Strumpet City by James Plunkett

Looking at them as they worked, Fitz was filled suddenly with pity. The wind and the cold had been an unremitting hardship, the steam and ash had attacked their eyes and added their own brand of torture. Yet except for Mulhall’s enquiry they continued to work without questioning what they were to get at the end of it. For most of them anyway, anything earned would be regarded as a godsend.
    ‘How about payment?’ he asked Carrington.
    ‘I’ll leave the list with the pay clerk before I go home. Tell them to call back about four o’dock.’
    ‘What am I to tell them about the overtime rate?’
    ‘Up in Nellie’s room,’ Carrington said.
    ‘There’ll be trouble.’
    ‘The casuals don’t matter—they’ll take what they’re given. The carters are more dangerous. But they have no case. They’re only entitled to overtime if they’ve worked for us during the day. These didn’t. They were working for Doggett & Co.’
    ‘I hope they understand that piece of reasoning,’ Fitz said.
    ‘There’s nothing they can do about it, anyway,’ Carrington said. ‘They’re not employed normally by us, so they can’t very well go on strike.’
    Fitz went home with Pat Bannister. They made tea, washed and lay down to sleep. Meanwhile the rest of the city got into the swing of yet another day.
    ‘You wished to see me?’ Father O’Connor said.
    His new parish priest, Father Giffley, looked around and said testily: ‘Please don’t stand with the door knob clasped in your fist—it’s a habit I detest.’
    He saw Father O’Connor’s flush of embarrassment and added: ‘It lets the raw air into the room. Come in and sit down.’
    He was seated in a leather armchair with a high back, his feet stretched out to the fire. On a table, which for comfort he had drawn over to the fireplace, the remains of his breakfast lay scattered: the peeled skin of an orange, a porridge bowl with its milky residue; a plate with egg stains and the stringy rinds of bacon.
    Father O’Connor sat down facing him. Through a high window opposite he could see the walled yard at the back of the church and a section of railway line. The Church of St. Brigid lay near the railway and the canal. It was an unattractive view which the overcast sky and the spattering sleet did nothing to improve. The glass wore a thick grime, the inescapable grime of the neighbourhood.
    ‘Yes,’ Father Giffley said. ‘I wanted to see you—would you care for some whiskey?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ Father O’Connor said.
    ‘A follower of Father Mathew?’
    ‘No, Father.’ He was about to add that eleven o’clock in the morning seemed a little on the early side for heavy spirits, but realised in time that that might be interpreted as a reflection on his superior’s habits. He found them disturbing.
    ‘Then you might pour some for me,’ Father Giffley ordered. ‘The bottle is at your elbow.’
    He had grey, spiky hair and a red face which the heat of the fire had roused to a steaming glow. Father O’Connor poured the whiskey and shuddered at the smell. In a few weeks he had grown to associate the smell of whiskey and the smell of peppermint sweets. His superior’s breath was always heavy with one or the other—or both.
    ‘You treat it very gingerly, very gingerly indeed,’ Father Giffley boomed at him. ‘Liberality, man. Don’t stint it.’
    Father O’Connor withdrew the glass he had been in the act of extending to his superior and poured in a further supply.
    ‘That’s better,’ Father Giffley said. ‘That’s a more likely looking conqueror of a raw morning.’ He screwed up his eyes, regarding the glass with approval. He had water beside him with which he diluted the sizable measure. Then he drank, made an approving sound with his lips and pursued:
    ‘You have been with me for some weeks, Father . . .’
    ‘Six,’ Father O’Connor supplied.
    ‘Six,’ Father Giffley repeated. The number seemed to give him material for reflection. He gazed for