The Brothers' Lot (16 page)

“But what about him? He’s been missing for weeks!” yelled Finbar.

“Declan said he’s sorry and I think he learnt his lesson,” said Mrs. Sullivan softly.

“And don’t you raise your voice like that in this house again,” cautioned Mr. Sullivan.

Finbar stared sullenly at the floor.

“So, where the hell were you?” repeated Mr. Sullivan.

“Walking. The park. Nowhere.”

“The park? What park?”

“Don’t know. One with big pillars and statues. Over there.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the back of the scullery.

“What do you think you’re doing wandering around parks in the dark? This isn’t Cork, you know.”

“I know. Wish it was.”

“Ah, sit down and eat your tea before I lose patience with you,” snapped Mr. Sullivan, and headed out the low door that led to the backyard. Through the steamed-up window of the scullery, Finbar saw the unmistakable flare of a match and the tiny red glow of a cigarette. When had his father started smoking again? He sat down and his mother put his dried-out tea in front of him.

Finbar poked at the liver with his fork. He hated liver. Sitting in a low oven for two hours with a saucepan lid over it did not help either. His mother knew he hated liver. Why did his tea have to be horrible just because Declan liked liver? That wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

“How come I only got two bits of fried potato?”

“Because you were late, and anyway, poor Declan was starving,” answered his mother.

“Oh yeah, poor Declan was starving! Poor Declan stole a hundred quid and fecked off God knows where and now that he’s back we all have to lick his arse for him!” exploded Finbar.

Mr. Sullivan almost took the scullery door off its hinges as he shot in from the yard. Already he was drawing his belt out of the loops of his trousers.

“Don’t speak to your mother like that! Get up those stairs in front of me! I’ll put manners on you!” He whipped the belt at the back of Finbar’s legs and the boy dashed up the stairs.

Mr. Sullivan stopped and heard the bedroom door slam. He rested his head heavily on the banister rail and sighed, taking a deep breath as if to summon up one last burst of energy. From the living room doorway Mrs. Sullivan watched as he seemed to slump and then shouted up the stairs after Finbar: “And don’t come down again until you’ve learnt some manners!”

Mr. Sullivan walked into the unlit parlor. He stared out the window at the narrow street and wondered how they had come to this. This was not what he had hoped for: a pokey little house in Dublin, an annoying job in the Customs House overseeing the incineration of stupid imports that no one would pay the duty on, and now his family slowly drifting away from one another into their own private silences. He squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and shook his head sadly.

“Finbar! Come back down and finish your tea!” he called up the stairs.

The rest of the tea things had already been cleared away and Finbar’s tea sat alone on the table.

“Will I make a fresh pot?” asked Mrs. Sullivan, already up to her elbows in the sinkful of washing up.

“It’s all right. I’ll have milk.”

“There’s only just enough for the breakfast. That stupid milkman never comes until well after eight.”

“The tea in the pot is fine.”

Finbar poured himself a cup of dark, stewed tea. He sipped it and then added three spoons of sugar to mask its bitterness. His fried eggs were like rubber from being kept warm in the oven. Nonetheless, hunger got the better of him. He cut off a piece of liver and spiked a slice of fried potato. He chewed determinedly.

“Do you still have homework to do?” called his mother from the scullery.

“A bit.”

“Well don’t dawdle over your tea. It’s getting late.”

“Where’s dad?”

“He went out for a walk. Declan’s in the parlor. He’s writing away for a job that was in the paper. You can do your homework at the table here when you’ve finished your tea.”

“I can do it on the bed. It’s only a bit of Geography and some Latin verbs.

“All right so. Just be sure to get straight to it. No daydreaming.”

Finbar gobbled down the last bits of crispy rasher and fried bread, then drained his teacup and shuddered a little at the strong tannic bite of it. He picked up his dishes and carried them out to the scullery.

“Just drop them in the sink, pet. I have to boil the kettle. The hot water’s on the blink again. Go on now and finish your homework like a good boy.”

Finbar peeked in the half-open parlor door as he passed down the hall. Declan was sitting on the vinyl sofa with a writing pad on his knees and the Help Wanted pages of the evening
Way Forward
on the cushion beside him. He wrote furiously, stopped, ripped the page out of the writing pad, and crumpled it up into a little ball. He glanced up expressionlessly at Finbar and then, without a word, dropped the ball of paper on the floor, lowered his head, and again started his letter.

