by James Hanley
She dressed herself and went out. She went straight to the chapel. Father Twomey saw her into the study. Miss Mangan was cautious. She asked the most ordinary questions. Was there any pilgrimage from the parish to Lough Airy this year? The priest shook his head. Why? ‘There are not from the parish,’ he replied. ‘Did you think of going?’ Still unrevealing, she probed further with her enquiries. There was, she had heard, a party going to Lourdes—she believed that very week. ‘Yes, but from Bandon, Brigid! What is all this talk about pilgrimages?’ He laughed. ‘You’ve only just returned from one, my good woman.’
‘What would you say, Father,’ she answered suddenly, ‘if I told you that I was going to take my father to Lourdes?’
‘What, Brigid! Your father! To Lourdes! What ever for, my dear woman?’
Miss Mangan looked offended. Then she smiled. ‘What do people go to Lourdes for, Father? I’m surprised at you, really I am.’
‘Yes, but your father—Brigid, it’s dangerous. I mean—of course, if you——’
‘Father Twomey, it is one of my earnest hopes, my greatest wishes, that, God willing, my father should break his silence. At least, I have this one hope, that he’ll speak to me before he dies. Is that not genuine? Is it a vain hope? Is it cruel or mean? Tell me, Father! You see, I have some faith!’ And before he could make reply, she went on: ‘What does it cost? Very much?’ she looked anxiously at Father Twomey.
‘Well, it’s dear, of course, though cheaper with a party. Again, your father would have to have attention all the way. It would be awkward.’
‘Then I’m going,’ she said. ‘Father, could you arrange to get me two tickets to join the party going from Bandon on Friday?’
The astonished priest replied, ‘I don’t know! I’ll see! Brigid, you continually amaze me. First of all, what you wanted was to have your father home. Now you’ve got him there—and I agree it must have been some job—but here you are off again. Well! Well! Well!’ And Father Twomey brought the flat of his hands down on his knee with a loud, resounding slap. ‘I don’t care what you say, Brigid, you simply amaze me. Ah! It would be nice to see the old man well—to hear him speak—but we must have patience, my child, we mustn’t force God’s hand too much.’
Miss Mangan shut her ears to that remark. She returned home at once. Two days later Father Twomey himself called round with the tickets.
‘Would you care to see him?’ asked Miss Mangan.
‘Not now, Brigid, not now,’ and he went away again.
That very morning a telegram arrived. Miss Mangan was not in the habit of receiving telegrams. Consequently, it was with some surprise that she received this one. She opened it. It was from her sister in Gelton.
‘There is no answer,’ she said to the boy, and, filled with rage, she rushed into the kitchen and rolled the paper into a ball.
‘Such nonsense! Whatever are people coming to, in heaven’s name? Help her—after all that happened!’
She stamped her foot angrily on the floor. ‘She said she never wanted to see me again, and in the next breath she begs my help. The woman is simply impossible! Simply impossible!’ She frowned. ‘To think of it! What—what——’
On the eighteenth she left the Mall once more—this time with her father, and this time not Gelton, but Lourdes.
CHAPTER XVIII
‘Why, my dear Fanny, I do believe you intended to pass me by. How are you? It’s ages since I saw you.’ Miss Pettigrew deliberately blocked the woman’s path. ‘How are you?’ She held out her hand.
‘Do I look all right?’ asked Mrs. Fury, straightening up and crossing her hands as she pressed them against her coat. The two women had met in St. Sebastian Place.
‘You look well,’ said the old woman. ‘But, then, you always do,’ said Miss Pettigrew, and her chin wagged as she talked. She had just emerged from the chapel vestry.
‘Well, then,’ replied Mrs. Fury drily, ‘and you? I suppose I oughtn’t to ask you such a question. You’re like a tree, Biddy, you keep on growing without seeming to look any older.’
‘How’s Denny?’ asked the old woman. Her small ferret-like eyes twinkled brightly as she looked up at the tall woman. She really believed the woman had tried to dodge her. But whatever for? Such nonsense! Such carryings on!
‘He’s well.’
‘And the boys?’
‘Both well, thank you. Anthony is going away again next week-end.’
‘Fanny, what a long time he’s been at home this trip.’
