by James Hanley
‘Where? Where’s he gone?’ demanded the man. ‘He ought to be here – now.’
‘He’s gone to McIntyre’s with a message for me. What is the matter?’
‘Matter!’ shouted Mr Fury. ‘Matter! That lad ought to be here. Mr Mulcare’s ship is sailing on the next tide. He wants to get out. D’you understand me?’ The bewildered woman understood nothing. Mr Fury rushed into the kitchen. He stood looking at Miss Mangan. ‘What do you want?’ he asked angrily.
Aunt Brigid had not expected this. ‘What on earth is the matter with you, Denny?’ she said. Her face had grown pale.
Mr Fury wanted to dive at her. ‘Matter! I’ll tell you what’s the matter!’ he shouted. ‘You clear to hell out of this. Understand? You mean —, that’s what you are. You never put your face near here all the time you’ve been at her house.’ He pointed at Miss Pettigrew. ‘And take her to the devil too. Get that? Go ahead!’ His eyes fell on the bottle. ‘What’s this?’ he growled.
Mrs Fury came rushing in from the back kitchen. ‘Denny! Denny! Have you lost your head? Such language! Brigid brought that port for Father.’ She gripped her husband by the coat and tried to push him back to the sofa.
‘Leave me alone!’ shouted Mr Fury. ‘I know what I’m doing. I want this sister of yours to go. Right away. The old devil! She only comes round here to insult you.’ He pushed his wife away. ‘Come along, Miss Mangan! You get to hell out of it.’ He stood in the middle of the kitchen, red-faced, swinging his arms. ‘Where is that lad?’
Mrs Fury shouted, ‘Haven’t I told you? He’s out.’
‘Then he must be found! Mulcare’s ship is sailing with the next tide, and if I know anything he’s going with him. Are you getting out?’ he shouted. ‘You pair of hags. You do nothing but insult this woman, hang you! She’s worth ten of you.’ He picked up the bottle. ‘And take this too. If the old man drank it he’d choke out of sheer protest against your generosity.’ Whilst he stood there, livid with anger, Miss Pettigrew from sheer fright dropped her bottle, and the kitchen floor was covered with red confections. Mr Mulcare began to gather them together.
‘But, Denny! For God’s sake control yourself. What is all this talk?’ said Mrs Fury.
The man ignored her. ‘Are you going …?’ He said no more, for Miss Mangan had already risen to her feet. She could not speak. Miss Pettigrew, having put her jujubes in her pocket, followed Aunt Brigid to the door.
‘Keep away from here!’ shouted Mr Fury. He banged the door in their faces. Then he looked at his wife. ‘Fanny,’ he said, ‘where is that lad?’
‘I told you.’ She turned to Mr Mulcare. ‘Mr Mulcare,’ she said, ‘please excuse my husband. I …’
She sat down near the table. What was all this excitement about?
‘Well, I’m going to find him,’ said Mr Fury. ‘Yes. By God, I’m going to trim his sails.’ He looked at Mulcare. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Please wait here.’ Then he rushed out of the house.
Mr Mulcare now removed his cap. He went up to the table, and leaning one hand upon it said, ‘Mrs Fury, I have a job for your son on my boat, and I make you this promise, that I shall look after him. That is, if you want him to go.’ He stood looking down at the woman’s crumpled hair. ‘By sheer accident I met your husband this morning as he was coming out of the Federation offices. Well, my ship is going, for this strike is finished. Do you want your son to go?’ he asked. Then he went back to the sofa and sat down.
Mrs Fury, without a word, went up to her room. She sat down on the bed. She felt as though a wheel were turning in her head. First Mr Kilkey, then her sister and Miss Pettigrew, and now Mr Mulcare and her husband. There wasn’t even time to think. She could only sit there, numb. What should she do?
Whilst she sat there, dazed, unable to make any decision, her husband came into the room. ‘Hang it!’ he said, ‘where is the lad? If he misses this ship I …’
‘Denny! Denny! Please! Control yourself. Will you at least let me be quiet for a moment?’
He sat down by her side and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Let him go! Let him go, Fanny! I don’t care if I never see one of my children again. I only want peace. And we ought to be on our own. Understand? Let him go! Mulcare is a good man. He’ll look after him.’
