The Hard Life Page 4

  I hastily put the treatise in my pocket as I heard the steps of Mr Collopy coming in the side-door. He hung his coat up on the back of the door and sat down at the range.

  –A man didn’t call about the sewers? he asked.

  –The sewers? I don’t think so.

  –Ah well, please God he’ll be here tomorrow. He’s going to lay a new connection in the yard, never mind why. He is a decent man by the name of Corless, a great handball player in his day. Where’s that brother of yours?

  –Upstairs.

  –Upstairs, faith! What is he doing upstairs? Is he in bed?

  –No. I think he’s writing.

  –Writing? Well, well. Island of Saints and Scholars. Upstairs writing and burning the gas. Tell him to come down here if he wants to write.

  Annie came out of the back room.

  –Mrs Grotty would like to see you, Father.

  –Oh, certainly.

  I went upstairs to warn the brother. He nodded grimly and stuffed a great wad of stamped envelopes, ready for the post, under his coat. Then he put out the gas.

  7

  MANY months had passed and the situation in our kitchen was as many a time before: myself and the brother were at the table weaving the web of scholarship while Mr Collopy and Father Fahrt were resting themselves at the range with the crock, tumblers and a jug of water between them.

  The plumber Corless had long ago come and gone, ripping up the back yard and carrying out various mysterious works, not only there but in Mrs Crotty’s bedroom. Sundry lengths of timber had been delivered for Mr Collopy himself and, since these things went on mostly while the brother and I were at school, we were told by Annie that the hammering and constructional bedlam to be heard from the sick woman’s room were Very sore on the nerves’. It was a point of apathy, or tact, or safety-first with the brother and myself to ask no questions as to what was afoot or evince any curiosity. ‘They might only be making a coffin,’ the brother said to me, ‘and of course that’s a very religious business. People can be very sensitive there. We are better minding our own business.’

  On this evening Mr Collopy had given an incoherent little cry.

  –A pipe, Collopy. Just a pipe.

  –And when did this start?

  –It is a fortnight now.

  –Well … I see no objection if it suits you, though I think it’s a bad habit and a dirty habit. Creates starch in the stomach, I believe.

  –Like many a thing, Father Fahrt said urbanely, it is harmless in moderation. Please God I will not become an addict …

  Here he peremptorily scratched himself about the back.

  –Haven’t I one cross to bear as it is? But the doctor I saw recently thought my mind was a bit inclined to wander, a very bad thing in our Order. Father Superior voiced the view that I was doing too much work, perhaps. I would not take a drug, so the doctor said tobacco in moderation was a valuable sedative. He smokes himself, of course. This pipe was a penance for the first week. But now it is good. Now I can think.

  –I’ll keep my eye on you and by dad I might follow suit myself, starch and all. I needn’t tell you I also have my worries… my confusions. My work is inclined to get out of hand.

  –You will win, Collopy, for your persistence is heroic. The man whose aim is to smooth out the path of the human race cannot easily fail.

  –Well, I hope that’s true. Give me your glass.

  Here new drinks were decanted with sacramental piety and precision.

  –It’s a queer thing, Father Fahrt mused, that men in my position have again and again to attack the same problem, solve it, and yet find that the solution is never any easier to reach. Next week I have to give a retreat at Kinnegad. After that, other retreats at Kilbeggan and Tullamore.

  –Hah! Kilbeggan? That’s where my little crock here came from, refilled a hundred times since. And emptied a hundred times too, by gob.

  –I like to settle on a central theme for a retreat. Often it is not simple to think of a good one. No hell fire preaching by our men, of course.

  Mr Collopy nodded, reflectively. When eventually he spoke there was impatience in his voice.

  –You Jesuits, Father, are always searching for nice little out-of-the-way points, some theological rigmarole. Most of you fellows think you are Aquinas. For God’s sake haven’t you got the Ten Commandments? What we call the Decalogue?

  –Ah, Saint Thomas! Yes, in his Summa he has many interesting things to say about the same Decalogue. So had Duns Scotus and Nicolaus de Lyra. Of course it is the true deposit.

