Our Time Is Gone (43 page)

Mr. Doogle vanished.

Mr. Slye made to embrace Maureen again. ‘Maury, me chucks. What's the matter, love? Come to me arms, ducks.'

‘Leave me alone, will you,' she shouted into his face. ‘Leave me alone.'

Maureen Kilkey had, in fact, peeped through the wooden palings that bordered the down line at Blacksea station. She watched the train go, and somehow she watched half her life go with it. If only Joseph Kilkey had been more persuasive, if indeed he had only been his old ‘soft' self—but he hadn't. No! It was too late to be ‘soft,' and too late to be good.

Standing in that winter street was standing between two worlds. Her instincts grappled with stubbornness. She was and could be stubborn. But only Joseph Kilkey had so taught her. It was this continual ‘softness,' this complete absence of any normal form of belligerency in his nature, this calm acceptance of everything, this philosophy of ‘come and go.' It was this from which Maureen's stubbornness had grown, and though she had run away and cried, she knew he would never change. If only he had struck her. But he hadn't. And her stubbornness won, it was against her reasoning, it was against the future. It carried everything before it, and it turned her feet towards Brick Row. She went back to Mr. Slye.

All his endearments, all his pleadings, flatteries and embraces were a whiff of the low-mindedness that he carried in him and which revealed itself at the most extraordinary moments. They had no effect upon Mrs. Kilkey. But if only he had struck her, beat her, and so broken his own softness. But he hadn't. Never would. Ugliness was nothing, the eye could wander to other horizons beyond physical ugliness. But allied to ‘softness'? No! She couldn't. Wouldn't.

She wanted to go back with him, with Dermond to Gelton. But she couldn't. She carried Slye's blood too. And when, deaf to her entreaties and tears, he had insisted that what she wanted was a bloody good ‘do ‘just to smash her mood ‘her bloody contrary, sulky moods,' she had struck him on the mouth with her open hand.

‘Come, Maury, we're only beginning to be happy. You'll get over this. Thinking of the fellow who called here. Your grandfather?' and Mr. Slye's hands went into the air, and his frown registered disgust. ‘Your grandfather, me chucks. When the kid comes you'll be all wrapped up in him, you see.'

But at the moment her nature was numb. Her nature was untouchable. She had closed up. All the entrances were blocked as though by ice.

He looked her up and down. ‘Not worrying about your ma? How'd you like to go to Gelton and see your ma? But she'll be all right. These old cocks get over everything.'

She did not answer him. Standing with one hand gripping the mantelshelf, she saw him reflected in the mirror. Dick. Richard. Mr. Slye Esquire. In this moment she liked him like that. And twice he tried to force her to turn round, but it was useless. It irritated, angered him. Was he to be beaten just like this. Not he! He'd had too many women. He had beaten them all, one after the other.

‘Turn round, bitch! Look at me.' He forced her round, held her tight and, laughing in her face, exclaimed:

‘Gosh, chucks, you're getting fat. Don't get
too
fat, will you?' he said. He didn't like women too fat. A good figure certainly. But not too fat. ‘Go and lie down, Maury,' he said. With that he left her and went out of the room.

This outburst
was
upsetting. Well, he would go up to the attic and see Mr. Doogle. Mr. Doogle was the very man to talk to. It was rather awkward, of course. Here they were, all set with their plans for Monday, and now, because that mug had come and taken the kid, she had suddenly had this mood. Wasn't fair. Wasn't reasonable. When she loved him, and he her, then there should be no moods, nothing. Just everything sailing along grand.

‘I believe Doogle's right. Give them too good a time and it goes to their heads.'

Now he felt sorry he had sent Mr. Doogle back to his attic. Should have sent her out. Cure her mood. Let her sit in the bloody toilet and weep there. She
did
seem to enjoy weeping in closets. And Mr. Slye thought of the train and the nightmare journey, and the child calling him ‘da.' That had been the limit. Still,
he
was gone. Damned good thing! And soon she'd be glad. His kid would be along before you could say ‘Hello.'

These thoughts swam about in Mr. Slye's mind, swam like stray swans on an enormous lake as he climbed the stairs to Mr. Doogle's room. For a second or so he had remained standing outside his own room, listening, and he had heard a strange noise. That could only be the bed. Nothing else in the world but that bloody bed could make a noise like it. She had flung herself on the bed most likely. Hearing her cry, he thought. ‘Do her good.' Nothing like a bloody good cry. No, sir! Wash all the nonsense out of her. And, by God, he'd be as cool as a cucumber for the rest of this day. Wouldn't even kiss him! No. Hang her. Let her wallow in her lovely bloody mood.

