The Law of Dreams Read online

  Halfway up the flight of steps, with Fergus and Iron Mike supporting him on either side, Arthur stopped. “Don’t know as I shall make it, Iron Mike.”

  His face looked gray.

  “Come, Arthur. Yes you will. Hold on to your friends.”

  “This fellow Fergus is just over . . . saved my hide. He wishes to go navvying.”

  “Tunnel work down London way, as I hear. They say Mr. Murdoch has got a nice contract in North Wales, a piece of the Chester-and-Holyhead. Come along, Arthur. One step at a time.”

  They finally stood before the beautiful door. Iron Mike reached for the knocker and rapped it. “You watch yourself now, Arthur. You’re a brassy boy no longer, and must respect the house.”

  “Are you her crusher now, Iron Mike?” Arthur said lightly.

  “Porter, I am. They ain’t the need for crushing, the Dragon is not that sort of establishment these days.” Iron Mike looked at Arthur for a moment. “Grand to see you all of one piece, Arthur.”

  “And grand to see you, you old muncher,” Arthur called after Iron Mike as he went down the stairs.

  “Very nice, Shea is become,” Arthur said softly, facing the door. “When first I crossed the water, the Dragon was a set of nasty cribs in Launcelot’s Hey behind of a beer shop, the Bucket of Blood. She needed a crusher in those days.

  “Oh my dear, Fergus, I am feeling a little weathered —” Arthur was wavering again. Seizing the knocker, Fergus banged on the door. Arthur leaned forward so his forehead was touching the wood. “If I die, the fellows must wrap me in the green flag.”

  “No good talking that way.”

  “Isn’t it? And why not? What will happen?” Arthur smiled. “Is it the goblins? Will the sioga cross to Liverpool and eat me?”

  “It’s no good.” To talk of your own death was to roil a certain magic, disturbing the way of the world. It was dangerous and ought to be avoided.

  The door swung open so suddenly that Arthur nearly toppled over, but Fergus caught him by the arm and held him up. A plump, pink, yellow-haired girl stared at them with slightly bulging eyes. She was holding a scrub brush. “Look at you, Arthur.”

  “You always said I was a pretty fellow, Mary.”

  “You ain’t now. We heard what happened. They might have killed you. Perhaps they did, by your looks. Come in.”

  They stepped inside and Mary bolted the door behind them. The floor was damp from scrubbing. A baby in a crate waved its fists.

  Mary was eyeing Fergus suspiciously. “Who’s this creature?”

  “A friend, never fear,” Arthur told her. “Name of Fergus.”

  “Never seen such a dirty monster.”

  “Is the mistress disposed?”

  “Still in bed she is.”

  “Has she heard?”

  “I reckon so.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Her? Nothing.”

  In the front hall, water splashed and gurgled in a white fountain. Did they water their horses here? How did they get horses up the steps?

  There were green things growing in brass tubs. Looking up, he saw sky. Daylight was pouring in through glass panels in the roof.

  “She wants to see me, I expect,” said Arthur.

  “Well, you can show me your money first, and I’ll go ask her.”

  “Oh Mary, sure, in my condition —”

  “It’s her rule and you know it, Arthur. One pound, hard money, or find your way downstairs. Go talk to one of them pot girls, I hear they’re cozy.”

  Sighing, Arthur handed over a gold coin. “Not a hero’s welcome,” he complained.

  “No one in the Dragon never said you was a hero, Arthur McBride.”

  “Oh Mary, you’re killing my heart. Come along.” Arthur clutched Fergus’s arm. “We’ll go to see the Dragon herself.”

  “You can’t bring him, Arthur!”

  “Mary —”

  “You wait. Let me go and ask. If she’s disposed —”

  “For the love of God, Mary, I’ve had the life beat out of me.”

  The baby wailed. Mary walked over to it and picked it up. “Go on then, Arthur, God love you.”

  * * *

  THEY MOVED down a corridor, Arthur leaning on him. The floor shone, and pictures of women, ships, and horses were hung on pale walls. Stopping in front of a door, the navvy let go of Fergus’s arm, pulled himself erect, and knocked softly.

