by James Hanley
Maureen could not answer him. She buried her face in her hands and went on crying.
‘Listen,’ said Desmond angrily, ‘there are other offices besides mine here. And the whole damned building can hear you. Can’t you be sensible?’
‘I’m your sister, aren’t I?’ growled Maureen in a broken voice, speaking through her fingers. She wanted to get up and shake this man. This great, hulking brother who sat like stone; who laughed at her discomfort.
‘Yes, but everybody may not think that. You know what people are.’
Maureen jumped up and faced him.
‘You bloody hypocrite!’ she shouted. ‘One time you wouldn’t have cared two hoots about people and their opinions.’
‘Quite so,’ replied Desmond calmly, quite unruffled by this display of feeling. ‘But, as I said, things are different.’ He crossed the room. ‘Maureen,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about this. But what can I do? Nothing. Even if I could, I don’t know anything about this matter. Just what is it? Isn’t Mother in this too? I didn’t bump into her to-day just for nothing.’ He pressed a big finger on the desk and smiled.
‘Haven’t I told you it hasn’t anything to do with Mother at all? Can’t you believe me? I’m not interested in her business. I am here to ask you to help me.’
‘Yes. You see, I’m a person who has never trusted anybody—not even Mother. Maybe it’s in my nature. I’m suspicious. I’m always on my guard.’
‘Are you?’ and Maureen burst out laughing.
‘What are you laughing at?’ he said sharply.
‘Nothing. I want money, and I must have it now. Won’t you help me, please?’
‘How much do you want?’ asked Desmond, and somehow he saw in the expression upon his sister’s face the realization that he was going to disappoint her.
Yet she said quite calmly, ‘Twenty-five pounds. I must have it to-day—must!’
‘Christ! What is all this damned business?’ The man’s whole manner changed at once. He jumped to his feet and began walking up and down the room, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘Really!’ he said. ‘Really! What a hope you have! I thought you were going to ask me for a pound. Maureen, you’ve come to the wrong place. It’s the Bank of England you want. You’ve lost your way.’ He began to laugh. ‘Who sent you here to me—of all people? Who was it?’
‘Nobody sent me.’
‘What about your husband—doesn’t he know?’ Desmond leaned against the door and thrust his hands into his waistcoat. ‘I—oh, hang it. Really, I want to laugh. Am I the only person you can think of? And who is the money for?’
Maureen got up from the chair and went and stood by the desk.
‘A moneylender,’ she said, and suddenly she was trembling. ‘Desmond, help me. You have money, I know you have. You have money here.’ She banged the desk with her clenched fist. ‘Why are you so mean and bitter about people? We might be strangers.’
‘You seem quite desperate, Maureen. But being desperate doesn’t give you any right to expect that just because you come here kicking up a scene about money, and just because you are my sister, I am suddenly going to fill your pockets with money. Oh no! The money in that desk—I’m still wondering how you guessed it was there—the money there is made up of pennies and sixpences and shillings. The money of poor men. Don’t you understand? Have you no principle? That’s what you are asking, isn’t it? The money of these honest men. Did you imagine I would fall on my knees and give it you? And what if a moneylender wants it? Let her want. People come here every day with the same tale. But they only get the same reply from me. You see, Maureen, all these troubles with moneylenders would cease, and will cease, the day when people in Gelton are assured of something better than everlasting misery. How did you manage to get tied up with such a person? I can’t understand. You’re like Mother. You get into a hole, but you do it secretly, until you suddenly find you can’t get out of it—then you shout out to all the world to help you out. I’ll do anything else I can—but money I haven’t got. Besides,’ he went on, as he came forward and sat on the desk beside her. ‘Besides, Maureen, I don’t like it. It’s two years since we saw each other. You were just like the rest of the family when I married Sheila. You turned your back on me, and now you come here like this. It’s quite useless arguing like this. I must go now. I am a busy man, and have other things to do. Is there anything I can do other than what you ask?’
