The Contractors E-Book

John B. Keane

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 1993

Beschreibung

This is the story of Dan Murray, who emigrated to England in 1952. He finds work as a building labourer and in time he becomes a building contractor.John B. Keane captures the turbulent, bawdy, anarchic life of Irish contractors and labourers as they try to make it big in England. Told in his usual hilarious and bulls-eye accurate style.

Leseprobe

MERCIER PRESS

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© The Estate of John B. Keane, 1993

ISBN: 978 1 85635 058 7

Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 023 6

Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 022 9

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

To Gerald and Chris with love

One

ALTHOUGH THE CONVERSATION WAS less than a half an hour old he felt he knew more about her than any other woman he had ever met, his mother apart. She was freckled with an overglow to her cheeks but this might have been the wind which blew directly into their faces. Her auburn hair was straight and skimpy but it was well cared for. She was short, but not stubby with large blue eyes. She had a certain vivacity and there was invitation of a kind in her glances. This was new to him. At home in Kerry a girl would never dream of opening a conversation with a stranger.

‘What are you looking at?’ she quizzed.

He brushed the question aside with a shrug.

‘You’re a deep one,’ she said. ‘Still I’d better tell you my name. Do you want to know?’

He nodded.

‘It’s Patricia Dee. My friends call me Tricia. To what part are you going?’

‘Bertham,’ he answered.

He explained that he was going to work on the buildings. A neighbour of his to whom he had written had promised to fix him up with a job and digs.

The boat drew closer to the harbour. Soon they were looking down at the customs sheds through which they must presently pass. She looked at him wistfully.

‘We’d better see to our bags,’ he said.

‘It was nice meeting you,’ she told him. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll see each other again.’

‘You never know,’ he answered solemnly.

‘Look here,’ she put it to him suddenly, ‘I’ll give you the number of the nurses’ quarters at the hospital. It takes time to get used to things over here. You might feel you want to talk if you get lonely.’

He waited while she searched her handbag for something to write on.

‘There,’ she said handing him a slip of paper on which she had hastily scrawled the number. He took it and put it in his trousers pocket without looking at it.

‘Don’t forget,’ she reminded him.

Before he could reply she had gone. He withdrew the slip, looked at it and folded it neatly. Then he took out his wallet and carefully secreted it in a stamp pocket. He felt lonely. Even though he was twenty it was the first time he had spent more than one night away from home.

He located his one large suitcase and went towards the customs. A deep feeling of self-pity welled up inside him. In a moment he would be crying. He shrugged off the feeling and gritted his teeth. For the first time he fully understood the meaning of the word homesickness.

It was March of 1952. Of the classmates with whom Dan had gone to school in the two-roomed schoolhouse of mountainy Ballynahaun none now remained behind. Most were in England. The rest were in America, Australia or Canada. To emigrate was the traditional thing, the most natural thing in the world, and there was no alternative for most. It solved many of the country’s economic problems and created none. At the time of Dan Murray’s disembarkation at Fishguard there were already one million of his fellow-countrymen in Britain. The majority lived in ghettos, drank in pubs where the barmen or landlords were Irish, frequented dance-halls and clubs which were Irish-owned and rarely if ever mixed with the English. The others were made up of two main classes the first of whom were the exploiters, contractors, sub-contractors, dance-hall owners, flat-letters and so forth. The second consisted of those who had professions, principally doctors and dentists. There were thousands of these, attracted by the huge earnings in an England still chronically short of medical personnel so soon after the war.

He knew something about London from listening to other young men who had come back home to Kerry on holiday. If a fellow worked his head he could get on in England, be promoted to charge-hand or foreman or even become a sub-contractor. This was where the real money was.

Dan’s mother had given him a few inadequate shillings to tide him over till his first pay day. She had also given him new Rosary beads and made him promise that he would never miss Mass. His father had told him to look out for himself, no more. His one younger brother had told Dan how lucky he was. He would be forced to stay on in the small farm until he was old enough to emigrate himself or until the parents died and he could inherit the place.

Before leaving home Dan Murray had been warned about England and the likely evils that would confront him in that pagan place. His parish priest often referred to it from his pulpit. Sometimes he called it a gigantic whorehouse, unconsciously whetting the healthy sexual appetites of the lustier young men in his congregation, making them all the more eager to go there. Missionaries who came to give the annual retreat were more expansive. English-run dance-halls were iniquitous sin palaces where couples danced belly to belly and abandoned themselves to thoughts most foul. Belly to belly dancing or close dancing as it was sometimes called was, according to the missionaries, the most degrading public practice to which young boys or girls could possibly submit themselves. England, they said, was also noted for its homosexuality, rape, incest, sodomy and all forms of lechery but bad as these were worst of all was to turn Protestant. No words of these practised performers could adequately describe the enormity of such a sin.

***

DAN WAS FORTUNATE TO find a seat on the train and still more fortunate to get one near the window. One of his companions was a moustached man of forty or so who slept soundly. There was an unmistakable odour of stale liquor on his breath. From their accents Dan could tell that most of the occupants of the carriage were Irish. Before long, however, his interest was completely taken up by the passing scene. They followed the coast for a time and then proceeded through hilly country. The sea kept reappearing. In contrast to the craggy shores of his immediate homeland, there seemed to be no end to the beaches. The train sped past countless caravan parks and after a while the face of the Welsh industrial belt began to show itself most clearly.

From Llanelly to Cardiff to Newport the countryside was defaced by ugly industrial complexes. These appeared almost non-stop until Bristol. After Bristol the countryside was a delight and, it seemed to Dan, the English had pulled a monstrous confidence trick on the Welsh.

The man beside him sat up suddenly, muttered a few unintelligible words and fell asleep again.

