Dublin, 1825
Sorcha McGinn laid the dish down in front of her children. Walter, being the oldest child, was given a smaller piece, for it was good to give the greater share to those who needed it more. Like Tadgh, their working father, or young Christy, small and frail for her age. It was just one of many Bible passages which Walter's mother repeated as lessons to her children.
Sorcha had been orphaned at a young age and grown up in a foundling hospital. She had spoken often of how the nuns had raised her and loved her as their own, and she never failed to stress the importance of God's law to her children. Any hardship could be borne by those who were in God's graces, who followed the righteous path, who abstained from vice and sin. At ten, Walter had already begun to wonder why a woman like his Ma had ever ended up with a man like his Dadai.
"*"* "* "* "* "* "* "*
It was four years since Walter had first gone down the stairs and seen his Ma tending to his Dadai's injuries. Just a few days later, Tadgh had taken Walter on a stroll down to the Liffey. As they sat beside the river which cut through their city, Tadgh told him about how he defended his Catholicism in battle against the Protestants.
"It was no more than your Seanathair did," Tadgh remarked as he looked down at Walter with those fierce-looking eyes of his. "Both of them, at that." He'd brought his hip-flask, and he began to sip from it.
Dadai's Dadai, as Walter learned, had been a hero named Finnbarr McGinn. He had joined a man named Robert Emmett. "A great man, so he was," stressed Tadgh with a voice that Walter had never heard from him before. "He fought to free us from Protestant tyranny. He stood with Wolfe Tone, and 'twas our kin amongst the few that stood by with Emmett in '03."
"What happened?" Walter had asked, utterly enthralled.
"They were betrayed," Tadgh snarled. "By those fellow Irish who feared their tyrants more than they loved liberty, and by their own comrades. Emmett put his faith in the people, and they turned their backs on him. But we stayed loyal! We fought for him and died for him!"
Walter had not fully understood it all as a boy, but he never forgot his father's words, and slowly the message became clearer over the years.
According to his father, Robert Emmett had fought valiantly against the Protestant tyrants, as had his ardent followers. They'd been working men, proud Catholics who refused to live on their knees. Finnbarr McGinn had been one of those men, and he had even helped to slay a rich man during the uprising. "A traitor, he was," Tadgh had snarled. He had drunk so much from his hip-flask that his words were slurred, and he cursed in between his account of what had happened. "A right gombeen, he was. He had it coming." He did not give further details; instead, he changed course and spoke of the aftermath.
"Emmett, now, he knew his hour had come, but he chose that hour himself. He told his men to stand down to save their lives, and he went to see his beloved one more time and waited at her home to be arrested."
Much to Walter's shock, he saw a tear course down his Dadai's face. He had never seen him cry before; he had not thought Tadgh capable of such emotion. If Walter had cried, he would have gotten a beating. 'Who was this Emmett, to make Da mourn him so much?'
"Da chose to die with Emmett," Tadgh went on. "Ma took me to watch him hang. We was too far away to hear his last words, but I saw him dance the jig." Walter was too frightened to ask what the 'jig' was. It took all his efforts not to cry along with his father.
Tadgh had taken Walter home after that, and by the following day, he behaved as though the talk had never happened. Walter followed suit, and it was a long time before he heard more about his rebellious grandfather.
That conversation had been the first of many others, however. Tadgh told Walter about how a man must fight in such times, or else fail to be a man. He had shown off the scars on his body, speaking of how he'd earned each one.
Walter, who had been eight years old at the time, was horrified when he first learned the truth. He had always thought that Da's shillelagh was a weapon of great beauty, until he saw it come home darkened with blood.
As the years passed, though, it was easier to comprehend. Walter became exposed towards the danger of the streets, and he saw his first fight when he was eight years old, watching two boys going at each other with pieces of wood, until Tadgh waded in with his shillelagh, halting the violence. Walter had loved his father at that moment, and was even more assured of his father's goodness when Tadgh immediately told him that only a fool sought violence blindly. One must be able to bite his pride at small insults, knowing when someone was serious or not.
Of course, Tadgh often broke that rule. Walter would be confused for many months at why this was so, then as he got older, he knew that his father was most involved in fighting when he was drunk. The spirits he drank were the cause of his most violent tempers, when he staggered into the house late at night, cursing as he rubbed an old wound. He would holler at Rose, who prayed to God to forgive her husband for being so blasphemous. Walter began to pray as well, hoping that God might listen to two voices sooner than one.
