by James Hanley
‘But I don’t understand,’ Mrs Fury was saying. ‘You’ve finished there?’
‘Don’t you see?’ Peter replied. ‘The job’s a scab one, and it is no use going down again. Mr Sweeney told me. I went out for a load to the North Market today, and never got back with it. Half-way home a crowd of nearly two hundred people upturned the whole cart-load of potatoes. I was lucky to get horse and lorry back to the stable.’
‘Oh!’ said Mrs Fury. She had been thinking of something else, the scene at Maureen’s house. She said brusquely, ‘Better get your tea.’ The clatter of the cups aroused Mr Mulcare from his reverie, and he sat up suddenly on the sofa. Mr Fury had not spoken a word. Peter sat at the top of the table near the door. Mr Fury and the visitor sat on the sofa, against which the table had been pushed. Mrs Fury sat opposite them. She now poured out the tea.
‘What a fine-looking woman!’ Mr Mulcare was saying to himself as he watched her fill the cups. There was something fascinating in watching her. He looked from the mother to the son. This dual admiration in watching her left Mr Dennis Fury derelict. He wasn’t even on the map. As the woman handed Mulcare the tea, she subjected him to a penetrating stare, as she remarked in a casual way, ‘Sorry you have to go.’
Mr Mulcare smiled. He looked up at Peter.
‘So this young chap wants to go to sea?’
‘That’s it,’ remarked Mr Fury, now on the map again. ‘That’s it. Can you get him a job? He wants to go. Don’t you, Peter?’
For a moment the boy did not reply. He was looking at his mother.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I want to go.’ There was something venomous in the woman’s glance. So that was it. He did want to go. This was the end, the very end of her idea. She could hear her daughter now. She seemed to pass out of the kitchen into number thirty-five Price Street. ‘You’ve sacrificed everything for an idea. You have made your own life like a prison.’ When she looked at her son again, he was smiling. She would have liked to strike him. ‘Yes, he wants to go.’
‘Well, then,’ said Mr Fury, ‘that’s settled.’
‘On the other hand,’ said the visitor, ‘he can only lie low until this strike clears up.’
‘What do you think of this business, Mr Mulcare?’ asked Mrs Fury, as she began to gather the cups together on the tray.
‘I think it is a nuisance,’ he said, and moved forward on the sofa.
‘I quite agree with you. It’s a disgrace. Nobody gains anything by it.’ She pulled out the table to let him get free. Mr Fury also got up. Peter remained seated. If that strong grip of Mr Mulcare’s hand had created a confidence in him, it was wavering now. There was something about the man Peter did not like. His calm self-assurance, the way he looked at people as though from some lofty height, and his smile that seemed forced. There was something cold, dispassionate, about him. Who was the man? How did his father know him?
‘I must go,’ said Mr Mulcare. ‘Excuse me.’ Mrs Fury moved aside to let him pass. With four in the kitchen, space was cramped.
‘I am going down your way,’ said Mr Fury. The woman had not expected this.
‘Going to see Possie next door,’ he added quickly, seeing surprise in his wife’s quick glance.
‘Can I go?’ asked Peter. He got up from the table.
The woman did not reply immediately. Had this been arranged? It certainly looked as though it had. ‘I don’t know. It rests with your father.’ Then she said hurriedly, ‘Oh yes, go if you wish.’ She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be quiet, to think, and also she wanted to study Mr Mulcare. She had pinned the man down in a corner of her mind. And when they had gone – when they had left her alone – she would indulge herself. She would place Mr Mulcare in a corner and look at him.
Peter was already dressed. Mr Mulcare stood, hat in hand, waiting. Mr Fury came in from the lobby.
‘I’m going your way,’ said Mr Fury. Mrs Fury stood underneath the mantelshelf. Surely this manoeuvre had been planned. They wanted to talk. But not in the house. And then Peter’s asking to join them. Surely it had been arranged.
‘Well, hope to see you again soon,’ remarked the visitor. He shook hands with Mrs Fury. ‘I like your boy.’ Then turned towards the door.
All three passed out into the street. Mrs Fury called, ‘Denny.’ The man came back.
‘Don’t go sitting in pubs with that boy.’
