by James Hanley
Prees Street contained only four houses. The rest of it consisted of offices. It faced the back of the Custom House on one side, the square known as Ranes Square on the other. At the end of this street, standing under the lamp, the one illumination supplied for the benefit of the inhabitants, was a woman dressed in a long blue coat. The collar was buttoned high around her neck. On her head she was wearing a blue tam-o’-shanter on which a black feather was pinned by a silver brooch. She kept looking up and down the street, her attitude furtive, impatient, as every now and again she made a quick disappearance round the corner. Suddenly a form loomed up out of the darkness and two arms were thrown round her, her head forced back to meet the smiling face of the young man who a few minutes ago had jumped from the tram. ‘Sheila!’ he exclaimed breathlessly. ‘Dear Sheila!’ He continued to press back her head until his lips touched her own. He pressed them against her own, at the same time increasing his grip upon her body. The woman could hear the pounding of his heart, the quiet breathing, and feel those burning lips pressed so tight against her own. For nearly a minute they remained like this, cleaved together by sheer ecstasy. Then he let her go. ‘Peter!’ she said. ‘Oh, Peter! I thought you would never come.’ She seemed to devour him with her eyes, the while her hands stroked his hair, his face, his neck, and slid up and down his arms. No more was said. She seemed content. Here he was standing in front of her, alive, smiling. Peter—her Peter.
‘When did you come, darling? Tell me quickly. When did you arrive home?’
‘On this afternoon’s tide. I got your letter. All your letters. But let’s walk on. I don’t like hanging round here. In fact I hate it. Let’s move on,’ and he caught her hand, a hand hot and moist, and pulled her from under the lamp. Then he said ‘Stop,’ and held her by the shoulders for a moment, looking down into her passionate face, almost parchment-like in colour beneath the yellowish lamplight. They walked away, crossed the square, turned down Mercedes Street, and so on to the main road, almost deserted now. Once or twice they stopped to look back.
‘If only we were walking away together for always. Far away, Sheila,’ Peter said. They turned off the main road, and plunged into a long street under some railway arches. ‘It is too late now to go further,’ he said. They sought the shelter of one of the arches, and in the security of the darkness embraced each other again, in absolute silence, as though each were numbed by the wave of feeling that flooded them both. After a while she pushed him away. His face seemed a mere white splash upon the darkness. It was so dark that but for this, and the sounds of his heavy breathing, she would hardly have realised he was there at all. ‘Oh, Peter darling,’ she exclaimed, ‘you’ve come.’
‘Yes, I’ve come, and here I am, dear Sheila.’ He stood there, palpitating, his hands hot and trembling, bathed in the very aura of her presence. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am. I have longed for this. Longed, longed for it. Think of it. A whole year almost.’ The whole weight of her body lay against his own. ‘We must go somewhere else. At once,’ he said, and putting one arm round her, drew her out from the arch.
‘Where? Where shall we go?’ she said, her head heavy on his shoulder.
‘Anywhere. I don’t care where.’ He seemed to half carry, half drag the woman along the road, keeping close to the wall. ‘I hate all this,’ he said savagely. ‘Hate it. Sheila—Sheila—I’m so happy. So happy.’
‘In here,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘In here.’ They sat down on the wooden floor beneath a hoist door.
‘God!’ he said. ‘Suppose you hadn’t come. But you have. You have. You are here.’ He laughed and buried his face on her breast. He felt her hands upon his neck, the while his own, charged as though by some powerful current, sought desperately at her clothing. ‘Sheila! Sheila!’
Before she realised it, he was looking down into her face, her head resting on his hands, holding it from contact with the floor itself.
‘Dear, dear boy,’ she said. ‘I am so happy because you are. So happy because you are.’ But he heard nothing, saw nothing but this white face below him, felt nothing save this powerful wave of feeling that flooded his whole being. She caught his hands that trembled so violently and smothered them with kisses.
‘Dear Peter,’ she said. ‘Dear Peter.’
