The Furys

by James Hanley

  ‘Oh Christ! Are you starting on that again?’ Mr Fury swore under his breath. This was an old war-horse. How he hated it. The woman was insatiable. Give her a single opening and you were overwhelmed at once. You were caught up in the tidal flow, a flow that carried in its wake regrets, protests, insinuations, hints. Why had he ever mentioned Peter? He was a fool. He looked at her as she lay stretched out in the bed. His mind was torn with conflicting thoughts. He kept fidgeting about the bed. Mrs Fury stirred uneasily at his side. Whatever was wrong with him, moving about like that? How did he expect people to get to sleep? He couldn’t hold himself back.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ he exclaimed almost savagely. ‘I can’t sleep.’ Couldn’t sleep. H’m! Well, she should just think he couldn’t sleep. Whatever was he thinking about that it made him so restless? He didn’t know. But she did. It was his bad conscience. Yes. That was what it was. Then she exclaimed in a loud domineering voice:

  ‘I should think you wouldn’t sleep. How do you think I feel? Do you think I am made of cast-iron? That I can stand every blow without saying something? That I shouldn’t lose control sometimes?’

  ‘You’re off again,’ The man spoke from beneath the bed-clothes. ‘Yes. And I haven’t said what I want to say. I know you, and I’ll say it soon enough. I haven’t lived with you all these years for nothing. You’re the same old Denny Fury. You talk about Peter. What example was he ever set, what encouragement has he ever had from you, or any of your children? None. You showed a mean spirit all along, and the others took the cue from you. You begrudged me the boy. And when I told you today about the wire, about the shock it was to me, you never so much as opened your mouth. You never said, “I’m sorry,” or “It’s hard lines.” Not a word. You were secretly elated. You know you were.’ Mr Fury sat up in the bed.

  ‘God! You could go on talking for ever. But what are you talking about? That’s what I want to know. When I came in this evening I was dead tired. I wasn’t in the mood for listening to groans about Peter. The other lad is just as much concern as he is. I’m tired now. But could a man get a decent sleep here? No. I say for the last time, I am sorry about Peter. I know it’s disappointing after those years of struggle, doing without, hoping, hoping all the time. It can’t be helped, Fanny.’ There was real sympathy now. He put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Denny.’ she said. ‘That’s all too late. It’s over and done with. It’s not Peter, it’s not so much that he’s failed, but it’s you …’ She had risen in the bed and was facing him. They were so close together they felt each other’s breath upon their faces. ‘It’s you and your indifference,’ went on Mrs Fury. ‘You are the living spit of your eldest son …’

  ‘Will you give Desmond a rest? Are you going to argue about this the whole night through? I ask you? Isn’t there a limit?’ She began to cry. She felt weak, defeated. There was something she wanted to say and she could not express it. Each time she opened her mouth the desire was stifled, the power went. She couldn’t say it. Once she had been full of courage. She felt that her whole soul had been crushed by Peter. Why had she hidden so many things from her husband? Why, why? she cried in her mind. Why had she allowed herself to be cheated? Why didn’t she tell him everything? No! He had been away most of his life. She had spared him. He had only seen the nice part of everything. Fool! She cursed herself. She lay there thinking, thinking. And he had imagined her to be sleeping! If only he had known. If only he could have followed in the wake of her tormented spirit in those past few hours, as it flew, drew wing, and flew again, far out over the wide waters. To hover over Peter. Peter at his desk. Peter at the Mass. Peter at the dinner-table. Peter receiving the news of his failure. But how could Denny think? The man was too wrapped up in himself.

