The Hard Life Read online

  ‘There remains, of course, the Main Act. This disease is caused by a virus known as spirochaeta pallida or treponema pallidum. We can have skin rash, lesions of the mouth, enlargement of lymph glands, loss of scalp hair, inflammation of the eyes, jaundice from liver damage, convulsions, deafness, meningitis and sometimes coma. The Last Act, the most serious, in most cases takes a cardiovascular form where the main lesion is seated in the thoracic aorta directly near the heart. The extensible tissue is ruined, the aorta swells and a saccular dilatation or an aneurysm may take shape. Sudden death is quite common. Other results are G.P.I. (paresis), locomotor ataxia, and wholesale contamination of the body and its several organs. My London Academy Laboratories markets a three-in-one remedy “Love’s Lullaby” but as this specific involves fits and head-staggers in persons who have in fact not been infected at all, it would be unwise to prescribe for Annie on the blind.

  ‘I would advise that at this stage you would keep her under very minute observation and see if you can detect any symptoms and then get in touch with me again. You might perhaps devise some prophylactic scheming such as remarking apropos of nothing that conditions on the canal bank are nothing short of a scandal with men and women going about there poxed up to the eyes, drunk on methylated spirits, flooding the walks with contaminated puke and making it unsafe for Christians even to take a walk in that area. You could add that you are writing to the D.M.P. urging the arrest at sight of any characters found loitering there. We all know that probably Annie is a cute and cunning handful but very likely she is not proof against a good fright. On the other hand you might consider telling Mr Collopy what you know, for it would be easier for a father to talk straight to his own daughter on this very serious subject, on the off-chance that Annie is innocent and quite uninstructed; in fact it would be his duty to do so. If you see fit to adopt that course, it would be natural to bring Father Fahrt into the picture, for the matter has a self-evident spiritual content. If being on the scene you would feel embarrassed to thus take the initiative, I could write from here to Mr Collopy or Father Fahrt or both, telling of the information I have received (not disclosing the source) and asking that steps should be taken for prevention and/or cure.

  ‘However, I must say that I doubt whether Annie is in trouble at all and the best plan might be to keep wide-awake so far as yourself is concerned, report to me if there are any symptoms or other development, and take no action for the present.’

  Well, that was a long and rather turgid letter but I found myself in agreement with the last paragraph. In fact I put the whole subject out of my head and merely dedicated myself to Mr Collopy’s rheumatism.

  15

  I DULY produced the bottle of Gravid Water to Mr Collopy, saying it was a miracle cure for rheumatism which I had got from a chemist friend. I also produced a tablespoon and told him he was to take a spoonful without fail three times a day after meals. And I added that I would keep reminding him.

  –Oh well now, I don’t know, he said. Are there salts in it?

  –No, I don’t think so.

  –Is there anything in the line of bromide or saltpetre?

  –No. I believe the stuff in the fluid is mostly vitamins. I would say it is mainly a blood tonic.

  –Ah-Ah? The blood is all, of course. It’s like the mainspring on a watch. If a man lets his blood run down, he’ll find himself with all classes of boils and rashes. And scabs.

  –And rheumatism, I added.

  –And who is this chemist when he is at home?

  –He’s … he’s a chap I know named Donnelly. He works in Hayes, Conyngham and Robinson. He is a qualified man, of course.

  –Oh very well. I’ll take a chance. Amn’t I nearly crippled? What have I to lose?

  –Nothing at all.

  There and then he took his first tablespoonful and after a week of the treatment said he felt much better. I was glad of this and emphasized the necessity of persevering in the treatment. From time to time I wrote to the brother for a fresh bottle.

  After six weeks I began to notice something strange in the patient’s attempts at movement. His walk became most laborious and slow and the floor creaked under him. One night in bed I heard with a start a distant rending crash coming from his bedroom off the kitchen. I hurried down to find him breathless and tangled in the wreckage of his bed. It seems that the wire mattress, rusted and rotted by Mrs Crotty’s nocturnal diuresis (or bed-wetting) had collapsed under Mr Collopy’s weight.

