The Secret Journey

by James Hanley

  ‘Give us a penny, Dad,’ said the boy, whose left hand was almost inside Mr. Fury’s pocket. Dennis Fury said, ‘Eh! Eh! Wha’s that?’

  The boy pulled out a sixpence and ran away. At once the man half staggered, half walked into the sweet-shop. Then he measured his full length upon the floor. Miss Pettigrew, roused from a reverie consequent upon an hour spent over a misty volume of the life of St. Theresa, dropped this book and exclaimed, ‘Mary and the Holy angels! What was that?’ She hobbled out of the kitchen, and seeing the man lying in a heap on the floor, exclaimed, ‘My God! it’s Mr. Fury. Whatever is the matter?’ Her eighty years and a bad bout of rheumatism proved no obstacle. She lifted the counter-top and hobbled into the front of the shop.

  ‘Dennis Fury! You’re drunk, you’re drunk. You ought to be right well ashamed of yourself,’ and the flowers in the old lady’s bonnet bobbed violently to and fro as though in silent and well-merited approval. She knew the man. She had been at one time an old friend of the Furys. Fanny Fury and Biddy Pettigrew were in the same order at the chapel of St. Sebastian.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ she thought, ‘but I can’t let him lie here. I simply can’t.’ She bent down and looked closely at Dennis Fury.

  ‘What are you doing in this state, Mr. Fury? You ought to be at work. What is the matter with you?’ and then answered the question herself by exclaiming, ‘You’re drunk! You’re drunk.’

  It may have been those beady and brilliant eyes, or it may have been but a momentary vision of that open mouth, a toothless cavern, or it may have been the face itself, lined and shrunken, that impressed Mr. Fury. It seemed to touch him somewhere, to clear away the mental fog, for leaning up on his elbow he exclaimed, slobbering the while, ‘Oh! Ish you, ish it? Christ! Oh, Christ, ish you, ish it?’ The old woman moved back a little. Mr. Fury went on, ‘Have you heard ish—have you heard fromsh thas old bitch Brigish yet, eh? And do yoush sill suck jujush, you sly old …? Fancy you ‘gainst my wife. You old hag—er.’

  Before the old woman could realize his intention he had thrown his arm round her neck and stammered into her now fear-ridden face, ‘Ah! I’ll see you in hell, old gummy, when I get there, see. You’ll suck your bloody old jujush there, won’t you? But you mush wear your mackintosh, see. Give us a jujush, Biddy, nice jujush.’

  The old woman was really frightened now. With great difficulty she managed to lower her head down, and so get clear of Dennis Fury’s all-embracing arm. She hobbled to the door and in a high-pitched voice managed to call the attention of some children who were playing in the street. To the eldest, a girl, she exclaimed with great pantings and gestures that there was a drunken man in her shop.

  ‘Child,’ she said, ‘you must go to number three Hatfields and tell Mrs. Fury to come at once and take her husband out of my shop. He is dead drunk, and tell her I think it’s perfectly disgraceful. Run along now. I’ll have some sweets for you when you come back.’ She stood on the step, hardly daring to venture into the shop, uncertain and afraid of what the helpless man might do. He might indeed smash up her shop. She knew how violently tempered a person Dennis Fury could be.

  ‘It is really disgraceful. That family is going beyond all bounds. There’s no doubt about it. A disgrace to Ireland—a disgrace to their church, to their friends, to those who would be their friends.’ The old woman actually laughed then. ‘I must certainly write to Brigid about this,’ she thought.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she half shouted as she saw Peter Fury standing in front of her. ‘There’s your father, Mr. Peter,’ she said. ‘And now get him out of my place. I think it’s perfectly disgraceful. Perfectly disgraceful.’

  She disappeared into her kitchen, banged the glass door, and left the young man alone with his father. Peter looked down at him. ‘Poor old Dad,’ he said.

  ‘Can I help you, Mother?’ asked Peter.

  Mr. Fury was now lying in bed. Peter had half dragged, half carried him home. He had carried him upstairs. The first thing his father did was to be sick. Peter held his head. He had a curious feeling holding it. He imagined his father was just like a little boy. Then he had undressed him and put him to bed. Mrs. Fury had hardly spoken except to say ‘I hope he’s satisfied now.’

