Conor grunted and smiled at her slyly. "Not up to any skulduggery, are you now?"
"Of course not. Besides, you could do a lot worse," she said, rapping on the door of her husband's study and entering.
The burden of the new position was visible in his face. He greeted them, scoffing over the demands of administrative work. "The annual budget and contract bids," he said, slapping the thick ream of paper on his desk. "A fine way for a scholar to spend his dying days."
The doorbell sounded. "That must be Gillian," Enid said, leaving Andrew and Conor to exchange knowing glances.
"Enid's a woman. The sight of a happy bachelor bends her female blood. She's backing her own horse in the Conor derby," Andrew said.
"Gillian's a nice girl," Conor said, "but I've already seen her this week. Not to worry, we'll have a grand time."
"Take your time, Conor. You're in a position to choose your own potion. Of course you could do worse."
The jibbering of the ladies reached their ears from the foyer.
"Conor, before they come up."
"Aye?"
Andrew took off his specs and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and nodded to the stack of contract bids. "Would you drop in after the play? I'll still be working. There's something I want to discuss with you."
*
Andrew Ingram raised his eyes from deep thought as Conor opened the door to his study. It was past midnight. He nodded for Conor to shut them in and make himself comfortable. As Conor slipped his jacket over the back of the chair, a bottle of scotch whisky and two glasses appeared from the desk.
"I want you to look at this," Andrew said, shoving forward a set of bound papers.
"What is it?"
"Ironwork for the district schools and recreation grounds for the next two years. Desk repairs, fences, hardware, flagpoles, new railings. As district superintendent I am also a member of the Londonderry Corporation Council. This second booklet here is the city's iron bid, light poles, benches, wrought-iron work. Includes the municipal and Constabulary stable." He paused and sipped at his whisky.
"I have a feeling if I touch these I may be married to them," Conor said.
"I want you to look at something else." A third booklet was handed Conor. "This is the bid entered two years ago by Caw & Train for approximately the same amount of work as in the present contract."
Their eyes rested long and hard on one another before Conor looked to the old bid. Andrew Ingram shoved his desk lamp nearer and raised the light, casting a shadow of Conor off the back wall of the office. He opened the cover and glanced down the first page for a few seconds, then set it down.
"Well?"
"It was a bit high," Conor said.
"A bit?"
"What do you want to know, Andrew?"
"How high?"
"They're stealing you blind," he said, leaving the chair and walking to the window, shoving the lace curtain aside and staring down at a passing carriage.
"How much?"
"If the rest of the figures are the same as on that page, they're overcharging by more than fifty per cent."
"Want to read the rest?"
Conor shook his head no.
"Caw & Train has been in operation since 1855. They've done this work for the city as well as for all the school districts in the western half of the county without a single challenge to their bid in forty years."
"Let me try to guess what you're thinking," Conor said softly.
"What kind of shape is your forge in?"
Conor shrugged.
"Can you handle it or not?"
Conor turned from the window. "That's not the question and you know it. They subcontract more than half the work to the little shops around the Waterside. Anyone can do that. Is this closet worth opening? I'm doing just fine as it is."
"Let me put it to you this way. I can open a new school in Dunnamanagh with what we can save on this contract. They've been waiting there on promises for eight years. They've an enlightened priest and he's promised me a starting class of forty students."
"Look, I'm in debt up to my eyes to the Bogside Association. I could never do this without discussing it with Kevin O'Garvey, and he's in London."
"How convenient."
"I've got a dozen men and their families to feed. You're close to Lady Caroline. Why don't you ask her to intercede for your new school?"
Andrew's face grew taut and he leaned over his desk, pointing a ruler like a teacher. "Because education is not a Hubble charity. Moreover, no new school should be the object of a conspiracy. This whole place reeks with deals made behind closed doors."
"For God's sake, I'm just getting on my feet, Andrew."
"Sorry I brought the whole thing up."
