Our Time Is Gone

by James Hanley

  He stood, hands in pockets, feet spread apart waiting. ‘Hurry up,’ he said.

  She looked at him and said: ‘I’m not very well. I don’t—I—oh, Dick. I don’t like that man Doogle. I’ll do all his work. Really. I don’t care what it is. I hate Doogle. Honestly.’

  ‘Get dressed,’ he said, ‘and no more bloody nonsense out of you! That might have been all right with that other fellow. Come on, I’m waiting,’ he concluded.

  He watched her dress. Sulky bitch. Worrying about that damned kid. That’s what she was. Bloody ass he was saying she could bring him.

  ‘Ready?’

  She followed him without answering. In the dark passage he changed both mood and tone. Leaned against her, held her, half carried her through the door.

  ‘You know, Maury, I’d do a lot for you; you are a lovely kid, Maury. Wish I’d married you when you were seventeen. Remember! I do! Oh aye … I remember,’ and he gently pushed her out through the front door.

  They had no sooner reached the gravel path than a wind blew down so violently that both were blown down the road, and Mr. Slye, pulling up sharply, holding Maureen’s hand, said:

  ‘My! What a wind! I tell you what. Before we go to “The Mare,” Maury. How about going to have a look at the bloody sea?’

  Something about the ‘bloody sea’ on a wild night strangely attracted Mr. Slye Esquire.

  Only two hours after the party had arrived at Blacksea Mr. Slye’s organizing genius had set to work. And the result was that Dermod Kilkey was now planted upon a lady by the name of Lamber, and Miss Amy Lamber looked after certain kinds of children at stated fees.

  To find one like her in Blacksea had been what Slye called a stroke of luck. Dermod had never registered upon his mind at all. Certainly not as a child. He was ‘it’—and ‘it’ was something to be fed and dressed and looked after—and was something of Maury’s, and because it pleased Maury she could bring it with her. Away from Gelton, however, Mr. Slye had decided that with the advent of Doogle, Dermod might suddenly be propelled from the status of‘it’ to the status of ‘him.’ It might indeed become one of the family. That would be bad, because wasn’t Maury already carrying another one? Safe behind the four Lamber walls it nevertheless worried, and again it was his, that ‘kind of male cow.’

  He had an idea that slight twinges of conscience were making Maury sulky. One twinge would lead to another twinge, and she might go.

  It was, to say the least, worrying. He knew she loved him. In any case she might just as well. Wouldn’t get anything better than him, he was certain. And besides, where would she go? Back to Gelton? Back to mother and the ‘male cow,’ and the priest and Mass on Sundays.

  Oh no! He knew his Maury all right. If she left him she would have nowhere to go. He held on tightly to her and reflected upon this, as from a bare prominence of rock he looked down upon the ‘bloody sea.’ He watched the waves rise and fall, crash and thunder, the long curling tongues of foam split and scatter. Maureen holding tightly to his arm looked up at the sky, a black disk, starless. Then she looked into the sea.

  ‘Wonderful, bloody wonderful a sea is!’ said Mr. Slye. ‘I always liked looking at the sea.’ Without even a warning he plumped down on his behind, dragging Maureen with him. She lay across him. They were there for nearly five minutes, she with her false fur curled tightly about her neck, he with a vast spread of coat that he held out over her. Some spray dashed up, sprinkling. Maureen stared up and down.

  One could live in Price Street for a thousand years and never see this.

  ‘Penny for them?’ announced Mr. Slye. ‘Penny for your thoughts, chick?’

  He had his hand flat across her belly.

  ‘But I know them, anyhow.’ He lowered his head, pressed his face against hers, said excitedly: ‘You know, Nature’s wonderful when you come to think of it. Bloody wonderful! Just look at all that water. You’d wonder where it came from; and then the sky. The space too. Marvellous! I always get a kick out of watching the bloody sea,’ he wound up. He stretched his legs. ‘And now, chicks, tell me! Headache gone? Splendid! Well, let’s be off to “The Mare,” and you can have anything you like! Hot brandy or punch, stout with a hot poker in it, or a port. Just say the word. Come on.’

  They got up, shook themselves, and then with his arm through hers they continued on their way. They groped bat-like down the road. It turned sharply, and now the descent was rapid. A broad new street. Twenty new houses, windowless, and the wind blowing through them. Sand swirling around them.