‘You there. Doogle?' he bawled through the door. ‘You there?'

‘Yes! What's up?' asked Mr. Doogle, opening the door. ‘You look as though somebody has hit you.'

Mr. Slye went in. ‘I've changed my mind about Maury,' he said. ‘She's coming in on this. She's in a bloody mood at present. Work will do her good. Good for her, good for the kid, good for me, good for you. She is, in fact,
us
, Mr. Doogle. Isn't it?'

‘Now you're talking!' said Doogle. ‘It's what you call her
background
, Slye, boy; that's the cause of her bloody airs and nonsense. You got to get them to
do
things. Make her a gilt-edged security, Slye, boy. Not a moody bitch who's going to upset our livelihood. She may fly away, even die. But we have to earn our living. Mind you, I warned you at the beginning. Give her something to do. Make the bed the incidental, not always the last hope.'

‘You're a crafty, clever bastard, spite of the fact that you've no education to speak of.'

‘And when you're about to discuss business,' said Mr. Doogle, with a most surprising rudeness, ‘you might close the blasted door after you!' and after saying this he swung the door violently, and its loud bang carried reverberations all over Brick Row for some seconds. ‘Now we can discuss the round for Monday.'

Maureen lay on the bed and cried. She could get up now, walk out into the street, go home to Joe and Dermod. She could go home to her mother. She had brothers; she could go to them. She could even go to Father Moynihan and he would help her. They would
all
help her. She felt she would like to write to ‘poor Peter,' or ‘poor dad,' but the wish was stronger than the effort. She could get up and go away for ever from Blacksea. But she knew she never would.

She loved Dick. Sometimes she wondered why. She didn't know. It was something quite unfathomable. Its very unfathomableness made her laugh. It was funny. Funny how you could wish with one side of your will and defeat it with the other. Funny that you should love madly a man like Slye Esquire, and yet be incapable of understanding why. Was it something mercurial in Dick? Something you couldn't see—couldn't touch? Something that might even die if you touched it? Slye fascinated. Slye loved her. Slye could drag her anywhere. A man whose whole nature would to-morrow revolt her—yesterday carry her to dizzy heights of love—of fawning, and crawling. And she thought of these things and went on crying.

It was a tangle. If only one could love everybody. It would be wonderful. But Dick at the moment might be God, though to the Gelton police he was a mere rat and to Joseph Kilkey a fat worm from Hell. Dick was her life, though Mr. Doogle thought he had a swelled head, and wasn't much to shout about when you took intelligence into account. Maureen would never for a moment have believed that Slye Esquire was the scum of Gelton, though many would say that one scum attracts another scum. And Maureen, making her first communion, would in her young mind have envisaged this personage as nothing more or less than the evil devil from whom she was well rid when the white hand of Father Richard Moynihan had touched her brown hair, had placed the Host upon her simple tongue.

No! she loved Dermod, and there was something about Joe that she liked. But she loved Dick. She loved Slye Esquire. She even loved ‘poor Peter,' ‘poor dad,' ‘poor Anthony ‘; but somehow it was all negatived by Richard Slye. She would like to go back, but she knew she would never go back. She would like to see her mother again, and they would both hate it. No! She had moved one way and moving had broken the others. And she cried herself to sleep.

Mr. Slye came in and went out again. Mr. Slye returned accompanied by Mr. Doogle, carrying large packets of prints of the Sacred Heart. And Mr. Doogle said, looking down at the upturned face: ‘Slye Esquire, you know how to pick them. She's a beauty. Every time I look at Long-legs, it makes me feel I ought to have got married myself, fact!'

‘Maury looks sweet. Bloody sweet lying there,' replied Slye Esquire, and then he pulled at Mr. Doogle's arm. ‘Still, we have to do business. Leave those things outside. And another thing, Doogle, never get too personal with me. I mean when Maury's about. Understand what I mean? I'm not just a sod out of an alley bedding a bitch because I like nothing else. You know, Doogle, once or twice, though you mightn't remember, I've heard you say one or two things to me that made me want to give you a slap on your mousy face. Fact. Give your mouth a little white tail and nobody'd know the difference. However, that to one side. We want another four hundred prints out of that attic. Now go and get them,' he concluded.