  Mr Fury thought, ‘It’s like being penned in. Caged. The bitterness in her voice.’ His hand fell away from her shoulder. ‘Yes, it had always been like that,’ he thought. Nothing but regrets. The past flung in his face like some soiled and faded garment. His past. If only he had done this. If only he had done that. Why hadn’t he taken her advice years ago? There would never have been any trouble at all. And Peter. Had he been … Well, of course he would have passed through brilliantly. The man felt like a criminal. He was inured to it. This ceaseless round of nagging and regretting. Deep down in his heart he felt that sudden urge to be away again. It was like the sudden re-opening of a wound. Why had he ever left the sea? What did his family care about him? Yes! He ought to go to sea again. At least he would be free. No. His family were grown up now. They forgot him. He was a part of yesterday already. Their eyes already saw far beyond him. They were out of reach. He was only a fragment of the past. He didn’t interest them any longer. Their father, of course, but nothing more than that. He closed his eyes. The silence of the room was broken only by the heavy breathing of his wife. She was fast asleep. He sat up and reached for the candle. No use his trying to sleep now. He placed the lighted candle on the table. The light from it fell upon the face of the sleeping woman. He could not help staring into her face. Nor could he conceal a sudden admiration for her as he noted her wonderful head of hair, that fell like two black clouds on either side of the pillow. Nearly the same age as himself, and not a grey hair. A remarkable woman, he thought. Her brow was as smooth as a child’s. He wanted to read, but discovered he had left the evening paper in the kitchen. Should he go down for it? Hang it! She might wake up. No. He blew out the light and lay back again. What a day it had been. Suddenly he remembered Anthony’s letter. He wanted to read it again. He got out of bed and silently left the room. He went down into the kitchen and lighted the gas. He drew Mr Mangan’s big chair to the fire and sat down. He disturbed the slack with the poker and the flames roared. How warm and cheery the kitchen looked. He picked up Anthony’s letter from the mantelshelf and sat down.

  Then he drew on his spectacles and settled himself comfortably in the chair and began to read. Mr Fury noticed the date. ‘Why! The lad must have written it before he had the accident.’ He read on.

  CHAPTER III

  1

  At six o’clock that morning, Mr Fury, having had a hurried breakfast, what he called ‘a rush and a gulp’, went out, banging the door so loudly behind him that the family next door were rudely awakened from their slumbers. The family’s name was Postlethwaite.

  ‘The Furys have had a row,’ remarked Mr Postlethwaite, speaking loud enough for the family, scattered about in the three rooms, to hear. His wife agreed, yawned, turned over and fell asleep again. The man was hurriedly dressing himself. ‘The Furys are always having rows lately,’ he went on, as he sat down to pull on his heavy boots. ‘They lead him a great dance since he stopped ashore.’ Mr Postlethwaite went on talking to himself, for the rest of the family were sleeping too soundly to make any comment. He rose to his feet and looked down at his wife. ‘A beauty,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And she could sleep for years if you let her.’ He went downstairs. In the other houses in the same row men were already up and dressing for their work. The women folk in number five, having been so rudely disturbed by the alarm-clocks, vented their anger upon Mr Dennis Fury. He was always rowing. That was the general opinion in Hatfields. The street had never been the same since Mr Fury worked ashore. Mr Postlethwaite left the house and hurried down the street. At the bottom he bumped into Mr Fury, who was bent down by the wall fastening his bootlaces. He hailed him. Mr Fury stood up. ‘Hello there!’ he said. The two men went off down the road together. Mr Postlethwaite worked at the same sheds as Mr Fury. ‘How annoying it all is,’ said Mr Fury to himself, darting a furtive glance at the man beside him, ‘one can never get rid of this fellow. He’s everywhere. He’s like a leech. He hangs on to you.’ There seemed no way of dodging the man. If one turned a corner, one bumped into Mr Andrew Postlethwaite. He appeared from nowhere. And how the fellow talked. Almost as bad as Fanny herself. Mr Fury lighted his pipe. He remarked upon the coldness of the morning. ‘Yes, it is bitter this morning. And I�
�ll have that bitch of an engine to do as soon as I get in.’ They walked on, maintaining a silence almost within reach of the sheds. Mr Postlethwaite was studying Mr Fury. He was preparing to put a question to him. He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

  Mr Andrew Postlethwaite was older than Mr Fury by five years. He was a little bald-headed man, with a thin, elongated face. Mr Fury could never understand why his workmate and next-door neighbour should have brown eyes. They didn’t seem to fit in somehow with the rest of his person. Mr Postlethwaite was nicknamed ‘Sponger’, and indeed this little man was a sort of human sponge, who spent the day absorbing as much rumour and information as he could safely hold, and then disgorging it when he reached home in the evening for the benefit of his wife and family. He had worked on the railway nearly forty years, in the same shed. Everybody knew ‘Sponger’. Mr Postlethwaite beat the big drum for the local lodge band, and beat it to such perfection that the band felt proud of him. Mr Fury did not like the man. For one thing, Mr Postlethwaite was always asking questions. Now as he looked at the man he sensed at once that there was something coming. But the question was so sudden, and of so surprising a nature, that for once Mr Fury felt himself caught out. Mr Postlethwaite said: ‘Don’t you ever feel you let yourself down, Fury?’ Mr Postlethwaite had not forgotten his broken sleep. Mr Fury wore a bewildered look.

