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‘Come and sit down, Bernie. Have a cup of tea.’
‘I rang my bell twice and not a sound out of that girl,’ Bernard said. ‘I suppose she was out all night gallivanting with some soldier or other. I’m starved, lying up there, waiting for her.’
‘Maybe some bacon and egg?’ Mrs Henry Rice said coaxingly.
Miss Friel, Mr Lenehan, Miss Hearne and Mr Madden looked up, anger plain as hunger in their faces.
‘Bernie’s very delicate,’ Mrs Rice said to no one in particular. ‘The doctor says he has to eat a lot to keep his strength up.’
Bernard sat down and seemed to think about food. Then, gleefully watching the boarders, he gave his order. ‘Two eggs, Mama, four rashers of bacon. And Mary might fry some bread to go with it.’
Mrs Henry Rice, submissive, jingled the little bell. Mary came to the door and was given her orders. The boarders exchanged glances, united in their hatred. Miss Friel, with the air of a woman storming the barricades, picked up a piece of toast, buttered it, then re-buttered it so that the wedge of butter was almost as thick as the toast itself. There, she seemed to say. If it’s a fight you want, I just dare you to say a word.
Mrs Henry Rice ignored the butter waste. Her eyes were on her darling as he sipped his tea.
‘Well now,’ Bernard said pleasantly. ‘What were we talking about when I interrupted? The wonders of America, was it?’
Mr Madden bit angrily into a hard piece of toast. Ham and eggs for him. Nothing for me, her brother.
Miss Hearne, watching him, saw that he was angry. And no wonder. Really, it was a bit thick, feeding up that fat good-for-nothing while the boarders, not to mention her own brother, went without. Still, it was better to pass these things over. Bad temper, bad blood, as Aunt D’Arcy used to say.
‘Yes, we were talking about America,’ Miss Hearne told Bernard. ‘About how wonderful it must be.’
‘And what’s wrong with Ireland?’ Mr Lenehan wanted to know.
‘O, I suppose when all’s said and done, there’s no place like Ireland,’ Miss Hearne agreed. ‘I know. Most of my friends have travelled on the Continent and you should hear some of the things they say. Backward, why you wouldn’t believe how backward the Italians are, for instance.’
Mr Madden coughed. ‘Pardon me, Miss Hearne, but there’s nothing backward about the States. Why, the States is a hundred years ahead of Europe in most things. And ahead of Ireland too. Why, Ireland is backward, backward as hell.’ He stopped in confusion. ‘If you know what I mean,’ he finished lamely.
‘America sells refrigerators for culture,’ Bernard said. ‘They come to Europe when they need ideas.’
‘Culture! What do you mean, culture? Why, we’ve got the finest museums in the world, right in New York City. Grand opera at the Met, a dozen plays on Broadway, the finest movies in the world. Anything you want, New York’s got it.’
‘Now, James –’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘No need to shout.’
Mr Madden smiled an angry smile. ‘What have you got here in the way of entertainment?’ he asked Bernard. ‘A few movies – British movies. And a few old “B” pictures. No clubs, and a couple of plays that wouldn’t last a night anywhere else. What have you got, eh?’
‘That’s not the point,’ Bernard said. ‘I’m not talking about Belfast.’
‘And what are you talking about then? What do you know, a kid of your age that never was further than Dublin?’
Bernard grinned at Lenehan. ‘The atom bomb, Mr Lenehan. That’s the American contribution to Western civilization. Am I right?’
‘Damn right,’ Lenehan said. ‘And they didn’t even discover that. Sure, it was the Europeans who worked out their sums for them. They got the theory right and then they let the Yanks build it.’
‘And who else could of built it?’ Mr Madden shouted.
‘Who else had to build it?’ Bernard said. ‘Sure, they’d never have beaten the Japs without it. And now they want to ruin Europe while they try it out on the Russians. Culture, he says.’
‘And doesn’t somebody have to stand up to the Russians?’ Miss Hearne said indignantly. ‘Godless atheists, that’s what they are. They’re worse than Hitler, far worse.’