‘Yes, he wasn’t very well. He’s not really right yet, you know. He oughtn’t to be working at all by rights, but, there you are, one must work and keep on working. Still, it grieves me to see him struggling about on those poor feet.’
‘Yes, yes! Work! That’s the great cure for anything,’ said Miss Pettigrew. ‘I thank God I’m alive and well, and able to do my little bit in the shop, though Molly comes in a lot these days. Tell me, Fanny, what news of your father?’
‘Oh, Father! I haven’t heard from Brigid except I got a wire she was leaving Cork with Father. Taking him to Lourdes. Surprised me!’
‘Surprised you, Fanny! Lourdes! Your father! At his age! In his condition! You astonish me, woman. You simply astonish me. What on earth has taken hold of Brigid at all? Some bee in her bonnet, I’ll be bound.’
‘Maybe! But to tell you the truth, I can’t be bothered with half I hear. One hears so many lies. Surely you heard from Brigid yourself, Miss Pettigrew?’
‘Me! Not at all! Brigid and I didn’t part very good friends, I can assure you. We did used to write to each other now and again, but just lately it was always Molly did the writing, don’t you see now? Well, well!’ She felt her bonnet; satisfied it was still on, she went on with her conversation.
‘I must be off,’ said Mrs. Fury. ‘So glad to have seen you.’
‘Fanny, why did you try to dodge me? Tell me? It’s not like you to do it.’
‘Dodge you! I honestly never saw you, Biddy,’ replied Mrs. Fury.
‘Come on out of that,’ said Miss Pettigrew. ‘Just isn’t correct to say, my good woman, that lately you’re dodging everybody. I’m not the only one who notices it, and you haven’t been inside this chapel for weeks and weeks and weeks. What’s come over you at all? Turning your back on your friends, people you’ve known all your life. Only last Sunday, as I was coming out of the chapel, the priest stopped me; says he, “Biddy, my dear woman, do you see anything of Fanny Fury these days?” and what could I say but no, since Father Moynihan isn’t the man to be dodging. Fanny, my good child, what is the matter with you at all? You used to be so bright and cheery, coming to the meetings, the monthly Communion, and the daily Mass. What’s wrong? Yet you look so well in yourself. Maybe it’s me eyes deceiving me. I can’t see like I did when I was a girl. Listen, won’t you come along and have a cup of tea with me? It’s so nice to see you again after all this long time. Do come, my good woman. A chat will cheer you up.’
‘But I am cheered up. Besides, I couldn’t come now, Biddy, thank you all the same. Really, I have always something to do. You ought to know that.’
‘You always say that. That’s what makes me so vexed with you at times. Well, can’t you let the something to do go to pop for the next half-hour? Fanny, girl, you simply must get out of that habit of arguing that there’s always something to do! And, truth, what have you got to do? You’ve a son out working, and your man away, and the old man gone home.’
‘Damn this woman!’ thought Mrs. Fury. ‘Why did I come this way, anyhow? I ought to have known. But I can’t stay here like this.—Some other time, Biddy, but simply not now. Good-bye, now!’ She patted the old woman’s hands, and rushed off down the street. She turned round and waved her hand at Miss Pettigrew, and then was gone. The old woman shook her head, and disconsolately went on home to her breakfast.
‘You could have knocked me down with a feather,’ she kept repeating to herself as she drew nearer to the little general shop. ‘Yes, you could have
knocked me down with a feather. What a fine family that was once! And she herself always looked so grand. How the times alter! How things change! Dear me!’
Mrs. Fury hurried back to Hatfields, Anthony let her in. She had been out since half-past seven. Where, only she herself knew.
‘Hello, Mother,’ he said. He pottered about, putting things on the table. Mrs. Fury went into the parlour. She did not remove her outdoor clothes. She heard Anthony call to her:
‘I’ve made some breakfast, Mother, a bit of toast.’
She never answered, remaining standing by the window, looking out upon all that was visible of Hatfields from it. Then Anthony came in.
‘Come on, Mother, for the Lord’s sake! You haven’t had a bite since you got up.’
She followed him into the kitchen, and sat down. Anthony’s concern grew. Why didn’t she take her coat and hat off?
‘Come on, Mother,’ he said. ‘Take your things off. Nothing’s happened. Nobody’s been here. I’m sure everything’ll come all right.’ He poured out the tea. ‘Here,’ he said. She sipped at the tea.
