The Furys

by James Hanley

  She left the room and went upstairs. She could hear her father snoring. She no sooner reached the landing than she turned and descended again. She stood in the hall staring at the hole in the lobby wall, at the little heap of plaster that lay on the oilcloth. Where had Peter gone? And she had quite forgotten her father. Tomorrow she would have all the old struggle again. She went upstairs again to her room. She stood by the window watching the men shovelling heaps of bones on to trucks, which in turn were pushed through into the mill. She had never before evinced an interest in this proceeding. Now. for some strange reason, she could not take her eyes off these men as they piled the bones into the filled trucks. Beyond this yard she could not see. If she looked higher she beheld a sea of roofs. A buzzer sounded, and she saw the men suddenly leave off their work. She must go downstairs. No matter how much one tried to think about these things, the clock forced its way in. Its monotonous tick accompanied her, sleeping and waking. As she passed her son’s room she heard the sound of books being dusted. Then she went below. Good Lord! Denny was no sooner gone than he was back again. The clock glared at her from the mantelshelf. She could never escape from it. A sort of continuous threat. She picked it up and shut off the alarm-switch. She turned it face to the wall. Her father burst into a fit of coughing. She went out to the back kitchen.

  She began to stir the broth in the pan. What was she going to do with this son now? He had proved her wrong. Her mind was confused. Where was Brigid? When Mr Fury turned the knob of the back door it seemed to turn in her own mind. She pulled off the pan quickly, exclaiming, ‘Heavens! It’s burning. Whatever can I be thinking about?’ Her husband came into the back kitchen. ‘Hello,’ he said, then went out again. She heard him climbing the stairs, and shouted, ‘Tell Peter to come down for his dinner.’ Mr Fury called back, ‘All right.’

  Mrs Fury never approached the large wooden table in the middle of the kitchen floor without feeling the slave of it. It was like a huge magnet. Her whole life appeared to be centred around it. Nor could she escape it. As she spread the cloth upon it now she became conscious of its significance. What things had happened at that self-same table. What rows there had been, what words used. It was a fount of revelation. Her father stood outside of this. The magnet could not draw him. Peter and his father came down and took their places. Looking at her husband, she reflected upon the habit of which she had so long tried to cure him. Mr Fury’s demeanour at table was always irritating to her. He never drew his chair right up, and only half sat in it. There was a take-or-leave-it attitude about his approach to meals. Peter sat at the further end, his head lowered, though had he cared to glance up he would have discovered that both his father and mother were ignoring him. Mr Fury concentrated upon his broth. The first ten minutes at the Fury table were always charged with a sort of electric undercurrent. After a long silence a sudden explosion. But to Mrs Fury’s surprise her husband appeared most casual in his remarks. ‘I met Kilkey going on,’ he said. ‘Brigid is down there.’ Mrs Fury said, ‘Oh! Well, what about it? Why shouldn’t we expect that from a woman with such a large mouth as Brigid has? Before the day is out she will have interviewed Desmond and “the other one”.’ Mr Fury thought, ‘It’s funny, but I can’t recollect a single instance where Fanny has used that woman’s name.’ He thought it rather silly this continual reference to Sheila as ‘the other one’.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he replied. Then he looked at Peter. ‘Well, so here you are, home again.’ Peter said, ‘Yes, Father,’ and wanted to jump on the table and yell out, ‘Of course I’m home. You pair of old fools! Of course I’m home.’ Not a word about his reason for coming home. No. A dignified silence. Why didn’t they say straight out, ‘We know why. We know why’? No. They preferred to signify that they knew everything by mere glances. He wanted to get up from the table; he could not eat his dinner now. Mrs Fury turned round to look at her father. She must attend to the old man as soon as ever her husband went back to work. ‘You can take it from me that the whole neighbourhood will know by now,’ remarked Mrs Fury. She shot a glance at Peter, who lowered his head still further. ‘What is going to come next?’ he thought. ‘Hold your head up, for Christ’s sake,’ shouted his father. Mr Fury then left the table, dragging the chair to the wall. He went out into the back kitchen to wash. ‘Hurry up,’ said Mrs Fury to her son. Peter tried to finish his meal, but it choked. He pushed the plate away. ‘I’m finished,’ he said. His father came in again. As he filled his pipe he exclaimed, ‘Yes. You were wrong all along, Fanny. There is going to be trouble. Fellowes came down to our place today. There’s going to be a real strike. No halfhearted affair. They want us to support the miners. Poor bastards! They always do it dirty on the miners.’

