by James Hanley
Mrs. Gumbs said bluntly: ‘I don’t know. Never met any Germans, except one or two on ships before this war started, and they seemed just ordinary people to me, like everybody else. Hadn’t we better catch the tram? My! What an awful lot of soldiers and sailors are about. You hardly see a civilian.’
They caught the next tram, and were rocked, whirled and shaken back to Edcott Court. At Mrs. Gumbs’s door they stopped.
‘I enjoyed the walk.’
‘So did I, Mary! Well, we must have another one soon. Thank you for coming.’
‘Welcome,’ said Mary. ‘Ta-ta now,’ and she went off down the steps.
Mrs. Gumbs went into her room. The clock showed ten minutes past eleven. Too late for a second breakfast, too early for dinner, but time for a cup of tea. And then a lay down till four, and she’d leave the dinner simmering on the hob, and have a sleep. And then she would feel more like work. How fortunate that she was on night work. She took off coat and hat and flung them on the horsehair sofa. She kicked off her shoes, and stretched her legs on the mat. The fire burned bright, and she listened to the kettle sing.
‘I’m sure something would have happened if I hadn’t gone with her this morning,’ she was telling herself. It was fortunate she was on night work this week. The woman was so highly strung, so difficult to deal with. ‘But I’d have been nothing but a stone wall or a dumb cow not to have gone with her.’ Well, she was gone now, and before tea-time had passed she would have seen her son.
Mrs. Gumbs felt as pleased about this as if it had been her own son. And the excitement! The excitement! The whole thing was vivid in her mind. It had happened so unexpectedly. She had been cleaning upstairs, when her door was burst in and the excited woman waving a letter had cried out. ‘Mrs. Gumbs! Mrs. Gumbs! Look! Look! Mrs. Gumbs!’
She had looked. Read the letter. It was Mrs. Fury’s miracle. It was from a Mr. Trears. She remembered every word of it. Almost like one of those advertisements you saw in the paper, saying: ‘And if Mrs. So-and-so will call at such a place, she will hear of something to her advantage.’
Exactly the same. ‘Well! Well! It makes me laugh,’ she said aloud to the silent room. ‘The creature! And she had made so many journeys, day after day, week in, week out. It surprised Mrs. Gumbs that any solicitor could be so patient with a person like Fanny Fury. She recalled the conversation.
‘Well, dear, I am glad. Really. You’ve waited so long. Lord! I wish I had your faith, Mrs., but you Catholics—you Catholics … Well! Well! Well!’
Mrs. Fury had thrown her arms round her. Hugged her. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘It is, dear! Wonderful! I’m as pleased about it as though he were my son too.’
The woman had cried and laughed over her shoulder. She had given her a tiny drop of brandy in a cup. Mrs. Fury’s excitements were not ordinary ones, not like hers and Mary Post’s.
‘Here! Drink this! And for heaven’s sake sit down.’ She had forced the woman into the chair. ‘I know you! Keep cool, Mrs.’
She had quietened down.
‘When are you going to see Mr. Trears?’
‘Now!’
‘Oh! I’ll go with you if you like.’
‘No! It’s all right, thank you, Mrs. Gumbs. I’d rather go by myself. Honestly.’
‘I understand,’ replied Mrs. Gumbs. ‘Just please yourself. I know how you must be feeling. I’m glad, for ever since we’ve been friends I’ve been thinking of your boy all alone up there in the North. All the same, you are a changed woman. The work. It’s the work. Nothing like it. I swear by it,’ and her philosophizings were only cut short by the fact that Mrs. Fury was going now. She had gone, rushing downstairs with a lightness of step that astonished.
‘Wonderful heart that woman has,’ reflected Mrs. Gumbs. Then she made her cup of tea, afterwards washed up. She had been without sleep since five the previous evening.
Somebody hammered at the door later, but went away disappointed. Mrs. Gumbs was soundly asleep. At seven she must be down to work again, work that was a ‘wonderful thing to do, and the sure cure for everybody, for the whole world.’
Meanwhile the Gelton express to Darton had now attained the astonishing speed of forty-five miles an hour, and the subject of Mrs. Gumbs’s reflections was rocked to and fro, thrown from side to side of the carriage, and this between periodic bursts of crying and laughing. She was glad she was alone. She wanted to be alone all the way. She was happy and she was sad. Often she looked out of the window, at the winter landscape, the bare trees, the fallow fields, the wintry grass, and nothing moving on the landscape and sheep, sheep, sheep wherever she looked.
