by James Hanley
Peter Fury was thinking of a woman and child walking a path, of an envelope he had received at the gangway head, the short note from his brother. The disappointment in this brother was like a knife in him. He might have gone to Ralston Park with him. But what would he have done there? What would he have said? And she would be there. The one who remembered.
“I was about seventeen at the time, and it was the first time. She was beautiful, and it was the happiest moment in my whole life. Such a warm heart. How he hated me for it. A jealous swine.” And the few shining words of Sheila’s note came clear.
“Well! And why not? Why shouldn’t I go there. I remember he went there a few years ago. And I’ve often wondered what the Downey house is really like. I’ve heard enough about it, God knows. I wonder where it is exactly, and how far?”
“What’s that, sir?” asked the barman.
“Did I say something?”
The man at the fire looked round, and immediately the barman was free of his counter. “You asked me how far some place was,” he asked.
“I did? Did I?”
“You did indeed, sir. Which place would you be wantin’ now?”
“A place they call The Ram’s Gate, it’s got an Irish name, too, but I can’t remember it. People by the name of Downey.”
“Downey, Downey. Sure there’s a powerful lot of people in this country by that name. Now there’s Peter Downey the jarvey, and Old Tom Downey used to take the boats out of Cork, and then there’s Sean who used to be with the old Globe Insurance people.…”
“A place named The Ram’s Gate,” Peter said.
“Ah! Now I have you, sir. You mean the queer lot? I’ll tell you about that. The old man’s been gone away for years now, and the old lady died, and they’ve a brother away in China, I think, and they’ve a daughter what run away with an English feller that was on holiday once in these parts. You mean them people, sir?”
“That’s right.”
Peter sat listening for the first time. And when he had heard it all, he said quietly, “I’ll be leaving this evening.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Bring me another drink. Then have the bill made out. How far is The Mall? I used to know, but it’s years since I was in these parts.”
He gave the barman a drink.
“No more than fifteen minutes away from this hotel, sir. Was you looking for somebody there, too?”
“Get me the drink.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Fifteen minutes away,” thought Peter. “Fancy that. Aunt Brigid. Eighty-four years of age. Just think of that. Extraordinary.” It startled him when he heard it from Kilkey’s lips, and it startled him now. He even resented it, her great age, her very survival. She had beaten his parents to it, even his slobbering grandfather. “She is my aunt, after all. Yes, I’d better call and see her. One of the family.”
Maureen crept into his mind again. He wished he had seen her, if only he knew where she was. Gone off with that queer man Slye. What a pity. And how strange that she should go off with such a person.
“I always liked her. I still do, whatever she did. Desmond might have made some effort, if only for old Kilkey’s sake. I wonder if she even knows about mother.”
“Thanks,” he said gruffly, taking the drink. She was back again. God! He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“To go home at last, and to a place you never wanted to leave. To go back with a full life behind her, her old heart swimming with hope—and then to fall to an Irish bullet.”
“Cruel,” he cried in his mind, “bloody cruel,” unaware that he had shouted it into the empty air. “Meaningless.”
“You called, sir?”
“I said nothing.”
“I wish I could have seen Maureen. But I will. I’ll find her, I’m certain I will.”
The mysterious shut-away, locked-in house amongst the hills began to attract him. Why go there? Why not go there? And he concentrated his thinking on The Ram’s Gate. He imagined a great white house, lost in woods, warm in a fold of the hills. He thought of a single room in it, a high up, quiet room, a warm room, safe. “God! How I’ll sleep. How I’ll sleep once I get into it.”
The house moved with him as he made his way towards The Mall. The aged occupant of a three-storied, red-brick house was far from his mind. The Ram’s Gate had always seemed to him a kind of fairy castle. He had heard so much about it from his brother Desmond. A silent house, in a more silent countryside. “The housekeeper’s even getting ready a room there. She must have written her about me. I wonder what she said. Perhaps she even wrote before I got out. I never even thought about that. Yes, why shouldn’t I go? I’d love to see the place. I could be alone for a while.”
He leaned heavily towards this haven, he drew back; he still wasn’t quite sure.
“Why did she want me to go there?” He hadn’t the answer to that one.
“What a difference there is here,” he exclaimed, “the air so different, even the road is clean.”
And there was The Mall. He hurried on. He knew the house well, he would recognise it, he would go to the door, ring the bell.
“I suppose it’s all right, coming like this, without a moment’s warning. I wonder?”
Here was the house. And surely they were the same curtains, on the same windows. That garden, that red door. He went up the step and pulled at the bell. He waited, listening, watching the front window. There was no sound. Was she in? Was she gone away? He rang again. He stood there for a full minute, beginning to doubt. It was a long, long time. Would his aunt know him? Would he recognise her?
The door opened. A short, slight woman stood looking at him. “Yes, sir?”
Peter drew back, watching her. “Miss Mangan?” he asked.
“And what d’you want of Miss Mangan?”