  –Well, the dear knows, he said shrilly, isn’t this the nice state of affairs? Help me out of this.

  I did so, and it was very difficult.

  –What happened? I asked.

  –Faith and can’t you see? The whole shooting-gallery collapsed under me.

  –The fire is still going in the kitchen. Put on your overcoat and rest there. I’ll take this away and get another bed.

  –Very well. That catastrophe has me rightly shaken. I think a dram or two from the crock is called for.

  Not in a very good temper, I took down the whole bed and put the pieces against the wall in the passage outside. Then I dismantled the brother’s bed and re-erected it in Mr Collopy’s room.

  –Your bed awaits, sir, I told him.

  –Faith now and that was quick work, he said. I will go in directly I finish this nightcap. You may go back to your own bed.

  On the following day, Sunday, I went in next door and borrowed their weighing scales. When I managed to get Mr Collopy to stand on the little platform, the needle showed his weight to be 29 stone! I was flabbergasted. I checked the machine by weighing myself and found it was quite accurate. The amazing thing was that Mr Collopy was still the same size and shape as of old. I could attribute his extraordinary weight only to the brother’s Gravid Water, so I wrote to him urgently explaining what had happened. And the letter I got back was surprising enough in itself. Here it is:

  ‘It is not only in Warrington Place that amazing things are happening; they are happening here as well. A week ago the mother of Milton Byron Barnes, my partner, died. In her will, which came to light yesterday, she left him her house and about £20,000 in cash and she left £5,000 TO ME! What do you think of that? It looks like the blessing of God on my Academy.

  ‘I was indeed sorry about what you tell me of Mr Collopy. The cause of it is too obvious—excessive dosage. On the label of the bottle the term “t-spoonful” meant “tea-spoonful”, not “tablespoonful”. The Gravid Water, properly administered was calculated to bring about a gradual and controlled increase in weight and thus to cause a redevelopment of the rheumatoid joints by reason of the superior weight and the increased work they would have to do.

  ‘Unfortunately the alarming overweight you report is an irreversible result of the Gravid Water; there is no antidote. In this situation we must put our trust in God. In humble thanks for my own legacy and to help poor Mr Collopy, I have made up my mind to bring him and Father Fahrt on a pilgrimage to Rome. The present Pontiff, Pius X, or Giuseppe Sarto, is a very noble and holy man, and I do not think it is in the least presumptuous to expect a miracle and have Mr Collopy restored to his proper weight. Apart from that, the trip will be physically invigorating, for I intend to proceed by sea from London to the port of Ostia in the Mediterranean, only about sixty miles from the Eternal City. Please advise both pilgrims accordingly and tell them to see immediately about passports and packing clothes.

  ‘You should have ingestion of the Gravid Water discontinued and need not disclose the spiritual aim of the pilgrimage to Mr Collopy. I will write again in a week or so.’

  16

  THE velocity and efficiency of the brother’s methods were not long being made manifest. Before Mr Collopy had time to bestir himself about the passport, he received out of the blue for completion documents of application for a passport. This was, of course, the brother’s doing. Father Fahrt heard nothing; he must already have a passport, else how could he be in Ireland? A few days afterwards I myself received a registered
package containing visa application forms to be completed immediately by Mr Collopy and Father Fahrt and returned to the brother in London. Enclosed also was quite a sum in cash. He wrote:

  ‘See that the visa documents enclosed are signed and returned to me here within forty-eight hours. If Collopy has not yet got his passport fixed up, will you yourself do any running around on his behalf that is necessary and if need be get a photographer to call to the house. We leave Tilbury on the Moravia in nine days and we don’t want things messed up by petty delays or for the sake of saving a few pounds. Tell Father Fahrt that he need have no worry about ecclesiastical permission to travel, as I have had an approach made to the Provincial of the English Jesuits and you may be sure a letter has already gone to the Leeson Street house.

  I have already bought three first-class tickets to the port of Ostia, near Rome. N.B. The Cardinal Archbishop of Ostia is ex officio the Dean of the Sacred College and since our objective is a private audience with the Holy Father, he could be very useful if we could contact him en route. Father Fahrt may have a line on him.

