Our Time Is Gone (30 page)

Suddenly Mr. Fury looked at his wife, and exclaimed: ‘It's a caution. He's the twentieth person I know now who has never heard of Hey's Alley. Fanny, woman, if you wanted
really
to get lost, you couldn't.'

‘I hope it's a nice house, mother, and in a better neighbourhood. I never did like Hatfields. I was sorry to hear about Miss Pettigrew, I must say. D'you remember dad getting one over the eight and falling all over her shop, and he said she was bound to go to hell and wear a raincoat there and suck jujubes for ever and ever!'

Mr. Fury burst out laughing. ‘I'll be damned, Did I say that about her, woman?'

And Mrs. Fury laughed. ‘Poor Miss Pettigrew. Poor old Miss Pettigrew. Go on.'

‘Another person I get letters from occasionally is Father Moynihan. You know, mother, you'd smile if you saw the things he writes about you. He once said you should have been the Consul's wife at Brussels, whatever that may mean. But I've got so far and haven't mentioned the ship. It's a big ship—a
huge
ship, and bristling with guns. We carry twelve hundred all told. And we never know where we're going from one day to another.

‘Well, mother, I hope everything's all right with you, and that you won't be too downhearted over Peter. He's alive anyhow, and that's the main thing, isn't it? I hope you get my pay all right—though I'm sure it's making a big difference now. In some ways I'm sorry I transferred. My old pay was much better, but on the other hand if I hadn't joined this ship I wouldn't have discovered that I had a bent for Mathematics. Funny the things war's done, isn't it? Now I must bring this letter to a close. Give my love to dad and all at home, and accept the same from your affectionate son,

‘A
NTHONY
.'

‘Now, woman, surely to the Lord you're not going to cry? God spare me days, why, you ought to be laughing! It's a fine letter, Fanny. Makes you proud of him.'

‘I'm not crying,' she said, though tears were rolling down her face, ‘I'm not.'

‘Well, I'll be—but you
are
. Now, woman! Ah well. I understand. What a lad! Best of the bloody——'

‘Denny!'

‘Oh,
all
right. I'm sorry, Fanny. It comes out so natural I never know I'm using the word. All the same that letter has made me happy, woman, and I hope it has you. It's worth having a family to read a letter like that. And we used to laugh and joke and call him the soft slob of the family. By God, that's the true saying that you live to learn. Now if they'd all been like Anthony? How happy everything'd be?'

‘Fix the pillow,' she said. ‘I want to lie down now. Oh. Denny, I do be thinking of this awful war. Will it last long?' She laughed. ‘Fancy Andrew a sergeant. There'll be no holding Mrs. Postlethwaite now,' and she laughed again.

Then she lay back and felt tired as though this letter had been a weight that pressed her. Anthony! From Anthony. And she had
never
expected it. Well! Well! Heaven, if they were all like him! But that was asking for the moon.

Her husband spread out the sheet of paper on his knee. He was reading it to himself. ‘This came two days ago, woman,' he said. ‘I stuck it on the mantelpiece and forgot all about it. Just think of that?' and he folded it up, put it back in the envelope, saying: ‘Would you like to have it in the locker, here, Fanny?'

‘No! Put it under the pillow, Denny. Bring your chair nearer, man.'

What on earth was the matter with him. He seemed almost afraid of her.

‘Last night I was thinking how hard it is that you should be having to go away still. It worries me—I sometimes wish——'

‘Nothing! Nothing, missus, except to shut your talk about what you wish. The times for wishing are gone. You made mistakes, Fanny. You thought too much of your children, and I thought too little of them. I say, hang them. That's what I say. We got to stick together now. I am not an old man yet, thank God. You see, woman, our time'll come.' He leaned over, spoke softly in her ear.

‘You know, woman, I often say to myself that if a man did his best all through his life, and got nothing more than a happorth of crumbs out of it then he could start refusing to believe that anything was any good. Fanny, it suits me nicely to think of you, not lying on your back like you are now, but like you were ten years ago, twenty years ago. That's good enough for me. Sometimes I think we weren't made for each other, and then God spare me days I'm thinking right round the other way. That we are. It's tough for you lying there, woman, with nothing to do but think, but all the same we had some good days, Fanny. Not the best I might have given you. Not by a long chalk. But we'll have more of them, woman, you see!'