  ‘Dark, isn’t it?’ he said, but she was heavy on his arm now, and for a second he thought she was falling asleep. ‘Dark,’ he said again, and raising his head appeared to take a sweeping glance at Blacksea. Dark and windy and desolate Blacksea. What would it look like in the light of day? They seemed to catapult down the next street, it was so steep. ‘All hills and bloody dales,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling, Maury,’ he continued, ‘I have a feeling that it’s going to be all laying of plans for the next two and a half months. Doogle advises me to keep the highly emotional stuff back until, say, Easter. He says that a house-to-house canvas with calendars wouldn’t be bad. He says there’s a lot of religious people here. It sounds good to me.’

  After a while he flung out a phrase, he flung it into the air like a desperate man. ‘For Christ’s sake, Maury,’ he said, ‘say something!’

  She stopped dead. Looked at him, and then behind him, as though she had seen somebody there. She threw her arms round him.

  ‘Oh, Dick!’ she said, ‘Dick! Don’t don’t leave me! Will you? Will you?’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Leave you, chucks! Well, s’help me!’Course I wouldn’t. Now I see. Now I bloody well see. God bless me, Maury! Fancy that. So you thought I was going to leave you. Well, well.’ And he picked her up in the dark street, swung her round, gathered her to him again. ‘I’ll be damned! Why, I love you, chick. But here’s “The Mare,” and in we go.’

  ‘The Mare’s’ lights seemed to give a benevolent wink as they went inside.

  CHAPTER V

  I

  The straps were gone, the cries and shoutings ceased, the dreams were gone. The world was taking shape again.

  She was sitting up in the bed drinking milk from a cup and a nurse was standing by her. So her husband found her when he came into the ward, a larger ward than that at the Gelton General—a huge ward. And then he heard a laugh. Knew it was her laugh. Only Fanny could laugh like that. He saw the nurse leave the bed, saw her coming down the long passage between the beds. Mr. Fury saw a forest of heads, two rows of heads that bobbed up and down whenever the door opened. And now they saw Mr. Fury stop to speak to the nurse. They heard her laugh.

  His wife was getting better. Yes, really getting better. In fact, she was worrying them now because she wanted to get up and go home.

  ‘You are Mr. Fury?’ she asked again.

  ‘That’s me, nurse,’ he said, looking beyond her, where his wife was drinking milk.

  ‘We’ve been hearing such tales about you,’ said the nurse, ‘such tales. Not too much talk now, Mr. Fury. Nothing exciting. We want Mrs. Fury to get well. There she is, waiting.’

  Then she went off down the ward. Mr. Fury went on. Now and again a head rose, an eye peeped out at him. He could feel those eyes upon him all the time. For some strange reason Mr. Fury stopped at a bed, and a young woman looked up at him. He thought he recognized that face. But he was wrong. Now he was almost at his wife’s bed, and as he came to it a thought flashed through his head of how horrible it would be to die in a place like this. Under all those eyes.

  ‘Denny!’

  ‘Fanny! How are you?’ and he bent down and kissed her. Then he sat down.

  ‘Well, woman, you’re a miracle!’ he said. ‘A miracle. They told me you’re worrying them already to get home. Fanny, I am glad to see you so well, so well.’

  He stared at her, as though to make quite sure he was right. Yes. She was looking better. But she was thi
n. Still, here she was, all alive. He wished he hadn’t to go. But he had. Sailing days wouldn’t wait, they made continuous circle round one’s life. In the morning he’d be gone. Seven o’clock now, and at that hour in the morning he’d be aboard his ship. She’d still be here, getting better.

  ‘I went to the altar this morning,’ he said quietly, and saw her smile.

  ‘Did you, Denny? I’m so glad. I thought you’d forget to go. It’s always a good thing to go to your duties before you sail off to sea. Tell me, Denny, have you the scapulars still, the ones I bought you last Christmas-time?’

  Smiling, he put a finger down inside the collar of his shirt, just to make sure. Yes, he had them. ‘You are really getting better, Fanny. No kidding, woman?’

  ‘I am, Denny, really.’ She leaned out of the bed. ‘Can’t you bring the chair nearer? You know, I wish you didn’t have to go like this. I’ll be worrying about you. It’s not like those other ships, for I could follow you from sea to sea by the Shipping News. I can see you haven’t been looking after yourself, either.’

