Winter Song (14 page)

Desmond was silent. He looked from one to the other, the tall, dignified figure of the Mother Superior, the short, stocky figure of the doctor, the features as rosy and shining as a winter apple. The Mother Superior looked at the doctor. ‘I knew where he got his strength,' and answered a question he could not force himself to answer.

‘You are coming again,' the doctor said.

Desmond said, ‘yes', without thinking.

‘That is very wise. Don't build up any hopes,' the doctor turned, ‘we had better go in.' Over his shoulder he called ‘Good-day,' in reply to the other's ‘good-afternoon'. The door closed. For some minutes Desmond stood there, unable to move. He stared stupidly ahead of him.

‘I never expected that—
never
, never.

He walked away as though in a dream—he found himself walking across the garden and when he came to the chapel he stood outside. He heard the choir, the high notes of boys' voices. ‘I'd better wait. I must see her now.'

He ventured a little further. He could see through the doorway the altar, the priest, he had a sudden vision of himself kneeling two steps below that figure, and suddenly the stream of words was surging in his head—

Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis, ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram, totiusque ecclesiae suae sanctae
.

‘Fancy that coming into my head, after all these years.'

He saw her then walking towards him, tall, lean, erect, ‘How straight she is, how tall,' and she saw him waiting. He did not speak as she came up to him, and he quickly caught her hand: ‘Mother, I must speak to you. I
must
to-day.'

Chapter 4

She was gentle, but firm. She looked at the woman who had been following her. She knew that she was being followed. It distressed her. It was like being followed by a dog. Near the kitchen door she turned round.

‘What is it you want, Mrs Fury?'

‘I want to see my husband.'

‘Your husband is asleep.'

‘You said that this morning,' the voice was accusing, resentful.

‘You will leave your husband alone. You talk too much. You didn't go to bed at all last evening, you just sat on his bed talking to him. It's wearying for him. Don't you
want
him to get better?'

She saw tears come into the woman's eyes. ‘It's best that you don't see him to-day, my dear. In the morning. He wants to be quiet.'

‘Ah—I was only talking about the old days,' she said, ‘and where's the harm in that?' Her voice broke, she looked appealingly at the Mother Superior, who stood there with folded arms. She was determined not to give in.

‘All them days I spent by myself, and now he's here, beside me, and I can't see him.'

‘If I had decided to do what the doctor originally suggested, your husband would have gone to hospital, and there you would not have been allowed to see him at all.'

‘But he wants me, I know he wants me. I can feel him wanting me. All last night I could feel him there, waiting.'

‘I said you cannot see him to-day. To-morrow, yes. Now, please go to your room like a good child.'

And, like a reproved child, the old woman turned and walked away.

‘A moment,' the Mother Superior hurried after her. ‘Your friend comes to-day.'

‘What friend?'

‘Why, your Mr Kilkey,' she replied.

‘I want to see my husband,' Mrs Fury said—it had all started again.

The nun walked away and left her standing there.

‘It's mean, it's mean,' she thought, as she went back to her room.

She sat there, she felt numb, helpless. ‘I can't help it. I can't.'

She looked up at the clock. She realized that they would be busy in the kitchen. She went out, she stole silently down the corridor, and at the door of his room, she stopped, her hand shook as she turned the handle, she pushed open the door. She saw him, she looked at him for some time.

‘So quiet, he seems hardly to be …,' she could hold back no longer. She went in and stood over him.

‘Denny, darling,' she said.

He did not hear, and he did not care. He was far away in an autumn sea. She bent down, held his hand, she kissed him. then she hurried out, thinking ‘He's all right. He's still there. Oh, but why can't I sit with him, why can't I?'

Coming out through the door, she realized she was caught. There was Sister Angelica standing beside her.

‘You know you mustn't do that, mother,' the nun said, ‘you promised.'

‘But can't I just sit with him?' She suddenly clutched at the hem of the nun's gown, ‘I won't say anything, not a single word. I'll be quiet. I just want to sit there and look at him—my own husband, alive.'

‘Please go to your room Mrs Fury; come along, I'll take you back to your room. I'll bring your lunch directly.'

‘I don't want any lunch, thank you.'

