The Secret Journey

by James Hanley

  ‘Well, you are changed, anyhow,’ said Peter Fury as he studied the bald-headed man in front of him. Somehow he had never been able to fully accept Mr. Joseph Kilkey as a brother-in-law. His sister’s marriage had been one of those impossible things, a phenomenon—something never expected. But here was the boy. ‘Let me hold him, Joe,’ said Peter, and picked up the fat, slobbering baby in his arms.

  ‘What a fine kid, isn’t he now? And look at his forehead. Bound to be something.’

  Peter held its plump soft hands in his, the while the boy looked at him bewilderedly out of eyes that were blue and large as saucers. ‘What big eyes, too!’ Peter said. Apparently his survey and report upon the first nephew he had ever had now came to an end, for he handed back the child to Mr. Kilkey, when it immediately began to cry. ‘Do you like him much?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Listen to that! Listen to that, duckins,’ shouted Mr. Kilkey, jumping up from his chair and swinging the boy up and down in the air. ‘Your uncle actually asks me if I like you much?’ The child’s cries became louder.

  ‘I hope Maureen won’t be long,’ said Joseph Kilkey. ‘I’m tired. Just got home from work, and I have to be out extra early to-morrow.’ He sat down and began dancing the child upon his knee.

  ‘There is something I could never have imagined,’ Peter was saying to himself—‘and it’s my ever seeing myself sitting in this kitchen looking at Joe Kilkey, my own brother-in-law.’ He who when he was a boy used to chase him with a strap every time he appeared in the little recreation hall of St. Sebastian’s, of which Mr. Kilkey was both caretaker and honorary secretary. And that fat, crying baby on his knee. ‘I wonder what Maureen looks like,’ he asked himself. Mr. Kilkey said, ‘Smoke if you want to, Peter. Dermod’s quite used to my shag, so your cigs. can’t hurt him. Well, you have come on. No doubt about it. You’d make two of any of the family, and certainly three of me. Are you glad you went? Did you like the life? D’you think you’ll stick the sea-life? By Jove!’

  Joseph Kilkey for the second time got out of his chair, and now began making circles round the one in which the youth sat, like a judge at a prize show, surveying, commenting. ‘I’m right glad you’re settling down to something, Peter. Your mother must be too. She’s had a rough time. Now is your chance to repay all she’s done.’

  Peter looked away from the man. Here it was again. The same old song, ‘Shouldn’t have done what you did. Say you’re sorry you did it.’ He switched off that subject.

  ‘Are you getting regular work now, Joe?’ asked Peter. His eyes roved the mantelpiece until they fell upon what he sought—a small box inlaid with pearl which he had bought at Patras and sent home to his sister as a present ‘to keep the baby’s pins in,’ as he said on the note Mrs. Kilkey discovered inside it. ‘I wish Maureen would hurry,’ he went on, seeing no desire on Joseph Kilkey’s part to be communicative about his work. Perhaps work was sacred to him, and a thing too intimate to be mentioned. How ugly the man was! But how good!

  ‘Joe,’ he went on, ‘are you going to drag Mother to the station on Friday or not?’

  ‘This time,’ replied Mr. Kilkey, ‘I’m going to carry her. Make no mistake.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Peter. ‘Mother likes you awfully now. I remember the time when she said she hated the sight of you. Did she ever tell you afterwards?’

  ‘People never need tell me anything. I always know in advance when I’m not liked. But that wasn’t worrying me overmuch. Maureen and I get on very well together. D’you remember the day you went away, Peter …? I …’

  ‘No, I don’t!’ replied Peter. ‘I’ve forgotten all that and only wish everybody else would. I wonder if Maureen will be long? I really came to see her particularly.’ At which remark Mr. Joseph Kilkey merely smiled.

  ‘Well, maybe you could walk up as far as the chapel. You’ll find her there all right. She has terrific confessions to make always,’ Kilkey went on laughingly. ‘Now listen to me, Peter. Just get this silly idea that people look down on you right out of your head. People aren’t always thinking of your escapades. People have other things to do. Besides, they have their own importance to think about. What would people do if they didn’t talk? Go cracked, I suppose. I’m a chap who likes a quiet life. I never wanted to go to sea or see the world. I don’t think I ever wanted to do anything spectacular. I remember my mother saying to me when I was a boy, “Joey, my boy, you’ve a tremendous head with nothing in it.” I took that to heart. I like quietness and I like peace. I like to come home of an evening and sit down with my paper, I can have all my adventures reading the news. Then I read Dickens too. You ought to read Mr. Dickens. He’s a splendid writer. I’m now reading Our Mutual Friend.’ Mr. Kilkey was certainly feeling in an expansive frame of mind.

