After the Lockout (3 page)

Further up the street two women lean out of a ground-floor window of a tenement. One of the women is big and brassy and could be anywhere between thirty and sixty. Her face is painted white, her lips are scarlet and her head is covered by a raven-black wig, stacked high and precarious. The other one is only a young thing. She's painted and dressed up the same but that only makes the contrast all the more obvious. The usual combination: an old whore for the young lads fresh up from the country with dreams and virginities intact, and a young floozy for the older men. Working girls festoon most of the windows around here.

‘Come on in till I wet yer willy mister,' jeers the old whore, cupping her hands around her chest. We walk on. The young floozy catcalls after us, are we men at all at all. Peggy O'Hara is leaning out the bottom window of the tenement I live in. Peggy is our tenement's old whore. Charlie's appalled that I live here, he can't hide it.

‘Howya, Victor. Who's your friend?' says Peggy, pushing forward her young floozy, a pretty wee thing, perhaps fifteen with big, bewildered brown eyes and cheeks plastered preposterously in rouge. ‘Dolores here's a real patriot. If he's a friend of yours, she might do him a discount.'

‘Only a discount, not a free go, for a national hero?'

‘Look around you, Victor. Youse heroes have damn near put us out of business.'

She's right. This place used to be black with soldiers, all loose change and aggression, looking for a good time in the red-lit windows of the Second City of the Empire. But the soldiers are confined to barracks now. Of course the high-end houses for the rich are still here, and go out the back of any pub on a Friday night, you'll see the bottom end of the market relieving careless working men of their pay packets; but the servicemen were always Monto's bread and butter. The Monto girls have cut down more British soldiers with knob rot than all the generations of rebels ever managed with muskets and pikes.

‘Better to die on your feet than live on your knees,' I say.

‘I
make
my living on my knees.'

I have to laugh. Whores are my favourite capitalists. They're the most honest, and often among the smartest. Every smart whore I've ever met has the same dream: to own her own place
and run her own girls. Peggy O'Hara's only complaint about the grinding boot of capital is that she's not wearing it.

We don't go inside. No detours, Mick said. ‘It's an eye-opener around here, isn't it?' I say.

‘I've been here before,' Charlie replies. ‘I was billeted at Beggar's Bush before they sent us to France. We spent a lot of time up here. They were giving free ones to boys in British uniforms that time.'

‘Whores and armies are well met,' I say.

I wonder what I'd have said if we'd met then, as he was getting ready to go and fight for the king. I don't think I'd have been able to look past the uniform. Soldiers are fucken pigs. I think I'd have spat in his face. ‘That coat of yours sticks out like a sore fucken thumb so it does.'

‘I took off the epaulettes,' Charlie protests.

‘You don't think people know what it is?'

There's a time and a place, Victor, let it go. Life is in the letting go.

The doors of P. Shanahan Wines Spirits Ales Licensed Imbibing Emporium are locked and a large billboard announces the premises are Closed By Order Of The Lord Lieutenant Until Further Notice. Beige blinds bearing the legend Select Bar are pulled down over the windows. I knock till a voice from inside asks who it is.

‘Fron Goch prisoner 19531977.'

The door opens a few inches and Phil Shanahan ushers us in fussily. ‘Who's this with you?' he asks.

‘Friend of mine. He's all right. Is it all right if I wait here? There's supposed to be somebody coming to meet me here later on. I was told to wait.'

Phil waves around the empty room in agreement. The room is long and narrow and the bar runs its full length. It's all dark corners. It used to be full of people like me talking politics, or naïve country lads newly arrived in the big smoke; desperate for anything familiar, they'd make straight for the premises of Phil Shanahan, the famous hurler. There's someone in the snug down at the bottom, I can just about see movement through a gap in the snug door. I pull up a high stool so Charlie can sit down, plant my elbows on the bar and duck my head under the window. Phil stands squarely across the bar from me with his thumbs looped in his waistcoat pockets. ‘What'll it be, men?'

‘Bushmills.'

‘Oul Protestant whiskey.'

‘Good Ulster whiskey.'

