An End and a Beginning

by James Hanley

“I know. I know,” and she pressed the harder upon his fingers.

  “I loved my mother so much, so very much,” he said.

  She suddenly turned her head away, she could not look at him, she let him cry.

  “I should never have gone.”

  “Where? Gone where, Peter. Where?” She felt in herself his coldness, his isolation, and for one single moment his innocent, pulsating youth.

  “To Cork,” he stammered, “where else? It made me hate it all.”

  Looking at this man she looked at his family, and she remembered them; the volcanic household in which each lived-in room was a cell, where lives warm under the pattern of union were yet as distant and lonely as those of whales tossing in oceans. It made her remember the mother whose whole life had become a kind of living dream, and of the father forever linked in a blind and selfless devotion, the years of whose life had been spent before the fires of ships that seemed never to have gone out. She thought of his ship docking, a voyage ended, and of the strange, sweet mysteries of their occasional reunions. A family held fast together by the warmth of blood, and the iron of Gelton.

  “I wonder where the daughter Maureen is?” She remembered her also, remembered the brothers, and of how, once upon a time she herself had come among them, though only to touch the fringe of their separate, tumultuous, and sometimes ruthless lives. An indestructible family, and yet destroyed, scattered by the very explosions of their own natures. She thought of the man at the table, so close, so different, another person, and remembered she had once loved him, on his most youthful and happy day. For a fleeting moment she had the warmth of the stolen hour under her hand. “Horrible,” she thought, “how lonely he must have been.”

  “Look at me, Peter,” she said, and he looked at her.

  The question she would have asked him died away on her lips. Suddenly she put a finger to her mouth.

  “Ssh! She’s outside the door, she’s listening,” Sheila said, whispering from behind her raised hand.

  “Who?” he asked, and quickly withdrew his own from the table.

  “Miss Fetch,” she said.

  The information only bewildered him the more, and he turned round and faced the door. “Who?”

  And she whispered back, “Miss Fetch. She was always a great watcher. She used to watch my father. I know. I have occasion to. I remember it all so well. If my father came round a corner, through a door, up the stairs or down, she was there, she was passing through, at the time, to some room or other in the house, because she had to; always she seemed to have left something behind her. She came to this house just before she was sixteen, out of a fisherman’s cottage. My father wanted her then. And he took her——”

  “Who?” he asked again, still unable to take it in.

  “Miss Fetch. She’s there now, listening, outside that door.”

  “Come in, Winifred,” she called loudly, and the door opened, and the housekeeper came in.

  “I’ll clear away now, ma’m.”

  “Do,” Sheila said.

  Peter immediately got up, crossed to the window, opened it, and went out into the garden.

  “Well, Winifred,” Sheila said, “and what have you been doing with yourself all these years? You hardly look a day older, no different at all. You’ll outlast the lot of us.”

  “Ah! Sure it’s nice to see you home again, ma’m,” slowly moving up and down the table, collecting things, and then she picked up one of the lighted candles as though to extinguish it, but instead held it high in the air as she gave the other woman a long and penetrating stare.

  “She’ll be as old as myself one day,” she thought, with intense satisfaction.

  “Tell me about things, Winifred.”

  “What things?”

  “Oh, anything you like, everything, tell me about yourself.”

  “There’s little to tell, ma’m. I still hear regularly from your father——”

  “Of course. Your wages.”

  “He’s still in London, same hotel. Imagine it, all those years. He’ll stay for good I should think.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Your brother is still in the same old place, China coast, he writes me now and again. I always liked the lad. Very loyal, ma’m, very loyal,” Miss Fetch said, her expression changing, as though to say, “and he was the only one that was.”

  Suddenly she blew out the other candle. “Letter writing’s a bit of an effort these days, ma’m.”

  “Are the Hennesseys still here?”

