Tom Murphy Chapter 14

The MacDonalds have always been overbearing and uncouth,
said the Mayor sagely.

Who was I to disagree? We were alone together in the mayoral office on a drizzly October day. The Mayor glanced out the window at the gloomy landscape. It fitted his depression. On some anxious impulse he took out his lower false teeth. He studied them and returned them.

They oppressed us McLeans once. They will not do so again.
He clenched his false teeth into a grimace.
Boy, how does a night of breaking and entering feel to you?

I was instantly agitated. I had done several night errands in the Council Chambers for the Mayor. Over the last month, to my great relief I had been called on only for day errands. Other boys, born with silver spoons, might think this new mayoral command an adventure. I was brought up too close to both the underworld and law and order to be pleased at all.

I recalled too many sagas of my delinquent relations and Dad's yarns of catching crooks to find it at all attractive. I would much rather run day errands and wash the mayoral car. But as I recalled my old headmaster's words, even the most challenging and rewarding tasks had their bad parts.

I looked squarely at the Mayor and replied solemnly that I was ready for it. The Mayor leaned back in his chair and studied me. I lowered my eyes. I knew this would be lecture time.

Councillor MacDonald, my boy, is dangerous to my heritage. When I first met him in verbal joust at the council table, I soothed my angry feelings with the knowledge this man was just a brawler. A cast-off seeding cauliflower.

I thought that was an allusion to Councillor MacDonald's cauliflower ears. Dad said, in his past he must have been either a wrestler or a delinquent.

But now I find with alarm and even a touch of admiration that this coarse foul talking joker from the gutter has learnt the qualities of a gentleman and even a Mayor. It is always a perilous moment when the public starts to think they can have the patronage of their betters delivered by their peers. The fat would be out of the fire then my boy. What next? Indians running India?

I bit my tongue so as not to rejoin – ‘Why not?’
I would have said that to anyone else except my employer.

Now, boy, Councillor MacDonald is standing for Mayor on a Labour Party ticket. What is your opinion about that?

I knew that our entire neighbourhood and family thought that Councillor MacDonald was a man of the people. But I delighted the Mayor by replying that I didn't know anything about Councillor MacDonald.

The Mayor rubbed his bony and warty fingers.

When I employed you, I told you the beggars out to get McLean were old money. Now the tables have turned. McLean is no longer the poacher of old money, he is their game keeper.
Mr McLean's lips folded back into his leonine smile.
Now the guttersnipes are campaigning to win the Mayoralty as populists. But I will win because you, my boy, will be my guttersnipe.

I nodded fervently and waited nervously for commands.

The Mayor cast his steely blue eyes into mine. I felt my limbs weaken and become paralytic. I was startled when he lent forward, unbuttoned my upper shirt and rubbed his cold clammy fingers over my chest.

What are you doing, Sir? I remonstrated.

The Mayor withdrew his hands. I hurriedly rebuttoned my shirt.

The Mayor's eyes became moist and dreamy.
Thomas Murphy, leave the Council Chambers at once. Tell not a soul what has passed between us or I shall eat you alive. Return tonight at eight o'clock to the annexe door. I will let you in when you knock three times. Be wearing your outdoor clothing. You will be introduced to a new acquaintance tonight and he won't be nephew John Wood.

I bowed my head and backed my way out of the mayoral door.

At home, Dad was away on duty and everyone else was engaged away. I sat down in the sitting room. To settle my nerves, I turned on the wireless set. Amidst a cacophony of unearthly sounds a sweet-sounding voice suddenly filled the air. I paid attention fitfully.

This honeyed voice was telling me that all men of authority in the world should remind themselves of Jesus' words.

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world and lose himself, or be cast away?

I turned it off. Those scriptural words only made me more uneasy. My eyes settled on the keg at the fire place. Dad must have come in earlier for a quick top up. I had surreptitiously licked the home-brew off Dad's glass once or twice. Its foul taste had instantly repelled me. Dad would never allow any of his children to taste it. I recalled how a swig by Dad every morning before his work instantly settled his jumpy hands and cleared his bearish head.

I examined my own hands. They were jumping so fast they would barely hold anything. I would be on a duty for my employer that if I failed, would have awful consequences for me and might ruin him too. I went to the kitchen and got Dad's grog glass. I turned the keg handle and let the brownish liquid spill into the glass. The handle would not turn off easily and the liquid filled to the brim. I flung back my head, opened my throat, and filled my mouth with the liquid. The next moment, tears were flooding my face and I was coughing violently. The room lurched, darkened and spun.