Finbar took his schoolbag from beside the hallstand and quietly went up the stairs two at a time. He paused at the top and listened. The only sounds were the soft, warm chuckling of the tea dishes in the soapy water from the scullery and a short tearing of paper followed by a quietly hissed “Fuck!” from Declan.

Finbar propped his pillow up against the headboard and sat back. He pulled out his Latin copybook and his Geography book. On Declan’s bed sat his duffel bag, still waiting to be unpacked.

Amabo, Amabas, Amabat, Amabamus, Amabatis, Amabant. I used to love, You used to love, He/She/It used to love, We you used to love, You used to love, They used to love
, Finbar wrote for the tenth and last time.

All he had to do now was the pluperfect ten times and learn off the fishing ports of Ireland counterclockwise starting with Howth.

“Don’t disturb Finbar, he’s doing his homework,” he heard his mother’s voice call out from the scullery.

“I won’t!” replied Declan from the landing.

The bedroom door opened. Declan came in and closed the door softly behind him. Without looking at Finbar, he dropped the newspaper, writing pad, and pen on his bed and set to emptying out his duffel bag.

Keeping his head still, Finbar moved his eyes to watch. Declan dug into the bag and pulled out a pair of trousers that looked like they had been tied up in knots and left out in the middle of the road for trucks to run over.

Piece by piece Declan removed his clothes from the bag and threw them into a pile at the foot of his bed. Then he stopped suddenly and picked them all up. He unrolled them and started folding them as neatly as he could, setting them in a pile on the bed. He went to the wardrobe, opened the door, looked inside, and closed the door again. “Fuck sake,” he whispered to himself. He turned and glanced toward Finbar.

Amareram, Amareras, Amarerat, Amareramus, Amareratis, Amarerant, I had loved, You had loved, He/She/It had loved, We had loved, You had loved, They had loved,
he wrote, and then added above the two neat columns,
Pluperfect Tense Active
. He drew a line and started two more columns, this time writing the English first for variety’s sake.

“What’re you doing?” asked Declan quietly.

“Latin.”

“Hated Latin,” said Declan.

Finbar simply continued to write.

Declan sat down on the edge of his bed and faced his brother. Finbar pretended to be engrossed in the pluperfect tense and ignored him.

“I was in London,” said Declan suddenly, as if he were answering a question.

Amareramus, Amareratis, Amarerant
, wrote Finbar without looking up.

“I met this fellah on the mail boat over. Ambrose, his name was. From Dundalk. Said he had a cousin in London. Said I could stay with them until I found me feet. Said he could set me up with a job on the buildings. So we get the train to London and when we arrive we go to this pub somewhere to we meet his cousin. The cousin seems all pissed off that Ambrose said I could stay.”

Declan paused. Out of the corner of his eye Finbar could see that his brother was watching him, waiting for some reaction. He couldn’t help feeling somehow pleased by Declan’s discomfort. Finbar could sense this story was going nowhere nice. He knew Declan had made a mess of running away to London; he could hear it in his voice.

“Fin, it was poxy. The cousin got me a job bricklaying. It was fucking awful. I had to get up at five in the morning. Then the cousin says I have to start paying rent and he and Ambrose have this big fight and the cousin kicks me out.”

Finbar put down his pen and for the first time looked straight at Declan. He intended saying something smartarsed but when he saw his brother’s face—tired, defeated, pitiful—he just shook his head lightly.

“Did you make any money?” asked Finbar.

Declan shook his head.

“Then why did you go? I had to put up with them while you were away all full of
could be down a laneway somewhere with a knife in his back
and all that.”

“Yeah. Look. I’m sorry. I wanted to get out. I needed to … I wanted to …”

“What?”

“I just needed to get away and I fucked it up and now I’m back like an eejit without a penny and I have to listen to them again. Fuck sake! They want me to apply for this stupid job at the gas company.”

“So? They let you back.”

