by James Hanley
Whoever she is, she’s a poor creature, standing like a statue at this time of a winter’s morning. What should he do? Put the same old question? Or saying nothing simply take her arm and walk her down to the station. Used to lonely night beats as he was, he had not always the reserve of nerve necessary for occasions like this. He thumbed his lamp again, strongly tempted as he was to flash the light again and this time hold it. What should he do? Tell her to clear to the devil or simply take her to the station. He didn’t even have to make up his mind. For something happened so suddenly that quite unconsciously he flashed the light again. He knew what to do now, for the woman had suddenly fallen on her knees and began beating the door. And as she beat against it, she cried:
‘Peter! Peter!’
The policeman dashed up and gripped her by the arms: ‘Come, lady! What’s all this about now? Just what’s it all about?’ and he tried to raise her from the ground. But she was stronger in this moment than he. She beat with two fists upon the door. The light was flashed in her face; he saw her face clearly. It was unmistakable. He struggled with her, she was violent. ‘Come! None of this! You can’t go shouting here at this time of the night,’ but she did shout, and with a wild abandon.
‘Peter! Peter!’
Her whole body seemed to throb. He put his arms right round her, and again had to raise her from the ground. Then he suddenly let go of her and ran to the bell. He rang. The woman had reached the other side of the door; she hammered on it. The policeman ran to her again. He appealed. Was gentle, then brusque, then finally angry. Once he felt in his pockets for his handcuffs. He heard feet in the courtyard beyond, heard a man swearing in the cold night air.
A smaller door set in the great door itself was opened, a head peered out. What was all this fuss and noise about? The policeman was standing before him. At that moment the woman collapsed. He had meant to say, angry as he was, that he wanted the door open, the large and the small, all doors, so that she could go inside and then that all doors should immediately close again. He was sick of the woman; she had been a real nuisance, not only to herself but to him. Instead he found himself saying, in an agitated voice: ‘Ring for an ambulance right away.’
The head disappeared, the door closed again, the policeman returned to the woman; she lay in a heap under the big door. He picked her up in his arms, and as he did so a number of lights appeared. Then he saw the gaol ambulance coming purring down the yard. The great door swung open. The ambulance drove out into the long deserted road.
‘Where is she?’
‘Here.’
‘Right-o. Get her in. Where to? Southern? General?’
The policeman, with the help of the warder, managed to get the woman inside. The warder closed and locked the door. The engine opened out.
‘No hospital except the nearest one,’ he called through to the driver. ‘The woman is in a bad way.’
The ambulance moved off, gave a grunt or two, then purred gently away from the prison.
The policeman suddenly found that he had lost his lantern. He must have left it on the ground. How dark it was. Ought to have a light. Instead he struck a match and looked down at the woman on the stretcher. Was she looking at him or was it imagination on his part? ‘Poor old woman,’ he said, then made himself more comfortable on the opposite seat.
The ambulance reached the populated area. They weren’t far off. Before he realized it they had stopped dead. They had reached the hospital.
At five minutes past three the same morning a policeman on a bicycle jumped off at No. 17 Hey’s Alley. He gave three loud bangs on the knocker, and in the long silent street its sound was thunderous. He heard feet on the stairs. When the door opened he flashed his light on the man, for the house was in complete darkness. ‘Name of Fury?’
These three words were followed by a torrent from the man at the door.
‘Yes! My Christ, man! What’s the matter! I——Oh God, what’s all this about? Yes, my name’s Fury. Dennis Fury. Tell me——Oh, Fanny, Fanny! again, again!' His voice broke.
The policeman switched off his light. It was kindness to do this. He leaned forward and put a hand on the man’s shoulders. Mr. Fury had both hands to his face. He shivered. He stood in singlet and drawers. The shoulders continued to shake under the hands.
‘All right! Now don’t you worry! It’s nothing terrible. But you must go and get dressed right away. There’s a good man. There’s a woman lying at the General Hospital. You’d better hurry. You know the way? It’s not far.’