Phil smiles and sets up the bottle and three glasses. He leaves me to pour while he reaches under the bar and produces a dog-eared newspaper page that looks like it has passed through many hands. He sets it down in front of me and smirks. ‘Did you see this? I've been showing it to all you socialist lads.' I finish pouring the whiskey and take the paper from him. It's from the
Freeman's Journal
, couple of months back. Yes, of course I fucken saw it. Down in the bottom left corner. Our glorious leader.

Phil roars laughing as he lifts his glass. ‘Up the Republic!'

‘God save Ireland,' says Charlie.

‘All power to the soviets,' I say.

The first drink of the day rasps against my throat. I light a cigarette and pour another drink. Phil excuses himself and goes back to the snug.

‘How come the place is empty?' says Charlie.

‘They took Phil's licence after the Rising.'

‘He doesn't seem the sort to be mixed up in that sort of thing.'

True, Phil's idea of a political opinion is to moan about how hard it is for an honest publican like himself to make a living. If I've heard his joke about his membership of the Irish Publican Brotherhood once, I've heard it a thousand times. Yet there he was on Easter Monday morning, walking across the deserted street toward the barricade outside the GPO where I stood guard, a rifle strapped across his back and a toolbox full of ammunition in his hand.

‘Is it yourself, Victor? Is it the socialists are rising out? I heard ye were having a crack at the English.'

‘Go on home, Phil. We haven't a chance of winning.'

‘I'm not in the least bit concerned whether we do or not.'

I remember thinking for a moment that if a man like Phil Shanahan was with us, maybe we had a chance after all. Charlie asks for a cigarette. He inhales and splutters. ‘You should smoke more,' I tell him.

‘I know. Did you keep the card?'

I hand it over. Cigarette cards don't interest me, but people are religious about them. ‘What are they, Navy Cut?'

‘Gallaher's.'

He's disappointed. ‘I've nearly got the full Player's collection: the Large Trench Mortar, the Stokes Trench Mortar, the Vickers Field Artillery Piece. I only need the Lewis Automatic Gun.' The card read
Plants Of Commercial Value
. Charlie's face squirrelled up with distaste. ‘Flowers, like.
Papaver rhoeas is a variable annual wild flower of agricultural cultivation. The four petals are vivid red, most commonly with a black spot at their base.
Blah blah blah. Who gives a damn?'

I down the whiskey and pour another. Through the gap in the door of the snug I see one of the fellows with Phil take out a shiny gold pocket watch and fidget with the chain. I recognise that fidget. Alfie Byrne, the Shaking Hand of Dublin himself. Such a nervous fellow, if he didn't have someone's palm to pump, he would take out that bloody watch chain and fidget with it. Couldn't sit still for a moment. He had shaken hands all the way to the House of Commons. I down the whiskey.

‘You have to come home, Victor. Your da isn't the man he was. The drink has him.'

‘A man with fifteen children can afford to lose one son.'

‘He has nobody.'

Nobody? The Lord said Go Forth and Multiply, and by God Pius Lennon took him up on it. He made my ma into a production line.

‘They've all left. Everybody's gone. Pius is alone.'

Most of my brothers would knife the old man in the guts if they thought it'd get them their inheritance a day sooner. The
Lennon land is worth a lot, at least in the conception of Madden people. ‘What d'you mean gone? Gone where?'

‘The four winds. We've tried everyone else. You're our last hope.'

I get up and knock on the door of the snug. I ask Phil to lend me pencil and paper. He goes behind the bar to see if he can find anything, and as he rummages, I wave to Alfie Byrne. Alfie looks well, with his crisp moustache and stiff collar and expensive shoes. He waves back. Is he starting to lose the hair? He won't like that, the vain bastard. I can only see the knees of the third man, who stays seated in the snug. Phil hands me a pencil and a copy of the
Picturegoer
magazine.

‘It's all the paper I can find.'

‘Do rightly.'

According to the
Picturegoer
there's a new five-reeler coming soon starring Kitty Gordon. Don't think much of her to be honest, but apparently she's the Most Magnificently Gowned Woman On The Screen. I thumb through the pages quickly to see if there's a picture anywhere of Mildred Harris. I like Mildred Harris. Don't see one. I throw the magazine down in front of Charlie. ‘Fifteen is a lot to keep track of. Write on this.'

