by James Hanley
‘This man,’ thought Peter, ‘must be mad.’ He was smiling at the boy. It seemed to endow the man’s face with an expression of vileness. He began rubbing his mouth with his index finger.
‘I must go,’ said Peter furiously. ‘My father …’
‘Your father! Late. The Manton Hospital is closed. What are you talking about, my boy? Or is it that you are quite unused to such exhilarating adventure? Well, well! Surely you would not desert me! I have enjoyed your company. Pardon me if I say that your physical presence has had a most extraordinary – I might even go further and say a most profound – effect upon me. Mentally you bore me! Understand? You are naïve, untutored in certain niceties, polish, decorum. In brief, you are … well, no, I shall not say that. But I think you are a little sly – a little callous, I mean. Please excuse me. I am rather prone to adopt the cold, ice-like precision of a surgeon. It’s a weakness of mine. Tell me! Where is your home?’
Peter, his eyes fastened upon the man’s face, seemed unconscious of the scene taking place below him. As for Professor Titmouse, the crowd, the Square, the police, they no longer existed. Hidden in shadow, these figures upon the lion could not be seen. And the people below, like some vast silent river, flowed slowly past. The police were pressing them backwards towards the long Mile Hill.
‘I confess I rather like you,’ continued the tall man sitting astride the lion. ‘I experience the most extraordinary feelings in your company. I too had a son once! Dear me! Dear me!’
Peter lowered his eyes. They rested for a moment upon the professor’s elastic-sided boots, then slowly climbed until they came to rest upon his face. ‘I’m going now,’ he said.
If the man prevented him, he would shout; then they would be discovered, and the professor’s ‘pestiferous crowd’ would know how to deal with the matter.
‘Come, my young friend,’ said the professor. His tone was wheedlingly affectionate. ‘Come! You do me an injustice. Perhaps my directness has rather puzzled, rather frightened you. Don’t be afraid, my boy. I am only another human being like yourself.’ He laughed again, that strange throaty laugh, so that for the second time Peter visioned his horse-like teeth, blackened and rotten. And again he proceeded to expel, with much effort, a mucous substance from his mouth, though this time he used his black rag, having in mind no doubt, the great number of heads below him. This rag was part of the sleeve of a woman’s satin blouse. The lower part of the face was hidden by the rag, which he held tightly to his mouth. Peter turned his head away. The peculiar noise the man made, almost like the gobble of a turkey, the click of his tongue, made him feel physically sick, as the other evening his grandfather’s slobbering had done when he had had to feed him. Now he wanted to vomit. He closed his eyes. The professor had leaned forward again, so that the boy could feel his breath upon his face.
‘On the other hand,’ said Professor Titmouse, ‘we could in a single moment tumble from this stone animal into the maelstrom. But why do that? Let us look down. The scene is changing. The crowd are cowed. They are moving quickly away. That can only mean one thing. They will break out somewhere else. Very soon you will be able to descend and walk freely across the Square.’
‘Close your eyes again, my boy,’ said Professor Titmouse. Now his protruding lips appeared to touch Peter’s face. ‘Close your eyes. The sky is leaden, oppressive. One might expect rain, even thunder. The moon has come riding up, a little shyly, and its pale light has touched those towering masses of masonry, that we call tall buildings, that oppress and suffocate. Its light has also fallen upon a young girl who is leaning out of the top window of a house just opposite where we sit. It seems to have caught her hair, now glistening like silver. Her hands are gripping the window-pane. She is looking down upon the Square. There is nothing inquisitive or searching in her glance. She may have come to the window for a breath of air. But see! She has retired. The window has been closed. The air has become infected with a pestilential odour. It rises up from the Square. The moon’s light is gradually revealing dark corners. There are people crouching there. They look like so many terrified animals. This mass of brick and mortar seems to suffer change under the almost miraculous white light that floods it. Did you hear that sudden cry, my boy? Our friend from the tailor’s shop has committed hari-kari in the Square. There! The police are putting him in an ambulance. What can that mean, my young friend, that sudden surrendering of life before these crowds beneath that moon’s light? There! It has passed again, and the towering buildings are lost in the darkness once more. Have you ever noticed the extraordinary effect that light can have upon certain objects? The Square. The play of the lights against the walls gives the impression that the oppressive mass of masonry has become humanized and appears to perform the most fantastic-like movements. The height seems to increase, so that looking up from the Square one has the impression of being imprisoned between two walls, which for some strange reason have drawn closer together. Now! The people have begun to move. The police have charged them. Some hand has thrown a lighted paper into a shop. Listen to their shouting. The flames are rising. Arms ride the air, sticks, stones, and bottles fly, batons whizz past one’s head. As the flames spread from shop to shop, flames which no mortal hand can now put out, those towering walls are thrown clear, one can see them perfectly. One can see them for what they are. Prisons, my boy. And who are these running people, these swearing crowds? Look! The light of the fires has caught them. Goblins from the Inferno! Ha ha!’ The professor suddenly gripped Peter’s body and embraced him. The boy struggled.
