he must go far away and not be seen. Fear of being returned to the workhouse drove him. He lived on milk he stole from cows — squirting it directly into his mouth as best he could — or eggs he found near houses, and late blackberries clinging to hedges. Once a tinker woman, who came
on him asleep under a bridge, gave him a cup of bread and milk. Several times he was almost discovered. He cried a lot and slept little. He was exhausted, soaked, feverish and dropping with hunger: if he hadn’t got to the stables of Kinross House, to be found and fed by Mick Sullivan, he would have died within the month.

Now PJ owned nothing but the clothes he stood up in, an ancient satchel that Mrs Sullivan had given him and a half-crown piece. The satchel was PJ’s pride and joy. He kept it where he slept, at the far end of one of the disused stables, hidden in an old sack under a mound of straw. The half-crown, knotted in a handkerchief, was tied around his neck.

Mrs Sullivan had given both coin and satchel to PJ shortly after Mick had been shot. ‘I want you to have this,’ she said, taking down the satchel from the top of the press in her room in Kingstown, ‘to remember our Mick. He used it when he was at the Christian Brothers school. And haven’t I put something in it for you, PJ? Don’t I thank Our Lady every day that you were with poor Mick in his dying? Sure, I feel at times that in losing one son I was sent another.’

Inside the satchel was the half-crown. PJ, who had never in his life had any money, not so much as a farthing, looked at the silver coin with awe. ‘If it isn’t a fortune,’ he said.

‘’Tis little enough, God knows,’ said Mrs Sullivan.

In the months that followed, the coin hung around PJ’s neck, a comfort and a talisman, not something to be used. Hungry as he was, the thought of exchanging the money to buy a farl of soda bread or a drink of buttermilk seemed too far beyond experience to consider. Food was worked for, grown or gathered: not bought.

He pulled out the satchel from inside the sack and brushed some straw off of it. The leather, dark and battle-scarred as a
conker, had a reassuring quality that made PJ think of Mick. Since Mick’s death, the boy had taken to talking to his dead friend. ‘Mick?’ said PJ, sitting in the straw. ‘Are yiz there?’ He was uncertain whether the church permitted speaking with the dead, other than saints. But as Mick was the nearest to a saint PJ had ever met, he decided to risk it. In the beginning the boy thought it better to pray to the Virgin first, tell her his problems, ask for a word with Mick, but as time went on he’d dispensed with this formality.

‘I’m going, Mick,’ said PJ. ‘Haven’t a dog’s chance if they put me in the workhouse. I’ll be making for yer Ma’s. Didn’t she say it was near Tullamore on the canal? It’s a desperate long way off and I’m knocked all of a heap just thinking of it. Don’t I need yiz, Mick, if yer not busy-like.’

A bar of sunlight lay across the floor. As PJ finished speaking a solitary swallow swooped through the brightness and vanished into the soft darkness of the barn. PJ crossed himself. He touched his throat to ensure the coin was still there, slung the empty satchel on his shoulder and went out into the courtyard. Making sure no one was about, he moved quickly behind the coach house, past the implement sheds and out onto the lane.

‘Now, run like hell,’ Mick’s voice said.

And PJ did.

P
J walked along the towpath whistling. The canal was on one side of him and a field of cows on the other. The morning was silky with sunlight and buxom clouds, and PJ was feeling cheerful. His fear of capture and imprisonment in the Dunhinch workhouse had decreased with every mile he went. No one cared enough about him to look very far and once PJ had reached Sallins he knew he was free.

A flyboat on its way to Dublin came towards him. Pulled by a horse led along the towpath, the boat was crowded. People stood on the deck; through the portholes of the cabin PJ could see other passengers. They sat tightly around a table loaded with baskets, parcels, hatboxes and dressing cases.

‘Grand morning,’ said the driver.

‘Thanks be to God,’ said PJ as he moved off the path onto the grass, letting the horse pass.

When the canal reached the lock gates of Rathbeggan, PJ decided to go into the town and get something to eat. A group of Royal Irish Constabulary officers in their distinctive navy-blue uniforms were stopping men in the street. A troop of soldiers marched by, though PJ didn’t know which regiment they came from. Ever since the night of the Fenian arms raid, the night Mick had been killed, PJ felt a sense of dread when he saw such
figures of authority. He ducked down an alley to avoid the main street and came to a row of cottages. A group of little girls was holding hands and running about in a ring. A woman with a shawl over her head was at a half door emptying a bucket; a man with a fighting cock in a harness was leading it along on a leather strap. There was a kitchen table outside one of the cottages and a woman selling large triangles of potato bread.

‘How much?’ asked PJ.

‘Two for a penny,’ she said.

PJ, who had already spent sixpence from his half-crown, gave her the money.

‘Here,’ said the woman, putting three of the cakes into PJ’s hand. ‘This ould one is a bit bokity and it’s burnt, take it as well. Yiz look destroyed.’