‘No, I’m going straight to Manton Hospital.’
‘All right.’ She followed his figure until he caught up with Peter and Mulcare, now carrying on an animated conversation. She shut the door and sat down.
There was something disarming about the sudden silence of the house. She took out her work-basket and placed it on the sofa beside her. She took out one of Mr Fury’s shirts and began to sew.
‘I never saw such a man before,’ she was telling herself. It wasn’t his manner or his person, or indeed his dress. It was just his hurry to be off. One might have thought that the kitchen of number three Hatfields had had a suffocating effect upon him. The something disarming about the silence was the fact that one’s thoughts came trooping out. They confronted one. Silence endowed them with a life of their own. They became living beings. They stood in rows, pointing and gesticulating. They accused, reminded, goaded, warned. It was inevitable that she should take down that work-basket and begin to sew. The act of sewing, the steady movement of the hand, the even rhythm of the needle as it passed to and fro, in and out, acted as a kind of gentle drug. It spun a web about these thoughts and imprisoned them. But as the silence grew, broken only by the steady breathing of the woman and the periodic click of needle against thimble, the figure of Mulcare emerged and stood before her. As she raised her eyes, the figure moved towards Mr Mangan’s chair and sat in it. Suddenly Mrs Fury turned her head and looked away towards the window. At the same time she drew back in her chair. It was as if she herself had risen and pushed him into that chair: as if she had said, ‘In one moment I shall attend to you,’ and then had pushed him beyond actuality itself. The web she had spun about her thoughts began to give way. Maureen confronted her and spoke a woman’s name. Ragner, the name was. Anna Ragner. Mr Michael Mulcare had sunk into oblivion. As she pictured him in her mind, an inner voice seemed to say, ‘There are other things to attend to.’
Maureen seemed to whisper through the wall, ‘You have sacrificed everything for your idea.’ As she said this, Peter came running in. The figure of Mulcare rose in the chair, stretched out a hand, and clasped it over her son’s mouth. Then Maureen laughed. Silence again. Mrs Fury shuddered in the chair.
‘What on earth am I thinking about?’ she exclaimed. She picked up her sewing again.
‘You are thinking about the college authorities.’
‘And my knock. A most peculiar knock,’ said the landlord.
‘And my scratching,’ commented the butcher.
‘And that matter of the loan.’ Mrs Ragner’s thick lips parted in a smile.
Mrs Fury’s head began to nod. She let fall the shirt she had been sewing. There rose a sound, a kind of warning gong – it sounded in her own mind. It seemed to rise from some unfathomable depth of her being, after she had sat alone in that kitchen, and the sound seemed to ring in her ears. It was as though the bricks and mortar of number three Hatfields had become humanized. The house had a tale to tell. She was alone at last. The walls, the kitchen, the rooms, the grate, each endowed with a voice of its own, began to tell the woman their tales. Endeavours, hopes, promises broken and fulfilled, lies, cheating. Limned in those very walls was the story of her own life. Mrs Fury had fallen asleep.
When she awoke it was already dark. How could she have fallen asleep like that? She looked at the shirt upon the floor, the scattered contents of the basket. The fire had burnt low. She was shivering. She got up, and having flung some coal upon the fire, put up the tin blower. Opening the window for draught, she then crossed to the lobby and stood listening at the foot of the stairs. Anthony Mangan was snoring. He hadn�
�t been too well today. She went upstairs to look at him. Lighting a candle, she held it high over the old man’s head. ‘Poor Dad,’ she thought, as she went into her own room. She put down the candle on the dressing-table, and from a drawer took out a long official-looking letter. She sat down on the bed and began to go through the papers. The fees must be paid. Must be paid. She would never rest. Then as she flung the papers from her as though they burned her fingers, as though they harboured some foul poison, the whole scene with her daughter rose crystal-clear in her mind. Yes, she was determined to do it. Yes. Even if she starved. There was no doubt of that. She would see this through to the end. She, she had taken Denny’s money.
‘I am being pressed by the authorities,’ she had said. It’s not enough that one should see the idea blown sky-high. But there must be a settling up also. Principle! Must be done.
‘Of course. Of course. But what can I do? Nothing. Except take you to Mrs Ragner,’ Maureen had said.