‘You swine!’ The bodies seemed to sway, then fell clear into the Square. They held together for a moment, then the boy lunged and broke free. Professor Titmouse’s legs seemed to shoot into the air. This was a nightmare! This was no dream! A huge face seemed to thrust itself at Peter, the boy ducked. Horses were coming up at the gallop. The boy gave one look at the man struggling upon the ground.
‘Have you got my card?’ shouted the professor. ‘Come and see me some time! I am so lonely.’ But Peter was already running; his hand shot out, grasped a coat, and now he was carried along. This avalanche of flying bodies frightened him. If he didn’t look out he would be trampled to death. He screamed as he heard troops thundering past. He did not know that Professor Titmouse had been laid suddenly low by a blow from a baton. He ran on. Sweat broke out upon his forehead. Where was he running? Was it really a dream? Then he heard a scream behind him. A man had fallen under a horse. By God! This was no dream! Far ahead he could see lights. He still hung desperately to the tail of the brown tweed coat. The man in front seemed quite unconscious of the weight behind him. He tore on, possessed with one idea, one desire, to get free of the oncoming horses. At the end of the Square the crowd broke. Some turned up John Street, others turned down towards the Front. At last! With a sort of final and desperate lunge the man in the brown suit broke free and tore up London Street. Peter followed the crowd that now streamed downhill. If he could get to the Front he was safe. There was the dark road, a two-mile walk, and then he would be home. He pulled out his handkerchief and began wiping his face, though he never slackened in his mad dash down the hill. He could see the long narrow street, and at the bottom a light. The light became a beacon, a goal. He increased his speed. He left crowds running behind him. He knocked a child down, but did not stop. He heard its scream.
When he thought of the mad professor his blood ran cold. There was something about the man’s figure, the touch of his hand, his almost pesty breath, that made Peter shudder. The impression remained vivid in his mind. A madman! A madman! And that sudden embrace. He stopped for a single moment and spat. He must. If he did not stop he would be sick at once. He must spit it out, the disgust, the pure disgust he felt. ‘Where is Dad?’ He began to run again. For fifty yards he ran free; now he was on the fringe of yet another crowd, running towards the long narrow street with that beckoning light at its bottom. This, then, was the firework display Mulcare had remarked upon! ‘Poor man!’ said Pe
ter, ‘he said he was lonely. Poor man!’ They had entered the long narrow street. Peter now saw for the first time that there were a good many women in the crowd. Ahead there were sudden cries. The crowd pulled up. Somebody shouted, ‘Specials! Specials!’ More people came running down. Peter was in the middle of the crowd. The police were running down, batons raised. The Specials had emerged from the darkness, they closed the approach at the bottom. The people were hemmed in. Peter kept his eyes upon the light. It was the lamp above the gate entrance of the Moreston Dock. ‘Make way! Make way!’ The people appeared to swim round him, he himself floated in the air. ‘Make way!’ Then silence again. The crowd moved towards the bottom of the street. Peter went with them. There was no escape. He wanted to turn round and run back. But that was impossible. He could not move. They were hemmed in by the high walls of a cotton warehouse. Old rope, heaps of damp cotton, pieces of corrugated iron, waste-paper, rags, and tins littered the street. Each time Peter moved, the man on his left swore. ‘Where the devil do you think you are going to?’ Peter threw his hands in the air.
‘I want to get out,’ he shouted. ‘I want to get out.’
