Our Time Is Gone

by James Hanley

  At a quarter past eleven he was on his way to the court, but the little talk with the woman remained in his mind. He knew her so well that he could tell almost everything that had happened to her during the morning. Husband and son at sea. The other two married and out of it. She was living alone. Looking after herself most likely. Hidden away in another hole. And she had probably walked all the way to his office, and it had made her ill. And as he passed through into the court he could hear her say: ‘I am quite well, thank you.’ She was quite well. There was something almost heartening about that ‘quite well.’ Then he heard his name called out.

  When Fanny Fury was put on the tram by an obliging passer-by and mounted the stairs with the conductor behind her, holding one arm, yet at the same time cursing the woman for wanting to go upstairs, when her place was inside, he heard her talking to herself. ‘Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.’

  After seeing her to a seat he warned her that the swaying of the tram, especially sitting on the top deck, would make her dizzy. He would come up for her when they reached the terminus. When she said: ‘Very well, thanks,’ everybody looked at her. All knew she had just come out of the hospital. The whole tram had seen her stagger to the railings. But at the moment she was lost to the world, looking out through the window, at the people and shops and buildings swimming past her. And once or twice her head bobbed violently and her hat was loose on her head.

  ‘I must have looked a sight when he went,’ she was telling herself, thinking of her husband, and seeing a picture of him at sea, a quite fantastic picture, for no ship’s stokehold could, either in drama or colour, or even horror, equal that which Mrs. Fury imagined Denny was working in. For years she had visioned this stokehold. The years had not dimmed the picture. There he was, shovelling coal.…

  Well, he’d gone. To what? Out of Hey’s Alley. Oh yes! No more people, thank you. No more children. No more friends. A place where one was as far from people as possible. How angry the doctor was! That didn’t matter. Here she was well again, felt she could go home.

  ‘He might have come,’ Desmond came into her mind, but only for an instant. What a son! Perhaps Joe Kilkey had come! Perhaps he hadn’t. It didn’t matter. She would be ashamed to see him. She had treated him badly. But she hadn’t meant to. It was an accident. Couldn’t be helped. Suddenly she smiled, though for a moment she thought she would really laugh, but a hand over her mouth stopped that.

  ‘You swore dreadfully, Mrs. Fury,’ the nurses said.

  She swore! She swore in her sleep! Blasphemed? What lies! Oh, how glad she was to be out! To be on her own. She would have been mad to have stayed.

  The conductor came up for some fresh fares. Mrs. Fury pulled at his arm. ‘Yes,’ he said, without looking at her, punching a ticket for a child. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Getting off here,’ she said, and was on her feet at once, holding on to the back of the seat whilst the tram swayed and rattled. The conductor looked at her.

  ‘This isn’t the terminus,’ he said, and made a rush for the stairway in a frantic endeavour to control those boarding the tram which was already full up inside.

  ‘But I’m getting off here,’ she said, and he moved back for her to pass out.

  ‘What a pernickety old woman,’ he was moved to say. ‘Yes. Hurry-a-long, please,’ in a fit of exasperation, and then he shepherded her down the stairs.

  ‘Thank—you,’ she said, and as the tram started off again he watched her go through the gate of the large grey-looking Catholic church. He watched her until the tram passed over the rising ground.

  Mrs. Fury walked into the church, blessed herself, and then sat down. She sighed, looked round the church, sighed again, then she sat quite still.

  It was very quiet here. The church was full of a musk-like odour, the red light shone like a pin-head at the far end where the high altar stood. To the left lighted candles burned before a statue of Saint Anthony. A priest came out of a door in the centre of the right-hand aisle, looked up and down, saw the woman, disappeared again. When he had gone she knelt down, her eyes fixed steadily upon the red light. It seemed ages since she had knelt like this. Ages. She prayed aloud.

  ‘Dear God, help me to do right, protect and bless my dear husband on the seas this morn. Watch over our children, for Christ’s sake. Amen.’

  Then she struggled up and sat down again. ‘Mr. Trears,’ she thought. ‘He is a good man, I’m sure. A good, kind man.’