Onwards they sped past Bath and Chippenham towards Swindon where there was a delay while some extra carriages were coupled. Dan stood up, opened a window and looked out on to the platform. There was an unfamiliar air of bustle and quiet efficiency – none of the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of Irish railway stations. His neighbour sat up a second time and from partly-opened, bloodshot eyes looked about him in bewilderment.

‘What are we stopped for?’ he called out weakly to no one in particular.

‘Just a few extra carriages,’ Dan explained. ‘We should be on our way any minute now.’

‘You a Paddy?’ the man asked.

Dan nodded. The moustached man was about to frame a second question but changed his mind.

‘My name is Sylvester O’Doherty,’ he said. He thrust out a hand for Dan to shake.

‘Dan Murray,’ Dan said.

Sylvester O’Doherty produced a noggin bottle of whiskey and handed it to Dan.

Dan uncorked the bottle and swallowed. Then he returned it to Sylvester who emptied it in a series of gulps punctured by gasps and grunts.

‘That was badly wanted,’ he disclosed breathlessly. ‘Normally I’m a beer drinker but this holiday has exhausted me beyond belief. I need something more essential to sustain me. Eleven years since I saw home. Eleven years and nothing’s changed. I’m a Maynooth man,’ he went on. ‘I would have been ordained a priest if I hadn’t met this girl. Just as well. I wasn’t cut out for the priesthood. I could never close my eyes to the fact that I have here between my legs, hidden from the eyes of the world, one of nature’s recurring miracles. I’d never be able to suffer the celibacy. How I endured it for so long is still a mystery to me. It broke my poor mother’s heart. The neighbours looked at me as if I were some sort of freak. There was nothing for it but the boat to England.’

Dan suspected he would be less forthcoming when sober.

‘What sort of work do you do?’ asked Dan.

‘Ever heard of the Reicey Brothers?’

Dan nodded.

‘I work for them. I’m a cross between an accountant and an unconvicted forger. I do the contracting books by day and act as cashier in the dance-hall at night. The Reicey Brothers are millionaires but you probably know that. They pay me well. I’ll say that for them. What do you do yourself?’

‘Just a labourer,’ Dan said. ‘It’s my first time here.’

Sylvester O’Doherty appraised him carefully. ‘You won’t be a labourer long my friend,’ he said.

Dan pressed him for further information about the Reicey Brothers. Sylvester produced a second noggin. He swallowed copiously. Then he talked. The three brothers Tom, Joe and Pat had come to England from Mayo in the early war years. They worked around the clock and saved their money. Gradually they drifted into sub-contracting and after the war took on some sizable projects. They had no labour problems. In the beginning most of their workers were Irish speakers from Connemara who had difficulty in speaking English. To men like these the Reiceys were a Godsend. Most of them could not conceive of departing the confines of Kilburn when their day’s work was over.

In a short time they became known as Reiceys’ Volunteers. They were clannish in the extreme and so were feared and avoided but they were steady workers, proud of their strength. It was said of them in Kilburn and Hammersmith that if one was stabbed every man-jack of them bled. Their ignorance of the London scene was a handicap which bound them body and soul to their employers. These labourers had to have some place to go on Saturday and Sunday nights when the pubs closed so the Reicey Brothers built a dance-hall. They called it the Green Shillelagh. The Irish in the district swarmed to it, and were encouraged by their priests. After all the Reiceys were Catholics.

‘If you want to meet the fighting Paddies,’ Sylvester continued, ‘the Green Shillelagh is the place to go but after Mass on Sunday mornings is the time to meet the real Irish. You’ll see them in the clubs or pubs nearest the churches, decent folk. If you’ll take my advice which you won’t, you’ll give the Green Shillelagh a wide berth. If you’re in any way sensitive or different from the pack in any sense whatsoever they’ll sniff you out and tear you apart. Those they don’t understand they hammer down. Men have been done to death near the Green Shillelagh. A drunken Paddy in an RAF uniform strayed there one night last year. For no apparent reason he was kicked to death. I understand this type of Paddy. He’s best left to his own ilk. There are other Irish dance-halls and there are countless Irish clubs. Most are frequented by honest, God-fearing people but if you have any sense you’ll avoid the lot till you know mutton from goat.’

Dan wasn’t sure he fully understood but he did not interrupt.

‘Today,’ Sylvester continued, ‘the Reiceys own racehorses. They drive Jaguars. Their sons will be engineers or doctors or priests, most likely engineers. There’s only one sour note.’

‘What would that be?’ Dan asked.

‘They never learned how to enjoy money. They have mansions. They have racehorses and they have Jags but they haven’t learned how to live.’

Dan found Sylvester to be a most informative and entertaining companion all the way to London. It seemed there was nothing he did not know. He would only reveal so much, however, about his employers.

‘They are the people who pay me,’ he told Dan, ‘and it’s not fitting that I should discuss their business with outsiders.’

Dan accepted this and was quite content to absorb whatever he was told. Sylvester drained the last of the whiskey after Dan had refused his offer to try another swig. They were now in the suburbs of London.

‘Yours is the next stop.’

The voice came from behind him. He turned to see the girl he had met on the boat, Patricia Dee. ‘It’s in a few minutes,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t forget the number I gave you. Ring if you get a chance.’

‘Sure,’ said Dan. She waved a casual farewell and returned to her own carriage.

‘Looks like you’ve made a conquest,’ Sylvester complimented. ‘She’s nice and plump, the kind that tormented me when I was a student.’

‘Does that mean they torment you no longer?’

‘Oh they torment me all right but now I can do something about it,’ Sylvester grinned.

Dan rose and took his suitcase from the overhead rack. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll see you again,’ he said.

‘You will,’ Sylvester assured him, ‘you’ll be over to the Green Shillelagh the same as the rest. Just look out for Reiceys’ Volunteers.’