‘Nevertheless,' said the now smiling nun, ‘I shall bring it,' and went away.

‘I won't stay here. We'll go. Yes, Denny and me—we'll go. I'll tell him in the morning. I don't care where we go, we'll go. Him and me—together. They can't do anything to us then. All them months I waited not knowing and now I can't sit with him. I can't even sit quiet by him, who was close to me all the living days of his life.' She got up. Her sudden resolution sent her pacing the room, it made her impatient, irritable. She wanted to go into that other room, now, this very moment, dress her husband.

‘We'll pack our few things and get out. We'll be alone together, and nobody can separate us.'

She remembered the Mother Superior's words, and now they frightened her.

‘If I had done what the doctor suggested, he would have gone to hospital.' The thought justified her resolution. She sat down again, but already things were on the move, she could see herself packing, see them going out through the iron gate, into the big city, near to the sea, free, he and she together, held—after the long separation.

‘Yes, we'll go. They've been good to us here, I know, and I'm not ungrateful, but we'll go. Joe Kilkey will help me, I know he will—there's a faithful man if ever there was one. Better than any of the crew I brought up in this world.'

It thrilled her to think about it. She smiled, she went to the window and looked out.

‘In the morning, we'll go, out there, free. I've been here too long already.'

They brought her lunch which she left untouched, she couldn't eat it. There was an ache inside her—she stared fascinatedly at the clock.

‘He comes at two o'clock, till four. I'll do it. I'll tell him. He'll help, he won't refuse. To-morrow we'll be together—nothing can come between us—once it was the sea—now it's them—to-morrow, in the bright morning.'

She laughed. Somebody had come in but she had not noticed who.

‘You haven't eaten your lunch.'

She looked up. There was Sister Monica.

‘No. I didn't want any.'

‘Aren't you hungry to-day, mother?'

‘I'm happy to-day,' the woman said—she suddenly pointed towards the window.

‘The fine curls on them waves to-day,' she said, ‘the beautiful curls on the waves.'

‘What has made you so happy, mother?' She felt the nun's arm on her shoulder.

‘I don't know. I'm just happy.'

‘But you must eat.'

‘I don't want anything, thank you,' she stood by the window, still smiling, her eyes following the swell of the river, the tugs, the ships at anchor, the barges. She felt the nun go from her. Later, she heard the tray picked up and knew the Sister was going off with it. She did not move, but said quietly, as she heard the opening of the door——

‘I'm happy to-day, looking out through a window.'

Her mind sang: ‘We're going away—we're going away.'

She sat down, she wrote a letter to her son, Peter, and as she dipped her pen in the ink, she thought fiercely, ‘Now I've finished waiting. That's what it was, all this long time, waiting for something. I'm not ill, I'm not old. We'll go—oh yes, we'll go,' her mind went on singing, she could hardly contain herself.

My dear Son
,

I often think of you shut away there in that northern coldness, and I ask myself why, and I know now that I've been a foolish woman. I should never have sent you to that college, for you never wanted to. And all the things I did, all the struggles I had to keep you there were nothing in the end. Your brother, Desmond, was right. He came the other day, we talked, I knew he was right, but I wouldn't let him ever see that I thought I was wrong. I wonder what you must have thought when Father Moynihan sent you that letter, your old father back, near to me at last, who never was, God help him, for all his days were spent in far seas, working, and pinching and saving for a golden day. Ah, if you could have seen that battered old creature who they brought to me that fine morning, and said he was my husband. And, as you'll see one day yourself, that sea struck him a mighty blow before it finished with him. Tell me, Son, how are you? But how silly, why you just pine away up there and the heart's warmth gone out of you. You were a foolish lad to have struck that creature, I forget her name, a repulsive woman indeed, oh, the pollution you can see when you're driven, and that awful man Corkran, who used to run her messages, why he's a big undertaker here now, and doing well for himself, so they say. But enough of that
.

