by James Hanley
‘Fix the pillow,’ she said. ‘I want to lie down now. Oh. Denny, I do be thinking of this awful war. Will it last long?’ She laughed. ‘Fancy Andrew a sergeant. There’ll be no holding Mrs. Postlethwaite now,’ and she laughed again.
Then she lay back and felt tired as though this letter had been a weight that pressed her. Anthony! From Anthony. And she had never expected it. Well! Well! Heaven, if they were all like him! But that was asking for the moon.
Her husband spread out the sheet of paper on his knee. He was reading it to himself. ‘This came two days ago, woman,’ he said. ‘I stuck it on the mantelpiece and forgot all about it. Just think of that?’ and he folded it up, put it back in the envelope, saying: ‘Would you like to have it in the locker, here, Fanny?’
‘No! Put it under the pillow, Denny. Bring your chair nearer, man.’
What on earth was the matter with him. He seemed almost afraid of her.
‘Last night I was thinking how hard it is that you should be having to go away still. It worries me—I sometimes wish——’
‘Nothing! Nothing, missus, except to shut your talk about what you wish. The times for wishing are gone. You made mistakes, Fanny. You thought too much of your children, and I thought too little of them. I say, hang them. That’s what I say. We got to stick together now. I am not an old man yet, thank God. You see, woman, our time’ll come.’ He leaned over, spoke softly in her ear.
‘You know, woman, I often say to myself that if a man did his best all through his life, and got nothing more than a happorth of crumbs out of it then he could start refusing to believe that anything was any good. Fanny, it suits me nicely to think of you, not lying on your back like you are now, but like you were ten years ago, twenty years ago. That’s good enough for me. Sometimes I think we weren’t made for each other, and then God spare me days I’m thinking right round the other way. That we are. It’s tough for you lying there, woman, with nothing to do but think, but all the same we had some good days, Fanny. Not the best I might have given you. Not by a long chalk. But we’ll have more of them, woman, you see!’
‘I’ve done some bad things too,’ she said, and now having said this, and those words off her tongue, she felt she had climbed a sort of bridge.
‘Rubbish! Them children—you know they make me smile. Every one of them said the same thing. About what they were going to do! And when I laughed about it, you were angry, Fanny. Now wasn’t their cottage in Ireland built in the air? That’s all. But you wait. Just you wait, woman.’
‘There’s the nurse watching. Oh, Denny, you’ll have to go! God, I hate you going. Couldn’t you slip in in the morning. Oh, Denny, if only we two could go off out of it now——’
‘There! There! The nurse told me you were getting better. You won’t get back your health like that! Don’t worry about me! You think of Mount Mellery. Now I have to go. I’ve even overstayed my time.’
He got up from the chair, but she held his hand in a vice-like grip, and somehow he never wanted to let go. He wanted to hang on to her just like this. He had hung on, wanted to hang on like this, far too little. But he must go. Yes. He must go. The clock ticked, and the nurse was coming slowly up the ward. He bent over and held his wife’s head between his two hands.
‘Good-bye, woman. Good-bye, Fanny, and don’t be fretting out of you. I’ll be all right and home as soon as I can get, please God! Now good-bye, Fanny, and take care of yourself. I’ll write you when I can, though in these times you can’t promise much. I’ll think of you all the time. Sure, God knows I hate going with you like this. But there! Blast it, woman, I’ll be crying myself,’ then he kissed her and forced his hand away. ‘Good-bye, God bless you,’ he said, and he turned away.
‘Denny! Oh, Denny!’ but he did not hear a sound, nothing except the hoot of a ship’s siren, that in some way seemed to be calling him and hurrying forward his steps.
‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘Denny, he’s gone,’ and she sat up in the bed. Looked round the ward.
‘Yes, he’s gone,’ the nurse said. ‘They all have to go one time or another. Now you lie back and in a few minutes you’ll get your supper. And please don’t cry now.’
But she did cry, she did draw the sheet to cover her face and her thoughts flew after Denny, and she wanted to rise and go after him. About eight they gave her a sleeping draught, for her restlessness made them cautious. But this restlessness came even in sleep. Towards morning she slept peacefully.
