An Excerpt from The Law of Dreams

Red Molly
A redhaired young woman was boiling wash in a kettle in front of Muldoon's shanty. Fergus watched her stirring the clothes. Small nose, small hands, wearing an old blue gown.

"They said you take lodgers," he called.

She looked up. Full lips, freckles. "Got your sub?"

He nodded.

"Let's see."

He walked up and showed his ticket.

"Show us your tongue," she demanded.

He stared at her freckled face.

"Come on, man," she said impatiently. "Open up, or go away."

He stuck out his tongue as rudely as he could.

She glanced at it, then nodded. "Come along, I'll show you what it is."

He followed her inside the shanty, resenting her brusqueness.

"There is three rooms. Muldoon and me has the one. The other is for lodgers. This here is the cosy, where we eat."

A table and benches on an earth floor. A battered armchair and a couple of three-legged stools in front of the fire, where an iron kettle was seething on the hob.

The girl rapped her knuckles on the table and pointed to a stain in the wood.

"Can you guess what that is?"

"I can't."

"Blood. That's where they laid out Kelly."

"Who is Kelly?"

"Kelly was killed Christmas week." She touched the stain with her fingertips. "Broke like a bowl of eggs. The fellows brought him in here, laid him on that table. They used to say he was rough, but he wasn't, not really." She rapped her knuckles on the wood. "Come, I'll show you your crib. You get a pot of beer with your supper. If you want more, it's sixpence."

He followed her into a sleeping room where clothes hung from nails on the rafter. The crib she showed him contained a straw pallet and a blanket.

"Was it Kelly's?"

"It was." She was small and quick in her movements, smoothing the blanket. She didn't bother looking at him. He sensed her impatience.

"What happened with Kelly?"

"They say he must have slipped while his nag was pulling, and the truck cut off both his legs. Muck found him on the line. I was getting the dinner, nine bits of mutton on string, boiling away. Except they carried in old Kelly, and laid him out on the table. I've scrubbed but it don't go away. Do you want the lodgings or not?"

"Yes."

"Give it over then." She took his sub. "The fellows will be back soon. Mutton for supper, spoileen. You get porridge with milk in the morning, and your dinner to carry along. I will sell you some tobacco, if you want."

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Molly they call me."

"Fergus is my name."

"The basin for washing is outside, and the jakes."

She left abruptly, and he sat down on the bed, trying to remember what had brought him out here. Mostly the pure, sick desire to keep moving, which he had felt ever since that morning in the snow.

As he lay back on the bed he could hear the girl, outside, stirring the wash.

He stared up at the shabby sticks that were rafters and the planks and scraps of canvas forming the roof and knew it could all come down in a good knocking wind, bury him. He could feel the weight of it pressing his chest, but he made himself stay flat in the bed, though he wanted get up to run outside.
The only true thing is how alone you are now.

You can't run from everything you're afraid of or you'll never stop.

It was dark when he awoke. The steam of boiling meat immediately awakened his appetite, and he got up and went out into the cosy, where Molly had lit oil lamps and was kneeling by the fire, stirring the kettle.

She looked up and grinned. Her eyes were green--sea green. Water and light.

"Sit down. They'll be in soon enough."

Sitting on one of the three-legged stools, he took out his pipe. Now that it was settled where he would live and eat and work, he knew he should feel relieved, but did not. There was a cold, stale smell in the shanty despite the fire. He felt its gloom closing around him and wished he were on the tramp again.

He searched his pockets for tobacco, then remembered he had nothing left.

"I can sell you backer," she said quickly. "That's what you want, ain't it? Sixpence a good handful. Straight backer, too. No junk in it."

"Don't have the money."

"I might advance you enough for a smoke. Would that suit you?"

"It would."

She disappeared into the other bedroom and came out with the tobacco. "You're hired for a tip-boy, I reckon?"

"Yes."

"The work ain't so bad if you don't lose your legs. Most of these fellows spill every penny of wages on drink, and jackets, and Liverpool whores." She gave him enough tobacco to fill his pipe, then filled her own. "He may knock you around at first—"

"Who?"

"—but if you can stand it, why, the wages is good."

"Who will knock me around?"

"Muldoon. Muldoon is ganger for the horse boys."

"Does he knock them around?"

"I suppose he does."

"Does he knock you around?"

"Sometimes he does. Ain't that fine backer?

"It is."