Peter, we're going away
—
away from here
—
soon, oh, very soon, but where I don't know yet, 'cept that your dear father and me are going. But we shall see you. You'll see your father at last, but you may not know him, no, you may not know him, like a child and the crown of his manhood torn off him. I cried bitter when I saw him. I thought of all the silly things I did. Drove away the only daughter I ever had, and God alone knows where she is now
—
pollution again
—
it's there when you're driven, it always is. Look at you, fooling with your brother's wife
—
who I've never met to this day, but who I suppose is happy with him in her kind of way
.

Peter, my dear Son, tell me your little bits of news
—
tell me what you're thinking, day in and day out, lost in all that silence and hardness
—
and the ice of the place. That Cornelius Delaney, a good man, is still trying hard to get you out of it, and one day he may succeed. I pray for that. D'you know, a most terrible thing happened inside me that day the boy came and told me your father was drowned along with three hundred other men in the ocean
—
something stiffened inside me
—
it may have been the walking, I walked many miles that day, seeing nothing and hearing nothing and wanting nothing 'cept the news that my husband was saved. It may have been my own thoughts was frozen up in me. I went into the Church of the Redeemer an' I knelt me there
—
all alone save for another old creature like myself. And I couldn't pray. I couldn't move, stiffened there, staring at the Holy Altar. It frightened me
—
my lips, I couldn't part my lips to speak a living word that day. That's gone
—
that's away where it should be. I'm home again in the warmth of God. I'm happy this morning, happy writing to you, though I know your own self sits there in a desert. Oh, Peter, why did it happen? All that effort, all the high hopes, all the beliefs in you, in you all, that turned and ran from me like I was one with the plague
.

She paused, biting on the pen.

I can look out through this big window, and it's wonderful. I can see people hurrying along there, all the ships, and the great cries of horns, which many a time told me when to light the little red lamp, for your father would be coming home, docking there, and waving to me from the high deck
—
them days were nice
.

She saw him then, she could feel his hand—he was very close to her. The pen, the hand, stopped suddenly in the air.

I suppose it was just a dream really, thinking how one day we'll be together, so close. I thought how you three boys would be married and bringing your children to see me, and us all having high tea at Hatfields. Your father says I dream too much. Perhaps so, but I loved dreaming the things into flesh all the same. I never wanted the moon, never
—
the way your father would laugh when my fine efforts came to dust. Oh, Christ, why should you be there and me here, and many a mile of hard stone between us?

I've just peeped in, I often do
—
I've grown so jealous now and so much afraid. I think to myself, ‘why in the morning he may be gone', so I keep peeping in, and there he is, your father, back again with me, at long last. These women are kind here, and I know they understand much, but not all. They kept me away from your father last night because I was sat at his bed, talking, and it was nothing 'cept about the old times, but they took him away, so now when nobody's about, I creep along and peep through the door. I say to myself, ‘he's still there'. That first day I couldn't speak, nor could he much
—
we'd no tongues in our heads at all, we just touched each other and looked at each other, and that was fine
.

Her thoughts began to wander, the pen ran everywhere.

As I was saying, Desmond is getting on, though I wished I could like the
way
he's getting on. Oh, by the way, I'm sending you a little photograph of Anthony's boy, my second grandson
—
a pretty child. Think of it, him married, who never seemed built that way and now in two years only he'll be out of his Service and a free man again. I expect he'll go back to Dublin and stay there
.

I waited and waited and no letter came from you. I do hope you're not ill and I hope you'll try to be of good heart. I pray for the strength that your father and I will be able to make that journey to see you before we go off. It's a strange thing, but I feel this morning as though I had just wakened up out of a long sleep or something, for I looked out of the window, and there was everything before me like I was seeing all the things for the first time, the boats and the people hurrying along the streets. It made me excited, your father here, alive, I'm the lucky woman, God knows, many a man dragged down to the bottom. He was telling me only yesterday about the boy he'd with him, a little whipper by the name of Kilty Lenahan, the poor child, but a boy, swimming about with your father, and your father holding on to him, and holding on, he was thinking of me all that time he told me, all the hours swimming
—
it warmed me right through to think how a desperate man could hold on to my name in a mad sea
—
that child along with him who never came back. Ah, the sea made me shudder many a night, many a long morning, and I'm glad your father's out of it, it's marked him for life, but what's that against a little boy floating on his back and lost for ever?