The Closed Harbour

by James Hanley

  Eventually, the atmosphere becoming more friendly, and less business-like, Philippe would gaily introduce the news of a new grafting in his flower garden, and Labiche would discuss souls, flowers and souls being the magnet, the fulcrum, the two circles around which the lives of Labiche and Philippe centred.

  Yes, it was quite on the map that Labiche was in the act of saving somebody, and quite on the map that he, Philippe would not be greatly interested.

  "To shock Labiche," reflected Philippe, "you've only to tell him how bloody absurd life is."

  He got up and walked slowly across the room, and stared through the window. He wondered how long Labiche would remain so bent, so absorbed. Surely he would notice. But he did not, and Philippe tapped gently on the window, and at once the large, mis-shaped head rose and the brown eyes were looking across at Philippe, and the expression upon the face said, "yes, Monsieur Philippe, what may I do for you?"

  Philippe shouted through to him, "let's have a coffee, the old boy's never in until after two," then he turned his back on the other and went across and took his hat from its hook, and his stick, for always Philippe was accompanied by a stick and never seemed quite complete and set up without one.

  He stood watching the little man put some papers away in his desk, dutifully lock it, and pick up his own hat.

  He met him at the top of the iron stairway, amongst the smells, by the be-mapped wall that so much needed a new coat of paint. And that little coil of manilla, was nobody ever going to remove it.

  "Good," he said as they met. "Let's go."

  The door swung to behind them. Philippe paused for a moment to look up at the sky, this morning the very heavens seemed ablaze.

  "What an ordination the sun really is," he exclaimed, "sometimes I find myself wishing that the Heros headquarters had transferred themselves to one of the Polar regions."

  Labiche offered his companion a wide, toothy smile, and then the tall and short of it set off for what Philippe termed "the hole in the alley."

  Sparing with his confidences, aware of his superiority at the Heros, Philippe yet found himself so relieved after this latest visitation from Manos, that it was impossible for him to keep his satisfaction to himself.

  "I always feel more like myself the moment that Manos is away from the quay. How'd you get on with him—Spaniards are difficult, and how they talk their heads off... but of course, how stupid of me, you have no dealings with our doughtiest Captain."

  "He has spoken to me on occasion, sir," replied Labiche, and Philippe stared as though this were some kind of warning.

  "What d'you think of him? Reminds me of a playful elephant—"

  "I found him a tolerable man," said Labiche.

  He part walked, part trotted, it was difficult to keep up with Philippe's long legs.

  "Here we are."

  And there they were, seated opposite each other in a shady corner.

  "This morning," began Philippe, "something seemed not quite right to me, and for a while I couldn't make out what it was. Then I found myself instinctively looking at my watch and discovered that the Heros clock was nearly ten minutes slow. That cleaner is not doing his job thoroughly."

  "Imagine that," said Labiche.

  "Another thing I noticed was that that bum never showed up last Friday..."

  "Nor Saturday," added Labiche.

  "Of course. You see him like I do, but you are tucked away and are only an observer. I have to face these bums, and what a lot of them there are. Extraordinary tribe, sailors. But this fellow, he'd the stubbornness of a mule, I hope he doesn't come again, began to get on my nerves. Sometimes he'd walk in and just stare and say nothing—"

  "I noticed that, poor man, I felt sorry for him. And I did not think him such a common person. A little distinguished if I may say so."

  "It sounds like an echo of your patron Saint," said Philippe, and he laughed. "Personally I like to see a man washed and clean shaved, and with some presence. This chap often looked as if he'd been out on the tiles with the cats—the scruffier they are the more you like them, Labiche. No offence of course. It's a fact, isn't it?"

  Labiche sipped at his coffee and said nothing.

  "You won't see him again," he said, he did not look up, but remained staring at the table.

  "That's splendid. I expect he'll land on his feet some time or other, poor swine. But what could I have done? What could anybody have done? Sailors, ten for a franc, that's how it is, and then look at the riff-raff here that call themselves sailors."