“Ah fuck, Fin, it’s just miserable. I miss Cork. I miss …”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just … Remember when Sheila dumped me?” Declan stared down at his fists in his lap as he spoke. “Well. She didn’t really dump me. She was knocked up.”

“Fuck sake!”

“Don’t you start too. They took her away. One of those fucking laundries in the middle of nowhere.”

“Jaysus, Dec, that’s shite. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, Fin. It is the worst shite. I don’t know what to do. It’s like I’m trying to do everything with the wrong hand. I fuck everything up. I’m really fucked off—”

Declan stopped abruptly, gathered up all his dirty clothes, and went downstairs. Finbar picked up Declan’s writing pad from his bed:

Dear Sir,

I want to apply for the job of Accounts Clerk, Third Class, Grade IV. Give me the job or I’ll break your head, ye fucker!

Declan had scribbled all over the page after writing the words.

Stupid sap
, thought Finbar, but smiled a little. He picked up the pad and wrote:

Dear Sir,

I wish to apply for the position of Accounts Clerk, Second Class, Grade IV, as advertised in this evening’s Way Forward. I am hard-working, thorough, and reliable. I can be available for interview at any time and I look forward to hearing from you.

He wrote
Try this, Dec
at the top of the page, threw the pad back on his brother’s bed, and returned to his homework.

18

F
rom the outside it looked just like any of the other squalid mill and warehouse buildings that huddled together on the Limerick Road just beyond Dullow. The only indications that it was a Jezebel Laundry were the bricked-up windows facing the road and the small brass crucifix affixed to the padlocked metal gates. Above the crucifix sat a small brass plate that bore the inscription:
Purgatorio Per Ardua: Purgatory Through Drudgery.

“Fifty-seven! Put your back into it or I’ll tan your hide for you, you ignorant slattern!” Sister Delia’s voice cut its way through the hot damp air of the washing room.

Standing on her tall stool over the vat of dirty steaming water, Maureen Heffernan punched and twisted the unwieldy washing peggy into the heavy sodden clothes again. Her arms ached and throbbed. All she had eaten that day was one slice of dry toast for breakfast. Her dinner had been fed to the dogs as punishment for her slowness in the ironing room. She felt weak and the sweat soaked through her black dress in large itchy patches.

Sister Delia watched Maureen with satisfaction. She recalled the fiery young girl who had been brought to the laundry only a year before, shouting, kicking, and spitting.

Sister Delia passed out of the room, stopping near the door to grab Agnes Kerrigan by what was left of her unevenly hacked hair. “Cured of your vanity and back answers now, are you, thirty-eight?” she barked into the girl’s face.

Agnes crouched and twisted with the force of Sister Delia’s grasp and found herself kneeling on one knee in front of the nun. The stench from her habit made Agnes’s throat contract. “Yes, Sister,” she sobbed, only too aware that hacking off her hair with a bread knife in front of the whole laundry was a trifle compared to what Sister Delia was capable of.

“Good! Get back to work!” Sister Delia released her roughly and strode on. In the lye room she stood silently against the wall and watched the scene in front of her. Sheila Barry, the new girl, coughed and spluttered in the cloud of fine ash that rose up to envelop her. She could just about keep hold of the huge kettle of water she was pouring into the lye dropper. As the water saturated the applewood ashes that filled the large box, the ash died down and the kettle grew lighter. Sheila set the kettle next to her feet and wiped her face with the sleeve of her coarse black dress.

“Eighty-two! Fill the other box with ashes and then collect the lye out of the bottom of this one!”

Sheila had not seen Sister Delia standing there but was exhausted beyond the point of fright. She nodded heavily and picked up the kettle. “I have to go out to the pump for more water,” she said heavily.

“Well be quick about it! And make sure that fire doesn’t die down. Get some wood while you’re at it!” Sister Delia was feeling very pleased with herself. It had taken some work convincing Father Higgins to return to the lye. He had voiced concern at the antiquated nature of the process and pointed out the easy availability of commercial soaps. Sister Delia recalled the thrill that had run through her as she made her case. It was the angels speaking through her. She had explained that what these fallen sinful girls needed most was hard work and discipline. Of course the nuns could buy the soap, but what would the girls learn from that? Where was the mortification of the flesh in unwrapping a bar of soap?