  ‘Let myself down!’ exclaimed Mr Fury. ‘What do you mean – let myself down? What the devil are you talking about?’ He didn’t understand. ‘Hang it,’ he was thinking, ‘what is the fellow fishing for now?’ Mrs Postlethwaite must surely be behind this. Curious people, those Postlethwaites. Of course, they were Billies. That accounted for it perhaps.

  ‘How do you mean, let myself down?’ Mr Fury repeated the question.

  ‘Well, I mean this,’ said Mr Postlethwaite. ‘Don’t you ever think you were a cod to give up the sea?’ He laid great emphasis on the word ‘sea’.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ replied Mr Fury. He looked Mr Postlethwaite straight in the face. ‘No, I don’t! What made you get that silly idea into your head? Why should I be sorry? In fact, I’m glad.’

  Mr Postlethwaite grinned broadly. Mr Fury felt awkward now. Somehow he always did feel awkward under the battery of Mr Postlethwaite’s questionings. It seemed to be his chief duty in life to probe into the lives of other people. If Mr Fury had been fair to himself he would not have passed such a remark. It was not true. He knew it was not true. Ever since he had left the Cardine he had regretted it. He was wont to reflect in moments of bitterness that he had been a fool for ever leaving the ship. No use crying about it now. It was too late. Shipping companies weren’t taking men like Mr Fury. There were too many young men walking about the docks. No, it would be nothing short of a miracle if he ever put a foot on ship again. The worst of it was – and each time he thought about it he felt angry – the worst of it was, that fellow Postlethwaite had actually got him the job on the railway. He, Mr Fury, had taken the job, just to please Fanny. Now he came to think over it, he had been a fool. ‘Well! one of these fine days,’ he said to himself, ‘one of these fine days I’ll just pack my bag and clear out.’ Mr Fury’s imagination carried him away. ‘Aye, one of these days …’

  Mr Fury took another glance at the little man from number five Hatfields. ‘Imagine the likes of him beating a big drum,’ he thought. The ludicrous side of Mr Postlethwaite seemed to become personified at that moment. Yes, and before he packed his bag he was going to see that that son of his packed his bag too. Wasn’t going to have Postlethwaite getting Peter a job. One was enough. The very idea of being under an obligation to the Postlethwaites rankled in his mind. Yes, one obligation was enough. The high words he had had with Fanny were vividly recalled now. And the last word hadn’t been said, he reflected. No doubt about it, Fanny had changed. But what had made her change? Mr Fury realized he had set himself an impossible question. Was it Desmond’s marrying out of the chapel? Or was it Maureen marrying Kilkey? It was rather sudden, of course. Neither Desmond nor Maureen had breathed a word about their plans until the last minute. Perhaps Fanny thought her children were cheating her. He still felt resentful. There had been no need for that row last night. Sometimes Mr Fury even imagined that Mrs Fury was getting a little light-headed. There was a sudden pause in the thought. They had come in sight of the sheds. Ahead of them the little green door that led to the wooden bridge was wide open. They passed through. Mr Fury looked at his neighbour.

  ‘Good-morning,’ he said. ‘See you again at clock-off.’

  ‘Good-morning,’ replied Mr Postlethwaite.

  Later, more men came hurrying through the door. There were a series of ‘Good-mornings’, comments on the weather, a dirty joke. Mr Fury passed down the shed, his mind still full of the previous evening’s bother – there wasn’t the slightest doubt about it, the woman was beyond all comprehension. What was it that changed her? Rough times – the man laughed. But everybody had had rough times, sometime or other. Of course it could only have come to a point with a fellow like Peter. He had always been a strange child. The oddest relationship existed between mother and son. Quite different from the other children. Mr Fury was of opinion that this last child had been thoroughly spoiled. He hadn’t seen much of Peter. Their relationship was somewhat distant and reserved. They weren’t like father and son at all. He had been away in the Mediterranean when Peter had first gone to college in Cork. When he arrived home one trip the boy had gone. He had thought his wife’s idea quite a ridiculous one, and he had told her so. He had felt hurt. Never to have breathed a word to him. As though he weren’t his father at all. So his thoughts swung from his wife to his son. Peter never even wrote to him. He was still thinking of Peter when the dinner-bell rang.