  “Who is it?” a woman called.

  Arthur opened the door. The room was struck with sunlight, smelling of wool, candle wax, flowers. There was a great carved bed with someone in it sitting up and holding a newspaper spread open.

  “Are you glad to see me, Shea?”

  Lowering the paper, Shea studied them.

  Her dark hair was pulled back, sleek. She was older than the navvy; perhaps twenty-five. She had gray eyes in a face so plain it was handsome.

  She reached for a cigar that was smoldering in a glass dish on a little marbletopped table beside the bed. “You look deranged, Arthur,” she said.

  “I’ve been over the other side —”

  “Hell, Arthur? Have you been in Hell?”

  “Close enough to Hell. Skibbereen would drive anyone mad.”

  “Come closer, let me look at you.”

  Holding himself stiffly, Arthur advanced across the room. Fergus saw bright, fresh blood sponging through the back of his shirt.

  “You’re looking older,” she said.

  “Too old for the Dragon?”

  “I knew it was you the moment I heard. Why must you do such things, Arthur? So ill considered, so foolish.”

  Arthur sat down on the edge of her bed. “You mean, so bold, and done so handsome.”

  “No — I mean foolish.”

  “Come, Shea — don’t drag me now.”

  “They’ll come for us one day, burn us out — they know we’re an Irish house. There’s more hate parading in those streets every day. There’s going to be the devil to pay for your fun.”

  “Did it for you, Shea.”

  “Oh blast you. For me? I don’t care a damn for your navvy rags.”

  The navvy grimaced.

  “Are you hurt badly?” she said, suddenly concerned.

  “I am feeling . . . a little . . . shady —”

  “Oh Arthur, you fool! What have they done to you? Let me see.”

  Dropping her newspaper on the floor, she threw back her covers and swung long white legs from the bed. The gown she wore was unlike any garment Fergus had ever seen, green and shimmering, with dragons and flames embroidered on the sleeves.

  “If I’m alive at all, it’s thanks to this Fergus here.”

  She glanced at him. Not knowing what else to do, he bowed deeply.

  “Here, lend a hand,” she said. “Take his feet. Lie back now, Arthur, and we’ll lift your legs.”

  They settled the navvy onto her bed, blood streaking the linen. Shea pulled off his boots, dropped them on the floor, and began stripping his clothes. When Arthur tried sitting up, she pressed him back. “No, stay down, you fool.”

  The navvy lay still, his eyes shut. His body was marked with dark, bloody cuts and swollen bruises beginning to show color.

  The room smelled like a flower. The walls were carved and polished and there were chairs everywhere.

  “Fergus, in a drawer over there — bandages, cotton stuff, salve.”

  Hurrying to fetch what she asked, he saw his own reflection in an oval looking glass.

  Filthy, unspeakable. A savage.

  “Is he dead?” Mary had appeared in the doorway, holding her baby and a steaming kettle.

  “He isn’t,” said Shea, “but one of these days he will be. If he thinks I’ll be bansheeing over his grave, he’ll be sorry.”

  Mary poured the water into a china basin, and Shea dipped a towel and began cleaning cuts on Arthur’s back. Mary nodded at Fergus. “What about this one?”

  Shea glanced at him. “Give him a bath. Oil his hide or he’ll
dry like an apple. Broth, bread, cabbage, but don’t stuff him, Mary. Small beer, if he takes it, and squeeze a lemon in.”

  Shea gave him a quick smile and a dip of her head. “Welcome, sir, our guest of the house.”

  Once more, he bowed.

  Mary snorted. “Come along, your lordship, and scrub away your sins.”

  “WHERE ARE we going, miss?” He was following Mary through the house.

  “You heard what she said — a bath for you. Arthur always has come with trouble. Now he’ll expect us all to die for him, which isn’t my idea.”

  “Only may I have something to eat first?”

  “She said you wasn’t. Nothing but broth.”

  “But I could eat anything. I could.”

  She clucked impatiently, but after they had passed a few closed doors, she suddenly halted. “Wait here. Don’t move.”