I waited for several minutes until all was normal again. My heart was beating wildly. I took a deep breath. I put the glass rim to my lips and drank slowly and cautiously. My ear drums were ringing. I felt a mellow calmness and boldness. I went to empty the dregs into the kitchen sink. I was surprised that my feet went rising to the ceiling. I wondered if Dad had discovered that and had reported it to the landlord.

I went to the boys' bedroom and changed into my outdoor clothes. I buried my face in my cap. The mantelpiece clock told me time was nigh. I slipped away to the Council Chambers.

The Mayor let me in and we crept to the mayoral office. The Mayor closed the venetian blind and switched on the light. A strange man was standing at the back of the room. He came forward with a cocky grin that stretched over and demolished his weasel face.

I was taken aback at the filthy state of his clothes and boots. As he walked towards us, a trail of dirty marks and dust were left behind on the once spotless carpet. He held out a hand and I gripped it. I only now noticed he had only one arm. I took it at once for granted he was a ‘limbie’.

This is your boy, said the Mayor. Accompany this man and do exactly as he says. You can trust that he is following my orders. If the boy does well, he will be paid five pounds.

That fortune rocked me. Even Dad working for a week for King George received less.

The man picked up a Gladstone bag. With me trailing his heels, he left the office and coolly walked out into the drizzly overcast main street. Only a few people sampled the open air. A few drunks lurched and muttered. The painted up and brightly dressed woman, familiar at her corner, smiled mysteriously at the man. When she saw his filth, she put up her nose. A policeman on a lighted bicycle wheeled towards us. I was relieved that wasn't Dad. The limbie slipped away into the shadows of a cul-de-sac so fast that the policeman's lamp never shone upon him. When the copper was gone, he appeared again as silently at my side. Only now did he speak.

Boy!

My name's Tom Murphy. What's yours?

I didn't hear that. We have a break-in job. I need a boy to get inside.

Why are we doing this? I asked, curious at last.

I seemed to be having a second dose of the home-brew. My ears were roaring. I felt that I could jump on top of these street buildings and fly down. I wanted to laugh and sing.
The limbie looked at me sidelong.

You don't have to have a missing limb or cough your guts out to be a war invalid,
he muttered sourly.

I thought it wise not to press further. We continued on silently side by side. The locked up shops and legal offices cast gloomily stolid visages at us lonely street walkers. Soon I noticed we had left them behind. The main street narrowed and twisted into angular byways. My elation sunk away. The night gloom descended over me like a black mountain cloud.

Dad's home-brew was still playing funny tricks on me. A panic gripped and pumped furiously my heart. I had to clench my teeth and grip my palms to stop me screaming and running away from this man. Then I became terrified that if I tried to run away, my limbs and balance would betray me. They seemed to be moving on their own capricious will.

The silent city melted away. I had become a puppet on strings manipulated by powerful malevolent men.

I looked up at the limbie, sure he would be staring down astonished at me. But he was walking as coolly as a man in a top hat and ten pounds in his pocket. I had never thought I would ever envy a limbie. Then I saw where we were now. My nerves gave me one more kick. I bit my fingers. Only the limbie's dead-pan countenance showed me I made no sound. We had entered the Chinese neighbourhood.
The adults of the town had always warned us children and my grown-up sisters,

Do not go on your own to the Chows' dens!

I had accompanied older brothers to their dingy fruit and vegetable shops. The Chinese kept to themselves when we entered. The old men peered with blood shot droopy eyes past us as if into a cloudy landscape. I also saw Chinese children and young men and women, but I cannot remember old women. My brothers became big men in those premises. They tossed the merchandise, argued and laughed uproariously, and called every male Chinese, John.

The Chinese were happy too with wide grins, furious nodding and laughter from the pits of their stomachs. I had felt completely safe with my brothers, not like in the Prody neighbourhoods where there was always a chance of an ambush. But I had no doubt if I had wondered alone into these by-ways and dens, they would whisk me into a sack, and I would be on my way as a white slave to China.

I didn't really believe that anymore, but the old superstitious fear gripped me again. I found the shops were shuttered. Above their lean-to tumbling balconies there were grimy curtained rooms with burning shimmering blue lights. Manly voices within the moving upstairs shadows were murmuring in a mixture of English and Chinese. The sounds were muffled. They mingled with soft excited shouts. They reminded me of the card games that Dad and his policemen friends had played at home for shillings and pennies before he had got too bitten by his home-brew.