So they lay, bound body and soul, his breathing sounding almost thunderous in her ears, immersed at last in the flood. Far off across the river sounded the roar of a ship’s cable going home, and from an adjacent hut the sudden barking of a dog, which struck upon the silence like the crack of a whip; and all that they felt and hoped and imagined was alive, flowering yet hidden, triumphant yet furtive, the fruit and essence of their love cowering in this darkness, shielded from the world, from the harsh seamy face of all actuality, by the very aura it threw out and flung around them like some protecting cloak. They lay in dream, frightened yet exultant, throbbing with joy, and only the dim voice of fear struck upon their hearts: fear, flashed from the hidden fastness of their ecstasy, sounding its voice. All around them the mesh of reality, yet they were secure against it.
It was the sudden tread of feet that roused them. Quietly they sat, confronting each other with expressions of bewilderment, of almost childlike wonder, as though they were questioning this sudden invasion of their dream.
‘Quick. Let’s go.’
She could feel his whole body shivering. He lifted her to her feet. ‘Oh, Sheila,’ he said, and once more held her to him. When the steps passed, they drew back into the darkness. ‘It’s this I hate,’ he exclaimed savagely. ‘It’s this I hate. What has happened?’
‘Let’s go from here,’ she said. They smoothed down their clothes, and then ran from the shelter. As they passed under the light of the lamp, they seemed like wraiths fleeing through the darkness.
‘What time is it?’ asked Peter. ‘I wonder? I’ve forgotten everything.’ He looked at a nickel-plated watch he carried. A quarter past ten. ‘But that doesn’t matter,’ he thought on reflection. ‘We must talk, Sheila. You must tell me everything that has happened. Then I’ll tell you all that’s happened to me.’
Her arm was through his, and continually she turned her head and looked up into his face, as though she were endeavouring to discover every moment this thing, the illusive thing for which she searched. He had grown. He had changed considerably. No longer a boy—at least that shy, rough, awkward, and embarrassed boy she had seen just twelve months ago. Yet when she looked into his eyes she realized he had not changed. He was just the same, boyish, urgent, impatient, the same Peter who had been with her in Vulcan Street. Suddenly they came to a stop; a church stood in front of them. Peter tried its wooden gate. It was locked. He could see the shadows of rough wooden seats hard by the church wall. ‘In here,’ he said, lifting the woman in his arms, and depositing her somewhat clumsily on the other side of the gate. Then he swung his legs over and landed beside her. ‘If we are found here, there will be trouble.’ He pulled her towards the shadow of the wall. There they sat down. They clasped hands. ‘Well, Sheila,’ said Peter. ‘Here we can talk. Tell me, has anything happened?’
As he said this he visualized clearly in his mind a scene that had taken place between them a year ago. It was the very first time he had seen her, this strange, lovely, fascinating, mysterious woman, wife to his own brother. He remembered that white arm—the vision of it sent a thrill through his body—he remembered it stealing round the door in order to lift a black dress from the back of the door. He had been playing a game of draughts with his brother. He saw his brother quite clearly too. Eleven years older than himself. Tall, broad, with a heavy, almost bovine countenance. Stubborn, honest to the point, dull-witted, ignorant, yet filled with ambition, a worker on the railway who hated work, who believed in only material things. Hard, arrogant, even a little brutish. Difficult to understand, hidden behind this wall of ignorance and pugnacity. Desperate to get on, to get free from the railway, and so from work. A radical without reason, a little jealous. A brother who, t
hough brought up in an atmosphere of cloying, yet at the same time sincere, piety, had at one stroke flung the spiritual foundations from beneath his feet. Cocksure, passionate, earnest, loving this woman who out of some sheer whim had married him on the spur of the moment. A man wholly devoted to his wife. A slave to her. Content with her, exhibiting no curiosity as to her past, asking no questions. Proud, not only of what he had snatched so quickly, but of what he would yet do. Yes. His brother loved Sheila. That was the danger, and that was the fear. He knew his brother. Hence this fear. But did this woman love Desmond? Who and what was she? From where had she come? ‘I shall find out everything in the end,’ he thought, and as though the woman had divined his very thought, he felt the increased pressure of her fingers upon his arm.