  It was after six o’clock, and already there was stirring in Peter this old, old longing to be away. To be out of that house and beyond such things. Away, with Sheila. His every thought was of her. He looked at his mother, but saw only this other woman. He looked down at the white face of his father, but it became the urgent, passionate face of Sheila.

  ‘I don’t want you for anything,’ remarked Mrs. Fury. She went upstairs. Where he was going, what he might do, didn’t seem to matter very much at the moment.

  She went into the room, took a chair and sat down by her husband. She looked at him. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘you’ve done it, and you must be very happy now. I’m not a bit surprised. Not the slightest bit. You’ve got what you wanted. God knows all this might be for the best. I used to think that one fine day we would really be happy together. Still, one gets what’s coming to them, and that’s about all life is, isn’t it? Don’t worry over me. I can look after myself. It’ll pull hard for a while, but I’ll get over that, like I’ve done before. You can thank only your own good self for this stroke of luck, for at one blow you can throw off everything from your shoulders. It used to torment me, watching you, day in, day out, night after night, sitting down there with a look on your face as long as my arm, and I knew you were itching to go. Just itching to go. Don’t laugh when I say this, but I really feel proud of you. To think that at long last you’ve shown some spirit, though you’re the only one who’ll benefit from it. You can lie there and think of what you’ve done to-day, and you can feel very happy and proud of yourself.’

  She got up, and going to the window drew back the curtain and looked down into the area beneath. She still went on talking, though now the words seemed aimless and without any meaning—she addressed not the man in the bed—who indeed was snoring loudly—but she addressed the window, the room, the curtains; anything upon which her eyes fell seemed to act as a stimulant to the ceaseless flow of words. She was like an automaton, speaking the same old thing over and over again. Once she stopped and went over to the bed. Mr. Fury was fast asleep. He had not heard one single word. He was in dreamland. Mrs. Fury went back to the window. This time she took a chair and sat down. Instinct bade her sit down, but her reason irritated her, goaded her. She got up again. What was she sitting down for? In fact, what on earth was she talking for?—talking to that helpless and disgraceful-looking person in the bed. Something was stirring in her. She could feel it at the depths of her being, something like a wave that surged restlessly. It took possession of her, overwhelmed her. She knew then that she wanted to cry, to empty herself utterly of that peculiar gnawing. She felt, so she surrendered to the wave. She lay across the back of the chair, eyes wide open, yet seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing except a great relief as she allowed herself to succumb to the feelings that she had so long driven back and tried to stifle. She felt a hurt, a hurt deeper than flesh, deeper than blood, a hurt that touched the very core of her being, of all there was human. There escaped from her lips a passionate cry, and she turned round as though on the very crest of its utterance and looked at the man in the bed.

  ‘I am tied hand and foot. Do you understand? Hand and foot. I shan’t ask any of you for help, don’t worry on that point. I can look after myself. Yes. Go away. It is much better, far better. We have never understood one another. Never. Never.’ Her voice rose. ‘Nor any of our children. Yes, go, we only crucify each other. Be off.’

  Dennis Fury stirred in the bed. He opened his mouth, yawned, then closed it again. His sleep was deep, untroubled, save for the presence of a certain old woman with the wizened face of a monkey, who opened her toothless mouth and barked at him something he was quite unable to understand. An old woman, whose black bonnet sat firmly upon a head as small and almost as clear of hair
as a cocoanut. The flowers in her bonnet bobbed wildly about, seemed to touch his face. Imprisoned in the mesh of dreams, he cried out, ‘Ah! Old hag! You’ll suck jujubes in hell. But don’t forget to wear your mackintosh, for how could you suck them without it?’

  The expression upon his face was fretted, even tense, as if those irritating flowers were tickling him under his chin, and those quick-changing expressions came and went swiftly and lightly like gusts of wind. From the end of the bed, where she now leaned heavily on the foot-rail, the woman watched that face.

  ‘Beast!’ she thought. ‘Beast! Sodden drunk. Lucky man who could find money to his hand. Lucky devil!’ she said loudly.

  The man in the bed answered this sudden exclamation, all unwittingly of course, with a deep grunt. The woman left the room, banged the door, and went into the next room to see her old father.