  "He may not have liked you," ventured Labiche, his finger making circles round the cup rim.

  "That's frank enough anyhow," replied Philippe. "You'd be sorry for him at once, I know you, Labiche, and I admire you, but being sorry ... is that helpful, the poor bastard wants a ship, we'd no berths, they're very few to-day, the war's shot holes in everything, no sense of security any longer—besides look at his record?"

  "Have you seen it, sir?"

  "Hadn't got one to show. We had a line on him, those Bilter people, too, and they weren't the only ones—sailors talked, too, sticky past they say ... however fair's fair. If we'd had a berth and he'd a decent record, Monsieur Follet would have considered him for a job."

  "You won't see him again," said Labiche.

  "Good. You've told me that already," replied Philippe.

  He had finished his coffee and pushed away the cup, his watch was out, he checked up with the Dernier monstrosity which had the tick of ship's engines, he would be back in his office in three minutes.

  "Finish your coffee," he said.

  Labiche put down his cup and stood up. From his great height Philippe looked down at him. If Labiche hadn't been in one of those St. Vincent de Paul moods, he supposed he would have laughed at the sight of him, stood there by the table, looking right up at him, there were comical sides to Labiche, one could not always ignore them.

  "The last thing I want is a moral sermon from him," he reflected, yet could not avoid remarking "how you do love lame dogs, Labiche, they magnetize you. Quite extraordinary. And so many of them, even good people must pick and choose. Only the other morning Monsieur Follet said to me, 'Labiche is sharpening his claws... '"

  "He said that?"

  "He did indeed. You were asking him questions about this Marius. He told me. You were no doubt interested in him. He looked so sad, so lost, so miserable."

  He put his hand on Labiche's shoulder, there was something almost fatherly in this gesture, and he smiled down and said, "Labiche, I admire you—how I'm repeating myself this morning, but the world contains a vast sea of misery, there it is, looking at you, and my God, if you're going to have any sense of proportion at all, then I say all one can afford is a hard squint, and I mean just that."

  Labiche remained silent. He did not once look at his companion. He could hear him calling out the time of day to passing friends, people from neighbouring offices, and with such a light-hearted spirit that Labiche realized at once that Philippe had already swum right through this sea of misery and come out safely on the other side.

  "Monsieur Philippe," he said.

  "You were saying..."

  Labiche caught Philippe's coat sleeve, "speaking as man to man, Monsieur Philippe," he began...

  "Man to man," thought Philippe, he could hardly conceal a smile, "I just love that—"

  "Yes, Labiche?"

  "Captain Marius is a sick man, and I could help him ..."

  "Then do, good lord, what are you waiting for, Labiche, by all means—poor swine, how'd you know, been following him I suppose..."

  "He is at the end of his tether…"

  "So many are, Labiche ... oh, these headlong hearts—these headlong hearts, and what's especially attractive about Marius that you wish to save him, it's his soul, isn't it, for by some miracle or other he's saving his own skin—"

  "He believes he's a Captain still—"

  "He drinks too much, to say nothing of whoring, sailors will always be sailors. We must
get back," said Philippe, "just look at the time."

  "It was nice of him to ask me to have a coffee," thought Labiche, "the second time in ten years."

  He heard Philippe say good-morning to somebody, then the door shut, and when he glanced up Philippe was in rapid conversation with this gentleman, and like Philippe, he was tall and lean. Labiche stood quietly by the table, he wondered if he should go, if he should sit down and wait. How tall these men were, they existed on another level of air, and suddenly Labiche's mind travelled back over twenty years. He was a boy, he was in the hideous little house behind the Quai de Belge, he was nine or was it ten years old, but a year hardly mattered. There he was, standing in the kitchen, looking at his mother. She was seated on a stool near the hearth, she was feeding his youngest sister. He remembered how calm and peaceful his mother looked as she held the child, as he remembered the big breast that jutted out from his mother's blouse, he had stared at it wonderingly.

  "What are you staring at, Ariste?"

  "Nothing, mother, nothing."

