‘If my mother died,’ I said, ‘he would be married to Bridget. She didn’t mind it when he kissed her.’
Mr Dukelow shook his head. She might have been taken unawares, he pointed out: she might have minded it and not been able to protest owing to surprise. Maybe she’d protested, he suggested, after I’d run back to bed.
‘She’s going out with the porter in the Munster and Leinster Bank,’ he said. ‘She’s keen on that fellow.’
‘My father’s got more money.’
‘Don’t worry about your father now. A little thing like that can happen and that’s the end of it. Your father’s a decent man.’
It was typical of Mr Dukelow to say that my father was a decent man, even though he knew my father didn’t like him. In the shop Mr Dukelow outclassed him: after he’d recovered from his initial nervousness, he’d become neater with the meat than my father was, and it was impossible to imagine Mr Dukelow banging through his thin fingers with the cleaver, or letting a knife slip into his flesh. My father said Mr Dukelow had a lot to learn, but it was my father really who had a lot to learn, since he hadn’t been able to learn properly in the first place. Once, a woman called Mrs Tighe had returned a piece of meat to the shop, complaining that it had a smell. ‘Will you watch that, Henry?’ my father expostulated after Mrs Tighe had left the shop, but Mrs Tighe hadn’t said it was Mr Dukelow who had sold her the meat. I was there myself at the time and I knew from the expression on Mr Dukelow’s face that it was my father who had sold the bad meat to Mrs Tighe. ‘Any stuff like that,’ my father said to him, ‘mince up in the machine.’ I could see Mr Dukelow deciding that he intended to do no such thing: it would go against his sensitivity to mince up odorous meat, not because of the dishonesty of the action but because he had become a more prideful butcher than my father, even though he was only an assistant. Mr Dukelow would throw such a piece of meat away, hiding it beneath offal so that my father couldn’t accuse him of wasting anything.
In my bedroom, which had a yellow distemper on the walls and a chest of drawers painted white, with a cupboard and wash-stand to match, Mr Dukelow told me not to worry. There was a little crucifix on the wall above my bed, placed there by my mother, and there was a sacred picture opposite the bed so that I could see the face of Our Lady from where I lay. ‘Say a prayer,’ urged Mr Dukelow, indicating with a thin hand the two reminders of my Faith. ‘I would address St Agnes on a question like that.’
Slowly he selected and lit another cigarette. ‘Your father’s a decent man,’ he repeated, and then he must have gone away because when I woke up the light had been switched off. It was half past seven and the first thing I thought was that the day was the last day of the summer holidays. Then I remembered my father kissing Bridget and Mr Dukelow talking to me in the night.
We all had our breakfast together in the kitchen, my mother at one end of the table, my father at the other, Bridget next to me, and Mr Dukelow opposite us. We always sat like that, for all meals, but what I hadn’t paid any attention to before was that Bridget was next to my father.
‘Two dozen chops,’ he said, sitting there with blood on his hands. ‘Did I tell you that, Henry? To go over to Mrs Ashe in the hotel.’
‘I’ll cut them so,’ promised Mr Dukelow in his quiet way.
My father laughed. ‘Errah, man, haven’t I cut them myself?’ He laughed again. He watched while Bridget knelt down to open the iron door of the oven. ‘There’s nothing like cutting chops,’ he said, ‘to give you an appetite for your breakfast, Bridget.’
My eyes were on a piece of fried bread on my plate. I didn’t lift them, but I could feel Mr Dukelow looking at me. He knew I felt jealous because my father had addressed Bridget instead of my mother. I was jealous on my mother’s behalf, because she couldn’t be jealous herself, because she didn’t know. Mr Dukelow sensed everything, as though there was an extra dimension to him. The chops for Mrs Ashe would have been more elegantly cut if he had cut them himself; they’d have been more cleverly cut, with less waste and in half the time.
‘Ah, that’s great,’ said my father as Bridget placed a plate of rashers and sausages in front of him. She sat down quietly beside me. Neither she nor my mother had said anything since I’d entered the kitchen.
‘Is there no potato-cakes?’ my father demanded, and my mother said she’d be making fresh ones today.
