The Secret Journey (64 page)

‘Won't you let me write Aunt Brigid?' he pleaded.

‘It's no use writing,' she replied. ‘Anthony, you're tired out. Please go to bed.'

‘Then if a letter won't do, I'll send her a telegram. She won't refuse me. I know it. Cheer up, Mother! We're not dead yet, and you've seen worse things before now. Even Father'd be a help if he were here,' he concluded.

‘Oh no, he wouldn't! Don't you have illusions about your father. He's not worrying.'

Anthony was silent. Well, what could he say to that? ‘I've told her a lie to-night, but at least it's better than telling her the truth. Damn, I never came across such a mean sod in my life as Desmond. He has altered. No mistake. He has a damned good job and he must have some money. No! I'll never like him again. Never! He's just like bloody stone. Solid bloody stone.' And he thought of the meeting—the first meeting for four years. Yes, he could even see him laughing, hear him say, ‘What! Are you another of them? That's two ambassadors in a month. I must be getting very important. Anthony, I wouldn't help Mother if I had it. D'you know why? I'll tell you. It's quite simple. She doesn't understand what money is or what it is for. If I was able—I say if I was able—well, and I forked out the bit I'm trying to save for a rainy day, what'd happen? She'd spend half of it on you and on Peter. She'd rush round to Kilkey's with this and that, and the object for which she got the money would come last. This Ragner woman is clever enough to show Mother what a fool she really is, living in dreamland. Thinking only of how nice everything'll be when we're all together again. A jolly happy family. Bosh! I advise you, as I advised Maureen years ago, and as I advised that other devil only a year ago, get clear of Hatfields, and stay clear. If Mother likes to hang on there, that's her affair; you take my advice, and when your ship arrives get on it and get away. When there isn't a soul in the place except herself, perhaps she'll be happy.'

And that was that! ‘An unfeeling brute,' Anthony thought.

And how was Anthony these days? So sorry about his accident, but he'd heard Mother had got compo. H'm! where'd that gone? The woman must eat money, aye, and what about him? Hadn't he his own troubles to think about? Lately, he had been thinking of a number of things. For one thing, this wife of his was leading him a dance. He was a mug, a bloody mug, couldn't see his own nose. Well, hadn't he that to think about, and his job, and the rights of the workers, and now he was expected to hear a tale—a tale that was thirty years old. Oh! older than that, since before he was born.

‘The bloody world's slumped all wrong. I hear those tales every day, and some of them are more than thirty years old, some are hundreds of years old. Tell Mother I'm awfully sorry. I wish I
could
do something to help.'

Yes, and only a few weeks back Maureen had come to him crying her eyes out. But what had all this to do with him? He couldn't help it, it wasn't his fault.

‘Well, after all, it hadn't, still—good Christ, it's Mother, and he's my brother. He might have tried, anyhow, blast him. No, I couldn't have told Mother that, she'd have died. God, he's mean as sin.' He couldn't tell. He could hear her breathing in the dead silence of the room.

‘It's a nuisance, and after all that crazy rush to the other end of the town,' he said.

‘Go to bed, Anthony,' she said. ‘You're actually falling asleep. Do go, there's a child.'

‘Hang it, I'm not going to bed,' he said angrily. ‘I'm sitting here. Won't you do as I say, ask Aunt Brigid? You've never asked her for a single thing in your whole life. I'm absolutely certain she'd help, Mother. Oh well, perhaps you want to go to bed yourself. Good-night.' And he got up and went out.

‘Tell Peter to get off to bed too,' said Mrs. Fury. ‘I don't know what cause he has to sit moping in the kitchen. Get your suppers both of you, and get to bed.'

‘All right, Mother,' he called back from the bottom of the stairs.

Peter was still sitting in the kitchen. It was getting late, the fire had gone low. He looked up as his brother entered the kitchen, but immediately fell into contemplation again. Anthony remained silent, passing in and out of the back kitchen, first with two cups, then a teapot, and finally two rounds of bread, which he began to toast. He knelt down on the mat in front of the fire. Peter looked at him, at his rust-coloured hair, his red face, his big eyes, the heavy mouth, and then at the hand that held the fork. What a huge hand Anthony had, a man's hand. His own were soft, white, though here and there they were already discoloured, and there were segs upon the palms.

‘Aren't you sorry you came home, Anny?' he said.

‘I don't know,' replied Anthony. He took the toast from the fork, and reaching over put it on the table and picked up another piece. He never looked at Peter at all. Head and hand seemed concentrated upon but one thing, the second round of toast.

‘I think you are, though,' Peter said. ‘You are sorry.'