  –Mean to say, why don’t the people of this country obey the Ten Commandments given in charge of Moses? ‘Honour thy father and thy mother.’ The young people of today think the daddy is a tramp and the mammy a poor skivvy. Isn’t that right?

  Here the brother coughed.

  –Oh no, Father Fahrt said.

  He also coughed here but I think the pipe was responsible.

  –It is just that young people are a bit thoughtless. I would say you were as bad as the rest, Collopy, when you were a young fellow.

  –Yes, Father. I could trust you to say that. I suppose you also think I coveted my neighbour’s wife?

  –No, Collopy, not while you were a young fellow.

  –What? You mean when I grew up to man’s estate—

  –No, no, Collopy, it is my jest.

  –Faith then and I don’t think the Commandments are the right thing for God’s anointed to be funny about. I never put my hand near a married woman and there are two of them on my committee, very valuable, earnest souls.

  –What nonsense! I know that.

  –You want to scarify the divils in the town of Kinnegad? There are pubs in that place. What about our other old friend Thou shalt not steal’?

  –A much neglected ordinance.

  –Well if the pishrogues of publicans there are anything like the Dublin ones, they are hill and dale robbers. They water the whiskey and then give you short measure. They give you a beef sandwich with no beef in it, only scraws hacked off last Sunday’s roast by the mammy upstairs with her dirty hands. Some of those people don’t wash themselves for weeks on end and that’s a fact. Do you know why some of those ladies often miss Mass? They’d have to wash themselves. And darn their damned stockings.

  –As usual I think you exaggerate, Collopy.

  –And false witness, is it? There’s people in this town that can’t open their jaws without spilling out a flood of lies and slanders. To biting a nice ripe apple they would prefer back-biting any day.

  –Yes, the tongue can be reckless.

  –And adultery? The Lord save us! Don’t talk to me about adultery.

  –I know, Collopy, that you are devoted to women and their wants. But I am afraid that they are not all angels. Sometimes one meets the temptress. You mentioned biting a ripe apple. Do not forget the Garden of Eden.

  –Baah! Adam was a damn fool, a looderamawn if you like. Afraid of nobody, not even the Almighty. A sort of poor man’s Lucifer. Why didn’t he tell that strap of a wife he had to go to hell?

  –Excuse me, Father Fahrt.

  That heart of mine, faultless registrar, gave a little jump of dismay. It was the brother, again interrupting his betters. They turned and stared at him, Mr Collopy frowning darkly.

  –Yes, Manus?

  –The wife of Adam in the Garden of Eden was Eve. She brought forth two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel but afterwards in Eden he had a son named Henoch. Who was Cain’s wife?

  –Well, Father Fahrt said, there has been disputation on that point already.

  –Even if Eve had a daughter not mentioned, she would be Cain’s sister. If she hadn’t, then Cain must have married his own mother. Either way it seems to be a bad case of incest.

  –What sort of derogatory backchat is that you are giving out of you about the Holy Bible? Mr Collopy bellowed.

  –I’m only asking, the brother said doggedly.

  –Well, may God in his mercy help u
s. The father and the mother of a good thrashing is what you badly need.

  –Now, now, Father Fahrt said smoothly, that question has been examined by the Fathers. What we nowadays know by the term incest was not sinful in the case of our first parents, since it was inevitable if the human race was to survive-We will discuss it another time. Manus, you and I.

  –That’s right, Father, Mr Collopy said loudly. Encourage him. Give your blessing to the badness that’s in him. By damn but I’ll have a word with Brother Cruppy in Westland Row. I’ll tell him—

  He broke off here and we all sat still. It came again, a faint cry from Mrs Crotty’s room.

  –Is Father Fahrt there?

  Mr Collopy got up and hurried in, closing the door tight.

  –Ah, please God there is nothing wrong, Father Fahrt said softly.

  We sat in silence, looking at each other. After some minutes Mr Collopy reappeared.