‘I've done some bad things too,' she said, and now having said this, and those words off her tongue, she felt she had climbed a sort of bridge.

‘Rubbish! Them children—you know they make me smile. Every one of them said the same thing. About what they were going to do! And when I laughed about it, you were angry, Fanny. Now wasn't their cottage in Ireland built in the air? That's all. But you wait. Just you wait, woman.'

‘There's the nurse watching. Oh, Denny, you'll have to go! God, I hate you going. Couldn't you slip in in the morning. Oh, Denny, if only we two could go off out of it now——'

‘There! There! The nurse told me you were getting better. You won't get back your health like that! Don't worry about me!
You
think of Mount Mellery. Now I have to go. I've even overstayed my time.'

He got up from the chair, but she held his hand in a vice-like grip, and somehow he never wanted to let go. He wanted to hang on to her just like this. He had hung on, wanted to hang on like this, far too little. But he must go. Yes. He must go. The clock ticked, and the nurse was coming slowly up the ward. He bent over and held his wife's head between his two hands.

‘Good-bye, woman. Good-bye, Fanny, and don't be fretting out of you. I'll be all right and home as soon as I can get, please God! Now good-bye, Fanny, and take care of yourself. I'll write you when I can, though in these times you can't promise much. I'll think of you
all
the time. Sure, God knows I hate going with you like this. But there! Blast it, woman, I'll be crying myself,' then he kissed her and forced his hand away. ‘Good-bye, God bless you,' he said, and he turned away.

‘Denny! Oh, Denny!' but he did not hear a sound, nothing except the hoot of a ship's siren, that in some way seemed to be calling him and hurrying forward his steps.

‘He's gone,' she said. ‘Denny, he's gone,' and she sat up in the bed. Looked round the ward.

‘Yes, he's gone,' the nurse said. ‘They
all
have to go one time or another. Now you lie back and in a few minutes you'll get your supper. And please don't cry now.'

But she did cry, she did draw the sheet to cover her face and her thoughts flew after Denny, and she wanted to rise and go after him. About eight they gave her a sleeping draught, for her restlessness made them cautious. But this restlessness came even in sleep. Towards morning she slept peacefully.

She woke with the first streaks of light coming into the ward. She woke and the world was empty. He had gone. In those first waking moments she had said: No! No! but now she opened her eyes, and sat up. Others were being dressed, others were breakfasting; one hummed a tune, one laughed at pictures in a paper. Some talked to each other across the space between the beds. But
he
had gone.

It should never have been. It wasn't fair. Forty-seven years of it. Too long. Too much. It was no life. She had hardly seen him. Didn't know him. She had reared his children, and now she was here—and everybody was gone.

No! It wasn't fair.
She
had made the mistakes. Stuffed children's heads. Dreamed too much. But he had worked. Sailed, come home, sailed. No complaints, no suggestions.

‘No nothing,' she said. ‘No nothing.'

They were gone, yet she loved them all.
All
of them. He had saved for their rainy day. She had taken it all, squandered it.
Wasted
it. She had tried to do what was right, but the heart did all the wrong things. Dreams crippled, the tongue was a danger in the mouth.

A nurse came with her breakfast, which she only half ate. She didn't want it.

‘Did a Mr. Desmond Fury call here, nurse?' she asked. ‘My husband said he would come. He's my son. My eldest son. I wondered. Could you find out, nurse?'

The nurse shook her head. Nobody of that name had called.

‘Mr. Fury, her husband, called last evening.'

The woman nodded. ‘Yes. My husband, he came last night. He has gone now. Gone away to sea.'

‘Oh! Drink up this milk, please. And you must eat. Here eat this, Mrs. Fury.'

Food choked. The milk choked. So he hadn't come. Said he would, but hadn't. ‘I can't be sorry,' she said to herself. ‘I can't be surprised. I'll pay every drop for that boy. For my own son, Peter. Oh God, this son! This Peter.'

‘Come now, you must drink this milk. I'm not leaving this bed till you do.'

‘Yes, nurse, all right, nurse. Do I look—oh——' The milk choked again.

The nurse went away.

He had gone, who should never have gone. Worked too long. Too hard. It was not fair. Not fair. She lay back. Eating that bit of breakfast had been an effort. A sister came in with a morning paper.

