We were level now, in front of the club and Carmine.
—There might be more on the way, he said.
—You’re overdoing it, Louis, I said.
—Ready for that?
—Stop messing. It depends.
Pink Carmine and his pal had clocked the driver. They bent down, waved in, and Louis waved back.
—Depends on what?
We were moving again. A jump, a crawl. They didn’t follow. Whatever was happening, now was not the time. And something was happening. Louis knew it and other people knew but the hard guys at the door didn’t, yet. And neither did I.
And it annoyed me. So I grabbed the wheel with one hand.
—Depends on if I think another hiding is worth it. And, at the moment, I don’t.
I made the car rattle.
—I got a good ride and a dinner after the last one. What have you got to offer?
I let go of the wheel.
—Finished, O’Pops?
—No.
—Sorry, he said. —We stop and talk.
I spoke to the side of his head. He let me talk.
—There was a time, Louis, when a fella, every now and again, a fella would give me a bit of paper and there’d be a name on the bit of paper. And my job was to kill the unfortunate cunt whose name was written on the paper. And I did it, every fuckin’ time, no questions asked. Obeying orders. My duty. For my fuckin’ country, Louis. I did what I was told. Every time. But I don’t do that any more.
—We stop and talk, Henry.
—Yeah.
I put my hands up.
—Caught, I said.
A burglar.
And fair enough. It was why I was there in the first place.
Gasping aside, she looked quite calm. Hair on the floor, blood on her hands – she looked like she’d been doing the cleaning, just a bit put out because there was more to it than she’d expected. But not like a woman who’d been murdering her husband when the boss walked in.
I had one eye working for me. The other was probably gone; there was just a hole full of pain there. I could feel blood travelling over sweat. And my balls were going to take some coming down. But I straightened as much as I could manage, hands up polite and high, and looked at my daughter.
—Howyeh.
—Did Mammy do all that to you?
—Yeah.
—Golly.
—I was robbing the house, I said. —Fair play.
—You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you, so.
—Saoirse!
—Well, he is. Uncle Ivan said you were a divil for the rifles when yourself and himself were fighting for Ireland.
—Seer-she.
It was the woman, Missis Lowe. She was holding Saoirse’s hand, shaking a bit, but too calm for an old lady with a fine man’s blood and hair at her toes, mixing with the slush that was sliding off her boots, and her mad servant beside her, blood on her hands and in her eyes, and the fine man himself, half-dead, right in front.
—Do you know this man, Eileen?
—No, I said.
—Yes, said Miss O’Shea.
—I thought the house was empty.
—He’s my husband.
—And he came to steal from here?
—I didn’t know she was here, I said. —I thought she was in Ireland. Swear to God, missis.
—Eileen?
—It’s true.
—My.
Miss O’Shea moved across to Saoirse. She wiped her hands on her apron, saw the blood, and stopped wiping. She looked tired, and edgy, and embarrassed.
—It’s your daddy, Saoirse. Say hello.
She stared at me. Huge black eyes examined my face.
—It’s not, she said.
—It is.
—It isn’t. My daddy died for Ireland. You told me that.
—In case we didn’t find him. That was why I told you.
—That’s just stupid.
—I didn’t know if we’d ever find him. That was why. I didn’t want you to be disappointed.
I had to say something.
—You told her I was dead so you wouldn’t disappoint her?
—Well now, she said. —You weren’t around to suggest anything different.
Saoirse hadn’t stopped looking at me. The news hadn’t changed her face a bit.
—Well, Seer-she, said Missis Lowe. —I believe them. They certainly look like a happily married couple to me.
And that stunned Miss O’Shea. I could see it in the way she went rigid, and in the confusion that rushed across her face. She kept her eyes away from Missis Lowe’s.
—You’re not like she said, said Saoirse.
To me.
—How come?
—She said you were handsome and you’re not.
—I am.
—You’re not. Sure, look at you.
—You should have seen me before your ma got her hands on me. You’d have been more impressed.
She tilted her head, planted her cheek on the shoulder of her coat.
—Maybe, she said.
—Listen, love. I know where your mammy comes from. Believe me, there was no opposition.
—That’s just stupid, said Saoirse. —That proves nothing. Just boasting.
—Good girl, said Miss O’Shea. —He was always too fond of the mirror.
She was there again, the woman I loved. Suddenly there, as if she’d been hiding. Messing, playing, acting the mad woman. She was up for whatever – up on my crossbar, in charge of the machinegun. I was delighted, thrilled, ready again for anything.
—And what about you? I said. —Yeh fuckin’ cradlesnatcher.
There she was, I could see it, one of my nipples in her mouth, ready to bite down hard, very little stopping her, only her boss and her daughter.
—Yeh pup yeh, she said.
—Off yeh go, granny.
—Now now, said Missis Lowe. —Let us all sit down and—
—No!
It was Miss O’Shea, and music to the ear that wasn’t killing me.
—Who asked you to stick your oar in? she said, over Saoirse’s head, to the poor oul’ one.