  “Sure they’re away out of the country long ago, five years now. Good riddance some said, though I’m not too sure about that. The whole country’s falling to pieces these days.” She leaned across the table. “Will you be staying here long?” she asked.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not,” replied Sheila.

  “The old place has been lost far too long maybe, though a lucky old place it is. Isolated we are by the mercy of God, and only by that were we saved the petrol splashes of the boyos. A fiery lot of men roamed this country, ma’m, and an incredibly lazy lot they were at times. Perhaps you can thank them that this house is still standing up on two legs. Will the gentleman be staying long?”

  “Not long,” Sheila said, making to rise, then sitting down again. “I shouldn’t imagine he will.”

  “Ah! Sure I’m glad to hear that, too. I never could take with strangers in the house, ma’m, you know that. And when he arrived here, round midnight it was, why a more dreadful sight you never saw. Come all that way from England without an overcoat to his back. Most frightening it was. Looked just like a burglar to me when I opened the door on him, and might well have been sleeping under a hedge most of the day.”

  “He’s had a difficult time.”

  “I know that. The whole lot of it. We read the newspapers in Ireland, too.”

  Miss Fetch leaned closer, confidentially close. “If it’s not being presumptuous on my part, ma’m, will your husband be joining you?”

  Sheila looked the woman straight in the eye. “I think not,” she said.

  “Oh—I see.”

  “We must go over the house to-morrow, Winifred, I’m here to work.”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  “And that is all, Winifred,” Sheila said. She took the candlestick from her hand and put it down on the table. “Thank you.”

  She watched Miss Fetch go out.

  “I wonder where he went to?”

  She crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains. There was no sign of Peter Fury. Standing there, she thought about the man in the garden.

  “There was nothing else he could have done, and certainly no place to which he could have gone, Dublin perhaps, but that brother’s far away, too, and his family are strangers. No. This is the best place. It’s strange to think of him being here at all. He has altered.”

  It made her think of the prison, nothing moving, nothing growing. She turned away, and standing in the centre of the room began to study the various objects in it. There seemed a warmth in them, even after years. “Winifred is wondering, Winifred is intrigued.”

  When she returned to the window and looked out, she saw the man leaning against a tree, his back to the house. She threw back the remaining curtain, extinguished the candle, and went out to him.

  Miss Fetch saw them both from her bedroom window, and Miss Fetch watched. The man stood facing the hills, the woman just behind him. She knew they were talking, and leaned out of the window. But she heard nothing, and regretted only her increasing deafness. She would have loved to capture the words upon the air. But the woman was now silent, and the man remained motionless. This silence irritated Miss Fetch, and she slammed down the window loud enough to let them know she was there, had seen. The noise made them both jump, and she smiled.

  “What was that?”

  “We are being watched from the window by a saint,” Peter said.

  “I know.”

  “She’s been nearly five minutes waiting for me to turn round and look at you.�
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  Would he move, would he turn, look at her?

  “She’s bound to be curious,” Sheila said.

  He made no reply. He seemed rooted at this point, on this cold, shining grass, rooted in the moment, the fact. “It’s all a dream,” he thought. “I’ve been imagining it.”

  He felt her hand on his shoulder, and this time he listened.

  “In the house she’d be listening at every door. It’s too old a habit ever to be broken. Soon, perhaps, she’ll go back to where she came from, a stone cottage by the sea.”

  He turned round. In the naked morning she saw him much more clearly. The light was ruthless.

  “When I last saw him he was just a laughing young man.”

  “I’ve asked Winifred to go as far as the post office,” Sheila said. “She’s done nothing for so long that being asked quite surprised her.”

  “I can see her now,” he said, “she’s in the hall, just coming.”

  They heard Miss Fetch come out, her crunching feet on the drive. She passed them by in silence, and they stared after her until she vanished beyond the bend in the drive.

  “Let’s go in.”

  They turned and, arm in arm, went back to the house.

  “Shut the door after you,” she said.

  He closed it. They stood close together in the semi-dark hall.

