The Hard Life (6 page)

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, the 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.

–I don’t think, Mr Collopy said at last, there there will be any need for you boys to go to school tomorrow and maybe the day after. Mourning, you know. The Brothers will understand.

The brother put his glass down on the range with a clinking thud.

–Is that so, Mr Collopy, he said in a testy voice. Well now is that so? Let me tell you this. I am not going back to that damned school tomorrow, the day after or any day.

Mr Collopy started up in astonishment.

–What was that? he asked.

–I’ve left school—from today. I’ve had my bellyful of the ignorant guff that is poured out by those maggots of Christian Brothers. They’re illiterate farmers’ sons. They probably got their learning at some dirty hedge school.

–Will you for pity’s sake have some respect for the cloth of those saintly servants of God, Mr Collopy said sharply.

–They’re not servants of God, they are slaves to their own sadistic passions, they are humbugs and impostors and a disgrace to their cloth. They are ruining the young people of this country and taking pride in their abominable handiwork.

–Have you no shame?

–I have more shame than those buggers have. Anyhow, I’m finished with school for good. I want to earn my living.

–Well now, is that so? Doing what? Driving a tram or a breadcart, or maybe sweeping up after the horses on the roads?

–I said I wanted to earn my living. What am I talking about—I
am
earning my living. I am a publisher, an international tutor. Look at that!

Here he had rummaged in his inside pocket and pulled out a spectacular wad of notes.

–Look at that, he cried. There’s about sixty-five pounds in that bundle and upstairs I have twenty-eight pounds in postal orders not yet cashed. You have your pension and no work to do, and no desire to do any.

–That will do you, Mr Collopy retorted with rising temper, that is quite enough. You say I have no work to do. Where you got that information I cannot say. But let me tell you this, you and your brother. I have been engaged on one of the most ardious and patriotic projects ever attempted by any man in this town. You will hear all about it when I’m gone. You have a damned cheek to say I do no work. What, with my health in the state it’s in?

–Don’t ask me that. I’ve left school and that’s all.

The subject seemed to become inert and was dropped. It had been a tiring day, physically and emotionally, and both Mr Collopy and the brother were the worse for drink. Later, in bed, the brother asked me whether I intended to continue going to the Brothers in Synge Street.

–I might as well for the present, I replied, until I can find some job to fit into.

–Please yourself, he said, but I don’t think this place is suitable for me. An Irish address is no damned use. The British dislike and distrust it. They think all the able and honest people live in London. I am giving that matter some thought.

D
URING
the year that followed Mrs Crotty’s death, the atmosphere of the house changed somewhat. Annie joined some sort of a little club, probably composed mostly of women who met every afternoon to play cards or discuss household matters. She seemed to be—heavens!— coming out of her shell. Mr Collopy returned to his mysterious work with renewed determination, not infrequently having meetings of his committee in our kitchen after warning everybody that this deliberative chamber was out of bounds for that evening. From an upper window I occasionally saw the arrival of his counsellors. Two elderly ladies and the tall, gaunt man of the funeral came, also Mr Rafferty with a young lady who looked to me, in the distance at least, to be pretty.

The brother went from strength to strength and eventually reached the stage of prosperity that is marked by borrowing money for industrial expansion. From little bits of information and from inference, I understood that he had borrowed £400 short-term with interest at twenty per cent. A quick turn-over, no matter how small the profit, was the brother’s business axiom. He happened to read of the discovery in an old English manor house of 1,500 two-volume sets of a survey in translation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavaedra, his work and times. The volumes are very elegant, bound in leather and handsomely illustrated; the first contained an account of the life of Cervantes, the second extracts from his major works. These volumes were printed and published in Paris in 1813, with a consignment apparently shipped to England, stored and forgotten. A London bookseller bought the lot for a small sum and to him the brother wrote offering 3
s
.
6
d.
cash per set for the whole consignment. At the time I thought the transaction foolhardy, for surely the London man could be presumed to have had a clear idea of the market. But once again the brother seemed to know what he was about. Using the name of the Simplex Nature Press, he put advertisements into English newspapers recklessly praising the work as to content and format, and also making the public an astonishingly generous offer, viz., any person buying Volume I for 6
s
.
6
d.
would also get Volume II for absolutely nothing. The offer, which was of limited duration, could not be repeated. No fewer than 2,500 acceptances reached him, quite a few from colleges, and he was many times later to adopt this system of enticement, offering something for nothing. The deal showed a clear profit of about £121. It also indirectly affected myself, for when wooden packing cases began to arrive full of those memorials of Cervantes, he politely suggested that I should take my bed and other gear to another room which was empty, as the original room was now his ‘office’ as well as his bedroom. I had no objection to this move, and agreed. Unfortunately the first four packing cases arrived when both myself and the brother were out, and Mr Collopy had to sign for them. I was the first to arrive home to find them piled in the kitchen. Mr Collopy was frowning from his chair.