  "Then stare at something for a change," she said, but he could not take his eyes from her.

  "Poor Ariste," she said, "you'll never be anything but half a man."

  The scene came back to him clearly now, as he stood rudely diminished by the two tall men, he could hear his mother's voice, "you'll never be anything but half a man," and it had the solid weight of a fist in it. He had never forgotten it, this first painful morning of his childhood, and now he felt its echo.

  He could see himself hurrying upstairs to his box-like bedroom, bursting into tears as he flung himself on the bed, how miserable and lonely he had felt. He remembered being roused by the sound of his father's heavy, clopping footsteps on the stairs, how he had sat up quickly when the door opened, a little puzzled and frightened and ashamed, and the man straight back from the fishing had stamped into his room to exclaim:

  "Ariste! What the hell are you doing here, get down to your supper at once."

  He had gone to his father and thrown his arms round one knee, clutching his trousers, looked up at him, and into his nostrils had come the dense fish smell.

  "Father?"

  "Well! What now?"

  "Is it true that when I'm grown up I'll only be half a man?"

  "You'll be half a man all right, son, but you won't grow up. How can you? Comes to the same thing. You're half a man now and you'll remain so till your dying day."

  He could heard his father's loud, coarse laugh.

  "Probably put a bit of fat on, they all do."

  "Come along, Labiche," Philippe said, and he was standing there waiting, the other gentleman was already enjoying his coffee, his head buried in the morning paper.

  "Come along now, I only gave myself ten minutes," said Philippe.

  "I cried myself to sleep and I knew I'd never grow up," and then he felt a tap on his shoulder, and there was Philippe, the table, the other people, the sunshine on the pavement, the door bell ringing, the big clock ticking, and Philippe waiting, stiff and business-like again, and Labiche said, "sorry, sir, I'm coming," and together they walked down to the door.

  "Day dreaming, Labiche?"

  "Thinking," said Labiche, and then they were out on the avenue, ringed in the bright sunlight.

  Again Philippe paused, surveyed the scene, and then remarked, "makes me think of the country, a day like this. By the way, when d'you go for your holidays?"

  "November 15th" Labiche replied, and at once Philippe exclaimed, "Ooh!" feeling the cold.

  "Poor Labiche, you simply can't avoid the sackcloth and ashes," and seeing the little man colour up he patted his shoulder and said kindly, "well well, no offence Labiche, none at all, just my manner, forget about it. Sometimes, I must confess, I look at you through my window and I ask myself if you are happy, I never hear you laugh, Labiche, but I suppose you are, really. How's the family?"

  "They are quite well, thank you."

  "One day we must go out to lunch," Philippe said as they reached the entrance.

  "Thank you, Monsieur Philippe. To-day I shall eat sandwiches with my family, under the plane trees, it's always cool there."

  "How nice."

  They separated the moment they went through the door, each to his own desk. A moment later the sheet of glass had divided them.

  "I've never seen Philippe so sociable," thought Labiche, as he sat down to begin his work.

  Then the telephone bell on Philippe's desk rang out and it raised a solid wall between the two men. Labiche forgot Philippe. The little man remembered only the coffee, he had enjoyed it because Philippe had been nice this morning.

  But now, business was business, and a door in his mind shut the other man out. He had forgotten him, but not the moment in which he had stood at the Dernier table, that hand on his shoulder, Philippe looking downwards. The shadow of a smile crossed Labiche's face.

  "A look of lofty commiseration," he thought.

  "Are you packing?"

  Madame Marius stood at the foot of the stairs. "Yes mother," replied Madeleine, but she was not. She was standing in her brother's room, and she knew she had seen the last of him. She was like a boat, helpless against the pull of the tide. Leaning against the bedroom door she looked without interest at the objects in this room. The bed he had slept in, the chair, the table, the personal objects, the dark wine stains on the floor board, his pipe fallen there, an old cap.

  "You're very silent up there," her mother called again. "Where are we going?" asked Madeleine of herself as she stood there, staring into the deserted room. "Why are we here, what does it mean?"