Saoirse stretched her head back, watching the words as they flew over.
—And where do you think you’re going, with your Now Now? You ol’ rip.
—She’s older than you, a mhamaí.
—I know!
—Not that much, I said.
—Well, said Miss O’Shea, across her daughter’s head. —Are you going to phone for the police or what? Look at him there, the eejit, dying to have himself arrested.
—Now, Eileen, I don’t think—
—Go on, missis, I said. —You’d be doing me a favour.
My hands were still up, and running out of blood. I let them down, slowly.
—He’s after taking his hands down, a mhamaí. Will he go for his gun now?
—No; don’t worry yourself on that score. He’d only do that if our backs were turned.
—That’s the way I’d do it as well, said Saoirse.
—Do what, now?
—Shoot people.
—What?
—In the back. It’d be much easier.
And there was silence. Real silence, but for long breaths that tried to take back words and some bits of time.
—You’ve mice under your floor, missis, I said.
She sighed.
—Unarmed, I hope, she said. —This is turning into quite a day.
—It’s snowing again, Missis Lowe, said Saoirse.
—Well. So, it is.
The girl looking out at the snow, her total devotion to it; everything else and everyone gone – it was enough to stop us. We sat at the table and Missis Lowe sorted the coffee and did the talking. Miss O’Shea looked at me as she listened to her boss; she lifted her shoulders and eyes, letting me know that this was a new, different woman we were listening to.
—Many times I wished he’d shout at me. Even once. Or look at me, properly
. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d shown disgust at my wrinkles and my thin hair and my sagging breasts.
I saw Miss O’Shea blush. And I wanted to laugh. And I looked at Saoirse, making sure – already the daddy – that she wasn’t listening to the big people. But she was. She was at the window, concentrating on the snow, her coat and hat still on, her back firmly to us, and listening to every word. My daughter.
—I would have welcomed Mister Lowe’s disgust. I would have cherished it.
I looked at Miss O’Shea as she listened to the old woman give us the misery of her happy, silent marriage.
—And the opportunity to shout at him. To watch the reaction on his face. Any reaction at all. To have him look straight at me.
I sat and watched, into the afternoon – without an intermission from your woman; we got it year by year and month by fuckin’ month – and I listened to Miss O’Shea’s breath and half-words.
—Go ’way.
—I know.
And the snow must have stopped or gone on too long, because Saoirse was sitting beside her now. Then her head was on the table and I thought she’d gone asleep; her hat was off, her hair on top of her eyes. But I saw her eyes through the hair and she was staring at me. I winked but the eyes didn’t budge. I wondered was she asleep with her eyes open. But no, she was staring. Making up for lost time, maybe. Trying to make me match the word – father. And then the story had finally stopped and Miss O’Shea stood up, and Missis Lowe, and I must have missed it while I’d been trying to out-stare Saoirse. I was the new lodger.
—Ain’t going to do it, Pops.
It was a fight. And Louis Armstrong was going to win.
That was what the running was about. He wasn’t running at all. The man was standing firm. He wouldn’t work for the mob. He wanted the freedom of his sound. And, all around, they were closing in, ready to cage him. He was the city’s biggest draw, and dangerous with it – a genius bigger than any market, a nigger too big for the ghetto. He was profit – he knew it, and the lads wanted him.
—Ain’t nothing personal, he said that night. —I like Mister Capone. Nice guy, any time I meet him. But. They own the stage, they own the man up on the stage. Own his chops, own his breath. I go into that place, I don’t come out.
—Literally? I asked.
I knew the answer but I wanted more. I had to know why I was sitting beside him, why he’d chosen me.
—No, Pops. Not literally. I go home every night, sleep. But they right down here in my stomach. They got me. White folks. I’m a fine, healthy boy – just do what they want me to do. Play the nice things they like. Mister Capone like the sweet songs. And that Carmine.
—OH – TWO BY TWO.
And I do too.
—THEY COME MAR-CHING THROUGH—
THOSE SWEETHEARTS ON – PARAY-DE.
—Let’s get off this street, I said. —The fuckers back there are making me restless.
—Fair e-nuff, Mister O’Pops.
And he got us back into the crawl and took us straight till we were alone among the smokestacks of the near-end South Side. The air was red and hard to take, and he talked all the way, clear and straight, told me he was going to own himself or die, told me he was going to be rich or die, rich because he knew how good he was, die because he was never going to be owned.
—Owned and managed, Pops. Mean the same thing to the black man.
And he told me what I was there for.
—You my white skin, O’Pops. You beside me, I manage myself. I can cross the line. Any time I want.
—Why me?
It was hours since I’d spoken.
—Well, he said. —You white.
—That all?
—No no, nay nay. I saw you look.
—What d’you mean?
—At my playing. That night. Saw you look at the notes. You heard.
—Everyone hears.
—No. Not everyone. Not nearly.
He let that rest a while.
