by James Hanley
Father Moynihan stood looking after the running figure. ‘A boor,’ he said. ‘A boor.’ Yes indeed, he was that huge inn-keeper of Fermonteil to the life. He dusted his coat down with his hands and continued on his way down the Walk. ‘One would get nothing from him.’ That was obvious. Well, he would see. He began swinging his cane as he increased his pace. At the bottom of the Walk he stopped to look up and down the road. He then turned into Price Street. At thirty-five he stopped and knocked at the door. There was no answer. He knocked again. Mrs Kilkey herself came to the door. She threw it wide at once.
‘Why, Father Moynihan!’ she said. ‘You are about early today. Please come in.’
‘I wanted to see Joseph. I hope he is in.’ He sat down on the chair by the dresser.
‘Of course. Yes.’ She called up the stairs, ‘Joe! Joe! Here’s the priest to see you.’
‘Coming! Coming right away,’ called down Mr Kilkey. Maureen sat down.
‘Well, Maureen,’ said the priest.
‘Here he is now,’ she said.
3
‘You were late,’ the little red-faced man said as he moved up and made room for Desmond Fury in the car. This second-hand and worn-looking motor now began to creak under the weight of the four men. Desmond’s fifteen stone and a half was indeed something to creak under.
‘Late! Blast it!’ he said, as he made himself comfortable. ‘I was early. If you had arrived here at half-past eight as I did, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.’
‘Who was the fellow you were arguing with?’ asked Mr O’Hare, whose straggling moustaches seemed to mock the serious expression upon his lantern-jawed face as he made a frantic endeavour to get the car going.
‘A black crow,’ Desmond said. Then he shouted ‘Wait,’ and jumped out of the car. ‘Thank you, Stevens,’ he said. He put one hand on the bonnet, and with the other gave a quick and vigorous turn to the starting-handle. The engine started again. The noise it now made sounded like a large number of nuts and screws being rattled in a tool-box. A cloud of smoke gushed out from the exhaust-pipe. When Desmond seated himself, the smoke ceased to gush, as though he had sat directly upon its source and quashed it. After a series of rattling sounds, as though the engine’s heart were summoning up its best efforts, the car bounded forward, with another cloud of thick bluish smoke gushing from the exhaust. Mr O’Hare, with both hands on the wheel, now concentrated upon the task in hand. They should be at Garton by noon, providing nothing happened. But at a time when everything was happening in the city the possibility of a smooth passage seemed somewhat remote. The three men at the back of the car, in spite of much crowding, had managed to make themselves comfortable. Mr O’Hare remained alone and aloof, his long greying moustaches blowing in the breeze. There was a vacant seat by him, but in spite of the crowding in the back it had been decided for some strange reason or other to leave it so. Perhaps they expected to pick somebody up. Mr Stevens and Co. were in the back of the car for conference. They had taken note-books from their pockets. Desmond was vigorously sharpening his pencil. He had forgotten his tussle with Father Moynihan, and he had forgotten Sheila. Even Peter’s peculiar manner on the night of his visit was a thing of the past. There was only the matter in hand, and this, by its very nature, clouded all other things out. Mr Stevens began to talk. He had a volubility of which even Mr Williams might be envious, and accompanied his speeches with certain dramatic mannerisms that not only pleased his audience but pleased Mr Charles Stevens himself. He was about five foot ten, so thin as to look almost haggard, though, in spite of this, he had a cheery nature. He was a checker at a goods station. He was happily married and had eight children. He began making wavy lines with his pencil as he spoke.
‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘and it’s been the trouble all along – the trouble is, our organization is simply lousy. These bloody Capitalists, however, are so well organized that they can enlist the aid of the armed forces, to say nothing of the police. And who are the armed forces? Our own lads, of course! Our own bloody lads. The miners are bloody stickers, and what we have to do when we get to Garton is to ginger the bastards up.’
‘I think it’s a failure,’ commented Mr O’Hare from the front.
Desmond joined in: ‘Our real enemies are our own people. Never mind these bloody Capitalists. Our own people. My own father is just a damned scab. He would go to work this minute if he got his chance. You don’t have to go any further than the street you live in. You’ll see there, and quite plainly too, the very things that break up and ruin these strikes. It seems to me that when we call our men out, we leave out of all consideration another class of people.’
‘What class?’ asked Mr Stevens.
