Читать книгу The Family on Paradise Pier - Dermot Bolger - Страница 12

London, August 1922

All night Art had been arguing with university friends about Italian politics in Fletcher’s rooms near Blackfriars. Fletcher was not of like mind to the others: he saw nothing wrong in truckloads of Il Duce’s fascists storming into Milan to end the communist-led strike there with the black-shirted thugs tearing down the Bolshevik flags hanging from the town hall. Fletcher could not understand why Art took such matters so seriously. To him, Mussolini was a clown who would never achieve power, just as Lenin would not hold onto it for long with famine in Russia. Fletcher would have been happier discussing Johnny Weissmuller’s new world swimming record or playing I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate on his gramophone, because, to him, university was merely a lark. Tragedy had set Fletcher’s future in stone, no matter what he studied. With the death of his eldest brother on the Somme, he was set to inherit the family estate. University was a chance to escape from home and discreetly make hay in this unburdened limbo before he came into his inheritance.

Watching him, Art wondered would Thomas possess this same air of haunted gaiety if he had died in battle. So many chaps at the University of London carried a guilty look at having come into their inheritance not by birth but by an elder brother’s death, that Art had learnt to recognise them. The peculiar thing was that they often mistook him for one of their number as if he too was cursed with the stain of underserved wealth. Yet the more he studied politics the more he realised that he was like them. All that distinguished him from his siblings was a fluke of birth, a throw of the dice yielding him absolute access to wealth while the others were left to scramble for minor bequests. Past generations had ensured that this was a chalice he could not refuse. Short of dying, Art had no means of breaking that cycle of indenture.

Yet Art argued now with his college chums that surely to God – if there was a God – the Great War’s slaughter had overturned all previous rules and conventions. Crippled beggars on the London streets were daily reminders that any pretence of innocence was gone. For the Great War to mean anything it had to herald the advent of a new era. Freedom was not about one Kaiser defeating another, it was about granting people the liberty to be truly themselves.

Before the Bolshevik revolution the bulk of humanity had sleepwalked through life, unaware that they could possess total power if they merely looked up from their chains. Every day the imperialist press repeated lies about millions starving in Russia because they were afraid to report what was really occurring there. But once ordinary British workers understood this truth, they would emerge like risen Christs from the tomb, liberated from the inbred fear of their alleged betters. Last year the miners had suffered on strike without the country rising to back them and today it was the engineers’ turn to be locked out. But once the Communist Party was fully organised across Britain a day of reckoning would come.

Fletcher laughed at Art’s intensity and rang the bell for his manservant to fetch more stout. The others agreed with Art’s assertion that the Labour Party had become lured away from its revolutionary roots and was now merely a cloak and dagger ally of imperialist expansion. But Art sensed the hollowness of their convictions. They were flirting with radicalism, like their fathers on Grand Tours of Europe once flirted with exotic dancers. Typically short-sighted, they regarded Lenin’s revolution as too foreign to impinge upon their world. These student discussions were not about genuine revolution, but simply a chance for the privileged idle to enjoy a brief frisson of danger by pretending to be different from their parents. After college they would drop such notions and take up golf and banking, fattening out into premature middle age. Art lost patience with their play-acting and was about to leave, when the manservant returned and sought him out with a sympathetic look.

‘Begging your pardon, Mr Goold Verschoyle, but I thought you should know the news from Ireland. I’m afraid your Michael Collins has been shot dead in an ambush.’

The room went quiet, the others studying his face. They had no interest in the civil war raging in Ireland since the peace treaty was narrowly accepted and British troops had withdrawn. The treaty had divided the country, with the majority of people sick of war and anxious to accept the partitioned Free State which the treaty offered. But Art could not imagine any compromise on a full Republic being accepted by such men as the IRA commander who had once returned the family motor to Maud in the Donegal hills. In the ensuing split he surely sided with the diehards like de Valera and the Countess who were now fighting against Michael Collins and his fellow treaty negotiators whom they accused of betraying the dream of a Republic. Art had initially been excited by this civil war, seeing parallels with the power vacuum in Russia in which Lenin seized authority. But de Valera was no true revolutionary. Art still hoped that both factions might weaken each other sufficiently for a communist takeover, but – with the union leader Jim Larkin sidelined in an American jail – there was nobody of sufficient stature to lead such a coup d’état. Art’s enthusiasm for the IRA had never recovered from his encounter with that Cork commander. It left him feeling occluded from all sides in recent years, as the conflict grew increasingly bloody. The Troubles had taken a toll around Dunkineely, not just in occasional killings and reprisals, but in the way that people came to be judged purely as being on one side or the other. At times in Donegal he was made to feel a foreigner, whereas in London he was viewed as a totally Irish outsider.

Having delivered his news, the manservant slavishly waited for a morsel of acknowledgement.

‘That is shocking,’ Art said. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’

‘They shot him like a dog, sir. Mr Collins claimed that when he signed the peace treaty he was signing his own death warrant and he was right.’

