by James Hanley
‘Yes,’ went on Mrs Fury, ‘the next thing I knew was that he had set up house in … near here.’
‘Where?’ asked Brigid, her curiosity aroused by that sudden pause in the sentence.
‘Oh, somewhere round here. I don’t know where. I never go near them, Brigid. Nor will I ever allow them to enter my house. Of course, the biggest shock I got was when he married her out of the chapel. Even Denny was shocked, Brigid, and, as you know, he’s pretty loose himself in such matters. Bitchery. That’s what I call it, Brigid. Rank bitchery. One of these days he will find out his mistake. I’ve lived in this parish over forty years now, and then I had to suffer that disgrace. Yes. Take my word for it, nothing but evil can grow out of such actions. I shall never, never forget it. I had to keep away from the chapel myself. I felt too ashamed. And I couldn’t stand the looks, the hints, the questions. It’s blowing over now, and I am back there again, but for nearly thirteen months I attended to my duties at St James’s in the city.’ A silence came over the room.
Brigid Mangan thought, ‘What a peculiar family!’ Surely she had tapped a rich vein of history. She even began to feel glad she had crossed over with her nephew. She complimented herself now on her foresight. It seemed her stay would be for an indefinite period. As she lay there she went over slowly in her mind the events of the past three days. She had already sensed a kind of frenzied curiosity, a maddening impatience in her sister. She understood perfectly. Already she had collapsed, helpless, before the flow of Fanny’s questions. For an hour and a half she had listened to it. If Fanny Fury maintained this expansiveness, then she could afford to feel sympathetic towards her brother-in-law, who had to sleep with her. The whole thing reminded her of a ‘penny dreadful’ story. Mrs Fury was speaking again. ‘The whole house was upset, Brigid. Maureen had her own ideas about Desmond. I have always tried to do my best for them, but my husband does not seem to agree.’ And once again she poured into her sister’s unwilling ears the story of the last ten years of her life in Hatfields. Aunt Brigid almost sighed with relief when she changed her course. ‘Up to now,’ continued Fanny Fury, ‘you have told me nothing of what has occurred beyond the fact that the boy went to your house saying he was through at the college. But he must have told you more than that. Surely! Did you do anything? Did you see his Principal, or anybody connected with the college?’
Again Miss Mangan had been thwarted, again Desmond’s story was broken off. What a way her sister had of explaining things! She asked a question, and before one had time to answer she broke off and turned the point to something else. Miss Mangan had become tremendously interested in her nephew. She must see him before she went away, as she must indeed see this woman he had married. Mrs Fury became fidgety. Brigid said:
‘What is there to say? Not much. I did not go to the college. I felt I ought not to interfere in such a matter. After all, he is your son, Fanny. When he came to me and told me he had left the college, I took him in. Naturally I wanted to know something about his sudden dismissal from the college. But Peter was not responsive in any way. He said he had left the college. No more than that. That he was going home. He said he had failed in his examination. But I didn’t accept his excuse, as the examination results to which he was referring would not have been issued. I became suspicious at once. Indeed, this suspicion of mine increased after he had been with me only two days. He used to go out at night. Where to, heaven alone knows. One night he was out until midnight. I could get nothing from him at all, not a satisfactory word. He was dumb. I noticed the change in him at once.’ Miss Mangan stopped. Mrs Fury had sat up again. ‘I’ve half a mind to go down and make some tea,’ she said, but her sister said: ‘It’s so late, Fanny, and you’ll wake Denny too.’
‘One would think,’ began Mrs Fury, ‘one would think that after thirty years one had had their fill of disappointments, that struggles would be a thing of the past, but it seems to me that they are only beginning. Desmond has put bad luck on this house, I tell you that.’
‘Maureen seems to have been in league with him.’ Brigid Mangan exclaimed. ‘It’s a complete surprise to me to arrive here and find Maureen married away too. You never said a word about it.’ Mrs Fury replied, ‘But I wrote you a letter as soon as Desmond went off.’ Brigid Mangan said she had never received any letter. Where was Maureen living? Who was her husband? Was he Irish? Was he a Catholic? How long had she been married?
Mrs Fury remained silent. Why all these questions now, she was thinking. How useless dragging in all these uninteresting things. Desmond and Maureen were well out of it.