‘No worse than the Protestants and Freemasons that are running this city,’ Mrs Henry Rice cried. ‘Hitler was no worse than the British.’
Mr Madden brought his fist down hard on the table, upsetting his teacup. ‘Okay! Okay! Tell me the Russkies are nice guys. But don’t ask us to help you when the commies come running up this street, yelling, “Throw out your women!”’
The very thought of it gave Miss Hearne the shudders. ‘Quite right, Mr Madden. The Pope himself has denounced them. It’s a holy crusade is needed, and America will be in the van.’
‘In what van?’ Mr Madden wanted to know. ‘America will be out front, that’s what.’ He glared at Bernard, who had started to giggle. ‘We didn’t ask to get in any of Europe’s wars, did we? We didn’t ask to come over and win them for you. But brother, you hollered loud enough for us to come running when the chips were down.’
‘You’re in Ireland, remember that, Uncle James,’ Bernard said in his soft, compelling voice. ‘Ireland stays neutral in anybody else’s troubles. So don’t belabour me about intervention. What are you anyway, an American or an Irishman? When you came home from the States, you hadn’t a good word to say for the place. But let anyone else say a word against it and you’re up like a tiger.’
‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Lenehan said, cocking his birdy head sideways. ‘That’s just what I’d like to know. If it was so blooming terrific in America, why did you ever come home? And why is all the Yanks flocking over here every summer and telling us how wonderful Ireland is?’
Mr Madden gasped like a big fish landed on a dock. But he said nothing. Miss Friel, who had read steadily throughout the discussion, closed her book and stood up. ‘I suppose that clock is right?’
‘Right by the wireless. I set it just when the pips struck eight,’ Mrs Henry Rice said.
‘Well, I must run, then,’ Miss Friel announced to the company.
The others appeared not to notice her departure. Bernard received his ample breakfast from the maid and settled in to eat it. Mr Lenehan slurped his tea, watching Mr Madden over the rim of his cup. Mr Madden surveyed the scene then stood up. He nodded pointedly at Miss Hearne. ‘So long now,’ he said.
‘O, are you off, then?’ She smiled up at him to show she was on his side.
‘Well, I guess I’ve got more to do than sit here listening to a couple of Irish minute men.’
Lenehan put down his teacup with a clatter. ‘Is it me you’re referring to? And what’s a minute man, if I might ask?’
‘Bunch of guys around New York hand out leaflets. Irish-American patriots, they call themselves. Screwballs.’
Lenehan pecked his head forward like a rooster in attack. ‘What d’you mean, Irish?’ he said thickly. ‘Are you implying that …?’
Mr Madden chuckled. ‘We get all kinds of screwballs in New York. Now, take these guys, they’re just like the people in Belfast. No matter what the argument is, they always drag Ireland in. Always handing out leaflets against the British. Why, nobody in New York, or anywhere else, gives a good ghaddam – pardon me, ladies – what happens to the Six Counties.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Lenehan shouted. ‘Well, the British give a damn, for one. And …’
‘There’s the whole wide world to worry about. So why bother about Ireland?’ Mr Madden said. ‘The Irish, I’ll tell you the trouble with the Irish. They’re hicks.’
‘Look who’s talking. You were a hick once yourself.’
‘Hicks,’ Mr Madden repeated, smiling happily. ‘They think everybody is interested in their troubles. Why, nobody cares, nobody. A little island you could drop inside of Texas and never see, who cares? Why, the rest of the world never heard of it.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Lenehan shouted. ‘And you call yourself an Irishman. An Orangeman, more likely. Well, I’ll have you know, my fine Yank, that there’s more famous men ever came out of Ireland than ever came out of America. And I’ll have you know that there’s plenty of better Irishmen in the States than you, thanks be to God. And furthermore …’
Mr Madden’s drink-red face was beaming now. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘That’s what you think.’ And he turned his back on the shouting clerk. He walked slowly out of the room dragging his left leg a little.