‘Ragner. Anna Ragner?’
‘That’s it,’ Maureen had said.
‘But surely – surely – are you in with this woman too?’
Maureen had laughed. ‘Certainly! How do you think we live? On twenty shillings a week?’
Her laugh had frightened Mrs Fury. Was that why she was so determined to go back to the factory? Had she seen the man Sharpies? Yes, of course, that was the very reason. Yes, she had seen Sharples. She was starting work soon. ‘Oh! Indeed!’ That had surprised the mother.
‘Aren’t you happy?’ she had asked her daughter. ‘Besides, what about the child?’ Maureen’s coolness had only increased her astonishment.
‘I shall see to that too,’ Maureen said.
‘You seem to have changed,’ remarked the mother.
Yes, she had. Marriage had given her the dignity of a human being. Mrs Fury had cried. It had been bad enough to have to go, to explain everything, but to have to listen to this. It was more than she could bear.
‘Insulting!’ she had cried.
‘Nonsense!’ said Maureen. ‘We’re no longer children. We’re human beings.’
And yet she had to bow down. There was no escape. There was no way out excepting through that woman. Ragner. Anna Ragner. Mrs Fury kept repeating the name under her breath as she went downstairs again.
‘No!’ she cried in her mind. ‘It is useless. I must, must give it up. It is too late.’ This flirting with the matter, this dalliance, this faint, faint hope. It was too late. Had he not said ‘Yes’?
She would have liked to have struck him. That word revealed his very falsity. The idea was sunk into the abyss. Never again. Never. She lighted the gas. What time would they be back?
Seven o’clock. She got dressed and went out. She would go to chapel. She locked the front door. Then she went upstairs. She put a chair on each side of the old man’s bed and thought, ‘That will be all right till I come back.’ She left the house by the back door. She hurried down the back entry, crossed the main road, walked by her daughter’s house, which was in complete darkness, and turned into Ash Walk. A few minutes later she was kneeling in the chapel of St Sebastian. Father Moynihan had seen her coming. He was standing outside his confessional box when Mrs Fury entered. Save for these two, the place was empty. He stood looking at the woman, her head bowed down. She was completely alone in that island of benches. He went up the middle aisle and knelt down behind her. After a while he touched her arm, and she turned quickly, exclaiming, ‘What is that?’
‘Good evening, Mrs Fury,’ said the priest. ‘I saw you come in. Will you come into the house?’
She rose to her feet and followed Father Moynihan through the vestry. ‘Sit here,’ he said, and drew a chair towards his study table.
‘Well, Mrs Fury,’ he began, and the expression upon his face seemed to add – ‘and tell me everything, everything.’
‘There is nothing to say, Father,’ said the woman. ‘Except that I am ashamed. I am not disappointed. Only ashamed. I would not have minded anything else but this. I …’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Father Moynihan. ‘It is disappointing. Father Doyle and I have every sympathy with you. Let me assure you of that. Yes. We are sorry. He was a real nice boy. Now he has changed. He lacks what you have got. Mrs Fury. What is going to become of him?’
The woman slowly raised her face until it almost touched that of the priest. ‘That I do not know, I do not know.’ There was a weariness in her voice.
‘It’s a great pity. A great pity. And the unfortunate part about it is that there is so little doing now. This strike has affected hundreds of my parishioners.’
‘His father,’ began Mrs Fury, ‘his father is trying to get him away to sea.’
Father Moynihan’s expression underwent a lightning-like change, and raising his two hands he brushed one against the other with a light quick movement, as if to say, ‘Well, that’s the end of the matter. I wash my hands clear of it.’ He got up from his chair and began walking up and down the room.
‘It’s tragic’ he said. ‘When one comes to think of all the fine women who have left home and come here! Here to this city. Tragic.’ He looked at the woman. ‘Tragic,’ he said again.
‘Yes, Father. I know, I know.’
‘How is the old man getting on?’ He sat down on the chair again.
‘Well, Father,’ said Mrs Fury, ‘he’s really very low. He doesn’t speak at all now.’
‘Oh! Dear me! And that eldest boy of yours?’