She woke with the first streaks of light coming into the ward. She woke and the world was empty. He had gone. In those first waking moments she had said: No! No! but now she opened her eyes, and sat up. Others were being dressed, others were breakfasting; one hummed a tune, one laughed at pictures in a paper. Some talked to each other across the space between the beds. But he had gone.
It should never have been. It wasn’t fair. Forty-seven years of it. Too long. Too much. It was no life. She had hardly seen him. Didn’t know him. She had reared his children, and now she was here—and everybody was gone.
No! It wasn’t fair. She had made the mistakes. Stuffed children’s heads. Dreamed too much. But he had worked. Sailed, come home, sailed. No complaints, no suggestions.
‘No nothing,’ she said. ‘No nothing.’
They were gone, yet she loved them all. All of them. He had saved for their rainy day. She had taken it all, squandered it. Wasted it. She had tried to do what was right, but the heart did all the wrong things. Dreams crippled, the tongue was a danger in the mouth.
A nurse came with her breakfast, which she only half ate. She didn’t want it.
‘Did a Mr. Desmond Fury call here, nurse?’ she asked. ‘My husband said he would come. He’s my son. My eldest son. I wondered. Could you find out, nurse?’
The nurse shook her head. Nobody of that name had called.
‘Mr. Fury, her husband, called last evening.’
The woman nodded. ‘Yes. My husband, he came last night. He has gone now. Gone away to sea.’
‘Oh! Drink up this milk, please. And you must eat. Here eat this, Mrs. Fury.’
Food choked. The milk choked. So he hadn’t come. Said he would, but hadn’t. ‘I can’t be sorry,’ she said to herself. ‘I can’t be surprised. I’ll pay every drop for that boy. For my own son, Peter. Oh God, this son! This Peter.’
‘Come now, you must drink this milk. I’m not leaving this bed till you do.’
‘Yes, nurse, all right, nurse. Do I look—oh——’ The milk choked again.
The nurse went away.
He had gone, who should never have gone. Worked too long. Too hard. It was not fair. Not fair. She lay back. Eating that bit of breakfast had been an effort. A sister came in with a morning paper.
‘Is this your son?’ she asked, opening the paper and laying it across the bed.
‘Desmond!’ Yes. It must be. It must be! Yes—no! She looked up. ‘Yes,’ she said.
They left her with the paper. She looked at the photographs. In uniform. She didn’t know that. What could it mean? In the army? Desmond in the army?
A passing nurse offered her spectacles out of the locker. Beyond these, the locker was empty. The black bag, Denny’s ‘bag of madness ‘had gone. An officer. Good heavens! Desmond an officer. She didn’t believe it. How—where was this? Speaking at Dane’s Hall. Leaving for Plymouth—organizing the dock labourers into battalions. Desmond, and he was coming to see her. And he hadn’t come. Said he was. Told Denny he would. But he had never come. Under the sheet she laughed to herself, cried, laughed again. She didn’t believe it. Denny had actually seen him. The paper lay crumpled up on the bed.
In this state of laughing and sobbing, a nurse came. A letter for her. She struggled up again. A typewritten letter. From Mr. Trears. She began to read.
The sister came, took away the paper, unnoticed. ‘From Mr. Trears,’ she said.
He was sorry to say that his efforts had so far been ineffectual. The authorities did not consider it opportune, nor
possible for her to see her son as yet. Etc. etc. etc. But he, Mr. Trears, advised her not to worry about it. He would go on trying. He did think that she would see her son soon, one had to badger and badger the authorities, etc. etc. etc.
Couldn’t see her son. Peter! Not yet. He said he’d come. Desmond said he would. He told Denny that. Promised, but he hadn’t come. Denny had sailed away. The world was empty again.