  ‘Denny!’ Mrs Fury looked from her husband to her son, turned her head further and looked at Mr Mangan. Then she said again, ‘Denny! Denny!’ Peter looked at the clock. Twenty minutes past one. His father was becoming expansive.

  ‘Well, damn it, Fanny! A man can open his mouth.’ Mrs Fury laughed. Mr Fury continued. ‘Surely! What about it? Peter isn’t a child now. Is he?’ He stared open-mouthed at the expression upon his wife’s face. ‘I … Fanny …’

  Mrs Fury seemed to shudder. She looked across at Peter. ‘I’m not well. That’s what it is. Not well. I’ve felt like this for a long time. I’m really ill.’ Then she screamed, ‘I can’t stand it.’ Mr Fury caught her as she collapsed. He kicked the chair out of the way and exclaimed brusquely, ‘Go for the doctor, you. Hurry up.’ ‘Yes, Dad.’ Peter took his cap and fled from the house. ‘Fanny!’ Feeling her inert body against his own, he was suddenly filled with pity for her. Fanny could stand a lot. He knew what had struck her down now. Was it only in such moments as these that he was capable of realizing things? Mr Fury was asking himself. ‘I hope I’m not going to be ill,’ Mrs Fury said in a low voice. The door banged. Blast it! That lad had left it wide open. He looked down at his wife. He had laid her on the sofa by the fire. Why was she like this? Such a state to be in. And Fanny was always so particular about her appearance. He felt at the back of her head. She hadn’t done up her hair. Where was her comb? He went to the mantelshelf and looked about. He must find that comb. He searched the dresser. Suddenly he ran to the sofa. He must be crazy. He picked his wife up and carried her upstairs to her room. He put her to bed. The woman opened her eyes. ‘Denny!’ she said. ‘Denny!’ Her arms fell to her side. Mr Fury ran downstairs to get a drop of brandy from the bottle hidden away in the cupboard. He rushed upstairs, muttering, ‘Drink this. Drink this.’ Mrs Fury’s head fell back upon the pillow. He had to pour the spirit down the woman’s throat. He drew a chair to the bed and sat down. At the same time he pulled out his gun-metal watch and stared at it. ‘Confound it!’ He hadn’t much time. It would happen now. He held Mrs Fury’s hand.

  What had happened? Was it Peter? It must have been Peter. It couldn’t be the ominous news of the coming strike. Fanny was too much of a veteran like himself. That could not be it. ‘Then what is it?’ he cried in his mind. He bent down and embraced the woman. ‘Fanny!’ he said in a low voice, ‘Fanny! Tell me what’s wrong.’ But the woman did not appear to hear him. She lay like a log. Her eyes were closed, her mouth a little open. How white she was! She had never had a seizure like this before. He could not remember it. Well, well. The man got up and walked to the window. He looked at his watch again, became agitated, paced the room. Where had that boy got to? How long was this Dr Dunfrey going to be? He resumed his seat. He leaned his head on her pillow. What trials this woman had had! What obstacles she had overcome! Mr Fury’s mind suddenly whirled back twenty-four years to the time he was on the ice in New York. Aye. That was the beginning. The beginning, the first paving of that hard road. Where had they arrived? Nowhere. A family, grown up, and she had reared them. He looked at the woman’s face. ‘A brick. That’s what Fanny is. A brick.’ That expression upon her face. It was like a mirror through which he could see the very workings of her heart and mind. He sat up. He wanted
to go to the lavatory, but he dared not leave the woman. He would have to wait. ‘Late, of course, hang it!’ he growled savagely. At that moment she looked at him. He caught her eye. ‘Fanny!’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, Denny! I’ve been feeling like this for some time now. I suppose it’s only natural. My strength has been taxed. I can’t stand things like I used to, Denny.’

  He put his hand on her head. He was filled with pity for her. ‘I know! I know! I’m sorry, Fanny. I understand.’ His watch came out again. ‘Must go soon.’

  Mrs Fury ignored the remark. She went on: ‘I had a letter from the authorities this morning about Peter.’ ‘Oh!’ Mr Fury forgot the time.

  The woman leaned across to him and said, ‘You could never imagine it, Denny! Nor could I. No, you could never imagine it, not if you lived to be a hundred.’