"Mind you, I'm not a coward."
"You don't have to explain, Conor. It's one thing to dream of insurrection in the lofty mountain air of a booley house. You're getting to be a big man here."
"And yourself, Andrew. They'll snuff out your whole career like that."
Ingram rested back in his chair and shrugged. "This is my career, Conor. All I know is that every child in this county could have been educated on what they've stolen to create a false prosperity in order to pay off and hold onto loyal subjects in Londonderry. That's Ulsterism, Conor Larkin. Of course I'm not an idealist of the Gaelic League or an Irish alehouse revolutionary like yourself. I'm just a plain old schoolteacher."
"You've no right to talk to me like that!"
"No, I guess I don't. I suppose a year of comforts can water down one's rage over injustice."
Conor snatched up his glass and downed its contents and glared at the stubborn, needling, hurting man opposite him. He poured another shot and did that one in as well, then hung his head, standing in the center of the floor, and tried twice, three times to argue but no words came out. He edged back to the desk, sat and turned the booklets around and took a pencil from the holder. "Mary help us," Conor said.
CHAPTER SIX
From the moment Conor entered his bid, he kept a watch on the forge by rotating a guard among the four apprentices. A simple but effective alarm was rigged up to set off a steam whistle if the doors and windows were tampered with. It could be heard at Celtic Hall and the recreation grounds where the small army of loiterers was always about.
The whistle went off for the first time in the middle of the night several hours after the Londonderry Corporation Council opened the sealed bids. Frank Carney had tried to slip into the forge and was in a boil. When calm was restored, Frank made up the ladder to the loft where Conor lived.
"Why didn't nobody tell me about that goddamned whistle!" he demanded.
"I'd have gladly disconnected it if I'd have, known you were going to make a two o'clock visit."
Frank roared about in the quarters cluttered with books. His gold and lacquer didn't shout out, but drooped just as Carney was disheveled and irate.
"Jeese, I thought you were a smart kid. Well, you've gone and done it. I've been talking myself blue in the face to the Caw & Train people and the Corporation Council for four solid hours. What the fuck were you thinking of!"
"The only sin I'm guilty of is catching a thief in the act," Conor answered.
"Come on, you're talking to me, Frank Carney. We've got to live with those people, boy. This shit's got to get undone. You've got to cancel the bid."
"I don't see why."
"You dumb son of a bitch, where have you been for the past year? You've broken all the rules."
"They're not my rules and I don't intend to live by them."
"Oh, you don't, huh?"
"No, I don't."
"Then stuff this in your craw, Conor. You're in debt to the Bogside Association and you ain't making no goddam bids like this without our approval. We'll put you out of business just like we put you in."
"Hold on, Frank," Conor said softly. "If I had known there were deals attached to the loan, I'd never have taken it. If you're saying that you made deals ab
out this forge behind my back, then close me down, man."
"I swear I don't believe you! All of life in Bogside is one big deal. How the hell do you think I operate my brewery? Do you think I own seven public houses on the Protestant side of the river because they like my Irish wit and charm? You don't have to spell these fucking things out. It's a way of life, man, and only a smart boy can make his way through it."
"I've never been accused of being smart," Conor answered.
"Bullshit! You want to be a hero with all your smart lectures at the Gaelic League and you want to be a fucking hero now with this bid!" Carney grabbed at his pulsating heart and slumped to a chair gasping for breath. "Get this straight, Larkin," he gasped, "I ain't getting closed down on account of you. I ain't going back after how far I've come."
"Why don't you pat a couple orphans on the head and give the Bishop a pair of golden candlesticks and tell everybody what a good Catholic you are?"
"You goddamned son of a bitch!" Carney screamed, lunging at Conor. His blows were warded off harmlessly, then Conor grabbed him by the lapels and exerted just enough strength to get the message across and Carney went limp.
"You're out of shape, Frank, you shouldn't exert yourself."