  He drew the chair closer. He felt her weight against his shoulder now.

  ‘You know this rest has done me good. I’ve just lain here and thought about nothing. And it’s so quiet. So quiet.’ She laid her hand on his arm.

  ‘Did Desmond come?’ he asked.

  ‘Desmond! I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘But he said he was coming. He came to see me. He promised me he would come.’

  ‘Denny,’ said the woman, ‘you know since I’ve been here I’ve thought how nice it would be if we could go to Mount Mellery together. Couldn’t we do that? Not now. But some other time. Next trip. Just you and me, Denny.’

  ‘No, no! Listen, woman! That time will come—but you’ve got to go off soon’s as you are well enough to leave here.’

  He began to get excited. He felt that if he didn’t get it out in time, all he wanted to say, she might suddenly change her mind.

  ‘I’ve made the arrangements, Fanny. You have got to go. It’s the one thing that’s cheering me up, woman. If I thought you weren’t going I’d be unhappy all the time I was away, and I’ll tell you something, Fanny. Since I’ve been stuck on my own this last week or so I found out that strangers are not always strange, but sometimes they’re bloody decent——’

  She put a hand on his mouth as though to say—‘one bloody, but no more than one. You’re not aboard ship now, but in the public ward of a big Institution.’

  He smiled, and her fingers were under the smile. ‘What are the arrangements, Denny?’ she asked.

  ‘Wait a bit,’ cautioned Mr. Fury. ‘Before I go on I’ve a little surprise for you, woman. But be patient. I got to get things settled. I’m only allowed half an hour. Now listen. Here’s the arrangements. Joe Kilkey came to see me. Funny the way some people hunt you down, just to shake hands. Anyhow he came and I’ll tell you, Fanny, you’ve got a good friend in Joe. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t have been anywhere ‘cept for him. Well, here’s some news. Father Moynihan’s coming in to see you. He was here before but you were too ill to see him. Soon’s you’re discharged out of here, Kilkey’s coming to take you home. That night he’s taking you on the boat. He’s willing to take you as far as Dublin if you want. But there’s a woman going to the same place as you, name of Maher. Anyhow, you go on the boat and off to Mount Mellery. You stay there a fortnight and come back home. He’ll come and see you now and again. I’ll write whenever I can.’

  He put an arm on her shoulder, he felt shy sitting there before all those people. ‘Fanny, I’ve made up my mind on one thing. Soon’s I can get out of this ship, I’m getting out. Then we’ll be together all the time. Nothing else matters now, you used to think I was—well, that I didn’t give a so-and-so, but you’re wrong, woman. We got to stick together now. For good.’

  ‘But couldn’t you——’

  Mr. Fury ignored the interruption, raced on to the next subject. He didn’t want to hear another word about that arrangement. That was settled. He wouldn’t budge. ‘And here’s the surprise,’ he said. He took Anthony’s letter from his pocket and gave it to her.

  A letter! For her? From whom? When had it come? A letter? And she turned it over and over in her fingers, looking at the lettering on the top of the envelope.

  ‘Don’t you know, woman? Surely you recognize that writing?’ and he was bending over her, also looking at those big black letters. O.H.M.S. ‘It’s from Anthony.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘Oh!——’ and looked away down the ward, whilst the letter hung limp between her fingers. From Anthony. A letter. It was like getting news from a strange person from the other end of the earth. Or had she forgotten she had a son—had other children? Her attitude amazed him. Laughing, he said he thought she’d be glad—and wasn’t she? Why, wasn’t she?

  ‘From Anthony,’ she said, seeming a little bewildered. ‘Read it, Denny.’

  It slipped through her fingers. He picked it up and opened it. He gave a look round the ward, then, lowering his voice and leaning well over the bed, read:

  ‘AT SEA,

  ‘Sept. 5th, 1915.