Dan promised he would and turned to go towards the carriage door as the train slowed down. As he was on the point of lowering the window to locate the door handle he was tapped on the shoulder. It was Sylvester O’Doherty.

‘You want a sub?’ he asked. The puzzlement on Dan’s face brought a smile to that of the older man. ‘A sub,’ he repeated. ‘What you look for when you’re broke, a subvention till pay day.’

‘You mean a loan?’ Dan was still vague.

‘Do you want a few bob to tide you through?’

Dan nodded and turned the handle to hide his embarrassment. Sylvester thrust something into the pocket of his overcoat. Dan mumbled a thank you and stepped on to the platform. A number of other passengers were alighting. From a window further down, Patricia Dee waved at him. He waved back and looked around trying to locate the man who had been his neighbour. There was no sign of him. The train had pulled out immediately.

In a matter of moments the platform was deserted. Dan became a little apprehensive. Suppose his contact did not show up. He had the address somewhere in his suitcase but he sensed the place would be hard to find unless he met someone with a knowledge of the locality.

The only building open along the entire length of the platform was that which housed the toilets. He entered the one which invited his own gender, not daring to relinquish his suitcase. Taking off his overcoat he withdrew two crumpled pound notes from one of its pockets. He would repay Sylvester in due course. He washed his hands and face thoroughly and then combed his hair. He drew on the coat and returned to the platform. It had grown colder. There was a pricking east wind that sent a shiver through him. He had never experienced anything so bitter.

Again came the loneliness and homesickness, like a foul-tasting potion forced upon him against his will. For the first time in his life he was really alone, really away from home. The station proper had all the haunting loneliness of a poorly lit, unfrequented chapel. Having placed his bag under a light standard where he could keep his eye on it at all times, he proceeded determinedly to the furthest end of the platform. He walked quickly throwing hasty looks over his shoulder now and then to ensure the safety of his bag. As he walked he took stock of his surroundings. He passed a man-sized weighing scales and a ticket office hermetically shuttered. He knocked faintly, hardly expecting a reply. There was none. In vain he looked for some office or store hoping to meet a human who might give him directions. From the entrance to the station he looked out on to a deserted roadway. Beyond it there were lights and a mixture of noises. He decided to wait a while before venturing forth.

The neighbour who had promised to meet him was a long-time exile of forty-odd years of age. Eddie Carey had a wife and seven children. They lived near Dan in Ballynahaun, in a small cottage dependent on whatever he could afford to send home each week.

Dan had always liked Eddie Carey and it was to him he had thought of writing when he finally concluded that he had no future in Ballynahaun. Stating his case in the simplest possible terms he wrote that he wanted a job, anything that would make him some money. Eddie’s reply had been through the medium of his wife when he sent her the weekly portion of his wages. Yes. Come on. There was work galore and the money was good. Come any time but let him know in advance so that he could meet him when he arrived. Well, he had arrived and there was no sign of Eddie. He paced the platform from one end to the other for the best part of an hour. Then, when he had almost given up hope, a small, uniformed man appeared out of the darkness carrying a lantern. Dan hailed him and the man stopped.

‘Wossup mate?’

Dan told him where he wanted to go and the man listened carefully.

‘’Ere’s wot you want to do, lad.’

It was Dan’s first full earful of Bertham English. Patiently the man with the lantern revealed the steps Dan must take if he was to reach his destination safely. The instructions were clear and simple as though it were his job to relate them regularly. Dan was amazed at his cheerfulness in that cold and lonely spot at such an hour. He thanked him.

‘G’night lad,’ the man said. ‘Look sharp now.’ With that he changed the lantern from one hand to the other and proceeded with his inspection.

Dan decided to wait another quarter of an hour before acting upon the instructions he had received. Again he paced the platform, despairing completely now of Eddie Carey’s arrival. Then he saw a man with a cap silhouetted under the faint light of the lamp near the exit. It was Eddie Carey all right. There was no mistaking him. It was the way he wore his cap. It leaned altogether to one side. The exposed side of his head exhibiting a tuft of bristle which, one could see at a glance, was impossible to control.

‘That you Danny?’ he called softly.

‘Here Eddie.’

Dan lifted his case and went forward hastily to take the welcoming hand of his fellow countryman.

Two

ON HER ARRIVAL AT Newsham General Hospital, Patricia Dee found herself on the roster for night duty. Two of the night nurses were out with flu and the only others available were students. In an emergency one or more of these might be called upon but it wasn’t an emergency. Patricia was tired and not a little irritable from the long journey.

She would have the assistance of the two student nurses till her round of duty finished at nine o’clock in the morning. It was now five to twelve. Hastily she made her way from the nurses’ quarters to the hospital.

She wondered how Dan Murray was faring. They all looked like that when they came first, bewildered and apprehensive but trying almightily to conceal it. No matter how hard they tried it showed like a fever or an illness to the experienced eye. She wondered why he had made such an impression on her. He wasn’t in the least gallant nor was he even colourful. If anything he was a little dull although he was attractive. There was no denying that. He didn’t take advantage of this undeniable asset and maybe this was why she found it so hard to get him off her mind. Whatever else he might be, he was decidedly a young man who left an impression.

In the nurses’ room she checked the roster. The girl Patricia was to relieve was also Irish, Nurse Cullagan, a few years her senior from the same county but at the other end. Tricia sat down and went through the ward lists of the wing where she would be holding sway till morning. There was nothing really that would demand her constant or undivided attention apart from a few cases of pneumonia. The rest were on the mend or chronic cases who knew the ropes and never caused any difficulty. Often they provided light relief from the tedium.

At ten past twelve Nurse Cullagan appeared. She was a tall, soft-faced girl with an uneven mouth and a good figure.

‘Tricia!’ she exclaimed with some surprise. ‘I certainly didn’t expect to find you on. You don’t have to you know.’