‘No! Now I wonder why I ever bothered to come here. You are a strange creature. Hardly a brother. You haven’t an ounce of warmth or affection for anybody but yourself. You were always like that. God! I wish I could be the same.’
‘Don’t start crying again, please. It’s an absurd position, really. Come, I must be off.’
He took her hands and drew her away from the desk. Then he took out the tin box and put it on the desk.
‘Ready?’ he asked, picking up the box and putting it under his arm. He went across and stood under the gas-light. ‘Ready?’
Without replying, Maureen walked slowly out of the office. Desmond put out the light. The door slammed; a key turned in the lock. They began groping their way in the darkness, Maureen holding on to her brother’s arm.
Yet he hardly sensed its presence there.
‘Careful,’ he said when they reached the second flight of stairs. At last they reached the bottom. They stood in the darkness, looking at each other. Desmond Fury took her hand.
‘Maureen! This is how it is. I have left Hatfields for good—and all that Hatfields represents. After two years, I was beginning to feel that at long last everybody had accepted the fact that I’m absolutely finished with that kind of life. Understand me. You see, I look one way—you look another, so does Mother. Affection and brotherly love don’t come into it at all. Meeting like this makes it awkward for both of us. You see, when you go off you’ll roundly curse me for my indifference, but it’s not indifference at all, but common sense. I have responsibilities, but they have nothing to do with anybody in Hatfields. I have my own life to live, and frankly, I don’t want to be interfered with any longer, and that’s all I have to say.’
Maureen Kilkey said nothing. In fact, she had not uttered a word all the way down the stairs. This silence worried him—he wanted to be off.
‘Well, good-bye now,’ he said, and made to go, but Maureen did not move. If he could have seen her face in the clear light of day he would have noticed how clearly it mirrored the ferment within.
‘Don’t stand here like this,’ he said.
Somehow, he wanted to see her off that building. He couldn’t rest until he had seen her actually go, and in a moment he was talking again. It was simply impossible to stand there looking at her, feeling her very presence, knowing that any moment she might burst into another flood of tears, and he didn’t want that, certainly not on the main floor of Royalty House.
People were passing in and out of the building, throwing furtive glances, dark with meaning, at the man and the woman standing at the bottom of the stairs. He couldn’t push her out into the street, and shout ‘Run away. Run away. What right have you to be interfering with me?’ He couldn’t do anything. Her silence paralysed him.
‘Maureen,’ he said, ‘if I gave you all the money you wanted, who would it help? You? Not at all! It would help this bloody moneylender. But what would happen to you? You would have lost your best quality—your courage. Surely you must remember your days in that jute factory, how we lived at home—surely. Have you lost it? You used to be so fine, and now you’re getting like the rest, whining. Surely marriage hasn’t robbed you of your fine spirit.’ He began gently pushing her towards the door. ‘Come along,’ he said vexatiously, ‘I can’t stand here all day.’
‘Don’t push me,’ she shot back at him, and consolidated her position against the stairs. ‘Who are you to talk? A fat lot of courage you have yourself. You know what suits your book. Who are you to talk about principle, that hasn’t a single spark of it? Honest working men’s
money! Aren’t you climbing up on their pennies? Are you interested in their lives? H’m! D’you want me to yell out?’
‘I don’t want you to do anything of the sort, except to go away and leave me alone. Please go! What right have you to interfere with my business? I’ll never let anybody do that.’
‘Not even your wife?’
‘Not even her,’ said Desmond. ‘Anyway, please keep her out of it. Sheila has nothing to do with us. Now please go. I’ve told you I haven’t any money.’
‘You don’t always seem very adept at minding your own business. Sometimes other people mind it for you. I admire your style, I must say. You may have one sort of face here, but quite another at home. If you weren’t so damned ignorant, you’d understand what I mean. However, I’ll go, but you will always be able to remember that we stood here together, that I asked you to help me and you refused. You could have helped if you’d wanted, but you’re mean as sin.’ She stood on her tiptoes, and leaning against him exclaimed savagely, ‘You think you cut a damned fine figure with your airy opinions about people and the state of the world. But they aren’t as interested in you as you think. Anybody could see through you. They’ll never tell you what they do see, either. People aren’t all as indifferent as you. They pity you, having realized what you really are. A bloody scrounger—a damned impostor, setting yourself up as a champion of working men. You’ll pay for it, believe me. You think you’re clever, but you’re not. Mother’s half crazy—but she saw through you all right. No wonder you have to guard yourself. You’re like a glass figure. One can see all the works moving inside. Don’t feel sorry for me, for Christ’s sake. I can look after myself all right.’