‘Then get out, you bastard!’ shouted a woman, who promptly butted him forward with her backside. ‘Get out.’ He was feeling sick again. The whole atmosphere seemed to take on that nightmarish quality which he associated with the crowd in the Square when, in company with Professor Titmouse, he had sat astride the stone lion. The stale breaths, the smell of garbage, of cheap shag, of grease, of steam rose all around him. ‘Keep quiet!’ shouted the big woman. ‘Don’t you know those swine are hiding at the bottom?’ She struck the boy in the back with her fist. Temporarily thrown off his balance, the boy shot forward again and fell into a group of women. As he fell among them, he spat. He could not help it. A hand struck him in the face. ‘Beast! Beast!’
It was so dark in the street that he could not see. The faces about him bobbed up and down, in and out, like a sea of splashing light. He was trapped. Whichever way he turned, the crowd hemmed him in. Suddenly he drew himself up to his full height, and shouting ‘Make way!’ hurled himself forward. If he remained in this crowd a minute longer he would smother. To his complete surprise the crowd fell away and he went hurling down an avenue of human bodies, to come to rest against the wall of the cotton warehouse. He put out his hands and felt the wall. Here it was even darker. He groped his way slowly along. He would soon come to one of the hoist doors. He stopped. This was one. He stepped into it for shelter and leaned against the wooden door. Before him a bleak mass, out of which rose the many lights, the lights that were human faces, upon which there was limned a terror and desperation. Above the sea of faces, the foul smells. ‘If I can get down to that light,’ thought Peter, ‘I am free!’ There was something delicious and exciting about the very idea. His whole body trembled at the thought. He felt he had been flung into a stinking pit, that he had lain there for many hours, imprisoned by bodies, many bodies, and crowned by the hoarse laugh of Professor Titmouse. He could see his huge rotten teeth again as the man opened his mouth to emit that slow strange croak. A human toad. A lonely human toad. The professor was right. The atmosphere, the scene was spectral. The air was filled with sudden yells. The crowds were running up the street again. Beasts at bay. Rats caught in the trap. Peter shuddered and crouched against the wall. ‘By a single stretch of the imagination,’ the professor had said, ‘you can now sit on empyrean heights.’ And by a single stretch of the imagination he could be roaming those broad green fields of the college in Cork. The air was humming again. Sticks rose and fell. The crowd struck out as the Specials came up to them. ‘God!’ cried Peter, and clutched at the chain guard that swung across the hoist door. Now the crowd had vanished. Dark forms were running in pursuit. The Specials. The air seemed suddenly filled with clouds of blue armlets. The shouting ceased. Peter clung tight to the chain, so that he felt its great weight about his body. Here in the protecting darkness of the great iron door he was safe. He poked his head out, and looked up and down the street. Then he crept out, and still keeping close to the wall, walked slowly down the street. At that moment the clock of the Forester Hall struck eleven. ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed the boy under his breath. He stopped. Three dark forms loomed up. Peter turned on his heel and made his way back again. Perhaps he could get out the other way.
At the top of the street other forms flittered about in the darkness. He made a decision. ‘I can’t stay here any longer.’ What had he done? Why should he be afraid to go down? Filled with determination now, he walked boldly back again. At the bottom of the street he was pulled up. Where was he going to? Peter held his breath; then he stammered, ‘I’m going home,’ and stared angrily at the man in front of him. He was wearing a high collar and pince-nez. The blue band on his arm reminded Peter that the gentleman was a Special – probably an opportunist, certainly a patriot.
‘Home!’ said the man. ‘Where the hell is that?’ He subjected Peter to a minute scrutiny.
‘I live in Hatfields,’ stammered Peter.