Outside in the hall he burst out laughing. I got him. That slow burn he was getting up when I told him about the minute men. Both of them, never saw anything but their own backyard. Miss Hearne saw my point. An educated woman.
He climbed the stairs to his room. Bernard, the fat slob – couldn’t insult him. That – ah, forget it. Forget it. Don’t let him get you down.
His fedora went down over his right eye. From the wardrobe he picked his fall coat, imported mohair, light tan, the coat he bought to come home in. So’s I’d look good. And who cares? In this town nobody’d know the difference. He slammed the front door as he went out.
But walking into the city, his anger disappeared like bubbles from water turned off the boil. Instead, the heavy depression of idleness set in. Walking alone, he remembered New York, remembered that at ten-thirty in the morning New York would be humming with the business of making millions, making reputations, making all the buildings, all the merchandise, all the shows, all the wisecracks possible. While he walked in a dull city where men made money the way charwomen wash floors, dully, alone, at a slow methodical pace. In Belfast Lough the shipyards were filled with the clang and hammer of construction but no sound was heard in the streets. At the docks ships unloaded and loaded cargoes, but they were small ships, hidden from sight behind small sheds. In Smithfield market, vendors lounged at their stalls and buyers picked aimlessly at faded merchandise. In the city’s shops housewives counted pennies against purchase. In the city’s banks, no great IBM machines clattered. Instead, clerkly men wrote small sums in long black ledgers.
Mid-morning. James Patrick Madden walked into town, favouring his bad leg, home, back home in a land where all dreams were calculable and only the football pools offered outrageous fortune. A returned Yank who hadn’t made his pile, a forgotten face in the great field of Times Square, an Irishman, self-exiled from the damp hills and barren rocky places of his native Donegal. No lucky break, now or ever. Nothing to do.
Before the accident he had worked twenty-nine years in New York and at no time had more than three hundred dollars to his name. On the credit side, he had educated his motherless daughter, sent her to a convent, seen that she never wanted. On the credit side, America had always found him jobs: subway cleaner, ticket taker in a stadium, counter help in a cafeteria, janitor, hall porter, club bouncer, and, last and best, hotel doorman. A good job, with good tips.
There had been other comforts. Drink to warm and cheer, the odd fast buck, joyfully spent, the blowhard talk, passed hopefully among the boys. Companionship in a land of lonely joiners. And being Irish you could wear it like a badge in New York City. Religion, a comfort for the next world, not this. And good to know you were on the winning team.
And then there was the dream. The dream of all Donegal men when they first came across the water. The dream that some day the pile will be made, the little piece of land back home will be bought and the last years spent there in peace and comfort. A dream soon forgotten by most. Making good means buying goods. Goods attach, they master dreams and change them. The piece of land in County Donegal becomes a two-tone convertible. The little farm that Uncle Sean might let go changes to a little place in Queen’s. Making your pile means making your peace with the great new land. But the dream still has its uses. And its addicts. It serves for the others, for the men under the el on a December night, for the hundreds of thousands of Irish who never had a gimmick, a good connection, a hundred dollar bill, or a piece of a business. For them, for Madden, the dream was there for warming over with beer or bourbon. The little place went Hollywood in the mind. The fields grew green, the cottage was always milk-white, the technicoloured corn was for ever stooked, ready for harvest.
The harvest never came. But it had come for him, for James Patrick Madden, a lucky sonofabitch. It had come out of nowhere on a City bus, making a quick getaway in traffic against a changing light. It had come with sudden pain, then vomit and oblivion in a careening, screaming ambulance headed through all lights for Bellevue. It had come fast in an out-of-court settlement. Ten thousand dollars in his fist and a chance to make the homecoming dream come true.
And so, James Patrick Madden, home, reached the centre of the city and stood there undecided. Behind him, Donegall Place and the formal pomposity of City Hall; before him, Royal Avenue, Fifth Avenue of the city, a jumble of large buildings, small to his eyes. The centre, where he stood, Castle Junction, to him a streetcar rerouting stop, an insignificance, an insult to senses attuned to immensity.