  CHAPTER IV

  ‘Why, hello,’ exclaimed the man, and the woman, startled, exclaimed, ‘Oh, God! It’s you!’ The impossible had happened. It was quite unavoidable. Fanny Fury was standing at a toy counter in a department store facing her eldest son. She hadn’t seen him for two years, had never wished and never hoped to. But now she had. She stood holding a sixpenny musical-box in her hand, but this she quietly let fall from sheer astonishment. Her son picked it up.

  ‘Were you buying this?’ he asked. He seemed embarrassed, he didn’t know whether to smile or not. ‘How are you, Mother?’ he blurted out. He felt awkward, shy, a quite impossible situation. The woman looked at the toy in her hand.

  ‘I am very well,’ she said. ‘And you?’

  ‘Fine. Splendid,’ replied Desmond Fury, and then his face broadened in a smile. That rugged, almost brutal face had become transfigured.

  Mrs. Fury looked searchingly at him. She had always looked at this eldest son with a sort of astonishment. It seemed impossible to believe that he was her son at all. He was quite unlike the rest of the family. A complete throw-back. In repose, freed from that smile, was not this son’s face the most hard, the most brutal face she had ever seen? And it had not changed. It seemed like an insult to her family. Yet at times she imagined that this face had the devil in it. It was as though it had been moulded not by her but by the force which had taken possession of him. Once she had loved him, but she did not love him now. That could never be. To have accepted it would have meant the collapse of the foundation of the world within a world which she had created, a world that stood outside the mesh of actuality, a dream-world. To love him was to be mocked by him.

  In the few minutes in which she stood looking at him this tall, heavily built man seemed to become a boy again; she could see him leaving school, going to work, fathering his younger brothers and sister. She could see him in all reverence attending at Communion—as she could see him going off on his holiday to Ireland with his fishing-rods. Then the pictures that crowded her imagination vanished. She was looking at his heavy, brutal face again.

  Suddenly the man caught her arm, and exclaimed, ‘Mother! Come and have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do that! I must get back home. I only dropped in here on my way back from the shipping office to buy a little toy for the child.’

  She looked at the assistant who was now wrapping it up in brown paper. Desmond took the parcel, paid for it and gave it to his mother. Though he asked her in the nicest possible way to have a cup of tea with him, he was filled with only one desire. To get away at once. But he couldn’t do that now.

  Fanny Fury allowed herself to be led away from the counter. They went towards the stairway that led down to the tea-room in the basement. People flowed in and out of the various departments. At last they were seated together at a corner table. Desmond Fury ordered tea for them both. Whilst waiting for it, mother and son surveyed each other.

  Mrs. Fury noticed his clothes, his clean collar and tie, the way his hair was brushed. He had a gold ring on his right hand.

  ‘You’re looking prosperous,’ she ventured to remark, and a moment later bit her lip for having said it, for Desmond replied quickly:

  ‘Oh! We won’t talk about that. How are things? I mean, how are you, Mother, and everybody at home?’ He supped his tea with a loud, sucking noise.

  ‘Things are the same,’ replied Mrs. Fury, ‘excepting that I have much more time on my hands since your father went away.’

  ‘Father gone?’ Desmond Fury’s astonished demeanour was comical to watch. ‘What do you mean, he’s gone? Gone where?’ He rattled his spoon on the saucer.

  ‘To sea! Where else d’you suppose he would go?’ said the mother.

  ‘How do I know?’ said the man. ‘So he’s gone to sea. Ah! What was wrong?’

  ‘Ask me,’ replied Mrs. Fury. ‘What do you suppose was wrong? Your father’s getting quite romantic, I must say. I’m rather glad in a way. I feel he’s happy. He used to be so miserable. It wore me down.’

  ‘Mother!’ said Desmond. ‘I can always tell when you’re putting up a show. You used not to talk like that one time.’

  ‘Time changes people, I suppose. Take a good look at me, Desmond, and then ask yourself if it was all worth it. Go on, don’t be ashamed. We shan’t end up by eating each other.’ She sat erect at the table, her folded hands resting on the edge of the tray. She saw him blanch—saw him fidget, but though he opened his mouth no words came. And at last he blurted out:

  ‘No! All this is useless. We should have just said “Hello” and passed on. On the other hand, I’m rather glad you’re here because there’s something I want to say to you, and this is a good opportunity. But I’ll tell you about that later. You say I look prosperous. So I am. To a certain extent.’ He laughed. ‘But I’m only beginning, you see.’