‘I never see him, Father. I only saw him once with his wife. We never go there.’
‘That was strange,’ continued the priest. ‘Father Doyle and I have often talked about it.’
Mrs Fury fidgeted in the chair. Was it impossible even to secure peace in the chapel, to hide oneself, to forget? It seemed so. Here was Father Moynihan, feeling in the best of spirits, and asking all kinds of questions.
‘I have nothing whatever to do with them, Father! I know nothing.’
‘But you know who his wife is, surely,’ said the priest. He rested his hand on the back of Mrs Fury’s chair.
‘No, Father! I don’t even know that. And if I know anything, my son knows even less.’
‘Well, she’s the daughter of a North Country clergyman,’ replied Father Moynihan. He got up from his chair again, this time to indicate that her time was up. He placed the chair against the wall.
‘Well, Mrs Fury, you have my best wishes. I …’
The woman took a small gold cross from her pocket. ‘Will you bless this, Father?’
‘Certainly.’ Father Moynihan blessed the cross and returned it.
‘Well, good-bye now. Come and see me again some time. By the way, how did the boy get on?’
‘Oh, Mr Sweeney sent him home, Father. The boy couldn’t work. The crowds in the street called him a scab.’
‘Oh! Dear me! Dear me!’ This was sailing too near reality. He showed the woman to the door. ‘Good-bye now.’
‘Good-bye, Father! Thank you.’ The door closed. The darkness swallowed her up. The trees flanking the path to the gate soughed in the wind.
Peter now sat between Mr Mulcare and his father in the back parlour of the Pitchpine. Mr Mulcare had ordered a small whisky, Mr Fury took plain beer, whilst Peter had a bottle of mineral water in front of him. This was real adventure. He had never been in a public-house before. He was content to sit and listen to their conversation. They were talking of his father’s old ship, the Ballisa. In the opposite corner a man and woman attracted the boy’s attention. The woman had approached the man from a lone seat up the back of the bar. She now subjected the gentleman to some good-natured badinage. The man was quite indifferent to it all. He sipped his beer contentedly, whilst his eyes roamed along the shelf above his head, filled with brightly coloured bottles. The woman was slightly tipsy, and swayed to and fro. Once she spat. The action disgusted the boy. It might have been a man who had spat upon that sawdust-covered floor. The man now put down his glass, and said in a rude manner, ‘
Are you going to clear out or not – you poxy-faced-looking bitch?’ Mr Fury stopped speaking and looked across at the couple. Then he looked at Peter. Mulcare seemed oblivious of the incident.
‘They’re making a damned mistake, Fury. That’s what I think,’ said Mr Mulcare suddenly. ‘Every time it’s the same. One wonders sometimes what they are really trying to get at.’
‘Get at! I suppose they’re going to kick against their wages being lowered.’
‘Aw! … You’re making a mistake, Fury. And is that the basis of the strike, the cutting of wages? Think again.’ He laughed loudly.
Mr Fury exclaimed, ‘Well, I know! They’ve cut the bloody miners’ wages to nothing. You have some high ideas of your own, young man. But they don’t get you anywhere.’
Peter was staring at Mr Mulcare.
In the opposite corner the lady had refused to budge. Her expression was that of a lady whose dignity had been questioned. Mulcare suddenly asked, ‘Is she soliciting?’
Mr Fury scratched his head. He hadn’t caught the word, and he did not want to ask a question. He was thinking of Peter.
‘One of those old bag-women,’ he said quickly. ‘They’re always about.’ He drained his glass, got up from the table and said, ‘Excuse me! Won’t be a tick! Going out to pump.’
Mulcare turned to Peter. ‘Your father was telling me you were at college for seven years,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ replied Peter.
‘Didn’t you like it?’ asked Mulcare.
‘Only at first,’ replied the boy.
‘Why only at first?’ questioned Mulcare. He leaned his head in his hand and looked closely at Peter.
‘Well, it was all a cod,’ blurted Peter, as though he had been saving up this effort. And it was an effort. But it seemed that with Mr Mulcare it was different. He liked the man now. His confidence was returning. He hadn’t liked him in the house. He had detected a sort of arrogance in him. The way he had looked at his mother. He hadn’t liked that.
