‘Fuck them.’ Marion broke the silence.
‘Who?’ asked Agnes.
‘Them flies,’ Marion pointed. ‘Fuck them, you’re right, shittin’ on everything else all their lives. Serves them right! Oh Agnes, is this fella goin’ t’be much longer? I’m bustin’ for a slash.‘ Marion had a pained expression on her face. Agnes looked over the man’s shoulder. The girl was just putting the phone down.
‘She’s nearly finished. Look, there’s a jacks outside in the hall, you go on, I’ll be all right. Go on!’
Marion bolted from the waiting room. At the same time the girl returned to the hatch.
‘Right then, Mr O’Reilly. Here’s your signing-on card. You will sign on at hatch 44, upstairs in Gardiner Street at 9.30am on Friday, okay?‘
The man looked at the card and then back at the girl. ‘Friday? But this is Monday. Yer man wouldn’t pay me and I’ve no money.’
The girl became very business-like. ‘That’s between you and him, Mr O’Reilly. You’ll have to sort that out yourself. Friday, 9.30, hatch 44.’
The man still did not leave. ‘What will I do between now and Friday?’
The girl had had enough. ‘I don’t care what you do. You can’t stand there until Friday, that’s for sure. Now go on, off with you.’
‘He’s a bollix,’ the man told the girl.
She reddened. ‘That’s enough of that, Mr O’Reilly.’
But he hadn’t finished. ‘If I had me other leg I’d fuckin’ give it to him, I would!’
The girl bowed her head in a resigned fashion. ‘If you had your other leg, Mr O’Reilly,‘ she snapped, ’you would have caught the children and you wouldn’t be here now, would you?‘ She closed the doors of the hatch in the hope that Mr O’Reilly would vanish. He gathered himself together, slid the card into his inside pocket, put his glasses into a clip-lid box and propped his crutch under his arm. As he made for the exit he said aloud, ‘And you’re a bollix too!’ He opened the door of the waiting room just as Marion got to it.
‘That one’s only a bollix,’ he said to her and, surprisingly quickly, headed off down the hallway.
Marion looked after him for a moment and then turned to Agnes. ‘What was that about?’ she said as she took her seat beside her friend.
Agnes shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Did yeh go?’
‘Yeh.’
‘All right then?’
‘I’m grand. Jaysus, the paper they use here cuts the arse off a yeh.’
‘That auld greaseproof stuff?’
‘Yeh, it’s like wipin’ your arse with a crisp bag.’
‘Yeh.’
‘Well, what are you waitin’ for?’
‘I was waitin’ on you to come back. Come on.’
The two women went to the hatch. Agnes pressed the bell. They heard no sound.
‘Press it again,’ said Marion.
Agnes did. Still no sound. Marion knocked on the hatch doors. Behind, they could hear the sound of movement.
‘Someone’s comin’,‘ whispered Agnes. Then, as if she was preparing to sing she cleared her throat with a cough. The hatch opened. It was the same girl. She didn’t look up. Instead she opened a notebook and, still with the head down, asked, ’Name and social welfare number?‘
‘I don’t have one,’ Agnes replied.
‘You don’t have a name?’ The girl now looked up.
‘Of course she has a name,’ Marion now joined in. ‘It’s Agnes, after the Blessed Agnes, Agnes Browne.’
‘I haven’t got a social welfare number.’
‘Everybody has a social welfare number, Missus!’
‘Well, I haven’t!‘
‘Your husband - is he working?’
‘No, not any more.’
‘So, he’s signed on, then?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s dead.’
The girl was now silent. She stared at Agnes, then at Marion.
‘Dead?’ Both women nodded. The girl was still not giving up on the numbers game. ‘Do you have your widow’s pension book with you?’
‘I haven’t got one, that’s why I’m here.’
‘Ah, so this is a
new
claim?’ The girl felt better now that she had a grasp of what was happening. She lifted a form from below the counter. Both women shot glances at each other, a look of fear crossing their faces. They regarded the answering of questions on forms as an exam of some kind. Agnes wasn’t prepared for this. The girl began the interrogation.
‘Now, your full name?’
‘Agnes Loretta Browne.’
‘Is that Browne with an “E”?’
‘Yeh, and Agnes with an “E” and Loretta with an “E”.’
The girl stared at Agnes, not sure that this woman wasn’t taking the piss out of her.
‘Your maiden name?’
‘Eh, Reddin.’
‘Lovely. Now, your husband’s name?’
