A Star Called Henry Page 2

  —What’s your name, girlie?

  —Melody Nash, she said.—How did you lose it?

  —I haven’t a bull’s clue, said Henry.

  He looked down at the ground where his foot should have been, and hopped away out of the porter he’d just thrown up. He wanted nothing to do with it; he was already a new man. He was thinking quickly, planning. She’d seen him falling on his face and then getting sick, one of his legs was missing - he knew he hadn’t been impressing her. But there were other ways to catch fish. He looked at Melody, and back down at the ground.

  —It was my good one too, he said.

  —Your good one?

  —Me Sunday leg.

  —Oh, said Melody.—It’ll turn up, mister, don’t worry. Maybe you left it at home.

  Henry thought about this.

  —I doubt it, he said.—I lost that as well.

  She felt sorry for him. No leg, no home - the only thing holding him up was his vulnerability. She saw honesty. The men Melody knew showed off or snapped at her. Mitchell the rosary beads, her father, all men - they were all angry and mean. This man here was different. She’d knocked the poor cripple onto the street, his face was bleeding, he’d no home to hop home to - and he didn’t blame her. She saw now: he was smiling. A nice smile, he was offering it, half a smile. He didn’t look like a cripple. She liked the space where the leg should have been.

  —Will we go for a stroll, so? he said.

  —Yes, she said.

  —Right.

  He wiped the blade of the shovel on his sleeve.

  —Let’s get this gleaming for the lady.

  He let the spade hop gently on the path. Melody heard music.

  —Now we’re right, said Henry Smart.

  He held out his arm, offered it to Melody.

  —Hang on, said Melody.

  She took off her shawl and wiped his face with it. She dabbed and petted, removed the blood and left the dirt - that was his own, none of her business. It didn’t bother her. Dirt and grime were the glues that held Dublin together. She spat politely on a corner of the shawl and washed away the last dried, cranky specks of blood. Then she put the shawl back on.

  —Now, she said.

  They were already a couple.

  He leaned on the shovel and offered her his free arm. She leaned on him and off they went, on the ramble that would still deliver her smile when she recalled it many moons later, when she told us all about it on the steps of all the tenements we were thrown into and out of. A Sunday in June, 1897, when the Famine Queen, Victoria, was still our one and only. A glorious summer’s morning. It took getting used to, the rhythm of their stroll. He’d lean out over the abyss that was his missing leg. She, clinging to his sleeve, would follow him out there. Then he’d haul himself in and forward on the handle of the shovel. She’d be pulled after him, then out again and forward. There wasn’t much room for talking. The cobbles were tricky, corners were impossible. So they went straight ahead, out to Drumcondra and the countryside.

  Who was he and where did he come from? The family trees of the poor don’t grow to any height. I know nothing real about my father; I don’t even know if his name was real. There was never a Granda Smart, or a Grandma, no brothers or cousins. He made his life up as he went along. Where was his leg? South Africa, Glasnevin, under the sea. She heard enough stories to bury ten legs. War, an infection, the fairies, a train. He invented himself, and reinvented. He left a trail of Henry Smarts before he finally disappeared. A soldier, a sailor, a butler - the first one-legged butler to serve the Queen. He’d killed sixteen Zulus with the freshly severed limb.

  Was he just a liar? No, I don’t think so. He was a survivor; his stories kept him going. Stories were the only things the poor owned. A poor man, he gave himself a life. He filled the hole with many lives. He was the son of a Sligo peasant who’d been eaten by his neighbours; they’d started on my father before he got away. He hopped down the boreen, the life gushing out of his stump, hurling rocks back at the hungry neighbours, and kept hopping till he reached Dublin. He was a pedlar, a gambler, a hoor’s bully. He sat on the ditch beside my mother and invented himself.

  —You didn’t tell me your name yet, she said.

  —Henry Smart, he said.—At your service.

  Was it a name to compensate for the missing leg, a name to match hers? He fell in love with her name - Melody melody Melody Nash - and she fell in love with his.

  They held hands.