  After a while people drifted into the church. A tall young man with fair hair, who, genuflecting in the aisle, suddenly turned and glanced at her as though in the quietness he had heard her breathing. A young woman in black. She knelt in the same bench as Mrs. Fury. The woman kept looking at her. She gave a little smile, then opened her prayer-book. That one ahead might be Peter or Anthony, or Desmond. This one beside her, Maureen. She dozed off with this thought in her mind. The young man and woman left. She was alone again. Her deep breathing was the only sound to disturb this ocean of quiet.

  She awoke with a start, for a moment wondered where she was, and then saw the light. As though ashamed she made a hurried exit from the bench, bowed and blessed herself and left the church. Outside she caught another car. In twenty minutes she was home.

  Edcott Court. Different from Hatfields, different from Hey’s Alley. Deeper down, farther away, especially from people. Lying between the two large stables of forwarding agents. Handy for the docks, and sheltering beside her a small community like herself. When your world fell to pieces you went to Edcott Court. No big fires here, burning night and day, no cooking for families, nobody knocking at your door, except of course Mrs. Gumbs who liked to get in touch with new arrivals just ‘for the good of the thing.’ Yes, it was a change. When your world disintegrated there was nothing to do. You reared your family and because you believed in them you ended up by making a fool of yourself. Then you hid yourself. You looked after yourself, and your family looked after themselves. You lived in your room, cooked and washed, and you attended to your duties. The duties that counted. You went to church. You believed. But still there was nothing to do. No work for others. You were outside. Shut out.

  People looked at you and said: ‘Aye, you’re getting on.’ The world was so small that now you could remove the whole of it in a handcart pulled by a small boy. And nobody noticed whether you were tall or small, healthy or ill, and nobody bothered. Well, here she was in her hole, and a very good place too.

  Five miles to Mr. Trears’s. But it had been four and a half from Hatfields. Ten minutes to Saint Peter’s church, but in Hatfields you simply stepped from house to church. All the faces were strange and you were pleased with that. Mrs. Gumbs, who was small and wiry, with a face like a monkey, looked at you and her whole life was mapped upon that small face and seemed to say: ‘Never do nothing. Do something. Work, or you’ll die!’

  Mrs. Fury liked Mrs. Gumbs. She had a room of the same size and about an equal amount of furniture. Each knew by instinct that the other had been a builder, but now the building was finished. It stood up before you. The storm came and your building was in ruins. You builded again. Mrs. Gumbs liked Mrs. Fury. The latter liked to listen, the former liked to talk. Sometimes they went walks together. And in time Mrs. Gumbs knew that Mrs. Fury was a proud woman. Well, she had never been proud. She even said that it never paid. Never. She knew.

  ‘I’m older than you, Mrs.,’ she said—in all their long acquaintanceship she never once called Mrs. Fury by her name. ‘Older than you by six years. But when you’re sixty-eight as I am—six years can count though you mightn’t think it, and all my life I’ve done nothing but work. I can see you’re new to this kind of living, Mrs., because you talk. Well, when you keep your mouth shut you’re safe.’

  Such was Mrs. Gumbs’s philosophy, and though her sudden burst of talk to Fanny Fury tended towards preaching, she knew that the woman who sat and listened to her required a certain amount of it. All strangers to Edcott Court benefited from Mrs. Gumbs’s
advice.

  Over a cup of tea which Mrs. Fury had made after her return from Mr. Trears’s office, and to which she had invited Mrs. Gumbs they began to exchange confidences.

  ‘I know how you feel, Mrs.,’ she went on, ‘though I never had a family myself. I never married but once. Marriage isn’t everything. I’m not a Catholic either, like you. But I believe, just the same. I can see how disappointed you must have been when your son dashed your hopes to the ground. Well, these things come, and you can’t stop them. So your large family has gone to blazes. Well! Well! I never could quite believe in families somehow. Best on your own, Mrs. You’ll be happier here, believe me. Nobody’ll talk to you unless you talk yourself. And nobody’ll give a damn if you raised a hundred children. All the same they couldn’t have all gone off like that, Mrs., just because you wanted them to be good children.’

  ‘I thought one of them might have come when I was in hospital,’ said Mrs. Fury.