Even now she hedged. She hated to see him go. It was like turning the last page of a book. She hesitated. The man pulled out his watch. Then he went downstairs again. Mulcare was walking up and down the kitchen. Mr Fury said, ‘It’s a caution. I’ll … if he misses this chance … I …’
‘There isn’t much time, Fury,’ remarked Mr Mulcare. ‘I don’t think your wife wants him to go.’
Mr Fury whispered into the man’s ear. ‘That’s the kind of woman she is.’ He seemed to hold his breath for a moment. ‘She still wants her son – in spite of everything. She hates to let him go.’
Mulcare made no reply. Then he said casually, ‘I’ve got an hour. No more.’
‘If I was his age,’ said Mr Fury, ‘I would go like a shot! By God I would! Aye, Mike, and if I could get a job I would go now.’ There was something almost desperate in his utterance, as though in that very moment his being hungered to be free, his spirit longed for the sea again.
‘You must be content. All you have to do is to be content,’ remarked Mulcare. ‘Your time’s up, Fury. Isn’t that it?’ He watched this old man sit down on the sofa.
‘Aye, I suppose so. I suppose so,’ Mr Fury replied.
The other man continued his pacing of the kitchen. Once he looked at the figure of Mr Mangan. Then he stood to listen to somebody moving above-stairs. Somebody up there was pacing the floor too. When Mr Fury looked up at the clock he felt certain that its face had grinned at him. So sure was he of this that he got up and turned its face to the wall. ‘Of course!’ he cried in his mind. ‘Of course she would send him out. She’s a caution.’ Well, he couldn’t sit down. No. He got up again and went upstairs. Mrs Fury was kneeling in front of the altar. The man closed the door quickly and stood at the top of the stairs. He pulled the five and threepence from his pocket and looked at it. That could wait. He would give it to her later on. He sat down on the stairs. He could hear Mulcare walking up and down the kitchen. Extraordinary! Extraordinary! That he should have met him at that very fortunate moment. It had been like the solving of a problem, a problem which had kept him awake the whole night. By heavens! he had seen nothing like Peter. Not for many a day. He was certain the lad was drinking – and then smashing that glass vase in his room!
Mulcare had stopped by the window. Suddenly he went to the kitchen door and shouted, ‘Here’s your boy now!’
‘What!’ Mr Fury almost overbalanced as he ran down the stairs.
The front room door opened. Mrs Fury called after him, ‘Denny! Denny!’
‘What?’ shouted Mr Fury.
‘Is that Peter?’ she asked.
‘Yes. It is,’ replied Mr Fury, ‘and only just in time too.’
‘I want him to come up here at once.’ she said. Then she went back into the room and shut the door.
She could hear shouting below-stairs. ‘You don’t want to go? Why? You said that last night too. Tell us why? There must be some reason for it. Is it your mother? Then, by Christ! if you don’t, I do! D’you hear me?’
Mrs Fury stood listening on the dark landing. She heard Mulcare say, ‘If he doesn’t want to go. Fury, that’s the end of the matter.’
‘Then I’ll go!’ shouted Mr Fury. The woman on the landing gripped the banister.
‘Denny! Denny! Come here!’
She put her hand to her forehead and held it there for a moment.
‘Your wife’s calling you,’ she heard Mulcare say, and now she saw her husband climbing the stairs. As soon as he reached the top she gripped him by both arms, saying, ‘Denny, dear Denny! Do you mean that? Do you mean that?’
‘Of course I do! Him or me. I’ve had enough.’
The woman, filled with dread, leaned on him and asked, ‘Do you mean it?’
Then she became excited and pushed her husband into the room. She clung to him.
‘Denny! Don’t be foolish. Stay here. Stay with me. I don’t want you to go. Let Peter go. I don’t care now, only about you.’
‘All right!’ There was no doubt about Mr Fury’s determination. He went to the landing and shouted:
‘Peter, come up here at once!’
He stood waiting for him.
‘Go in!’ he said. ‘Your mother wants you.’
Peter went into the room. The man went out, hearing her say, ‘Come here! Please kneel down.’
Mulcare began his pacing of the kitchen again.
‘Everything’s here, Mike! She’s got a full bag for the lad.’ He pulled out his watch.
‘What time’s the tide?’ he asked. It was now ten to twelve.
‘Three thirty-five.’
‘Bags of time,’ said Mr Fury.
He stood looking at the man. This continual walking up and down began to get on his nerves.
‘So you lost sight of Hagan,’ Mr Fury said.