‘Dear Sheila! I love you so much.’ Quite unconsciously he spoke these words, as though he were addressing not the being in flesh beside him, but that dream-like figure who stood before him, clear on the horizon of his thoughts, beside his brother. Suddenly he laughed. ‘Ssh, darling!’ she said. ‘Ssh! What were you laughing at?’ He whispered into her ear, ‘I said to myself, “Desmond thinks he is Danton, but he isn’t really.” But now tell me something. It is getting late, Sheila.’ Just as she opened her mouth to speak he closed it with his own, and said, muttering through his partly closed lips, ‘God, suppose you hadn’t come. Just suppose you hadn’t come. But—you have. You have. For you’re here. Sheila—no, don’t say anything yet until I’ve told you once more how happy I am. It’s lovely just sitting here with you, I can’t tell you how much I’ve longed for this.’ And again she heard his thumping heart, the tumult within him. ‘Sheila,’ he kept saying in her ear. ‘We are here. Alone. Imagine it.’
She made no answer, but pulled at the lapels of his coat and hid her face behind them. ‘Dear God,’ she said to herself, ‘if only he understood. If only he understood.’ By his very fullness had she realized her own emptiness. She let go of his hands and moved away a little from him. She looked down at the wintry grass of the churchyard. By an effort of will she had just put distance between her and this youth—she had severed herself from that passion, that burning, throbbing ecstasy. She had retreated. The very look of that cold grass was cooling, sobering. Sitting silently, shrouded by the peace and quiet of this haven, she had lapsed into contemplation. And now that dream was an empty one, the purpose aimless, the voice within her motiveless. He had moved up, rested his head over her shoulder—his fingers lightly touching her cheek, and he had said quickly, ‘There is something the matter, Sheila! There is something the matter. What is it? Something has happened. I know—I can tell.’
She turned round and looked at him with expressionless features.
‘No, Peter dear, nothing has happened’—and knew she lied in his very face. ‘Nothing, honestly. I was thinking, that was all.’
‘Of whom? Him! Listen, Sheila. Can’t we put an end to all this? Let us go away. Anywhere, I don’t care. I have a job. I can save up. These secret meetings, all this furtiveness and fear, it’s maddening, it’s waste of time. Be honest with me. You do love me, don’t you?’
And when she would have replied he smothered the words with his hot and passionate lips. ‘But, Peter! We must talk. We must talk. Quickly. It’s getting late and I must go.’
These words, the manner in which she uttered them, filled him with sudden dread, and he asked in a pained voice:
‘Does he suspect?’
‘It’s not him! It’s me, Peter. Dear Peter, it’s me. But you wouldn’t understand.’
‘I wouldn’t understand?’ He could no longer conceal his fear, a fear that found its roots in her own strange action, when she had freed herself from his grasp and turned to gaze with uncomprehending tensity at the cold yard in which they sat.
‘Is that what you want me to do, then?’ she asked, and his fear found voice at last.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I understand much more than you think. You don’t love my brother, or you would not be here. Won’t you at least let me love you? Sheila! What is all this nonsense we are talking? It’s as though we were both filled with a fear for each other. Forget it. Come! Let’s get out. I’ll see you home. We’ll talk on the way. We’ll talk sensibly, honestly. But, please, let me have my say first. I have so much to say. My—I’m bursting, bursting to tell you—oh, lots of things—piles of things. Now kiss me.’
It was a command. He held out his face and she took it between her cold hands.
‘Dear Peter. You darling—you are such a boy. It is hard for me to make you understand.’ She drew back quickly, as though that livid face had scorched her.
‘Stop it! Stop that! It only makes me angry, Sheila. I am only a boy. You say that. Everybody says it. “You are only a boy.” Isn’t that parading an indifference to my real feelings? Listen, darling, I am quite in earnest. Yes, in earnest. And when I hear people saying, “Oh yes. But he’s only a boy,” it makes me angry. And now you say it. You are no different from the others. You say I don’t understand. It’s you, it’s all the other people who don’t understand. Well—all right, I am a boy. How does that sound to you? I am a boy. None the less, it doesn’t affect my real feeling for you. I love you. Love coming to see you, looking at you, being near you, hearing you speak. Is there any falsity about such feelings? I am happy now. Happier than I have ever been in my whole life. Do you understand that? Do you, Sheila?’
Again she would have spoken, but he crushed her head against his breast, saying:
‘Don’t say it, don’t. I know you do understand. You are not like those other people. My mother, my father, my sister and brothers, my teachers, the priests, my shipmates; they don’t understand anything. I’ll tell you more—listen.’ He put his mouth to her ear. ‘You don’t know how much I have longed—simply longed—to grow up. Do you see now? I look back on my boyhood—call it babyhood if you like—well, my schooldays then—I look back without envy, without any malice. I wouldn’t like to begin all over again. Oh no! Youth isn’t everything. It isn’t all the jolly romantic thing that grown-ups say it is. Not by far. It’s not youth—it’s the grown-ups who don’t—or won’t—understand. I know that as well as anybody. Oh no! God!… I was glad to escape—yes, glad. I longed to grow so that I could get free of that prison. That’s all it was and ever is. Well, I have grown, and all those bottled-up feelings are free now. Free, all those things one had to smother at home, in school. Worse, but I won’t talk about that. No! I’ll talk about you. I don’t care what you say. I love you. You just don’t know what it means. When I was eight years old I was glad to leave home, and now I’m nearly eighteen, and the desire is still there. To satisfy some strange—no, strange is hardly the word—to satisfy some extraordinary idea—an ambition that Mother had, I went to college when I was just eight years old. My future was assured. Certain. Nothing more certain. I was to be a priest. No question asked—feelings had no voice at all—no question, not the slightest suspicion that I might one day upset all the logic of her illogicalness. That’s Mother all the way through. Well, I saw in the end it was crazy—but to be perfectly honest I had taken advantage of it too. Just because I was glad to be away from Mother—and also because I wanted to be out of the house. Even at that age the atmosphere was—no, I won’t say any more. But every one of us has broken away from her. Am I sorry? Not one little bit. I hated the very day I was born Irish—born Catholic—for my first years were a nightmare. Mother loved me, loved me to distraction, but I didn’t want that. I couldn’t understand at that time. But I do now. I was afraid of it. It was awful. Darling Sheila! Why did you marry Desmond? You don’t love him. Yet you must have married him for some reason. Why? Please tell me. Please tell me, won’t you, tell me everything. Right from the beginning. You might think me cowardly, mean, sly, but I’m not. Honest, I’m not. I never really wanted to be a priest. I never believed in it. And why Mother should pick on me, heaven knows. Those seven years were worse than jail. I couldn’t form opinions then, because I h
adn’t any. What happened? When I came out Mother was horrified. Simply horrified. Dad was quite indifferent. My brothers and sisters hated me. Said I had hoodwinked Mother. But how had I? I just didn’t know at that time. And even now I ask myself very often why Mother did it. Perhaps she doesn’t even know herself. Well, the result of all this is that I am full of longing to live my own life. That’s all. At home I am still treated like a child. I am expected to hang my head in shame at the very thought of what I have done. To love Mother means absolutely surrendering oneself. You don’t know what Mother is like. Even now she has some faint hope that I’ll be her boy. Her favourite. You see, I am the youngest of the family. If I live their way, if I do everything they ask, then things sail along splendidly—they do, that is—but I remain fumbling about, distrustful, furtive, unsatisfied, even afraid. Yes. Cowardly. Because I hate to hurt Mother. That’s all. Perhaps she even knows this. If she does, then it isn’t fair. No. It isn’t fair!’