  “Why did you come?” he asked.

  “Something came to an end, that’s all.”

  “What came to an end?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that now. Some other time. It’s cold standing here. Let’s go in. Miss Fetch has lit a lovely fire in the drawing-room.”

  He followed her down the hall, in through the door.

  This room is enormous. It devours the heat of the fire, the very flames. They walked to the couch and sat down. They sat back, they held hands. The flames leaped, the wood crackled.

  “I wanted you to come here for a number of reasons, Peter,” she said. “First there was no place in Gelton for you. You know that. Old Mr. Kilkey lives alone, and I’m sure he couldn’t look after you. And you would never have come to Ralston Park, that I do know. Gelton must have seemed hateful to you. There was a place here for you, it was miles from that place, it was quiet, peaceful, I thought you could find some peace yourself. Later, perhaps, after you’ve got over the shock, you’ll be able to plan something for yourself. I’m sure you will. The main thing is that you are out, free.”

  “Yes, I’m out. I keep telling myself I am,” he said.

  “An end and a beginning, Peter,” she said, looking into the ashen face, the bright yet sunken eyes, at the stooped shoulder, feeling the rough cloth of his cheap suit, seeing the stranger from the far place where it was always dark. “Cruel,” she thought, “a waste.”

  “You look ill, Peter,” she said.

  He hadn’t heard, wasn’t listening. He was held by this enormous room, by the woman beside him. So far away, and yet so close. He was caught up in this strange, too sudden meeting. It seemed unbelievable that he should be sitting so close to her. The woman in the dream. Here. Flesh. He drowned in the moment, in the surprise of it, the very heat and scent of it.

  “Sheila!”

  She looked up at him, smiling. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said, “oh, nothing.”

  But his head was suddenly lying on her arm, and his feverish fingers were like nails on her shoulders, and he was pressing, pressing, feeling his breath upon her neck: she saw his half open mouth, his closed eyes. She put her arms about him and held him tight, knowing, unafraid, not caring.

  “If you want to, Peter, dear,” she said, her mouth at his ear.

  But there is no way in for the words, and suddenly the head is heavier on her shoulder.

  “Are you afraid?” she asked.

  The fingers are no longer claws, they curl up, lie idle at her throat; the man is inert, limp, dead weight.

  “If you wish, dear.”

  “Christ,” he thought, “I was so mad, so excited, so really mad and excited, and now I’m not.”

  “I’m afraid,” he said.

  “Afraid?”

  “Afraid,” he shouted, “afraid.”

  He let go her hands, drew back.

  “Of what?”

  “Myself.”

  The woman is too real. The orgy is in the mind, it is the dream that blinds with light. He is in the cell, tossing upon a bed, climbing ladders in his brain. He hammers at a wall to let the light flow in; he is surrounded by cavorting forms, and under a grey blanket he commits the act. The dream lives, smiles like the sun.

  “Oh, my dear,” she said, “my dear.”

  “How like Desmond he is,” she thought, her hands moving about his head, stroking back the thick hair, “how very alike they really are. Same build, same shape of head, the same height, and nearly the same eyes.” It made her think of her husband, with pain, with a certain revulsion.

  “Let’s go out,” he said, “let’s go out, Sheila. Please.”

  “Where, dear?”

  “Anywhere. But just out,” he said, staring around the room.

  This room seemed full of silence, of power. “Let’s go out,” he said. “Come then,” and she got up, and he followed her out.

  They stood looking at each other in the hall. “You want this?”

  “Yes. Let’s go. Please.”

  “I’ll get a hat, a coat. You’d better get some other shoes,” she said.

  “Yes, I will,” he said, running up the stairs.

  She was waiting for him when he came down.

  “Sure you want this?” she asked.

  He nodded his head, and she opened the door. “Let’s go.”

  They walked slowly down the drive. They did not link arms. She felt he did not want it.