  ‘Dress clothes are essential where an audience is concerned but tell Collopy not to trouble about that. I will have him fixed up with a monkey suit either here in London or when we get to Rome.

  ‘I have booked two adjoining rooms on the first floor of the Hotel Élite et des Étrangers, a big place near the station, and where there is a lift. Father Fahrt will have to look after himself, as these lads are not allowed to stay in hotels. Probably he will stay in the Jesuit house here, or in some convent.

  ‘I enclose one hundred and twenty pounds in notes, being forty pounds each for Collopy and Father Fahrt in respect of the Dublin-London journey, twenty pounds for yourself to meet embarkation expenses, and twenty for Annie to keep her quiet. Tell her to keep away from that canal bank while her dear father is on an important spiritual mission abroad.

  ‘Your plan must be to get Hanafin to drive the party to Westland Row to get the very first boat train to Kingstown on the evening of the seventh. Do not hesitate to tip porters or others heavily to assist Collopy in these difficult moving operations, and if necessary carry him. Arm yourself with a half-pint towards the journey to the boat but tell Father Fahrt to restrain Collopy from any heavy drinking on board, for he probably knows next to nothing about sailing and if he is going to get sick, drink will make the performance all the more atrocious.

  ‘I will meet the party at Euston, with all necessary transport and assistance, early on the morning of the eighth.

  ‘Please attend to all these matters without fail and send me a telegram if there is any hold-up.’

  And so, indeed, it came to pass.

  I had privately advised Mr Collopy to buy two new suits, a heavy one for travel and a light one to meet the Roman weather. He absolutely refused to buy a new overcoat, disinterring an intact but quaint garment in which he said he was married to his first wife. (I had never heard of anyone having been married in an overcoat.) Father Fahrt, being of continental origin, understood everything perfectly and did not need advice on any matter. He did not disguise his emotion at the prospect of meeting the Holy Father in person and referred to this, not as a possibility but as something which had already been arranged. For all I knew, he had invoked the mysterious apparatus of his Order, from which even the Pope was not immune.

  On the late evening of the seventh the two travellers, looking very spruce, were at their accustomed station in the kitchen, savouring refreshment from the crock and looking very pleased. For once Annie showed a slight strain of excitement.

  –Could I make you hang sangwiches for the journey? she asked.

  –God Almighty, woman, Mr Collopy said in genuine astonishment, do you think we are going to the zoo? Or Leopardstown races?

  –Well, you might be hungry.

  –Yes, Mr Collopy said rather heavily, that could happen. But there is one well-known remedy for hunger. Know what that is? A damn good dinner. Sirloin, roast potatoes, asparagus, Savoy cabbage and any God’s amount of celery sauce. With, beforehand, of course, a plate of hot mushroom soup served with French rolls. With a bottle of claret, the chateau class, beside each plate. Am I right, Father Fahrt?

  –Collopy, I don’t find that meal very homogeneous.

  –Maybe so. But is it nourishing?

  –Well, it would scarcely kill you.

  –Damn sure it never killed me when the mother was alive. Lord save us—there was a woman that could bake a farl of wheaten bread! Put a slobber of honey on that and you had a banquet, man.

  –The only creatures who eat sensibly, Father Fahrt said, are the animals. Nearly all humans over-eat and kill themselves with food.

  –Except in the slums, of course, Mr Collopy corrected.

  –Ah yes, Father Fahrt said sadly. The curse there is cheap drink and worse—methylated spirits. God pity them.

  –In a way they have more than we have, they have constitutions of cast iron.

  –Yes, but acid is the enemy of iron. I believe some of those poor people buy a lot of hair oil. Not for their heads, of course. They drink it.

  –Yes. That reminds me, Father. Hand me your glass. This isn’t hair oil I have here.

  While he busied himself with the libations, there was a knock. I hurried to the door and admitted Mr Hanafin.

  –Well, Fathers above, Tie beamed as he saw the pair at the range.

