by James Hanley
‘No, I don’t know what you are talking about, Brigid,’ Mr Fury repeated. ‘The girl wasn’t influenced by Fanny or by me. She cleared off on her own accord. And, by Christ!’ – he paused, as though in the next effort he were giving up his very soul – ‘and, by Christ, I don’t blame her! Her mother is as ambitious as any Pope.’ His voice rose, the colour was mounting to his cheeks.
‘That’s what’s wrong with Fanny,’ he went on. ‘She had too many hoity-toity ideas. She drives her children away from her. She calls it indifference; says they’re mean-spirited. The truth is, she has dominated them all her life, and now two of them are married she hates it bitterly. She can’t dominate them any more. She’s got an almost insane ambition. Where she gets it from, I don’t know.’
‘She ought never to have left Ireland,’ interrupted Miss Mangan.
‘Oh!’ Mr Fury stood up and leaned forward until his face almost touched that of Miss Mangan. He was conscious of her red face, her fat neck, her enormous breasts, and of the strong scent of cheap perfume that emanated from her bosom.
‘That’s insulting, Brigid. I know now that you planned this. Tell me this. What the devil was she going to do with her life, stuck in a bloody old fishing village? Fanny has brains, she has ambition. Those two things have plagued her, and me, and her own children.’
‘I think you are very rude,’ protested Brigid, ‘very rude, and most unsympathetic. I don’t see eye to eye with Fanny myself, but at the same time, I must admit, I admire her. She is, after all, my sister. And I simply will not sit here and hear you say those things.’ Mr Fury lowered his eyes. Miss Mangan’s form seemed to swell, to move forward, to shrink, to ascend; in fact, Aunt Brigid appeared to be doing a series of acrobatic feats. If he kept on looking he would see her pirouetting about the bar-room. Mr Fury tossed off his second glass of whisky.
Aunt Brigid now began to feel more at her ease. Her brother-in-law was indeed becoming expansive, almost to the point of embarrassment. She sat back again, resting her head against the wall. The wallpaper was bright yellow in colour, and upon its surface there ran riot a number of birds, large and weird-looking. They hung upon the branches of trees not less weird-looking. The birds looked down upon Miss Mangan’s head with respect and approval. Mr Fury’s hands were stretched across the table. Glancing down, Aunt Brigid’s eyes came to rest upon two bright blue stars, tattooed stars, on the back of Mr Fury’s hands. What a passion sailors had for getting themselves tattooed, and the most awful-looking designs seemed to be favoured amongst them. Dennis Fury had completely forgotten Mr Postlethwaite’s existence, as indeed Mr Postlethwaite had clean forgotten his, for he was now sitting enraptured in the back row of the Mechanic’s Hall listening to a fiery speech from one of the Union delegates. Likewise Miss Mangan, leaning her head on the wall, had forgotten Mr Fury. Her gaze, aimless and vacant, seemed to be concentrated upon space, the space between the green curtain and the ceiling. Behind the curtain she heard many voices, mostly the voices of men, and over the top of the curtain itself there hung, as though caught in space itself and held, a great cloud of smoke, from pipes and cigarettes. Occasionally somebody spat heavily, or cleared his throat. There then followed a slow scraping sound, as a foot ground into the sawdust upon the floor. Here, however, it was quiet, cosy, and warm. Anything seemed possible – such a cheery, well-lighted room.
‘Have you heard why that boy failed?’ asked Miss Mangan suddenly, and her eyes pinned themselves upon her brother-in-law’s hands. Mr Fury sat up as though struck.
‘What?’
‘Denny! You must be getting deaf. Have you heard why that boy left the college?’
‘I expect,’ growled Mr Fury, ‘I expect he was running round after women in the Mall. Surprised me he never once ran into you.’ All propriety was at an end.
‘Disgraceful! Denny! Disgraceful!’ Miss Mangan had indeed grown suddenly pale. So that was why! That perhaps revealed why Fanny was so silent. She had questioned her, but her sister had refused to be drawn out.
‘Aye,’ went on Mr Fury. ‘That’s the result of her ambitions. It’s all a bloody cod.’ He got up from the chair. Slowly his head was clearing. He could even see Aunt Brigid much more clearly. On the other hand, this sudden revelation had served its purpose. It was as though Miss Mangan herself had taken a drop too much. But her bewilderment and confusion were accompanied by a feeling of shame. Was this true? Her mind held on to the question leech-like. Was this true? My word! What was all this? Mr Fury said slowly, ‘I’m going home.’