  ‘Nonsense!’ replied Mrs. Gumbs. ‘You expect too much. That’s the trouble. Never expect anything. If you want anything in this world get it yourself. Never trust anybody, Mrs., not even me,’ and this made Mrs. Fury laugh. ‘Well, you’ll see one of these days how right I am. You can’t trust people, Mrs. I know. I’ve seen things. I know. Another cup of tea?’

  Mrs. Fury poured out more tea.

  ‘You say you sacrificed a lot for your children?’ Mrs. Gumbs paused, broke a piece of bread and said slowly: ‘Sacrificing for people only hurts them, not you. Some people say that children have to pay for parents’ wrongdoings. Rubbish! I don’t believe that sort of stuff, Mrs. They never pay anything. They’re always the winners. How many of your children can say they’ve paid for your wrongdoing? Nonsense, Mrs.! It’s the parents what pays, all along the line. When you get married you think it’s going to be a fairy tale come true. Rubbish! I’m no better nor worse than you, and I say this—that your life’s your own, and you can do what you like with it. When you get married you give it up. And you never get it back again. That’s why I’m like I am to-day. I belong to nobody. I live by myself. I go out to work and come home again. It’s healthy having something to do. But look at you, as poor as I am, I’ll bet, but there’s a big difference between us, Mrs. I don’t get headaches when I remember the times when I was a young girl. Oh no!’

  Mrs. Gumbs bestowed a warm smile upon Mrs. Fury. When she threw smiles it meant that she liked you, and there was something about Fanny Fury that she liked.

  ‘When I was a girl I had what they call a good education, but it only gave me more worries than I wanted, and I just told my mother and father to go to the devil. And I came to this part of Gelton twenty-four years ago, and I’ve been here since. Same room, same job. Always kept to myself. Minded my own business. I wouldn’t trust anybody, and I’m quite happy. I can still work. I read the papers too. And they make me laugh, Mrs. You read about all the things happening in the world. People being murdered, girls being cheated and, oh lots of things—and it’s all because people trust each other too much. I rather like you, Mrs.,’ Mrs. Gumbs concluded.

  And then, smiling again, she said ‘Ta, ta,’ and went up to her room.

  All that, thought Mrs. Fury, is because she isn’t a Catholic. She doesn’t believe in anything. Might as well say that she couldn’t trust Denny. She smiled to herself now as she reflected upon Mrs. Gumbs’s talk. If this talk had done anything it had made her decide this very moment to write a letter to her son Anthony.

  29B EDCOTT COURT, GELTON,

  Wednesday.

  MY DEAR SON,

  I am sure you must have been worried not having had a letter from me for some weeks, but to tell you the truth I haven’t been well lately, and as you will see this is a new address. Your father who sailed a fortnight ago said he hated the place, but I didn’t leave on account of that. In any case your father would have something to say. He always did. I left Hey’s Alley because it wasn’t the right place. People came and I didn’t want to see them. Mr. Kilkey came, so did the priest. But that’s why I left Hatfields after poor Peter went away. I don’t want to see anybody much. I am quite happy, in fact I sometimes think I would have been happier if I had left Hatfields earlier. But enough about myself. How are you? Are you still liking the sea as much as ever. Your father and I were talking about you only the other day, and we laughed, remembering how we used to call you the soft slob of the family! Well, you aren’t, and I’m very proud of you, son, and happy to know you like your ship and the men in it. But I’m sure it’s a most dangerous life, and I pray God to look after you and you must pray too, Anthony, because after all God is Good. I know.

  Many a time I’ve felt right down, when something has gone wrong, and somehow never seemed able to come right again. But I never lost faith, and I want you to do just that much for me. To remember your duties. I know it’s hard to do this where you are, but I always thought they had a priest on a battleship. It’s strange to be writing you this letter, not knowing where you are. That’s the dreadful thing about the war, not knowing where you are. Your father has gone trooping or something, and I’ve heard people say it is dangerous work, but your father laughs about it. Sometimes I think he laughs just from habit. If your father had thought more of you children and interested himself more I am sure things would have been different.