‘Oh it’s all right, Margo. It’s only till nine. I’ll get over it.’

‘You sure now because I can stay on?’

‘Quite sure.’ Then realising that she might have sounded a trifle gruff she asked, ‘How’re things?’

‘Nothing exciting,’ Margo Cullagan said dreamily. ‘There’s a new intern in casualty but everybody says he’s engaged.’

‘That shouldn’t trouble you.’ Tricia said it to herself.

Both girls were products of the same background and the same type of Catholic schools – the Presentation Convents – which were often the only kind available to Irish country girls who wanted a classical secondary education and whose circumstances put boarding schools out of the question. Both had come as students to the same hospital, qualified after the prescribed period and stayed on as staff nurses. Here the similarities ended. Physically they were distinctly different. Margo Cullagan was four inches taller, and had dark, close-cropped hair. The trim uniform did not fully tone down a rebelliousness of manner and character. There was a carelessness to her which would seem to be inconsistent with her profession.

Margo had no particular ambitions beyond being a staff nurse. She enjoyed life whenever possible. When she had passed her Leaving Certificate, she could not get out of Ireland quickly enough, out of the ‘sexless morass’ as she called it, out of the ‘dreary strictures of nunneries’, a phrase she had picked up somewhere and of which she had wholeheartedly approved. She wanted escape from the unnatural physical restrictions as she had so often confided to her best friend in the convent. She was forever delighting and shocking this fascinated listener with threats and promises of what she would do as soon as she established herself in England.

Margo Cullagan was but three days in the English capital when she was bedded by her first man. He was a bus conductor from Salford, a gentleman of vast experience by the name of Henry Wilkes. He weighed Margo up at once and correctly interpreted the message in her eyes. It stated unequivocally that she couldn’t wait to get started. He was a practised performer with little else in his head save the seduction of all and sundry who wore skirts. He maintained a single room in an apartment house just off Hammersmith Broadway. He believed in precautions and had an ample stock of these. It lasted a fortnight. He lost his place unexpectedly to a young intern from Dublin. But he would be remembered when all the others were forgotten. This was followed by a brief affair with a police sergeant of fifty who often visited the hospital on business. He later confided to his inspector that she went near being the death of him.

She never dated any of the Paddies she met frequently at the Green Shillelagh on Saturday nights. With these she displayed a distant and deliberately dreamy attitude which gave the impression that she was virginal and inaccessible.

For her part Patricia Dee could never countenance an affair or any sort of intimate relationship outside of marriage. She was brought up to believe that nothing really mattered apart from preserving one’s chastity. She felt she would be lost, even damned forever were she to betray her upbringing. The idea of sleeping with a man before marriage appalled her.

She had many relationships with men. She had gone steadily with one and had been proposed to by another. All of them, with the slightest encouragement and without qualm would have ended forever all her claims to virginity. She accepted this as part and parcel of the nature of man. She had heard her mother refer to it often enough when she was younger. A man couldn’t help being what he was. That was the way God made him the cratur and it could not be changed. You had to be eternally vigilant when dealing with a man. The reverend mother of the Presentation Convent had told Patricia’s Leaving Certificate class that once a girl yielded to one man she would yield to all men and that total trollopy would follow in short order. A girl beside her had whispered, ‘How the hell does she know?’

She wondered yet again about Dan Murray. A pity really that a boy like that should have to work as a labourer on a building site. Not that she looked down on builders’ labourers – far from it – but the Murray boy had a refinement and gentility which had registered with her. She felt he could better himself without difficulty.

The man to whom he had been talking on the train she knew quite well by sight. He was the cashier at the Green Shillelagh. There was an air of mystery about him. It was said that he was an unfrocked priest. Others insisted that he was within days of being ordained when he ran off with another man’s wife. Nobody knew where he lived nor did he frequent the Irish pubs. She had never seen him at Mass in any of the local churches but this did not mean that he had abandoned his religion. It was more likely that he went to a church where the congregation was almost entirely English.

***

IN THE COLORADO HOTEL a few blocks away Margo Cullagan sat in the dim light of the residents’ lounge with a glass of gin in her hand. Her other was entwined around that of the new intern. He drank Scotch. He had waylaid her in the main corridor of the hospital and invited her out for a drink.

‘Where,’ she had asked innocently, ‘could one get a drink at this hour of the night?’

‘Oh dear,’ said the new intern, ‘I’m new here but there’s surely a club open somewhere.’

‘We might try the Colorado.’ She told him she had been there on a few occasions and that it was possible to get a drink after closing time. She did not tell him that she was well known to the night porters.

The lounge of the Colorado was empty save for two elderly gentlemen who spoke in whispers at the furthest end from where they were seated. The intern whose name was Angus McLernon was a native of Alloway where his neighbours and friends proudly referred to him as a buirdly man. His only other visit to London had been two years previously when he travelled as a member of his university’s boxing team. He had been nervous on that occasion but now he was more nervous. He did not know how to broach the question which was uppermost in his mind or even if he should broach it at all. After all she was a staff nurse and he might easily lose a newly-acquired and valuable friend if he gave offence. He called for a second round of drinks.

‘I find London very lonely,’ he told her.

‘It can be when you’re not used to it,’ Margo agreed.

He judged her reply to be sympathetic and decided to take the bull by the horns.

‘The only real cure for loneliness is a beautiful girl,’ he tried.

‘You ought to know,’ she replied. ‘You’re the doctor.’

When the night porter returned with the drinks, he told him to keep the change out of the pound note he handed him. He could sense Margo’s approval.

After a while he spoke. ‘I’d give my right arm to make love to you,’ he told her.

‘You mustn’t say things like that,’ she reproved. But she gave him a playful nudge nevertheless. There was a long silence.

‘I’d dearly love to go to bed with you,’ he announced limply. When she did not reply at once he asked if he had offended her.

‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s just that I’m not that kind of girl.’

‘Oh,’ he said flatly.

‘I’ve never gone to bed with anyone before.’ She sounded aggrieved.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘You didn’t. You said what was on your mind and I like a person for that. I suppose you’re a Protestant?’

‘Yes. A Presbyterian.’

Margo smiled to herself. She had never gone to bed with a Presbyterian.

‘Why don’t you ask the night porter if he has a double room with a bath?’ The question caught him by surprise.

‘What did you say?’ he stammered uncertainly.

She repeated the question. Like an unleashed greyhound he sprang from his seat and collared the night porter who led him to the reception desk where he signed the visitors’ book. The porter handed him a key which he pocketed nervously.

Three

FOR THE FIRST FEW days Dan Murray found the new job difficult. It was wholly demanding and all but exhausting. His hands suffered most. He would have liked to wear the canvas gloves which were available from the charge hand but none of the labourers on the site wore them. It was all right for the bricklayers or blocklayers but a traditional ignorance demanded that labourers should forego such luxuries. A few unfortunate men who broke with tradition were targets for jibes.

On the site was the foreman’s shed with a shelter attached for the charge hands. The foreman’s shed was a corrugated-iron, makeshift affair with cement blocks on the roof lest it be whipped off by the wind. It was erected on a minor elevation from which vantage point the foreman had a commanding view of the greater area of the site. The charge hands were constantly on the move, ever on the lookout for dodgers or malingerers. There were other foremen, each one supervising for a particular sub-contractor and, finally, for the main contractor there was the general foreman.

When charge hands saw something amiss they reported to the foreman. With him and with him alone lay the power to dismiss workers. As a rule he was guided by the recommendations of the charge hands. They were better informed and more in touch with the labourers. Only serious or habitual cases of negligence were reported. An experienced charge hand never reported a good man. A good man always compensated with extra labour when found out. Neither were known fist fighters reported. The site suffered them and they usually backed up the foreman by way of gratitude if there was trouble over a dismissal.

As far as Dan was concerned the foreman was God Almighty and the charge hands his avenging angels. He need not have worried. Already he had been the subject of discussion between the foreman and his immediate charge hand. He was regarded as a good man and it was axiomatic to all building sites that a good man was seldom wrong and never late.

He worked alongside his friend Eddie Carey who was a bricklayer. It was Dan’s job to supply Eddie with bricks and to remix the mortar which he drew in barrows from the giant automatic mixer in the site centre. The accurate appointment of brick heaps on the scaffolds was important too. There were other minor chores all requiring a certain amount of experience but in this respect Eddie was like a father to him and his lack of know-how was no disadvantage. He was able and willing and he was possessed of considerable strength. These assets did not go unnoticed. After a few weeks he was as good as the best. It was at this stage that Eddie started to give him tips about brick-laying.

‘Watch me. Watch what I do,’ Eddie would say. ‘There are Paddies on this site and they don’t even know what we’re building.’ This was true of some. They were content to labour without curiosity. They never asked questions for fear of receiving a smart answer. A building site was a great place for mickey-taking and practical joking of the crudest kind. Most of the labourers were poorly educated. Most of those who were not were over-educated alcoholics and were known as builders’ barristers. Others with some education worked at labouring till they found their feet. They used it as a stepping stone.

On the night of Dan Murray’s arrival, Eddie Carey took him directly to the house where he boarded. It was a modest, two-storeyed affair, part of a long terrace about half a mile from Bertham Station. There was nobody awake when they arrived. They sat in the kitchen for over an hour while he unfolded all the news from home. He had some cigarettes, a gift for Eddie from his wife and a flitch of home-cured bacon from his own household. It was two in the morning when they retired. It had been decided that Dan would go to work at once. There was no future in idling around for a whole day when he might be earning good wages.

‘Nobody will expect miracles from you the first day,’ Eddie told him. He explained that they had just passed the foundation stage of a new block of flats being erected for the Newsham Borough Council. There would be three months work at least and after that there would be no scarcity of jobs. Everywhere the English were rebuilding. The country seemed to be on the brink of a Utopian era with new factories popping up everywhere, a flood of American investments through Marshall Aid pouring in, better housing, better schools, no unemployment and, most important, no serious competition as yet from the European industrial theatres. The prospect was a good one in every respect.

Upstairs in the boarding house there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. With Dan’s suitcase in one hand, Eddie noiselessly opened the door of their bedroom. Rather than switch on the room light he allowed the door to remain ajar so that the landing light threw a faint glow about the room. Dan could distinguish two beds. One was occupied by a pair of sleeping forms. The other was empty. Eddie had explained that it would be necessary to share a bed. In spite of this, the house was regarded as one of the best digs in Bertham. In a whisper Eddie intimated that the pair in the bed were bachelor brothers named Maguire from County Cavan. They were heavy sleepers and there was no danger that they would awaken unless some loud noise intruded. They were plasterers and worked on the site. The second bedroom was occupied by four other boarders, two English men from the Midlands and two Dublin men. The Dubliners also worked on the site. They were carpenters. With a minimum of noise the pair prepared for bed.

Still in whispers Eddie explained that they were lucky to be accepted into such digs on account of their being Irish. There were not many boarding houses which would admit Irish labourers. Neither would they admit coloured workers. The proprietors of the boarding houses were not altogether to blame. In many cases the Irish labourers misconducted themselves, often beating up other boarders and even the landlords.

Eddie went on to tell Dan that there had been no trouble so far in the digs they now occupied. They were the first Irish to be accepted and it was imperative they preserve a good image. The landlady Mrs Hubbard was a decent soul who understood the needs of working men. Full board was two pounds, seventeen shillings and six pence a week. This included laundry.