‘The last ones were lumpy.’
‘A little,’ agreed my mother. ‘There were a few little lumps.’
He held his knife and fork awkwardly because of the injuries to his hands. Often he put too much on his fork and pieces of bacon would fall off. Mr Dukelow, when he was eating, had a certain style.
‘Well, mister-me-buck,’ said my father, addressing me, ‘it’s the final day of your holidays,’
‘Yes.’
‘When I was the age you are I had to do work in my holidays. I was delivering meat at six and a half years.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t the times change, Bridget?’
Bridget said that times did change. My father asked Mr Dukelow if he had worked during the holidays as a child and Mr Dukelow replied that he had worked in the fields in the summertime, weeding, harvesting potatoes and making hay.
‘They have an easy time of it these days,’ my father pronounced. He had addressed all of us except my mother. He pushed his cup towards Bridget and she passed it to my mother for more tea.
‘An easy time of it,’ repeated my father.
I could see him eyeing Mr Dukelow’s hands as if he was thinking to himself that they didn’t look as if they would be much use for harvesting potatoes. And I thought to myself that my father was wrong in this estimation: Mr Dukelow would collect the potatoes speedily, having dug them himself in a methodical way; he would toss them into sacks with a flick of the wrist, a craftsman even in that.
The postman, called Mr Dicey, who was small and inquisitive and had squinting eyes, came into the kitchen from the yard. When he had a letter for the household he delivered it in this manner, while we sat at breakfast. He would stand while the letter was opened, drinking a cup of tea.
‘That’s a fine morning,’ said Mr Dicey. ‘We’ll have a fine day of it.’
‘Unless it rains.’ My father laughed until he was red in the face, and then abruptly ceased because no one was laughing with him. ‘How’re you, Dicey?’ he more calmly inquired.
‘I have an ache in my back,’ replied Mr Dicey, handing my mother a letter.
Mr Dukelow nodded at him, greeting him in that way. Sometimes Mr Dukelow was so quiet in the kitchen that my father asked him if there was something awry with him.
‘I was saying to the bucko here,’ said my father, ‘that when I was his age I used to deliver meat from the shop. Haven’t times changed, Dicey?’
‘They have not remained the same,’ agreed Mr Dicey. ‘You could not expect it.’
Bridget handed him a cup of tea. He stirred sugar into it, remarking to Bridget that he’d seen her out last night. It was said that Mr Dicey’s curiosity was so great that he often steamed open a letter and delivered it a day late. He was interested in everyone in the town and was keen to know of fresh developments in people’s lives.
‘You didn’t see me at all,’ he said to Bridget. He paused, drinking his tea. ‘You were engaged at the same time,’ he said, ‘with another person.’
‘Oh, Bridie has her admirers all right,’ said my father.
‘From the Munster and Leinster Bank.’ Mr Dicey laughed. ‘There’s a letter from your daughter,’ he said to my mother. ‘I know her little round-shaped writing.’
My mother, concerned with the letter, nodded.
‘Bridie could claim the best,’ said my father.
I looked at him and saw that he was glancing down the length of the table at my mother.
‘Bridie could claim the best,’ he repeated in a notably loud voice. ‘Wouldn’t you say that, Dicey? Isn’t she a great-looking girl?’
‘
She is, of course,’ said Mr Dicey. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘It’s a wonder she never claimed Henry Dukelow.’ My father coughed and laughed. ‘Amn’t I right she could claim the best, Henry? Couldn’t Bridie have any husband she put her eye on?’
‘I’ll carry over the chops to Mrs Ashe,’ said Mr Dukelow, getting up from the table.
My father laughed. ‘Henry Dukelow wouldn’t be interested,’ he said. ‘D’you understand me, Dicey?’
‘Oh, now, why wouldn’t Henry be interested?’ inquired Mr Dicey, interested himself.
Mr Dukelow washed his hands at the sink. He dried them on a towel that hung on the back of the kitchen door, a special towel that only he and my father used.
‘He’s not a marrying man,’ said my father. ‘Amn’t I right, Henry?’