‘Peter has ruined me,’ she said suddenly, and burst into tears. The woman beside her sat up. It was the first time she had ever seen her sister lose control of herself. ‘Why, Fanny,’ she said, ‘you’re crying. I know how disappointing it must be to have this son come home like this. I know …’
‘They’re satisfied now,’ went on the weeping woman. ‘The whole damned lot of them are laughing up their sleeves. Can’t you imagine the smile on Desmond’s face when he hears about it? And who is going to keep it from him? Children! My God! They have kept me tied down like this for years. I never thought I would rear such a mean-spirited crew. Never! Never!’ She buried her face in her hands.
‘Fanny! Fanny! Don’t cry. It’s terrible, I know. But you take my advice and pack Peter off to work. Couldn’t Denny get him away to sea?’ The woman at her side fell back on the bed. She could not speak. Get him to sea. Was this all her sister had to say? Was this all the imagination she was capable of? Hardly different from the others. Could nobody see her point of view, could nobody assuage her feelings? Mrs Fury’s mind was like a furnace. What was this about her son being out at midnight? ‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.’ She got out of bed. She could lie there no longer. How could she lie, knowing that in the very next room lay the answer to her questions, the relief to the doubts she harboured, the suspicions that seemed to choke? He knew. What use talking to this woman at her side any longer? She simply did not understand. ‘Brigid,’ she said, ‘I’m going downstairs. I can’t sleep. I’m thinking of this boy all the time. I am suspicious. I know I am. But it has been forced on me.’
Miss Mangan struck a match and lit the candle. She set it on the table at Mrs Fury’s side of the bed, her eyes fastened upon her sister’s face. This was not the Fanny she knew three years ago. This, Fanny? There was something almost hag-like about her; in the very expression upon her sister’s face, in the lines about her mouth, she sensed the story of ambition and frustration, of striving and defeat. Yet, like her brother-in-law, she could not but marvel at her head of hair, at the smoothness of her brow. There was something fine about Fanny too. Brigid Mangan climbed out of bed and went round to her sister. ‘Draw the blinds, Brigid,’ Mrs Fury said. Miss Mangan crossed the room and drew the blinds. She came back to Mrs Fury. ‘You get into bed at once,’ she said in a commanding tone of voice. ‘I’ll make the tea.’ She threw her old dressing-gown over her shoulders and went to the door.
‘Look here,’ called Mrs Fury. ‘Denny’ll make the tea. Just call down to him.’ Brigid Mangan was determined to have her own way. ‘That’s all right,’ she replied, and opened the door. Mrs Fury lay back against the bed-rail. ‘Ah!’ she thought, ‘even Brigid is hiding something! I never before realized what a vicious circle I was floundering in.’ Get Peter to sea! After all she had done for him! He was to be like his father, like Anthony, like all the thousands of men who spent their lives between steel walls. It seemed willed that her children should desert her. ‘Fool I was ever to breathe a word about Desmond! I won’t see much of her now. She’ll be off to see Mrs Sheila Fury first thing tomorrow.’ She got out of bed and went and stood by the window. Looking out, she became conscious of a smell, a most disgusting odour, that seemed to rise from between two high walls that faced her window. Suspended in the air between these walls was a single electric bulb, that now blew this way and that with the wind. This light threw out a sickly illumination, it created r
ather than obliterated the darkness. Mrs Fury could also see a figure moving about this yard. It looked like a wraith to her. She pulled down the window. The people must be very busy to have started night operations, she was thinking, and her eyes remained pinned upon this figure that seemed to move furtively about the yard. Who could it be? She knew that the main gate was always open, for within the yard itself was yet another great gate that opened into the bone sheds. The man appeared to be going from one heap to another. She turned away from the window. Her sister came into the room. Mrs Fury said, ‘You weren’t long, Brigid.’ The woman put down a jug of tea and two cups and saucers on the table. Then she climbed into bed again. ‘Why, you’ve shut the window, Fanny,’ said Miss Mangan. ‘Don’t you feel it stuffy in here?’ Mrs Fury burst out laughing. ‘Haven’t you a nose, Brigid? Why, there’s the most disgusting smell outside here. The bone yard appears to be very busy lately.’ She got into bed and they took up their cups. Brigid Mangan remarked that she smelt nothing.
‘Strange,’ Mrs Fury said. She poured tea from the jug. ‘I was thinking, Brigid,’ she went on; ‘what are you going to do if this strike comes off? It’s going to be pretty awkward, isn’t it?’ Miss Mangan said, ‘Yes. I suppose I’ll have to remain here, Fanny. It will be most awkward for you. Poor Michael’s dead, or I could have gone to his place.’ ‘Yes,’ Mrs Fury replied. Her eyes sought the clock. Nearly four o’clock. Denny would be getting up in an hour and a half’s time.