He began cleaning his pipe. He was calm again, as though no such things as Brigid and Miss Pettigrew, Peter and his mother, had turned the house topsy-turvy.
When Mulcare sat down Mr Fury smiled. What a relief! The fellow seemed to him to be restless. Hang it! there was plenty of time.
‘Oh! I don’t know where the hell he went. We went to a house last night,’ said Mulcare, ‘and I’m afraid one of the ladies turned his head completely. I haven’t seen him since he retired with her.’ He lit a cigarette.
‘I want you to look after our lad,’ Mr Fury said. ‘Of course, I know you will. Tell me, how did they manage to get the ship down the canal to the Moreston? Has she got all her crew?’
‘Yes,’ replied Mulcare. ‘She’s got all she wants. They were a deck-hand short, and I told the bo’sun I was bringing a boy along. Anyhow, your damned strike is finished.’ He laughed now and began scratching his neck. He was wearing a blue suit and a jersey and his Australian hat.
‘I’ll show you his rig-out,’ said Mr Fury. ‘That woman has more foresight than ten thousand.’
He went into the back kitchen and brought back the sea-bag, into which Mrs Fury had put all the clothes Mr Kilkey had brought.
‘Splendid!’ Mulcare said. ‘Even matches and his plate and spoon.’
‘Well, Fanny’s packed my bag for thirty years,’ said Dennis Fury, ‘so she’s no amateur, is she? Look here,’ he said suddenly, ‘will you have a drink? I can give you a drop of brandy and plain water.’
‘No, sir, thank you.’
‘Have a cup of tea, then?’
‘No.’ replied Mulcare. They were silent for a moment as though they had both stopped to listen to the speakers in the room above.
‘Would you take a jump, Fury, if she turned out to be short-handed?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Mr Fury. ‘I wouldn’t leave my missus for twenty quid a week. And that’s that.’ Then he said, ‘Ssh! Ssh! She’s coming down.’
Without looking at her son, Mrs Fury said, ‘Come here. Kneel down.’ She was herself kneeling in front of this altar in the front room. As he knelt down he said, ‘I don’t want to go to sea, Mother. I could get a job on the railway.’
She seemed not to hear. She lifted her head high and looked at the lamp.
‘Bless yourself,’ she said. Peter made the sign of the Cross.
‘I want you to go away now, Peter, for your own good and my peace. I sent you to college years ago. Now you are back again. I ought to have let your father take you to sea long ago. I can see now how foolish I was. But I have no more regrets. All that is wiped out. I have forgotten it. My own life has flashed by, and I’ve hardly noticed it. I have done everything I could. And your father wants you to go. Your father and I have talked about it, night after night. We have watched you about the place. We know you feel your position. From now on you owe it to yourself.’ She turned her head so that the red glow from the lamp fell upon it. ‘Are you listening?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘All I ask of you is this. I ask you to be clean, to be honest and upright, to hold your faith. Will you swear that now?’ Her eyes rested upon his face. ‘Will you at least promise that?’
Peter looked at his mother’s face. Then he whispered, ‘Yes, Mother.’
She caught his hand and raised it in the air. With her right hand she blessed herself.
‘You swear that now you will be clean, decent and honest, and that you will hold your faith.’
She threw her arms round him and continued: ‘You are my son, Peter, and I still love you. No matter what my family has done, I have never forgotten that. You have had your chance. A chance that the others never had. They have seen things you will never see. Whether I see eye to eye with my married children or not, I know this, that they worked hard, that we managed to keep our family together in good times and bad times. Your father has done his share. Well, there, I shan’t say any more.’
She loosed her hold upon him and rose to her feet. But Peter remained kneeling. All her words were nothing, he had not even heard them. She had lifted his hand towards the lamp, but he could not remember. He knew he was kneeling, but there was no altar there. There was a bed, and a woman upon that bed. And he was kneeling in front of her.
The door closed. His mother had gone downstairs, but he did not hear her go. He did not pray. He only tormented himself with questions, with vague hopes. How could he see Sheila now? How could he go? He got up and went to the window. ‘Poor Mother!’ he said. ‘She still believes in me. And I do not want to go. I only want to work ashore so that I can see Sheila. I love her. No. I don’t want to go!’
