Lonely World

Why do you have to be so nasty to them, Da? It's not their fault. Katherine Donovan's blue eyes met her father's cold, flint-grey ones without flinching. She had never before commented on the way he treated his customers, though many was the time she'd pressed her lips tightly together in mute anger and cast darting, fury-filled glances at him. It was the poorest of the poor who came, filled with abject desperation, to the Harp and Shamrock, to pledge or sell whatever would raise a few shillings, for her da was a pawnbroker. He was also a money-lender, and his rates were nothing short of extortion. But people were grateful for the cash and didn't protest or argue. Most of them didn't really understand what they were agreeing to, for in the heart of the slums of Dublin, few could read or write. I'll stand no more talk like that from you, you bold rossi, her father growled back. His tone was chilly and bitter. 'And anyway, for your information, they are all eejits and idlers. Now that she'll started, Katherine plunged on, determined to have her say for once. They can't help it. They're not eejits, there in any work." He snorted derisively. There's plenty of work for those who want it. They can't pay their rent or feed their families because they're all going on strike by the minute. But there often than not they've the price of a pint of porter or s packet of Woodbines." She turned away from him as he slammed out of the kitchen. What was the use? There wasn't a drop of kindness in him. She would make no apology for challenging him, he deserved none. At heart she'd known there would be no satisfactory reply. He'd been like this for as long as she could remember: cold, unbending and relentlessly strict. "Don't let him break your spirit, Katherine, I made that mistake," her mam had once urged, and as she'd grown older she'd understood: her father was a cruel, twisted man. Many people were afraid of him and none had a good word for him, and she had suffered because of it. In all her years at school she'd been taunted and shunned. It had been the same with the kids in the street. They'd never let her join their games and she'd often gone home in tears, to no comfort from her da. Gradually she'd become used to it. She never spoke to those who called her names, she just learned to hold her head up defiantly. She could remember quite clearly the only time Mam had ever stood up to him, a week before she'd died. It had been over what poor Joe Healy owed. He'd shouted down Joe's excuses and pleadings and actually struck the pale, stooped man twice before Mam had intervened. Leave him, Albert, for the love of God! Don't go taking the debt out of his poor, half-crippled body. "You mind your tongue, woman, or it's your body I'll go taking the debt from," he'd bawled at her. Now, up to her elbows in greasy water as she washed the dishes in the scullery sink, Katherine let her mind wander back over those years. Her poor, poor mam. A slave would have had a better life. She'd worked ceaselessly from dawn to dusk every day, including Sundays. By the time Da got up the breakfast was ready, the tea wet and the room warm. After that it was washing, polishing, scrubbing, More meals to cook, bread to make, socks and stockings to be darned; the list was endless. She had never been strong, either in body or personality. Her mam had had miscarriage after miscarriage before she'd been born. That in itself had been a disappointment for her da. He had wanted a son and after Katherine there were no other children. It was Da who insisted that she should always use her full name. Kate, Katie, Kath, Kit: none of these derivatives was permitted. She was 'Katherine' to everybody. Her da always said it separated her from the illiterate r****e they lived amongst. Mam must have loved him once, she mused, otherwise she would never have married him. How long had it been before she'd realised she'd committed herself for life to a bully? She wrung out the dishcloth and hung it over the single tap, then, taking up the tea towel, she began to dry the dishes. She'd been close to her mam and as she'd grown older she had begun to understand just how she was suffering. Nothing ever pleased Da. Nothing either she or Mam did was right. Much as she'd loved and missed her man she would never wish her back here to this existence, in this skum, even though they had a comfortable home good food, decent clothes and occasional treats like a few sweets. Of course she'd never been allowed to choose what kind of sweets. Da just gave her the small paper bag and she'd been grateful for that. She hated this part of the city. Oh, the public buildings and parks were magnificent and were well maintained, and she'd often stared into the windows of Switzer's and Brown Thomas in Grafton Street, especially near Christmas. It didn't cost anything to look or wish. The streets with their rows of once-stately Georgian houses, now referred to as tenements, were home to thousands of people. Whole families lived in one or two rooms. Dark, damp cellars with no heating housed the truly destitute. The stone steps leading up to the front doors were all worn and cracked. The doors themselves, warped, their paint peeling - if there was any paint left on them were left wide open all year, rain or shine. The famlights above them were glassless or had jagged, fly-blown shards that time and the elements had not quite succeeded in dislodging. You couldn't see clearly into the halls, but maybe that was a blessing. Her work finished for the day, Katherine took off her apron and went through to the living room. She permitted herself a cynical smile as her father hastily got up from the table, cramming notes and coins into the old tea caddy. With his back turned deliberately towards her, he fumbled under the hig, heavy basket that held the turf. She knew where he kept his money. She'd never touch it, he knew that. 