‘All them peelers and the army,’ PJ said, ‘has something happened hereabouts?’

‘Sure it has,’ she said. ‘Mr Hunt over at Knockswilly moithered. They’re saying the Land Leaguers did it, him being an evicting swine.’

PJ had heard of the Land League. Men who wouldn’t put up with evictions, men who wanted fair rents and the right to be compensated for improvements they made on leased land.

PJ came to a horse trough and sat on a large stone. He was ravenous and the potato bread was delicious. Absorbed in the pleasure of eating, he hadn’t noticed a cart parked nearby, the horse grazing in a tuft of grass that sprouted from earth at the bottom of a wall.

‘And wouldn’t the smell of that bring rabbits out of their holes?’ a voice said.

PJ jumped. A man with a blackened face was sitting in the back of the wagon, looking down on him.

‘Glory be!’ said PJ. ‘Yiz put the heart across me.’

‘I’m sorry for that,’ said the man. ‘I meant no harm.’

‘Who’re ye?’ said PJ.

‘Beelzebub. See, over my shoulder I carry a club,’ the man said, waving what looked like a cardboard weapon. ‘Ah, don’t look shocked, lad. I’m not really Beelzebub. I’m often St Patrick.’

With that the man put down the club, rummaged about on the floor of the wagon and put on a tattered-looking paper mitre with green ribbons.

‘Mummers,’ the man went on. ‘The mummers that bet all we meet. Others are at the public house and I’m sleeping it off, or I was.’

‘Mummers?’ said PJ. ‘I’ve never heard tell of them.’

‘Travel about at this wicked time of year. Go to houses, put on a show.’

‘Do yiz want some spud?’ said PJ.

‘No lad, no,’ said the man. ‘A poor little article like yerself needs all the grub he gets. Pity yiz have never seen the mummers. We’re the lads for a laugh, a bit of craic.’

When PJ left the mummer he headed back to the canal. To get to the towpath he had to cross the river. On the wall of the bridge was a scrawl of large black words. PJ had passed it on his way into the town but as he was unable to read it meant nothing.

A lieutenant, a corporal and two privates, one carrying a bucket and shovel, were on the bridge looking at the writing:

PJ hesitated for a moment when he saw the soldiers, but there was no other way of getting to the canal and he decided to go on. He crossed to the far footpath and walked with his head held down.

‘You there!’ the officer called to him. ‘Come here.’

Reluctantly PJ went over.

‘See this writing?’

PJ nodded.

‘Look at me,’ said the officer, and gave PJ a cuff across the face with his glove.

PJ looked up.

‘Did you do it, boy?’

‘I haven’t the book learning,’ said PJ.

‘Well, some of your friends have,’ said the officer. ‘This sort of thing is all over the town. Here, Hoskins, give the boy the bucket and the shovel. He can get the mud and black out the words. Better one of these bloody bogtrotters does it. Good lesson for the little nit.’

PJ took the bucket and went down to the river. The mud was heavy and the shovel large for his hands.

The soldiers stayed on the bridge and the officer lounged about watching. He had his revolver out and was idly swinging it on his fingers. ‘Bloody hurry up down there! Quickly now!’

PJ tried to shovel faster.

‘Didn’t you hear me? We can’t wait all day.’

PJ’s hands and back ached and the splinters from the rough shaft of the shovel handle were jabbing his palm.

‘This will bloody move you!’ shouted the officer. He cocked his revolver and aimed three shots at PJ’s feet.

PJ jumped in terror. Then, without pausing to think, the boy dropped the shovel. He ran up the bank, down the street, away from the bridge. A spatter of bullets fell behind him.

‘Come back!’ the officer shouted.

PJ was running along the quay, the soldiers after him. He dodged among carts and laden donkeys. Behind him he heard a rumble of wheels. He glanced back and saw the mummers’ cart. Beelzebub was driving.

‘Give us a lift, mister! Give us a lift!’ PJ gasped.

Beelzebub slowed the horse and PJ flung himself on board. There were four other men in the cart. ‘God almighty!’ said one of them, looking behind at the running soldiers. Beelzebub applied the whip and the wagon lurched off, moving over the cobblestones at a stiff gallop. They hadn’t gone far when the soldiers stopped chasing them.

‘Aren’t they after trying to kill me?’ said PJ, lying shaking and gasping in a heap of dirty costumes.

‘Bastards!’ said one of the mummers, who was holding a suit of cardboard armour. ‘But we showed them.’

‘Sure we did,’ said Beelzebub. ‘We bet all we meet!’

