by James Hanley
Her head fell forward on her breast. She felt a hand gripping her own. It must be her daughter’s hand. But she did not move. Then Maureen’s hand was wet. It shook slightly, and the woman huddled in the chair shook it from her.
‘You go home where you belong,’ she said. ‘Go on. I have things to do.’
‘If you had any common sense, you would tell Peter to leave the house. You know very well that is why Dad wants to get away himself. If you don’t know that they hate each other, then you know now. He, like the rest of us, has been brought up in the same atmosphere. Why don’t you let him go? No! You’ll never do that. You won’t admit defeat, you won’t. You’re not like any ordinary human being at all. Other people have feelings as well as you. Don’t forget that.’
‘Your father is old, Peter is young. Why shouldn’t I see my last child grow up? Do you begrudge it? I have no feelings against Peter. Never have had, except when he was cleared out of Ireland. You think I’m disappointed because he didn’t become a priest, you’re wrong, Maureen. If he didn’t become that, he could still have been a teacher. He could still have been something if he hadn’t sullied himself. You talk about my trying to push you into a convent. H’m! My only desire was to keep you clear of filth and dirt, that’s all. And when you come to think of it, when you’ve lived thirty years in Hatfields, a convent, Maureen, becomes the most inviting place in the world. That’s not unreasonableness—nor is it cowardice. You know what it is. At least, when you’ve lived thirty years in Gelton you’ll know right enough. Your father says I’m ambitious, stubborn, and all that. I haven’t a single ambition. To ask one’s children simply to do their duty isn’t being ambitious. All I’ve wanted was a happy family. I wasn’t after my children’s earnings. I only wanted a recognition that there is faith and that they hold on to it. Be decent. Grow up decent. Marry decent. That’s all. Very little to ask, isn’t it? But d’you see what has happened? At the age of sixty, I’m beginning all over again. All over again. Sometimes one gets a little tired of it all. Your father, for all his hard work, has had a pretty free life. You can’t deny that he has. It’s fine to be a man.’
‘What I was saying to Joe only last night, Mother,’ said Maureen. She had seated herself on the sofa alongside her mother, and was looking at her white face. She did not know why she had sat down. Something inside her called her to fly, to leave that house at once, yet she had sat down, and made herself comfortable. Dermod cried. She pulled open her blouse and forced the child’s mouth to her breast.
‘Shut it,’ she said.
‘You should never do that,’ said Mrs. Fury, ‘you’ll ruin the child,’ and she looked at the round, soft, full breasts of her only daughter.
‘No! I must go away at once,’ thought Maureen. ‘It’s only making things worse, sitting here and—Yes, I must go!’ She drew the child’s mouth away, saying: ‘Yes, it is bad, perhaps. But he’s such a nuisance.’ She laid him flat across her knee whilst she fastened her blouse. Then she got up. The mother did not move. As Maureen moved towards the door, she looked back at her, and said, hurriedly, as though some shame in her demanded it: ‘Don’t forget, then, Mother. You must get Anna Ragner to cancel our surety.’ The door banged. Mrs. Fury had not moved. After a while, she got up and went upstairs to attend to her father.
CHAPTER III
Even Hatfields, that long narrow street whose roofs, and especially chimney-pots, bear the brunt of the salt-laden winds as they sweep in across the river, even that grey dingy street had its occasional surprises, weddings and funerals excepted. When a man has risen regularly at half-past five in the morning, and banged his front door behind him and gone off to work, and done this every day for years—it does come as a surprise to his neighbours when, throwing all tradition to the winds, he emerges through his front door at ten minutes to eight in the morning, dressed up for the day. Excusable on Sundays when all Hatfieldians took a well-earned rest—but quite inexcusable on an ordinary day of the week. And this was Thursday, as the neighbours suddenly realized as they saw Mr. Dennis Fury come out of number three Hatfields and walk slowly down the street. First they noticed his clothes, Sunday suit of blue serge, white collar and blue tie, well-brushed hard hat and highly polished brown shoes. Behind windows in kitchens and top-bedrooms speculation was rife. For what purpose had an ordinary working man ransacked his wardrobe on an ordinary week-day?