"If you last tomorrow, I shall advance you sixpenny worth." She puffed her pipe. "This is fine smoke, ain't it? Don't buy backer at the tommy. They will skin you, give you three ounces for four, and it's rotten old meal besides. A fellow told me they mixes ground old bones with their backer. My stuff is quite pure. Do you like playing cards?"

He had seen at fairs the boothmen and horse-dealers playing brightly colored cards.

"No, I never have. It's a con isn't it?"

"It is, and it isn't. Myself, I can deal a pretty honest game. Only for amusement really. And a penny here and there." She grinned. "Won't you like to play sometimes? You can always play on tick. I trust my fellows."

"Perhaps I will."

Drawing smoke, she held it, then let it sidle between her lips. She was looking at the table, where she had already set out supper plates. "I used to deal the fellows cards on that table—do you know the game Pharaoh?"

"I don't."

"It's common. They all deal it at the fairs. Me and my old mother, we've lived on cards. All over Ireland. On the fairs, you must keep moving. You don't like 'em to know you. Poor old Kelly, he liked a hand or two. I ain't played since they brought him down. I scrubbed the table, but it don't go away. He wasn't rough, Kelly, not really."

He heard noises outside.

"Oh, here we are," she said, "I hear the mighty fellows!"

She jumped to her feet and was lifting the mutton from the seething kettle when the door opened and a small, wiry man wearing a leather coat stepped inside. He stopped and stared at Fergus.

"New lodger, Muldoon," Molly said quickly. "Fergus the name. This is Muldoon."

Muldoon glared at him with black eyes. Fergus nodded.

Two others, a thin young man and an old man, crowded in behind the ganger, bringing a smell of cold soil in with them, faces windburnt.

"Sit down, Muldoon, you mollusk."

The girl helped the ganger taking off his coat and Fergus saw her lift a pistol from a pocket and set it on a shelf. Muldoon sat down in the armchair while she knelt and started untying his boots.

"Get his sub?"

"I did."

"Give it over."

She handed him Fergus' ticket.

"God, you are the fucking queen," said Muldoon, sitting back.

"Oh yes I am. The supper's ready of course."

The two lodgers shyly shook hands with him, muttering their names. McCarty was a horse boy, tall and thin. The other was an old navvy, Peadar. They placed their muddy boots in front of the fire then took their places on the bench while the girl began dishing out the spoileen.

The men ate using knives and fingers, silent, as though the cold wind had bowled all words out of them.

After supper, while they smoked pipes by the fire, he watched Molly chip mud off the men's boots, working grease into the leather with her hands.

"You're a horse boy," Muldoon suddenly said to Fergus, "but McCarty there's a boy horse."

While the ganger was laughing at his own joke, the tall thin boy—McCarty— looked up from his pipe. "Have you come from the South?"

"Liverpool."

"Any news of London? Are they hiring for the tunnels?"

"Why do you care about London?" said Molly. "Ain't I good to you?"

"Heard they was paying well on the tunnels." McCarty shrugged. "Like to see London town."

They continued puffing their pipes, staring into the fire.

Fergus felt loneliness crushing—the unyielding, metallic, otherness of the world.

Unable to withstand the weight any longer, he went outside and stood in the cold darkness, pissing and staring up at the sky of stars. The air buzzed with coal smoke. The sting raked the back of his throat and tears lubricated his eyes and dripped down his cheeks while he shook off his prick.

Self-pity. Wet face. Disgusting.

Should have stayed back there, let them bang you.

The world's an empty barrel, full of black air, scent, and nothing.

You're nothing brave. You're nothing.

Where do you go from here?

No answers in the darkness. He felt nothing near. Even the dead were gone.

He was about to go back inside the shanty when he encountered the girl stepping out.

"Ate a good supper, did you?"

"I did."

She studied him. "Look, boy, it's hard when you're fresh, always."

"Oh yes. I know."

She walked off into the dark until he could no longer see her.

"I never did like a new place," she spoke through the darkness. "New always feels wicked at first."

A moment later he heard the sound of her pee zinging in the mud.

"Are you Muldoon's wife, then?"