Mr Dukelow smiled at my father and left the kitchen without speaking. Mr Dicey began to say something, but my father interrupted him.
‘He’s not a marrying man,’ he repeated. He pressed a piece of bread into the grease on his plate. He cleaned the plate with it, and then ate it and drank some tea. Mr Dicey put his cup and saucer on to the table, telling Bridget she was a marvel at making tea. There wasn’t better tea in the town, Mr Dicey said, than the tea he drank in this kitchen. He wanted to remain, to hang around in case something happened: he was aware of a heavy atmosphere that morning and he was as puzzled as I was.
My mother was still reading the letter, my father was still staring at her head. Was he trying to hurt her? I wondered: was he attempting to upset her by saying that Bridget could have anyone she wanted as a husband?
She handed the letter to me, indicating that I should pass it on to him. I saw that it was from my sister Sheila, who had married, two Christmases before, a salesman of stationery. I gave it to my father and I watched him reading.
‘Bedad,’ he said. ‘She’s due for a baby.’
When I heard my father saying that I thought for only a moment about what the words signified. Bridget exclaimed appropriately, and then there was a silence while my father looked at my mother. She smiled at him in a half-hearted way, obliged by duty to do that, reluctant to share any greater emotion with him.
‘Is it Sheila herself?’ cried Mr Dicey in simulated excitement. ‘God, you wouldn’t believe it!’ From the way he spoke it was evident that he had known the details of the letter. He went on to say that it seemed only yesterday that my sister was an infant herself. He continued to talk, his squinting eyes moving rapidly over all of us, and I could sense his interest in the calm way my mother had taken the news, not saying a word. There was a damper on the natural excitement, which no one could have failed to be aware of.
My father tried to make up for the lack of commotion by shouting out that for the first time in his life he would be a grandfather. My mother smiled again at him and then, like Mr Dukelow, she rose and left the kitchen. Reluctantly, Mr Dicey took his leave of us also.
Bridget collected the dishes from the table and conveyed them to the sink. My father lit a cigarette. He poured himself a cup of tea, humming a melody that often, tunelessly, he did hum. ‘You’re as quiet as Henry Dukelow this morning,’ he said to me, and I wanted to reply that we were all quiet except himself, but I didn’t say anything. Sometimes when he looked at me I remembered the time he’d said to me that he wondered when I was grown up if I’d take over his shop and be a butcher like he was. ‘Your brothers didn’t care for that,’ he’d said, speaking without rancour but with a certain sorrow in his voice. ‘They didn’t fancy the trade.’ He had smiled at me coaxingly, saying that he was a happy man and that he had built up the business and wouldn’t want to see it die away. At the time I felt revulsion at the thought of cutting up dead animals all day long, knifing off slices of red steak and poking for kidneys. I had often watched him at work since he encouraged me to do that, even offering me the experience as a treat. ‘Well, mister-me-buck,’ he would shout at me, bustling about in his white apron, ‘is there a nice piece of liver there for Mrs Bourke?’ He would talk to his customers about me as he weighed their orders, remarking that I was growing well and was a good boy when I remembered to be. ‘Will you be a butcher like your daddy?’ a woman often asked me and I could feel the tension in him without at the time understanding it. It wasn’t until I saw Mr Dukelow going about the business in his stylish way that I began to say to the women that I might be a butcher one day. Mr Dukelow didn’t make me feel that he was cutting up dead animals at all: Mr Dukelow made it all seem civilized.
I didn’t leave the kitchen that morning until my father had finished his cup of tea and was ready to go also, in case he’d kiss Bridget when they were alone together. He told me to hurry up and go and help my mother, but I delayed deliberately and in the end I shamed him into going before me. Bridget went on cleaning the dishes in the sink, standing there silently, as if she didn’t know what was happening.
I went to my parents’ bedroom, where my mother was making their bed. She asked me to take the end of a sheet and to pull it up so that she wouldn’t have to walk around the bed and do it herself. She had taught me how to help her. I seized the end of the sheet and then the end of a blanket. I said:
‘If you go away I will go with you.’
She looked at me. She asked me what I’d said and I said it again. She didn’t reply. We went on making the bed together and when it was finished she said:
‘It isn’t me who’s going away, love.’
