Goodbye to the Hill Read online

  She had taken his revolver and put it down the front of her dress. The Tans had appeared and they beat him up while they searched him for firearms. And one of them, pretending to search her, had felt her breasts, not knowing that the gun was between them, while she was thanking God that she had taken it from the oul’fella. She knew that he would have shot them down before they had time to lay a finger on him, and that he would have gone on to enjoy the picture all the more for having done it.

  You could say he was a hard man, the product of a rough school. I’d seen him myself, fighting a man who was half his size again, and as it started I remember being terrified for him, though, maybe not so much for him, as for myself. On The Hill, if your Da got licked in a fight, it meant that you had to stand endless jeering and jibing or be always fighting yourself.

  I didn’t like fighting, and if I was terrified that day it was because I thought the oul’ fella was really in for it. I was wrong. He punched and kicked and used his head like a man gone mad, and even when the other fella fell down, out to the world, the Da was still putting the boot in. A few of the neighbours had to drag him off and it was a few minutes before he got hold of him self. Then he was like a fella who had just got out of bed, he didn’t seem to remember being in a fight at all, and I never heard him mention it again. I suppose I was sort of grateful to him that day.

  Now he was gone to Manchester, and I felt I knew why he was so bitter and so unhappy. He had done his bit when he was needed, risking his very life for a belief in an ideal. He fought with a lot of others like him for his own country, risking his neck for the right to live and breathe like an Irishman. And when it was all over he and the other’s tramped the streets looking for employment with little hope of finding it. So he’d had to sit and watch his children go hungry and bare footed, and him helpless to do anything about it, the death of his youngest son and the trip to Manchester, England, the just reward of a grateful nation. I felt love for him that day, and I was proud of him.

  Andy and Tommy, the eldest brothers, went with him, but that didn’t mean a thing to me, any more than Larry’s death had affected them. I suppose they were good enough fellas, but I don’t know. What I am sure of, is the fact that I would willingly have swopped the pair of them for little Larry.

  Things changed in the house after that and it was much better all round. For a start there was more room, and I even had a bed to my self and, apart from Josie, there wasn’t anyone to push me around. She didn’t like me at all, and I really and truly hated the sight of her. She was always dolling herself up, which she didn’t need to do, because she was nice enough looking with her red hair and green eyes. I suppose it was because she was twenty years old that she thought she was entitled to boss Billy and me.

  Well, if she didn’t get far with me, with Billy she got nowhere. You had to give it to him; he stood up to her and no matter how much she shouted and threatened, he paid not one scrap of attention to her.

  When she had a go at me I kept my mouth shut because she’d give you a belt in the lug as quick as look at you. But when her back was turned, I used to call her all the bitches under the sun, and I convinced myself she was as ugly as a pig and that she had the biggest arse in the city of Dublin.

  It was good for Ma to have her there, though, and for this reason I could stand the sight of her. I suppose Ma could talk to her in a way she’d never talk to Billy and me. And, could that Josie talk. Honest to God, you never heard anything like it in your whole life. She was a telephone operator in a sausage company, so I suppose it was an advantage, but she kept on so much that it was enough to give you cauliflower ears. In fairness, she was good to Ma in her own way, and if only she hadn’t been so bossy and so bloody gabby, I might even have gotten to like her.

  Billy was getting on well at work now and he was very proud of the fact that one day he was doing to be a heating engineer. He’s started off as tea boy and general dogsbody, and he was now officially an apprentice to the trade. He loved the work and he got along well with his employers and the other fellas on the job, and he seemed completely happy. He was a hard worker, and even then you could tell he’d do well in life. The sort of fella could to anything once he put his mind to it, and if he wanted something, he saved every penny he got until he had enough. And he never asked anybody for anything in his whole life, and that’s not a bad thing in a fella.

  So far I still didn’t have a steady job, but I didn’t worry about it. I still made more money than most guys of my age and I didn’t have to take orders from anyone, and Ma didn’t bother me about it. I think she felt that I’d get a job when I was good and ready.

  Some days I didn’t earn anything, but it didn’t matter all that much. I could always nick something. This wasn’t difficult for me. I seemed to have some kind of gift for getting my hands on things, so that one way or another I was always coming into a few bob.

  Anyway, with my education, or the lack of it, I didn’t think I’d find it too easy to get a job that was worth while. I had a Primary Certificate from the National School, but then a well-trained mongrel could have passed that particular examination if you gave him a condition powder first.

  You had to get eighty out of two hundred in English, Irish and arithmetic. I was all right with English. I loved writing compositions, and the printed page seemed kind to my eyes. I had to struggle through the arithmetic, making sure I kept the paper as neat as a raindrop, but the Irish was the biggest sweat of my life. I just couldn’t grasp Irish. It was as if I had a mental block where the National language was concerned. The truth was, I felt learning Irish was a waste of time, since most of us in the school were going to end up looking for work in England.