I suddenly knew what my older brothers meant when they mentioned out of Dad's hearing having a good or bad night out with the Chows. It crossed my mind if I looked up into the upstairs windows, we might recognise each other. I had passed through my greatest terror and now was as cool as the limbie. I was almost swaggering in my new found confidence.

We left behind that neighbourhood and walked briskly through the city gardens. We passed by its monument honouring the town's heroic defenders from the hauhau, a statue of a glorious pioneer, and a creek where the feathered residents slept peaceful dreams. I envied them.

Across the street at the other end of the gardens, there also peacefully slept a house hidden away in the foliage of old trees and bushes. Its high sloping roof, tall brick chimney and verandah were faint outlines in the gloom. I recognised it at once. That house was one of Gustav's ill fated schemes. Gustav, Maria and I had already joyfully trespassed and dreamed there of lottery riches. I desperately hoped – No!
Then the limbie pointed at that house.

I knew that Doctor Eisler, whom everyone called the poor man's doctor, had bought the house. I had assumed we would be burgling public premises. I had entertained no conscience about that. They were rich men's property that when we took from them we were only getting back some of what the rich had taken from us.

As Dad had said many times,

Have you ever met a man who was one of us who had once been rich? The rich scream poverty and then you see the missus in a new fur.

Doctor Eisler and his big nosed wife were sleeping peaceful dreams in the house. The shock seemed to have a jet affect on Dad's home-brew. I gripped myself and leaned over in agony. I should have insisted to the limbie that we return to the gardens and I relieve myself. But after all, I was still a boy. I slowly straightened myself up and composed myself to an equilibrium of agony. I said nothing to the limbie.

We crossed the empty street and crept to a small lattice window at the back of the house.

Give your cap to me.

He put it in his Gladstone bag and pulled out a jemmy.

When I have jemmied open this window, you wiggle through. You will be in a doctor's surgery. On the right hand side wall you will see a book case filled with folders. On their covers are people's names. Take out Barrie MacDonald's folder.

The Doctor and his missus are asleep in the room on the left hand side. Act calm and silent like your mother was saying your prayers. If you are disturbed, I'll be gone and you don't struggle. They are old people. You could not escape without injuring them. Tell the beak you were looking for money and drugs. They won't hang you and the Mayor will take care of you.

I was still astonished how cool I felt. I might have been watching ourselves in a gangster movie. But when the limbie jerked the jemmy into the lattice and a corner buckled, my past life dissolved. A squalid life of public shame and punishment loomed before me. A policeman's son has no illusions about that. I was startled that I then recalled a Prody bible reading in their chapel.

‘Every man's hand will be against him.’

The lattice buckled and cracked in the silent air with a fearsome din. I was sure that sleepers half a mile away must be aroused. The man swore under his breath. He cunningly manipulated the jemmy with his single arm until a small hole opened up.

Now, boy, slide yourself inside and do exactly as I said.

I stepped backwards and glanced pleadingly at him.

Go boy!

Like Biggles, my number was up. I stuck my head through the hole and began to wriggle furiously. I made one final heave and wriggle and dropped to the floor in the room. I picked myself up and crept noiselessly on tiptoe to the right wall. There were no folders, only cases of books. I crept back to the window and the floor creaked like a plaintive cry. The man on his knees was gesticulating violently.

There,there, he was whispering loudly and pointing with his thumb to the left.

But you said go right, I whispered back.

You little fool, when I said right I meant left, he was red faced with fear and fury.

I was miffed at his arrogance. He was the man, but he showed himself to be the fool. I quickly concluded that he had taken his bearings while seated in the patient's chair, facing the good doctor. My fear had left me now and my coolness returned. I tiptoed to the left wall and found the folders. The names were in alphabetical order, but the Mcs were mixed up with the Macs. At last my desperate eyes caught their trophy. I took out the folder, slipped back to the window, and put it through the hole into the man's outstretched hand.

That's Anthony MacDonald. You think there is only one MacDonald in the world?

He furiously threw it to the ground.

My terror at these mishaps convulsed me again. I, this time, ran back to the wall. My right hand impulsively made a sign of the cross. I hadn't done that since I had last attended Mass. As if by an angel, my eyes instantly settled upon the gloomy imprint of Barrie MacDonald. I grabbed its folder. Several neighbours fell with tiny explosions to the floor. I rushed back to the window, and handed the trophy to the man. He checked it, and stuffed it into his bag. I stuck my head through the hole and heaved and wriggled myself. I stopped with my torso out the window. I could go back in but not out.