‘Is it Bridget?’
‘There’s no need for Bridget –’
‘I saw him –’
‘He didn’t mean any harm.’
‘Did you see him too?’
‘It doesn’t matter at all. Sheila’s going to have a little baby. Isn’t that grand?’
I couldn’t understand why she was suddenly talking about my sister having a baby since it had nothing to do with my father kissing Bridget.
‘It’s not he who’s going away?’ I asked, knowing that for my father to go away would be the most unlikely development of all.
‘Bridget was telling me yesterday,’ my mother said, ‘she’s going to marry the porter at the Munster and Leinster Bank. It’s a secret Bridget has: don’t tell your father or Mr Dicey or anyone like that.’
‘Mr Dukelow –’
‘It is Mr Dukelow who will be going away.’
She covered the big bed with a candlewick bedspread. She pointed a finger at the side of the bedspread that was near me, indicating that I should aid her with it.
‘Mr Dukelow?’ I said. ‘Why would –’
‘He moves around from one place to another. He does different kinds of work.’
‘Does he get the sack?’
My mother shrugged her shoulders. I went on asking questions, but she told me to be quiet. I followed her to the kitchen and watched her making potato-cakes, while Bridget went in and out. Occasionally they spoke, but they weren’t unfriendly: it wasn’t between them that there was anything wrong. I remembered Bridget saying to me one time that my mother was always very good to her, better than her own mother had ever been. She had a great fondness for my mother, she said, and I sensed it between them that morning because somehow it seemed greater than it had been in the past, even though the night before my father had been kissing Bridget in the hall. I kept looking at my mother, wanting her to explain whatever there was to explain to me, to tell me why Mr Dukelow, who’d said he never wanted to leave my father’s shop, was going to leave now, after only six months. I couldn’t imagine the house without Mr Dukelow. I couldn’t imagine lying in my bed without anyone to come and tell me about Vasco da Gama. I couldn’t imagine not seeing him lighting a Craven A cigarette with his little lighter.
‘Well, isn’t that terrible?’ said my father when we were all sitting down again at the kitchen table for our dinner. ‘Henry Dukelow’s shifting on.’
Mr Dukelow looked nervous. He glanced from me to my mother, not knowing that my mother had guessed he would be going,
not knowing she’d suggested it to me.
‘We thought he might be,’ my mother said. ‘He’s learnt the business.’
My father pressed potatoes into his mouth and remarked on the stew we were eating. His mood was wholly different now: he wagged his head at my mother, saying she’d cooked the meat well. There wasn’t a woman in the country, he tediously continued, who could cook stew like my mother. He asked me if I agreed with that, and I said I did. ‘You’ll be back at school tomorrow,’ he said, and I agreed with that also. ‘Tell them they’ll have an uncle in the class,’ he advised, ‘and give the teacher a few smiles.’
Releasing an obstreperous laugh, he pushed his plate away from him with the stumps of two fingers. ‘Will we go down to Neenan’s,’ he suggested to Mr Dukelow, ‘and have a talk about what you will do?’
‘You can talk here,’ said my mother with severity. I could see her saying to herself that it was the half-day and if my father entered Neenan’s he’d remain there for the afternoon.
‘Hurry up, Henry,’ said my father, scraping his chair as he pushed it back on the flagged floor. ‘A tip-top stew,’ he repeated. He made a noise in his mouth, sucking through his teeth, a noise that was familiar to all of us. He told Mr Dukelow he’d be waiting for him in Neenan’s.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ my mother murmured when he’d gone, and Mr Dukelow nodded.
‘I would have told you that tonight,’ he said to me. ‘I didn’t want to say a thing until I’d mentioned it to your father first.’
‘Mr Dukelow’ll be here a month yet.’ My mother smiled at me. ‘He can tell you a good few stories in that time.’
But Mr Dukelow in fact did not remain in our house for another month. When he returned with my father later that day, my father, in a better mood than ever, said:
‘We’ve come to a good agreement. Henry’s going to pack his traps. He’ll catch the half-seven bus.’