  –Evening, Hanafin, Mr Collopy said. Sit down there for a minute. Annie, get a glass for Mr Hanafin.

  –So we’re off tonight to cross the briny ocean?

  –Yes, Mr Hanafin, Father Fahrt said. We have important business to attend to on the mainland.

  –Yes, Mr Hanafin, I added, and you have just four minutes to finish that drink. I am in charge of this timetable. We all leave for Westland Row station in four minutes.

  My voice was peremptory, stern.

  –I must say, gentlemen, Mr Hanafin said, that I never seen ye looking better. Ye are very spruce. I never seen you, Mr Collopy, with a better colour up.

  –That is my blood pressure, Mr Collopy replied facetiously.

  I was strict with my four-minute time-limit. When it was up we embarked on the task of getting Mr Collopy into his ancient tight overcoat. That completed, Mr Hanafin and I half-assisted, half-dragged him out to the cab and succeeded, Father Fahrt assisting from the far door, in hoisting him into the cab’s back. The springs wheezed as he collapsed backwards on to the seat. Soon after the aged Marius broke into a leisurely trot and in fifteen minutes we pulled up outside Westland Row station. There is a long flight of steps from street level to the platform.

  –Everybody wait here till I come back, I said.

  I climbed the stairs and approached a porter standing beside the almost empty boat train.

  –Listen here, I said, there’s a very heavy man below in a cab that wouldn’t be able for those stairs on his own. If you get another man to come down with you and give us a hand, there’s a ten bob each for you in it.

  His eyes gleamed, he bawled for Mick, and soon the three of us descended. Getting Mr Collopy out of the cab was more a matter of strategy than strength but soon he was standing breathless and shaky on the pathway.

  –Now, Mr Collopy, I said, those stairs are the devil. There are four of us here and we are going to carry you up.

  –Well, faith now, Mr Collopy said mildly. I am told they used to carry the Roman Emperors about the Forum in Rome, dressed up in purest cloth of gold.

  I posted a porter at each shoulder to grip him by the armpits while Mr Hanafin and I took charge of a leg apiece, rather as if they were the shafts of a cart. Clearly the porters were deeply shocked at the weight they had to deal with at the rear but we assailed the stairs, trying to keep the passenger as horizontal as possible, and found the passage easy enough. Father Fahrt hurried ahead and opened the door of an empty first-class carriage, and Mr Collopy was adroitly put standing on the floor. He was very pleased and beamed about him as if he himself had
just performed some astonishing feat. Mr Hanafin hurried down to get the luggage, while I bought the tickets.

  It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before the train moved and half an hour before anybody else entered our compartment. I produced a small glass and to his astonishment, handed it to Mr Collopy. Then I produced a flat half-pint bottle from my hip pocket.

  –I have already put a little water into this stuff, I said, so you can have a drink of it with safety.

  –Well, merciful martyrs in heaven, Father Fahrt, Mr Collopy said gleefully, did you ever hear the like of it? Drinking whiskey in a first-class carriage and us on a pilgrimage to kneel at the feet of the Holy Father!

  –Please do not take much, Father Fahrt said seriously. It is not good to do this in public.

  When the train pulled up alongside the mailboat at Kingstown, I repeated my stratagem with the two porters. We got Mr Collopy comfortably seated, at his own request, in the dining saloon. I felt tired and told him and Father Fahrt that I must be off.

  –God bless you for your help, my boy, Father Fahrt said.

  –When you get back, Mr Collopy said, tell Annie that there are two pairs of dirty socks at the bottom of my bed. They want to be washed and darned.

  –Right.

  –And if Rafferty calls about hydrometer readings, tell him to keep the machine in circulation. Make a note of this. Next on the list is Mrs Hayes of Sandymount. Next, Mrs Fitzherbert of Harold’s Cross. He knows those people. I’ll be home by then.

  –Very good. Good-bye now, and good luck.

  And so they sailed away. How did they fare? That peculiar story was revealed in dispatches I received from the brother, and which I now present.

  17

  About three weeks after the departure of the travellers I received the following letter from the brother: