Our Time Is Gone

by James Hanley

  ‘I’ve just brought in eleven men,’ said Twomey, he drank coffee, he ate toast.

  ‘You have wonderful patience, Joseph Twomey, you are a rather wonderful person.’

  ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. I must go. I’ve a service in ten minutes. You may rely on me to do all that’s necessary with Mr Fury. There is still the wife to be told. However, she is a strong-hearted, courageous woman—she won’t flinch. I know her of old. I’ve known many people in my time, Twomey, and I must say it gives me a great feeling to think that these old people are united again. I think they were always meant to be together in spite of all that has happened.’

  Delahane came in. He glanced at Father Moynihan, ‘Good-evening, Father,’ at which Father Moynihan got up.

  ‘In the morning, I must go and see that woman.…’

  ‘Doesn’t she know—oughtn’t she to know at once?’ Father Twomey turned to Delahane.

  ‘Yes, just coming, are those men all right?’

  ‘Yes, Father. I’ve arranged for you to see them in the dining-room in half an hour. They are anxious to get away.’

  ‘Excuse me, Father Moynihan—you see how it is.’

  ‘I see how it is. I do wish I’d been able to say what I wanted to say to that old man upstairs.’

  ‘Come after the service.’

  They both went out.

  ‘I hope he can be shifted to-morrow.’

  ‘Nothing can be done until his wife has seen him. She’ll have to be brought here to-morrow.’

  They parted without another word, Father Moynihan to his church, the other to arrange for transportation to the houses of the eleven newly arrived men. Thinking of this, he forgot all about Dennis Fury. He was only one, and there were always the others.

  ‘I want you to travel to the station and see these men off,’ he informed Delahane.

  ‘I was intending that, Father. I suppose you know you have been on your feet since five this morning.’

  ‘Have I?’ he said, laughing, ‘I’d quite forgotten.’

  There were eleven quite different men waiting for him when he went into the dining-room. They rose as he came in, and some smiled: they had washed, they had eaten, they were ready to go.

  ‘Now your papers,’ Father Twomey said, and each man handed him his papers.

  ‘We’ll have you on the train inside an hour,’ the priest said. He sat down at the table and began to examine the various documents. He made copies of all, which eventually he would forward to the Regional Ministry of Transport Office, in the case of Government chartered ships, otherwise to the various privately-run shipping lines.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘thank you,’ and to each man he gave back papers and a travel voucher for their destination.

  ‘You will not have long to wait, you will all be home with your loved ones in a matter of hours. Good-bye, God bless you.’

  ‘Good-bye, Father,’ they said, rising as one man. Father Twomey went out.

  ‘Be ready when the bus arrives, men,’ Delahane said, ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

  ‘Now try to sit up, Mr Fury, and drink this. I believe you had a nice little sleep after all.’

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You are with the Apostleship of the Sea. I am Father Twomey. I am making arrangements for you to go home to-morrow. Come along now, daddy,’ he said, coaxing, ‘come along now, you must drink this milk and brandy.’

  He looked at the quivering mouth—‘Steady,’ he said. He held the old man tight and watched him drink ever so slowly.

  ‘Why hasn’t Fanny come?’ he said.

  Father Twomey turned away his head, he was certain that the old man was quietly crying.

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘A few hours. You were drunk. Those two men who brought you here were drunk. Did the agent at Bahia cable your wife?’

  ‘She never wrote back to me. I wrote twice. I don’t understand. Isn’t one of my children here?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the priest said, ‘the ship carrying your mail was sunk. But did the shipping agent cable your wife that you were safe?’

  ‘I remember now,’ Dennis Fury said—he suddenly raised his head, ran his fingers down the back of his neck. ‘Is it very bad, Father, does it show much? It might be against me at the next signing.…’

  ‘You won’t sign any more, daddy, not anywhere, not on anything—even a coal barge. No, sure it is not that bad after all. But now you must get well.’

  ‘It worries me.’

  ‘What worries you?’

  ‘Not signing anywhere. Not working. I’ve always done it. And Fanny’ll be worried too. Before I went away on that ship Ronsa, I’d a terrible argument with Fanny, because she didn’t want me to go away to sea any more. She said I was too old. I’m not too old, am I, Father? Are you Father Moynihan?’

  ‘No, I’m Father Twomey, Chaplain at the Gelton Apostleship of the Sea. But Father Moynihan has been and he’s coming again. I know he wants to see you, to have a long talk with you.’

  ‘I wish Fanny’d come. I don’t understand. She always came before. Always met me off the ship. Oh, that poor little lad!’ he exclaimed, he made a violent movement in the bed; for a moment Father Twomey thought he was going to leap through the window, he restrained him.

  ‘What little lad?’

  After a pause, the old man said ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘His mind is completely bewildered, and there are great blanks in it too.’ Father Twomey thought; he said,

  ‘I must go now, Dennis Fury. I have many things to do. Just have a little more of this milk and brandy before I go—just to please me,’ he said, and he was pleased when the old man’s hand reached out for the cup.

  ‘There.’

  ‘Will you tell Fanny I’m here. I know she’ll be worried. Oh Christ, that time I fell I thought I’ll not see Fanny again.…’

  ‘What time you fell?’

  ‘The first time.’

  ‘The first time, where?’

  Again the pause, again the same answer, ‘I don’t know,’ and ‘why didn’t she come? It’s unlike her,’ the two hands gripped the hem of the priest’s coat—‘why can’t I go home?’

  ‘I’ve told you. You’ll be home to-morrow. Lie back now like a good man and don’t distress yourself. Fanny will see you very soon. Is Fanny your wife’s name? It’s a nice name.’

  The man had fallen back on the pillows, the conversation had exhausted him.

  ‘Yes, the sooner he is out of here the better. I can’t understand why his wife wasn’t brought up here at once.’

  The telephone was ringing. He hurried from the room and went below. Delahane, he knew, was out. ‘And there’s the bus, too,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Hello, oh, it’s you.…’

  ‘You have seen his wife?…’

  ‘You are coming round now.…’

  Somebody was hammering on the door.

  ‘Yes, of course. This time you had better stay. There’s no accounting for the old man. One minute he remembers something, the next he has forgotten it. Yes, do explain that his wife is coming.’

  He dropped the receiver.

  ‘What is all this?’ he asked, opening the door.

  ‘Just saying good-bye, Father,’ the man said.

  ‘Why, of course, I’ve a difficult case upstairs, sorry I had to rush away and leave you. Let’s go,’ and he went down the corridor with the lumbering men.

  Outside, Delahane was waiting. He stood by the door as each man climbed into the bus.

  ‘You have your voucher, your sandwiches, cigarettes?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Father Twomey stood watching them go. They smiled and waved through the window, they cried good-byes into the cold night air and, watching them as the bus revved up and finally moved, he felt a lifting of the heart, yet wondered on that hateful sea—and thought of the ocean that might claim them. A final wave of the hand and he went in
.

  ‘Go right up, Father Moynihan,’ he said, as soon as the other priest arrived.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He heard the heavy feet climbing the stairs. Later he fell fast asleep in the office chair.

  ‘My name is Richard Moynihan and I am your parish priest. You know me, Dennis Fury?’

  The old man nodded his head.

  ‘Take your time, take it easy, and try to be brave,’ the priest said, he clasped the other’s hand in his own.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ falteringly.

  ‘I have seen Fanny.’

  He watched the expression suddenly change in Dennis Fury’s face, the gentle knowledge.

  ‘Why hasn’t she come? I want her.’

  ‘You will see her in the morning.’

  ‘I want to go home. Who brought me here? I want to go back to my home.’

  ‘You will soon be home.’

  He paused.

  ‘There is something I must tell you …’ he paused again, ‘when Fanny comes, you must just be glad that you are together again. She will tell you everything.’

  ‘What has she done?’

  He evaded this—‘You know about your youngest boy.’

  ‘She wrote and told me,’ the old man said. ‘Ah, it’s hard, the poor little lad.’

  ‘He may get out in two years if he behaves himself.’

  ‘Where are the others? Where are my children? Nobody has come to see me, nobody.’

  ‘Everything will right itself. Remember you are a lucky old man to be here to-day. Think of that. Think of your wife waiting for you.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Waiting until the morning. In the morning everything will settle itself. I do not want you to say anything if it tires you, but I must give you news of your children. Anthony. Anthony is still in the Navy, but will be discharged in eighteen months. Desmond has left Gelton. He is working at Trade Union headquarters in London. He left a year ago. Your daughter—I cannot say—she has disappeared somewhere.…’

  ‘I remember now.’

  ‘You remember?’

  ‘She ran away. That’s it. Where is Joe Kilkey?’

  ‘You will see him to-morrow.’

  ‘Give me a drink, Father,’

  Father Moynihan held the water to his lips.

  And when the old man had drunk—‘It saddens me that she never came—she always used to come.’

  ‘You must have had a terrible time, Dennis, two ships to fall under you in a week.’

  The old man made no reply to this, but he began to stare at the priest, to stare with a fixed interest—he suddenly said ‘Father Moynihan—your hair’s grey, you’re an old man.’

  Father Moynihan laughed. It was the first laugh the old man had heard in that room.

  ‘D’you want to sit up?’ he asked; the old man was already making frantic efforts to do so. He lifted him.

  ‘Why, you’re no weight at all, Dennis, what on earth have you been doing with yourself?’

  Somebody was hammering on a typewriter in the office below, the sounds came up like gunshots.

  When the priest glanced at the old man again, he found he had slipped down, he seemed to have fallen asleep.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he thought. ‘If he sleeps on I’ll stay the night. This man must know what is coming to him before the morning.’

  A whisper stole into the silence. ‘I’m listening,’ said the old man in the bed. ‘Go on talking, Father.’

  ‘Your poor wife nearly went out of her mind that awful day. I remember that day as though it were yesterday. A bad day indeed for Gelton. Four hundred men. Kilkey didn’t go to work that day. When the news appeared in the paper, he went off down to see Fanny. When he got there, she was gone. And she had done a curious thing. He found the door of the house wide open, anybody could have gone in and stolen her things. Kilkey walked everywhere that day, looking for her. I remember it was a powerful hot July day. The shipping offices on the front were in a state of siege with hundreds of poor women trying to reach the office, to find out the worst or the best, but in the end their hearts were shattered by the silence. There was no news. Hours passed by, still no news. At last it came. I don’t know how your wife spent that day. I think perhaps she just walked and walked and stared out to the sea and tired herself out.’

  He bent his head—‘Dennis, I went down in the evening to see her, but there was nobody there, and Kilkey had already been there and locked the place up.’

  With his lips close to the man’s ear, he said. ‘She never went back ever again. The door was shut for good and all. I only found out what happened the next morning. Kilkey came to see me. She had hung about the shipping office most of that day, she saw one and another go, until finally there was only herself left. And she climbed those stairs again, once again, only to hear the clerk say no, no news. The ship had sunk in seven minutes, there were nine survivors out of a total crew of four hundred and thirty-two men. A black week. Many’s the door I knocked at that week, with only the barest shred of comfort in my hands. What I am trying to tell you, my dear old friend, is that there is no home any longer.’

  He gripped the man’s shoulders, and held them tight, he saw the frail, trembling mouth moving, but somehow the words did not come, and he knew now that he had said the best and the worst.

  ‘No home,’ Dennis stuttered at last—‘no home … I always had a home. I had a whole family and fine children. I had a home for fifty years. You’re joking with me, Father, you’re joking—you were always a one for that.’

  ‘The terrible row we had the day I sailed,’ the old man said.

  ‘Your wife went to St Stephen’s Hospice. She never came out. She has been there a whole year. She had given you up entirely. Many a day I’ve called to see her there. Kilkey tried very hard—he wanted her to live with him, but it was no use. She had made up her mind. I know it’s very hard—a bitter blow, Dennis, but remember what your wife went through, all those weeks, those months. She is there, waiting for you—you are alive by the mercy of God. You may yet build something out of what is left. I will help you—we will all help. But you must try and make up your mind to accept the hard fact that there is no possibility, as she sometimes foolishly thinks, of starting a home again, and hoping that some way or other the family will unite again. It is far too late for that. You have only each other now.’

  ‘It was all for nothing then?’

  Something in the old man broke. The priest tried, but he found he could not answer his question.

  ‘Listen, Dennis, I’ve talked too much already.’ He thought looking at this shaking creature: ‘What a shame—to come through all that experience, and then to find nothing but emptiness.’

  ‘You must lie back. Try and get a good night’s sleep. Try to think of your wife lying awake in her own lonely bed, thinking and waiting for you. Now compose yourself, and go to sleep.’

  The old man looked up at the priest. He did not speak and Father Moyniham was glad of that.

  ‘Try to sleep,’ he said, covering him, ‘close your eyes now. Remember I will be here. I am here all the time. I shall not leave you.’

  The old man turned over on his side. It was growing dark. Father Moynihan moved silently from the bed. He walked to the window. For a long time he stood there, looking out at the dark piled mass outside the window. Then he turned away and went out of the room.

  ‘There is really no need for me to stay any longer. The old man has fallen asleep. I have told him.’

  ‘How did he take it, Father Moynihan?’

  ‘It’s hard to say, except for a moment he was quite unable to speak to me. It has been a blow for him. He is such a simple man—they take such blows, not like us, but somehow almost as one might imagine an animal takes a blow. We never know the effect. They never answer under it, nor yet do they wilt. Their hearts are strong. I found it difficult to tell a man, come as he has come out of some mad and mysterious sea, the most simple truth. I thought he might cry—but he did n
ot.’

  ‘Delahane will get you a cup of strong coffee if you would like one.’

  Father Moynihan declined and picked up his hat. ‘It is very late,’ he said.

  ‘Near to midnight, and so you think this Mr Fury can be shifted to-morrow?’

  ‘Of course. He requires attention that he cannot get here. I will have him removed. I shall come about noon to-morrow. There is still the matter of his wife. I rang up the Hospice and explained roughly what had happened. The Mother Superior will do nothing till I see her. She is a most sensible and understanding woman. I think she can explain to the man’s wife and prepare her. She will be shocked when she sees him. I have never seen a man so changed in so short a time—never. He is like a very old child. It quite upset me when he complained she had not come to meet him. Apparently she always went down to the ship to meet him when he came home from sea. He expected everything to be as it was before, his home, his family. Well, I must be off. Good-night, Twomey,’ he said, he shook hands with the younger priest, ‘what time do you yourself retire?’

  ‘I stay here till two. Then I go to bed and Delahane calls me at six unless something has happened to make me rise earlier. Men pass in and out of here in a continuous stream. I sometimes wonder why at this house we have doors at all, for they are never shut. I should be tired, really, but I am not tired—I’m happy to-day. Twelve men out of the sea, Father Moynihan, my flock runs to thousands and thousands.’ He smiled, he accompanied Father Moynihan to the door. They stood there talking for a few minutes, then the older man patted the younger’s shoulder.

  ‘Good-night—God bless you.’

  Father Twomey stood in the dark doorway watching him go. Soon he was lost to sight, and only the footsteps could be heard. Far out on the river a light blinked, the sound of a syren tore through the night air, and he knew ships moved oceanwards under the heavy sky, moved homewards and dropped anchor to await the morning light.

  ‘It was that tattooed star, that particular medal that got the old man home at last.’ He withdrew into the passage. He heard footsteps, recognized them, Delahane was bringing in night coffee, he hummed the tune he always hummed.