‘Our class,’ said Desmond, ‘the tail end of it. These bastards who go looting and give the police and the soldiery their opportunity. Look at that Sunday afternoon meeting! It was completely ruined by a section of the crowd who are not interested in anything but getting something for nothing. So they loot and go mad, and fill their guts. “Let’s have a smack at the bastards,” they say, and at the first move of the police they show them their behinds. If one could get hold of them, if one could control them, it would be all right. The difficulty is that you can’t get the workers to keep together. If I know anything, I’ve been speaking myself hoarse, winter and summer, at the meetings of the Party, in committee, in the streets, everywhere, in fact, and I know that is the obstacle. And again, this blasted religion is used. The authorities know their cue all right. The man next door to me belongs to a lodge. He’s a working man, a nice decent chap, but he won’t join a Union. Won’t join anything. No. He bangs a big drum in some band or other, and that’s all he cares about. And the women are no different. You can’t get them to hold an opinion two minutes on end, and they do just as much looting as anybody. If this strike collapses, then only one thing has ruined it, the workers themselves. Oh yes’ – Desmond became quite caustic – ‘oh yes. They come forward and take the benefits we have won for them.’ He lighted a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke with great violence, as though he were blowing away all these obstacles that kept the workers tied to the wheel.
‘They want edicatin’, that’s what they want, edicatin’. Fury’s quite right. I live in Hally Street,’ interrupted Mr Cruickshank, a very little man dressed in clerical grey, with a horse-like face covered with freckles. Mr Cruickshank was a plater. ‘I live in this street where nobody but dock labourers live. A few are in the Federation, but most of them are in nothing. If they have any brains, then they just piss them against the walls of the pubs. That’s all I got to say. They want edicatin’.’ He sat up suddenly and burst into a violent fit of coughing. He took out a dirty white handkerchief and wiped the bloody spume from his mouth.
‘What are we going to do? What are the plans?’ asked Desmond. ‘Did they get that hall?’ The car stopped so suddenly that all three men catapulted forward, and three pairs of hands grasped the woodwork. What was the matter?
‘Nothing,’ replied Mr O’Hare. He had taken his hands from the wheel and had turned round. ‘Nothing,’ he said, stroking first one moustache, then the other with his long fingers.
‘Now we’re stopped,’ said Mr Cruickshank, ‘I think I’ll nip over yonder for a pump.’ He rose to his feet. Desmond Fury made way for him.
‘Me too!’ said Mr Stevens. The two men hurried across to the urinal.
‘Fury’s quite right, you know,’ remarked Mr Cruickshank, feeling much relieved.
‘Yes. Have you met his missus?’ asked Mr Stevens. His eyes narrowed as they ran up the white-tiled wall. Mr Cruickshank remarked that he hadn’t, whereon Mr Stevens demonstrated his ability to glide from one subject to another. The position was serious, but he could enjoy a joke. ‘I saw her once, and by God! she’s a corker. And a bottom …’ he sighed, as though the instantaneous picture had afforded him much pleasure.
‘Fancy!’ Mr Cruickshank said. They hurried back to the waiting car. The car moved off. Desmond s
uggested they should lower the hood.
‘There is no time for that,’ announced Mr O’Hare. He increased his speed.
The position, then, was as follows. Desmond lay back on his seat. They must hold as many meetings as they could in the street. If the owner of the hall had suddenly changed his mind, that could not be helped. Were the dockers standing fast? Yes. The dockers were standing fast. Who, then, were the most unreliable? The railwaymen. Precisely. In some stations and yards they were dribbling back to work in ones and twos, also the tramwaymen were going in. Hang it! They had better have a general meeting. Where was Williams? Where was White? They had better get them. In Arnton! Then they must get them. What was to be done? The three heads moved as one. They were thinking deeply. ‘Nobody on my section has scabbed, anyhow,’ Desmond said. He began tapping his pencil on his thumb-nail. Mr Stevens began to speak, but Desmond was now so lost in thought that he did not hear him. The events of the past three weeks began to pass kaleidoscopically across his mind. First the rumour, then the coming out. More rumours, ebbing and flowing over their heads for a week. Then the decision to support the miners. The mass meeting calling for solidarity. Its breaking up. When Desmond thought of that fiasco, he could have cried. Nothing worse could have happened. It played right into the bosses’ hands. It seemed to have been created specially for the occasion. Yes, there was no doubt about it whatever. The workers had spoiled it themselves. After all the careful planning, the warning, even the pleading with them, ‘Stand fast! Stand fast!’ If they only had! But they hadn’t. They had gone past themselves. Could he blame them? That was a hard question to answer. Well, they had sailed nicely into the trap. They had simply gone mad. Shops looted, factories turned upside down, even food destroyed. A mad riot. The police were equal to the occasion. The Capitalists were ready for them. Hundreds of batoned people were still in hospital. A state almost of siege existed. One could not put one’s head out of the house after ten. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘the position is very serious.’ He looked at his companions. Mr Stevens was beginning to nod his head, whilst Mr Cruickshank contented himself with staring at Mr O’Hare’s broad back, and occasionally at his flying moustaches. ‘No doubt about it,’ thought Desmond, ‘the workers are mugs, bloody mugs. They could hold the town, aye, even the country, if they liked.’ It wasn’t that they didn’t like – no, he knew that well enough – it was because they didn’t know how. If he wasn’t speaking gospel truth, then he would kick his own behind. What was he to do? Well, what he meant to do was to get out. Yes. Get out of that damned length. Almost time he got promotion. He wouldn’t ask for it either. No. He would just take it. Push himself up higher and higher, and then – Exby. Yes. Exby. No more hammers, no more lengths. In brief, no more dirty work. Others had done it. He would do the same. If he didn’t grasp his chance now, it might not come again. Yes, somebody else could call meetings, somebody else could read the minutes, and ring that damned bell too. He had rung it into ears long enough. Into ears that seemed to Desmond Fury to be stuffed, blocked up. Obstinate, ignorant clods who closed their ears to everything. He shook Mr Stevens by the arm.