‘Is this your son?' she asked, opening the paper and laying it across the bed.

‘Desmond!' Yes. It must be. It must be! Yes—no! She looked up. ‘Yes,' she said.

They left her with the paper. She looked at the photographs. In uniform. She didn't know that. What could it mean? In the army? Desmond in the army?

A passing nurse offered her spectacles out of the locker. Beyond these, the locker was empty. The black bag, Denny's ‘bag of madness ‘had gone. An officer. Good heavens! Desmond an officer. She didn't believe it. How—where was this? Speaking at Dane's Hall. Leaving for Plymouth—organizing the dock labourers into battalions. Desmond, and he was coming to see her. And he hadn't come. Said he was. Told Denny he would. But he had never come. Under the sheet she laughed to herself, cried, laughed again. She didn't believe it. Denny had actually seen him. The paper lay crumpled up on the bed.

In this state of laughing and sobbing, a nurse came. A letter for her. She struggled up again. A typewritten letter. From Mr. Trears. She began to read.

The sister came, took away the paper, unnoticed. ‘From Mr. Trears,' she said.

He was sorry to say that his efforts had so far been ineffectual. The authorities did not consider it opportune, nor possible for her to see her son as yet. Etc. etc. etc. But he, Mr. Trears, advised her not to worry about it. He would go on trying. He
did
think that she would see her son soon, one had to badger and badger the authorities, etc. etc. etc.

Couldn't see her son. Peter! Not yet. He said he'd come. Desmond said he would. He told Denny that. Promised, but he hadn't come. Denny had sailed away. The world was empty again.

A burst of laughter, a sudden burst like a bomb broke somewhere at the top end of the ward. A young woman in a high screechy voice shouted about the ‘
Cardinal,
' a vacuum cleaner made a low humming sound through the ward. Figures in white flitted here and there, passed those who slept, but woke with their passing and they seemed like wraiths. A trolly rattled outside the ward, somebody went past singing in a soft voice. The warmth from the pipes slowly rose, climbed and spread about the vast ward. And Mrs. Fury, listening to it all, thought how unfair it was that Denny should have to go. But into the middle of this empty world stepped Father Richard Moynihan.

‘Father! Oh, Father Moynihan! How are you? I am
so
glad, so glad. I—look—I've just had a letter from my son.'

‘Indeed! Now isn't that grand. And how are you, Fanny? You look better.'

He did not sit down. In fact, he had only come for a word or two. He would of course come in to see her in the ordinary way to-morrow. He was glad to see she was getting better. But he had to go in exactly
two
minutes. He was, in fact, on a very important visit to a young woman in Ward C. He stood leaning over the bed, hands pressed flat against his thighs, and he asked and answered questions. Denny had sailed this morning. Yes. Yes. How long had he been in Ireland? Oh, over a year. Yes. He did see Mr. Kilkey from time to time. Everything was going on in the same old way.

Her grave face looked out at him. ‘The same old way, Father?' she asked. ‘Same old way?'

Laughing, he said yes. But Miss Pettigrew had passed on. No doubt she knew. No, he had never heard from her sister in Ireland, and he couldn't say what had happened to the old man.

‘That was sad,' was all she said.

No! He hadn't changed. Didn't look a day older. He smiled down at her. Again he said how glad he was that she was getting better. Please God that she'd soon be out.

And then a nurse came and took him away. He was wanted at once in Ward C. She watched him go. She was glad he had gone. She was glad he had come to see her like that. No! She wished he hadn't come to see her.

You believed in your family, you had faith in your children, and you hoped one would be a priest. To be a priest was a kind of goodness. But he had never become a priest, and it had all been waste. The debts goodness paid were far heavier than those of downright badness. You hoped. And then they turned on you. All because you liked faith and a cleanness in children whom you believed in. In the end you were covered with all the splashes of filth, of shame and disgrace, that their swishing feet flung up. They ran out of it—you hid. But you couldn't hide. They found you out. They knocked you down in the end. The feet splashes covered you no less. He had come and gone. She was glad! She didn't want any more touch with those ‘old things go on just the same.' Maybe! But she had enough of that. Quite enough. And she didn't want to be drawn back into those ‘old things.'