—You know, Pops. You know I’m doing things never been done before. I’m that Thomas Edison. I’m Beethoven, O’Pops, but bigger and better. That great Charles Lindbergh. I’m all of those guys and bigger than all of them. And different.
—You’re black.
—Yes sir. And I will not be heard unless some white man says the say-so.
We were on Cottage Grove now, moving north, towards downtown.
—But that is not the way it is going to be, said Louis. —Man once told me, before I came up from New Orleans. Man called Slipper. He say, When you get up north, Dipper, be sure and get yourself a white man that’ll put his hand on your shoulder and say, This is my nigger. And then can’t nobody harm ya.
—And I’m that white man.
—No, Smoked, he said. —That not you.
I was taken aback, and worried again. His smoke – he lit one reefer from another, all night; the ash, the burning wheatstraw paper – it was at my eyes.
—Who am I then, Louis?
—You the white man that puts his hand on that white man’s shoulder and say, No, man, this is my nigger.
He looked at me.
—You my white man, he said.
—And you’re my black man.
—That right. Smoked, he said. —That about the size of it. But not really. Between you me, I’m nobody’s black man. That seem fair to you?
—I don’t know.
It felt like morning by the time he stopped, his mouth and the car.
—Hambones and cabbage, he said. —How that sound?
—Fuckin’ dreadful.
He stopped the car, dead.
—You understand me, Henry?
—I think so.
—I think so too.
7
I made the coffee, braved the cold, shuffled as I worked, and knew that I was being looked at.
I was dancing.
—You’ve changed, she said, behind me, in the bed.
—How?
I was bullying the coffee-pot. She’d brought a one-ringed stove up to the room.
—You used to stand still.
—What d’you mean?
—You could stand still for hours, she said. —I remember them complaining about you, the lads, making them stand in the water when you were training them. Ivan gave out yards about you, before you knew I was even there. Trying to dry his socks after being out with you.
I put the pot on a tile beside the stove.
—I liked it, she said. —Even before. I’d look out at you in the yard, the school, with your brother. Standing there when the rest of the little lads around you were going mad.
I got back into the bed, with two good cups of coffee.
—And you found that sexy, did you? Two half-starved kids in a school yard.
—It’s a long time since you were starved, mister, she said. — You’ve become a skippy kind of fella.
It was two weeks since I’d broken into the smell of just-eaten griddle cakes. And it hadn’t been easy.
She dressed and undressed downstairs in the bathroom.
—You’re soft, she said.
She was looking at me but I wasn’t looking back.
—How’s your coffee?
—As good as it should be, she said.
She was still furious.
—I never thought I’d see the day, she said, —when Henry Smart would go soft. What age are you now, Henry?
I bit the bullet, and gave her the answer she already knew.
—Twenty-seven.
I’d brought home a gramophone. It was on the table now, beside the stove. The gramophone – the phonograph – was going to be my explanation. It was a handsome machine, two or three steps up from Piano Annie’s, the one I’d smuggled in easy instalments from the Dublin docks. This was serious furniture, with legs, drawers for records, a lid that upped and downed on oiled brass. I’d robbed it from the house five doors to the left.
I’d been away for days with Louis, in the Okeh studio – in th
e Consolidated Talking Machine Company Building, on Washington Street. The place was still in my feet. I’d taken the stairs here three at a time, the phonograph on my shoulder, all the way to the top. Soft, my arse. My breath still did what I told it to.
But I knew what Miss O’Shea had meant. I was off my guard, sleeping well for the first time in years. Life with Louis was building up to something big and probably dangerous but, so far, it had been good clothes and laughter. Breaking and entering, but none for weeks – Louis was working, guesting for Carroll Dickerson at the Savoy, on the radio every night. I was fat on happiness, not fat at all, just full of it. A father again – for the first time – and full of that too, curls and looks and little words in front of me. I was a family man now, and bringing home good bacon. But Miss O’Shea didn’t like it yet, and maybe never would. Time had stood still while she’d spent those years catching me. She was still in Ireland and I was far away.
She kept rolling back to it.
—Why didn’t you come home?
She meant Ireland.
—I was going to.
—Well?
—I don’t know. I wanted to stop running first. I had to do that. I couldn’t run back. And I only stopped running a few months ago.
I had to look at her.
—I had to settle into something first. Stay, you know. Be something, and then go back. I was looking for you, though.
—I’m sure you never stopped looking. When you weren’t up to your tricks.
She drank.
—Mrs Smart. I haven’t had a chance to be that, Henry.
—No. Sorry.
—They knew, she said.
That kept me still.
—What?
—They knew you were in Chicago.
—Who knew?
—The boys. It was them sent me here.
The boys.
Saoirse was awake; I watched her rise out of the camp-bed.
They knew.
And they’d always known.
And they were waiting.
I was still a dead man.
But, I wasn’t.
She slid out of her bed and came across to us.
—Do you go to work? said Saoirse. —Or are you still a robber?
—I go to work, I told her.
—In a big factory?
—No.
—Killing the cows?
—No. I used to do that.
—Policeman.
—No.
—Not a robber.