'Are you going out, Da?' she asked, although she was certain of the answer. 'I am so. Isn't it Wednesday and don't I always go out?" Katherine nodded. He didn't drink in any of the local pubs, he would be ostracised, at best, by the other patrons. He took a tram out to Dollymount. In a quiet, respectable pub with a snug he would have three pints of porter and a small Jameson's. Well, it suited her fine because she was going out herself to a public meeting in Beresford Place at which Mr George Bernard Shaw, amongst other illustrious people, was going speak. Dublin was in turmoil one after the other the city's industries were closed down by strike action. She felt great sympathy for the strikers, many of whose wives and mothers were amongst her father's customers. He was always giving out about them, berating and ridiculing them, and they could say nothing because they needed the money so badly. When he'd gone out, she put on a jacket and her hat, a straw boater with a blue and white striped ribbon. As she gazed at her reflection in the mirror she felt overdressed for walking through the streets of decrepit houses, but to abandon the hat in favour of a shawl seemed somehow hypocritical. She sighed heavily. She was eighteen years old and she hated her life. Not one single aspect of it could she point out as satisfying. Many of the girls sh been at school with were married now, and some even had children. She wondered: would she ever meet someone and fall in love? If she did, she'd have a war on her hands because she knew no local lad would ever come up to Da's expectations. She'd gone as far as the corner, ignoring the looks of contempt cast by the groups of thin, anxious women whose lined and wrinkled faces were pale with ill-nourishment. Their barefoot children, rickety bodies clothed in what were little better than rags, played in the gutter, faces and limbs already so dirty that the extra grime made little difference. Some of the older ones stared at her and put out their tongues and made monkey-like faces at her. This too she ignored although inwardly their animosity cut deeply. If only there was something, anything, she could do to help them. But any help she offered would be refused. They wouldn't take charity handouts from Donovan's daughter. Katherine! Katherine, will ye wait for me!' At the sound of the child's voice she stopped and turned around. She smiled. This was the exception to the rule. This was the one who braved the wrath of the others. Eight-year old Concepta Healy, or 'Ceppi' as she was known, was like her shadow. She followed her everywhere. Da wouldn't have the child over the doorstep, so Ceppi always waited by the corner. 'Are ye going on a nice outing with the good hat on ye and all?" Katherine took the grubby hands in hers. 'Well, I don't know if it will be a nice outing. It's a meeting.' She brushed back the strands of Ceppi's tangled copper-coloured hair. 'Isn't this desperate. It's like a furze bush.' 'Sure, we've no comb or brush. Didn't our Annie and Sally break them in the fight they had over them? ' Katherine smiled. 'Never mind, I'll buy you a hairbrush." Ceppi shrugged nonchalantly. 'Oh, I'm not troubled at all. Anyway, me mam would take it offen me." Katherine nodded and looked into the grey-green eyes that always seemed to be too huge for the pale, pinched little face. 'Will ye bring me on the outing too? I don't care what it is, really I don't.' Katherine thought about it. There would be crowds of people and also the police and perhaps even the military. If things started to go wrong... well, she was a bit apprehensive herself if the truth be told. Please? Please? No one will miss me, no one cares. Except maybe me da.' Katherine relented. Poor Joe Healy. He was a pleasant man who bore his many afflictions with patience and cheerfulness, despite the fact that Lily Healy did nothing for her husband, nor for her eight children, who were left to fend for themselves. Ceppi was the youngest. Joe Healy had been born with what everyone referred to as a crooked backbone. Walking was not easy and in his latter years he'd been crippled with arthritis. He had also contracted consumption to add to his misery. He got little sympathy from his wife: she'd once yelled at him she was sure he'd got the consumption to spite her. Everyone said he'd never see Christmas, but seemingly the child didn't know this or was putting a very brave face on it.