by James Hanley
‘Maureen! Are you ill? Tell me, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I’m all right now,’ Maureen said. She rose to her feet. But Mrs Fury remained seated. She had momentarily forgotten Maureen. Her thoughts had carried her back to Hatfields. She was thinking of the kitchen floor, and of the bucket she had left unemptied: of the floorcloth; of the little pool of water beneath Anthony Mangan’s chair. She had been too tired to shift them. Perhaps Denny would clear them away. Maureen had sat down again. There came to Mrs Fury’s ears a sound, the quick intake of a breath. It was Maureen. She turned quickly. That sudden inhalation was like a warning.
‘Maureen! Maureen! Tell me. I …’
‘I’m all right, I told you,’ said Maureen, almost angrily. She stamped her foot. ‘Haven’t I told you I’m all right?’ She drove her hands into her coat pockets. Mrs Fury slowly raised her head and looked at the woman in front of her. In that semi-darkness, for even Mr Bellman’s bright lights did not illuminate the benches, she could see her daugher, heavy with child. She rose to her feet and linked arms with Maureen. They set off towards the hill.
‘Maureen,’ said Mrs Fury. There was kindness and gentleness in the woman’s voice, it was unlike the harsh rasping voice that Dennis Fury knew. Perhaps in the street one’s whole life changed; perhaps that flight from the Hatfields kitchen, from that square wooden table, awoke long-buried feelings. ‘Maureen, if you don’t feel well, please say and I’ll go back home.’
She found a smile. ‘I’m all right now, Mother,’ said Maureen. ‘Don’t be worrying about me.’
‘But do tell me! Please! and I will go back.’
Mrs Fury stopped, open-mouthed, looking away up the hill. It was as if her very desperateness had put a hand across her mouth.
‘I’m all right! Isn’t that enough for you? Why talk like this when you know we have to go? You want this money, don’t you?’
How quickly Maureen could change, thought the mother. She felt her words now, she felt their cruelty, that joined forces with her own bitterness, her own helplessness. Yes, she must go. She must climb that hill. She must go right on. There could be no pause – she just must. If she had to crawl on her knees. She felt the blood slowly drain from her face, she could even see that white face, as though her desperateness had placed a mirror in front of her. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh!’ Did she ever imagine that she would be walking up this hill, her daughter at her side and carrying child? No. This was like stepping from light into darkness, and she dared not say a word, not a single word. Everything depended on this woman now. She was filled with dread lest Maureen should stop again, should change her mind. That seizure upon the iron bench had lost its tragic force for Mrs Fury. It had only been one other obstacle. At any moment Mrs Kilkey might say ‘No!’ She might even shout aloud in that very street, ‘No! You’re a fool! You’ve been a fool all your life and will continue to be one until you drop.’ She must keep silent. This silence was agony. There was so much to say, her heart was full, was choked. She wanted to open out, to empty herself, but she must guard her silence. She stopped again, leaning against a shop doorway. ‘What is the matter now? Don’t you want to go? Don’t you want the money, then?’ She dared not speak. ‘If only we had reached the top of the hill,’ Mrs Fury was thinking. If only her feet didn’t begin to pain, everything would be all right.
‘I do not think we can get that way,’ remarked Maureen. She had already seen a crowd gathering at the top of the street. At the corners of the different streets, police and soldiers stood about. Excited groups of people were now marching up and down Instone Road. Some youths and girls were indulging in horse-play in the darkness of shop doors. Mrs Fury watched the soldiers send them about their business. Then they took up their positions again at the corner of the road. They looked very bored. Occasional threats, accompanied by much swearing, came floating down to them from the top windows of neighbouring houses. Maureen again exclaimed, ‘I don’t think we can get up that road. We had better make a detour round.’
‘Why?’ asked Mrs Fury. She stood erect, almost martial-looking, looking at Maureen, occasionally glancing up Instone Road, where it seemed that the people were only waiting for a chance-thrown brick to open the gates to them.
‘It’s not wise,’ Maureen said.
They turned down a side street. This meant that when the bottom was reached they must begin the climb all over again. ‘God!’ thought the woman; ‘when are we ever going to get there?’
‘Do you think we can get back before half-past nine?’
‘Certainly, if you hurry.’ Maureen stepped out, saying, ‘Come along, then.’
Here it was at last! Banfield Road. Mrs Fury stood panting after the long hill-climb. Banfield Road might well have been Banfield Forest, a jungle.
‘Ready now?’ Maureen was pulling on her arm again. One stopped for a moment to get one’s breath – but it was impossible. This hand kept pulling at her arm. ‘There it is!’ said Maureen. ‘That big house over the way. Can you see it?’
‘Yes,’ replied Mrs Fury, ‘I can see it,’ though she was actually looking back down the steep hill she had climbed.