  The hands of the clock were moving. Peter got up to go.

  ‘Perhaps I’d better walk up that far,’ he said. ‘Sorry she wasn’t in. I’ll come round again before I go.’ He went up and kissed the baby. As he held the small hand in his, he looked at Joseph Kilkey. ‘No! I could never have imagined that this was Maureen’s husband, this was Maureen’s baby.’ Certainly Mr. Kilkey was nothing out of the ordinary either in looks or brains, but he had an honest face.

  ‘Well, so-long, Joe. See you again soon.’

  ‘Sure,’ replied Joseph Kilkey. ‘How is your mother?’

  The two men stood in the lobby looking towards the front door.

  ‘Mother seems the same as usual. But somehow she has changed too.’

  ‘Your mother is good; always stand by her, whatever happens.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Peter, opening the door and putting one foot on the step. ‘So-long.’

  Joseph Kilkey returned to the kitchen. He put the child in the cradle, drew it up to the arm-chair in which he seated himself. He made himself quite comfortable, then, placing one foot upon the rocker, began a gentle rocking movement of the cradle. After a while, the flow of his thoughts seemed to become one with the rocking of the cradle.

  Suddenly he spoke aloud. ‘It’s hard to have to say it, but I’m just a little disappointed with Maureen.’ He leaned forward, and looked down at the now sleeping child. ‘Little wonder!’ he said. Here was something upon which he could spend his affection. Here was something that brought a new interest and a new light into his life. ‘Somehow,’ he was thinking, ‘somehow I feel Maureen isn’t quite satisfied. Isn’t quite happy. It’s the mother all over again.’ He cursed loudly, angry at ever allowing such thoughts to come into his mind. He tried to smother them, but one after another they emerged from their hiding-place. ‘They’re a discontented, restless crowd,’ he thought. The child was fast asleep. Joseph Kilkey got up and walked up and down the kitchen. ‘If she and Peter get together, heaven knows what time she’ll be back. Ah! there she is.’

  A key turned in the door. Maureen Kilkey came into the kitchen.

  ‘Hello!’ They both seemed to make the exclamation together.

  ‘Dermod asleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, fast asleep,’ replied Mr. Kilkey. ‘I’d like a bit of supper now. I want to get to bed. Your brother called here, waited about half an hour, and so I suggested he should walk up and meet you. He seemed keen on seeing you.’ He helped his wife off with her coat, and hung it up behind the door.

  ‘I saw him,’ replied Maureen sharply, and the tone of her voice indicated that no more need be said upon that matter. She commenced getting supper ready. Mr. Kilkey, lying back in his chair, the evening paper at his feet, followed her every movement with a pair of admiring eyes. The woman hardly glanced at him.

  Maureen Kilkey was like her mother. Tall, slim, and of graceful bearing. Their characteristics were almost identical. There was something imperious about her carriage, she always seemed to look down at people—as though from the height of her own self-esteem. She had a head covered with fuzzy, copper-coloured hair. The eyes were deep grey in colour. The face was long, the nose slightly upturned, the mouth thin like her mother’s. It gave her a
seriousness of expression which belied her real nature. She was wearing a blue print dress, her arms, plump and white, bared to her elbow. The hands were very red, the nails broken, and on the palm of the right one lay the mark of a burn, a great weal stretching right across it. Her body was firm and supple—the breasts bulged as though resenting imprisonment behind the thin dress. Mr. Kilkey noticed all these things as he watched her lay the table. One would have thought these two persons were father and daughter. They were so dissimilar. Mr. Kilkey was ugly. His large bald head could not boast a single hair. His skin looked dirty, and it had a sort of shine about it. As one member of the family had remarked, Joseph Kilkey’s skin looked like wet leather. To the deficiencies of a begrudging Nature Mr. Joseph Kilkey had added a philosophic contentment. People might say he was ugly—even pock-marked—unsuited for such a young woman as Maureen Fury, but this never affected Mr. Kilkey, who was wont, like a true philosopher, to observe Mr. Joseph Kilkey from the inside rather than the outside. At this moment life was very full for him. It was exciting, adventurous, glorious, and beautiful. They had been married now over two years. He had thoroughly settled down. A child had come. But there was that little discordant note, that ripple in the calm waters of content. He wasn’t quite sure of his wife. He had hoped that the child would weld them closer together. He had learned very quickly that he must weld himself to the child. The woman still stood outside, hesitating, not quite sure, as it were, whether she could go on or not. So it appeared to Mr. Kilkey. He was a decent man, hard-working, honest, and like a good Catholic he attended his duties. His pleasures were simple, sometimes too simple for his wife, who was wont on occasions to rail against his meanness. Moderation in all things was Mr. Kilkey’s motto, and he had observed, too, that only those pleasures and interests which could be afforded were real pleasures.

  ‘You look really swell to-night, Maureen,’ said Joseph Kilkey. ‘Lovely!’

  ‘Do I?’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ observed the man. There was something lovely and graceful about even the way in which she swept crumbs from the table. He liked to see her moving about. Maureen reposing quietly in the chair was not half so attractive as the Maureen who now laid the supper. ‘Come along,’ she said. ‘I’m going to the first Mass in the morning.’ She signalled to him by rattling the cup on the saucer. Mr. Kilkey joined her at the table. As soon as he sat down he began: ‘Hasn’t that boy pulled out, Maureen? And what a length. He pleases me no end—he’s lost that sly look he used to have. Seems more honest and frank, more sure about himself. But he doesn’t like me yet. Not as much as I’d like him to, anyhow. He doesn’t like my face, maybe.’ Mr. Kilkey laughed heartily, whereon the woman said angrily,

  ‘Fool! You old fool! What ideas you get into your head.’

  ‘Nothing happened, I hope?’ he commented warily. ‘Everything go off all right?’

  ‘Lots has happened,’ replied the woman. ‘You’ll soon see where your generous spirit has landed you. You damned fool! And I’m a bigger one for ever being a party to it.’

  From that moment the meal ceased. Mr. Kilkey didn’t want any supper. Maureen went on, ‘D’you know that confounded woman in Banfield Road is pressing Mother?’

  ‘Well! Tell us more about it. Don’t sit there with a long face. Dear! Dear!’ He suddenly leaned over the table, caught her by the hair, and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Maureen, dear, don’t let us get excited about anything. I had a job to get the child asleep as it was. Now, please talk quietly. What is all this about your mother being pressed?’

  ‘It means that if we don’t watch out they’ll distrain on us. God! The fool I was! But you were the bigger one. I always said you were—I know for sure now. Why didn’t you stop me from going?’

  ‘Stop you! How could I stop you, Maureen? Surely you’re not going to use that argument against me? I couldn’t have stopped you, even if I had wanted. For two reasons: you are like your mother—nothing will stop you; and even more important, I’m not the kind of person who would refuse to help your mother. I know what responsibility I took on when I signed the note. There will be some way out. Isn’t there some compensation money due to Anthony?’ he asked. He looked worried. He hadn’t expected this.

  ‘Yes! There is! But whether she has got it or not I don’t know. Mother’s like that. She wouldn’t say. Now, listen to me. We’ve got to do two things. We’ve got to get that note altered, or something. We must find some way out. And if we do, we must leave Price Street. Understand? I want to get right out of this neighbourhood altogether. Begin a new life. I’m tired of it. And if you don’t know it, you’re blind, and not only blind, but a bigger fool than I thought you were.’

  ‘Now you’re backing,’ said Mr. Kilkey. It was not often Joseph Kilkey raised his voice, but he raised it now. ‘You’re backing out. You ought to be ashamed. To hear you talk, you’d think your mother was a monster. Maureen, be sensible. Try and be decent. The excuse you all have is that this mother of yours is so terrible, so monstrous, that the only way you can live is by running away from her, as far as you can get. Nonsense! You owe a deal of respect to her. You all do. But, mean, selfish, conceited crew that you are, you haven’t even enough generosity to put in a thimble. Of course I helped your mother. I’ll help her again, if needs be. Why shouldn’t I? She is a decent woman.’