–In God’s name, he said loudly, what is that bucko up to?

–I don’t know. I think there are books in those cases.

–
Books?
Well now! What sort of books is he peddling? Are they dirty books?

–Oh I don’t think so. They might be Bibles.

–Faith and that would take me to the fair altogether. You heard what he said about the pious and godly Christian Brothers some months ago. Now by the jappers he is all for being a missionary to the niggers in Black Africa or maybe the Injuns. Well, there’s no doubt about it, we rare up strange characters in this country. I don’t think he knows anything about the Word of God. I’m not sure that he knows even his prayers.

–My mention of the Bible was only a guess, I protested.

Mr Collopy had risen and was at the press in search of his crock and glass. Fortified with them, he sat down again.

–We’ll see what’s in them all in good time, he announced sternly, and if those books are dirty books, lascivious peregrinations on the fringes of filthy indecency, cloacal spewings in the face of Providence, with pictures of prostitutes in their pelts, then out of this house they will go and their owner along with them. You can tell him that if you see him first. And I would get Father Fahrt to exorcise all fiendish contaminations in this kitchen and bless the whole establishment. Do you hear me?

–Yes, I hear.

–Where is he now?

–I don’t know. He is a very busy man. Perhaps he is at confession.

–The what was that?

–He might be seeing the clergy on some abstruse theological point.

–Well,
I’ll
abstruse
him
if he is up to any tricks because this is a God-fearing house.

I sat down to attack my loathsome homework with the idea of being free at eight o’clock so that I could meet a few of the lads for a game of cards. Mr Collopy sat down quietly sipping his whiskey and gazing at the glare of the fire.

It was about eleven when I got home that night, to find no trace of Mr Collopy nor the piled boxes. Next morning I learnt that Mr Collopy had gone to bed early and the brother, arriving home about ten, went out again to summon Mr Hanafin to assist him in getting the boxes up to his office. No doubt the reward was a handsome tip, though a soiled glass in the sink suggested that further recompense from the crock had been sought by either Mr Hanafin or the brother himself. I warned the latter, before I set off for school, of Mr Collopy’s dire suspicions about the books and the threats to fire him out of the house. Was Cervantes an immoral writer?

–No, the brother said grimly, but I won’t be long here in any case. I think I know how to fix the oul divil. Have a look at these books.

They were thick octavo volumes of real beauty in an old-fashioned way, and there were many clear pictures of the woodcut kind. If only as an adornment to bookshelves, they were surely good value for six and sixpence.

Later in the day the brother cunningly inscribed a dedication to Mr Collopy in each volume and ceremoniously presented them in the kitchen.

–At first, he told me, he was mollified, then he was delighted and said I had very true taste. Cervantes, he said, was the Aubrey de Vere of Spain. His
Don Quixote
was an immortal masterpiece of the classics, clearly inspired by Almighty God. He told me not to fail to send a copy to Father Fahrt. I had to laugh. There’s a
pair
of humbugs in it. Can you give me a hand to do some packing? I have bought a load of brown paper.

I had to, of course.

It was a peculiarity of the brother never to stop in his tracks or rest on his oars. In a matter of days he was back at work in his private mine, the National Library.

After some weeks he asked my opinion of three manuscripts he had compiled for issue as small books by the Simplex Nature Press. The first was the ‘Odes and Epodes of Horace done into English Prose by Dr Calvin Knottersley, D.Litt.(Oxon)’; the second was ‘Clinical Notes on Pott’s Fracture, by Ernest George Maude, M.D., F.R.C.S.’; and the third was ‘Swimming and Diving. A Manly and Noble Art, by Lew Paterson’. It was clear that these compositions were other people’s work rehashed but I offered no comment other than a warning of the folly of making Dr Maude a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. A register of such Fellows was in existence, and somebody was bound to check.

–How do you know there isn’t a Fellow named Maude? the brother asked.

–So much the worse if there is, I answered.

But I noticed later that the doctor had lost that honour.

I
T
was a vile night as we sat in the kitchen, Mr Collopy and I. He was slumped at the range in his battered arm-chair, reading the paper. I was at the table, indolently toying with school exercises, sometimes pausing to reflect on the possibilities of getting a job. I was really sick of the waste of time known as study, a futile messing about with things which did not concern me, and I rather envied the brother’s free, almost gay, life. I could sense his growing maturity and his determination to make money, a lot of it, as quickly as possible without undue worry as to the methods used. This night he was out, possibly conferring on some new deal in a public house. Annie was also out.