‘Toast?’ Anthony said. She took a piece, and bit a mouthful of it.
‘Anthony, this is what came of marrying an impossible man like your father. We’re always poor. Noses to the bloody grindstone. I’m sick of it. And I haven’t heard a word since the ship left Vigo. At least, you’ll be better able to understand why I have always rowed with him. The man has no guts, and never had.’ She jumped up from the table and hurried out to the yard. A lump came into Anthony’s throat. He heard her vomiting at the bottom of the yard.
‘Mother, are you all right now? Do come in now.’
‘I’m all right,’ she said, and came up the yard. Her face was ashen. ‘Go in and finish your breakfast,’ she said. They stood looking at each other in the back kitchen.
‘Oh! If only you’d told us, Mother. If only you’d told one of us. Why did you do it? We still love you, Mother. At least, I do.’ He put his arm round her. They went into the parlour. ‘Sit down, you’ll be ill if you go on like this, Mother. Honestly you will.’
‘Anthony!’ She looked up at him. He was standing over her now, looking down at her straw hat and asking himself how many thousands of times he had seen that hat on that same head.
‘Yes, Mother!’
‘Don’t you want to go out? Do go out. Please don’t sit here! It’s not fair! Get your coat on and trot off somewhere. Go and see the Postlethwaites.’
‘I don’t want to go out,’ he said stubbornly. ‘And as soon as I’ve gone you’ll start crying about it.’
‘I want you to go. Please, Anthony. Leave me alone, I just want to be quiet for a while. Please do! Listen! I suppose you haven’t a copper for a cigarette?’ She put her hand in her capacious pocket, and took out four pennies. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Get yourself some cigarettes. Don’t I know you want them. Well, you’ve been good in that way. You’ve never asked for much, I must say. Many a time I’ve wished I could give you decent pocket-money. Yes, many a time, and see you happy and content. Oh, I understand, though you might think I don’t. It is hard on you children. There’s not much for you, and I know you’ve heard little in this house but grumbling over money. Yet I always think of fifteen years ago. When you were small. You were all small then, and you were all round my heels, and I was happy, though your father was off tramping his way across America. Oh, listen to me! That’s all I do, talk, talk, talk! Go off with you now, and have a walk, or go and see George. You might see him at the stable.’
She waved him out of the room, not once looking at him all the time she talked, for her eyes were rested on the old red plush-covered arm-chair in which her husband had used to sit on the light summer evenings, and which nobody sat in now. The Fury household lived mostly between kitchen and back kitchen, upstairs was an entirely different world. It had never changed. The rooms and the wallpaper were the same. There was still that hole in the wall in Peter’s room, and the bookshelf containing his few books now lay unused on the floor. Patience and perseverance had given out. The wall simply would not hold a bookshelf. However, there was the compensation of not seeing it with the eye, for it was well hidden behind the plywood-backed dressing-table, and again it was summer, and nothing to remind one it was there at all, that gaping hole that four representations to the landlord had failed to rectify. Nothing but a large brown stain. The furniture was the same. Nothing had changed. Nothing, so it seemed, would ever change.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go out! But I won’t be long. Supposing this woman comes while I am not here. I’ll be round at Price Street. I’m going to see Maureen. Mean devil! She’s never been near the place once since I’ve been here. I think it’s bloody disgusting.’
‘Maureen!—Oh! yes, of course,’ the woman replied.
As soon as he had gone, she got up and went to her room. She went into every room in the house. She sat in each, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, not a thought in her head, as though she were sharing the bareness, the bleak deserted atmosphere of the room. Why should she continue any longer? Yes. Why? Why not clear out? Go and live alone! In rooms. The Family! God! What had she ever got out of it?
‘Well, what?’ She spoke aloud. ‘Well, what?’ From Anthony’s room to Peter’s, and then back to her own. Disgraced. Disgraced.
‘To the devil with it! Let her do as she likes. Take the place, the furniture, the food—take everything. Let her take it and swallow it. Let her take everything. God! I won’t! I simply won’t try any more. I’ve held the home together a long, long time. And now I refuse. Yes. I refuse. Let them all go to hell. To hell. What have I had out of everywhere?’