A burst of laughter, a sudden burst like a bomb broke somewhere at the top end of the ward. A young woman in a high screechy voice shouted about the ‘Cardinal,’ a vacuum cleaner made a low humming sound through the ward. Figures in white flitted here and there, passed those who slept, but woke with their passing and they seemed like wraiths. A trolly rattled outside the ward, somebody went past singing in a soft voice. The warmth from the pipes slowly rose, climbed and spread about the vast ward. And Mrs. Fury, listening to it all, thought how unfair it was that Denny should have to go. But into the middle of this empty world stepped Father Richard Moynihan.
‘Father! Oh, Father Moynihan! How are you? I am so glad, so glad. I—look—I’ve just had a letter from my son.’
‘Indeed! Now isn’t that grand. And how are you, Fanny? You look better.’
He did not sit down. In fact, he had only come for a word or two. He would of course come in to see her in the ordinary way to-morrow. He was glad to see she was getting better. But he had to go in exactly two minutes. He was, in fact, on a very important visit to a young woman in Ward C. He stood leaning over the bed, hands pressed flat against his thighs, and he asked and answered questions. Denny had sailed this morning. Yes. Yes. How long had he been in Ireland? Oh, over a year. Yes. He did see Mr. Kilkey from time to time. Everything was going on in the same old way.
Her grave face looked out at him. ‘The same old way, Father?’ she asked. ‘Same old way?’
Laughing, he said yes. But Miss Pettigrew had passed on. No doubt she knew. No, he had never heard from her sister in Ireland, and he couldn’t say what had happened to the old man.
‘That was sad,’ was all she said.
No! He hadn’t changed. Didn’t look a day older. He smiled down at her. Again he said how glad he was that she was getting better. Please God that she’d soon be out.
And then a nurse came and took him away. He was wanted at once in Ward C. She watched him go. She was glad he had gone. She was glad he had come to see her like that. No! She wished he hadn’t come to see her.
You believed in your family, you had faith in your children, and you hoped one would be a priest. To be a priest was a kind of goodness. But he had never become a priest, and it had all been waste. The debts goodness paid were far heavier than those of downright badness. You hoped. And then they turned on you. All because you liked faith and a cleanness in children whom you believed in. In the end you were covered with all the splashes of filth, of shame and disgrace, that their swishing feet flung up. They ran out of it—you hid. But you couldn’t hide. They found you out. They knocked you down in the end. The feet splashes covered you no less. He had come and gone. She was glad! She didn’t want any more touch with those ‘old things go on just the same.’ Maybe! But she had enough of that. Quite enough. And she didn’t want to be drawn back into those ‘old things.’
Denny had gone, who should never have had to go. That was one of the debts that faith and goodness paid. But he was right, the simple-hearted, loose-tongued creature was right. She had only him. She learned this at the age of sixty-three. You learned it after forty-five years of marriage. You learned it here on the flat of your back. No! She did not want to see Father Moynihan again. She liked him, he was good. But she wanted to go now. She wanted to rise up out of the bed, this very moment and hide.
Suddenly she turned over on her side and covered her head with the bedclothes. How had they found her? She was so sure she had finally lost herself. Well, as soon as she was able she would be on the move again. She would leave Hey’s Alley. It was no home—never would be. She’d live quietly in her own way and wait for Denny. Oh! Why had he to go now—now—of all days?
Something made her put her hand under the pillow. She took out Anthony’s letter. She unfolded it and began to read, but soon the words became blurs that danced to and fro across the page. What part of the world was he in? What would he be doing now? And a group of quick, fanciful pictures began to grow in her mind. And how was he getting on with life? She could see him standing at the end of her bed. He was always shy. The quiet one, this one said little or nothing, and made no fuss. The one without vice, the one good son she had, who went to work and didn’t tell the whole world about it. Who went on quickly with his job. Who had fallen from the mast of a ship and laughed about it. Who only wanted a piano-accordion to make full his days.
Simple, good natured—that little growl of his about money being spent on Peter at college had been only a little accidental growl. He was the best of them all. She wondered what he would do for himself. Wondering this she fell asleep.