  “Once,” she said, “once I even tried to come and see you there. I made every arrangement, and then at the last moment I couldn’t. Talk about that if you want to, Peter, perhaps you’ll feel different when it’s all come out. Tell me everything, dear, if you want to.”

  “I was met that morning. Two people in a car. I was handed five shillings. They offered to drive me anywhere in their car. Don’t know who the hell they were from that day to this. It doesn’t matter.”

  She echoed his words. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “I went my own way. I saw some old gentleman in the city, a decent old man. I should have gone to see him before I came here, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see anybody really, I wanted to be alone. I had to look up Mr. Kilkey. It was a duty. I remembered his letters, his kindness. They kept me alive. And how I longed for yours, Sheila, and how excited I was when they came. My whole life hinged on a single day. D’you remember?”

  He pulled on her arm, they stopped dead in the path.

  “You remember, Sheila?” he said.

  “I remember.”

  “Do you? Really, Sheila?”

  She closed her eyes, she was back in the afternoon, in the tiny house, in the tinier room that now seemed ringed with light. She remembered the words, “If you wish,” I said, “if you want to,” suddenly feeling the words, savouring them as they crossed her lips, experiencing a lightning-like, voluptuous thrill, as they seemed to flow once again into the warm ear. She felt herself a girl again, torrenting into a time when the trees were green. How she had smiled inside herself, how she had waited, as she thought, “The blouse will tear open, he’ll go mad, he’ll run amok on me.” Her body felt like water.

  “Peter,” she said, and leaned back against the tree.

  “It’s so wonderful to be with you, I feel so happy, Sheila, so happy.”

  “Give me your hand,” she said, and he gave it, and she pressed it home.

  “There.”

  After a silence she said, “Kiss me.”

  And he kissed her with lips of ice.

  “My God!” she thought, as he gave way, as he cried, blindly, desperately, and she felt it, each single sob. She w
as held in by the very shock of this moment, she winced in her mind, she felt angry at the repulse, the ice touching, feeling again the weight of this God-forsaken man who could not, who would not speak.

  “I understand everything, dear, everything,” and she kissed him, and drew away from the tree. Gripping him tightly by the hand she drew him on.

  “If he could break free of his fear,” she thought, “break free of his cell, the darkness, that watching eye he talked about so much, that dust in his mouth.”

  “Sheila,” he said again.

  “What, dear?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Let’s go on. I’m sorry. It was such a horrible night. The dreams I had, I woke up, I couldn’t sleep.”

  She could feel his pain in the pressed fingers.

  “To-night,” she said. “To-night. Come along, we turn here.”

  “I’ve been worried about old Kilkey. I left him in such a miserable way. I couldn’t help it. I wanted him to tell me things about Mother, but he closed up like an oyster. He’s altered, too. I found something intensely irritating about him, I don’t know what. I had to go, and yet I hated going. Oh, Christ, the things I’d like to set fire to, I’d really sing as they blazed, I really would. Where are we going?”

  “Through this spinney,” she said, “and then we cross two farms, climb that hill and we reach the road.”

  “I’d love a drink.”

  “There’s a place on the road. I know the people there, at least I did. The Duggans have a small pub. We’ll call there. After you left Mr. Kilkey, what did you do?”

  “I must make him talk,” she told herself, “I must draw him out, melt the ice, break down the stiffness, a terrible shyness, that fear.”

  “Nothing much. I hung around until the boat was due to sail. And then it was just the ship, and that officer on her poop, and the lights. And then no lights at all, just the sea. It was a great relief. I slept like a log. Went to see my aunt in Cork. Didn’t even recognise me. Just as well, perhaps, didn’t seem to matter very much, though I was terribly moved seeing her like she is. Then off to the other, but I’d rather not talk about that.”

  “Of course not. I don’t want you to.”

  “I’m all right now, Sheila,” he said.

  “Are you, dear. I’m glad. Careful here.”