The Furys (7 page)

They were talking about the coming strike. Well, he had better go home now. How could a father talk to his son in the midst of such a crowd of agitated people? He hadn't seen Sheila either. He would have liked to have seen her. He rather liked her. By God! Desmond knew what was what. Mr Fury slowly retraced his steps home. A door a few yards from the house suddenly opened, and a woman came out and stood on the step. She cast a suspicious glance at Mr Fury and went in again. The door slammed. ‘What a bloody street!' exclaimed the man under his breath. ‘One can't move an inch without being watched.' He suddenly changed his direction and went back up the street. He would go home the back way. He would get there quick enough. She would still be there, of course. Probably sitting by the fire opposite her old father. What a pair. He went in by the back entrance. Mrs Fury was not there. He called up the stairs. No reply. ‘Must have gone out, after all,' he said, and returned to the kitchen again. He sat down on the sofa and looked at Mr Mangan's chair. ‘H'm!' She'd put ‘him' to bed. Just like his wife to take offence. Like a spoilt child. It was simply amusing. Nearly eight o'clock. Looking up at the mantelshelf he espied a note pinned to the mantel-border. ‘Gone across to Ferris's,' Mr Fury read. What good handwriting it was. Fanny was a good writer. He pulled the pin from the note and threw both into the fire. He sat staring at the empty chair. What a job Fanny had looking after that tailor's dummy. ‘Now she's gone across there to cry her heart out as usual,' thought Mr Fury. It was always the same. Whenever they had a row she always went over to Mrs Ferris's. He sighed. Well! The woman would at least be consoling. Fanny and she were very good friends. Once he asked Mrs Fury her reasons for these periodical flights to the Ferrises' house. She replied: ‘Because she understands me. That is something you can never do.' Now she had gone off again. For sympathy, he supposed. All over a failure. All over Peter. What a waste of money. All for nothing. The continual struggle. Sometimes to the extent of going without themselves. Now he was coming home again. They would hear everything then. Seven years. Seven long years. Mr Fury stretched himself and yawned. He went upstairs to his room. It was pitch-dark. He went and stood by the window, pressing his face against the glass. There was nothing he could see. He felt a sort of security standing in that corner, in the black darkness. There was a noise in the kitchen. She must have returned. He went down there again.

Mrs Fury was standing in the middle of the kitchen removing her coat and hat. Mr Fury said, ‘So you got back, then?'

The woman muttered ‘Aye,' and went into the hall to hang up her things. She came back and sat down on the black horse-hair sofa. After a long silence she exclaimed, ‘I suppose you've had your supper, Denny?' No, he hadn't had his supper. He didn't want any. He felt like going to bed right away, he said. The woman sniggered.

‘Why don't you go, then?' she demanded. Without replying, Mr Fury left the kitchen and went upstairs. Mrs Fury called out after him, ‘And don't make a noise. Dad's in bed.' He lighted a candle and stood it on the table near the bed. He heard Mr Mangan snoring. ‘Snores like a pig,' he said to himself. Below, Mrs Fury cleared the table of crumbs, and swept the kitchen. Then she backed up the fire with wet ash. This fire was never allowed to die out. It was continuously refuelled. Mr Fury undressed and climbed into bed. He lay there staring up at the ceiling for what seemed to him to be an eternity itself. What a long time she was coming up. Brooding over this boy again. He could not settle down. He got out of bed and went below in his drawers. His wife was seated with her back to him in the big chair just vacated by her father. There was something about her attitude that the man did not like. Was it indifference? Was it mere contempt? He went up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. The woman did not move.

‘Come on, Fanny,' he said. ‘Don't sit mopsing there. Best get a wire off tomorrow to your sister and ask her to see the lad on the boat. He'd best get back and get started on something as soon as he can. He'll be at a bit of a loose end now. Bound to feel it pretty badly himself.' (Mr Fury was saying to himself ‘though I doubt it very much'.) ‘Maybe I could get him into the loco sheds.'

‘Loco sheds! Oh, good heavens!'

She put a hand in her blouse and pulled out Anthony's letter. ‘Here,' she said, ‘this came by the last post.' The man took the letter from her and sat down. ‘Where's my glasses?' he asked.