He boarded an Antrim Road bus, escaping his disappointment, and sat up top on the double-deck, thinking of Fifth, of the parades, of the clear brilliant fall weather, the hot reek of summer, the crisp delightful nip of winter. But saw the grimy half-tones of this ugly town, saw the inevitable rain obscure the window-pane, felt the steamy sodden warmth rise from the clothes of his fellow passengers.
His destination was Bellevue, a municipal park under the shadow of Cave Hill. The park, formal, unlovely, its amusements a mere glimmer of Palisades or Coney Island, had already disappointed him. But he liked the long ride and the view of the lough. From the observation point you could see ships sail out to the Irish sea, watch the soft hills melt under approaching rainclouds. For Madden, it was as though, standing there, he stood at the gateway to all the things he had left behind, all the things he had ever done. It was a link with his other world.
But that morning the link was broken. The rain wept itself into a lashing rage and the lawns, the cafés, the approaches to the park were deserted. He got off the bus, huddled under a shelter, and, after fifteen minutes, caught the next bus back. It was twelve-thirty when he reached Royal Avenue again. Time for a bite of lunch.
He had set himself an allowance of a pound a day, plenty, if he watched the drink. But when the bus deposited him at Castle Junction, he turned towards a public house and went in the door of the saloon bar, stiff-legged and eager. The drink had always been a trouble. And now, with so many long days to fill and with the unsurety of his plans, it was the only thing that brightened his homecoming.
Behind the bar John Grogan bid him good day. Mr Madden ordered a Bass Number One and a ham sandwich. John Grogan served it, wiped his hands on a white towel and went down to the end of the bar to check his stock. Mr Madden bit into the sandwich, eased his fedora to the back of his head, and thought of a trip to Dublin. He ate the rest of the sandwich and dismissed the trip as too expensive. Besides, who did he know in Dublin, and what would he do there? With this prospect disappearing, he reviewed, rejected, turned painful corners, came back to old faded dreams, touched them lightly, abandoned them.
He was alone in the bar excepting two men who sat in a booth at the back, talking business over pints of Guinness. Alone, and he couldn’t help thinking.
On the credit side there was the fact that a pound a day was less than three dollars and three dollars would not be enough in New York City. Cheaper to live in Ireland. And May hadn’t asked him for any rent yet. And Ireland was where you wanted to be, he told himself bitterly. Away from that Hunky bastard with his snide cracks and his bigshot ways.
That Hunky. Steve Broda, real estate salesman, Newark, New Jersey; owner of a cream Buick convertible with white-wall tyres; owner of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar ranch style bungalow home; husband of Sheila Madden, only child of James Patrick Madden, of the Bronx. Sheila, long of leg, blonde of hair and one hundred per cent America. Not a sign of the Irish in her. Sheila, a tiny squalling red-face when the nurse gave her into her father’s arms, November 1922, two weeks after Annie died.
Steve and Sheila, second generation, hating their forebears. Old Man Broda, with his funny talk. He was on to them though. He saw it before I did. That sonofabitch, laying her before they were married, a nice thing for a convent girl. And me, Mr Madden remembered, me he called a dumb Irish mick. Ashamed of me, him that couldn’t keep his trousers zipped until he took her to the priest. And he made her as bad. Ashamed of me, me that brought her up, that educated her, that never left himself a nickel as long as she needed it. A doorman, he said I should have done better – ahh – have a drink.
‘Another Bass.’
The time of the accident. Me laid off, it was only natural she’d ask me to come and live with them. But he didn’t want that, the Hunky, too good for me he was. And then when the compensation came through, you’d think he got it for me, you’d think I was spending his money, instead of my own. Whyn’t you go back to Ireland, Dad? He put her up to saying that. You’ve always wanted to, Dad. Steve will help, I’m sure he will. He’ll help, all right. Anything to get rid of me.