They heard a great crash of glass, and without waiting to see what had happened, both women began to run. They had reached Banfield Road. Mrs Ragner’s house made up Banfield Road. The large stone house was in utter darkness, save for the faint reflection of the red lamp that hung in the hall; the light came through the fanlight and illuminated a patch of gravel just below the step. Maureen and her mother almost ran up the long path; Mrs Kilkey pulled on the bell. In the darkness Mrs Fury clung tightly to her daughter’s arm. The door opened. A tall thin man, wearing a blue sailor’s jersey and rope shoes, stood looking at the two women silhouetted in the doorway. His thinning yellow hair was brushed down neatly on his head, and he wore a fringe over his forehead; his eyes were so small that for a moment the observer took him to be eyeless, until he spoke, when he opened them wide and looked at you in a most distrusting manner. As he stood looking at the two women his eyes were half-closed, he seemed to see a person more clearly in this way. His long arms were bared to the shoulder, for the sleeves of the jersey had been cut off. He had one hand on the door, one foot, its toe catching the light. His attitude was that of a person who is not at all certain as to his position. Who were these women? What did they want? It was getting late. He turned round and looked up the hall. Mrs Fury saw stitched in white thread across the back of the jersey ‘Allan Line’. Obviously he had been a sailor. His weather-beaten features, and that almost knowledgeable air that one comes to associate with seafarers, were enough to stamp him as a person who has seen a good deal of the planet upon which he is placed. The tall man now asked in a wheezy voice:
‘Who are you? What is it you want?’ At the same time he took the liberty to lower his head and to stare impudently at Mrs Fury and her daughter.
Maureen drew back, saying, ‘The name is Kilkey. I have already arranged to see Mrs Ragner.’
Was it that he didn’t like them, or was it that he was merely tired of opening that door? Certainly this tall woman was different to anybody he had seen. Was it a new client? Possibly. How tall she was! He studied Mrs Fury’s face for a moment. ‘You had better come inside,’ he remarked at length, ‘though I don’t suppose Mrs Ragner will see you.’ He said this very slowly, as though he begrudged the utterance, as though he had sensed the urgency of the matter. Mrs Fury and Maureen stepped into the long hall. Its ceiling was low, much stained, and, like the walls, needed cleaning. As they stepped inside, the man closed the door. This was done so quickly and silently that neither woman was aware that it had closed. In addition, the man with the jersey had vanished as though spirited away into the air. Mrs Fury would have liked to sit down on the chair in the hall, but she leaned against the hat-rack instead.
‘Who is that man, Maureen?’ she asked.
‘That’s Mr Corkran,’ replied Maureen. ‘He lives in the top of the house. He is Mrs Ragner’s handy-man.
He cleans up, does all the messages, answers the door, even audits her books, and when necessary he throws troublesome people outside.’
‘Here he is now,’ said Mrs Fury.
The door at the end of the hall had opened, and Mr Corkran, with raised hand, was beckoning them to come up. He rarely spoke, as though a premium had been put upon his tongue. Instead, by gesture he conducted his business, and with the utmost satisfaction. His right hand was raised in the air, and the long forefinger moved backwards and forwards. ‘Come up!’ the finger said. When they stood before him, Mr Corkran, through his half-closed eyes, seemed to intimate that, though eminently respectable-looking – and indeed that older lady was rather striking-looking – he was not yet quite sure of them. The expression upon his lean face manifested this distrust. Suddenly he moved aside, saying, ‘In there.’ The door closed. He was gone again, and the two women were standing in the room. Mrs Fury caught her daughter’s hand and gripped it tight.