  She opened a door and slipped inside. Carrying the baby on her hip, she crossed a room where men in clean clothes were playing cards at half a dozen tables. The men ignored her, and he watched her fill a plate with cold meat, onions, and boiled carrots from a side table crowded with food.

  She came out and handed him the plate without a word, and he followed her down the carpeted stairs, eating with his fingers. They passed through a noisy, steamy kitchen where half a dozen women and girls were at work, then down a set of narrow, iron stairs that curled around and around.

  The baths were in a clean white cave. A fire glared in a stove. There were three copper kettles big enough to stand in.

  “What is this?” he asked, holding up a piece of meat from his plate.

  “Leg of chicken.”

  “Is it good to eat?”

  “Too good for you, I suppose.”

  “A bird is it?”

  “It’s a chicken.”

  “I’ve eaten birds. Used to catch a blackbird.“

  “Take off your rags.” Holding her baby on her hip, she reached to twist open one of the spigots, and water began sprouting from the pipe and roaring into a kettle. He stared. The direct violence of water was impressive. And hot — he could smell the steam.

  “Will you get rid of them awful clothes, boy!”

  He quickly finished his food and started peeling off the workhouse clothes. “Speeding with vermin I expect,” she grumbled.

  Skin of my days, he thought, staring at the clothes on the floor, remembering the snowy streets of Scariff, and Murty Larry.

  “I won’t touch ’em! Throw ’em on the fire.” Mary removed her shawl and swaddled her baby, then hung the bundle nearby on a clothes hook.

  He stared at his rags, smoldering and smoking on the coals until suddenly they flared up.

  “You’re more dirt than anything.” Reaching overhead, Mary shut the torrent and the room fell quiet except for noise from the kitchen overhead.

  He touched the warm copper sides.

  “Climb in. Hurry up, don’t be such a pecker.”

  He peered down through the steam. He was frightened of the heat but did not like her to notice.

  “Oh climb in, Fergus, if that’s your name. Hot water won’t do you any harm. You must sit down in it and soak to get the marl off your skin, you cowboy, that’s why you’re down here. Never bathed in a copper before, have you?”

  Her complacence and disdain were annoying. What did she know, all fat and pink, with her enormous pink baby?

  “Go on. Climb in. You’re quite safe here.”

  He swung one leg over, testing the water with his toes. It was stinging hot and he exhaled.

  “Go on,” she coaxed.

  He swung his other leg over and stood in the kettle, the hot water reaching to his knees.

  “Now sit down.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Slowly, do it slowly.”

  Gripping the sides he lowered himself inch by inch until he was sitting on the copper bottom.

  “How is it?”

  She was right — it wasn’t so painful, past the first sting. He felt sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  “Relax. Do you know what that means? Don’t think. Let your head go black inside.”

  She was scrubbing him with soap and a soft red sponge when the door opened and Shea walked in.

  “Terrible shy he is, missus,” Mary said. “One of them mountainy savages not accustomed to the bath.”

  “You can go upstairs, Mary, I’ll finish here.”

  “Is Arthur alive?”

  “He took a little brandy. The surgeon says there are no broken bones.”

  Mary unhooked her baby and left. Shea wore a neat blue dress, button shoes. She rolled up her sleeves, knelt down on the towel Mary had placed on the floor, and began soaping his chest and shoulders. He tried to relax as she lifted his arms. Before Luke he had never let anyone own his body. Shea put down the block of soap and began scrubbing with a thick wet brush.

  Luke kissing his nipples.

  The taste of smoke on her skin.

  Shea took a razor from a shelf and clicked it open. He watched her stroke the steel on a strap then test the hone on her thumb and he thought of Luke sitting on the stones but pushed that picture away before it could grip.

  The key of lightness and possibility is control of the brain. Don’t let terror in your head. If it starts, evict it.

  She began to shave the matted hair that had grown on his face almost to his eyes. The slip of the blade along his skin was a relief. He could not speak. She rubbed more soap in his hair, sluicing it off with handfuls of water, laughing at him when he sputtered. Her hands were strong, but tender.