  When the marks were announced, I found that I’d got a hundred and forty in English, one hundred and ten in arithmetic and eight three in Irish. Well, I got a pass but, as you can judge, I was no genius. So what kind of job could I hope to get? Sure, I could talk with the best, but when it came to producing pass certificates with your name on them, I was way down the line.

  It occurred to me then, that I was getting ready to start work, in a real job like. Also, I wanted a bicycle of my own, and to be in a position to get one I would have to have a steady wage coming in. Promises and good intentions weren’t any good to the hire purchase companies.

  It was Harry Redmond who gave me the push I needed, and it happened in the same way that he’s told me about women. You had to give it to that Redmond. For a fella who never got any further than the banks of The Dodder, he was awful well educated. Every day in the library he read all the papers, and he seemed to remember every single line. And that’s the truth. It was as if he had the very paper right there in his head. Anyway, it was Harry suggested that I go into the Insurance Business.

  I burst out laughing, and I know he would have walked away, except for the lure of the promised bottle of stout, his reward if he got me into the pub with him.

  Ah, Harry, what do I know about insurance?’

  He gave me a look and you could see he felt awful superior. I had to wait for my answer too, while he made a slow job of taking a cough sweet out of a tin and sticking it in his mouth. Then he took out a butt and lit that up and took a drag on it before he said a word.

  ‘What would anyone who was thinking of giving you a job expect you to know at seventeen years of age?’

  ‘Seventeen, ’I said, ‘what’re y’on about? I’m not even sixteen yet.’

  ‘There you go.’ He sounded weary. ‘How in the name of Christ do you expect to get anywhere in this world if you haven’t got imagination?’ He took another drag at the butt. ‘Nobody’s going to give you anything if you tell them the truth. Do you think I’d have done all those mots if I’d told them the truth? ’Course I wouldn’t. I tell them I’m a poet or a writer or a painter, depending on the mood I’m in. I recite them a few lines or Shakespeare or Yeats. That’s what I do.’

/>   ‘But don’t they know you didn’t write it?’

  He allowed me his crooked smile. ‘The dames that frequent the banks of The Dodder wouldn’t know Byron from Botticelli. I give them a few lines and before you know it, it’s Sally Come Home in the Dark time!’

  While I tried hard not to shake my head in disbelief, he pressed on.

  ‘Anyway, say you go and tell the insurance people that you’re seventeen, they’d hardly expect you to take over the running of the office, now, would they?’

  When you thought about that it seemed fairly sensible. I couldn’t help smiling. There was more in Redmond’s head than a fine tooth comb would take out.

  ‘They take you in expecting to teach you the game. That’s why you go in so young.’

  ‘I was thinking more of the building game, carpentry or something.’

  His lips swelled up with the sneer he gave me. ‘Carpentry? Will you stop for Jeysus sake! Any ballocks can be a carpenter.’

  He was so disgusted with me that every word turned into a derisive snort. Then he hit me over the head with his next line: ‘Anyway, have you forgotten what happened to Saint Joseph? And he didn’t even get sex!’

  He shook his head, inhaled, and then he put his foot on the last remnant of the cigarette butt. ‘Anyway, ten or fifteen years from now, machines‘ll be doing the carpentry, and they’ll be shoving buildings up in one piece. I’m telling you, tradesmen are on the way out. You take it from me - you don’t want to get into that lark. Get into insurance for a start. No matter how they build places they all have to be insured. And the way things’ll be going you won’t be able to get a car on the roads. There won’t be enough room for them all and they all have to be insured. In the end, just about everything has to be insured.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, pushing smoke out, ‘who are you going to meet if you work in the building game? A load of bogmen that don’t know any better, and after a few years of it you’ll be as thick as they are. Now, in the insurance game you’ve got chances of meeting people who might be able to do you some good. Nice mots that live in decent places, blokes in good positions, who might take a fancy to you and help you get a better job. If you want to make something of yourself, you’ve got to get a good start.’

  He stood up and I knew he wanted the drink I’d promised him. We walked over to Campions’ and he took a quick look in The Snug. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you’re all right.’

  I followed him in, and he ordered a bottle of stout and a Bulmer’s cider for me. I slipped him two shillings, and while he paid the barman I took a look around at the dark panelled room with its soft topped seats and the tiny hole in the wall where you went for service.

  He came back to the table and only I held out my hand, the change, which amounted to ten pence, would have gone straight into his pocket. He sat down and he gave the stout an awful quick death. Then he sat there licking the froth from his lips as I sipped the cider. I liked it, the taste was sweet and it didn’t seem all that strong. After I’d finished it I paid for another round, and Harry kept on about the insurance game. He gave me such a line that after two ciders I felt I could have run the Insurance Corporation of Ireland.

  ********

  ‘I’m seventeen, sir,’ I said to the man in the insurance brokers.

  ‘I see.’ He wrote it down after my name and address and he looked at me from behind his dark-rimmed glasses. ‘Why do you think you’d like to work in insurance, Mister Maguire.?’

  ‘I’m thinking of the future, sir.’ I said. ‘I believe that in ten or fifteen years buildings will be going up so fast and there will be so many cars on the roads that there’ll be some wonderful opportunities in insurance.’