Asked how he managed to gain admission to such a place Eddie confessed that it had been pure luck. He had been sharing a room with three other Irishmen, one from Kerry and two from Galway. One night there was a bad fight in which the occupants of the other rooms became involved. All were Irish. Eddie managed to keep out of it although this had proved difficult.

The upshot of the melée was that a man was kicked to death. He was an innocent man who wanted no part of the fighting, a married man with a wife and family back home somewhere in County Limerick. No one suffered for it. The police tended to look upon Irish rows as purely internal affairs and after a preliminary investigation the whole thing was quickly shelved. Eddie left the rooming house the day after the fight and searched for alternative accommodation. In a pub one night he fell into conversation with the two Midlanders who slept in the next room. He became involved in a darts foursome. The Midlanders, one from Leicester and the other from Northampton told Eddie that he spoke like a Welshman. This was true. In the south-west of Ireland many country people spoke a form of English almost identical to the English spoken in the Welsh countryside. This may have come about as a result of the importation of Welsh miners to the south-west of Ireland in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

‘If,’ said the Leicester man, ‘you was able to make us believe you was a Welshman, why not Mrs ’Ubbard?’

They brought him to the digs and introduced him to Sid and Gillian Hubbard. She had vacancies but he would have to share a bed. They were convinced he was Welsh and after a few weeks when it transpired that none of the household had been murdered in their beds he made a clean breast of his nationality. This occurred one night after he had been to the local with Sid.

‘I reckon it’s all right,’ Sid had said. His missus accepted Eddie too. He was quiet and scrupulous.

On the morning after his arrival, Dan rose with the others at half-five. He did not feel in the least tired. All of the eight boarders sat around a large table in the kitchen. It was a warm spot with a gleaming Stanley range the showpiece. From an adjacent scullery Mrs Hubbard brought in the breakfasts. These consisted of goodly sized plates of beans and toast. In the centre of the table was a large dish of sliced bread already buttered.

Earlier he had been introduced by Eddie to Mrs Hubbard. She had welcomed him explaining that her husband had gone out to work earlier. He was employed by the corporation as a driver and was usually gone out before the others came downstairs. These welcomed him too, the Cavan men reservedly and the Dubliners with a joke about a Kerry take-over. Because he was a friend of Eddie’s the Midlanders received him warmly.

As the weeks went by and the weather turned softer with the advent of April, Dan Murray began to feel his way about the site. He was working for a firm of contractors who took the bricklaying on lump. These were the Reicey Brothers. He had never met any of the legendary trio although he had caught a glimpse of one talking to the general foreman. Dan’s foreman was a morose, red-haired Kerryman with a short temper and a mean streak. The general foreman, a withdrawn uncommunicative fellow, worked for the main contractor. All the bricklayers on the scene together with their mates, worked for the sub-contracting Reiceys. It was one of the Dubliners who had pointed out the Reicey brother to Dan during a tea break.

‘There’s Dicey,’ he said, pointing to a tall well-built individual who wore a white gansey, corduroy trousers and a pair of wellingtons. Dicey’s real name was Patrick. He was the only unmarried brother. He had a reputation for being a ladies’ man. No doubt he was handsome in a leonine, florid sort of way but Dan felt he would run heavily to flesh the moment he took life easy.

‘Guess what he’s doing?’ said the Dubliner.

Dan indicated with a shake of his head that he had no idea.

‘He’s droppin’ the buckshee,’ said the Dubliner knowingly. Again Dan conveyed his ignorance. The Dubliner elaborated.

‘You and me we work for the Reiceys and the Reiceys pay us. See them labourers that help out the brickies like you do?’

Dan nodded.

‘Them labourers don’t get paid by the Reiceys. They get paid by the main contractor only the main contractor don’t know the men he’s paying are doing Reiceys’ work. The general foreman sees to that. Whenever the Reiceys run short on labourers he obliges.’

‘But suppose he gets found out?’

‘General foremen don’t never get found out.’ The Dubliner, whose name was Willie, spoke as if he were quoting from the gospel.

‘Why does he do it?’ Dan asked puzzled.

‘For the buckshee, the dropsy. Every week Dicey comes along and parts with maybe thirty pounds.’

‘But surely,’ Dan protested, ‘somebody’s bound to inform the contractor sooner or later?’

The Dubliner laughed. ‘You want a broken jaw, maybe two broken legs, maybe get the boot between your shanks till you got no cobbles left.’

‘Indeed I don’t,’ Dan assured him.

‘Well then don’t you never tell on the foreman.’

Dan nodded.

‘Even if you did tell on him,’ continued Willie, ‘nobody would want to believe you. The general foreman’s got to keep the job going. It don’t matter how.’

Dan made it clear he understood perfectly.

That night after they had finished dinner Dan invited Eddie out for a walk. Not far away was a small park and it was towards this that they inclined their steps. Dan wanted to talk. There were certain things he had to know.

‘There’s something you want to make up your mind about shortly,’ Eddie said solemnly. ‘You must decide to accept what seems like dishonesty on building sites for what it is, just a way of life. If you have a rigid conscience you’ll never get anywhere. You have to bend to survive no matter what outfit you join. Always remember the job’s got to be finished in the time so it don’t matter how.’

‘All right,’ Dan put it to him, ‘how did you become a bricklayer?’

In the park they sat on a wooden seat. It was a pleasant evening and there was more than a cock’s step in the lengthening of the days. All around them was the song of thrush, linnet and blackbird. Rhododendrons were bursting into bloom and a row of flowering cherries in front of them capped their slender trunks with clouds of curdled pinkness. Dan had seen sweeping vistas of mountain, moor and sea in his native place but of order he had seen none. He was not blind to it in Bertham Park.