‘I suppose we’ll manage somehow,’ she said. ‘Really, I can manage anything. Father is the most trying. Lord! he irritates me sometimes. Yet I feel sorry for him too. He’s so helpless. The job I have getting him down to the Office for his pension on a Friday!’ She put her cup down. ‘Finished, Brigid?’ she asked, at the same time taking the cup from her sister’s hand. Then she blew out the light and lay down. Miss Mangan was so surprised by this action that she did not follow suit for nearly half a minute, remaining erect in the bed, her mind torn between two conflicting thoughts. Peter and Desmond were like two huge pendulums that kept swinging to and fro across the room. She could see their faces quite clearly. Then she lay down. The woman was still under a spell; there was something astonishing about her arrival, about her lying here now, at her sister’s side, about Peter hiding his secret in the next room, about Desmond hidden away some few streets off. What changes had taken place in her sister’s family! The silence was broken by Mrs Fury asking, ‘Was Denny asleep? Was he comfortable?’ Miss Mangan gasped out, ‘Why, I never noticed, Fanny, I went in by the other door.’ Her whole soul hungered for Desmond’s secret. ‘I have a mind that I know these Downeys,’ she said suddenly. She wanted to hear more about this woman. ‘In fact, I half believe I met a Matthew Downey once at a Mission at St Mary’s Cathedral.’
‘Impossible, Brigid,’ Mrs Fury replied.
‘How strange!’ Brigid said. ‘I can’t imagine how Desmond could have met this woman.’
‘But haven’t I just told you!’ said Mrs Fury heatedly, ‘haven’t I just told you he met her in Ireland!’ Miss Mangan’s curiosity was aroused, and her sister seemed to have scented it, for she added, with an air of finality, ‘He was bound to meet her anyway. Her family disowned her. She is nothing but a common prostitute. Worse than that, but I would not let the word cross my mouth.’ Mrs Fury suddenly thrust her hand into the air, waved it excitedly in front of her sister’s face, and shouted, ‘It’s true! It’s too true! She is a bitch of the first water, beautiful, but all rottenness behind. My God! One only has to look at her face. Her whole character, her history, her very future shines there. The fool! He’s madly in love with her. He can’t help it. Carried away. Do I care? Not a bit. Do I worry? Not a bit. I only know that by his action he disgraced me. Then Denny wonders why I lose control of myself whenever his name is mentioned. I am glad he has gone. Glad in my very soul. Can you imagine anything worse than that boy in the room there and he living here, together? Impossible! Won’t he laugh! The devil! As indeed he has laughed all along. Soon I won’t be able to hold up my head at all. He’s evil. They’re a pair. Well met. Fate never was kinder. It had to be. Yet look at the difference in their upbringing. I know nothing of hers; I know that Desmond’s was hard; well, God Almighty, wasn’t the whole family’s upbringing hard? Does it kill one? Look at me. I have had thirty-two years of it, but I haven’t gone under. No Brigid, I don’t want to hear a word more about Desmond, and if you have any respect for me as a sister, and for the sake of the old man in the back room, I ask you not to go seeking them out. I’ve had enough. Just enough. It made me sick. It wounded me. Let well alone.’
This was the most amazing piece of news Miss Mangan had heard for many years. Peter was an oracle no longer. Peter was only a schoolboy who had failed somehow or other and come home again. But this other thing. Desmond and Sheila. It was like a powerful magnet, a brilliant and blinding light. She could not drive it away, and every moment the fascination, the mystery, the curiosity was drawing her nearer and nearer to it. She vowed in her heart that she must see them. She must not go back to Cork having failed in her object. ‘It’s amazing,’ she said, after a long silence. But Mrs Fury made no reply. She was sleeping the heavy sleep of a tired child. Brigid Mangan, on the other hand, did not feel tired. She experienced a fierce sort of restlessness. Morning seemed never to come, the hours were like eternities. What things she was yet to hear, yet to see! What a nest she had fallen into! The whole house seemed embedded in a mystery. She had not failed to notice Mr Fury’s absence. It was only for her brother-in-law’s sake that she had said nothing about it to her sister. But where had Denny Fury gone to? At that hour in the morning. Her mind throbbed. She wanted to get up, but dared not. It would wake Fanny. She could only lie there thinking of Desmond, of his wife, of Peter and Maureen, and not least, of Mr Fury’s absence from the house. Yes, she was asking herself, ‘Where has he gone to?’ And Maureen was going to have a child by this husband of hers named Kilkey. Funny, she had never liked the name Kilkey. She turned over, her eyes towards the window. The moon had disappeared. The room was in darkness. As she looked through the window at the wall of the bone factory she could not repress a desire to see a little more of this wall.