‘Use these.' She pushed a pair of spectacles into his hand. Then she got up from the chair, pushed it back against the wall, and exclaimed:

‘I'm going to bed.' Mr Fury did not reply. He was too occupied with the letter from Anthony. Not until he had finished reading it and had put it back in the envelope did he realize that he was alone in the kitchen. He rose to his feet. ‘I'll be hanged,' he muttered. ‘Fanny's a caution, sticks this in my hand and clears off.' He pulled out the jockey-bar and fender, saw to the locking of the doors, then went upstairs. He came down immediately, swearing loudly. He had forgotten the gas. He turned it out, then went upstairs again. His wife was already in bed. He climbed into bed and put out the light. There was something ominous about the silence that followed this action. Mr Fury lay waiting. It was inevitable. What use him trying to sleep? At that moment he struck a match to see if the alarm-clock was set for half-past four. He drew it nearer to the bed. Then he lay back again. He must say something. Get it over. Must have some sleep. Had to be out at half-five. He was conscious of Mrs Fury's violent movements in the bed. Nerves, he thought. The woman suddenly turned her face to the wall.

‘I'm so glad to hear Anthony's all right.' he began. ‘I was rather worried about him.' Mrs Fury made no reply. Another long silence. Mr Fury turned on his side and stretched out an arm.

‘Look here, Fanny,' he said. ‘You've got to show a better face than that. I know it's a disappointment. I'm sorry about what happened today. It's hard, I know. It's rotten, disappointing, but best to forget about it. As things are, I should think he'll be better off working and living at home than sitting in a college half his life.' He paused, for Mrs Fury had turned round in the bed. Now he could see the large brown eyes. The blinds had not been let down, and the moonlight came streaming into the room. She turned again and lay on her back. He marvelled at her wealth of hair. Jet black yet, and she nearly sixty years of age. The outline of her features fascinated him, he could not take his eyes from her face.

‘There you are,' she said suddenly. ‘What a mean, begrudging spirit you have. Desmond was just the same. Maureen was not much better. Fine children! Wonderful!' She placed her hands behind her head. Mr Fury protested. He couldn't see anything wrong with them. After all, they were working for their living. They were at least independent. That itself was a great thing. She ought to realize it. The woman said, ‘Good Lord!'

‘Yes,' Mr Fury went on, raising his voice. ‘You were talking about Desmond tonight. Damn it all. There's nothing wrong with that fellow. He is honest and upright. A good son. His only fault in your eyes was that he married too soon.' He saw her smile. ‘His nightly glass,' she thought to herself. ‘He'll get quite expansive just now.' She looked at him, and a kind of inward glow suffused her. Ah! All the things he didn't know! All the hidden things. She could feel them welling up in her, bursting to be free. But she held fast. One day she would have her say. Then she would reveal everything. What a story it would be. He wouldn't know where he was standing. He'd simply be swept off his feet. ‘Poor Denny. Poor Denny,' she kept saying to herself. He knows nothing. A pity. But there you are. Peter was a history in himself. And what did her husband know of the boy, or of any of his children? Nothing. What had he known of John? Nothing. How could he know them, she asked herself, when half his lifetime was spent at sea? Only in the last two years had he seemed to realize that he was the father of a grown-up family. Too late, she thought. They were strangers to him. A man nearly sixty years of age, she wouldn't say old. No. Denny was far from being old. He was just well on in years. She would let him talk on. He would close up after a while. One day her turn would come too. She lowered her head.

‘That's all,' Mr Fury broke in. ‘Desmond married too soon for you. What about the others? I've nothing against them.' The woman sat up.

‘What?' Why, he didn't even know them. He was talking through his hat. ‘You don't know them like I do, Denny. I doubt if you ever will.'

‘Ah! You make me sick.' He turned away from her. ‘Did you lock up downstairs?' she asked, after a while. Of course. Did she take him for an absolute dullard? The woman laughed. ‘Well, you are dull, and you know it. If you hadn't been so dull all your life we might never have been in this hole.'

‘Oh Christ! Are you starting on that again?' Mr Fury swore under his breath. This was an old war-horse. How he hated it. The woman was insatiable. Give her a single opening and you were overwhelmed at once. You were caught up in the tidal flow, a flow that carried in its wake regrets, protests, insinuations, hints. Why had he ever mentioned Peter? He was a fool. He looked at her as she lay stretched out in the bed. His mind was torn with conflicting thoughts. He kept fidgeting about the bed. Mrs Fury stirred uneasily at his side. Whatever was wrong with him, moving about like that? How did he expect people to get to sleep? He couldn't hold himself back.

‘I can't sleep,' he exclaimed almost savagely. ‘I can't sleep.' Couldn't sleep. H'm! Well, she should just think he couldn't sleep. Whatever was he thinking about that it made him so restless? He didn't know. But she did. It was his bad conscience. Yes. That was what it was. Then she exclaimed in a loud domineering voice:

‘I should think you wouldn't sleep. How do you think I feel? Do you think I am made of cast-iron? That I can stand every blow without saying something? That I shouldn't lose control sometimes?'

