After the Lockout. Darran McCann

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ wonder what I’d have said if we’d met then, as he was getting ready to go and fight for the king. I don’t think I’d have been able to look past the uniform. Soldiers are fucken pigs. I think I’d have spat in his face. ‘That coat of yours sticks out like a sore fucken thumb so it does.’

      ‘I took off the epaulettes,’ Charlie protests.

      ‘You don’t think people know what it is?’

      There’s a time and a place, Victor, let it go. Life is in the letting go.

      The doors of P. Shanahan Wines Spirits Ales Licensed Imbibing Emporium are locked and a large billboard announces the premises are Closed By Order Of The Lord Lieutenant Until Further Notice. Beige blinds bearing the legend Select Bar are pulled down over the windows. I knock till a voice from inside asks who it is.

      ‘Fron Goch prisoner 19531977.’

      The door opens a few inches and Phil Shanahan ushers us in fussily. ‘Who’s this with you?’ he asks.

      ‘Friend of mine. He’s all right. Is it all right if I wait here? There’s supposed to be somebody coming to meet me here later on. I was told to wait.’

      Phil waves around the empty room in agreement. The room is long and narrow and the bar runs its full length. It’s all dark corners. It used to be full of people like me talking politics, or naïve country lads newly arrived in the big smoke; desperate for anything familiar, they’d make straight for the premises of Phil Shanahan, the famous hurler. There’s someone in the snug down at the bottom, I can just about see movement through a gap in the snug door. I pull up a high stool so Charlie can sit down, plant my elbows on the bar and duck my head under the window. Phil stands squarely across the bar from me with his thumbs looped in his waistcoat pockets. ‘What’ll it be, men?’

      ‘Bushmills.’

      ‘Oul Protestant whiskey.’

      ‘Good Ulster whiskey.’

      Phil smiles and sets up the bottle and three glasses. He leaves me to pour while he reaches under the bar and produces a dog-eared newspaper page that looks like it has passed through many hands. He sets it down in front of me and smirks. ‘Did you see this? I’ve been showing it to all you socialist lads.’ I finish pouring the whiskey and take the paper from him. It’s from the Freeman’s Journal, couple of months back. Yes, of course I fucken saw it. Down in the bottom left corner. Our glorious leader.

      LARKIN MAROONED

      The Sydney New South Wales Correspondent of the ‘Daily Mail’ cables: – Jim Larkin, the Irish Labour leader, left the United States for Australia in a steamer which was to make its first call at Auckland, New Zealand, but the captain, according to instructions, landed Larkin at Pago-Pago in American Samoa. Larkin indignantly protested to the American Administrator, who replied that he had no power in the matter. Larkin is virtually marooned in the middle of the Pacific.

      Phil roars laughing as he lifts his glass. ‘Up the Republic!’

      ‘God save Ireland,’ says Charlie.

      ‘All power to the soviets,’ I say.

      The first drink of the day rasps against my throat. I light a cigarette and pour another drink. Phil excuses himself and goes back to the snug.

      ‘How come the place is empty?’ says Charlie.

      ‘They took Phil’s licence after the Rising.’

      ‘He doesn’t seem the sort to be mixed up in that sort of thing.’

      True, Phil’s idea of a political opinion is to moan about how hard it is for an honest publican like himself to make a living. If I’ve heard his joke about his membership of the Irish Publican Brotherhood once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. Yet there he was on Easter Monday morning, walking across the deserted street toward the barricade outside the GPO where I stood guard, a rifle strapped across his back and a toolbox full of ammunition in his hand.

      ‘Is it yourself, Victor? Is it the socialists are rising out? I heard ye were having a crack at the English.’

      ‘Go on home, Phil. We haven’t a chance of winning.’

      ‘I’m not in the least bit concerned whether we do or not.’

      I remember thinking for a moment that if a man like Phil Shanahan was with us, maybe we had a chance after all. Charlie asks for a cigarette. He inhales and splutters. ‘You should smoke more,’ I tell him.

      ‘I know. Did you keep the card?’

      I hand it over. Cigarette cards don’t interest me, but people are religious about them. ‘What are they, Navy Cut?’

      ‘Gallaher’s.’

      He’s disappointed. ‘I’ve nearly got the full Player’s collection: the Large Trench Mortar, the Stokes Trench Mortar, the Vickers Field Artillery Piece. I only need the Lewis Automatic Gun.’ The card read Plants Of Commercial Value. Charlie’s face squirrelled up with distaste. ‘Flowers, like. Papaver rhoeas is a variable annual wild flower of agricultural cultivation. The four petals are vivid red, most commonly with a black spot at their base. Blah blah blah. Who gives a damn?’

      I down the whiskey and pour another. Through the gap in the door of the snug I see one of the fellows with Phil take out a shiny gold pocket watch and fidget with the chain. I recognise that fidget. Alfie Byrne, the Shaking Hand of Dublin himself. Such a nervous fellow, if he didn’t have someone’s palm to pump, he would take out that bloody watch chain and fidget with it. Couldn’t sit still for a moment. He had shaken hands all the way to the House of Commons. I down the whiskey.

      ‘You have to come home, Victor. Your da isn’t the man he was. The drink has him.’

      ‘A man with fifteen children can afford to lose one son.’

      ‘He has nobody.’

      Nobody? The Lord said Go Forth and Multiply, and by God Pius Lennon took him up on it. He made my ma into a production line.

      ‘They’ve all left. Everybody’s gone. Pius is alone.’

      Most of my brothers would knife the old man in the guts if they thought it’d get them their inheritance a day sooner. The Lennon land is worth a lot, at least in the conception of Madden people. ‘What d’you mean gone? Gone where?’

      ‘The four winds. We’ve tried everyone else. You’re our last hope.’

      I get up and knock on the door of the snug. I ask Phil to lend me pencil and paper. He goes behind the bar to see if he can find anything, and as he rummages, I wave to Alfie Byrne. Alfie looks well, with his crisp moustache and stiff collar and expensive shoes. He waves back. Is he starting to lose the hair? He won’t like that, the vain bastard. I can only see the knees of the third man, who stays seated in the snug. Phil hands me a pencil and a copy of the Picturegoer magazine.

      ‘It’s all the paper I can find.’

      ‘Do rightly.’

      According to the Picturegoer there’s a new five-reeler coming soon starring Kitty Gordon. Don’t СКАЧАТЬ