The man swore again. He picked up the jemmy, and furiously, with cracks the sounds of pistol shots, wrenched the lattice. Then Dad's home-brew bit me again. My dungarees were torn down to my hips. My family had not heard of underwear. Dad's home-brew flowed and flowed into a rivulet across the floor. I looked up at the man.

What now? my eyes pleaded.

The man swore again. He raised the jemmy and I ducked. At that moment I thought he was going to kill me. He might have considered it. But he wrenched the upper lattice a screaming crack. I shoved and wriggled again and was out.

The man was now even more panicky than myself. He stuffed the jemmy into the bag and ran with me treading his ankles. I tried to hold myself but Dad's home-brew continued to flow and trail us across the road into the city gardens. When we reached the creek, he swivelled his head back to the doctor's house. I followed his movements. The house was still dark and silent as a corpse. He stopped. Startled ducks flew away into the sky. He looked at me in that sour contemptuous way that I had seen Dad look at youthful delinquents.

Take off your trousers and sit down in the creek.

I meekly did so. I was enormously relieved that Dad's home-brew had left me at last. The limbie dunked my trousers into the creek. When I stood up again, the man's face grimaced. He spat in disgust.

You're just a little kid playing men's games. You, boy, might of ruined us all. The old Doc must of dosed himself and his missus with his laudanum. Here's your cap. Take the folder and put it under your coat. Take it to the Council Chambers. The Mayor is waiting for you. Who are you?

I'm boy, I stammered.

I don't know you. I've never seen you before. Did you ever know me?

No, I agreed.

The man turned around, walked smartly away, and vanished into the darkness.

I, with the folder carefully hidden inside my coat, my head buried inside my cap, retraced my steps to the Council Chambers. I kept myself as close as I could to the street buildings and I shook all over with the terrors that I had suffered. But the entire city was in one great breathing restful sleep. In the blackness that covered over everything, even the sky, I got lost several times.

At last when I tracked down the Council Chambers, I was no longer sure whether I was not in a troubling dream. I slipped behind the annexe and knocked three times at the door. The Council Chambers remained as silent as the doctor's house. I thumped the door. There was still no sound inside. I turned the handle. To my surprise and relief, it opened. I slipped through the black passages and opened the door into the mayoral office. I started. There was a heavy sound of breathing and I detected two large shapes on the couch. I turned on the light.

What I saw so astonished me that it took several minutes before I could connect the pieces together. I stood like an idiot with my eyes staring and my mouth wide open. At first I recognised that the hollow chested body, with old cheese-like skin, was the Mayor. He was under a coverlet, and his warty hands were gripping the back shoulders of a milky skinned and shapely form.

I then recognised that form was the Mayor's nephew, Wormwood. I then saw the Mayor's face was buried in Wormwood's neck. Then, and my heart beat wildly, I recognised the two men's clothing lay on the floor in a heap beside them.

I remembered how Gustav and I had lain together in Woolly Jack's hut. I had slept the sleep of angels. But something, that I now recalled was strange and unsettling, had happened to Gustav. Later in the night, I had moved myself away from Gustav's pressing and shuddering body. By morning and the adventure with Woolly Jack, I had let it slip from my mind.

I had been long experienced in bad memory slipping away fast to oblivion, then recalled when needed. Since I was twelve, I had shared two worlds with Dad that were further apart than the stars. In the world that everyone else shared, I was the son of the awesome and capable Sergeant Murphy. In the hidden away world of our cottage in the night hours, I hid in the corners and watched Dad act the goat, and then I put him to bed. No word would I breathe about that to the other world. The people out there needed their sureties like the sun always rising and falling on time, and Sergeant Murphy always on call.

Who was miserable I to throw them into disorientation and despair? They would cast me out for sure. I put my hand into the Mayor's trouser pocket and drew out five pounds. I put the folder on the table. I turned off the light. I crept out of the office through the passages and out the annexe door.

The first workmen on their bicycles were on their way to work when I slipped into our cottage. It was too late to go to bed. I slipped into the kitchen. I lit the gas stove to boil porridge and fry bacon and eggs for Dad's and my breakfast.

All my brothers and sisters had left home in disgust at Dad. His last housekeeper had left in a screaming fit and a black eye. I laid the clean cloth and crockery on the table. I fetched from the front door his morning copy of The Petrie Chronicle. I laid the newspaper and his glasses at his corner. The milk truck arrived and the milk man filled up our billy. Dad soon entered the kitchen in his uniform and sat down at the table.

A week later, the town people were amazed when Councillor Barrie MacDonald announced to the Council that for family reasons he would not seek the Mayoralty.