Whilst he stood there his father came into the room. ‘All right, Peter,’ he said. ‘You come downstairs and get a bite to eat before you go.’ Then he went out again. His father had not come near him. He had not even talked to him. Then his father must hate him. He closed his eyes and saw again the face of Mulcare in the window as he came up the yard. He had gone into the kitchen, and the first thing his father had said was, ‘Well! Get your things ready. Mr Mulcare’s ship sails at half-past three, and you’re going on it.’ Yes, his father had finished with him. He had flung himself upon the sofa, saying, ‘I don’t want to go! I can get a job on the railway with Desmond. I can get a cleaner’s job.’
‘It’s either you or me!’ his father had shouted, and he had caught him by the hair. ‘You or me!’ Then his father must know. He went slowly downstairs. There was the bag, already packed and secured by the lanyard, and there was the man with whom he was going away and with whom he would share his life. There was his mother. She looked as though she had been crying. And his father, standing by the mantelshelf, hands behind his back. He would not look at him, but continued to stare at the carpet. He looked angry. And there was his grandfather, huddled in the chair, mouth wide open, staring at nothing in particular. They seemed to him like the figures from a dream. He stood in the middle of the floor, and they all looked at him. He could feel their eyes, as though they were ransacking him, searching for his thoughts. Nobody spoke. He wanted to shout, ‘Stop looking at me! Stop looking at me! It’s all right. I’ll go.’ Then his father drew himself up, and put out his hand, saying, ‘Well, there is only one other thing.’ He pulled him by the arm and they went into the back kitchen. Mr Fury closed the door. ‘There is only one other thing. Where have you been all morning?’
Peter replied, ‘That doesn’t matter now,’ and stood back, thinking his father would strike him.
3
‘It’s time to go now,’ Mulcare said. He picked up his slouch hat and swung it in his hand. ‘Come on, my boy, slip to it.’
‘Yes, he’s really going,’ said Mrs Fury to herself. ‘He’s really going. Another to the sea,’ as she watched her son pick up the canvas bag and place it upon his shoulder.
Mr Fury was standing by the mantelshelf.
‘Your cap,’ he said.
&nb
sp; ‘Let him take this one,’ replied the woman.
‘Ready, Fury?’ said Mulcare; and immediately Mrs Fury went up to the man by the door.
‘He’s not going down,’ she said. ‘I’m going.’ Her smile was brave as she added, ‘That man would take a jump this minute. I know it.’ Her husband grinned at her. ‘Please wait,’ she said quickly, and hurried upstairs. In a few minutes she was down again.
‘I’m ready now.’ She wore the same clothes as she had put on for the visit to Mr Lake.
Peter stood, now, looking at his mother. He had dropped the bag between his knees. Mr Fury crossed over to him and put out his hand – he did look at his son. His attitude was, ‘Here’s my hand – take it or leave it.’ ‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘good luck.’ Peter did not answer him. He put the bag on his shoulder again. Then he turned round and looked at his grandfather.
‘Where’ll you be when I come back again?’ he was saying to himself. ‘Staring in the grave?’
‘Kiss your grandfather,’ said his mother. Behind her Mulcare smiled. Peter bent down and kissed Mr Mangan on the forehead. Then they went out, leaving Mr Fury sitting by the fire. He was thinking of Mulcare’s words: ‘Your time’s finished, Fury.’ Yes, no doubt about it, his time was finished. He would never get another boat. Strike him pink, he had had his last bout with the sea. Again he could hear his wife saying, ‘Denny, don’t go! Stay with me.’ He could see her face now, as she had stood under the altar in the front room: ‘Please don’t go!’ Yes, it had touched him. And he wouldn’t go. He would stay with his wife. Soon they would have the place to themselves. Then they would have a little peace. He got up and picked from the floor a piece of orange-coloured cardboard. Mrs Fury had dropped it from the vase as she searched the dresser for a pin.
‘Kilkey!’ said Mr Fury. ‘That’s Kilkey, or I’ll eat my hat. Good old Joe!’
Mulcare was talking to his mother, but Peter did not hear what they said. They were walking by his side, but somehow he himself was alone – intensely alone. The world around him seemed to have drawn down its shutters, and now, even as he walked, he knew, he could feel and see them, there were two figures, one each side of him. The street had changed. There were three long ladders, and he was on the middle one. He climbed warily. Sometimes he missed his footing and the woman said, ‘Take my arm’; and just as he was about to catch hold, the man with a deerstalker hat leaned forward, leered in his face and said, ‘Take mine.’