  Years later, looking into the night sky, counting her children. Poor ruined mother. She sat in the rain, the hail, the heat. She turned her back on the houses behind us and stared up at the soothing night. Behind her, the damp, scabbed walls, the rotten wood, the wet air, the leaking, bursting ceilings. Decomposing wallpaper, pools of stagnant water, rats on the scent of baby milk. Colonies of flies in the wet, crumbling walls. Typhoid and other death in every breath, on every surface. Banisters that shook when held, floors that creaked and groaned, timber that cried for sparks. There was no rest, nowhere she could lie down and forget. Shouts and fights, rage and coughing, coughing - death creeping nearer. And the rooms behind the steps got smaller and darker and more and more evil. We fell further and further. The walls crumbled and closed in on us. Her children died and joined the stars. Rooms with no windows, floors that bred cockroaches. We cried at the smell of other people’s lousy food. We cried at the pain that burned through our sores. We cried for arms to gather and hold us. We cried for heat and for socks, for milk, and light, for an end to the itches that stopped us from sleeping. We cried at the lice that shone and curled and mocked us. We cried for our mother to come and save us. Poor Mother. Finally, finally, we crept down to our last room, a basement, as low as we could go, a hole that yawned and swallowed us. We lay down and slept in the ground water of the River Liffey, we slept piled together with the sewer slugs and worms. Mother sat on the crumbling steps, she turned her back on the sweating, appalling facts of her life and looked up through the acid smoke at the stars that twinkled over Dublin.

  They got married in a side chapel, in the Jesuits’ church on Gardiner Street. Her father gave her away (and died the year after). The best man was Henry’s colleague, a bouncer called Brannigan. The bridesmaid was a scrawny girl called Faye Cantrell who scratched so much and so loudly that the priest told her to stop it or he wouldn’t let her friend get married. So she put her hands to her sides and concentrated so hard on keeping them there that she wet herself.

  Melody was three weeks shy of her seventeenth birthday. She sailed out of the church, lifted by the smells of burning candles, the newly varnished pews and Faye’s piss. There were kids outside, a scabby-headed mob, waiting for the grushie. Henry took a handful of farthings and ha’pences out of his trouser pocket and flicked it so that, for a second, the coins covered the sky. The children watched, enthralled, then woke up, ran and beat and mauled each other to get at the money. The losers turned for more. They stood there, the snot running out of them in ropes and waited for more of Henry’s magic. But there was none.

  There was a party in her parents’ room on Bolton Street. Nothing swanky, a few bottles and some music. The neighbour women queued up to hand over the wisdom to Melody.

  —Remember now, love, said old Missis Doody from the back parlour.—Give the babby half a bottle of stout every night and that’ll kill the maggots.

  —I’m not having a baby, said Melody Smart.

  —Of course you’ll be having a babby, said Missis Doody, a woman as old and as dirty as the house.—We all had babbies. I had five or six.

  —I’m not having a baby now, said Melody.—And I don’t know who told you any different.

  —Ah now, said old Missis Doody.—One-legged babbies you’ll be having. One after the other. They’ll out-hop the hoppers.

  And Missis Dempsey from the step next door told her all about syphilis.

  —It’ll rot the brain out of you, love, she said.—You won’t get it, of course, but he might. And then
he’ll pass it on to you, so you’d want to be careful. Rots the brain till you fall over in the street because your legs don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. You die screaming and roaring, there’s no cure at all for it. If you’re lucky they’ll bring you to the Locke Hospital and smother you with a pillow. That’s what they do to the unfortunate girls that catch it off the sailors. Just make sure he comes home every night and you’ll be alright. Or rub a bit of whitewash from the wall of a church on him. When he has his dander up, if you can follow me; you’ll learn, don’t worry, love.