Mr. Fury never went to work in that get-up. Secondly, there was his walk. It was slow, leisurely, apparently aimless, the gait of a man who hadn’t a single care in the world. But where was he going? Speculation grew. It was not so much curiosity as a certain mild bewilderment at the sudden manifestation of indifference to custom.
Mr. Dennis Fury should have gone off at six, instead of which, here he was, walking down the street with the air of a man who hadn’t a care, and who, except for an occasional frown, seemed a very happy man. Mrs. Postlethwaite, the stout lady from number five, had already appeared at her front door, to watch him pass out of the street. ‘Mr. Fury must have got the sack, or else he’s very ill,’ she thought, and with that she slammed the door again.
Dennis Fury had already vanished round the corner. And in turning round this corner he had left behind him a trail of surprises. As the morning grew more light, and life resumed its full dress, people talked about him. Mr. Fury wasn’t working. Mr. Fury had lost his job. Such were the rumours that began floating around the neighbours of Hatfields. Who could have been more surprised than Mr. Postlethwaite, who worked in the sheds with him?
Whilst people talked, Mr. Fury continued his journey. He was heading for the docks. His face had lost every trace of worry. Indeed, Dennis Fury was an entirely new man as he felt the breeze from the river gently fan his face. It was as though, after long years, he had suddenly remembered the sea, and now, as he walked with a light and cheery step towards the Dock Road, it seemed as though the sea was coming forward to meet him—to reclaim a long-lost child.
When the first big mast showed itself over the roof of a shed, the man actually laughed as he exclaimed under his breath, ‘Aye, well, I’ve turned the tables round the other way. She thought I’d never do this. But I have. By Christ I have! I’ve had fair enough of that place. Why I ever took any notice of her and went into that darned job among a lot of old women beats me. It fair does. Ah well! We’ll see who’s in earnest, her or me. She can have all her bloody children now. She’ll be quite happy, and so will I.’
Here he pulled up. He threw his hands in the air and said aloud, ‘At last!’ A picture formed in his mind. He could see himself sitting on the same old chair, tired, dirty, the half-read newspaper lying at his feet, and she, Fanny, was seated in the other chair. He had got up and washed, then made for his bed. But suddenly his wife had called out, ‘Denny! The clock, you’ve forgotten the clock.’
He laughed, seeing crystal-clear in his mind the expression upon Fanny’s face as with three strides he crossed the kitchen, tore the clock from her hands and banged it back upon the mantelshelf. ‘Aye!’ he thought. ‘That was the biggest surprise of the lot. Me not winding that clock. Well! Well! Fanny was fair ready to drop!’ She wasn’t surprised at his going out to the dock, only that he hadn’t wound the clock.
‘She’ll get a bigger one before the day’s out,’ he thought. ‘I’ll show her whether I’m in earnest or not. If she prefers that young devil to me she can have him!’
Mr. Fury’s pace seemed to increase as though he were being carried forward upon this wave of his wrath—of his exultation, of his desperate hope. Aye, to clear to hell out of it all. To be free. To be a man again. That was the thing. No more idle hopes, no more vain dreamings. The real thing this time.
‘If I’m lucky—and why shouldn’t I be? Well, I’ll have said good-bye to all this within a week. Hurray, free again.’ Yet there was something only half-deliberate in his exclamations—something melancholy in the very joy he experienced at this moment. He was going—yes—that was one thing—but, but—ah—she sh
ould have known all along. ‘I’m only a harum-scarum chap after all. What can she expect?’ He had reached the Dock Road. He hadn’t been on this road for years. He leaned against the black wall of a goods shed, the flat of his hands resting upon the wall, and watched the ceaseless flow of traffic, vans, lorries, traps, wagons, goods trains, the streams of men pouring in and out of dock, shed, and warehouse; he saw tall masts, gleaming funnels, fluttering flags and, best of all, a fluttering blue Peter—fluttering frequently against the mast, as if like the ship whose departure it signalled it longed to be free. He heard voices, clang of bells, whirr of winches, silence—then splashes—saw boats lowered to the water for testing, and from this concourse of sound—this wild procession of things and men—there rose into the air the smells of sail-cloth, of seasoned wood, of fruit fresh and decaying, of leather and husks of rope and yarn, smells of hides and seeds, of oil and steam; and he smelt also that queer, fascinating, deep, impenetrable smell of the sea itself. Mr. Dennis Fury leaned his head against the wall and he breathed it in. He expelled from his lungs all the accumulated filth, soot, smoke, and oil that he had breathed on the railway, and he inhaled that wonderful, delicious, eternal smell of the ocean. He surrendered himself to the magic—gave himself up to the ecstasy he now felt stir in him as he stood, spellbound, watching the panorama of the old life pass before him—that life so colourful, so entrancing, so fierce, yet so free—and at last he succumbed to that indomitable will of the force that had nurtured him in his boyhood and his youth. Once only he looked round and up the long hill down which he had come.