“I’m her nephew, Peter Fury. Is she in? Is she well? I——” He stared hard at the woman. “At first I thought you were Miss Mangan.”
“I think you’d better wait,” she said. “I’ve never heard of you. I’ll go and see. Perhaps she hasn’t heard of you, either,” and she shot a suspicious glance at the big man on the step.
He watched her go slowly away down the hall. He remained on the lower step, waiting. The woman returned.
“She can’t recall the name either,” she informed him, still suspicious, still ready to slam the door in his face. “But perhaps you had better come in—for a minute, that’s all. We get all sorts of customers here nowadays, the country is in a state of ruin so it is.” Peter slipped into the hall, and removed his hat.
“This way.” He followed her, and she turned twice to look at him, and he knew she didn’t believe him. She opened a door. “In there,” she said, giving him a final distrustful glance.
“Aunt Brigid,” Peter said.
For a moment he did not see her. She seemed so frail and small in her invalid chair by the fire. She wore a small lace cap on her head. She looked up at the man in the doorway, but there was no sign of recognition. She lifted a thin hand. “Sit there.”
Peter sat down.
“Who are you? I don’t remember you.”
He was unable to speak. The woman kept looking at him. “I don’t know you.”
He had to strain to catch her words.
“I’m your nephew, Peter,” he said.
“Are you?” She laughed.
“I’ve been away for a long time. Just here on a visit. You must remember me. My mother was your sister, Fanny Fury. She came over to see you a few years ago, I believe. You sent for her. You were very ill——”
“Was I ill?” The small brown eyes widened, she suddenly began shuffling her feet.
“And when she got here, I mean my mother, when she got here——”
But already he realized the futility of it all, and it saddened him each time he glanced across at her. It was hard to believe that this woman was the one and the same person who had shaken Hatfields with her laughter. She stared at him now, he
ad bent forward, and he stared back.
“You know me, Aunt Brigid—you know where I’ve been. You know why. You know everything.”
The old woman shook her head. “I don’t know anything because I can’t remember anything. I’m just old and tired. What do you want? Bread? Some money? I sometimes help a deserving creature. You say your name is Peter Fury. Funny. I’ve heard the name somewhere before, yes, I know I have, but where, no, I don’t know you at all. Is Fanny your wife?”
Peter made no reply. It was useless. He should never have come. “I don’t recognise her at all, but I do remember that queer old work-basket of hers,” and he shifted his glance from woman to basket. “I don’t suppose you make any more altar cloths now?” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked, straining forward again. All this time the door behind him was open, and watching him closely was the old woman who had opened the door to him. Her eyes never left him. Her folded hands resting on her breast, she watched him, and over and over in her mind she uttered four words. “He has a gun.”
“I said you don’t make any more altar cloths now.” He had drawn closer to the chair, and suddenly he wished to touch her hand. If she would reach out and touch his. Her eyes, once so large and bright and shining, were half-closed, yet he could see how the deep colour had gone. It was like looking into water.
“You must know me,” he said, and then he had taken her hand. The old woman muttered something in her throat. She gave him a curious smile. “Leave me alone.”
Something made the man swing suddenly round, and there was the other old woman, erect, still watching him. “Leave her alone,” she said, and came into the room. “She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t want to know you. She doesn’t know anybody. You’d better go, young man. Miss Mangan is not really with us now.”
She saw Peter kneel down in front of the figure in the chair.
“D’you remember when I ran away from the college that time, you must remember the day, Aunt Brigid. Try. I came to you, here. It was in the evening time. It was raining, I remember it well, you were having tea with the priest.” The hand trembled in his own. Her head fell forward.
“I don’t know who you are, go away,” she said.
“Hadn’t you better go?” asked the old woman behind him. “I said she doesn’t know.”
The room smelt strongly of camphor, lavender. Peter bent down and kissed the top of her head. “Poor Aunt,” he said.
He got up and picked up his hat. Like a sentinel the old woman waited, her eyes never left him, as though the creature in the chair, even she herself, were no longer alone, no longer safe, as though nothing in this world was safe until he had left the house. The woman followed him out of the room. “She is not unhappy,” the woman said. “She has a roof over her head, a bed to lie in. Many have not.”
Peter stood still in the hall, so moved by this scene that he could not answer her, but he gave her arm the slightest touch.
“It’s very disappointing to me,” he said. “I came a long way to see her.”
The old woman reached up to him. He could think only of a child, and it would ask him a question.
“Sir?” He looked down at her, and for the first time he saw that she was really frightened.
“Yes?”
“Are you a gunman, are you one of those men that’s the curse of Ireland?” But Peter was only thinking of that other room, the chair, the woman, the work-basket, the smells.
“Poor old woman, so old, so far, far away,” he thought. He gripped the woman’s arm, and the words flooded out of him.
“I’m always moving towards them, towards somebody, thinking of them—and then in the end it’s nothing. They’ve all changed—everything’s so different—it’s like a new time, a new country—I—I’ll go to Rath Na to-night.” He talked a language that she did not understand.
