drip.
‘This is a stupid idea,’ Pierce said.
‘You should have asked for help,’ Radcliffe told him as he dragged the heavy trunk into the middle of the room.
‘I don’t mean me busting a gut,’ Pierce said and pulled out two neatly folded Union Army uniforms. Pierce let the folds drop free and passed it to his friend.
‘I’ve had worse ideas, I guess,’ Radcliffe said, holding the uniform against his chest and trying to see how it looked in the mottled mirror of the wardrobe door.
‘Not in the damned near thirty years I’ve known you,’ Pierce answered.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had a few.’
‘They were only stupid ideas ’cause you could’ve got us killed; this is a dumb idea ’cause you’re gonna make us look like idiots. I’m not a kid any more and neither are you.’ Pierce tried to button his uniform jacket, but too many years had passed since the last time they were worn. Radcliffe sucked in his midriff.
‘I reckon I could manage.’
‘Cinderella’s sisters had a better chance of squeezing their ass into the glass slipper,’ Pierce told him disdainfully and threw his jacket back into the trunk.
‘So we don’t go,’ Radcliffe said, surrendering to the inevitable.
‘And insult them? This invitation is a damn privilege and we have got to go now you’ve gone and gotten us all signed up for it! You’d better go and see O’Rourke.’
‘Which one?’
‘The tailor. He owes you. Damn. Never could abide regimental shindigs in my own army let alone anyone else’s.’
Radcliffe folded the jacket. ‘You know, you are becoming a cantankerous man of indeterminate age.’
‘If I saw the sun once in a blue moon I’d be happier.’ Pierce pulled a dusty old chamber pot from among the attic’s detritus and settled it beneath a new drip. ‘And another thing – let the boy ride.’
‘Don’t you two gang up on me,’ Radcliffe said.
‘You had him in the saddle before he could walk!’
‘And she gave me hell for it!’
Pierce took a deep breath. Their friendship had often led them into disagreement, and when it came to Radcliffe’s family Pierce was often the peacemaker. ‘He’s a young man – he wants to show you, for God’s sake. Don’t smother him, Joseph. Damned if the world won’t do that soon enough.’
Radcliffe stubbornly refused to be drawn. ‘It’s not up for discussion, Ben.’
Pierce fingered the gold braid on the dress uniform and then tossed it aside. ‘And how long do you think either of us can keep the lie going about his mother?’ he said carefully.
It was a question that had been discussed on rare occasions, but one that would never be satisfactorily answered.
‘As long as it takes,’ Radcliffe acknowledged. ‘I don’t know is the answer. Maybe I’ll be dead when he eventually finds out the truth.’
They fell silent. Pierce picked up the old blue uniform. It would be fruitless to keep worrying the emotional wound that Radcliffe bore. He sighed. ‘Maybe I’ll die of embarrassment at this damned ball and that’ll save me from ever explaining myself.’
*
Three nights later, as the light rain filtered through the gas lamps’ yellowing haze, a roughly dressed man made his way through the streets of tenements. He made no attempt to pull the collar of his near threadbare coat tighter. The dribble of rain would run down his neck no matter what he did. Being poor meant being hardy, but being poor and under the British heel was worse than being buried alive as far as Cavan Leahy was concerned.
He took pains to evade the policemen who were obliged to patrol the streets, their lives as much at risk now as they ever had been over a hundred years of violence from cut-throats and those with a plain hatred for authority. Gas lamps gave poor illumination in the mist-laden thoroughfares where rain could obscure the feeble light from a policeman’s bull’s-eye lantern. They made the rounds of the main streets each night from nine o’clock. By