And when he had gone: ‘I'm not going to let him run me. By God no! Nor am I going to have him think for a moment that I don't love my Maury, anyway. By God, no!' He went over to the bed and looked down at her. ‘And I do, don't I, ducks? Aye! Don't I love my Maury-Aury? Aye, chucks.'

Maureen heard quite distinctly but gave not the slightest move. She listened with closed eyes, motionless body. It sounded to her like the jitterings of a drunken man. She hardly moved or blinked when he kissed her. Then he shot away from the bed as the door opened and Mr. Doogle came back. He felt like a cheap sneak thief, bending down to kiss his own Maury.

‘Got them?' asked Slye Esquire, and darted a furious look at his partner. He adopted an aggressive attitude. Mr. Doogle was quite surprised by the sudden change in Slye Esquire. ‘And none of your sly hints?' said Mr. Slye. ‘We're not all in love with each other, but in business. Now just run through the names of those streets. And you, Maury, me ducks. Come on—you too. Come and learn your job for Monday.'

‘Don't get your shirt out, Slye Esquire,' said Doogle. ‘Think Long-legs is crying over you. Forget it. It's her ma? I know. Isn't that right, Long-legs? Crying after your ma?'Course you are. You're only a kid after all. Why shouldn't you cry after your ma? Slye Esquire thinks he's a fine feller, but he doesn't know nothing about women.'

Having said this he got up, picked up his street lists and made for the door. ‘Looks to me,' he said, ‘as though you two preferred your own company. Well, I'm not in love, but in business,' and with that Mr. Doogle went out.

‘Come, me chucks,' said Slye Esquire. ‘Doogle's right. Bit a'love won't do any harm.'

CHAPTER VII

I

The whistle shrieked, and the train roared into the tunnel. Here and there pin-heads of light peered out upon the onrushing train. Smoke came into the corridors. The first-class dining-car of the Gelton express was occupied by two people. Captain and Mrs. Fury. So far they had the whole place to themselves, but at lunch-time the place would be crowded.

Captain Fury jammed down the window. ‘Tunnel,' he said. Later he said: ‘This is the longest tunnel on the route.' Sitting opposite her in the darkness he watched her eyes. The light came back gradually. ‘Getting clear now,' he said.

Then they were out. He still watched her. She had concentrated on the window ever since they had left Gelton. There she was, still looking out. Well, probably she enjoyed train journeys. They rather bored him. They had hardly spoken to each other since the train left. And Sheila had cried a little. This quite mystified Captain Fury. Why should she—what was there to cry over? Well,
he
wouldn't cry. Not he! Glad to be out of that ‘stink hole' of a city. And this train
was
going to London. That was the great thing, that every minute he sat there, watching her, they were leaving Gelton further and further behind.

He pulled out his cigarette case. ‘Have a cigarette?' he said.

She hardly glanced at him. ‘Not now, darling; you smoke,' she replied.

‘Like a chocolate?'

‘No.'

‘Well, you will have something to eat later?' he said.

This time she looked at him. ‘Yes, perhaps I'll have some lunch, Des,' she said. ‘The country's lovely.'

It didn't look like it to him. Earth rolling past with monotonous regularity, telegraph poles whizzing by. And quite bare fields. Rather dull to him. ‘It's nice in the summer, I'm sure,' he remarked, as he lit his cigarette.

‘It's quiet, peaceful.' She remained looking out of the window.

In a way he wished she wouldn't. He would rather talk. Talk of the future. ‘You look sad, Sheila! What's the matter,
really
?' and he leaned towards her.

‘Nothing. I'm not sad.' She looked at him and then laughed. ‘
Do
I look sad?'

‘Well, you
were
crying, weren't you?' He spoke it as though it were an accusation.

‘Was I? Oh, yes. I did a bit. But I'm not now, Des. Am I?' She laughed again.

‘I wish you were as glad to get out of Gelton as I am. That's a fact. I could never get on in it. It was a lousy place. Come, Sheila. Buck up, let's be happy about it. You ought to be proud of me in a way. I'll never be ashamed of saying how I pushed up out of nothing. No, you don't know how glad I am to get out of the stinking place. Come and sit here.'