‘Not far,’ exclaimed the man, and his tone of voice seemed to proclaim that the distance was one million miles. ‘Not far!’ he said. ‘Oh, Fanny! Fanny! I knew it. I knew it as soon as I woke. Twice you’ve done it. My God, they’ll take you away, so they will. Oh, Fanny! Fanny! God’s creature, where are you? Oh my—my …’
The policeman had gone. The door closed. The man climbed the stairs. He tripped on the landing, rushed into the wrong room, rushed out again. It never occurred to him to strike a match, to light lamp or candle. He dressed hurriedly in the darkness. He put his foot into the wrong leg of the trousers and had to put them on all over again. A ship’s siren sounded out over the river, a sound he had heard so many times that its full meaning had become exhausted in his ears. Now, hearing it suddenly, a swift stab of sound, and then lengthening, and spreading over the night air, it made him shiver. He would have laughed one time at shivering like this. He talked to himself, as he dashed from bed to chair, chair to table. This getting dressed, this clothing oneself, it was all bits and pieces. Then his lips were moving and no sound came at all. He dashed out of the room. He hurried downstairs. The silence and darkness frightened him a little. His own feet sounded like great boulders being flung from top to bottom of the stairs. He dashed along the lobby, opened the front door, and stepped out. ‘Oh dear! Fanny!’ He said this aloud as though she were at the street’s end, and here he was hurrying towards her. He was afraid of the darkness, the extreme cold, the length and shape of the street, the hooded houses, the hard cold stones on which he trod. He was afraid of moving one foot and then the other, getting nearer to where Fanny was. ‘Hold on! Hold on, oh Blessed Mother!’
He turned out of the street. There he bumped into a policeman. He stammered, was angry; fear grew. The officer questioned him. Saw his condition. Where was he going? To the hospital. Which hospital? The General Hospital. What was the matter? It was his wife. ‘My wife, Fanny.’ Yes. That was where he was hurrying. But it wasn’t very far away, the officer said, and cleared his throat.
‘Rotten sort of night.’
‘Yes. No … Yes … However.’
‘Take it easy, mister. Don’t get yourself worked up like that now.’ Again the officer cleared his throat.
No. Yes. Of course! However! Oh yes. She was dying. Fanny was dying. He was certain of it. ‘Holy Mother of God! Hang on to my dear wife,’ and the officer gripped him by the arm.
The policeman kept pace with the hurrying, bewildered man. Mr. Fury began talking to himself. ‘I was sleeping good then, and then suddenly I woke, hearing a knock. And Fanny wasn’t there!’ His voice broke, words tumbled out of his mouth.
‘Here we are! This is a short cut to the hospital,’ the policeman said. ‘Handy to know.’
They mounted the steps. ‘Fanny,’ whispered Mr. Fury. ‘Fanny.’ Well, here he was now.
The door opened. ‘Fury! Dennis Fury. This way, please.’
‘Keep your spirits up, old man,’ said the policeman, and then turning away he resumed his beat. The hospital door closed with hardly a sound.
They led Mr. Fury into the ward. He heard the word screen in his ear. Screen. Screen! God! Now he knew! He knew that word. It ran round his head. Screen. Screen! It thrust downwards to the pit of his stomach, struck him between the eyes. Screen! Around Fanny! He looked up at the nurse, bewildered, a little afraid.
‘Yes—no, Miss Nurse. What? Screen? Yes. I don’t mind. No thanks. Thank—you.’
Sh
e gave a little smile, and drew the screen around the bed. Its noise, so slight, disturbed the woman. She moved. Opened her eyes. The nurse vanished, but some yards off stood silent, waiting. At the far end of the ward the clock ticked loudly.
Mr. Fury leaned over the bed and watched, and he gripped the sheets very hard.
‘Fanny! Me! Dear Fanny. It’s me, Denny! Fanny! Are you hurt bad, are you?’ He raised his hands and took one of hers between them. ‘God help you, tell me are you all right now? Fanny? Look at me! Here I am. Tell me, Fanny.’
He gradually tightened his grip upon her hand. It was like his own, a hard hand. Not a woman’s hand at all. He watched her face. How she had aged! He looked at the quivering lips. Her head was quite sunk into the pillow.
Yes. There she was. Fanny, and alive. Yes. There she was. The Fanny who had done things. Fanny with her pride. ‘The poor creature,’ he said at last, and then with a sudden vision of the emptiness of No. 17 Hey’s Alley, he said again: ‘The poor—poor creature.’ He wished he knew all the things that lay hidden behind that mask-like face. Yes. Here she was, still the same, but old. Getting really old.