Aunt Brigid remained fast in her seat. There was still something left unsaid. She leaned across the table, gripped Mr Fury by the coat, and pushed him down again.
‘Sit down, Denny! You’re getting excited. That whisky has gone to your head.’
‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘Oh no! it hasn’t!’ Suddenly the room seemed to shake, as a voice, bronze-like, roared out, ‘Time, gentlemen! Time.’
2
When Peter left the chapel of St Sebastian he walked slowly down the gravel path. He was like a man who has at long last got over a very disagreeable task. Now that he had been to Father Moynihan he felt better. The ordeal was over. He had listened carefully to the priest’s advice. He stood now looking to right and left. It was turned seven o’clock. Suddenly he exclaimed, ‘I’ll go and see Maureen.’ He crossed Ash Walk, turned left, and eventually found himself at the bottom of Price Street. Price Street, like Hatfields, was old property. It belonged to the railway company. A high wall ran along the full length of the houses. The back yards of fifty-two houses faced it. It did not end there, for at the end of Price Street it crossed an open space, and continued its way behind two huge leather warehouses. He walked up Price Street until he came to number thirty-five. He stood looking at the door, then shifted his glance to the curtains. Perhaps Maureen was in the parlour. Would she know him? It was such a long time since he had seen her. There was something pleasurable in the anticipation. He knocked on the door.
Would Maureen recognize his old knock? Three short taps. He expected the door to be opened, expected Maureen to exclaim, ‘Oh, Peter! How are you?’ To his surprise the door did not open. Perhaps they were out. He knocked again. Then he stood in front of the window and looked through. There might be a light in the kitchen. As he stood there staring through the opening in the curtains the next door opened, and a slatternly-looking young woman came out on the step. Peter did not hear this door open. He was too engaged in watching for a light in the kitchen. Perhaps they really were out. He turned towards the door, and caught sight of the woman. He could see her face quite clearly, as there was a lamp lighted between numbers thirty-five and thirty-seven. There was something bold and questioning in the glance she gave him. Feeling like a thief, he knocked again, this time with great force. He knew the woman was looking at him. He was certain he had heard somebody talking in the lobby. Surely they weren’t actually in, and refusing to open the door! He looked at the woman again.
‘Is Mrs Kilkey in, could you tell me, please?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the woman replied. She went in and banged the door. It was as though she had banged it directly in his face. Peter scratched his head. ‘What a funny woman!’ he thought. Once more he knocked. He was growing impatient, he imagined that every door in Price Street had suddenly opened, and that the people had all come out on their steps to stare at him. He exclaimed angrily, ‘Damn them! Damn them!’ He looked through the curtains again. The house seemed in complete darkness. And yet he was certain he had heard somebody talking in the lobby. Could it be that Mr Kilkey … no – impossible. He pushed the idea from his mind. He moved back to the kerb and stared up at the house. No! There was no light in the upper rooms. He said to himself, ‘They must be out.’ He walked away. He was suspicious. Could they have possibly shut him out? He could not believe it of his sister. Kilkey, yes. Of course, Maureen might be different now. She was married. She was going to have a child by Mr Kilkey. He had heard his father talking a
bout it. Desmond never once crossed his mind. It was as if this brother was truly lost, severed from the family for ever. ‘I’ll go round the back way,’ he thought. He walked down the street, and passed into the entry. Here the darkness seemed more intense. He struck a match and held it to the first back door. But it was unnumbered. He went further up. At last! Here was a door with a chalked number. Seven. ‘Good!’ He would easily find number thirty-five. He stood before the door now. Suddenly he told himself that this action was mean. It implied that he was suspicious, that he was now certain they had refused to open the door to him. When he climbed the wall and looked up the yard, he nearly loosed his hold from sheer astonishment. The whole yard was brightly illuminated, as the kitchen blinds had not been drawn. He could see everything in the kitchen quite clearly. Two people were sitting at the table. The man had just laid down his newspaper. He now stared through the kitchen window as though he were somehow conscious of the presence of a figure on the wall. But he could not see Peter, for the boy was lying flat upon the wall. The woman was sitting directly facing the window. She was wearing a brown woollen jumper. Her elbows were on the table, her hands, locked together, supported her chin. She too appeared to be looking down the yard. It was his sister Maureen. He knew her at once. She was sitting beneath the gas-light. She was rapt and concentrated in her gaze. ‘And she wouldn’t open the door! And she knew I was there!’ Peter swore under his breath. Then he raised himself on the wall, and dropped into the darkened entry. For a moment he stood there, looking up and down. There was something furtive in his very demeanour. Suddenly he said, ‘Oh, damn them!’ and set off up the entry at a sharp pace. When he came out into the space in front of the warehouses he stopped again, listening. The sounds of hammering came to this ears. He looked up at the light above his head. It threw a sickly yellowish patch of light into the dark area. ‘Damn them!’ he said again.