  I often wonder what you think of your mother, Anthony. To-day I was wondering about the others, and reading of a terrible accident at the docks made me think of John. He would have been twenty-nine next Tuesday. But the others, do they ever write to you? I know so little really; you write long letters, but somehow I feel you don’t always say very much. I never hear a word about Maureen. God knows what’s become of her, and Joe goes on in the same old way. He reminds me in some ways of a Mrs. Gumbs who lives near here. She’s a strange woman, something dead about her face. She tells me she never married, never trusted anybody and has worked hard all her life. But then what can one think of people who believe in nothing? Still she might be telling a lot of lies. I don’t know. Your brother Desmond is now an officer in the army and he and his wife have left Gelton altogether. Just think of that. I sometimes wish your father had had his push and go. Of course the only thing I ever had against him was his marrying like that. Ah well, you live to learn, as they say. I wondered if you knew that old Miss Pettigrew is dead. Well she is, Lord have mercy on the poor old thing. Your father hated her.

  Well, my dear son, I begin to wonder if you will ever be home. Oh, dear, you know this coming home business makes me cry—I mean I’m so glad to see you coming. You know, Anthony—in spite of everything I do love you all very much, and I’d be ready to make a nice home again for you all. I would really, as true as God is in Heaven. That was all I wanted out of life, seeing you all happy, and when you got married, marrying clean decent people, and not running your head into a noose at the first nice face you saw.

  Well, son, I seem only to be talking about myself. Do write to me soon. I look forward to your letters so much, for you are the only son who really writes, though poor Peter does too—but only twice a year. I could cry every time I think of him. Poor lad, he was just a young headstrong boy. And in a way it’s a curious thing that Maureen should have been the person to first introduce me to that horrible woman. Poor lad, a headstrong silly lad. Yet when he was small he was really lovable, but different to everybody. I wonder what he will become if he ever comes home? For the past eight months I have gone almost daily to that nice gentleman Mr. Trears, always hoping he might be able to help. Nothing’s happened so far. I was there only the other day. It amazes me to find how really nice these kind of people are. For many a time your father and Desmond have raged against them as though they were devils. But Desmond seems to have altered his opinion. Anyway Mr. Trears, who is a very busy gentleman, was good enough to interest himself in Peter, and the other day we had a cup of tea together. I’ve always said all along that those kind of people are nice when you get to know them. You may laugh, but now when
I go down to the office I feel I’m going to see a friend.

  Well, Anthony, I’m sure this letter is all over the place and full of dull things. But I find it difficult to talk about things like I used when we were at Hatfields. Oh dear, they were hard days, but very happy ones, too. And talking of Hatfields, I was surprised when you wrote and told me about the Postlethwaites. Well! Well! Still, this is a dreadful war, and it’s a shame to see the people rushing off to it, almost as though they were people going on holiday. The world’s dreadful and God help it, that’s all I can say.

  Now, my dear son, I will close this letter and hope it finds you well and happy, and that you may soon come home.

  Your affectionate mother,

  FANNY FURY.

  PS. Write to Peter, and to Maureen if you know where she is. She liked you best.

  She addressed the letter: c/o G.P.O., London.

  Mrs. Gumbs knocked at the door. She was going out. Did Mrs. want anything. Paper? Eggs? Oil? Anything? She was going to the shops. She stood there hatless, a shawl over her shoulders, a black shiny bag dangling from one hand, the other rested just under her chin.

  ‘If you don’t mind, Mrs. Gumbs,’ she said, ‘would you post this letter for me?’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs.,’ and she put the letter in her bag. She banged the door behind her.

  ‘I must write Denny to-morrow,’ she thought, ‘and go to the offices to give my new address.’ She made a mental note of these things, and then began tidying the room. It held only half the furniture from Hey’s Alley, and it could hold no more. Certain larger articles of furniture, table, dresser, big beds, she had had put away. Denny Fury had said: ‘Make a complete break! Sell the whole bloody lot.’ But she refused to do this. Only a fugitive hope for the future or a reluctance to part with things that had been so much of her life had prompted her to store them with a woman who lived in 19 Hey’s Alley, and who only charged sixpence a month.