‘Thank you, Jenkins,’ Fletcher interrupted. ‘That will do.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The man placed four bottles of Imperial Russian stout on the table and left. Fletcher leaned over to refill Art’s glass. ‘Damned bad news,’ he said. ‘I liked Collins. He was a murderer but one you could do business with. My sister developed quite an attraction to his picture in the papers when he came to London for the peace talks. The whiff of danger I suppose. You know romantic girls. These must be worrying times.’

‘Yes.’ Art sipped his stout, surprised at how moved he was by this news. Dunkineely would be shocked, even those who felt that Collins had sold out the Republic. He longed to be among people who understood this contradiction. His sister Eva had recently enrolled at the Slade Art School, but she was sleeping in a London girls’ hostel where he would not be welcome at this late hour. Besides, though he loved Eva more than anyone in his family, she was too vague to fully understand what was happening.

He finished his stout and rose to leave, glad to descend into the night air. Collins had been a strong man, a Catholic reactionary, yes, but still a man of both action and thought and he was to be admired. Crossing Queen Victoria Street, Art found himself humming The Soldier’s Song, the illicit anthem sung by rebels during the Easter Rising. The tune attracted a policeman’s attention. He approached Art, then took one look at his expensive clothes and passed by with a surprised nod.

Art knew that if he had been poorly dressed it might have been a different story. He cut down sidestreets, being well-versed in long night walks from Donegal, heading towards Wapping where there were early morning pubs for dockers. Other Irish people might be there, fellow countrymen with whom he could discuss the news. The first pub door he tried was locked, although lights were on inside. He knocked but the drinkers ignored him. It was the same at the next one but when he reached the Thames he fell into step with two young Mayo men, Liam and Tomas, near Tower Bridge Wharf. When he offered to buy them a drink they laughed, claiming that he must be desperate for a cure. Still they knew exactly where to go.

The pub shutters were down to keep out the night. Casual dockers inside were having a pint to steady their nerves before commencing the struggle to find work. More afflicted drinkers sat among them, crippled by alcohol, hands shaking so badly that they could barely lift a glass to their lips. Art bought drinks and then a second round as the three Irishmen discussed Collins’s death and the grip that his new Free State army was gradually gaining over the country. Neither Liam nor Tomas was educated, yet Art felt happier in their company than with the students in Fletcher’s room. Here there was a sense of real life being lived. More Irishmen joined them, distraught at the news, glad of Art’s company and opinions. He bought a final round of drinks, including a whiskey for an elderly English carpenter who initially refused Art’s offer because he had not eaten a meal for several days. The man was seventy-four and told Art he had always found work until his health recently began to fade. Some older stevedores still took him on, knowing that he was a good worker, but most were scared of having a dead weight on their hands. He was a veteran of the 1889 Dockers’ Tanner strike and had been among the first crew two years ago who refused to load coal onto the Jolly George when that ship was due to sail with arms against the Bolsheviks in Russia.

The group drank up, hurrying out from the pub now onto the dark quayside where the casual hiring was about to commence in a large iron-barred shed. Dockers permanently employed by the big firms brushed past them, knowing that they were guaranteed work. But for the men around Art it was a case of hoping that smaller ships had docked in the night and needed casual workers to unload them. Men emerged from other pubs and nearby streets, a swarm pressing into the shed where stevedores selected workers from the crowd. Art stood beside Liam and Tomas who didn’t know the stevedores and so found it hard to get noticed. This was capitalism at its most ruthless – men reduced to units of labour, hired for the shortest time then discarded when they grew old. Repeatedly the old carpenter pleaded with the stevedores who shook their heads. Art was impressed at how the other hungry men, while focused on their own plight, sympathised with him. This was a world Art knew little about, but he might learn more here than from a day in university.

He began to raise his hand amongst the clamouring throng as things started to look desperate for the remaining men. Liam and Tomas were amused at first, then hissed at him to stop messing. He ignored them, fighting his way forward to eventually attract the attention of a burly stevedore.

‘What the hell do you want?’

‘A day’s work. You’re hiring, aren’t you?’

‘I’m hiring men. This isn’t some sort of student lark.’

‘I’m as strong as any man you’re taking on.’

‘You’re big all right but your hands are as soft as a baby’s arse. Now piss off.’

The other men regarded Art with none of the measured sympathy they felt for the old carpenter. They stared at him coldly, like he was trying to mock them. Was it solely his accent and clothes or was there another difference that he was unaware of? Perhaps the proletariat was harder to join than the bourgeoisie. From an early age the proletariat was trained to ape their so-called betters, whereas the rich were trained to largely ignore the existence of workmen and servants. He could not recall the names of all the maids who worked in the Manor House when he was a boy but all of them would remember him.

The stevedore glanced at a shabbily dressed young man with huge shoulders standing behind Art.

‘Ready to burst a gut?’

The young man mutely nodded and the stevedore nodded too. Art noticed how their interaction was entirely based on appearances. Only five words had been exchanged. Men behind Art pushed aggressively forward and he moved back to where he was less intrusive but could still observe these rituals. The stevedore chose his crew and there was an anguished murmur, although someone amongst those left claimed that there was another ship yet to be unloaded. Art went to join Liam and Tomas at the entrance to the shed, though he sensed that their camaraderie had cooled since leaving the pub.