Strange. Bone factories were foul places, yet never to have been conscious of the smell only made her more curious than ever. She slid silently from the bed and went and stood by the window. Where Mrs Fury had seen a single figure moving about the yard, Brigid Mangan now saw two men. They were standing in a corner, sheltered from the light, and near the main gateway. What could they be doing there, she wondered. They weren’t workmen. She was sure of that. Also she noticed that one of the men had raised his head and was to all intents and purposes watching the white face of Brigid Mangan at the window. ‘How peculiar!’ she exclaimed under her breath, and went back to bed again. She covered her head with the clothes, as though she must keep intact every single thought, every impression. Her head beneath the clothes was a security at least. Her thoughts were like living beings, they swamped her, walked round and round her brain, guarded her pillow. Mrs Fury snored. But Miss Mangan, hidden beneath the bed-clothes, opened her eyes wide and peered into the cavity she made with her raised knees. Once – how strange that she should recall it now – once her father had said to her, she was still at school at the time, ‘Your sister Fanny will be the only one amongst our family who will be remembered.’ What had he meant by that? The passage of years had not robbed those words of their significance – indeed, to Miss Brigid Mangan they seemed rather to have intensified it. From time to time she looked out from the bed-clothes. Still dark. Then she thought of the alarm-clock. How silly of them! It should have been left below. How was Denny to wake up without it? Instinctively she put out her hand and picked it up, feeling for the bell switch with her fingers. Set, of course. She ought to take it downstairs. It would disturb her sister.
She got out of bed and stole silently to the door. She went on to the landing, closing the door softly behind
her. At the top of the landing she suddenly stopped and put her hand to her mouth. Was that a voice she had heard? She put a foot on the stair. Yes. Somebody was talking in the hall. She became frightened now. Ought she to run in and wake Fanny up? No. On reflection she realized that would make matters more complicated than ever. Was it Denny coming back? Nobody else. She descended the stairs, and at the bottom drew the long green curtain around her. Yes. She recognized the voice now. ‘You get up to bed at once,’ she heard Mr Fury say. She clutched the curtain excitedly. It must be Peter. At that moment something brushed the curtain. It was her nephew climbing the stairs as noiselessly as a cat. Miss Mangan stepped out from the curtain and stood in the hall. A shaft of light from the kitchen splashed the dull red of the lobby wall. She went to the kitchen door and looked in. Mr Fury was sitting on the sofa taking off his boots. He had been out, then. But what was Peter doing out too? She hesitated, then something appeared to propel her forward. The next moment she was standing in the lighted kitchen, her old dressing-gown drawn tightly about her figure. In her outstretched hand she held the alarm-clock. Mr Fury looked up with astonishment. The whole house must be sleepwalking, he was thinking, staring at the pale-faced woman in front of him. ‘Why, Brigid!’ he said.
‘It’s the clock, Denny,’ Miss Mangan said. She stammered; her nerves were on edge. Mr Fury stood up. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I clean forgot about it.’ He sat down on the sofa. ‘Is Fanny asleep?’ he asked. Miss Mangan nodded her head stiffly. ‘What is she doing up at this hour?’ Mr Fury asked himself. He knew she was going to speak. He could even see her mouth moving, she was forming a question. He laughed.
‘Damn it!’ he said. ‘I couldn’t sleep down here. I don’t know why. My head’s a bit thick too. But you go off to bed, Brigid. Don’t stand there like that. You’ll get your death of cold.’ He signified by his actions that he wanted to get undressed. Miss Mangan looked questioningly at the clock, as though at this very moment it was going to ring and proclaim in its strident voice the uselessness of such a proceeding. ‘It’s hardly worth while, Denny,’ Miss Mangan remarked. She surprised him by sitting down on the sofa. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea,’ she went on. ‘I don’t mind at all. Fanny is tired out, and I don’t feel sleepy myself.’ Mr Fury replied, ‘No. It’s quite all right, Brigid, I always look after myself. Thanks all the same. You go back to bed. What on earth are you going to do with yourself till nine o’clock? Fanny rarely gets up before that time.’ They looked at each other. Then they both laughed.