This was the third time. How long would it go on? Those awful dreams of hers, those cryings out, and then the steadfast silence. Like hard stone, no words spoken. Only the looks he got. The dread of that silence, lying by his side. His own sleep unsound, then deep. Then suddenly broken by this. Waking to find her gone. God knows where. And in spite of it all he had to be up and doing. Going far by sea—thinking of her—alone—going far, and then returning home. And finding this. And suddenly Mr. Fury laid his head on the edge of the bed.
He lay quite still, though his mind was choked and smothering under a flood of memories that no move of the hand, no wish and no thought could wipe away. Something made him raise his head. The woman had opened her eyes. She was looking full at him, and he held her look. He clasped her hand, let it go, clasped it again, hoping, wondering. Was she really dying? Or just ill? Very tired, or——But what was she doing here? In this place on this early morning, and the rain pouring outside and a wind breaking over the roofs. He shut his eyes, opened them again. Was she really looking at him? His wife? Fanny?
‘Fanny! Dear, dear Fanny. Sure God help you, woman, I … How are you now?’
‘My bag?’
‘Your bag, Fanny. Why, I don’t——’ and then he smiled, remembering. ‘Why, of course. Your bag. Your own bag. D’you want it, Fanny?’
‘My bag,’ she said.
‘Yes, yes. I—here—what is this, it—I wonder——Fanny, are you dying? Oh God!’
‘My bag.’
‘Of course, Fanny. Here! There now.’
He had found the black bag, for they had not yet taken her things away. It lay on the locker by her bed. He laid it near her hand, and he noticed how she clutched it.
‘There, Fanny.’
‘My bag,’ she said, and somehow the voice seemed to rise from the bottom, from the very inside of the bed.
And again he was afraid. ‘Oh Great God this night,’ he said, and suddenly sat up rigid. She was looking up at him, as though he were some stranger. She looked through and beyond him. He was a stranger to her.
‘I won’t die,’ she said.
He felt his arm gripped by her hand, then it slackened and fell away. The words sang their way around the man’s brain. ‘Won’t die! Won’t die!’
Hearing a sound he turned; somebody was coming. He shifted his chair to the head of the bed, and as he moved he saw something that turned him cold.
‘They’ve bound my poor Fanny,’ he said. He bent his head on his breast and sobbed. After a minute or two he was silent. The screen had moved then.
It was at this moment that Captain Desmond Fury had come. Father had not noticed son, the son had not noticed the father.
Now they were together, outside the hospital, the rain falling, and a slight mist shrouding the building from a grey, almost starless sky. And the father drew back and then looked up at his son. And Captain Fury looked down at him, and then up at the windows.
‘Well! What have you to say for yourself?’ asked Mr. Fury.
He stood there, hands in his pockets, looking down at the polished boots, then up at the collar and tie and uniform cap. What had he to say? Anything? So here he was.
‘Dad! I am sorry about this. It’s hard all right! Look here, couldn’t we go somewhere and talk? I mean——’ Yes, what did he mean—exactly? Take his father home? Go home with his father? What? Which? The rain was falling heavily. ‘Listen, Dad?’
‘Well! I’m glad you went, anyhow! Though she didn’t know anybody. I think it’s the end of your poor mother! Only God this night can look to her.’
He looked away from his son. Desmond! The eldest! The first to fly and be free! ‘The pusher,’ as he called him. Ran off with that woman. Married out of the church. Well, by heck, he had pushed somewhere now! An officer. A captain.
‘Listen, Dad, I’m really sorry about this. Look here! Would you like to come home with me—for the night, say? Besides, we can’t stand here in the rain, can we?’
‘Maybe not. Well, you look well and fat and prosperous! But then you were always the healthiest in the family. Ah, well! You were always a pusher—a thruster! I tell you straight, your mother’s fair beat. Fair beat—but she’s been a sticker your mother has. A real sticker, and I’m proud of her.’
‘Listen, Dad,’ and Desmond put a hand on his father’s shoulder, ‘we can’t just stand here like this. We’re both getting drenched. Yes it’s hard, Dad. There’s nobody more sorry than I am, but be reasonable. Now will you …’
‘I’ve been reasonable all my bloody life, lad. And look where I am to-day.’