‘You're off again,' The man spoke from beneath the bed-clothes. ‘Yes. And I haven't said what I want to say. I know you, and I'll say it soon enough. I haven't lived with you all these years for nothing. You're the same old Denny Fury. You talk about Peter. What example was he ever set, what encouragement has he ever had from you, or any of your children? None. You showed a mean spirit all along, and the others took the cue from you. You begrudged me the boy. And when I told you today about the wire, about the shock it was to me, you never so much as opened your mouth. You never said, “I'm sorry,” or “It's hard lines.” Not a word. You were secretly elated. You know you were.' Mr Fury sat up in the bed.

‘God! You could go on talking for ever. But
what
are you talking about? That's what I want to know. When I came in this evening I was dead tired. I wasn't in the mood for listening to groans about Peter. The other lad is just as much concern as he is. I'm tired now. But could a man get a decent sleep here? No. I say for the last time, I
am
sorry about Peter. I know it's disappointing after those years of struggle, doing without, hoping, hoping all the time. It can't be helped, Fanny.' There was real sympathy now. He put his hand on her shoulder.

‘It doesn't matter, Denny.' she said. ‘That's all too late. It's over and done with. It's not Peter, it's not so much that he's failed, but it's you …' She had risen in the bed and was facing him. They were so close together they felt each other's breath upon their faces. ‘It's you and your indifference,' went on Mrs Fury. ‘You are the living spit of your eldest son …'

‘Will you give Desmond a rest? Are you going to argue about this the whole night through? I ask you? Isn't there a limit?' She began to cry. She felt weak, defeated. There was something she wanted to say and she could not express it. Each time she opened her mouth the desire was stifled, the power went. She couldn't say it. Once she had been full of courage. She felt that her whole soul had been crushed by Peter. Why had she hidden so many things from her husband? Why, why? she cried in her mind. Why had she allowed herself to be cheated? Why didn't she tell him everything? No! He had been away most of his life. She had spared him. He had only seen the nice part of everything. Fool! She cursed herself. She lay there thinking, thinking. And he had imagined her to be sleeping! If only he had known. If only he could have followed in the wake of her tormented spirit in those past few hours, as it flew, drew wing, and flew again, far out over the wide waters. To hover over Peter. Peter at his desk. Peter at the Mass. Peter at the dinner-table. Peter receiving the news of his failure. But how could Denny think? The man was too wrapped up in himself.

Mr Fury thought, ‘It's like being penned in. Caged. The bitterness in her voice.' His hand fell away from her shoulder. ‘Yes, it had always been like that,' he thought. Nothing but regrets. The past flung in his face like some soiled and faded garment.
His
past. If only he had done this. If only he had done that. Why hadn't he taken her advice years ago? There would never have been any trouble at all. And Peter. Had he been … Well, of course he would have passed through brilliantly. The man felt like a criminal. He was inured to it. This ceaseless round of nagging and regretting. Deep down in his heart he felt that sudden urge to be away again. It was like the sudden re-opening of a wound. Why had he ever left the sea? What did his family care about him? Yes! He ought to go to sea again. At least he would be free. No. His family were grown up now. They forgot him. He was a part of yesterday already. Their eyes already saw far beyond him. They were out of reach. He was only a fragment of the past. He didn't interest them any longer. Their father, of course, but nothing more than that. He closed his eyes. The silence of the room was broken only by the heavy breathing of his wife. She was fast asleep. He sat up and reached for the candle. No use his trying to sleep now. He placed the lighted candle on the table. The light from it fell upon the face of the sleeping woman. He could not help staring into her face. Nor could he conceal a sudden admiration for her as he noted her wonderful head of hair, that fell like two black clouds on either side of the pillow. Nearly the same age as himself, and not a grey hair. A remarkable woman, he thought. Her brow was as smooth as a child's. He wanted to read, but discovered he had left the evening paper in the kitchen. Should he go down for it? Hang it! She might wake up. No. He blew out the light and lay back again. What a day it had been. Suddenly he remembered Anthony's letter. He wanted to read it again. He got out of bed and silently left the room. He went down into the kitchen and lighted the gas. He drew Mr Mangan's big chair to the fire and sat down. He disturbed the slack with the poker and the flames roared. How warm and cheery the kitchen looked. He picked up Anthony's letter from the mantelshelf and sat down.