‘How good God is!’ she said. ‘How good!’ and she sat erect in her seat, as though a sudden thought had determined this movement of her body. ‘Mrs. Gumbs is right. I’m a lucky woman. I know, but only because God is good.’
She knew this, she believed this; it was a flag to wrap round herself, it was the hand to clutch, to feel, it was the goodness to look at.
‘I wonder what he’s like! Poor Peter! His hair, his eyes like mine. Dear me! I wonder if he knows. But I think he must!’
And then she began to enjoy this feeling of being rocked, of being lulled into a state of perfect peace and content. It had come. It had happened. And so quickly. She wasn’t thinking of it, nor hoping, nor remembering, she had lost sight of it altogether, for the moment had forgotten it. The air was so full of Anthony’s voice. She saw so much of his face, her face.
‘Good heavens! He’s the very one I thought wouldn’t,’ she mused. ‘What a sweet girl! How sensible. It’s so easy to be clean and decent and respectable. Well! Well! I’d hardly expected it. Denny will laugh! Oh, Denny, you don’t know how much I cling to you. You don’t.’
She hoped it wasn’t too late to cling. It was too late to grasp. Yes. She knew! Things were slipping away, the old things, old-time laughs, things done, slipping away. What a scatter! All gone! All gone! And then she cried a bit, wiped her eyes, laughed a bit. She wasn’t hungry, wasn’t cold, wasn’t afraid.
‘I wonder what he’ll be like? Dear God! You are so good! And Your Sweet Mother! Dear me! Dear me!’
Clattering sounds swelled into the air as the train cleared the points, the sudden cry of steel birds. She got up and shut down the window. Acid smoke and clinkers kept coming in. Over the seat in front of her, and in between pictorial advertisements of Cornwall and Brighton there was fixed a mirror, and she got up and stood in front of it.
She fidgeted about with the borrowed hat, suffered a sudden pang too, thinking of the hat that was her own, pushed straying hair from sight, saw her somewhat sunken eyes. ‘I have changed a bit. I wonder if he’ll—I wonder what he’s like?’ She asked herself this question so many times that now it came quite automatically, it somehow fitted in with the train’s metallic rhythm.
‘I wonder what he’s like?’
Nearly two years. No. Just over!’ Let me think.’ She didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. ‘If I’d my bag,’ she said. But she hadn’t. The black bag was elsewhere, and what it contained was no longer living history, but a mere jumble of words, and phrases and figures.
‘I wonder what time it is?’
A collector came for her ticket. He had a red moustache and beard. He swung the snippers between finger and thumb.
‘Tickets, please.’
She took out the ticket Mr. Trears had given her.
‘Thank you,’ the collector said.
She wished he would say something, like: ‘Cold to-day! Long journey!’ She didn’t know why—except that she wished he would, but he went away, shutting the door loudly behind him. She could hear him calling out: ‘Tickets please! Tickets!’ and then the train stopped.
She jumped up, went out into the corridor, looked bewilderedly about. A guard came along.
‘Is this Darton?’
‘No, missus. Darton is two hundred miles away yet. Back to your carriage!’
Instead she stood there lookin
g out of the window. Another bearded man came along pushing a tea-wagon. She asked for a cup of tea, a sandwich. She returned to her carriage and shut the door. She smiled to herself, and at the same time watched people pass and repass the window. She wondered if anybody would come into her carriage. She hoped not. She was so excited, she might laugh again, might cry. ‘I hope I’m left alone,’ she said to herself.
Two official-looking gentlemen came along, stared in. Then passed on. She enjoyed the tea, but didn’t touch the sandwich.
Two hundred miles! What a distance! And Peter all that distance away, all that time. Heavens! And nothing but bleak fields, hundreds of bleak fields, and bare trees separating them. Half the world. Heavens! Nearly two hundred and fifty miles. ‘I never realized,’ she said.
She put cup and paper bag well under her seat. The train whistle blew, the platform seemed to move, was gone. The train was in open country again. Half the world between them all that time.
‘I wonder what he looks like?’ Was he ill or well, was he grown? A man. Perhaps. ‘You don’t know how much I’m longing to see you. As true as God you don’t.’
The windows were tight shut, she was alone, locked in. Nobody passed. No voices. Silent, peaceful. Only the metallic rhythm, the occasional whistle blow. The carriage was a little church. She sat in this church. No! He didn’t know. God is good to me and will be to you when you’re worth it. You didn’t disgrace me, only your poor self. Foolish. Foolish lad.
‘Oh, Peter! I’m actually on my way, coming to you.’
She mumbled this to herself, the words filled the carriage. Yes, this was a little church, and here she was quite alone. You could strip your soul bare here.
‘Peter! My dear son! You don’t know. You don’t know—I mean.’
She gave a little laugh. Mean! Mean what? She wanted to cry again. Her lips trembled. Her fingers wandered up and down the window. She traced lines and circles through the misted glass. The train stopped again and the little junction at which they had stopped re-echoed to the sounds of: ‘Gorley next stop! Next stop Gorley!’
The porter called through cupped hands.
Her heart gave a leap. ‘Next stop! Next stop! I’ll see him then, see Peter.’
She got up and went and stood by the other window. They were approaching a town. Houses, flagstaffs, shops, bridges, lanes, reeled past her. She sat down. As she did so the train slowed up. People were passing up one end of the corridor. Somebody was calling. ‘First lunch please. First lunch serving now,’ and suddenly her door was shot back and an impeccable attendant was saying: ‘Lunch, madam?’
‘No, thank you.’ She smiled when the man had gone. ‘Lunch, madam?’ Well, imagine that. What part of the world could this be?’ Lunch, madam?’
‘Fancy me sitting here thinking of Peter and poor Denny somewhere far out on the sea. Am I selfish? I hope not. Oh, Peter. I’m actually on my way to see you.’
She got up, looked in the glass again, gave a little laugh. ‘Lunch, madam?’ was whispered into her ears again. ‘Lunch, madam?’ meant a gentleman. That was three gentlemen. The first—how vividly it came back to her. Going into that huge office about Anthony’s money being stopped and the gentleman said: ‘Show this lady to the Shore Superintendent’s office.’ And the second gentleman, Mr. Trears. He was a kind man. ‘And don’t feel out of place at all. If there’s anything I can do, fare, expenses, just say.’ Gentleman number two. ‘I can manage very well, thank you.’ And now the third. Tall, slim, boyish complexion, ginger hair beautifully parted, shining buttons, a white napkin on his arm, beautiful clean hands—saying: ‘Lunch, madam?’ These three men represented the whole world. They were good. They were the reason for living, for hoping. It was wonderful the good people there were in the world.
‘I feel sure one of them must be a Catholic,’ she was telling herself. The train had stopped, started again, and she had hardly noticed it. But now looking out she saw the familiar sights, wide fields, valleys, bare trees, tall telegraph posts like a continuous line of question-marks, a little river, a spinney looking bleak, stony roads. All that between her son and her. ‘How big this world is,’ she said to herself.
At the next station the train stopped, and she got another cup of tea. Should she get another sandwich? She looked into her purse. ‘I’m not a bit hungry. I might get something to eat at Darton, and then I mightn’t. No, I’m too excited to eat anything.’ She had a cup of tea, drank it standing in the corridor, passed the cup back to the man as the train started off again. Its speed increased. She called a passing official.
‘What time does the train reach Darton, please?’ she asked him.
‘One hour, madam,’ he said. ‘It’s express all the way now.’
She flushed. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Madam,’ she thought. It was amazing. Here was a new world and full of gentlemen. It was wonderful.
‘Madam.’
‘Suppose, just suppose,’ she said, speaking aloud into the carriage, ‘suppose he got out—got free—and came home—and—oh, and Anthony——No! It’ll never be the same again. I’m dreaming again. I mustn’t even think of it. I miss Maureen all the same. Poor child. I wonder what’s become of her. Perhaps I was to blame for that. Oh, I don’t know—I don’t know! But I mustn’t think about these things.’
She kept getting up, brushing her coat, fixing her hat, dusting her coat-sleeves, drawing back the blue serge skirt to look at the shoes she had bought yesterday.
‘My feet don’t ache in these at all. They look rather a nice shoe.’