‘Nicholas Browne, and before you ask, I don’t know his maiden name.’
‘Nicholas Browne will be fine. Occupation?’
Agnes looked at Marion and back at the girl, then said softly, ‘Dead.’
‘No, when he was alive, what did he do when he was alive?’
‘He was a kitchen porter.’
‘And where did he work?’
Again, Agnes looked into Marion’s blank face. ‘In the kitchen?’ she offered, hoping it was the right answer.
‘Of course in the kitchen, but which kitchen? Was it a hotel?’
‘It’s still a hotel, isn’t it, Marion?’ Marion nodded.
‘Which hotel?!!’ The girl was exasperated now and the question came out through her teeth.
‘The Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street, love,‘ Agnes answered confidently. That was an easy one. The girl scribbled in the answer and moved down the form.
‘Now, what was the cause of death?’
‘A hunter,’ Agnes said.
‘Was he shot?’ the girl asked incredulously. ‘Was your husband shot?’
‘By who?’ Agnes asked this question as if the girl had found out something about her husband’s death that she didn’t know herself.
‘The hunter, was your husband shot by a hunter?’
Agnes was puzzled now. She thought it out for a moment and then a look of realisation spread over her face.
‘No, love! A Hillman Hunter, he was knocked down by a Hillman Hunter - a car!’
The girl stared at the two women again, then dismissed the thought that this was Candid Camera. These are just two gobshites, she told herself. ‘A motor accident... I see.’ She scribbled again. The two women could see that she was now writing on the bottom line. They were pleased. But then she turned the form over to a new list of questions. The disappointment of the women was audible. The young girl felt it and in an effort to ease the tension of the two said, That must have been a shock.‘
Agnes thought for a moment. ‘Yeh, it must have been, sure he couldn’t have been expecting it!’
The girl glanced around the room, wondering could it be possible that there
was
a hidden camera after all. Again she dismissed it.
‘Right, then, let’s move on. Now, how many children do you have?’
‘Seven.’
‘Seven? A good Catholic family!’
‘Ah, they’re all right. But yeh have to bate the older wans to Mass.’
‘I’m sure. Eh, I’ll need their names and ages.’
‘Right! Let me see, Mark is the eldest, he’s fourteen; then Francis, he’s thirteen; then the twins, there’s two of them, Simon and Dermot, twelve, both of them; then Rory and he’s eleven; after him there’s Cathy, she was a forceps, very difficult!’
‘It was, I remember it well. You’re a martyr, Agnes,’ Marion commented.
‘Ah sure, what can you do, Marion. She’s ten; and last of all there’s Trevor, the baby, he’s three.’
The form had been designed to accommodate ten children so there was plenty of space left. The girl ran a line through the last three spaces and moved on to the next section. In the back of her mind she wondered what it was between 1957 and 1964 that gave Mrs Browne the ‘break’!
‘Now, when did your husband die?’
‘At half-four.’
‘Yes, but what day?’
‘This mornin’.‘
‘This morning! But sure, he couldn’t even have a death certificate yet!’
‘Ah no, not at all - sure he didn’t even go past primary!’
‘No, a
death
certificate. I need a death certificate. A certificate from the doctor stating that your husband is in fact dead. He could be alive, for all I know.’
‘No, love, he’s definitely dead. Definitely. Isn’t he, Marion?’
Marion agreed. ‘Absolutely. I know him years, and I’ve never seen him look so bad. Dead, definitely dead!’
‘Look Mrs ... eh, Browne, I cannot process this until you get a death certificate from the hospital or doctor that pronounced your husband dead.’
Mrs Browne’s eyes half-closed as she thought about this. ‘So, if I can’t get this until tomorrow, I’ll lose a day’s money?’
‘You won’t lose anything, Mrs Browne. It will be back-dated. You will get every penny that’s due to you. I promise.’
Marion was relieved for her friend. She poked her in the side. ‘Back-dated, that’s grand, Agnes, so you needn’t have rushed down at all.’
Agnes wasn’t convinced. ‘Are you sure?’
The girl smiled. ‘I’m absolutely sure. Now look, take this form with you - it’s all filled in already - and when you get the death certificate, hand them both in together. Oh, and bring your marriage certificate as well, you’ll get that from the church that you married in. In the meantime, Mrs Browne, if you need some money to get by on just call down to the Dublin Health Authority Office in Jervis Street and see the relieving officer there.’
Agnes took all this in. ‘The relieving officer, Jervis Street?’