  ‘But what did they say?’ asked Mr Fury. ‘Why did he get passed out?’

  ‘I shall never tell you, Denny,’ replied Mrs Fury. ‘Never! Never!’

  ‘But, Fanny …’ stammered Mr Fury, ‘I …’

  Mrs Fury remained silent. This thing had come, had struck her, but the vision of it all was clouded out. ‘It’s happened, Denny,’ she went on. ‘It’s over. That’s all. There is nothing to inquire into, nothing to think about. Why should one think? I’ll say no more,’ she said. ‘Get him out of it. Get him out of it.’ Mr Fury got up from his chair and went to the door. That was how it was. He paused, thinking, ‘It’s terrible.’ He went back to the bed, took hold of her hands, and said, ‘All right. I understand. I understand, Fanny. It’s opened my eyes. Aye. It’s opened them at last. It’s the children. We’re getting further and further away from each other. Fanny, we must stick together.’ He squeezed her hands. There was the sound of voices below. He jumped up. ‘That’s Dunfrey now,’ he said. ‘I must go now, Fanny. I’m late. So long.’ He hastily kissed his wife and ran out of the room.

  He met the big doctor coming up the stairs. ‘Good-day, Fury. What’s wrong? Which room?’ Mr Fury jerked a thumb in the direction of the big front room. ‘In there, Doctor,’ he said. At the bottom of the stairs Mr Fury bumped into Peter. ‘How awkward you are!’ he exclaimed gruffly, stumbling towards the door. Peter looked up: ‘Sorry, Dad.’ The door banged. A great draught swept along the lobby. Peter went upstairs and stood listening outside his mother’s door. He wanted to go in to her. He wanted to say how sorry he was. It was all his fault. Now his father had turned against him. He could hear the doctor talking to his mother. ‘You’ll have to look after yourself more, Mrs Fury. You must slow down a little.’ He stood there, his hands gripping the panels of the door. A flood of memories swept through him. The door knob turned. Peter hurried downstairs again.

  3

  Aunt Brigid stood in front of the dressing-mirror. For some twenty minutes she had been contemplating. Should she put on the blue serge costume? No. The skirt was rather too full. She had better put on the green gown. Where was the green gown? The floor around her was already strewn with shoes, underwear, gloves and scarves, blouses of three different colours. She could not help admiring herself in the glass. What a difference between Fanny and herself! She undressed for the fifth time and put on the green gown. She found it a little tight about the waist. But she could not afford to change her ideas now. It was getting late. She simply could not miss the last Mass. At the last Mass one met everybody, one heard everything. The last Mass was an expedition from which one generally returned with new fauna and flora. Already she pictured the different people she would meet. She bent down and picked up the scent-bottle from the bag, and after applying a fair amount to the upper part of her person, felt she was completely groomed. She could not forget the incident of the burnt toast, nor her sister’s remark. However … She heard Fanny calling ‘Peter! Peter!’ and realized too well the significance behind the call. Peter would have to unravel himself! A strange boy. ‘Well now,’ thought Aunt Brigid, as she surveyed herself in the glass for the last time, ‘well now. You look quite well, in fact you look very well. That is as it should be.’ She smiled and turned to her bag again. Every now and then a smile stole across her good-humoured face. It was a round red face, out of which two blue eyes gazed good-humouredly upon the world. She put back the scattered clothes, locked her bag, and placed it under the bed. Then she went across to the bedroom window and looked down into the street. What a dirty black place Hatfields was! She rather wondered why a woman like Fanny should ever elect to live in such a hole. ‘There’s no doubt about it now,’ thought Miss Mangan, as she closed the room door behind her, ‘Fanny’s marriage has been disastrous.’ Perhaps her father was right after all. ‘Poor Dad!’ she exclaimed. She had hardly spent a minute with him. But again those pictures came into her mind, and ‘Dad’s’ importance was at once forgotten. This excursion down to the chapel was too exciting. The things she would see and hear, the changes that would confront her!