He saw chimneys, he saw houses, he saw that everlasting film that filled the air—that aura of Hatfields. But he looked towards the sea again. He had turned his back on all that. All that frenzied living, all those dull monotonous days—those unspeakable hours when he wanted to burst from sheer boredom.
Here he need but take a few more steps and he could swim in the waters of all peace and content. Here was serenity, behind him fear. Here was life, behind him—nothing.
‘Ah! Christ! It’s wonderful. Wonderful. I could cut a piece out of myself when I think of what I did. Giving all this up. Never again. Never again.’ Behind him, if he cared to look, was the raised map of sameness and misery; here, but for the asking, life. The only life he ever wanted to live now. There was no thought of home, of wife, or of family. His mind and heart were stripped clean. He thought of nothing but the next step—the next desperate step when he would plight his sixty years against those younger than himself. All ships were one ship. All called with the same urgent, passionate, and unmistakable voice.
‘Here goes,’ said Mr. Fury, and moving away from the wall, disappeared into the road, vanished amongst the deluge of noise and traffic, and finally emerged on the other side. Then he passed into the dock itself. If his mind’s eye but took a quiet and furtive glance behind him it could have seen the husk outside. The old self he had thrown off.
Mr. Dennis Fury wore, like any knight of old, the bright armour of a new life.
‘Marvellous! Marvellous!’
Hands in pockets he strode along the quay as though the docks were his very own, his eyes fastened upon the ships, their bright names, their tall masts, and mostly that extraordinary inviting air they wore as they lay snug against the quay.
When he came to an iron bitt, that protruded like some squat fist through the stone of the quay, Dennis Fury sat down.
He sat down not so much to rest as to sit in silent contemplation upon the scene with all that air of childish wonder that comes to him who has long been absent from his own, and has now returned to them. He took off his hard hat, laid it on the quay, clasped his hands, leaned forward, elbows hard pressed upon his knees, and surveyed the scene. God be with the old days. Beyond, somewhere harboured in that immensity which is the sea, was the treasure-house of his past. If he could but look down into its depths he could see there his own boyhood and youth—his manhood. The sea held them. The sea held them against all things, against time and against eternity. It held them securely—secure and inviolable as it held the faith and hopes and works of simple man. It held these, and it held, too, serenity, nobility, hope, and peace. This simple man looked out upon the wide waters with those blue eyes that had seen the route of many a ship, and his heart trembled for sheer joy. ‘Fanny thinks that I’m cruel, but that is wrong. I’m not. How can a man be cruel if he’s happy?’
‘Penny for ’em. Fury—you bloody, scarred, old warrior from hell, and what in Christ’s good name has got you sitting in this latitude?’
Dennis Fury felt a blow on the back as though a great tree had hit him. He gasped for his breath. ‘Why, you, Devine!’ he stammered. ‘You, Devine!’
‘Mr. Jimmy bloody Devine! All alive and kicking. And you, you bloody old warrior, what the hell are you sitting here for? You look as though you were going to measure your length in the river. How are you—in Jesus’ name?’
The man grasped Mr. Fury by one hand to pull him to his feet. ‘Heave,’ he shouted. ‘Heave,’ and pulled Dennis Fury to his feet.