Carney reeled back grunting, then clutched at his roaring stomach. "They're looking to me to straighten out this mess," he snarled. "I'm talking to the Caw & Train people in the morning and you'd better not cross me up. You either get in line or I'm closing you down."
"Be careful going down the ladder, Frank, don't fall. It would be a great loss."
*
Conor Larkin walked the night out skirting the sacred bastions, then went along the strand of the River Foyle. He stopped for a moment as he always did at the customs station and remembered the day his frightened brother emigrated, and he wondered more heavily than ever if it was not the bottom line for them all. Past Magee College the way opened up, the old road to home. Dawn found him at Madam's Bank between Pennyburn Light and Crook Lighthouse at the last bend of the river. Derry looked so peaceful from here in its rolling rhythm of chimney potted slate roofs.
The four-faced clock on the Guild Hall tower was heard faintly tolling the noon hour as he continued to look out aimlessly from a bench on the city gardens bordering Madam's Bank.
"Morning."
Conor peeked over his shoulder to see Father McShane take up the opposite end of the bench. "I found you here once so I figured you might be here again. We all have our favorite meditation places."
"Looks so peaceful from here," Conor said.
"How's Frank?"
"Oh, he did a monumental amount of bloodletting. The vote of the board of the Bogside Association stands tied as of the moment. One in favor and one against C. Larkin's ill-advised bid. Frank realizes that Kevin will go along with me, so he's been with the Caw & Train people all morning trying to salvage his ass."
"I should have known all along he was buying his way into heaven."
"Frank's the ultimate corruption of the system. Natives taking jobs from the colonizers is against the primary dogma of Ulsterism and all civilized rules, old chap. Obviously, you knew what you were doing when you did it and Frank isn't going to get his throat cut following you."
"How do you feel about it, Father?"
"I voted with you."
"That's not what I asked."
His boyish face looked away with a certain longing as he pondered.
"My first reaction was one of resigned sorrow. Aren't things bad enough without taking this on? But that moment passed. It had to come to this sooner or later and somehow I always figured you were going to be the one to pull the switch on them."
They got up and walked along the rose path. "Andrew Ingram, there's a lad," the priest said. "Are you worried about him?"
"Him? No. He's figured it all out a long time ago. He's like my daddy, quiet. I've been thinking about my daddy most of the night. He didn't do it once, he did it a hundred times. I remember him walking alone across the diamond in Ballyutogue to cast the first vote in our lifetimes. Tomas did it without singing his own praises. He lives revolution in his own way on a day-by-day basis. I'm worried about Conor Larkin. All my life I've prepared for a certain moment and said to myself, if there was only something I could do. The moment came and I choked with fear. I said to Andrew, "Go crawling to Lady Caroline, do anything, but don't get -me involved, a contract bid isn't the kind of insurrection I fancy." He saw right through me, Father Pat; I'm a public house patriot, one of Ireland's vast number."
"I told you I groaned inside when I heard about the bid," the priest answered. "It's the same thing as you felt. We all lose sight of who we are and why we're here. Sometimes after a few brutal scenes down in the Bogside I limp back up to my room and look down on that dirty place and I think of how I'd like to be an ordinary man seeking ordinary pleasures."
"You're just buttering me up, Father Pat."
"To hell I am. I'm no image of Christ, only a tin replica. Do you think the idea of a woman has never passed through my mind?"
Conor was suddenly seized with the reality of the human hells the man bore and the strangeness of it awed him.
"It's neither sin nor failure to break in a moment of anxiety," he continued. "The only failure is not to recognize what you've done and let it slide by. Frank Carney has arranged a meeting between you and Roy Bardwick, the director of Caw & Train. Will you see him?"
"I've got to know if anybody on the board made any kind of deal about my forge."
"I didn't. That leaves two. Chances are Kevin didn't. That leaves one."
"It will do no good to meet with him," Conor said.
"Nor will it do any harm. You're his peer now and I don't think you should start off by doing to them what they've done to us."