"*"*" *"* "* "*"*" *"*"* "*"*
Walter was too young to help his father, and the family knew nobody who was interested in taking on a poor Irish boy as an apprentice. In a city where the oppressors held the best jobs and all the money, Walter learned quickly what it meant to be oppressed.
Tadgh and his cronies all worked with their hands. They were butchers, builders, dock workers, nightwatchmen. The latter was what Tadgh did. He stayed up at night to walk around the town with a great staff. He used this staff to knock on others' windows, in order that they wake up at the right time.
Walter had wanted to join his father, but Sorcha would not hear of it. "He must have some decent chance at a better life," she had pleaded with Tadgh one day when she didn't know he was listening.
"Better life? In this stinking city?" Da always sneered when he was in an argument with Ma. At least, when he wasn't angry. She would weep, whisper, mumble, and if she was pushed, she would scream and wail loud enough to be heard outside the house. That was how he'd begun his hobby of walking around Dublin. Sometimes he would keep his eye out for things he could take home. Sometimes he wouldn't know if something was useful until he'd taken it home for his parents to inspect.
There was wealth to be made in the city, but the Protestants had managed to keep most of it to themselves. Walter saw them every day; many of them came from outside of Ireland, speaking with those thick English accents, or using languages that he didn't understand at all.
He was young enough to avoid suspicion and he was still quick enough to flee. Dublin was a crowded city, and a child like Walter was able to slip through narrow gaps between panhandlers, merchants, crates, animals, whatever might be in the way of a grown man.
Unlike many other children, Walter was not a pickpocket. He quickly became aware that other children made an art out of lifting money or valuables from men and women who passed them by. Even if Walter had an inclination to risk God's wrath by committing a crime, he was not willing to risk the wrath of getting caught and handed off to the police. And that was before even mentioning what his parents would do to him.
There was still room for innocence in such a place as Dublin, however. It was an overcast day in July when Walter encountered a group of boys at one of the few open spaces in the city. They laughed and shrieked as they kicked a makeshift football around between them.
He walked up to them, "Can I play?"
"Piss off!" the first youth said. He was considerably bigger and older than Walter. Four of his friends smirked, and one of them made a gesture with his hand which would have earned Walter several smacks from his Ma's wooden ladle.
Walter was humiliated, and he was already preparing to walk away when one of the goaltenders stepped forward. "Mind your tongue, Keenan. The lad didn't ask for an insult."
The boy called Keenan gave a leer, "Aye and we didn't ask for little pricks to come up to us and bother our game." He turned and spat at Walter's feet. "Bugger off!"
Suddenly, a fierce anger consumed Walter. Was this what his father had been talking about when he spoke of honour? Was Keenan expecting him to fight back? So be it.
Running forward, Walter yelled out his first swear word in Gaelic, "Hey, amadan, you don't call me those names!"
Turning around in surprise, Keenan yelled as Walter, shorter and lighter than his opponent, slammed into his midriff headfirst. Unprepared for this attack, the older boy fell to the ground.
Waving a childish fist with all his might, Walter landed a fierce punch at Keenan's face, but he had never been in a proper fight before. His fist was wildly swung and Keenan writhed so that the Walter's punch landed on his shoulder instead.
Keenan swore foully as he kicked Walter in the leg. As Walter wailed in pain, his opponent scrambled to his feet and landed a fierce punch of his own on Walter's eye.
The world went dark. Half of Walter's face was on fire. He could not open one eye, and the other was full of tears. He didn't see the second kick from Keenan that landed him flat on his back.
All of a sudden he heard an agonized shriek that was not his own. He did not know what was happening, but nor was he in any position to defend himself.
"Come on," a voice suddenly commanded him. The screams nearby almost drowned out these orders. "Get up now, fella."
Two hands grabbed Walter as he sobbed helplessly and pulled him back to his feet. All the while, the other voice continued to whimper and cry out worse than Walter.
Blinking away his tears, and keeping one hand over his injured eye, Walter beheld Keenan doubled on the ground, clutching his groin. Over him stood the goaltender who'd stood up for Walter.
"Serves you right, Keenan," the boy suddenly shouted. "Now stop that screeching or I'll stomp your shrivelled blein flat!"
He turned to others, who gawked in amusement or glared in anger at the scene. "Game's over for me and Keenan, lads. Guess that makes it even for the rest of you." The boys laughed at his wit, even as he turned and guided Walter away.
He seemed to be Keenan's age, except he was more stoic-looking and quieter. He made no conversation with Walter, nor did he admonish Walter for continuing to cry. For his part, Walter was ashamed of his tears, but his humiliation and pain still overwhelmed him.