‘When I came first four years ago I worked as a labourer for eleven pounds a week,’ Eddie opened simply. ‘I worked overtime for that amount, fifty-six hours a week. Out of it I sent home six pounds a week. It cost me nearly four pounds to feed and clothe myself and pay for a share in a filthy room. I kept my eyes open. I achieved my one ambition, to be what you are now, a brickie’s mate. I watched everything. I missed nothing. I was shown nothing by my master brickie because nearly all the brickies are English and like to keep the trade to themselves. Still I picked up a lot. I would arrive at the site an hour earlier in the summer mornings and I’d start laying them dry. I began to get the hang of it but I would have to be given the chance to work with real muck. That’s what we brickies call mortar in case you don’t know. Have you ever stacked a rick of turf?’ He shot the question suddenly.

Dan nodded.

‘Well that’s what it’s like, clamping a rick of turf, only for turf you don’t need a level and a string. Still, there’s not all that much between them.’

‘Yes.’ This from Dan impatiently. ‘But how did you finish yourself off?’

‘Bit of luck. One day my gaffer was bricking up a deep trench which was dug for a petrol tank. In the house there was a good looking pusher and there didn’t seem to be any sign of her husband. At four o’clock she invited the gaffer in for a cup of tea.

‘“Paddy,” he said to me, “you finish off ’cos I’ll be some time.” He was in good form at the thought of the cup of tea.

‘I was on my own and I could make mistakes because in an hour my work would be covered forever. That was the evening I first got the hang of it. After that it was easy. I can now lay a brick with the best. On the lump I do 600 a day. I’ve laid 800 for a bet. I’ve heard of a man who laid 1,000 in a day. It was wall work but it’s the best I’ve heard.’

Dan nodded.

‘Come on,’ said Eddie, ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

They walked back to the local. Eddie Carey called for two pints of beer and they sat in a corner out of the way. For a while no word passed between them but Dan sensed an excitement in himself that was foreign to him. It was possible for him to better himself, to move up in the world. The thought made him giddy for a moment. He composed himself and resolved to listen carefully to Eddie.

After the third pint Eddie confided that he was earning nearly thirty pounds a week, although it meant working overtime on Saturdays and occasional Sundays.

Dan gasped.

‘Watch me. Watch me carefully and do all I tell you,’ Eddie counselled, ‘and you’ll be earning the same in a year or two. Never give way to your emotions. If you do you’ll be just another Irish buck-navvy and you’ll never amount to anything. The Reicey Brothers, with the exception of Dicey, are men without emotions as anybody who worked for them will tell you. They may not be household words like the Murphy Brothers or McAlpine, but they’re on their way.’

Shortly before Dan’s arrival the Reiceys’ workers let it be known that they were no longer to be called Reiceys’ Volunteers. It sounded too like a substitute for McAlpine’s Fusiliers – it was to be Reiceys’ Rangers. Not everybody who worked for them had the right to the title of Ranger. At the insistence of the brothers only loyal workers qualified, simply being from Mayo was not enough. A man’s county mattered not at all. What mattered was blind loyalty.

The Dubliners had just come into the pub. Dan and Eddie acknowledged their presence with waves of the hand. If it were a Saturday night they would have joined forces, but long sessions involving large rounds were out of the question on week nights. Their names, Eddie had informed Dan, were Willie Hunt and Neal Rohan. Both were married with families living in Dublin. Asked why they could not get jobs in Dublin where there was a limited amount of building going on Eddie explained that they were not real chippies, that they were not able to turn out joinery or other delicate work. They were builders’ chippies all right but there were still too many first class joiners available in Dublin. Maybe when the building expanded in the Irish capital they would find jobs.

Dan was intrigued by the difference between a builders’ chippie and a real chippie. It was made clear to him that high class joinery had virtually disappeared from building sites. Factories supplied whatever was wanted in that respect and all that now remained were first and second fixings such as door frames, skirting and door-hanging, stair-casing, windows and floors.

A first-class joiner was a luxury and a rarity except in a joinery works. When the Dubliners first arrived in London it was doubtful if they knew a hacksaw from a brace-and-bit but like Eddie they had looked and learned. In their case it was easier because carpentry was not the closed shop that bricklaying was.

Eddie decided they would have a last drink. This was the fourth but neither showed the slightest sign of being intoxicated.

‘There are a hundred fiddles on every site,’ Eddie informed him. The Reiceys according to Eddie were in the concert class.

Not long after the three brothers arrived in England Tom, who was the oldest, was made a foreman by a firm of housing contractors. Apart from possessing an innate cunning Tom Reicey sported a frank and honest face. It was the sort of face that inspired confidence, that caused wavering bank managers to reconsider and the sort that was to drag Tom Reicey from the bottom to the top in a few short years. When the firm’s general foreman died suddenly on the site the directors were in a dilemma. If they were to advertise for a general foreman valuable time would be lost. They looked over the likely candidates in their employ. Tom Reicey was the least experienced but he impressed the directors more than any of the others. They pondered and they argued. The managing director consulted his wife. Discreetly and, without giving the impression that she was doing so, she carefully took stock of the likely candidates when they came to the office seeking directions after the unexpected death. Tom Reicey left an indelible impression. Of all the candidates he was the only one who guessed why she was there. His visit to the office was to suggest that they hire a general foreman immediately.

‘What’s the hurry?’ she had asked her husband at the time. It was Tom who answered the question.

‘Because missus,’ said he, ‘you must have a boss man on a site. The men know when there’s no leadership and you can see the effects in their work. There’s no one to crack the whip. Honestly sir,’ he addressed himself to the managing director, ‘I’d rather jack up than be held responsible for mistakes that might happen. When there’s no cat the mice will dance.’

Ten minutes later he was asked if he would be willing to act as general foreman in a temporary capacity.

Eddie Carey worked as a labourer on the same site. As the houses neared completion Tom Reicey pulled off a coup which was to be the first of many brilliant money-making gambits. There was a touch of genius about his maiden fiddle. At a corner of the site was a huge mound of topsoil which had been removed from the surface before the sinking of the foundations.