*
Roy Bardwick seemed uncomfortable spirited to and hidden in Frank Carney's chapel in the cathedral. The room was filled with dull-eyed ornate statues of Roman paganism. Father Pat opened the gate in the grille, letting Conor in, then left. They studied one another. Bardwick was a big man, almost Conor's size, and would have been if his seventy years had not stooped him a trifle. His head was thatched in white but his grip was firm as they shook hands. For a moment the scene reminded Conor of his own daddy meeting with Luke Hanna to bargain, to maneuver for a little air to breathe for his people. Roy Bardwick was old but infinitely calm and certain of himself.
"I know you, Larkin. I've seen you before."
"I worked at the graving dock over a year ago for a few weeks during an emergency."
"That's it, when the two Canadian sail steamers hobbled in from a storm. I never forget a face. Let's get down to cases. Frank Carney has convinced me, at least, he was in the dark about your bid."
"Frank's telling the truth."
"It was you and Ingram, then."
"Maybe. As long as we're opening on a note of candor, what about Tippy Hay?"
"It wasn't my doing, Larkin. I personally like old Tippy. On such matters things are understood. You don't have to issue written orders."
"On the other hand," Conor said, "you did nothing to prevent it."
"Why should I?" Bardwick said, his toughness becoming apparent.
"Who are you speaking for?" Conor asked.
"Everybody, including myself. While I was sitting here waiting for you I was after thinking, How do I go about this? No use making threats because if you were the kind of man who yielded to them you'd never have made the bid in the first place. I'm thinking we'd better talk straight."
"Go on."
"I know what you're after, I know what Ingram's after. Now let me tell you what I'm after personally. I'm seventy and I retire on full pension in two years. I've put in over forty years at the dock, from the day it was built. If I let that work get away, it could jeopardize everything. I ain't talking about the money, only the principles. Do you see my point?"
"Aye."
"As for Ingram, the Corporation Council is willing to re-evaluate
its budget in regards to new school development. He'll get his school in Dunnamanagh next year."
"That leaves me and Caw & Train," Conor said.
"Taking Carney at his word that this was your doing and you're being obstinate, we all sat down and figured a reasonable approach. Some of the lads wanted all-out war. I didn't. Maybe there's a new scheme of things coming but we ain't ready for it. My people get very jumpy over this matter. Going on the premise that war ain't going to do any of us any good, we're making a proposal. We want you to either withdraw your bid or don't contest it when it's declared null and void. The Corporation Council will find a technical reason, lack of facilities or something like that. The Caw & Train bid will stand. As you know, most of this work is subcontracted. All the small forges around Waterside have depended on this income for thirty years and we have to take care of these people."
"And my cut?"
"Out of the remaining work which is done at the dock, I am willing to subcontract twenty per cent of it to your forge."
Conor glanced at a bloodied Christ in the marble arms of a doe-eyed Virgin. His hand traced over the sarcophagus. The escape was there! He could come into a windfall without a bloody nose. The rationale of live and let live was almost palatable and by any accounting it would have to be considered as a victory and a breakthrough. Yet in the end the inflated bid would stand. Who would pay for it if not his own people by substandard lives? It Would be another conspiracy made in a dark place and, although an inch had been given grudgingly, the system would remain in all its foulness.
Bardwick unfurled a handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously. "As I said, Larkin, I'm not going to try to intimidate you but you'd be a fool to think you're home free if you turn it down. Go along with this for a while until my people get used to the idea of competition."
"For two years, when you're out of it?"
"I don't give a shit what happens after I'm retired."
"When I was a boy," Conor said, "we had an old squire in our district. Family had held the seat in Commons for generations. Can you imagine the threats and breast beating that went on when a Land Leaguer challenged him? "Give us time to get used to it," they cried along with their intimidations. But the time had come for a change and the Land Leaguer won and life went on. Sorry, Mr. Bardwick."