He did not know how long they walked or how far, but when the older boy stopped them, Walter found himself looking at a shop on the corner between two fancier-looking streets. He also noticed that there was a sign which read "Vallon's Barbershop" in both English and Gaelic.
Inside, it was cramped, but still very comfortable-looking. Several customers were sitting down, waiting impatiently as a boy hurried back and forth to shine shoes.
A tall man stood to the side, looming over a prosperous-looking man with a pair of scissors in his hand. He looked somber and serious, and his shears seemed to be extensions of his fingers as they sought out the hair and trimmed it to their perfection.
Almost forgetting the pain he felt, Walter looked at his rescuer, "Who's that?"
The boy smiled, recognizing the awe in Walter's prebuscent voice, "That's my Da. Cillian Vallon, best barber in Dublin, so he is!"
Cillian paused in the middle of his work and glanced at the two arrivals. "Now then, son! Who's this?"
The boy- Walter realized his surname was Vallon- patted Walter on the shoulder, "This young lad wanted to join our game."
Cillian regarded Walter with a curious gaze before turning back to his son. "What's your bloody football made of, then?"
"It weren't me," Vallon countered, but not before laughing at his father's wit. "That's Keenan's work. He was being a bully about it, so I stepped in and made it my business."
Walter expected Cillian- who seemed more like a clergy member than a barber- to tut, lecture the boys on fighting, and perhaps even cuff them over the head. Instead, however, Cillian turned back to Walter. "How old are you, lad?"
"Ten, sir," Walter answered meekly.
"Ten?" Vallon laughed again. "That's three years younger than Keenan and me, but that didn't stop him from knocking over Keenan with his thick skull!"
Cillian's eyebrows rose upwards, and he turned back to Walter. "What's your name?"
Walter spoke in a hesitant voice, trying to hide the pain in it from his injuries, "Walter McGinn, sir."
Cillian nodded, "Ah, of course. I might have guessed who your Pa was from that alone."
The observation was delivered in such a neutral tone that Walter wasn't sure if that was an insult or a compliment. He suddenly noticed that the shoe-shiner was being given a tip from one of the customers. The sight of the coin took all of Walter's attention. He knew that his mother was afraid of having no money. Maybe if he could get a job, like his father, he would be helping the family.
Vallon suddenly spoke up, "Say, Da, you think you could employ this lad in the shop?"
Cillian started in surprise, as did Walter. Cillian recovered instantly however, thinking about it. He spoke to Walter, "Is that what you want, young fella? Work in a barbershop?"
Walter thought about it. Learning to cut hair from this man, earning money, having something to do that got him out of trouble, like his parents said. It seemed like a very simple decision.
Before he could answer, though, Cillian patted him on the head. "Well, never mind that now. Speak to your Ma and Pa first. If they agree, bring them here and we'll take it from there. Understand?"
Walter nodded quickly; he was too nervous to admit that he didn't know where in Dublin he was.
"Liam," Cillian said to his son. "Take this lad back inside and see to his eye. It's already shining up."
By the time that Vallon cleaned Walter up and led him back home, it was time for supper. Walter thanked Vallon for everything and hurried indoors, where his family was already sitting down to eat. Surprisingly, Tadgh was there too on one of those rare days when he ate with the family.
Seeing Walter's appearance, Sorcha screamed. Tadgh stood up and hit the table with his fist. "Jesus fucking Christ, where have you been, boyo?"
Ignoring her husband's blasphemy for once, Sorcha bent on one knee to examine Walter's face, "What happened to you?"
It was as if he were in the confession booth, speaking to the priest. Walter told the entire account of what happened, from when he came up to the park to when Vallon had led him back to his front door.
"Where's your head, Walter?" Sorcha objected angrily when he was done. "You mean to tell me that this boy Vallon looked after you and brought you home, and you didn't even invite him in for supper? Shame on you!"
Walter was mortified, but before he could respond, Tadgh shocked him by coming to his defence. "Steady on, now, he's had a long day. Leave him be."
The big man was smiling in that sardonic way which Walter had seen before, and he even ran a hand through Walter's hair.
"My son. Apprenticing with Cillian Vallon of all men. And all it cost you was a black eye!" He gave a full-throated laugh and glanced at Sorcha. "Seems your prayers do get answered, a ghra." It was not often that he referred to his wife with such an affectionate term, but then it also wasn't every day that God was kind to their lot.
Walter was surprised that his father had known who Cillian was, but he had long ago learned not to ask too many questions of him. Besides, he was too dazed with relief that he wasn't being punished.