‘So it was Mother who sent you here!’
‘Damn you! Can’t you say anything else but that?’ She pushed past him and in a flash she had disappeared.
Desmond Fury walked out into the street. ‘Phew!’ he exclaimed. ‘Phew!’
Maureen Fury arrived home hot, tired, breathless. She was consumed by rage. She couldn’t think. She was hedged in, not by the world, but by two figures. Joseph Kilkey came in. He found her leaning by the fireplace, her hands resting on the slab of the grate.
‘Where’s the child, Maureen?’ he asked, casting an anxious glance round the kitchen.
‘He’s next door,’ she replied, without turning round. ‘I’ve been out. I’d better get him, I suppose.’
Joseph Kilkey laughed. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course, you’ll get him right away.’
He watched her go out, then sat down in the chair and began unlacing his boots. Being what he was wont to term his night off, he did not put his slippers on, but went upstairs and brought down his Sunday boots and suit, a clean shirt and collar. Then he went out to the back to wash. He was almost complete for the street when his wife returned with the child. Without any hesitation she placed the child in the cradle and remarked, ‘If he cries, just use your foot. I’ve been out and kept longer than I expected.’
‘Isn’t the tea ready, then?’ asked Mr. Kilkey, hardly able to conceal his disappointment, especially as on this particular night of the week he liked to be away early. He went to Confession and then strolled down to the billiard hall, of which he was caretaker, but this job had been threatened ever since Dermod had arrived, for the changed circumstances kept Joseph Kilkey much more at home. It became an especial pleasure, therefore, when he was able to go off and have a game of snooker with his old friends in the Young Men’s Society. He was getting fairly used to his wife’s habits. Mr. Kilkey still felt, however, that only one thing was required for complete happiness—Maureen must sooner or later settle down. As he rocked the cradle with his foot one thought after another came popping into his head. Sometimes he said to himself that Maureen seemed hardly to realize her position as a wife. In fact, he doubted if she knew she was actually married. He looked at her now as she flitted about the place, flushed, excited, banging one thing after another on to the table. The kettle began to sing. Mr. Kilkey, having rocked the child to sleep, sat down, first spreading a clean white handkerchief on the chair for fear of getting grease-marks on his light-brown suit, a favourite colour of his, and one which no persuasion of Mrs. Kilkey would make him alter.
‘All set,’ he ventured to say, watching Maureen’s face with evident curiosity. They sat down. If there was anything Maureen hated it was the sight of her husband dressed up in his Sunday clothes. It seemed to throw up more sharply his ugliness, for now that large bald head shone like a billiard ball, and the brilliantine had nicely trimmed his moustaches, to the detriment of his loose and heavy mouth, which usually was half-hidden behind the drooping whiskers. Mr. Joseph Kilkey’s efforts to make himself presentable were a torture to Maureen. In his workaday clothes he didn’t look so bad; what stood out all too clearly now was generally hidden behind the big grey peaked cap and the usual accumulation of dirt. Mrs. Kilkey couldn’t look straight at all on such occasions, but when Joe smiled it made it even worse. Had she actually tied herself up to this monstrosity?
‘Maureen,’ remarked Mr. Kilkey after he had said his grace, a practice Maureen had never shared in, ‘you seemed in an awful flurry when you came in. Where were you this afternoon?’
‘Out, of course. Where d’you think?’
Joe smiled, then filled his mouth with bread. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied thickly, still with his mouth full. ‘I asked you where.’
‘On business.’