‘What if I am? Who belongs less to the house than me, who's hardly been in it since I left school? Why shouldn't I be sorry? It's not only being sorry, either. It's my job. I have to work, haven't I? Earn money like everybody else. Besides, I couldn't work ashore. And I am happy. You're quite right. But that's only because I've never been anywhere else.'

‘A job isn't everything, anyway,' replied Peter. ‘Look out, you're burning that. I was sorry when I came home, just as I was sorry when I came back from Ireland. I'm not now. I'm glad. I'm beginning to learn. Really beginning to learn.'

‘Really! Fancy that! You are a clever chap,' said Anthony, laughing.

‘Don't act the bloody goat. I tell you that now I am glad I'm home. I can see what I've never seen before. I can understand how Mother lives. Yes, you can grin away, and I don't get my shirt out about that. Yes, I went off the deep end all right. But you heard about that. From the first day I saw Desmond's wife my whole life changed. The house became prison, I couldn't sit in it a minute. I was never in, I was always there. Always.'

‘With Sheila, you mean?'

‘Yes, with Sheila. I never felt happier. Never. Everything changed for me. All was bright colours. Yes, I was happy. I was mad enough to want her to run away with me.'

‘Why didn't she?'

‘I don't know,' replied Peter. ‘Oh! I did worse than that! And now I find it's all a bloody cod. A bloody cod. She was only playing the fool with me.'

‘Well, there you are. She's got Desmond on the string too. She's a real tartar. Did she ever tell you about herself? She's a lovely-looking woman, isn't she?'

‘Yes and no,' replied Peter. ‘But that doesn't matter a hang. She's a dirty, rotten cheat. And all the while I was doing this on the sly, Mother knew nothing. Yes, and all the time I was revelling in my happiness I was blind to one thing—Mother's struggle to keep the home over our heads. She paid money for my education, and she made a fool of me instead. I must have been going round with my eyes shut. I was a rotten coward, really, sheltering behind what this woman offered me. I've learned a lot of things. I've changed my mind entirely. For one thing, I don't believe in our religion any longer.'

Anthony Fury let fall the toast he was buttering.

‘Peter!' he said. ‘Peter!'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake,' went on Peter, ‘don't look surprised at me. I tell you it's all bunk. What we should ask ourselves is why we live in Hatfields and others live in Gelton Park. It's not Mother's fault she's poor, nor Dad's; it's nobody's fault in Hatfields, anyway. We live next to a stinking bone yard, and we'll go on living next to a stinking bone yard. Look at Mother now. Sat on. Sat on. And you, with all your goody-goody stuff, would turn your back on her as quick as anybody. Now we're all in the bloody soup. Every one of us. And we can't move an inch. Do I blame Mother? Hell, how can one? Can you blame her, carrying this load on her brain all this time, and hiding it from us—saying nothing? God! I'm proud of my mother. And she's upstairs now alone, miserable, desperate, and we can do nothing.'

‘To hear you talk,' said Anthony, proceeding to partake of his toast and tea with the utmost composure, ‘to hear you talk, one would think we were absolutely broke.'

‘Well, aren't we?' said Peter savagely. ‘Aren't we broke? And think of Dad miles and miles away, knowing nothing. But then he never has. We all think Mother foolish—even hopelessly mad—but she's not. She's quite sane. Yes. Quite sane. She feeds and clothes us. Keeps the roof over us. She's done this for six of us. Her whole life has been spent doing it. Never a complaint. Food always on the table. Go to your duties! That's her cry, Anthony, don't you understand—are you so bloody pigheaded that you can't? Haven't I feelings? Can I help being sad when I know I can't please her that way? I can't do it. In fact, I really think that God, liking us poor and plain, is the best financial investment that was ever invented. Poor Mother! What will she do to-night? Sleep? Not a bit of it. By God! she'll lie awake—she'll rack her brains, rack them and rack them trying to find a way out. That's Mother, you see. Won't be beat, won't be downed. She always held her head up. Always. I'm so miserable, so ashamed, so helpless, not to be able to do anything, that I just feel I want to go outside and be sick.'

‘Ah!' said Anthony, ‘all that bloody rigmarole. I really believe you could have made a good priest. You can spill it off like water. Mother is all right. She's good—we all know that—but it's not common sense to say we as her children have done nothing for her. It was always us doing as she wished. Advice from us was laughed at. She refused to believe we had grown up. Oh, the real trouble is that Mother should never have married—never have left Ireland—and we should never have been born. Anyhow, all this bother gets you nowhere. If anybody calls here to-morrow and wants to seize anything, I'll have something to say about it. Anyway, I'm dead beat. I'm going to bed. Mother wants you to get to bed too. You have to be up early in the morning.'

‘Listen, Anthony,' said Peter, ