by James Hanley
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, though 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 perfe
ctly 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 hadn’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!’
He shouted at the top of his voice, stamped his foot upon the gravel path.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I must go. Come along.’
They turned to the gate. He lifted her over it. Then they scurried off through the darkness, like two people hunted, two people hurrying backwards rather than forward, as though life itself were one long retreat. Their heads were high, but somehow, looking at them from behind, one sensed this huntedness, this scurrying through dark streets, behind walls, through alleys, past warehouses, as though there shone above them some inexorable eye from which they could never escape. When they crossed the square by the Custom House, Peter pulled up, caught her hands, thrust his face to her own, and said:
‘Now tell me.’
‘Sometimes,’ she said slowly, as though in some way she begrudged utterance to the very words that all this time had hung upon her lips, ‘sometimes I think you’re deluding yourself. You see, I am a woman. I am nearly thirteen years older than you. And in spite of what you say, you are—at least to me—but a boy. I haven’t any right to touch what you must hold most dear. Perhaps I should never have done what I have already done. I say perhaps. I’m not so sure. That’s all. Maybe I did it simply because I pitied you. I say maybe. Again I don’t know. You say perhaps, “You are a woman and you ought to know.” I’m not sure about that. When we think we know most—we really know least. Like you, I’m afraid. Well …’ She buried his hard head upon her breast.
‘Peter—dear Peter. I don’t know, don’t know. I can’t say another word except I don’t know. Now I must go.’
‘God Almighty!’ he said. He shook her roughly. ‘You are only tormenting me. You listen to me. Sheila, listen! Don’t say that any more. Will you promise? Please promise!’ All his innocence, his youth, his belief, his hope, all went out to her in that simple utterance. And as he squeezed her shoulders so hard that she actually winced, it was as though he were holding together the altar he had built about her name and presence—her body, her love, her feelings. It hurt just holding her like this, hurt at the very depths of his soul because he loved her, trusted her. She was his happiness. Desperately he clung to it, and all that it meant.
‘Don’t say any more! Please! please! I know. It’s Desmond! You are afraid of my brother. But, Sheila, don’t you see …?’
‘I afraid of Desmond?’ She smiled at him. ‘What have I to fear from him? Nothing. No two people understand one another better than we do.’
‘Then you have told him!’ he almost gasped. ‘You told him?’
‘I told him nothing. Silly boy! Now …’ She said good-night with her warm mouth, holding him frenziedly, wishing him gone—yet dreading the very moment when she herself must go. ‘Good-night, Peter darling.’
‘Now!’ he said, ‘tell me! Where is this new house you are in—and to-morrow? What about to-morrow?’
‘Don’t ask me that.’ She broke free and ran. The youth ran after her, partly fell on one knee as he flung himself, hands out, to catch the hem of her skirt. ‘Stop,’ he said fiercely. ‘You must, Sheila. You must. To-morrow. Same place, same time. I’ll be there. You will, won’t you? Yes, yes. Lovely Sheila!’ He kissed her, then turned and fled, his fingers pressed against the drum of his ears as though he were determined not to hear her reply, filled with dread and yet with joy, floating upon a delirious wave, yet fearful he would be flung down. So he ran on until he reached Preston Row, when he slowed down to a quick walk. At the end of the Row he would catch a tram. He would be home before midnight at the latest. Twice he stopped, stood with feet apart, hands clasped together, looking up at the stars. ‘Am I happy? God! Yes, I am happy.’ Even now in the murk and dark of this mean street, silent, deserted, he could feel the aura of her presence. ‘Sheila! Sheila! We shall yet be together. Marvellous Sheila!’ The world was blotted out—there were only two people in it—Sheila and himself. ‘Yes, I am happy’ he half shouted, and ran on. He would catch a late tram. Just as he reached the stop he heard the dull roar of one in the distance. He began shivering with the cold. His whole body like some delicate instrument could yet feel the touch of her hand. ‘Dear Sheila!’ he said. ‘Dear Sheila!’ The memory of the woman, of her embraces, the feel of her flesh, had tempered his body, every fibre of his being retained that ecstasy, that thrill of being with her. She was gone, but that aura of her presence still hung around him. Suddenly the tram came roaring to a standstill; only then did his spirits fall, only then did that urgent, passionate music filling his breast become suddenly voiceless. He boarded the tram. It was empty. Crouched in a corner seat, holding his coat collar tight around his neck, he began the journey home. Home to Hatfields. It was like going into a long dark and damp tunnel, racing away from the light—the darkness at last obliterating that aura of her presence. He pictured her crouched in the corner of the arch—her white face held up to him—and this vision he retained, harbouring it in his memory, holding it frenziedly and desperately, as though as the tram pursued its inexorable journey through the tunnel it was taking toll of that strange, wonderful, and passionate hour. He was going home to Hatfields. He saw the house, the street, the bone factory; saw his father and mother seated in the kitchen—saw his crippled grandfather belted in his chair. He had escaped that, and now he was returning to it. He saw a crowd streaming out of a theatre in the King’s Road. Saw men singing as they made their way home, arm-in-arm. And out of these crowded pictures that rushed down upon him there emerged suddenly the figure of Mrs. Anna Ragner. ‘Good God!’ he thought. ‘What did she do that for? Why has Mother tied herself up with that woman? I’ll bet any money that Dad knows nothing about it. But I know. I am the only one she has told.’ He felt suddenly bitter. Yes. His mother would get some satisfaction from letting him know. Why was he rushing back towards Hatfields? Because he liked it? Because he was happy—because he loved his mother and father? He did not really know. A dumb, blind obeisance. No effort of the will had set his feet upon this tram. He was a quite will-less person. No! He did not know why at all. The car pulled up. He got off and walked slowly home. When he reached the house it was in black darkness. Strange indeed, but his mother had given hi
m the key. He let himself in, lit the gas, cut a piece of bread, ate it, swilled down a cup of cold tea, and then, extinguishing the light, went up to bed. He heard voices in his mother’s room. That was to be expected. To have passed that room without hearing sounds would have been impossible at that hour of the night; it seemed that his father and mother as though by some quick, unconscious prearrangement had decided to release the flood walled up throughout the day. They talked for hours. It had always been like that. And always would be. In other houses there was silence. People slept soundly at this late hour, but not his father and mother. ‘A funny pair,’ he said to himself as he undressed and climbed into bed. There would hardly be any need to ask them what the subject of the conversation was. He knew already. It was one of those imperishable subjects, inexhaustible—never-ending.
He lay down, leaning on his elbow. ‘Perhaps Dad is right. Maybe Mother is a little crazy. She does seem to be changing lately.’ But there was one picture he always retained in his mind, indeed it refused to go away at all. That was her face lit up with a passionate, desperate frenzy on the morning he had gone off to sea. Each time he thought of it he went cold all over. More, he could feel the blows she had rained upon him in the shed. Mother would never forget that. Never. Her attitude when he arrived home had been peculiar too. No embrace. A mere handshake. A different person—a different expression—a different meaning. It had only made him feel that old shame again. Some enquiries as to how he had fared; and as to Mr. Mulcare’s health. Mention of Anthony’s accident, the compensation that they had fought for, his going away again. No more. A mere silhouette of his brother. Not that he, Peter, wanted any fuller picture. At this particular time there were things more important, and more interesting, than the news of Anthony. A request to him to take a message, an urgent one—Mother’s messages were always urgent—and his saying he would be seeing a shipmate and might be late. No questions asked. No interest shown. Briefly, rank indifference. Was this change real, or was it only fake? Was she watching him—his mother could spy as well as anybody—or was it a certain helplessness? As these thoughts went racing through his mind, he saw her face again as he had seen it just five hours ago. The sudden confrontation after a year’s absence—the complete absence of surprise—he might have only left the house that morning. In fact he, Peter, was disappointed. It was a shock. He was like a stranger to her. Not that he hoped for the return of that passionate love with which she had smothered him since he was a child. Oh no! He had had enough of that. But shocked only because this attitude, this change, this rank indifference, was like a clear mirror in which he saw her waning faith, her yielding hope. ‘Mother is going down the nick,’ he thought. Suddenly he felt a desire to cry. ‘No! All that is silly.’ He mustn’t do it. One glimpse of the strange emotions he felt, just one glimpse, and she would resurrect herself from that torpor, smother him in that love. ‘To hell with that!’ He had been smothered enough. He hadn’t talked it over with his father yet either. That was a meeting fraught with difficulties too. ‘Dad doesn’t care a hang what I do, anyhow.’