  A horse would not settle under weak hands. A horse knew from the touch who to trust.

  “Are you going for America?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “That’s where they’re all going this year.”

  “Is it far?”

  “It’s on the other side.”

  “But this is the other side.”

  “This is only England — America’s another forty days by sea.” She dumped another pan of water over his head. “Where are your people?”

  He said nothing.

  Placing her hand on top of his head, she pressed down gently, and he let himself slide under. As soon as the water enclosed him, he was thinking of the dead.

  There is no guidance. Left alone, you find yourself moving farther and farther away from them.

  Stop following me.

  Let me go.

  I’m sorry.

  He came up sputtering. Shea laughed. “Who were you talking to — Neptune?”

  “What is that?”

  “God of the water, god of the sea.”

  “I’m talking to what’s in my head.”

  Shea plunged her arms into the kettle, soaped his penis and balls and asshole very quickly, delicately, her touch shocking his skin, his prick tingling, then stiffening.

  She stood and left the room and he slid down in the kettle, took a mouthful of water and spat at the soapy taste, worried that he had insulted her, and relieved when she returned, moments later, carrying a blue bottle.

  “Stand up.”

  She opened the spigot and warm water gushed down over him, rinsing off the soap scum. Shutting off the water, she made him step out of the kettle, and rubbed him fiercely with a towel.

  His skin was pink, his body whining with heat. She made him sit with the damp towel on his shoulders while she clipped his hair, then wiped his ears and nostrils, using scraps of flannel dabbed in oil.

  “You’ve never had it soft, have you? You’re a culchie; I hear Clare in your voice. A rugged little culchie. Are you Fergus really?”

  “I’m from Dublin, missus. Come over on Ruth. With Arthur.”

  “It’s all right, it doesn’t matter where you’re from. It’s where you’re going, that’s all that matters. Come now. Lay yourself down. I’m going to oil you, you little beast.”

  She had draped the bench with plush yellow towels. He lay down, and she wiped steam from
his face then picked up the bottle and shook fluid onto her hands.

  “There’s gentlemen in trade in this city would pay five guineas to have Shea oil them.”

  First she rubbed his face, stroking the bridge of the nose and under his eyes, making circles on his cheeks, streaks of warmth along his jaw.

  “Your hide is parched.”

  The oil smelled like sun on hay.

  “Don’t think of nothing,“ she said softly. “Sleep, little baby.” She rubbed the gullies beside the tendons in his throat. As she rubbed his thighs, then belly, his prick climbed up stiffly. She brushed it with her fingers, and he felt reckless and vulnerable all at once and pictured the Bog Boys racing eagerly up the road for the farm.

  Bending over, she kissed the tip of his prick then began stroking him.

  Everything inside that you long to let go.

  “Here it is,” she said.

  It could have been a dream and it felt very close to drowning.

  How a horse feels when it can’t stop running.

  He recalled the salt taste of Luke’s skin.

  Joy. Poison.

  There was something he yearned to give her as she touched him — he couldn’t name it, but the exchange was the whole meaning of what they were doing.

  You carry the world, within.

  He heard himself yowl like a dog stepped on. The convulsion was rigorous and awkward and there was nothing left after.

  All his bones, soft.

  She cleaned him, made him roll onto his stomach then began rubbing warm oil in his neck and shoulders, up and down the backs of his legs. She rubbed oil into his heels. “Sleep, man, sleep.”

  It was impossible to stay alive as she rubbed and crooned. He was drifting in a glinting salmon river. Women were calling from the bank, but he was letting the current carry him down, he was floating, he was gone.

  Pearl Boy

  HE DREAMED HE WAS ABOARD Ruth. The sea handled the ship. Green water spouted up a hatchway from the engine room and the master raced about the deck like a squirrel. Passengers and drovers, cattle and sheep, slid from side to side as the steamer rocked on her beam ends. Large blue fish swam loops around the ship, snapping their lips, ready to make a fabulous meal.

  He awoke for a few moments and thought he was drowning, but it was only spit in his throat.

  HE WAS ill for days, churning with fever, in an attic room of the Dragon.