Charlie opens the
Picturegoer
at a random page and glances at the picture. ‘There's a new picture palace only after opening in Armagh,' he says.

‘Is that a fact?' I say as I take it back from him. If you want something doing, honest to God. ‘I'll write. Let's start with Seamus. Where'd he go?'

‘Boston.'

I scribble it down. ‘Emily?'

‘Manchester.'

‘England or New England?'

‘England. Mary's in Cape Town. Anthony's in Wellington, Thomas is in Sydney.'

‘Fucken empire-builders.' I down my whiskey and pour another.

‘Oliver is in Buenos Aires. Maybe you should slow down, Victor.'

‘Bonus what?'

‘Buenos Aires. In the Argentine.'

‘Jesus. What about Patsy?'

‘Melbourne. Theresa, eh …' Charlie thinks about it for a second: ‘Glasgow. Johnny is in Chicago. Agnes is in New York.'

‘Wee Aggie? She's only a child.'

‘She's twenty-two. She's married over there, I think. Rosemary's in Toronto. Who am I forgetting?'

I tot up the numbers quickly. ‘We're missing four.'

‘Including yourself.'

‘Three then. Brigid?'

‘Philadelphia. Peter went to London. He got conscripted. He's in France now.'

I pour another whiskey. ‘Fucken eejit.'

‘I met him out there. In Paris. Small world, eh? Two Madden boys meeting away on the other side of the world. Him and a few of his cockney pals were paralytic. They were asking me did I know where was the Moulin Rouge.'

I smile. Peter's the youngest, he was eight the last time I saw him. ‘Dirty wee bastard. I'm sure you told him off.'

‘Sure I was on my way there myself.'

I laugh loudly and take a long slurp. There's a name missing from the list. ‘What about Sarah?'

‘Sister Concepta. She's been with the Dominicans in Drogheda these last five or six years.'

‘You must be fucking joking me?' I'm off again, laughing like I haven't laughed in years. Fifteen Lennons and not one single city big enough for two of them. Pius has scattered the family like I said he would. My sides hurt.

‘Keep it civil down there,' Phil shouts across the room.

‘Is she married?' I ask Charlie. ‘You know damn well who I mean.'

‘No, she's not. She's the schoolteacher.'

‘Did she send you to come and get me?'

‘Jesus but you're full of yourself.'

‘Then who's we? You said
we
wrote to all our ones.'

‘Bishop Benedict.'

The name is like a nail on a blackboard to my ears. I presumed he'd be dead by now.

‘Pius needs help, Victor, he'll die if he doesn't get it. The property is gone to hell. There's cows dying of old age, Victor.'

I pour another drink hoping it'll settle my head but it does no good. The room is spinning on me. I hear a voice – not Phil's, not Alfie's – pronounce in a stentorian Cork accent: ‘Alfred, the Irish Party is finished, Mr Shanahan and his friends have made sure of that. My little party is certainly a spent force. We must all now make our peace with Sinn Féin.' I know the voice but can't quite place it. I open the door of the snug to return Phil's pencil. Phil looks up watchfully.

‘Just leave it on the bar there, Victor.'

Alfie looks up and fidgets.

‘Ask him, Phil. Ask Alfie where was he when he heard they'd shot Connolly.'

‘Take it easy now, Victor,' says Phil.

‘He was in the House of Commons cheering and singing God Save the fucking King when he heard, weren't you, Alfie?'

‘I was on me holyers at the time,' Alfie protests.

Phil stands up. ‘Right, Victor, that's enough. Alfie and Mr Healy are here to try and help me get my licence back, so sit down and calm yourself. You're drinking too fast.'

The third man sticks his fat head out from behind the door, his face all whiskey and sirloin and silver service and gout. Timothy Michael Healy, Member of Parliament, King's Counsel. As Murder Murphy's thug in the Four Courts, he was one of the bosses' bluntest instruments during the lockout. Healy looks like dead king Edward, with his full white beard and his big, fat, balding head. ‘Healy. I'm sure you cheered the loudest when you heard.'