The girl nodded. ‘Jervis Street.’
Agnes folded the form. She was about to leave but she turned back to the girl. ‘Don’t mind that one-legged “gotchee”. You’re very good, love, and you’re
not
a bollix!’
With that, the two women stepped back out into the March sunshine to prepare for a funeral.
Chapter 2
DUBLIN OF THE SIXTIES WAS - and in the nineties still is - a city of many sections and divisions. There was the retail section, the market sections, the residential section and the (now almost disappeared) tenements.
The retail section had two divisions - the southside and the northside - with Grafton Street being the main shopping street of the southside, and Henry Street and Moore Street the flagships of the northside. A stroll through both sides of the city would leave one in no doubt as to which was the affluent side and which was not. The largest Cathedral is on the south, the largest dole office is on the north; the Houses of Parliament are on the south, the Corporation Sanitary and Housing sections are on the north. In a café on the northside, you can purchase a cup of tea, a sandwich and a biscuit for the price of a coffee on the southside. The River Liffey is the dividing line and even she knows which side is which as she gathers the litter and effluent on her northern bank.
Just ten minutes’ walk eastwards from O‘Connell Bridge along the quays and another three minutes’ walk north, was St jarlath’s Street. The entire surrounding area for one square mile got its name, The Jarro, from this street.
Although housing some sixteen thousand people in the fifties and sixties, virtually everyone knew everyone in The Jarro. By day, the area bustled with the movement of hawkers, prams and carts, as the men and women who lived in The Jarro made up ninety percent of the dealers from Moore Street and George’s Hill. The Jarro also provided the labour force for both the fish and the vegetable markets, and the rest of the able-bodied men were either dockers, draymen, or on the dole.
Agnes Browne was one of the best-known and best-loved of the Moore Street dealers. She loved The jarro. Happily, at 5am each morning, she set off with her pram, on top of which sat her folded trestle table, from her tenement in James Larkin Court. As she rounded the corner at the top of her cut de sac, her face would crack into a smile as she met the colour of Jarlath’s Street, the washing hanging from a thousand windows on each side. She would pretend that this was bunting in all the colours of the rainbow, hung in her honour, for a variety of different reasons. She would invent a new one each day - one day she would be a film star, the next a war heroine, once she was even an astronaut, Ireland’s first, returning to the cheers and adulation of her friends and neighbours.
Five intersections down St Jarlath’s Street, where it joined with Ryder’s Row, Agnes would meet up with her best friend and fellow dealer, Marion Monks. Marion was tiny, with a round face, golden hair and round ‘clincher’ glasses, that made her eyes look like two little black peas. To make matters worse, Marion had not one, not two, but three dark brown moles in a straight line just under her chin. Each had a healthy tuft of hair growing from it, giving poor Marion the appearance of having a goatee beard. It was at bingo one night when Marion’s glasses broke at the bridge and she managed to finish the night only by holding one lens up to her left eye and writing with her right, that Marion earned her nickname Kaiser.
Together the two ‘girls’ would push their carts down St Jarlath’s Street, sharing the cigarette Agnes had sneaked from Redser’s packet. Agnes was married to Redser Browne for thirteen years, and never once had he offered her a fag. So, each morning for thirteen years, she had helped herself to one. Before reaching the end of the street, the two would cross the road so as to walk past St Jarlath’s church, the church in which Agnes had married Redser and in which Kaiser had married Tommo Monks, a man twice her height and a legend on the docks as a hard man. Nobody would dare go against him, and yet he could be seen some nights staggering home drunk and weeping, as every couple of yards he would receive a slap of Marion’s handbag, for inadvertently referring to Marion’s mother as ’good old heifer-arse!‘
When the women came to the front doors of the church, both prams would be stopped, and Marion would hand what was left of the fag to Agnes and climb the steps to the front door. She would gently push one door half-open and shout: ‘Good morning, God ... it’s me, Marion!’ Inside the church, five o‘clock Mass would be in full swing. Of the thirty or so congregation, only the strangers would turn their heads, the regulars were used to Marion’s early-morning cry. The celebrating priest would not bat an eyelid, as he knew that, for her own reasons, Marion never attended Sunday Mass. This was Marion’s way of praying, and that was that. The priest had seen it each morning for the eight years he had been in the parish and no doubt she would still be doing it when he was moved on. Marion would then descend the steps of the church and the two girls would round the comer and complete the ten-minute walk to the fruit markets where their twelve-hour working day would begin.