Maureen Fury had seen her brother. She was sitting sewing when he knocked. Her husband was sitting in the opposite chair, his feet upon the kitchen fender. Maureen plied busily with her needle. Occasionally the silence was broken by Mr Kilkey remarking, as he looked up from his paper, that things weren’t looking too good. When the knock came to the door, Joseph Kilkey put down his paper.
‘Who’s that, I wonder?’ he asked, looking across at his wife. His face wore a peculiarly woeful expression. If there was anything Mr Kilkey hated, it was this invasion of his quiet hour by visitors. Seven to eight o’clock was Mr Kilkey’s time for reading the newspaper. It was his hour for reflection from beginning to end, not even omitting the obituary notices. Maureen put down her sewing. ‘I’ll see,’ she said, and got up from her chair. At once her husband’s expression changed. There was something about Maureen that held his attention. Indeed, Mr Joseph Kilkey felt a peculiar pleasure at this momentary glimpse of Maureen’s physical proportions. She went into the parlour and looked through the window. The action had a significance of its own. She never went direct to the door and opened it, but always spied through the window to see who the visitor might be. Nor was this habit confined to Mrs Kilkey. The inhabitants of Price Street all did the same thing. There were so many unwelcome visitors to the street. The parlour window was a sort of observation post. There decision was come to. Now, as she looked out through the chink in the curtains, she espied the tall youth. He was without a hat. Peter never wore any headwear. Yes. This was her brother. She could see him quite clearly by the light of the lamp. Had he seen her? she wondered, and drew back from the curtain. Yes. That was Peter. Her brother, whom she had not seen for seven years. He had changed, grown tremendously, broadened out, but she would have known him anywhere. Maureen tiptoed back into the kitchen, and sat down in the chair. Mr Kilkey looked at her, his lips framing a question. Maureen picked up her sewing as though nothing had happened. At that moment the knock came again.
‘Who is it?’ asked Mr Kilkey. He sat forward in his chair. ‘Who is it?’
‘Oh, somebody selling stuff, I think,’ she replied. She flushed. Mr Kilkey thought this rather strange. Now the knocking was repeated. There was real determination and vehemence behind the knock this time.
‘That’s nobody selling stuff, Maureen,’ Mr Kilkey said. He got up from his chair and made to go to the door, but at the same time Maureen also rose and barred his path.
‘It’s all right,’ Maureen said. ‘Sit down.’ She pressed close to him. He could feel her body against his own. He saw her bosom rise and fall. Mr Kilkey suddenly embraced his wife. The visitor was forgotten. ‘Sit down,’ Maureen repeated. She pushed him back into the chair. The man laughed. ‘Who is it?’ he asked again. ‘Somebody you don’t want to see …’
‘It’s Peter. It’s my brother Peter.’ She sat down and took up her sewing. An expression of absolute astonishment passed swiftly, like a gust of wind, across Joseph Kilkey’s face. He scratched his head. He was really astonished.
‘And why don’t you open the door, Maureen? Don’t you want to see him? He’s your brother. You haven’t seen the lad for years.’
