Small Things Like These(16)

At some point later, an upstairs curtain moved, and a child looked out. He made himself reach for the key, and started the engine. Driving back out the road, he pushed his fresh concerns aside and thought back over the girl at the convent. What most tormented him was not so much how she’d been left in the coal shed or the stance of the Mother Superior; the worst was how the girl had been handled while he was present and how he’d allowed that and had not asked about her baby – the one thing she had asked him to do – and how he had taken the money and left her there at the table with nothing before her and the breast milk leaking under the little cardigan and staining her blouse, and how he’d gone on, like a hypocrite, to Mass.





7




On Christmas Eve, Furlong never felt more like not going in. For days, something hard had been gathering on his chest but he dressed, as usual, and drank a hot Beechams Powder before walking on down, to the yard. The men were already there, standing outside the gates, blowing on their hands and stamping their feet in the cold, chatting amongst themselves. Every man he’d ever kept on had turned out to be decent and wasn’t inclined to lean on the shovels or to complain. To get the best out of people, you must always treat them well, Mrs Wilson used to say. He was glad, now, that he always took his girls to both graveyards over Christmas, to lay a wreath against her headstone as well as his mother’s, that he’d taught them that much.

After Furlong bade the men good morning and opened the gates, he mechanically checked the yard, the loads and dockets, before getting in behind the wheel. When he started the lorry, a black smoke came from the exhaust. Driving out the road, she laboured on the hills and Furlong knew the engine was giving out, that the new windows Eileen had her heart set upon for the front of the house would not be installed next year, or the year after.

In some of the houses, out the country, it was clear that people were struggling; at least six or seven times he was drawn to one side, quietly, to be asked if what was owing could be put on the slate. At other houses, he did his best to join into the small, festive splashes of conversation and thanked people for their cards, their gifts: tins of Emerald sweets and Quality Street, a sack of parsnips, cooking apples, a bottle of Bristol Cream, Black Tower, a girl’s corduroy jacket which hadn’t been worn. One Protestant man pressed a five-pound note into his hand and wished him a happy Christmas, saying his son’s wife had just given birth to another boy. In more than one house, children, off from school, ran out to greet him, as though he was Santa Claus, just bringing the bag of coal. More than a few times, Furlong stopped to leave a bag of logs at the doors of those who had given him the business, when they could afford it. In one of these, a little boy ran out to the lorry and picked up a lump of coal but his big sister came out and slapped him, telling him to put it down, that it was dirty.

‘Fuck,’ the boy said. ‘Fuck off, why don’t you.’

The girl, unashamed, handed Furlong a Christmas card.

‘We knew you’d come,’ she said, ‘and save us having to post it. Mammy always said you were a gentleman.’

People could be good, Furlong reminded himself, as he drove back to town; it was a matter of learning how to manage and balance the give-and-take in a way that let you get on with others as well as your own. But as soon as the thought came to him, he knew the thought itself was privileged and wondered why he hadn’t given the sweets and other things he’d been gifted at some of the houses to the less well-off he had met in others. Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.

When he got back to the yard, the Angelus bell had long since rung but the men were in good spirits and still clearing down, sweeping and hosing off the concrete, joking amongst themselves. Furlong took stock of what was there, marking it all down in the book, then locked the prefab and covered the bonnet of the lorry with sacks in case they got the weather people were expecting. They took turns then, washing at the tap, scrubbing their hands, rinsing the black off their boots. In the finish, Furlong took his overcoat from the lorry and padlocked the gates.

The dinners they ate in Kehoe’s that day were paid for by the yard. Mrs Kehoe, wearing a new, festive apron, went around the tables offering more gravy and extra mash, sherry trifle, Christmas pudding and cream. The men ate at their leisure and stayed on, sitting back with pints of stout and ale, passing out cigarettes and using the little red paper napkins she’d left out to blow their noses. Furlong didn’t wish to linger; all he wanted, now, was to get home, but he stayed on as it felt proper to idle there for a while, to thank and wish his men well, to spend time on what he seldom made the time for. Already, they had been given their Christmas bonuses. Before he went to settle the bill, they shook hands.

‘You must be worn out,’ Mrs Kehoe said, when he went up to pay. ‘At it all day, every day.’

‘No more than yourself, Mrs Kehoe.’

‘Heavy is the head that wears the crown.’ She laughed.

She was reconstituting leftovers, emptying gravy from the little steel boats into a saucepan and scraping out the mash.

‘It’s been a busy time,’ Furlong said. ‘Won’t the few days off do us no harm.’

‘What it is to be a man,’ she said, ‘and to have days off.’ She gave another, harsher laugh and wiped her hands on her apron before putting the sale through the till.