The kitchen smelt of sweat, mud and newly baked soda bread. The cottage, though substantial, was crowded. Around the walls were the farmer and his wife, their children, several in-laws, neighbours and day labourers. The adults sat on bentwood chairs or stools, the children on the floor. Four teenage girls, patched boots protruding from under their dresses, were sitting on a large table. In the middle of the room Beelzebub, as a rotund St Patrick with a pillow under his coat and a false beard, was having a crosier-and-sword fight with King Billy. The two mummers hacked away, chasing about and jumping over outstretched legs. The delighted audience cheered and catcalled. St Patrick’s mitre was knocked off and he was pushed to the ground. The saint was just about to be run through by his enemy’s sword when a man wearing a top hat and carrying a silver-topped cane bounded out from behind the dresser. He bowed to the audience and recited:

There was immediate and prolonged applause. The character of Charles Stewart Parnell had only recently been included in the group’s repertoire and the response showed he was a popular addition.

A fierce battle then ensued between Parnell and the Protestant king. Parnell was run through with a sword and copious quantities of pig’s blood spilled. Despite this mortal injury Parnell managed to chase King Billy offstage and up the ladder that led to the sleeping areas of the cottage. The victorious Parnell returned, clutching his wound and writhing in agony.

‘The man needs a doctor,’ shouted a youth seated by the hearth. On cue, the doctor appeared with a large suitcase.

The doctor opened his suitcase and took out a fearsome collection of farm and kitchen tools and a bottle marked ‘Ass Liniment’. Amid laughter and asides he tried to prise Parnell’s lips apart with the various implements before finally applying a chisel and a hammer. Having got his patient’s mouth open he poured a bright-pink medicine down his throat, reciting as he did so:

The dying hero immediately sprang to his feet and the audience cheered. His recovery marked the end of the play. The rest of the cast, who had been hidden in the bedroom, returned. There were boos for King Billy and cheers for Parnell. Beelzebub, now with soot-blackened face and holding a club and a frying pan, stepped into the centre of the group and recited:

Parnell passed his hat around. The audience clapped.

PJ, who had watched the whole performance from beside the curtain that cut off the kitchen from the main bedroom, had never seen a play before. He was entranced. The mummers said they performed several times an evening and PJ was already looking forward to a repeat of the play further along the road. He had been with the mummers since they rescued him at Rathbeggan. They were heading part of the way he needed to go and seemed happy for him to ride along with them. They had even asked him to join them as they were looking for a ‘young one’ to play Wee Biddy Funny, but though they were a kindly lot, PJ declined. He wouldn’t feel safe, not properly safe, until he found Mrs Sullivan. She was the nearest to kin he had: the only person in the whole world who cared about him. He knew she
wouldn’t turn him out.

The mummers, who were on their way to Kildare, left PJ at Robertstown. He was cold and tired and wet. It had been raining for hours. He had tried to sleep that night in a little stone pavilion in an estate garden that ran down to the canal. There was a thick bed of leaves on the floor and the roof kept out the rain. PJ was just drowsing off when he heard dogs barking somewhere close. He jumped and ran, back through the beech trees, over the stone wall and onto the towpath. He couldn’t find anywhere else to sleep, though he spent a few hours crouched in a ditch under an overhanging hedge. When darkness finally struggled into light, PJ put his jacket over his head to keep out the rain and started walking. His money was gone now. He was starving and his feet were blistered; for the first time since he had set out he wondered about what he was doing. Maybe he should have stayed with the mummers. He thought wistfully of bouncing along in their cart, eating scuds of soda bread and the hard-boiled eggs that some of their audiences had given them. What if he couldn’t find Mrs Sullivan? He only knew this place Killeigh was near Tullamore. What if Mrs Sullivan didn’t want him? Maybe the gentleman she nursed had died and she had left. It was months now since he’d seen her. Maybe …

PJ stumbled on a tree root and stubbed his toe. He began to cry. ‘Mick,’ he sobbed, ‘Mick.’ But Mick wasn’t answering.

Charleville Square at the centre of Tullamore was an elegant collection of buildings, slim Georgian houses facing each other across the cobbles. The rain had stopped and the square was busy when PJ reached it. There were donkey carts, wagons, pony traps and horses. Groups of idle men stood about, scuffing their heels against walls. Women with shawls over their heads and babies in their arms shepherded children. A man was shovelling dung. A woman with a battered straw hat was selling eggs from
a basket. A brown-and-white dog held a bone between its paws and growled.

‘Please, Father,’ said PJ to a passing priest, ‘can you tell me the way to Killeigh?’

The priest told PJ the road to take.

‘And please, Father, is it far?’

‘Ah no,’ said the priest. ‘Four or five miles maybe.’

It was late afternoon. The winter light had a shifty quality, as if uncertain whether the day was moving towards clearing or to a shower. The trees were ominous against the advancing sunset and the hedgerows elaborate pieces of dark twisted iron.

A group of boys were playing road bowling as PJ passed and he stopped for a moment to watch. With a leaping gesture, one of the players tossed the shot. PJ had seen the game played by the lads at Kinross House. He knew that whoever covered the course in the least number of throws won.