‘Hello!’
‘Will we get back tonight?’ Desmond asked.
Mr Stevens rubbed his eyes, and then with his left hand his chin, covered with three days’ stubble. ‘Hope so!’ he said, looking at his companion on the left, but Mr Cruickshank was deeply absorbed in endeavouring to bite off a ragged bit of stubborn thumb-nail. He had his thumb-tip in his mouth and was pulling at the nail with his teeth.
Without moving his big thumb, he managed to say, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, blast it! We can’t be at Garton all day,’ said Desmond.
‘What’s your bag doing here, then?’ called Mr O’Hare from the front seat.
‘Yes, I know,’ replied Desmond, ‘but now I think I must get back.’
‘We may not get back until Saturday,’ announced Mr Stevens. He removed his bowler hat and scratched his head. Then he began twiddling it between his fingers.
‘What! Stop this car!’ said Desmond.
‘We’re almost at Garton,’ said Mr O’Hare. The engine rattled suddenly, as though the glad news had served to make it throw every ounce of energy behind the wheels.
The car was now on the outskirts of Garton. Garton was another industrial centre. It was one of Arnton’s limbs. Seventy miles beyond Garton lay the mining country, now derelict, but Mr O’Hare and Co. were not proceeding so far. Their business lay in Garton. The streets were crowded with people. Mr O’Hare slackened the speed. Groups of people stared at this broken-down car, the first of any vehicular traffic they had seen for nearly three weeks. It became obvious to them at once that the four gentlemen in it, workers dressed in their Sunday best, must be Federation officials of some kind or other. A cheer was raised. Somebody flung a stone. Desmond suggested that the hood should be lowered and the car stopped. They ought to speak there and then. ‘Impossible!’ said Mr Cruickshank. ‘apart from that, I’m hungry.’ Desmond, looking at this wizened little man, now smiled and said to himself, ‘Quite true! Even to look at you makes me hungry myself.’ Mr Stevens also was against such a thing. They must get to the branch rooms and meet the other delegates. No doubt some sort of meal would be available. The car moved on. As they progressed the crowds increased. They turned round the corner where the Halton Arms stood, and opposite which there stood a large shop, empty save for the huge poster in bright red lettering which announced to an indifferent populace that ‘Christ would save the world’, under which somebody had written in chalk a foul word of derision. Mr O’Hare as he turned this corner actually smiled. It was the first time he had smiled that day. He was feeling highly pleased, not only with himself, but with the car that had peformed its task, if not feat, splendidly. It pulled up, its wheels gripping the kerbstone as though it meant to stay there for ever. As the four men climbed out, its stature seemed to increase with the removal of the fifty-odd stone it had carried for thirty-three miles.