  ‘Now we’re having that all over again. All right! You do that, and I go out to work right away. I can go back to my jute factory to-morrow. Joe, be sensible, be sensible. We have our own lives to live. Don’t you see?’

  She threw her arms round his neck. She kissed him passionately. ‘Yes, you are ugly, darling, but I love you—yes, I do love you. But all the same, you must be sensible. A note came this morning from that woman Ragner.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I burnt it,’ she replied. ‘There now—the child is awake.’

  She rushed to the cradle, picked up the child, and rocked it in her arms.

  ‘Let’s go to bed, Maureen,’ said Mr. Kilkey, ‘we’ll talk about this to-morrow.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it now, or not at all,’ replied Mrs. Kilkey. ‘You don’t know what you have let yourself in for.’

  She laid the child in the cradle, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, one hand resting on her hip.

  ‘Think of something.’

  This sudden turn of events left Mr. Joseph Kilkey quite speechless. It wasn’t so much the news itself—that was startling enough—it was the thought that this woman had just come from Confession.

  ‘Maureen,’ he said, ‘haven’t you just come from the chapel?’

  He looked down at the child in the cradle, as though he were addressing it, and not his wife.

  ‘What has that to do with it?’ replied Maureen.

  ‘A lot,’ he replied. ‘How can you go to the altar in that state of mind? Besides, what you are now asking me to do is quite impossible. I can’t let your mother down now. You are asking me to break a promise I made. How contrary you are! Wasn’t it you who first took your mother to that woman? Wasn’t it you who first asked me if I would go surety? Didn’t you realize that what I did enabled your mother to pay the college authorities in Ireland? Moreover, I didn’t do it without a certain amount of misgiving. I mean, I thought, and still do think, that the fees they charged were far, far too high.’

  ‘So you’re beginning to see daylight, then,’ said Maureen, ‘What have we got to do with that? We ought to keep clear of that sort of thing. We must move from this street.’

  ‘That’s not answering my question, Maureen. Maybe I should have put my foot down at once. But I didn’t. I was sorry about your mother, and, of course, I have quite regular work. Come to think of it, this can’t go on for ever, can it? I mean, the loan your mother had will be paid back some time. But I’m not going to shuffle out of a thing like that. I couldn’t, anyhow.’

  Maureen went livid with rage.

  ‘It means you won’t—you don’t want to. I’m not t
hought about in the matter. Joe, are you crazy? Can’t you go and do something?’

  Joseph Kilkey laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can do something. I can go to bed. I’ve something better to do than to sit up listening to you. I have work to go to. Understand this: I can’t get out of that affair. I’m bound to stand by what I’ve done until that loan is paid. It’s no use having any regrets. You asked me, and I did it. Why did you burn the note?’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know. I just burnt it, that’s all. Oh, leave me alone. You irritate me. You get on my nerves with your soft heart, and your content, and your patience. You bore me—you drive me crazy just looking at you. You don’t care about anything. You’re content to sit here day after day and do nothing.’

  ‘What more can I do?’ asked Mr. Kilkey. ‘It would suit you much better if you sat down and thought over things coolly, instead of frittering away your time thinking of what you wanted to do, and what you might have done. I know just how you feel. At heart you don’t really like me. But you aren’t so horrid about it as your mother. You want to be off. To be doing things. You ought to settle down. You have a child—a home—and a husband: if you don’t settle down soon there’ll be something happening that you won’t like.’

  Joseph Kilkey went up to his wife, and put his arms round her.

  ‘Oh, you leave me alone,’ she shouted, pushing him off. ‘Leave me alone. Why I married you, heaven knows.’

  Joseph Kilkey burst out laughing.

  ‘You don’t know why, Maureen? You’re less honest than I thought. You married me because you were glad to get me, didn’t you? That’s why, and you know it. But you’re not contented. All your family are the same. I have a certain respect for the woman who brought up that family—but there’s a limit to that. You all want the impossible. That’s the curse of it. All want the impossible. What has been denied you? Only what has been denied to thousands of people. But a good many of these people have sense. They make the best of things. Get this silly idea out of your head that you’re different from anybody else. You’re not. And it only makes you restless, conceited. It gives people swelled head. Keep in mind that we’re just ordinary folk—ordinary, but sane—and we’ll get on a lot better. Look at me. I can …’