  Mr Fury always went home for his midday meal. The house was only a few hundred yards from the shed. As he mounted the wooden stairs to the bridge a voice hailed him. He swung round. ‘Hello,’ he exclaimed, ‘wanting me?’ The tall broad-shouldered man who stood gripping a stanchion said, ‘No. Nothing particular. Just happen to be going your way.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mr Fury said. Then after a long pause, ‘I see.’ The two men passed out into the street.

  ‘See Desmond’s gone foreman of that gang now,’ he said.

  ‘Foreman! Oh aye!’ Mr Fury looked astonished. First he had heard about it.

  ‘Yes. I was talking to him last night,’ said the man. Mr Fury laughed. ‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘I’ve only seen my lad twice since he got skipped.’ They halted at the bottom of Hatfields. Mr Fury looked at the man, the man at him. They both seemed a little embarrassed, as though the one were waiting his cue from the other. Then abruptly Mr Fury said, ‘So long,’ and started up the street. He disappeared into the entry. Mr Fury never went in by the front door. There was something about the front door that he did not like. And people were always at the doors, or sitting on their steps. And always talking. Mr Fury hated them. Once he had been a seaman. Now he felt he was nothing. He was unused to living ashore; a street was only another sort of monstrous stone cage, behind the brick bars of which the human monkeys chatted incessantly. Mrs Fury had fallen, quite unconsciously, into her husband’s habit of using the rear entrance. Such habits, when formed in a street like Hatfields, naturally assumed a little of the mysterious. People talked, people whispered, flung out hints. Why did folk have to slink in by their back doors? Mr Fury hated the street. They had been arguing for some time as to whether they ought to change their abode. Mr Fury was full of the idea. But somehow Mrs Fury clung tenaciously to Hatfields.

  Fanny Fury was standing at the back kitchen door as her husband came up the yard. The man knew at once that she had had news from Ireland. He could always tell when his wife had exciting news to communicate. Invariably he prefaced her breaking of such news with a laconical ‘Well?’ as he did so now.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Brigid has just wired me,’ said Mrs Fury. ‘She’s crossing over tomorrow night, with Peter.’


  Mr Fury put his hands in his pockets and stopped dead.

  ‘Who? Brigid? What for?’ Then before he could give Mrs Fury time to reply, he pushed past her into the kitchen. Dennis Fury had never liked his sister-in-law. Mrs Fury followed him, her temper rising. If anything served to rouse the woman’s anger, it was her husband’s laconical ‘Well?’ It smacked of indifference.

  ‘For goodness sake, Denny!’ she exclaimed; ‘you can’t think the boy can come over on one of those boats, and him just out of a seminary.’

  The man laughed. He couldn’t see anything to stop Peter coming, and he couldn’t see anything wrong with the boats.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. He took off his hat and flung it on to the sofa. His dinner was already laid out on the table. Mrs Fury went upstairs. The man sat down and commenced to eat. ‘Thinks I’ve slighted her now,’ he said to himself. ‘Aye, Fanny’s a queer’n all right.’ The woman came downstairs again. Mr Fury drew her chair in to the table, but Mrs Fury went on through the lobby into the parlour. She felt her husband’s remark was nothing less than a direct affront to her sister. Why shouldn’t Brigid come over? Who else could come with Peter? Of course he had never liked her people. How well she understood the significance of her husband’s ‘sorry’. It simply meant ‘Oh! shut your mouth.’ That was generally the end of it. The man finished his dinner.

  He went into the lobby. At the parlour door he stopped and called out, ‘I say, Fanny, what time do you expect he’ll arrive?’ He could not enter the room. Somehow it had taken on a sort of sacred privacy that he could not invade. He stood outside the door.

  ‘You know as well as I do,’ she shouted back. ‘You’ve met the Cork boat before this. What’s wrong with you lately, Denny? You seem to be fishing for rows all the time. It gets on my nerves.’ The man did not reply. There was nothing to say – well, yes, he had lots to say. He sighed. So useless.