  As she went downstairs Mrs Fury passed her. They smiled. Fanny Fury stood on the landing watching her sister go down the lobby. She smiled again as the door opened, and called down, ‘Will you be out long, Brigid?’ The woman at the door hesitated. What a silly question to ask! She called back, ‘I really don’t know, Fanny. I may be back about tea-time, but I won’t promise. I have to go down to the shipping office after Mass, as I must see what arrangements can be made. I don’t want to be stuck here.’ The tone of her voice suddenly changed. ‘I don’t want to be held up by this strike, Fanny. Well, so long now.’ The door closed. As the door of number three Hatfields closed, a half-dozen other doors opened, curtains were drawn back, bedroom blinds peered through. Mrs Postlethwaite herself, never an early riser, felt it incumbent upon herself to rise immediately on hearing the Furys’ door close. This aunt from Ireland must be seen. As Miss Mangan walked sedately down the street, she was faintly suspicious that certain curtains upon whose dirtiness she had already formed opinions were moving, and once, as she approached number seven, she deliberately hesitated to hear a remark passed. ‘Why, that’s Fury’s sister-in-law. Aye. Came over yesterday. Queer bloody lot.’ Aunt Brigid went almost crimson, and heaved a sigh of relief when she reached the bottom of the street.

  Yes, Fanny had ruined herself marrying that man. Dad had warned her. Now look where she was. Living next to a bone yard. Thank God she had kept by her resolution never to leave Ireland! It seemed to her that Irish people living in England always congregated in the worst quarters of the city. This harum-scarum fellow named Dennis Fury certainly had a lot to answer for. ‘Denny hates me like poison. I know it.’ She turned the corner and made her way to Hans Street, which she crossed, and passed through Ash Walk, and so arrived at the chapel. There were hardly a dozen people at the Mass. Following her usual custom, Aunt Brigid went straight up the middle aisle and took one of the front benches. She took out her Prayer Book and followed the Mass in Latin. She knew already that people were looking at her. Once she turned round and smiled at a woman in the bench behind her. A few minutes later the woman herself came into Miss Mangan’s bench and knelt beside her. She whispered in her ear, ‘Why, Brigid, I’m so surprised to see you …’ and would have gone on but that the ringing of the bell for the Elevation put a brake upon her effusions. Miss Mangan was not used to being interrupted during the saying of the Mass. She supposed it was a common thing in England. How quickly the Irish forgot themselves when once out of their own country! The woman at her side fidgeted about. It seemed she could hardly wait for the last gospel to be read. There was an impatience about her whole attitude to the Mass that shocked the older woman beside her. ‘Obviously,’ thought Brigid, ‘this woman is very anxious to see me.’ When the Mass was over they went out together. No sooner had they gained the door and street than the other woman began.

  ‘Fancy! After all these years! And how are you, Brigid? You are looking well.’ Miss Mangan had to smile. What a wretched-looking woman this was! Who was she? She didn’t even know the person’s name. ‘Well, well. Y
ou mean to say you don’t know Frances Sliney? I never!’ ‘Sliney. Sliney.’ Aunt Brigid ruffled her brows. ‘Sliney. The Frances Sliney from Cove?’ The woman nodded her head. ‘My heavens!’ exclaimed Brigid. ‘I would never have known you. You’ve aged indeed.’ Mrs Sliney, in answer to Miss Mangan’s many questions, remarked that she had been a certified midwife for some seven years. When Brigid mentioned the word ‘family’ the woman laughed and replied, ‘Yes. Eleven of them. And five of them dead. They’re all gone now. You remember John?’ Brigid Mangan shook her head. She didn’t remember anybody of that name in the Sliney family. They walked slowly up Ash Walk. Suddenly a hand touched her shoulder. ‘Well, this is gorgeous,’ exclaimed Brigid. The old friends were just beginning to gather. ‘How are you, Miss Pettigrew?’ Miss Pettigrew, who admitted her age as eighty-two, smiled, and put out a hand that was so thin and white that Aunt Brigid felt a little afraid of taking hold of it. ‘Still in the same place, Miss Pettigrew?’ The old lady nodded her head, so that her poke-bonnet nodded too. The three stood on the edge of the side-walk. Miss Mangan was very anxious to know how far away Vulcan Street was, yet she did not wish to ask directly. She would be patient and wait. Perhaps if she waited long enough she would hear something very interesting. Miss Pettigrew said she must be going. ‘I hope you will come and see me, Miss Mangan,’ she said, revealing her toothless cavern of a mouth as she smiled. ‘Don’t forget now. I’m in the same old place. Good morning.’ She bowed a little stiffly and walked away. ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Miss Mangan, though she realized at once the impossibility of it. There were too many things to be seen to already.