‘Oh! I see.’ Joseph Kilkey had no more to say. Business might mean anything. He was feeling a little vexed that he was now nearly half an hour late. ‘You know that if one doesn’t get heard at the chapel before seven, one has to wait till well after ten o’clock, and I’ve a match on to-night.’
Mrs. Kilkey said, ‘Oh yes! How splendid! Who are you playing?’
‘Don’t,’ said Mr. Kilkey, ‘don’t. You’re not the slightest bit interested, and you know it.’
He only half finished his tea and got up to go.
‘There’s something I want to say,’ announced Maureen. She brushed back her rebellious hair, so that now her face looked larger.
‘Don’t do that,’ Mr. Kilkey ventured to say. ‘It makes you look quite common when you wear your hair like that. Well, get it off your chest, old girl. I’m going.’ He looked for his hat.
‘Yes, all right. I’m not going to keep you. I want to know what you intend to do about Mrs. Ragner, Joe. We’ll have to do something. I can’t go on waiting for you to make up your mind. Mrs. Ragner’s not that kind of person either, I assure you.’
‘Oh Lord! Are we going to have this all over again? Listen, Maureen, I’m not going to do anything. Understand? A fat lot you have to worry about. I’m in constant work. I turn up a regular thirty bob, we always have enough to eat, and there’s the best kid in the world. What more do you want? I take you to the show twice a week; I spend very little myself, an occasional pipe of tobacco, and I always have an odd bob for you when you want anything. That’s my case; what’s yours? I’ll tell you! You want me to let your mother down, to break my promise. Well, I won’t do it, and that’s all I’m going to say on that matter. Now, so-long.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Maureen, raising her voice.
‘Yes, all right. But don’t wake the child. Talk quietly, and hurry up.’ Mr. Kilkey stood by the door, one hand fiddling with the knob. ‘Hurry up,’ he said.
‘Don’t you understand what this will mean if Mrs. Ragner presses Mother further?’
‘I’ve said I’ll see your mother myself, and that on one condition—that you keep away from Hatfields. This is a business I can handle as good as you. If you’ve been round harrying her, then that changes the whole case. I said not to, but I bet any money you have. Haven’t you any common feelings left? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Yes, I ought really, and I said good-bye to every feeling I ever had when I married you.’
‘You mean you left them outside this house for somebody else. Isn’t that
it? Here, I’m not going to talk to you any longer. It’s going too far. I know you’ve been kicking yourself ever since we did get married, but here’s the place for any feelings you have—inside this house. You’re a queer crew, the lot of you. There’s your youngest brother carrying on like a rake, and yet he can continue to live on at home just as though nothing’s happened. Your mother’s been living in the clouds, and she’s got you all the same way. She’s ruined the lot of you. Come down to earth. You want an excuse to fly off, so you turn round on your own mother. I don’t care how much your mother’s done or has to do. All I’ve got to consider is my word of honour. That’s all.’
‘Peace at any price, that’s your motto.’
Joseph Kilkey went out, the open door swung in the wind. The child woke up.
‘Yes, I am sorry I ever married him now. Am sorry. He’s so damned soft.’
She began rocking the cradle furiously with her foot. Her anger found its only outlet in this furious rocking, the dead wood seemed to absorb it. The cradle swung violently from side to side. The draught came in. She stopped rocking and went and closed the door.
‘I’ll swear on oath she’s been round there,’ said Mr. Kilkey, as he walked down the street. He went straight to St. Sebastian Place, but stood for a moment outside the chapel of St. Sebastian, as though undecided what to do. Then he went inside. There were a good many people there. As he knelt down in the pew he discovered an old woman sitting beside him. She was dressed in stiff black from head to heel, the only other colouring was furnished by her nut-brown face—at least, so it seemed to Joseph Kilkey as her upturned face caught the hidden electric-light, for her hands also were covered by black kid gloves. Her bonnet was ornamented with a large black glass brooch. She seemed to have recognized Mr. Kilkey, for she leaned forward and said breathlessly, ‘Good-evening, Mr. Kilkey, and I hope you are well?’
