I still remember the awe in which I beheld that city. After the years of rural England and the close and frugal comforts of the St Agnes, New York was like another world.
The freezing streets were full of noisy cars and electric trams that rattled and clanged and juddered. The pavements, or sidewalks as they called them, were packed with people wrapped in topcoats and furs, all hurrying to and fro, seemingly all in a rush to get somewhere fast. My breath was clear in the cold air and I walked the streets of Manhattan in a daze, gawping up in astonishment at the skyscrapers and brownstone buildings. The city was like a glittering prize, wrapped up in noise and smoke and hope. It was as if I had stepped into a future world, a world of machines and metal and carefree decadence. I loved New York as soon as I saw it.
Priorities soon took over, however. I needed a job and I needed it fast. I had won a little money on the ship playing poker with the Irish lads and I probably had enough to see me in lodgings for a week, maybe two if I could find something cheap enough, but I needed to ensure I had some money coming in or I would quickly starve. It suddenly struck me how stupid I had been. I had left Britain on a whim, seduced by the idea of a foreign city, and now reality was raising its ugly head. A job. I needed to get a job.
I bought a newspaper and went into a diner and had a cup of coffee, which was very agreeable. I scoured the ads at the back of the paper. It began to dawn on me that all my past working experience was going to mean very little in this sprawling metropolis. I was used to hunting, fishing and farming; New York had no need for any of this. The shops were full of goods and the only animals I saw were pets. I thought of Hector, sleeping in the barn we’d shared, and began to fret again about having made a horrible mistake.
A bang on the diner window jolted me from my worries. It was Sean, one of the lads I’d shared a berth with on the Agnes. I waved him in and he entered with a flourish, pulling his cap from his head and rubbing his hands briskly.
‘Have you seen the size of the streets here?’ he shouted at me, grinning. ‘They’re bloody huge. What a place!’
I grinned back at him and he helped himself to a gulp of my coffee. A pretty young waitress came over and refilled the cup, smiling professionally at Sean as he tried to give her some of his supposed Irish charm. Sean was small and almost toothless, with a pockmarked face. I didn’t think he was going to get too far.
We talked amiably for a while until, after a glance at the clock on the wall, Sean got up to leave.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked him.
‘My uncle’s. He has a small business here. That’s why I came over: to help him out.’
My interest was aroused.
‘You’ve got a job lined up?’
‘Of course I have. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to come all the way to America without having something to do when I got here now, would I?’
I grinned, uncomfortably. ‘No, of course not.’
Sean looked down at me.
‘Hang on,’ he said, understanding spreading slowly on his monkey-like face. ‘You’re not telling me you’ve got nothing promised, are you? A man who plays cards like your good self would never be so stupid as to sail all the way across the Atlantic and have nowhere to go when he got here now, would he?’
I said nothing, then shrugged.
Sean laughed.
‘Jesus, but you’re one mad bastard Englishman!’ He laughed again, louder. ‘Christ Alive, I thought the Irish were supposed to be stupid. But you, my friend. You’re not right in the head!’
I sipped my coffee in embarrassment. Sean was right: I was a bloody fool. What the hell had I thought I was doing? My predicament washed through me like an ice flow. I was suddenly very frightened of what my future held.
Sean must have seen the look on my face and recognised it for what it was. He sat down again.
‘Tell you what,’ he said, eventually. ‘My uncle has a few irons in the fire, so he has. Maybe he’ll have a job for you? We could ask him.’
I looked up at him in sudden hope. ‘You’d do that for me? Sean, that would be wonderful.’
He held up a hand. ‘I’m promising nothing, but there’s no harm in asking, is there.’
He suddenly looked unsure.
‘What’s up?’ I asked, thinking he’d changed his mind.
‘My uncle,’ he said. ‘He hates the bloody English. His brother, another uncle, was part of the Easter Rising. Been cold in his grave these past seven years. He wouldn’t give an Englishman the smell off his shite.’
He suddenly brightened.
‘However, that accent of yours, it’s no English accent I’ve ever heard and I think he’ll be the same. We could say you’re Scottish. He doesn’t mind the Scottish.’
With that he stood up.
‘Come on then. Let’s get going.’
‘Where does your uncle live?’ I asked, standing and putting down some change on the table. I followed him out onto the icy streets.
‘When he came here, he said he’d seen the place where he lives now and thought it was perfect for a poor Irish renegade who’d had nothing but shite for most of his life. He said the name of it appealed to the devil inside him.’
We stepped outside the café and started walking further into Manhattan.
Sean turned, walking backwards. The massive panorama of that amazing city was behind him as he spread his arms wide and grinned at me. Snow began to fall from a leaden sky.
‘Rob, me friend. We’re off to Hell’s Kitchen!’
V
Mickey ‘Irish’ Donovan was a strangely mixed man.
He stood at only five feet five inches or so, but he was almost as wide as he was tall. His shoulders extended a good ten inches either side of his braces and his head seemed to sink straight down into them, untroubled by anything so frivolous as a neck.
His face was only roughly sketched, with a large blob for a nose and two fleshy slugs instead of lips. He had the remnants of many bar room brawls drawn on that face, and his hands were like a bunch of bananas. Yet his suit trousers were of the best quality and his shirt was silk.
His hair was slicked back straight from his ploughed forehead and a thin, delicate, well-tended moustache decorated the space between the blob and the slugs. His ice-blue eyes regarded me like the fox regarded the gingerbread man.
‘Scottish, you say?’ he asked, suspiciously.
We had found his storefront easily enough and we had no sooner been shown into Mickey’s back office before Sean was almost crushed in a bearhug of an embrace.
‘Well now!’ Mickey had cried, releasing the gasping Sean and holding him at arm’s length. ‘If it’s not my little brother’s boy. God save us, Sean, but you haven’t grown much since I saw you last.’
Sean grinned. ‘It’s a poor diet we have back in the auld country, Uncle Mick. I’ve had no chance to grow.’
Mickey laughed and hugged him again, noticing me for the first time over the boy’s shoulder.
‘And who’s this one?’ he asked, releasing Sean.
‘Uncle Mick, this is Rob Deakin. We met during the war. Rob, this is my uncle, Mickey Donovan.’
Mickey stuck out his hand.
‘Any friend of young Sean here is a friend of mine, even if you both met fighting for the bastard English. Where are you from? Deakin doesn’t sound like an Irish name to me.’