  ‘Really’ He looked a bit surprised.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’ I nodded my head earnestly. ‘In ten years or so, I don’t think the roads will be able to cope with all the cars that will be on them and, with improved building techniques, premises will be going up faster all the time.’

  I was hoping that I’d said it just right, the way Redmond had told me to. He’d coached me on it for the best part of an hour and when he’d said it, it had sounded rock solid.

  The man in the glasses looked at me hard, and I sat through it like a well-washed angel. I thought I looked all right, even if Harry’s suit looked a bit baggy. I’d put it into Imco the cleaners, it had been nicely pressed, and I’d had a good scrub and combed my hair.

  ‘Have you been to a Christian Brothers school, Mister Maguire?’

  I’d known that this question would come up, all thanks due to Redmond’s coaching, without which I’d have been lost.

  ‘I couldn’t go to one, sir.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘Well, sir, things weren’t too good at home. My mother just couldn’t afford to send me. I had to do paper rounds and anything else that I could to help her run the home, sir. And since she lost my little brother, Larry, I had to, more or less, look after her sir.’

  He didn’t say anything for a minute and I held onto my breath.

  ‘Have you got your birth certificate, Mr. Maguire?’

  Redmond had prepared me for this and I only hoped I had the guts to put it over.

  ‘I went for it when I was coming for the interview, sir. I nearly didn’t come to see you.’

  ‘Why was that, Mr. Maguire?’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s not an easy thing to admit. I found out that my mother and father, they weren’t actually married when I was born. It was an awful shock, sir.’

  He was stunned for a second, and I almost felt sorry for him, but I could just see Redmond sitting on the seat by the corner of Leinster Road, and him just full up with his belief that his formula was going to work.

  The man took off his glasses and he rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand into the corners of his eyes.

  ‘You’re a very courageous young man, Mister Maguire. We would be prepared to pay you thirty shillings a week for a trial period of one month.’

  ‘Oh, that’d be great, sir. Thank you very much.’

  ‘If you prove satisfactory, as I’m sure you will, we would give you a small increase and you would receive an annual increment from then on.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, and meant it. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t, Mister Maguire.’ He smiled at me and I liked him.

  He told me that I would receive a letter confirming my appointment. Then he stood up and shook my hand, and as I left the office I realised why I liked him so much - he kept on calling me Mister Maguire.

  The letter came next morning, advising that I was to start work as a Junior Clerk, and I would be paid the sum of thirty shillings per week for a trial period of one month. All the things he’d told me, typed on nice white paper with engraving, and it was signed by the man I’d spoken to at the office. His name was S.L. Hayes and I thought how good he’d been to me. He was a really kind man and he proved one thing to me, that with a little effort people can be nice to each other.

  But, thinking about how nice he had been to me caused me to feel a bit guilty at having told him all those lies. And, Jeyzuz! If Ma ever found out that I’d told him that lie about her not being married when I was born, she’d throw a blue fit.

  But what else could I do? I wouldn’t have gotten the job if I’d told the truth, and if he’d seen my birth certificate he’d have known I wasn’t even sixteen. And the advert had said that the applicant must be seventeen!

  As I say, he was a nice man and I felt awful at having to tell him the tale. But at a time like that, when so much depends on it, a fella has to do the best he can and worry about if after. Not that I worried all that much.

  Chapter 5

  Ma was used to my independent nature but even she was surprised when I showed her the letter from the ins
urance office. And, she was more than pleased.

  You could see it in her eyes, and in the proud way she held the letter even after she’d finished reading it. Then she looked worried. What was I going to wear at the office, she asked me. That was a right shock, because, ridiculous as it might seem, I hadn’t given it a thought.

  Stupid but true. I hadn’t even considered the fact that I had no clothes to wear. I’d gone to the interview in Redmond’s suit and afterwards I’d given it back to him. Maybe not ever having had a suit of my own had something to do with it. If you’ve never had a suit it’s not easy to include a suit in your thinking. Unless you happen to be a fella who thinks of little else but clothes, and at that time nothing could have been further from my mind.

  That evening Ma was still fretting because she couldn’t see any way of getting me some clobber to go to work in. I was thinking of a gas meter or even two or three. If I was to go up along Palmerstown Road, where the toffs lived, I might find a shilling-one that was full up. I wasn’t in the least bit bothered about doing the job, but I didn’t want to get into any trouble, not now, when I was about to start my first real bit of employment. I was still in a puzzle when, like the answer to a prayer, Da, over there in Manchester, came through for me in the next mornings post.

  There was an English five pound note and a slip of paper with his address written on it. He hadn’t written a letter or even a note, he wasn’t that kind of man. But it didn’t matter. He must have cared about us to let us know where he was, and the money showed that he wanted to help us.

  Poor Ma, she had to sit down again before she could believe that she wasn’t imagining things. That was one of the awful sad things. The state people get into when they don’t even expect any relief to their endless predicament.