She did not wake till early the next morning. She felt better. She wanted to go. To be free, to go and hide. Didn’t want to see anybody. She would have the few pounds, monthly from her husband. And suddenly she became a nuisance. She worried and badgered at the staff. She was better, she wanted to go. She knew she was better. She didn’t want to lie here any more. Lying there and people coming to see you. She didn’t want to see people. She had had enough of it. Day by day and hour by hour she worried them, and the more she worried them, the more confident she began to feel.
One morning they found her up, dressing herself. They called the doctor. He looked at her, this tall, thin woman with her long face and the curious mouth, the hard mouth, and he looked at her hands, hard, mishapen, red, coarse hands. She was deaf to all advice. They would not stop her. Did she feel better? She had nothing more to say. She had said it all. She completed dressing, then asked for her hat and coat. Did she realize that she left of her own free will, the responsibility would not lie on the hospital? She wasn’t compelled to stay but they wanted to get her really better? She sailed down the ward carrying under her arm the black handbag packed with newspapers.
‘I understand everything now,’ she said, as she was given her coat, hat and two newly washed handkerchiefs. ‘Thank you! You have been kind.’
They watched her go.
‘What a stubborn, fiercely independent woman,’ the doctor said. There was something he admired about it.
When she had passed out of the door it was though a gust of wind had come and gone. Yes, she understood everything now. She would be gone out of Hey’s Alley to-morrow. That became a determination. Nobody had come. Only Denny! Not one of the others. Father Moynihan had just blown through.
She walked slowly along the road, stopped to grip the railings, suddenly feeling weak. But that was only the lying there, lying there with nothing to do but think. Glad she was out of it. A few more yards and there was the tram. The conductor helped her on. The tram moved off. The tram’s rhythm took up the words in her head and began to rock them:
‘Out of Hey’s Alley! Out of Hey’s Alley!’
‘Well,’ thought Mr. Fury as he left the hospital that evening, ‘that was that!’ He had got it over. It had been something of an ordeal. Still, he had managed it very nicely. He had held in his real feelings. Why? Because he had to. More, he had taken these feelings and throttled them. Because he had to. He daren’t show them. He knew Fanny. He knew he would never sail, if he did. He didn’t want to sail, to leave her like that. But he had to sail. And something in him, a sort of instinctive and irresistible hand had got hold of those feelings and held them safe. There she was.
How did he know how long he would be away? The things she might do, for he knew she was a stubborn, headlong creature. He had to go, knowing nothing but the old things. There were no new ones. Dreams—day-dreaming. Cottages in Ireland. Rubbish! You could see through all that. Just like a looking-glass. Words. Simply words. He had to sail, had to walk o
ut of that hospital and leave her alone. Well, he had got through with it. One could hope for the best. That she would get over this illness, and that in a trip or two he’d be able to find other work, so that he would be with her for good. Shore work. That, one could think about.
Desmond had come to see him and he had promised. But he had never gone near his mother. Then blast him! One might think one’s mother was a plague, a devil. One kept finding out things about people all the time. Life was a sort of mess. It was nice sitting in there and talking to her, and even understanding the poor silly woman. ‘A poor silly woman.’ No matter. She was his. And this coming outside. It was like entering an ice-field. There were two things, two more things he had to do. He would see Mr. Kilkey, and then, if he had time, Father Moynihan. That done he too was free. He could sail knowing that one or other of them would look to his wife.
He had walked on in the slight drizzle, his feelings, those bottled-up feelings, those knotted and buried feelings, now having the weight of lead. He heard cars roar and ships blow, and people went by, but the ships blew all the time. You had to listen to that. Being told that you hadn’t to forget they were there—and waiting for you. Eventually he reached Price Street. He would catch Joe before he went off to work. It was only eight o’clock. And in the darkness familiar faces didn’t count. That was good. And at number six he knocked, knocked twice, three times, but no door opened.
At first he was surprised, then disappointed. Surely he couldn’t be out. Impossible. Joe was as sure as the sun. He couldn’t be out. Too early for work. Repeated knockings brought the woman next door to the front step. She saw the man standing on the step. A stranger. She didn’t know him.
‘Who are you looking for?’ she called across to him, and he looked up, hearing the voice, saw the shadow, then the white face out of the darkness.