The rooms of the Federation, number thirty-one Branch, were situated over a tailor’s shop, now empty, its owner having gone bankrupt. Already the committee were considering the renting of this shop for the coming municipal elections. Desmond, followed by Mr O’Hare, Mr Stevens, and Mr Cruickshank, now climbed the stairs. The branch rented two rooms; one was used for the meetings, the other was used for a dining-room. The door leading to the dining-room was now open, and as the party passed into the committee-room they saw a stout little man at the table. He was eating bread and cheese, and from a blue mug he occasionally supped beer. Desmond Fury did not know this man. He had never seen him. Mr Johns, however, for that was the gentleman’s name, knew not only Desmond Fury, but almost every man in the Federation. Mr Johns was a crane-driver at one of the large northern goods wharfs. He worked devotedly for the cause. All his spare time was taken up by street meetings, by personal canvassing. He had a large family of nine children. His wife was paralysed. He was a man of cheery disposition, he was generous of spirit, he believed in Socialism. It was his ideal. He lived and worked for it. Unlike many more in the movement, he was unobtrusive, he worked quietly, he stole nobody’s thunder. He had no personal ambitions. He wanted to see all workers’ conditions improved. He was now having dinner. He had just come in from the tram terminus, where he had been speaking. He knew better than any man what the conditions were. He knew what caused strikes. He knew the fear and terror that they spread, and he knew the secret silent suffering that went on all the while. Everybody liked Mr Johns. He was a member of the Council at Garton. Even his worst political opponents liked him. He pushed away the remains of his meal and took out his pipe. He could hear a lot of talking going on in the next room. He had better go in as soon as he had taken a fill for his pipe. He did not recognize the voice. Desmond Fury was speaking. Suddenly the voice ceased, and he heard chairs being moved about. The door opened and Mr O’Hare and Mr Stevens came in.
‘Hello, Johns!’ said O’Hare. ‘How are
things?’ He sat down. Mr Johns shook hands with Mr Stevens. Desmond Fury came in with Mr Cruickshank. Mr Johns’ eyes met Mr Fury’s. ‘We don’t know each other,’ they seemed to say. Mr Cruickshank seemed to shiver in his clothes, standing head and shoulders below Desmond Fury, who had now gone up to the table where Mr Johns sat. Mr O’Hare and Mr Stevens were engaged in high conversation. Mr Cruickshank sat down to burst into another fit of coughing. Desmond Fury looked at Mr Johns. ‘Who is the fellow?’ he thought. He smilingly offered his hand to Mr Johns. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know you.’
Mr Cruickshank’s handkerchief came out again, and he wiped his mouth. ‘He’s an honest man,’ said Mr Cruickshank, and he looked directly into Desmond’s eyes. ‘He’s an honest man, Fury.’
CHAPTER XIV
1
Anthony Mangan, sitting belted in his chair, seemed to be taking an unusual interest in Mrs Fury. She had brought in from the front parlour two chairs belonging to the parlour suite. These were now standing in the middle of the kitchen floor. The kitchen table had been pushed back to the wall. One of the chairs had been varnished. Mrs Fury, kneeling on the floor, was busy varnishing the other. Every now and then she stopped to loosen the brush, which stuck to her fingers. Her face had two varnish smears on it. It was half-past four and the kitchen was growing dark. She must light the gas. The old man never took his eyes off the woman, he seemed to follow her every movement. For the past hour the house had resounded to hammerings, for Peter had been busy fixing up the bookshelf in his room, which had collapsed that morning from the rottenness of the wall and the weight of books upon it.
He came downstairs and passed through the kitchen. He did not see his mother kneeling at her task. He did not see Mr Mangan, the silent witness of the procedure. He saw something else – a sort of beckoning light in the distance which drew him on. Mrs Fury did not even raise her head as her son passed through. Peter was glad of this, and yet her silence made him pause at the back kitchen door. Funny that she had never even asked him where he was going. He glanced back at the kneeling woman, then, lifting the latch, he went out. It did not matter, anyhow. That light was beckoning to him. He didn’t want any tea, he wasn’t hungry. He closed the door and went down the yard. Then he passed into the entry and began to run, and did not stop until he had reached the main King’s Road. Here he hesitated, looking up and down the road. His manner was furtive, he seemed undecided. First he walked in the direction of town, then he retraced his steps, stopping again outside a boot-shop, now closed and boarded up, for its windows had been smashed in. Whichever way he turned he saw this light. Filled with a sudden resolution, he made straight for number seven Vulcan Street. Well, she said he could come, and they were going to go out together. He did not stop again until he reached his brother’s door. He raised his hand to knock, but again hesitated. ‘I am not looking,’ a voice seemed to whisper into his ears. ‘I am not even interested in your fugitive passions, my boy. As I told you before, I am only interested in sociology, and in the various phenomena that human activities throw up. Ha ha!’ He could hear this harsh croaking laugh ringing in his ears. Peter looked up and down the street. Then he knocked at the door and waited. There was no reply. He looked up at the bedroom window, then through the parlour one. Yes, there was a light in the kitchen. He could see its reflection in the lobby. He knocked again. ‘Surely, surely,’ he was saying, when to his surprise Mr George Postlethwaite put his head out of the door of number nine, and looking at the boy said, ‘Hello, there! Desmond’s away. Aye. He’s been away two days now. Up beyond Garton.’