She stood in the carriage looking at the picture of Cornwall, the hill, the row of houses, the stretch of beach and sea. ‘Not like Ireland,’ she said, and sat down, and Cornwall was at once obliterated. Not like Ireland. Nothing ever was or could be.
The train began to shudder a little under the speed. She was being literally hurled towards her son. Now and again her mind became clouded by pictures of that ‘awful business.’ She saw everything so clearly. The court, the judge, the people. Saying good-bye to Peter! Mr. Trears linking arms, taking her down the steps. Mr. Kilkey sitting opposite her in the taxi-cab. Years away, worlds away.
The train rattled crazily over the points. Suddenly the sun came out and a thin streak of light fell upon the permanent way, upon the banking, the fields. More houses appeared. Stone houses, granite houses. Hard, cold-looking houses. A granite world. A dizzy network of lines flashed past, a signal-box.
‘Darton Junction,’ and she got up went into the corridor. But it was too quick for her. The name flashed by. People in adjoining carriages were putting on coats, taking down luggage. Stationary goods wagons were passed, a gang of platelayers working in the six-foot. Desmond shot into her mind, then shot out again. She began to feel nervous. Even her excitement had cooled, sunk low. In the distance she could hear shouts, and then the name Darton came to her ears. The train slowed up, crawled, steam hissed, hollow sounds came into the corridor. It grew lighter. ‘Must be the sun.’
She went into the carriage again, once more examined herself. ‘Do I look all right? I hope so.’ She stood there, the bag Mrs. Gumbs had lent her—‘She has been a friend to me, now I come to think of it.’ Stood there, heart fluttering even as the train rolled slowly to rest at the long stone platform. Darton at last!
She went out now, dropped the window, looked up and down. Darton! She saw the name on the board, on the lamp, on the notice-boards. Darton. Then she opened the door and got down to the platform. Doors opened and shut, baggage littered the platform. She saw people shaking hands, kissing. Saw servants carrying bags, cars roll up, taxi-cabs, hansom cabs, and one carriage and pair in which lay an enormous pile of rugs.
‘Darton,’ she said. ‘So this is Darton! Well! Well!’
She stood quite still, rather bewildered by the strangeness, the knowledge that she was so near to her son, even a little frightening, like seeing the doctor, or Mr. Lake at the steamship office. She saw a hill of houses beyond the station roof, a tall buil
ding. Would that be the gaol? She watched the people hurrying past, smiles, laughs, pats on the back, jokes, exclamations. All human warmth. And suddenly she was isolated. The platform cleared. A porter came up to her.
‘Can I do anything, missus?’ he enquired.
Mrs. Fury said: ‘Could you tell me which is the best way to the prison, please?’ and she looked away up the hill. Missus! It sounded just like home!
‘Yes, missus. When you get outside the station you take the first turning to your left, then sharp right, and straight ahead. It’s a huge stone place. You can’t miss it,’ and a thick hairy hand became the signal pointer.
‘Thank you,’ she said, opened her bag, took out three pennies. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all I have. Thank you very much.’
‘S’orl right, missus. That’s all right,’ he said, pocketing the coppers, and he accompanied her to the station door. Then he took her first half of the ticket. ‘Look here, missus. It’s rather hilly. There’s a cab there that’ll run you up for a bob. Shall I call him?’ and he made as though to do so.
‘It’s quite all right,’ she said. ‘I’d rather walk. You’re very obliging,’ and she left the station. For a moment she stood on the side-walk.
Darton! At last! And here, in this place, for two whole years—is it two or three? I don’t know. I can’t really remember, and he was here now.
She set off at a quick pace for Darton Gaol. ‘God is good,’ she said. ‘I never thought I would be here to-day. Never! I—oh, it’s a miracle.’
She hoped he was all right, hadn’t grown thin; she hoped he wasn’t too sad. ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, remembering the years he must remain there.
She passed up the hill, past the stone houses; there was nobody about. Darton seemed a silent place. But at the top she saw a small post office and general shop, and stopping to glance in the window saw sweet toffee apples, bootlaces, tinned milk, and a large picture of the Royal Family with patriotic colours draped round it. At the door a stout little woman, almost lost behind a milk-white apron, an old woman who said ‘Good morning,’ as she stood by the window.