James Plunkett - Strumpet City

The band was now directly in front, so that now and then, between shoulders and heads, she caught the sudden flash of sun on the instruments. The roar of the people became louder and everybody said the King and Queen were at that moment passing. The men took off their hats, the crowd tightened and tightened. Mary looked behind and saw students clinging to the railings of Trinity College. They wore striped blazers and whirled their flat straw hats over their heads. Some of them were skylarking, of course, as young gentlemen always did on such occasions. One of them even had a policeman’s helmet wherever he had managed to get it. Mary felt the pressure easing and heard the notes of the band growing fainter, but the rhythmic chorus of carriage wheels over paving setts continued. People stopped cheering and talked to each other. Mary looked about once again for a way of escape. She frowned and bit her lip in perplexity, her thoughts so fixed on her purpose that at first the disturbance passed unnoticed. She felt the movement in the crowd for some time before the shouting of a raucous voice drew her eyes to her right. They rested on Rashers, who was pushing in her direction once more. There was a startling change in his face. It was working curiously and his arms were jerking with excited movements.

‘Come back, you bloody hill-and-dale robber,’ he was shouting, ‘come back with my few hard-earned ha’pence.’

He stopped close to Mary and appealed to the crowd.

‘Why couldn’t youse stop him? What ails the world that youse let a lousy pickpocket past youse?’

The people near him smiled. It maddened Rashers.

‘That’s right,’ he howled, ‘laugh. That’s all you were ever good at. A lousy lot of laughing loyalists. By Jasus, if I get my hands on that slippery fingers I’ll have his sacred life.’

Rashers pushed violently to force a passage. He swore at those in his way. His struggles and his curses attracted a widening circle of attention, until a section of the crowd opened and a policeman appeared. Rashers in his excitement gripped him by the tunic. The policeman pulled his hand away and caught him by the collar.

‘What’s all the commotion?’ he asked. Rashers squirmed.

‘I’ve been rooked by a bloody pickpocket,’ Rashers said, ‘while you and your like were gaping at his shagging majesty.’

‘You’d better come with me,’ the policeman said, twisting up Rashers’ coat.

‘What for?’ Rashers bawled, ‘for being bloodywell robbed, is it?’

‘And watch your language,’ the policeman said.

Rashers turned in his grip to fix a vicious eye on him.

‘That’s all you and the likes of you were ever good at,’ he said, ‘manhandling the bloody poor.’ He clawed at the policeman’s uniform, dislodging a loose button. The policeman’s face became thunderous.

‘Shut your mouth,’ the policeman said.

‘Shut your own,’ Rashers yelled. There was a line of foam about his lips. The policeman slapped him hard on the side of the mouth and twisted his arm. Rashers yelled with pain. Then the policeman began to hustle him through the crowd. They parted respectfully. Mary followed. The policeman was making a road for her which would lead eventually to Fitz. As she walked she caught glimpses now and then of Rashers. The blood on his mouth increased the pallor of his skin. His eyes were half closed and his teeth were clenched tight. Yet in the line of his jaw there was something unbreakable and defiant, a spirit which could bear with suffering because from experience it knew that it must eventually, like everything else, have an end. At the edge of the crowd Mary stood and stared after the policeman, wanting to do something for Rashers, to help in some way. But she could think of nothing to say that would be of any use. After a while she gave up and turned in the direction of Butt Bridge.

Rashers was brought to College Street station, where the duty sergeant glanced at him over a sheaf of reports.

‘What’s this?’ he asked the policeman.

‘Obscene language and conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace.’

The policeman wiped sweat from his face. The day was too warm for even mild exertion.

‘Drink, I suppose?’

‘Drink how-are-you,’ Rashers said. ‘I was lifted of nine and fourpence by some louser of a pickpocket.’

The sergeant looked at the policeman.

‘That’s as may be,’ the policeman said, ‘but what about this?’

He pointed to his uniform where the button was missing.

‘I see,’ the sergeant said, ‘another George Hackenschmidt.’

The policeman smiled at the reference to the popular wrestler.

‘The real thing, Sergeant,’ he confirmed.

The sergeant relished his joke again.

‘What else?’ he asked.

‘For one, the use of an inflammatory expression.’

‘To wit?’ asked the sergeant.

‘Lousy loyalists.’

‘Better and better,’ said the sergeant.

He turned furiously on Rashers.

‘So you’re a bit of a Republican too,’ he said. Rashers made no answer.

‘Name?’ the sergeant barked.

‘Tierney.’

‘Christian name?’

‘Rashers.’

The sergeant put down his pen.

‘They never poured holy water on the likes of that,’ he said.

The policeman took a hand.

‘Give the sergeant your proper Christian name,’ he ordered.

‘I haven’t got a Christian name.’

‘Then you’d better bloodywell find one,’ the sergeant said. He had grown red and angry. He turned to the policeman and added, ‘Lock him up inside there for a while. Maybe it’ll jog his memory.’

Rashers was put in a cell. It had a rough bed which he sat down on gratefully. The socks were cutting into his feet. He ached all over. At intervals they came to demand his Christian name. He was afraid to invent one because that would convince them that he had been stubborn in the first instance. He kept answering ‘Rashers’. They determined to be as stubborn as he was.

Mary saw Fitz from a distance. He was leaning on the wall of the river. At the sight of him she hurried her step.

‘You got away,’ he said, looking down at her.

She smiled up at him and touched his hand lightly.

‘I very nearly didn’t. The tram was held up and then I got mixed up with the crowds.’

She wondered why he was staring at her coat. She looked down and saw the ribbons.

‘Oh, those,’ she said. ‘I bought them from an old man. He looked hungry.’

She wondered if Fitz had been waiting long.

‘Did you see the procession?’ she asked.

‘I stayed here in case I’d miss you. I heard the bands, though.’

‘It was impossible to see anything. The crowd was frightening.’

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘I don’t mind. Somewhere quiet.’

‘The prison ship? It’s just down beyond the Custom House.’

‘No—not that.’

‘You’ve changed your mind.’

‘The old man who sold me the ribbons was hit on the mouth by a policeman and his arm twisted until it was nearly broken. I don’t want to see anything today that would remind me of that.’

‘Poor Mary,’ Fitz said, taking her arm gently.

They decided against going to Phoenix Park because the garden party at the Viceregal Lodge was bound to attract numerous sightseers. Fitz suggested a walk along the sandbanks beyond Pigeon House Fort. They took the tram as far as Irishtown and when they reached the seafront they took off their shoes and began to walk together across the ebbed strand. It was a mile or more to the sandbanks. They waded through pools in which the water had grown warm from the strong sun and crossed swift-flowing rivulets which had worn deep channels in the sand. Behind them the houses along the front grew tiny with distance. Far out in front of them they could discern the thin white edge of foam and beyond it the calm water of the open sea. The sky was high and blue and immense.