  –She would like to see you, Father, he said in a strange low voice.

  –Of course, the priest said rising.

  He gently went into where I knew only a candle served. Mr Collopy slumped back into his chair, pre-occupied, quite unaware of ourselves at the table. Mechanically he sipped his drink, staring at the gleam of the fire through the bars of the range. The brother nudged me and rolled his eyes.

  –Ah dear O, Mr Collopy murmured sadly.

  He poured another drink into his glass, nor did he forget Father Fahrt.

  –We know not the day … nor the hour. All things come to him who waits. It’s the very divil.

  Again he slumped into silence, and for what seemed a long, long time there was no sound at all except that of the alarm clock above the range, which we began to hear for the first time. In the end Father Fahrt came quietly from the room and sat down.

  –I am very pleased, Collopy, he said.

  Mr Collopy looked at him anxiously.

  –Was it, he asked, was it …?

  –She is at peace. Her little harmless account is clear. Here we see God’s grace working. She is at peace. She was smiling when I left her. The poor thing is very ill.

  –You … did the needful?

  –Surely. A sweet, spiritual safeguard is not another name for death. Often it means a miraculous recovery. I know of many cases.

  The brother spoke.

  –Should I go for Dr Blennerhassett?

  –No, no, Mr Collopy said. He is due to call tonight anyway.

  –Let us not be presumptuous, Collopy, Father Fahrt said gently. We do not know God’s ways. She may be on her feet again in two weeks. We should pray.

  But in four days Mrs Crotty was dead.

  8

  ABOUT the time of Mrs Crotty’s death, the brother’s ‘business’ had grown to a surprising size. He had got a box—fitly enough, a soap-box—from Davies the grocers, and went down to the hall every morning very early to collect the little avalanche of letters awaiting him there before they should come to the notice of Mr Collopy. Still using our home address, he had become, in addition to Professor Latimer Dodds, The Excelsior Turf Bureau operated, I suspect, on the old system of dividing clients into groups equal to the number of runners in a given race, and sending a different horse with any chance to each group. No matter which horse won, a group of clients would have backed it, and one of the brother’s rules of business was that a winning client should send him the odds to five shillings. He was by now smoking openly in the house and several times I saw him coming out of or going into a public house, usually with a rather down-at-heel character. He had money to spend.

  He also operated the Zenith School of Journalism, which claimed to be able to explain how to make a fortune with the pen in twelve ‘clear, analytical, precise and unparagoned lessons’. As well he was trying to flood Britain with a treatise on cage-birds, published by the Simplex Nature Press, which also issued a Guide to Gardening, both works obviously composed of material looted from books in the National Library. He had put away his little press and now had printing done by an impoverished back-lane man with some small semblance of machinery. He once asked me to get stamps for him, giving me two pounds; this gives some idea of the volume of his correspondence.

  He seemed in a bad temper the evening the remains of Mrs Crotty were brought to the church at Haddington Road; he did not come home afterwards but walked off without a word, possibly to visit a public house. Next morning dawned dark, forbidding and very wet, suitable enough, 1 thought, for a funeral. I thought of Wordsworth and his wretched ‘Pathetic Fallacy’. The brother, still in a bad temper, went down as usual to collect his mail.

  –To hell with this house and this existence, he said when he came back. Now we will have to trail out to Deansgrange in this dirty downpour.

  –Mrs Crotty wasn’t the worst, I said. Surely you don’t begrudge her a funeral? You’ll need one yourself some day.

  –She was all right, he conceded. It’s her damned husband I’m getting very tired of…

  Mr Hanafin called with his cab for myself, the brother, Mr Collopy and Annie. The hearse and two other cabs were waiting at the church, the cabs accommodating mysterious other mourners who hurried to Mr Collopy and Annie with whispers and earnest handshakes. Myself and the brother were ignored. As the Mass was about to begin, a third cab arrived with three elderly ladies and a tall, emaciated gentleman in severe black. These, I gathered later, were members of the committee assisting Mr Collopy in his work, whatever that was.