‘By the living Jesus this is simply grand. How—how are you, Denny my boy?’ He gripped Dennis Fury’s hands—and seemed to wring them rather than shake them as though with some excess of riotous joy that gripped him. Without even waiting for Mr. Fury to reply, he pulled him along towards the gate. ‘It’s years since I saw you! We’re going to celebrate. By God we are!’ Carried along by his enthusiasm he seemed to carry the surprised Mr. Fury too, and only when they passed through the dock-gate did normality return.
‘Devine! It’s splendid! How are you, at all, at all? I was just looking round for old times’ sake, as it were. I haven’t been in these parts for a hell of a while. By God, you’re actually growing younger. How do you do it? You look about thirty, and you must be turned sixty.’
The big man gave a laugh. ‘Sixty-one last Sunday,’ he said. ‘Quite true,’ he added—as though he feared Mr. Dennis Fury might not really believe him.
‘I think it’s wonderful,’ said Dennis Fury. ‘Just wonderful. Why, I’m only a year older than you.’
They walked along the road and stopped at the nearest bar. ‘That’s because you’re married, Fury,’ said Mr. Devine. ‘You see, I’m not. No man who goes to sea should marry. And d’you know,’ he slapped Mr. Fury once more upon the back with the flat of his hand, and in a sudden burst of almost youthful enthusiasm exclaimed excitedly, ‘and d’you know, I’m still at the same old job.’
‘What! Storekeeper?’
‘That’s it. Making the yarn and mending the wire. Filling the foreman’s pocket with cotton waste, and, oh, doing the same old thing. That’s another thing I don’t believe in, Fury. Changing one’s job. One job for me. And I’m as good a storekeeper as any on this line of docks.’
They entered the public-house.
‘Now you’re really boasting,’ said Mr. Fury as they sat down to the table. Over the drinks they became reminiscent, expansive, and as the conversation soared to the heights so did the world around them seem to dwindle, to fade into the background, insignificant and unimportant.
‘Well! Well!’ said Mr. Devine. He lay back in his seat. The two men silently surveyed one another. Dennis Fury looked at this six-foot specimen from Ennis with his thick black hair, and short bushy moustache set haphazardly, it seemed, under the short squat nose. There was something aggressive about Mr. Devine’s physiognomy until one came to his eyes, and one saw at once that Nature tempered it by a certain childlike simplicity, for the man behind the eyes was a complete opposite to the arrogant, aggressive, even fierce personality that had seated itself opposite Mr. Fury. It was disconcerting to allow one’s eyes to wander over the massive figure, the very personification of maleness, and then to discover those eyes that mirrored something that seemed quite alien—something womanish, soft and kind and gentle.
‘Fury,’ said Mr. Devine, ‘you’re not the man you were.’
‘Maybe not. I’ve been working ashore
for three years, amongst men I could never take to. Don’t know why, but I never could. By God, Devine, you must tell me something. What’s your ship?’
He sat up and leaned on the table, watching Mr. Devine fill a pipe with black shag.
‘Montmara’s my ship. Lying over there in the basin. West Coast South America. No passengers ever. Good crowd. Decent skipper. Food not too bad either. Rolls like hell, but a sticker. I could probably get you a job in the black gang, Dennis, if you weren’t already fixed up.’
Dennis Fury almost jumped from his seat. ‘Give us your hand,’ he shouted,’ give us your hand,’ quite indifferent to the astonished glances being flung at him by the other customers. ‘I call this a bloody miracle.’
‘You shouldn’t swear, Fury,’ remarked Devine laughingly. He lighted his pipe. The morning lengthened, drinks appeared upon the table as though by magic, and with a firm hand and a clear eye Mr. Devine drank them off—punctuating each mouthful with a resounding ‘Ah!—that’s good.’
‘Drink up, Fury my boy,’ he said. He seemed to fill the bar parlour with his inexhaustible boisterousness. People stared at this tall, big-boned man with his bosun’s cap pulled well down over one eye, his grey shirt open at the neck, his heavy shoulders—the long arms and big hands. Something of his bigness seemed to go out to them like a warmth. Dennis Fury felt puny and insignificant beside him. Mr. Devine urged, but the other shook his head.