Like the hall outside, the front sitting-room of Anna Ragner’s house was long and low-ceilinged. At first glance this room seemed to convey to one the impression that it had at one time been furnished on a grand scale. Here, on the now bared walls, were great patches, from which heavy furniture had been dragged, and higher one saw where large pictures had once hung. The great chandelier in the middle of the room was now but a shadow of its former self. The room had been turned into an office and reception-room. The floor was quite bare. At the bottom end, near the window, across which hung velvet curtains, there were four rows of chairs, six in a row, and at the rear a long wooden bench. Mrs Fury and her daughter walked down the room, hardly noticed the dozen people seated on the chairs, and sat down on the wooden bench. At the top of the room, and about a chair’s space from the wall, there stood a trestle-board which served as a desk. This, too, was bare of covering. On it lay a large account-book, an ink-pot, and by its side a yellow-handled pen, with a much-corroded nib. To the right lay a litter of papers, mostly letters, their envelopes keeping them company. Behind the desk sat a plump middle-aged woman. She wore a black serge dress, that served to throw up more strongly the pallor of her skin, and whenever the light above her head moved, it gave one the impression of dead ivory flushing into life. Around her neck she wore a gold chain, and at her breast was pinned a single pearl brooch. The black head of hair was done up neatly, and in it was fixed a comb whose brilliants from time to time flashed fire as they were caught by the swinging light overhead. At one moment they lay dull, at another they flashed with great brilliance. It was as if they were feeding from this light above. It swung, by reason of a strong draught that came through the partly open door just behind the woman. She made no attempt to close it, as though she were conscious that the swinging bulb threw her face into light and shadows. It pleased her to think that the score of eyes at the bottom of the room remained unsatisfied. Until one walked up to the table, she could not be seen. She was not there to see. There was only the light. Mrs Fury had been staring at this woman for some time, and Mrs Ragner had seen Mrs Fury. She had seen her in much the same way as Mr Corkran, through lowered eyes, almost as if she were sleeping. Her feet were shod in tan shoes, and rested upon a small black carpet. It kept them warm. To her left there burned an oil-stove, that filled the room with a pungent odour of paraffin oil. The large open grate was bleak and bare. Anna Ragner did not provide warmth for her clients. She provided nothing but money. Apparently the entrance of Maureen and her mother had put a spoke in the business wheel. She was like a schoolmistress waiting for a pupil to settle down and be quiet. Apart from the whisperings amongst her clientele, the room was silent. She now pulled the large black account-book forward, opened it, and turned over the pages. Then she called out in a loud voice, ‘Hanrahan!’ Immediately the whispering ceased. Business had begun. From the group on the chairs a little woman rose and walked quickly up the room. She wore a plaid skirt, and over her head and shoulders a large black woollen shawl. One hand clutched nervously at the shawl, the other held an envelope containing money. As she reached the table she let the shawl fall from her head and lie loosely across her shoulders. She was about fifty years of age, with a small wizened face that looked as though at one time some great iron hand had caught and crushed it. Her hair was grey and sat untidily upon her head. ‘Hanrahan,’ Mrs Ragner said, and the little woman placed the envelope upon the table. It was dirty with finger-marks, and damp with the woman’s own sweat, for she had been sitting with it tightly clutched in her hand for an hour and a quarter. Mrs Ragner emptied the coins from the envelope and counted them. She appeared to do this quickly, and without even touching the sticky dirty paper that contained them.
‘This is wrong,’ she said. She did not look at the woman. Mrs Ragner preferred to study her clients from a distance. She pressed on a bell. A moment later Mr Corkran appeared, again as though by magic. He might have been actually standing outside the door, waiting for this summons, so quickly did he answer it.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Will you look in the other ledger, Corkran? This woman has made a mistake. The name is Hanrahan. The loan ten pounds. The principal and interest weekly is twenty-five shillings. There is only seventeen and sixpence here.’ She did not raise her head at all. Mr Corkran, like her client, did not exist. Only the money existed. The door closed. Mr Corkran had gone away to ‘his little office’. Meanwhile, the beshawled woman had begun to drum her red hands upon the trestle-boards. She seemed not to know that her fingers were moving, she could not hear the sounds.
‘I know the amount is not right, Mrs Ragner, but I can’t bring more because the matter is out of my hands. My husband would not give me more.’
‘How is that?’ Pause. ‘Please don’t make that noise, it irritates.’
‘He did not like you applying to the works for the statement about his wages.’
‘Oh! Didn’t you understand this when the loan was contracted, or have you just forgotten the conditions covering the loan? Is your husband working?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Hanrahan said.
Mr Corkran had returned. He stood looking at Mrs Hanrahan, and then said, ‘The figures you mention are right. The principal weekly is seven and sixpence, the interest seventeen and sixpence. There was a default in the payment. In four weeks only the interest was received.’
‘How have I forgotten this matter?’ Mrs Ragner said.
‘There is still three pounds of the loan to be paid,’ Mr Corkran remarked.
‘And the amount already paid?’ asked Mrs Ragner.
‘Twenty-seven pounds two and sixpence.’
‘Thank you.’
Mrs Ragner turned to the woman again.
‘I suppose you know that the paying-in of interest only does not help you to clear the principal.’
‘But we can’t do it,’ Mrs Hanrahan said. ‘My husband is on short time, and my eldest son is out on strike.’
‘These circumstances are no part of the agreement, surely,’ said Mrs Ragner. Again, as if the limbs themselves lived a life apart from the woman’s body, the fingers began to drum upon the table. ‘Stop that, please! Will you give me that address again?’
‘Foulkes and Foulkes, Ship Repairers, Greasly Street North.’
‘Thank you. That is all.’
The book closed. The seven half-crowns were swept into a leather bag that lay open on the chair beside her. Mrs Hanrahan closed the door. Mr Corkran showed the little woman to the door, and said quite cheerily, ‘Good-night, Mrs Hanrahan,’ but the woman made no reply to him.