With one finger she touched the lapel of the man’s coat. She whispered up to him. “If you’re not one of those terrible men that’s murdering the country, then I’ll give you a cup of tea,” she said.
He saw it pathetic, he saw it as a bribe, the child afraid of the dark; this small frightened old woman, companion and guard of another.
“You’d like that?” she asked.
His heart went out to these lost people. “I’d love it,” he said.
“In here, sir,” she said.
He followed her into the kitchen and sat down. He watched her as she set about making him the tea. And whilst the kettle lay on the fire, she, too, sat down, and looked closely at him again, but said nothing.
“Anything I touch breaks,” he said to himself.
She got up and made the brew. She served him, and though he was far from hungry, he could not refuse the tiny buttered scone she had handed him on a plate. She stirred and drank her own tea. The fire blazed, and everything was warmed by it. Later, he heard it all out of an old woman’s mouth. For suddenly, whilst she drank her tea, and watched him, she knew she believed in him.
“The likeness is there, I knew from the first, but you cannot talk of things in there, not now, all that is too late, she can’t be bothered, and why bother? I have heard of you. I know who you are.”
“Who am I?”
“The one your mother talked most about,” said the old woman.
He leaned forward in the chair. He looked at the eyes, so brown, so back in the head, so very questioning.
“Please tell me about it. I do not know your name.”
“It wouldn’t matter much if you did, sir. Kate Kerrigan.” And she told him. Listening, he pushed away his cup, his plate, sat back in the chair, looked upwards at the ceiling, heard every word from her shaky lips. She stared straight at the window as she spoke.
“When I was livin’ any time was a bright time, especially in the summer’s evening when I’d be away down the river, and for hours I just sat under a tree and watched the boys fish. And it was very nice, very nice. And in the mornings I’d be away to the early Mass, and the air so fresh when you were out early, and I’d go out sometimes too in the cool of an evening, and in them times you never looked twice at the man in the road. No, indeed. Lovely days there were, and others knows it, and you could walk upright on the road you trod. I’ve lived me a long time in this land, and I was always one for staying where I was, not venturing at all really, for I was happy, and what was here suited me well enough and I wanted little more than that. Different days, sir. Different times, indeed, and God save us all, different men. Yes sir, fine, lovely men, and any man of them fit enough to be a king of Ireland. But it all went quickly like the fog goes over the sea, and after that we were very, very afraid, mortal afraid, sir, of any shadow that wasn’t our own. Every night of two whole years was a long night, and you knew it well enough when you were close up to it, and there were more shadows walking about then, young man, than there was gnats in the air on a summer’s day. The first time I ever come on to a man in a raincoat, and an old cap pulled down over his eyes, and his old back hugging any brick wall that would have him, why then I knew the times was changing, and change they did. Many indeed lived out of the light then, like bats, like rats, and any old wall held a silent man that carried the wrongs of the country under his shirt. But after a while, my dear, they was coming out bold and proper and prancin’ in the light of day. Bold and brazen they were, and the dirt of the job hidden away in an old pocket. There was once a man very close to me in Paddy Finch’s shop, and he seemed to be waitin’ for nothin’ at all, an’ all the old twisted wrongs of Ireland on his face. But mean indeed against the face that I saw watching me. The poor creature. Why he never bought the tea he came to get that day. I remember it, and the hand that shot out of the pocket then. As bold as brass, as bloody as a slaughter-house. Bad times they were, bad times. And I once was caught on a bridge, and stuck there for four days and nights, because I was caught in between two lots of men that I couldn’t pass at all, and missed the Mass that Sunday for the first time in my whole life. I once saw a ma
n put a bullet through the heart of Christ in the dark that was lit up in a frame over a bunch of flowers, because he said the Holy light was a signal to the others. But on the fifth morning they cleared off, and I was able to get back home to your aunt. Ah, she was very, very ill that time. And dreaming out of her at night, and shouting, and crying. But she got better after all, poor creature, though as you may see, sir, there’s little she remembers now of the bright times she used to talk about. She may well live to her hundred.” She paused, she looked across at the staring man.
“It doesn’t matter,” Peter said, “it doesn’t matter now. Please, forget about it, Miss Kerrigan.”
“And it was on a Sunday and I know it well, and two friends of your father’s took him off arm in arm for a little walk before Sunday lunch, down to a seat right opposite the ocean. It wasn’t far, no, for anywhere you turn your head in this place there’s a sea to look at, and many an old bench for them that’s minded that way. So off they went, and your mother was to come and join them that way after the eleven o’clock high Mass. Never missed the high Mass, always liked the singing there. And after that she come along to where the old feller was sittin’, your father I mean, sir, and he sat down with her, and her old friends had gone off on their business. There was a friend of mine, Jimmy O’Halloran there, too. Sittin’ reading his Independent he was, and he talked to them for a while. They were living only a few doors from each other at the time. He told me when he come by the house that they were down there, and so silent, he said, so silent, just sitting looking out over the sea. I’m sure they was peaceful there that day.…”