Starting at six o’clock of a Saturday evening Tom Reicey made a canvass of the estate. He took Eddie with him, not that Eddie had any function in what followed. Maybe it was that Reicey considered a delegation of two to be more impressive than a delegation of one. The first door on which he knocked was opened by the man of the house. Reicey explained that the excellent topsoil from the site was to be removed early during the following week. It had been bought in bulk by a market gardener from Croydon. It was none of his business but he felt that the gardener could be prevailed upon to sell again at a modest profit. It would be ideally suited to the front lawns and back gardens of the estate. He figured it could be delivered at five pounds per five ton truckload. Two truckloads per house would be sufficient to cover the back and front areas involved. He went from house to house with the same proposition, always taking infinite care to disclose that it meant nothing to him but it would be a pity to see the soil go. There was no immediate hurry. He would call again on Monday. Unfortunately it would have to be cash on the line. No need to make up their minds at once.

The new householders had grown to like him. His rough competence and open countenance gave the impression that here was an honest, reliable man if ever there was one.

His suggestion was well received all round. Everybody was agreed. On the following Monday he called again and collected ten pounds each from the 104 houses. He personally supervised the unloading of the trucks which were company property. Then he pulled a dozer off the road-building and saw to it that the mounds of earth were properly spread. This was not part of the bargain and he received a large number of cash gifts from grateful householders.

The removal and distribution of the earth was done under the eyes of the company’s senior engineer. As far as he was concerned nothing underhand was being perpetrated. The contract clearly stated that the topsoil was to be replaced when the houses were erected. He would have no way of knowing that the foreman with the honest face had made house to house calls on Saturday night and that he subsequently succeeded in criminally talking 104 ratepayers out of one thousand and forty pounds not to mention the sixty-six pounds and fifteen shillings in gifts.

They finished their drinks and walked slowly homeward. Dan was deep in thought. It was a matter of taking one’s chances and remembering that there was no immediate hurry. When he spoke it was to ask another question.

‘How much did Tom Reicey give you?’

‘He gave me fifty pounds and told me to go and have a drink.’

‘That was decent of him.’

‘If you knew him like I did you’d mean that. Tom Reicey looks after his own whatever else.’

Certainly Tom held sway over his Mayo brethren but, if he did, he exacted the same loyalty from other counties. He was their guarantor, their father figure. He knew the high-ups in the police force. Didn’t he go on fishing holidays back to his native Mayo with chief superintendents and once with a member of parliament! When the Black Marias gathered their weekend harvests of drunken Paddies and deposited them in a variety of London jails, the men who worked for the Reiceys were the first to be released.

Tom Reicey could squeeze work out of a man far beyond that man’s normal capacity. The more ignorant the navvy the easier it was to work him into an early grave. Eddie went on to tell Dan that he was once digging foundations for one of Tom Reicey’s first independent contracts. Digging with him was another Kerryman and in the next trench were two Mayo men. His fellow Kerryman was illiterate. The pair from Mayo were no better. At the end of the first day Tom Reicey surveyed the work done by both pairs.

‘Christ Almighty,’ he roared, ‘the Mayo boys has the Kerry bucks dug out of it.’

Eddie’s mate took this to heart and was determined that the honour of Kerry should not be besmirched a second time. The following day he dug like a man demented. He did more work in ten hours than a normal man would do in three days.

He did not last long but what did it matter? There were others to take his place. Ireland was a brimming labour pool.

Four

SYLVESTER O’DOHERTY LAY AWAKE. All his efforts to sleep had for some hours now been thwarted by his troubled thoughts. The woman with whom he shared the bed in his twin-roomed flat slept soundly. She breathed gently and evenly and although she stirred occasionally he could tell she was fast asleep. Sylvester was worried. He had stayed on that evening an extra two hours in the offices of Reicey Brothers, poring over a particular ledger. All the other account books, and there were many, were of the sort that are commended by inspectors of taxes. They were models of book-keeping, with concise, neat entries never overflowing. Everything was readily acceptable even to the most critical eye. All of these ledgers could withstand any sort of analysis, except the ledger which prevented him from joining his fair companion in sleep.

In this problematic book was an account of daily, weekly and monthly payments to one Sylvester O’Doherty. The total ran into thousands. In one week alone in July 1950 there were 25 different payments, each of twenty pounds. This money was supposedly being paid by the said Sylvester O’Doherty to migrant labourers, fleeting craftsmen who did unusual work, specially hired emergency men, here today and gone tomorrow and to assorted roughs and toughs who worked short-term and strictly for danger money. The cheques were signed by two of the three Reicey brothers. As soon as he was handed the cheques Sylvester went straight to the bank where he cashed them. It was then that the money was allegedly paid over to the mysterious, unnamed workers. What happened was that when Sylvester returned from the bank he went directly to the office of Tom Reicey and handed over the cash.

He was never given a receipt and why should he be given one? The cheques were given to him by the Reiceys. It was their money, their concern. He was a humble clerk. It wasn’t that he hadn’t asked for a receipt. The first time it happened he said to Tom: ‘Don’t you think it would be better if you gave me a receipt for that?’

‘Look now Sylvie,’ Tom Reicey was the soul of patience. ‘As far as the tax people are concerned you paid this money to casual workers. So why should I give you a receipt?’

‘I know, I know,’ Sylvester was patient too. ‘But suppose the tax people get suspicious. I’ll be in serious trouble. If I had a receipt for the money everything would be all right.’

‘Well I can’t give you one because if I did I’d be in trouble. You just stick to your books Sylvie. Do what you’re told and let me worry about the tax people. Why don’t you make out receipts yourself?’

‘What sort of receipts?’ The suspicion in his tone came across clearly.