‘Yes, I know that, Dad. But still. Oh, Dad. I love mother as much as anybody.’
‘Do you?’
Captain Fury removed his hand. Drops of rain began to run down under his collar.
‘Well!’ said Dennis Fury, ‘it’s been nice to see you in a way. I’m glad you’re getting on, anyhow! I never begrudged any of my children anything. Now I’m going home. And you go home too. It’s no use me going with you nor you coming with me. But I suppose we’ll see each other again at the hospital. I feel beat to-night. It’s been a fair struggle with your mother. I’ll tell you something too, case you don’t know it. Your mother’s going mad.’
‘Dad? Why——Oh——?’
‘Well, that’s what they said. And that’s all. Look here, Desmond. I’m going. I want to go. And I want to go off by myself. The other way is awkward. I can’t do anything for your mother. Neither can you. But I’ll pray anyhow! We’d only get talking about all the old things, and to tell you the truth, to tell you God’s honest truth,’ and here he gripped the Sam Browne belt again, ‘I’m sick of all them, all them things. Want to forget them.’
Desmond thought. ‘That’s that.’ No! It was a definite break. It would never be the same again. Never. He put two hands on Mr. Fury’s shoulder. ‘Dad! You mightn’t like it. I don’t care. But I’m sorry, sorry for you and mother. Perhaps we could have been a better family. Besides——’
‘No! I said No. And God I mean No! I want to hear no more about families. Your mother and me are all right. We can look after each other! Don’t you get fretting yourself over things that can never happen again. Now I’ll shake hands with you, Desmond, and say good night,’ and his voice softened. ‘You weren’t a bad lad in a way, but perhaps you were a selfish, unthinking lad. Never mind. It can’t be helped. Best of luck to you.’
To Desmond this was defeat. Utter defeat. He felt miserable, helpless. He could do nothing. How long was it since he had seen his father? He couldn’t remember. A long time surely. And his mother! Perhaps he ought to have—Suddenly he gripped his father’s hand and held it.
‘Where’s Anthony?’
‘In the Navy. He hasn’t been home once since the war broke out.’
‘And Maureen?’
‘Never see her.’
‘What about Mr. Kilkey?’
Mr. Fury freed his hand. This was getting awkward. He only wanted to go. To go home and sit down and think and hope and remember Fanny. This was ridiculous. Standing in the rain holding hands. He drew back again.
‘Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know. Why d’you ask me these questions, anyhow? I’m away all the time. And every time I think of that man Joe Kilkey I feel sad and sick. The only friend your mother ever had. Yet she refused to open the door to him, time and time again. But as I told you, your mother’s gone queer in the head. That boy. Oh, that dear, foolish lad. It’s finished your mother. Christ! Now,’ and his voice became angry, ‘now, I’m going. I can’t stand this. I can’t stand this sort of thing. I—I—there’s your mother unconscious in there, a creature who never harmed a soul in the world. Ah! Sure, will you go? I’m off.’Night to you, lad. God keep you!’
Without another word Dennis Fury walked away.
Captain Fury did not move. He stood there with lowered head, his mind a cloud, and he watched his father go. After a few seconds he too turned on his heel and went off. The darkness swallowed up one and then the other. A siren screamed over the misty river.
Half an hour later Mr. Fury let himself into the house. There was something so cold, so empty about this return that the man gave an involuntary shudder as he went down the dark lobby. In the kitchen he gripped the dresser where the little red light burned.
‘God hold dear Fanny this night. Hold her for me! Poor dear Fanny.’
Then he flopped down on the sofa and remained there staring up at the window. He could sit there for days. The slightest movement wearied him. He closed his eyes, opened them again. He got up and lit the gas and looked round the place. What a small box-like place it was. The big table looked out of place there. He had often wondered how it had been got in. He drew back the cloth and ran his finger over the cracks in it, over the scratchings. Aye! There they were! All the names. He felt so miserable; he threw back the cloth again, and then commenced walking up and down the matting in front of the fireplace. The fire was almost out. Perhaps he ought to make himself a cup of tea. Yes. He would. Warm him up. Cheer him up. Something to do. Should he light the fire? Perhaps he’d better.