‘Swap shirts,’ he said to Liam.

‘Are you daft?’ The Mayoman laughed.

‘It seems a fair exchange.’

‘You won’t be saying that, being eaten alive by his fleas all night,’ Tomas joked. ‘Talk sense, man.’

Art ignored Tomas. ‘Do you want this shirt or not?’

Liam licked his lip nervously. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘None. I’ll swap you my shoes, trousers and all.’

‘Jaysus, is it to be standing in the nip you both want?’ Tomas asked. ‘I’m not staying around to be a laughing stock.’

But Tomas didn’t move and Art recognised the greed in his eyes. He was jealous that Liam had been asked. Liam sensed this too and he agreed to the swap as much to gain an advantage over his companion as to get the clothes.

Both of them went down a narrow dank alley smelling of piss between two warehouses. They undressed, first exchanging shirts and then trousers, anxious that no garment touched the filthy ground. Liam’s boots were too tight for Art, and Liam would slide about in his shoes but the Mayoman did not complain. Liam craned his neck, trying to inspect himself in his new outfit.

‘Well? Do I look like a gentleman?’

‘Yes,’ Art lied, though the way in which Liam held his body resembled an awkward servant in fancy dress. ‘Do I look like a docker?’

‘No.’ Liam was suddenly aggressive, feeling that he had been made a fool of. ‘You look like the gobshite you are. Now piss off and stop following us.’

The Mayoman stalked off to rejoin his companion and Art watched them leave, knowing that there was a new friction between those two friends. Collins’s death had been quickly forgotten in the acquisition of a good shirt. This was the corrupting influence of possessions. It was easy for Art’s college friends to discuss Marxist theory but the Ffrenches had shown that it was possible to live out your convictions. As yet he was not in a position to follow them to Russia but this morning was a first step. He wondered if Mr Ffrench dressed like this in the Moscow furniture factory where he and his wife had now been working for the past three months. They were sharing a large room there with three other couples, in a big house seized from a bourgeois family. Ffrench had described in his last letter how quickly you grew accustomed to restricted space. He did not know how he ever put up with the waste of rooms in Bruckless House which lay empty for the IRA to burn for all he cared. True life for the Ffrenches had only started since their move to Moscow. Fellow workers welcomed them and Mrs Ffrench loved how children from all the different families ran about the room, climbing onto her knee as easily as onto their mothers’ laps. Ffrench urged Art to ignore imperialist propaganda. Life under Lenin was the greatest adventure in history and the Ffrenches, like other foreigners flocking there, were privileged to be allowed to play a small role within it.

Art had sworn to join them one day. He could visualise arriving in Moscow, with Mr Ffrench embracing him at the station like a true father because – although this was awful to say – Father, who supported the new Free State, felt like a stranger.

Art walked back out to join the men at the dockyard gates and thought about Collins’s body lying in its blood-soaked uniform. The deputation that Collins led to Downing Street to negotiate the treaty had looked more like civil servants than revolutionaries. Nothing would change in Ireland, no matter which faction gained final power. The priests would rule, urging the new government to grind the poor with the same iron grasp. A degree in murder was no substitute for a degree in political theory. The new government would look like Liam, aping their former masters in clothes that didn’t fit them. The only true revolutionary was the Countess who was still enduring prison and hunger strikes, having given up everything to live in the slums with Dublin’s poor. True freedom was not freedom to acquire colonies or possessions but the freedom to be liberated from such burdens.

Art re-entered the shed where a stevedore was scanning the remaining crowd.

‘I need twenty strong men. No layabouts. Stand still so I can bloody well see you.’

Art noticed the elderly carpenter and walked towards him. The other men let him slip through their ranks, not seeing him or paying any heed but Art felt that he was being seen properly for the first time. Not as a Goold Verschoyle or public schoolboy or university student but as flesh and blood on a par with all humanity. The carpenter did not recognise him and only looked up, baffled, when Art began to speak.

‘Do you know this stevedore?’

‘For years.’

‘Say I’m your son and I’ll work beside you all day. I’ve strength enough for us both if you show me what work needs to be done.’

‘I don’t understand what you’re at, sir?’

‘Don’t call me “sir”. I’m after a day’s work like you. Help me get in and I promise to fetch and carry for you all day.’

Ten men had already been chosen. The carpenter nodded, weak with hunger. As he pushed forward, Art followed, bending down to pick up some mud and smear it through his hair. He kept his soft hands in his pockets where they could not be seen. The stevedore looked down at the carpenter and shook his head.

‘If I could do you a favour, Andy, I would. But I need muscle for this job.’

‘My son is with me,’ the carpenter called back. ‘He’s a mute but built like an ox. Look at him. We’re a team. We’ll do the work of three men between us.’

The stevedore stared at Art. The appraisal was brutal and honest, like a gaze at a horse or a boy at an Irish hiring fair. ‘Lost his tongue, eh? Could be worse, he might have lost his prick.’ The stevedore nodded curtly. ‘Let’s hope he’s half the man his father once was.’

The old carpenter pushed eagerly in through the gates at the end of the shed and Art followed into a new world, a university of toil where he had so much to learn.