‘No,’ Maureen exclaimed, and the very tone of her voice seemed to spell finality. ‘No,’ she repeated with great emphasis. Mr Kilkey picked up the newspaper, and carefully folding it, placed it in the cupboard. Then he stretched out in the chair, looking up at the ceiling. He noticed then for the first time that the ceiling was badly stained. Probably the roof was leaking. The events of the day, the ways of the world, passed completely out of his mind. There was something else to reflect upon now. Something that was near, very near, to him. He was completely at a loss to understand his wife’s attitude towards the boy. The visitor had evidently gone, probably having given it up as hopeless. The final knock seemed to ring in Mr Kilkey’s ears. There was something demanding about it, as though the person had put into it his anger at such treatment. He lowered his head, he wanted to ask his wife a question. But, seeing the look upon Maureen’s face, he reverted to his former position, and allowed his eyes to wander about the stained ceiling. He could see at once how determined Maureen was. ‘Her mother all over,’ he thought. Absolute determination. Ruthless. How positively ugly she looked now, with that thin set mouth of hers! No. She wouldn’t see Peter. He knew it only too well. Not all the armed folks of the country would get Maureen out of that chair. It may have been the striking of the clock, or the sudden barking of a dog in a near-by yard, that made Mr Kilkey sit up suddenly and stare confusedly about him. His train of thought had been interrupted. Mrs Kilkey seemed to have forgotten her husband’s existence. And yet she was thinking of nothing in particular excepting the task in hand. Occasionally she thought of her mother, and even told herself that she ought to go round and see her. Perhaps tonight. She had something to say when she went to Hatfields. She must think carefully about it. Mr Kilkey again looked at his wife. For some time his eyes focused themselves upon her hands. Against this restless, almost agitated play of her fingers the silence of the kitchen became irritating. Now Joseph Kilkey was a man who adored silence. There was nothing, indeed, that he liked better than to get his feet upon the fender. There was something grand, something magic, about the very action, as though as his feet gripped the fender he exclaimed to himself, ‘There! Now I’m settled.’ The world might be full of events great and small, happenings sad and joyous, but to Mr Kilkey there was something indeed above all this. It was holy and sacred, it was full of beauty. A man could always, by the very act of closing his door and putting his feet upon the fender, shut out the world and commune with himself. But this silence was different. It irritated, goaded one.
Something was hidden behind it. At last he cried out, ‘I don’t understand, Maureen, hanged if I do! Why didn’t you want to see your brother?’ The question was direct, there was such a demanding note about it, that for a moment Maureen Kilkey made no reply. This was a new Mr Kilkey, without a shadow of doubt. Marriage indeed must be one long educational process. She put down her sewing, closed the work-box, and pushed it on to the sewing-machine.
‘But it’s ridiculous!’ exclaimed Mr Kilkey. ‘After all, he’s your brother! What has he done?’
Maureen swung round. ‘What has he done?’ She laughed. ‘He hasn’t done anything to me. I wouldn’t let him …’
‘Well then …’ went on Mr Kilkey. ‘I don’t see why you …’ Maureen shut him up at once.
‘I’ll tell you what he’s done!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s made my mother’s life one long prison, that’s what he’s done. Sometimes I think she deserves it. She never takes advice. Never. It was silly. The amount of money that was expended on that fellow – what for?’ She laughed again. ‘Waste! waste!’ She paused. She had been going to add, ‘and no return,’ but suddenly refrained. She respected her husband’s ideas. Why should she offend Joseph Kilkey?
‘All along Mother was told how useless it would be. It only tied her down. And now she’s got her reward. She ought never to have sent him. The others got no such consideration. None at all. Mother has tried hard. But she’s only a fool. A fool!’ Maureen became quite passionate, the colour rose to her cheeks, she stood up now, one hand gripping the table. ‘She thought she was doing her best. But she couldn’t have done anything worse. I’ve told her time and time again. I’ve almost begged her, on my knees, to give it up. She’ll get no thanks. No thanks. I’ve said, “Why don’t you get out of the house – out of the street?” She won’t. It’s like a prison. She’s been tied there years and years. And what does she say? She says, “If your father had been different.” I think it’s really silly. Dad has worked hard all his life. He has seen little of Mother, little of any of us. At her request he gave up going to sea, and took that job on the railway. But I knew he did it for Mother’s sake. In a way I was glad. At least, they would be with each other. But what has happened? He hates the job. Hates it like poison. He wants to go to sea again. I know it full well. Mother is seeing it now. This restlessness, this continual tugging at something he can never get. It’s like a child trying to get a toy beyond his reach. But that isn’t all. Mother began her campaign. “Thirty years of this,” she said. Dad asked, “What?” Mother said, “This gaol. This gaol.”’ Again Maureen laughed. ‘But she made it herself through her own foolishness, through her own insane idea of getting Peter into the Church.’