  Melody was mystified; she was numb. Woman after woman sat beside her, one on each side, and whispered the deadly secrets into her maiden ears. Now, if you smell a fancy woman off his coat you should boil it in water with the head of a Malahide mackerel. She’d gone up the little side aisle in a state of sexual innocence, kissed only by one man and no further. She knew that sex happened, like she knew that God was up there behind the clouds. She knew that women went inside to their houses for a while and came out with babies. Two good pulls like that now and he’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night. She’d heard noises under the dark stairs. He’ll never be off you, you mark my words. With the leg made of wood there the blood needs somewhere else to go. She was impossibly innocent. Her mother had told her that she’d have to stay in her new home for three whole days after the wedding night. She was ready for the lock-in but she didn’t know why. A nice leaf of cabbage will do the trick. She lived bang in the middle of a place that survived on the buying and selling of sex. It was in the air; its stains and howls were everywhere around her, the cries, whoops and gasps, babies and brats crawling over every square foot, brassers and sailors holding up every corner for miles around and, God love her, she’d never noticed. And now, she was being bombarded. If he makes you do it the way the dogs do you’ll end up with twins or even triplets or more. Unless the straw in your mattress came from under a priest’s horse. She looked around for her husband, to see if she’d see the monster she was being told about by these calm and bitter women. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t hear him, his laugh or his leg. She couldn’t breathe. I got this jar of stuff from a Jewman and that got rid of it before I had the lid back on it. She thought she was going to die, just a few more whispered words would kill her; her tongue was beginning to swell.

  She was saved by the fight that broke out when a couple of moochers that nobody knew were caught helping themselves to the bottles of stout.

  —Yeh dirty lousers!

  Granny Nash jumped onto one of them and bit him on the cheek. His screams saved Melody. She got away from the women. But the sight of her mother hanging on to the poor man’s face filled her with fresh terror. Was this part of the wedding? Would she have to do it? The man was trying to save his face but his arms were stiffened by all the bottles and sandwiches stuffed up his sleeves. His friend was being pounded by Melody’s father, using her new husband’s leg. And her Henry sat on the table guarding the rest of the bottles. The neighbours queued up to have a go at the moochers but Granny Nash wasn’t ready to give up and hand over. She was growling and chomping like a scorched bitch from hell; her dirty old thumbs were crawling across the man’s face, looking for eyes to gouge. Faye was bawling and scratching herself under the table. Old Missis Doody was clapping her hands.

  —Seven, EIGHT, open the GATE!

  Melody had had enough.

  —You’re ruining my day! she screamed.

  Granda Nash dropped the leg.

  —Sure Jaysis, love, he said.—The day would’ve been ruined altogether if they’d got away with the rest of the bottles.

  But the fight was over. The moochers tumbled out the door and down the stairs, whimpering and crying, and they left a trail of blood that the dogs of the district followed and lapped. They also left the bottles, none broken, and most of the sandwiches, some of which could be straightened and eaten. Henry strapped his leg back on and went over to Melody. He had a face on him that was bashful and brave.

  —Ready?

  —Yes, said Melody.

  It was time to go. They said their goodbyes. Melody wouldn’t kiss her mother; the moocher’s blood was still on her chin, her eyes were tiny and mad. They strolled the short walk to their new home. Melody held on to Henry’s arm and began to feel happy again. The air was cool and nice, she was married and walking home. Around a few corners, down a few dark lanes.

  To No. 57, Silver Alley.

  To a room in 57, Silver Alley. Up two flights of stairs, in the door, the top front room. A room of their own. A room with a window, a good working window that could be opened and closed. It had once been some child’s nursery. A hundred years later, the newly married Smarts felt lucky to have it. They had it to themselves; all this space and peace, they’d never had so much before. They stood at the doorway, getting their breath back, and looked in at their home. They had so much. They had good thick walls and a window. They had a mattress, fresh straw, a chair and a stool. They had a tea chest for the coal and another for a table. They had a window box waiting for flowers. They had a mantelpiece and a blue statue of Mary already up there. They had two cups not too cracked and two plates not cracked at all. They had knives, forks and one spoon. A water bucket, a basin, a good big kettle and a slop bucket. A paraffin lamp and a brand new bar of Sunlight soap. An old biscuit tin for keeping the food and a piece of gauze for over the milk. They had clothes on their backs and some to spare. They had a man who’d call for the rent for the landlord, a policeman called Costello, every Friday at six o’-clock and it didn’t frighten them at all; they’d have the money stacked and ready on the mantelpiece. The floorboards were clean, their window was gleaming. Henry’s everyday leg was parked in a corner. They had a sheet made from flour bags, and sugar sacks for blankets. They’d a bit of bread and cheese in the tin, and a dollop of butter staying fresh in the water bucket. They had everything they needed; they owned it all.