Laughing, she went downstairs. She felt that sudden urge, now that she was entirely alone—she was filled with that frenzied longing to laugh, to shout, to explode. To blow up, to vanish, to see the whole place explode, to see everything in it vanish in the air. All the days spent there, all the pleasurable and unpleasurable times, all the life it once held. So she began to laugh. She sat on the edge of the table. In those few moments every happening in her life seemed to pass before her in review.
‘I hung on—hung on—one after another they went! And he with them. Where is he now? Standing by me—where is he? Smoking his pipe, no doubt—a thousand miles away!’ Did she deserve this? Who had reared a family. Upbraid her for her foolishness—yes—but even then, did she deserve it? Hadn’t she tried? Or hadn’t she? Had she been merely pretending to herself all the while? Was the continuous struggle to keep going just something that had happened in a dream? And the calm surface. Yes! The calm surface. Had that been fake too? ‘I might have done different. I might have starved them and put clothes on my own back. I might have let them go in rags and enjoyed myself. Oh! what’s the use of thinking of it any more?’
What was the use of thinking of anything? Why had this woman turned so spiteful all of a sudden?
‘Well, I suppose she has even a right to be that. That’s what she could do! Let her come—and that devil with her. Let her take every stick, every stone! I won’t!’ She struck her fist on the table. ‘I won’t do any more! They’ve every one of them turned against me. Every one. And they’ve laughed at me! Poor Father! How glad I am now he’s gone! For though he couldn’t speak he could see. And what would he have seen? ‘She covered her face with her hands. She began walking towards the door, as though some sudden thought had prompted the action—then she flopped down into the chair. She was like a rat in a trap. Everything—the kitchen became humanized—the old things, the familiar things, the sacred things, they all laughed and jeered at her. They laughed at her efforts and resolves, courage and silence, they laughed at her misery. ‘And she has left that man.’
What next would she hear? Was she cursed or what? ‘Or am I mad? Sometimes I think I really am.’ She thought, ‘The talk of the whole street.’ She would never hold up her head again. Never! And to be caught, right on the chapel step, so to speak, to be caught out by that sly, inquisitive
, chattering old woman. Wherever she went, eyes would follow her about. When Anthony was gone, she would go off into a room. Yes, she would tell Peter too. He could go. Do as he liked. Nobody respected her any longer. Decency was really dirt. Why had she been fooling herself? No more family! No more. She had had quite enough! The thoughts came in flood. She felt hot, then cold; she felt sick, tired. Finally she fell asleep where she sat, her hat and coat still on, and the mouth, partly open as she slept, seemed to hold in it a light, mocking smile. The fire burned low. Time dragged on. No knocks. A stony silence.
Anthony Fury received no answer at Price Street. The woman next door informed him, the while she scrupulously examined his person from head to heel, that there was nobody in, but Dermod was with her and now fast asleep. Mr. Kilkey? Why, Mr. Kilkey was at his work, where every man worth his salt should be, and she looked Anthony up and down with the greatest curiosity. ‘You’ll find him on board the Tesnie, I have no doubt, or maybe having his dinner in the shed.’ And that was that.
‘Thanks,’ Anthony said, and started off towards the docks. ‘I wonder where Maureen can be? She can’t think much of Dermod, leaving him alone so much. Oh, I wish my bloody ship was in.’ As he went along, he hummed to himself,’ Hurry, Ship! Hurry, Ship!’ Round the corner straight down the King’s Road. Past Mr. Quickle’s shop—yes, and he had better hurry past it quickly, looking the opposite way, too, for the temptation to put his nose against the window and look at that magnificent Italian piano-accordion was exceedingly great. Forty-one guineas. He’d be an old man before he had that much. He did, however, give one shy, furtive glance at the instrument in the window. Then he hurried on. It was getting near twelve.
‘Somehow I feel Joe will turn up trumps in the end. But hang it all, what on earth has Aunt Brigid gone off to Lourdes for? Shows she has money, though! The mean, sly old cow. That’s what she is. A mean old cow. And after all the times Mother has put her up, and the times she was ill. By Christ! She knew who to send for then. Well, please God,’ and he got a thrill of satisfaction from this latter thought, ‘well, please God she’ll be ill again some time, and she’ll send a frantic wire for Mother, the only sister she has—and Mother’ll struggle to pay her own fare, as usual. Ah! But I’ll see she doesn’t go. I hope that when Aunt Brigid dies she hasn’t a single friend at her bedside.’