  ‘You’re not on the railway, then?’

  ‘No! I left that months ago as I had determined I would, and I have. I am now a delegate of the Federation. I have a little office of my own in town here, and very respectable hours. But, as I say, it’s only the beginning. Funny, though. One time I would never have thought of such things. I would have been content to go on swinging my hammer into the Length day after day, year after year, with nothing to come out of it either. But I threw all that to hell. D’you understand, Mother? I’m through with that sort of dope. The world is made up of two kinds of people—wise men and mugs. Workers are mugs, damned mugs, and I spent years telling how it all began and how it would end. But were they interested? Not at all. So I decided to cut away from the mugs, and so I have, and here I am.’ He slapped his chest. ‘Listen, Mother, tell me more. Is it true that Maureen has a little boy?’

  His whole manner changed at once. There was something gentle and considerate in this brutal-looking man. But the mother did not seem to notice it at all. She picked up the musical-box wrapped up in brown paper, saying, ‘Yes. She has a boy a year old. I was buying this for him.’ She began swinging the parcel by the string, saying, ‘A lovely child. Lovely.’

  ‘Well! Well! I am surprised. But, Mother, you are changing, aren’t you? Is Grand-dad still with you?’

  ‘Yes, your grandfather’s still at home.’

  ‘How did Anthony get on with his case?’ asked Desmond. He began pouring out more tea.

  ‘Oh. It was fairly successful,’ said the mother. ‘We got more or less what we expected, though by the time we had reached a settlement a lot was swallowed up.’ She took an envelope from her bag, from which she drew out a letter, and said, ‘I’ve just had a letter from Anthony. Would you believe it? He writes and says that he is saving up every trip in order that I can go on a holiday to Ireland. He says his own dream is to get me a cottage where your father and I can settle down. The boy was always a fool—but his heart is there all the same.’

  Desmond exclaimed, ‘H’m! H’m!’ and looked out through the door into the corridor. ‘Talking about compensation,’ he said. ‘I’m dealing, or rather our office is dealing, with a peculiar case. Very extraordinary case—oh, well—that wouldn’t interest you very much
, would it, Mother?’ Desmond laughed again.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied, and made as if to get up and go.

  But Desmond put his hand on her arm and said quietly, ‘Not yet. There was something I wanted to ask you.’

  She turned her back on him and began calling the assistant. Unseen, Desmond pulled a pound-note from his pocket and slipped it into her purse.

  ‘Tell me what you want,’ she said, just as the assistant came up.

  ‘I want to talk to you about Peter,’ said Desmond. Then he paid the assistant.

  ‘Aye,’ thought Desmond, ‘she’s still in Hatfields. Still tied to the same old round. Never any changes. My Christ! I half believe she likes it.’ Yes. That was the trouble, though it didn’t concern him at all now, but it was the trouble. They all liked it, grovelled in it, were contented, and if you so much as hinted at their pig-headedness, they stood on their dignity at once. The damn fools! They felt insulted. They became cocky, pathetically cocky, sunk in their damned misery. ‘Ah well, they can sink in their own bloody muck.’ Looking at his mother now, he could see no change at all, except a thinning of the face, and the lines around her eyes. But when he looked into her eyes he saw something that gave him a kind of uncomfortable jerk. Something had gone. He wanted to say, ‘Mother, you look contented at last. You’ve lost all that restlessness you used to have, that urge to do things.’ But he could not say it.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘tell me what is the matter with you? Have you given up? Surrendered at last? Have you stopped being a fighter?’

  ‘What is it you want to know about Peter?’ she asked, quite ignoring his remark. ‘I can’t stay here any longer. There’s nothing I wish to know about you. We understand each other very well, I hope. Yes, I am changing, but that can’t affect any of my children. I feel quite contented being left alone. Quite content! I sort of feel everybody is satisfied now that there’s no more need to worry about anything. That is good, for now I may be able to live the rest of my days without so much worry. So please say whatever you have on your mind!’ She rose to her feet and picked up her bag. When she looked up at her son she knew he had nothing more to say. Why, then, did she stand here like a fool? She turned to go. ‘Good-bye,’ she said, not looking at him, and crushed her way through the line of people coming and going in the restaurant. Desmond stood watching her go.