  He sat on the chair, she took the stool.

  A room of their own. They could close the door and keep out the rest of the house. They could forget the darkness they’d climbed through, the unseen filth that made each step an adventure. They could joke about the banister that wasn’t there when they’d reached for it. They could ignore their drenched sleeves where they’d rubbed along the stairwell and the stench that had risen with them as they’d climbed the stairs. They could comment or not on the bloodied coughs they’d heard coming from the room below them as they’d passed, and could still hear now if they wanted to. They could hear claws in the attic, beyond the sagging ceiling, and claws behind their walls. They sat side by side like they were on a tram and, beautifully shy now that they were married and alone, they looked at the walls and at their window.

  The walls were alive, looking back out at them. Crawlers and biters, cities under the layers. If they put their hands to the paper they could feel creeping and shuffling. Melody and Henry thought all walls were like that. They weren’t solid; they were never reliable. There was cow hair in the paste, invented to keep the room warm. It smelt to high heaven and back down to hell.

  They looked at the cracked pane of their very own window. They saw the yellowed, blackened newspaper, filling the hole under the sill. The front top room, a room with a view. They could look out and see the world. They could see the smoke floating by, smuts the size of kittens, grey, stinking rain. They could go to their window and see other windows just a few feet in front of them, a big man’s reach over the alley. Houses bending towards each other, hooding the alley below, and ready to topple. Flaking brick and rotten wood; a good wind or a push would bring them down. Sneering replicas of their own room, leaning out towards them, they could see the houses dying. To the right of their window they could see the alley’s missing teeth, three houses that had fallen into fire five years before. Three houses and eighty-seven people, the flames licking Melody and Henry’s window. They could open the window and look down at the alley, at the stray dogs and children, b
are feet and rickets, the beatings and evictions, the running dirt and pain. They could look out at their future. Ah sure, God be with the days. They could close the window and keep out the dead and the living, the screams and the heartache. Inside, they were happily married. Outside, they were doomed.

  Henry and Melody sat on the chair and the stool. They were excited and frightened, frightened and excited. She was sixteen, he was twenty-two. My parents. My mammy and daddy.

  I’m just around the corner, gathering steam. I was born in that room, or in a room just like it. I was born into that alley, that city, that small corner of the Empire. I’m looking for the door, trying to find my way in. It’s dark, but I’m nearly there.

  They paid the rent every Friday night. Melody handed it over to Costello the rozzer, a big, fat Dublin Metropolitan policeman who first saw Dublin the day before he started work. He hated the place, the people, their accents and their dirt. They deserved their streets and their slums. Collecting the rent was a nixer. He loved it, especially when there was no rent when he knocked. He had a huge moustache that matched his gut and feet that spanned three parishes.

  He counted Melody’s shillings and pennies. He weighed them on his palm, hoped they’d be a little too light.

  —Grand so, he said after he’d waited long enough to make Melody worried.

  He pocketed the money, dropped it down on top of more money. He wet the top of his pencil.

  —Where’s himself the night? he asked as he pretended to write in the notebook he held gently in his mitt.

  —He’s at his work, Mister Costello, said Melody.

  —His work, said Costello.—He calls it work, does he?

  Costello cracked Dublin heads for a living. So did my father. He stood in front of the door of Dolly Oblong’s, the biggest brothel on Faithful Place, bang in the middle of Monto. In her dark room deep inside the house Dolly Oblong, a woman few people had seen, scoured the papers for news of troop movements, stock prices, football results. She knew what boats were on their way, the big race meetings, the date that Ash Wednesday fell on, years in advance. She saw business everywhere; she knew everything. It was said that, in her day, and still a child, she’d brought spunk to the eyes of the Prince of Wales; he’d been brought to her through secret passages that had been dug especially for him. And immediately after that, she’d serviced an unemployed navvy, the Prince’s arse hardly back inside the passage. She’d fucked all classes, colours and creeds and her girls would do the same. She ran a house for all men. All men with the money and the manners.