Hell, I got dough. I can get on a boat and go anywhere. Sailing up the Battery. Statue of Liberty. Hello. I’d park my bags and hightail it over to Mooney’s, under the el. See their faces when I walk in. Back from the ould sod. And how was it, Jimmy boy? How was it? Back from the ould sod. And you can keep it, brother. Argument. That’d make an argument. Culkin crying in his beer about Croke Park in 1911. I’d give it to him. Horseshit, I’d say. You never had it so good, Dan. We never knew when we were well off.
The door of the saloon banged open and a man came in, green pork-pie hat, trench coat, white chamois gloves. His shoes were old brogues, beautifully shined. His moustache was straw-coloured, his nose was long and his eyes were large and watering. He looked uncommonly like an ageing parrot.
‘Goddammit, it’s cold!’ he called out. ‘John, set me up a glass of port, like a good man. First today. And how’s our American friend today? What’s the word from New York?’
‘I’m fine and dandy, Major, fine and dandy,’ Mr Madden said, giving his old doorman smile, his big tip wink. ‘But that rain’s a helluva note. Wouldn’t you say that’s a helluva note?’
The major peeled his gloves off and sat down on a high stool beside Madden. His hands were delicate, yellowed by tobacco, and permanently shaking. He drew the glass of port towards him carefully and lifted it fast to toss back in his throat.
‘Godblessus and saveus, but that warms all the way,’ he said. ‘Now, John, I’ll trouble you for a piece of that meat pie and another glass of this excellent port.’
John Grogan put a slice of pie on a plate, put a knife and fork beside it, poured another glass of port. Then he wiped his hands on a towel and stood with his buttocks resting against the back of the bar. He folded his arms, a quiet man, a watchful man.
Major Gerald Mahaffy-Hyde ate the pie, every last crumb of it. He drank half of his second glass of port. Then he saw John Grogan waiting, a quiet, watchful man. He took a ten-shilling note from his handsome wallet and paid. The wallet contained only ten shillings. He put the wallet away, slid the change into his trousers pocket and turned to Mr Madden.
‘You know,’ he said reflectively, ‘there’s no country in the world where the cost of living is going up the way it is here. And it’s these damn socialist influences over in Britain. That’s what did the damage. Never mind whether our fellows are in, or those labour cranks, the result is the same. The harm’s been done. Soak the rich and all that. And dammit a man like myself, retired on a pension he’s the victim, do you see? These damn socialists have no use for us. They’re out to ruin us, that’s their game.’
Mr Madden cradled his Bass. ‘Socialistic, eh? Back home in the States we had that trouble.’
‘Most interesting,’ the major said, nodding his parrot head. ‘Of course, you fellows over there didn’t stand any nonsense. Quite right too. Harm’s been done here. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether a fellow wouldn’t be better to find himself some island to retire to. Like the West Indies. Cheap, lots of servants, sunshine and damn good rum.’
A bare-breasted native girl shyly dropped her sarong. Tuan Madden patted her smooth rump, raised a rum punch to his lips. ‘M’mm, something in that, Major. I never thought of it that way. Not like Ireland, cold and rain all the time. You know, a guy could go out there, set up a little business, something the natives don’t have, maybe a curio shop for the tourists. A little capital, you could have yourself a time.’
‘Get away from it all,’ the major said with relish. ‘Let them have their century of the common man in Ireland if they want it. People like myself, people who helped to keep the country running when these socialist fellows were hanging around the street corners of Britain, we’re the ones they’re out to get.’
Apolitical, Mr Madden dismissed all this. ‘Get yourself set up, maybe a little store, get some local help to work for you, sort of supervise, eh?’
‘O, I’ve been out in those waters,’ Major Mahaffy-Hyde said, looking speculatively at his empty port glass. ‘Jamaica, Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba. Some wonderful spots. I remember in Haiti, it’s a nigger republic, you know, some of the white men there lived like kings. Great whacking big houses, villas, mansions, a dozen servants. Pretty little mulattoes. Hot-blooded little things, the tropics, the sun does it. Fondle a few round bottoms!’