"Railway wife—they won't have girls in camp unless you must be fixed to someone. My old ma was transported, for stealing tools. They put us both on ship for Van Diemen's Land—only at the last moment, when the she-lags was all wailing, and the soldiers was knocking them about, I slipped down the cable and got ashore. Derry quay—that's where Muck Muldoon found me. I am a rough chicken, Fergus. Hungry enough to scrap and fight. A rough chicken will get her share and more. A rough chicken don't mind a little blood." Suddenly reappearing out of the darkness she gave him a push. "Let's go inside, man. Fucking cold it is! You're lucky to be off the road."

Muldoon was standing in front of the coals, slowly swinging a gold watch on a chain.

"You must warm a watch before winding," Molly explained. "Show him, Muldoon."

Cracking open the watch case, Muldoon displayed the white face with its black numerals and slender hands.

"It's French," said McCarty. "Muldoon won it at Rouen, when we were digging Mr. Brassey's contract, and he knocked a horse down."

"Tell us the time, Muldoon," Molly said.

Muldoon studied the watch face intently.

"Go on," she coaxed.

"Quarter past the eight o'clock." Muldoon looked around, daring anyone to contradict him.

There was something wild in Muldoon, like an animal, a ferret; handsome in a dark disjointed way, with his chipped skin, wide mouth, and thin lips. Eyes pale and lit.

Snapping the case shut, the ganger began carefully winding the pea-sized golden knob.

"What do you like best, Muldoon--the watch or me?" Molly asked.
Muldoon kept winding.

"Trade me on a pair of good boots," Molly said. Kneeling, she began to smoor the fire.

"Never let you go," said Muldoon.

Muldoon and the lodgers retired, leaving Fergus alone with Molly. He liked the warmth and stillness with the two of them in it. She was kneeling in front of the coals, greasing boots, while he smoked his pipe. "Here, give me a puff," she said suddenly, reaching out. He passed her the clay pipe and she took a draw, letting the smoke curl out between her lips. "I suppose you had a randy up in Liverpool and spent all your wages?"

He didn't feel like telling her about his crossing to Liverpool on the boat of sheep. He nodded.

"Did you spend lot of money?"

"Molly!"

Muldoon's shout came from their bedroom. Ignoring it, she concentrated on the boot she was rubbing.

"Come to bed!"

She grimaced at the voice. "Yes, yes, only I must get done the boots, mustn't I?" Taking up the next, she started rubbing the warm, pliable leather with a lump of fat.

Fergus could hear the lodgers already snoring in their sleeping room.

"Come to bed."

Looked around, Fergus saw Muldoon in the curtained doorway of the bedroom, wearing a yellowed undershirt that hung almost to his knees.

She kept on rubbing grease. "I must finish your blessed boots, mustn't I, Muck? And set out the breakfast iron. You go down, Muck, I'll be in by and by."

Muldoon stood glowering, small and wiry, bowlegged. "What are you looking at?" he said to Fergus.

Fergus shrugged and gazed at the fire. A few moments later he heard Muldoon retreat to his bedroom. She finished the boot she was rubbing and picked up another. "Old Muck's a little sore. Pay was made last week and he went off on a randy. They found him in a hedge. He'd spent every farthing, or the Welsh cats robbed him. Sold his hat, for drink. Sold his best waistcoat." Her hands, shiny with grease, were flying over the leather. "He'll fight, and slag, and pour beer down his gully—die in hole one day, Muck will."

Finishing the boot, she set it alongside the others at the grate where the warmth would keep the leather open and the grease would soak in.

"I don't like night anymore," she said firmly.

She started the banking coals with a poker. "Old Kelly, I can't hardly recall his face. See him dead on that table better than alive, and we knew each other pretty well, Kelly and me. He always said he was going for Indiana. Do you know where it is?"

He shook his head.

"It's America."

"I used to think Liverpool was America."

"Indiana is in America, somewhere near enough Quebec. Last year it was three pounds passage for Quebec. New York fare is twice that or more, on the Black Balls. Kelly's brother had a stone house, and a great many sheep, according to letters. I never seen the letters. It could have all been a story. Kelly was always going on about how he was to buy a farm and grow Indian corn, raise pigs, and keep bees as well. However. He's dead."

"Molly! Come to bed!"

She arose quickly and moved into the shadows and Fergus heard the curtain rustle as she disappeared.

He lay awake in his crib unable to push the girl—her quality of tension, anger, suspense--out of his head.

Old Peadar's snoring rattled the dark.

Thinking of her in bed with Muldoon was troubling.

He tried not to see Luke moving along the edge of his thinking.

It took a long time to sleep.