‘Then get to hell out of it!’ shouted the man, and lifted his arm threateningly. The boy turned and fled. How many miles had he run tonight? Ah! There was the light. At last! He was safe. He was on the Dock Road. Now it was easy. He knew his way back to Hatfields. The road, unlike the street, was badly lighted. The dimmest of lamps shone feebly, but bravely, every seven or eight hundred yards. The boy walked along under the shadow of the sheds. Here the atmosphere was different. From the quays and warehouses came the smells of raw tobacco, of ripe fruits, of seeds, of rope and oils. Suddenly he started to run again. A man had loomed up out of the shadows. ‘Some drunken man returning to his ship,’ thought the boy. He had reached Brook Street now. He stopped to get his breath. Before he was aware of it, the man had caught up with him. The boy, seeing him, again drew into the wall and attempted to make himself as small and insignificant as possible. But, as the man hurried past, something about him caused Peter to start. It reminded him of … of … He dashed away from the wall and ran after the man. ‘Desmond!’ he shouted. ‘Desmond!’ Then he burst out laughing. It was Desmond. It couldn’t be anybody else but his brother. He put his hands on his hips, spread his legs apart, and shouted, ‘Desmond! Desmond!’
The man had stopped. He appeared to be uncertain as to where the call had come from. Then he espied the tall figure standing on the kerb, ankle-deep in rubbish. He came hurrying up.
‘Desmond! Desmond!’
The man stood hesitant. ‘I … who …?’
‘I’m Peter. Don’t you know me?’
‘Good God! You! What are you doing here?’ The two brothers stood staring at each other, lost for words. Then Desmond rushed up to Peter and gripped both his hands.
‘Peter!’ he said. ‘Peter! Well, by God! But tell me – tell me …’
They began to walk along towards Bank Street.
‘I was with Dad,’ said Peter. ‘I lost him in a crowd. We were going to see Mr Postlethwaite at the Manton Hospital. But we lost each other. And then I met a man, a most impossible person. I have his card in my pocket – look!’ He pulled the professor’s card from his pocket. ‘Look!’ He was excited. His face was very red.
‘Yes. I know. But what are you doing here? I thought you were in Ireland!’
‘No. I’ve left now. I gave it up. It was a pure cod. I’m going to sea next week.’
Desmond Fury was dumbfounded. He was quite unable to speak. It was extraordinary enough to meet his brother in that way, but to hear that he had left the college, was actually going to sea! Well … he must collect himself. He must get his breath. It was all too surprising. George Postlethwaite was right after all. And he, Desmond, had lightly dismissed it as one of George’s tall yarns. They covered the distance up Bank Street, Peter talking excitedly, Desmond listening attentively but maintaining a silence that astonished the boy. But he did not know that such news had taken Desmond’s breath away. At the top of the street they pulled up. Desmond put
a hand on his brother’s arm. ‘Now I must go. It is getting late. Come and see me tomorrow.’
‘Where? What time?’
‘Do you know the Blue Bird Café at the back of Lewis’s yard?’
‘Blue Bird Café, Blue Bird Café,’ muttered the boy. ‘Oh yes, yes, I know.’ He was growing excited again. ‘What time?’
‘About seven,’ said Desmond. ‘By God, you’ve grown! Well, good-night. You must hurry,’ he continued; ‘nearly twelve.’
‘Yes. Good-night, Desmond. Good-night.’
They parted. In a few minutes they had disappeared, Peter round one corner, Desmond round the other. A fog-horn began to blow. A fog was rising over the river.
CHAPTER XI
1
Mr Fury was tired. He yawned, stretched himself out in bed, and rolled over. Mrs Fury was already up and dressing. The man closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he hoped to find her gone. Then he would lie at his ease. He yawned again. He wanted to ask her where she was hurrying off to, but something warned him not to question. Her manner. He hadn’t slept a wink all night. The woman had been so restless. Her movements, her quick breathing, were enough to make Mr Fury cover his head with the clothes.
In the back room Peter was snoring so loudly that Mr Mangan’s feeble efforts were put to shame. Peter had had a nightmare. He had been riding pick-a-back with Professor Titmouse round and round Powell Square. The sun was shining down on them. After a while, the professor collapsed. Peter woke up, stared bewilderedly about the room, then fell asleep.
His mother was now dressing herself in front of the dressing-mirror. She looked at the still figure in the bed. It seemed to increase her own vitality. Now she stood fully dressed. She was wearing the same clothes as she had done on the occasion of her visit to the shipping office to see Mr Lake. On every occasion that necessitated a trip to town Mrs Fury wore the same clothes. They might well have had a label attached to them as they hung in the cheap ply-wood wardrobe: ‘Mr Lake!’