‘Great big white mansions,’ Mr Madden chortled. ‘Brother!’ His eyes saw past the oak panelled bar to a distant shore.
‘Niggers run the place,’ the major said. ‘But there’s no race hatred. Everybody speaks French.’
Mr Madden saw Harlem, remembered an ugly incident on Lennox Avenue. Razors. ‘Ugh! I don’t like jigs. New York’s full of them.’
The major looked longingly at the empty glass in his hand. ‘This is different, old man. Some beautiful little brown wenches in these places. Get yourself a maid and all the damn comforts of home for about three pounds a month.’ He tried a gambit. ‘Care for another?’
‘Dark meat, eh?’ Mr Madden chuckled. ‘No, no, this one’s on me – John – two more.’
‘Why, there are red-headed natives all over those islands,’ the major said. ‘In Jamaica, blacks name of Murphy. The Irish planted their seed there all right. Olden days, pirates, deserters. Some wonderful stories. And their descendants. Imagine having a brown nubile little Murphy on your knee.’ His parrot lips curved wickedly. ‘We Irish conquered by peaceful penetration,’ he chuckled.
Mr Madden slapped him on the back. ‘I bet you did your bit yourself, Major, when you were with the British Army, eh, Major?’
‘By God, I did, James. By God, I did!’
John Grogan quietly placed a glass of port and a bottle of Bass on the bar. He wiped his hands on a towel and went back to his books. Major Mahaffy-Hyde sighted the port glass, grasped it in his shaking, delicate hand and leaned back, a good mercenary, giving value in talk. Encouraging Madden to dream, helping him towards drunkenness, towards the open confessional of drinking talk.
‘By God, I think you’re right, James. A fellow like you, an American, he’d know a lot of tricks. Why, you fellows are natural salesmen. Dammit, if Americans could sell refrigerators to the bloody Eskimos, they could sell anything to those niggers. Yes, James, I can see you taking your ease in your own villa with a couple of comely bedwarmers by your side.’
‘You got a point, Major. You got a point. Now, take the business end. Take soft drinks. Now, if I could get a concession …’
Shortly after four, John Grogan ceded his place at the bar to Kevin O’Kane. Before leaving, he respectfully approached Mr Madden and asked him if he would mind settling up now. Mr Madden stopped talking. Major Mahaffy-Hyde excused himself and went to the toilet. Mr Madden paid the reckoning. Major Mahaffy-Hyde returned to find Mr Madden sitting with the dejected air of a man who knows he is half drunk and has been caught for all the rounds. The major felt in his pocket and threw some silver on the bar.
‘One for the road, now,’ he said. ‘My treat. Let’s drink to the new king of the islands.’
‘Mine’s a double,’ Mr Madden said roughly. Sonofabitch never paid for a drink. Yankees walking free drink concession, that’s how he figures me.
He remembered Creeslough. How often he’d thought of it in the years when he rode the subway trains, when he stared across Times Square on rainy afternoons. How he had seen it in memory, transformed, a vision of peace and a slow peaceful way of living. And the reality, when he went back. The long bleak street and the warm cosiness of Lafferty’s pub. Free pints of porter, boys. Madden, did you say your name was? Well, is that a fact? A son of old Dinty Madden, of the Glen. Well, do you tell me now? Well, thank you very much, I will have another, Mr Madden. And what is it like in the States these days? Do you tell me so? All of them, country boys and men with their tongues hanging out, waiting for him to buy another. Spilling his guts out to them, talking about the old days and them, Donegal men, listening to the Yank, waiting for him to stand another round. And when he stopped buying, they began to talk about corn and crops, and pigs and the fair day. All a million miles away from what he knew. He had no place there.
And now, in Belfast, the same game. Your own fault, Mr Madden told Mr Madden drunk. After this one, get the hell out.