  "All right, mother, I'll be down directly," she called below. She closed the door noiselessly, and something in her very action brought relief, shutting out something she had never understood. This dreadful hatred of her mother, this iron determination to pursue her brother to the bitter end. "D'you want me to pack in this old shawl?"

  "Why not. Pack everything, I said so, didn't I?"

  "Very well. But where are we going, mother?" She stood at the top of the stairs, but Madame Marius had not answered. Madeleine could hear her busy at the task, and something of the old woman's energy, her determination, seemed to flow upwards to her. She went into their bedroom and began to gather the personal belongings. "Don't be up there all day, will you?" Madeleine called loudly, "I told you, mother, I'm packing."

  " I thought you might be slobbering in his room," replied Madame Marius.

  In the sitting-room the old woman was bent over a large black trunk, and into it, neatly folded, she was laying her things. There was something almost forbidding in the rude energy with which she packed, somehow it did not belong to age.

  Sometimes she would lift up a dress, a pair of shoes, pause, holding them aloft against the light, and then fling them down into the trunk like a riddance of something hateful from the hand, as though she were piling into the slowly filling trunk, weight upon weight, the burden of stone to be dragged into the world and to another place.

  On the table behind her, there lay a letter as yet un-sealed, the ink still wet upon its page. Naked to the light one could see the bold handwriting, even from a distance.

  Dear Father Gerard,

  Thank-you for your kind letter. It gave me a sudden lift of the heart, but I must admit at once that it's pure nonsense to say that we should return. There is something crawling about mercy and I want none of it. A good man here, a Father Nollet, you may know him, Father, has said almost the same thing. But there is a contradiction in what he says, and he does not face it. How can one live among good people any more? We're all tainted. If I came at all it was to drag the truth from my son, and nothing more. To get it from that mouth is satisfaction, something finished, final, done with. But hiding the sin behind mercy, it's beyond me. Yours sincerely, Genevieve Marius.

  Madeleine had come down, was in the room, standing by the trunk over which her mother was bent. The old woman, absorbed in her work, and in her thoughts, had not heard her come i
n, yet felt she was there. She was on her knees now, arranging the contents of the trunk. After what seemed a long silence, she exclaimed, without looking up, "perhaps you could assist me instead of standing there so helpless."

  Madeleine knelt down by her side. And more and more things were pressed into the trunk.

  "Where are we going, mother? I have the right to know."

  "We've seen a bit of the world, we may see a bit more."

  "But Eugene, he's ill, mother."

  "I forbade you to speak to him, and you broke your word to me. I am his mother, and I'm the person to be told what must be told. Do you take me for a fool? D'you suppose I came hundreds of miles just to watch him at his drinking and whoring, his bouts of misery, his self pitying hours up there, hiding away in his room like some horrible old woman who has thrown her skirts over her head just because the mice are there."

  "But he's ill, mother, please believe me, I know, he's ill."

  "In time he would have told me. That's all that I wanted of him. Nothing more. To hear him say it, to see him open up, to see it flowing out, all that dirt, those lies, that beastly horror inside him. He didn't drown like a man, he couldn't. That he should have dared to raise a hand against that child, all that innocence, for his selfish ends.

  "On his knees, that's his place, on his knees, he's entirely without shame. Do we have to acknowledge the good and the bad in the same breath. In the name of the good Christ what are we coming to? You know nothing of him, I do. I've travelled with him, every mile of his bone, I know. Rotten from the beginning. Are you asking me to forgive him? Where is your son? My name? My God! You're half awake, child, and that's the truth of it."

  She had risen to her feet, and leaning over the trunk, she put out her hand, appealingly, offering it to her, and Madeleine took it and held it.

  "That priest was right, Madeleine, that Nollet man, there is something in you, and it shuts ruin out."

  Then she withdrew her hand. "Go and see the time."

  And when she came back and said it was nearly noon Madame Marius said casually, "then make ready the lunch, such as it is. I do not intend to be here to-night and that is all. I won't see the darkness fall and neither will you."