  The hearse elected to take the route along Merrion Road by the sea, where a sort of hurricane was in progress. The cabs following stumbled on the exposed terrain. Mr Collopy, showing some signs of genuine grief, spoke little.

  –Poor Mrs Crotty was very fond of the sea, he said at last.

  –Seemingly she was, Annie remarked. She told me once that when she was a girl, nothing could keep her out of the sea at Clontarf. She could swim and all.

  –Yes, a most versatile woman, Mr Collopy said. And a saint.

  A burial on a wet day, with the rain lashing down on the mourners, is a matter simply of squalor. The murmured Latin at the graveside seemed to make the weather worse. The brother, keeping well to the back of the assembly, was quietly cursing in an undertone. I was surprised and indeed a bit shocked to see him surreptitiously taking a flat half-pint bottle from his hip pocket and, with grimaces, swallowing deep draughts from it. Surely this was unseemly at the burial of the dead? I think Father Fahrt noticed it.

  When all was over and the sodden turgid clay in on top of the deceased, we made for the gate. Mr Collopy was walking with a breathless stout man who had come on foot. When it was made known to us that this poor man had no conveyance, the brother gallantly offered his seat in the cab; this was gratefully accepted. The brother said he could borrow a bicycle near by but I was certain his plan was to borrow more than a bicycle, for there was a pub at Kill Avenue, which was also near by.

  On the way home Mr Collopy was a bit more animated, no doubt relieved that a painful stage in the ordeal was over, and introduced us to the stranger as Mr Rafferty.

  –I will not say, Rafferty, he said, that what-you-know was the sole reason for the woman’s demise. Not the sole reason, mind you. But by Christ it had plenty to do with it.

  –Don’t you know it had, Mr Rafferty said. Can’t you be bloody sure it had. Lord save us, you’d wonder is this a Christian country at all.

  –It’s a country of crawthumpers.

  –I had an idea the other night, Mr Collopy. In two years there will be a Corporation election. I believe you own your own house and you would be eligible for membership. Why not go forward as a candidate? You could put down a motion at the City Hall and shame all that bastards. The Town Clerk could be ordered to instruct the City Engineer or Surveyor or whatever he is called to dot the town with what we need.

  –I thought of that, Mr Collopy replied. But two years, you said? Only the Almighty knows how many unfortunate women would be brought to an early grave in that time. Ah, man alive, th
e worry and trouble of it all might even bring myself there.

  –Now don’t be letting silly thoughts like that come into your head. Ireland needs you and you know that.

  Mr Rafferty, politely refusing an invitation to come all the way with us, was dropped off at Ballsbridge. When we reached the house, we took off our dripping coats, Mr Collopy poked up the fire in the range, quickly had the crock on view, and sank into his chair.

  –Annie, he said, get me three glasses.

  When these were produced, he poured three generous measures of whiskey into each and added a little water.

  –On a morning like this, he said ceremoniously, and on a sad occasion like this, I think everyone here is entitled to a good stiff drink if we’re not going to get our death of cold. I disapprove of anybody taking strong drink before the age of forty-five but in God’s name let us take it as medicine. It is better than all those pills and drugs and falthalals those ruffians in the chemist shops will give you, first-class poison for the liver and kidneys.

  We drank to that: for me it was my first taste of whiskey but I was surprised to find that Annie treated the occasion quite casually, as if she was used to liquor. I found it made me drowsy, and I decided to go to bed for a few hours. I did so and slept soundly. I got up about five and was not long back in the kitchen when the brother came in. Mr Collopy had evidently spent the entire interval with the crock and did not notice the brother much or the unseemly fact that he was drunk. There is no other word for it: drunk. He sat down heavily and looked at Mr Collopy.

  –On a day like this, Mr Collopy, he said, I think I might have a drop of that tonic you have there.

  –For once I think you are right, Mr Collopy replied, and IF you will get another glass we will see what can be done.

  The glass was got and generously furnished. I was offered nothing and the drinking went on in silence. Annie began to lay the table for tea.