  ‘MY DEAR MOTHER,

  ‘By this time I suppose you think something terrible has happened. Well, it has. But not to me. We were——’ [the sentence was blacked out]. ‘Well, mother, I am quite well, and hope you are the same. We have been all over the place this past nine months or so. We are always on the move. How is dad? I suppose he is away too. I wish he hadn’t gone. I hope all the rest of the family are well. I often think of Peter. I hope when he comes out that he will go to America. I’m sure Uncle Jack would help. I shouldn’t worry, mother, if I were you. You’ll see everything will come all right. It’s amazing, really, how news gets about. It was dashed awkward for me aboard this ship. You’d be astonished how the news gets round. I want you to send me the name of dad’s ship. I have an idea that it will be the same as mine—c/o G.P.O., London. I wonder how long the war will last.

  ‘I have learned gunnery and the officer here says that when the war is over he advises me to stay in the Navy, so I could go to the Gunnery school. He said I am good at Mathematical problems. Peter would be jealous if he knew. It’s funny, really, how through this war you suddenly find out you have a bent for something. I always thought I was a dunce. Now I see I’m not——’

  and here Mr. Fury paused. Man and wife looked at each other and smiled. It was the hand’s touch on precious things, and remembering this son, and seeing him spick and span in his naval uniform, and realizing how after all he was a good son to them.

  ‘Best of the bloody bunch,’ Mr. Fury was telling himself, and she thought: ‘I hope he does not forget his religious duties.’

  ‘Well, I never!’ said Mr. Fury. ‘I always thought he was a blockhead. Just shows, doesn’t it, woman. Ah! He’s a good lad, Anthony. Good hard-working lad.’

  He read on:

  ‘Already we have been in several engagements, but we can’t speak about that. When you write to dad tell him that we might see each other somewhere in some port—it would be a surprise to run into him at——’ [name blacked out]. ‘I got a surprise the other day. Who’d d’you think wrote me? George Postlethwaite. He’s in the Artillery, and he told me his father has now got a good place too. He’s a sergeant in the Railway Battalion and actually gone off to France at his age. Can’t you see him in his uniform? I can. It’ll be funny coming home, when one does get home, Mother, and not having to catch the tram to the King’s Road. Where is Hey’s Alley? I’ve never heard of it.’

  Suddenly Mr. Fury looked at his wife, and exclaimed: ‘It’s a caution. He’s the twentieth person I know now who has never heard of Hey’s Alley. Fanny, woman, if you wanted really to get lost, you couldn’t.’

  ‘I hope it’s a nice house, mother, and in a better neighbourhood. I never did like Hatfields. I was sorry to hear about Miss Pettigrew, I must say. D’you remember dad getting one over the eight and falling all over her shop,
and he said she was bound to go to hell and wear a raincoat there and suck jujubes for ever and ever!’

  Mr. Fury burst out laughing. ‘I’ll be damned, Did I say that about her, woman?’

  And Mrs. Fury laughed. ‘Poor Miss Pettigrew. Poor old Miss Pettigrew. Go on.’

  ‘Another person I get letters from occasionally is Father Moynihan. You know, mother, you’d smile if you saw the things he writes about you. He once said you should have been the Consul’s wife at Brussels, whatever that may mean. But I’ve got so far and haven’t mentioned the ship. It’s a big ship—a huge ship, and bristling with guns. We carry twelve hundred all told. And we never know where we’re going from one day to another.

  ‘Well, mother, I hope everything’s all right with you, and that you won’t be too downhearted over Peter. He’s alive anyhow, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it? I hope you get my pay all right—though I’m sure it’s making a big difference now. In some ways I’m sorry I transferred. My old pay was much better, but on the other hand if I hadn’t joined this ship I wouldn’t have discovered that I had a bent for Mathematics. Funny the things war’s done, isn’t it? Now I must bring this letter to a close. Give my love to dad and all at home, and accept the same from your affectionate son,

  ‘ANTHONY.’

  ‘Now, woman, surely to the Lord you’re not going to cry? God spare me days, why, you ought to be laughing! It’s a fine letter, Fanny. Makes you proud of him.’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ she said, though tears were rolling down her face, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be—but you are. Now, woman! Ah well. I understand. What a lad! Best of the bloody——’

  ‘Denny!’

  ‘Oh, all right. I’m sorry, Fanny. It comes out so natural I never know I’m using the word. All the same that letter has made me happy, woman, and I hope it has you. It’s worth having a family to read a letter like that. And we used to laugh and joke and call him the soft slob of the family. By God, that’s the true saying that you live to learn. Now if they’d all been like Anthony? How happy everything’d be?’