“No,” he said. “I don’t want a drink. It’s time for ye to be comin’.”
“Be off with ye, ye little divil,” yelled Gypo, suddenly jumping to his feet, with a great scraping and slapping noise. “Who are ye givin’ orders to?”
He took a pace forward and reached out his right hand, but Mulholland had drawn his revolver and taken a pace to his rear. At the same time he called out in a hissing whisper:
“It’s not me orders. It’s the Commandant’s orders, an’ ye better be careful about disobeyin’ them.”
Immediately Gypo drew himself up and let his hands drop to his sides. His face, which had lit up with anger, dropped into that peculiar wondering expression, which he wore when he was musing on the river bank before he went into the police-station. He looked at Mulholland in amazement. His forehead wrinkled. His nostrils expanded and contracted. His thick lips moved backwards and forwards, up and down. His face and his cropped skull shone in the light of the paraffin lamp that rested on the mantelpiece over the fire. The light also shone across his body, over a bulging bare shoulder that stood out white and massive and round below his brown neck. The shoulder muscles were immense. His body was white and hairless. His skin was perfectly smooth. But everywhere the muscles strained against the skin, in irregular, moving mounds. They swelled out on his breasts, at his biceps, above his hips, on his shoulders, just as if his head and neck were a massive tree growth and the body muscles were its roots, sunk into the body promiscuously and afar, during centuries of life.
He looked at Mulholland for some seconds. Then he turned to Maggie.
“Gimme me clothes, Maggie,” he said quietly.
She handed them to him in silence. He dressed. He put on his little tattered round hat. Then he put his hand in his trousers pocket. He took out all the money he had left. Two pounds four and sixpence. He put the four and sixpence back into his pocket. He handed the two pound notes to Maggie.
“Keep one an’ give the other to Katie Fox,” he said. “Ye’ll find her down at Biddy Burke’s.”
She nodded and put the notes within her blouse.
“So long, Maggie. See you again,” he said, going to the door.
“So long,” she called after him quietly.
Gypo stalked out unsteady, followed by Mulholland.
After a little while Connemara Maggie also left the room. She went down to Biddy Burke’s.
Biddy Burke’s was now thronged with people. They were mostly women of the district and their men. They had been talking at a terrific rate when Maggie came in, but a strange silence fell upon them when she appeared. She did not take any notice of them. Going up to Katie Fox, who sat by the hearth, on the seat occupied recently by Mulholland, she took out the pound note and offered it to her.
“Gypo Nolan gave me this for ye,” she said quietly.
Katie Fox looked at the note. Then she looked at Maggie. Her under lip was quivering. Her eyes opened and narrowed spasmodically. She was moved by some complex emotion that she could not master for the moment. She did not speak. Others began to whisper. Some spoke out loud and sharply:
“Don’t take it, Katie. It’s blood money,” said one.
“Take it,” said Biddy Burke indignantly. “A pound note doesn’t smell when it’s changed.”
“Money is the common whore of all humanity,” stuttered a tall, lean, drunken gentleman, who dozed by the window with his head dangling.
“I bet she got more than that to give ye,” said another woman.
“Yes, I bet she has,” cried Katie Fox, suddenly settling the matter that was agitating her mind, whatever it was. “I know her. Out with it, Connemara Maggie,” she screamed, jumping to her feet and squaring herself. “Out with it an’ don’t stand there tryin’ to melt butter in me mouth with yer soft looks. How much did he give ye for me? Don’t tell me he only gave me one quid. Yer a liar before ye open yer mouth to say so. Ye—”
“Well of all the stories—” cried Connemara Maggie in amazement.
“Don’t put on airs, Maggie,” said a woman beside her. “Don’t put on airs.”
“Out with the rest o’ the money,” cried Katie Fox.
“Yer a pack o’ dogs,” cried Connemara Maggie furiously. “Yer a pack o’—”
She gasped and could say no more, astounded and hurt bitterly by the slanderous attack from Katie Fox, to whom she had never spoken in her life before, except to say good morning. She fumbled at her blouse and took out the other pound note that Gypo had given her for herself. Then she took a purse from a hiding-place on her left thigh. She abstracted another note from that. She put back the purse again. She threw the three notes at Katie Fox.
“There ye” she hissed. “That’s all his money. Take it. Maybe it’s dirty like yersel’. I am well rid of ye. If he’s yer man, keep him.”
She spat and strode out of the room, swinging her arms and knocking out of her way all who came in front of her.
Some stared after her and swore. Others looked at Katie Fox. Katie had the three pound notes in her hands and her lips were moving. Then Biddy Burke whispered something to her. Immediately Katie sighed and clutched the three notes in her hand, desperately, staring at the floor. Then she held them out to Biddy Burke rapidly, without looking in their direction. They lay crumpled in a ball on her quivering thin palm.
“Take them, Biddy,” she whispered. Then she suddenly raised her voice to an hysterical shriek. “Take them, but for God’s sake hurry and give me something at once. Quick, quick. Give it to me, Biddy. Give it to me.”
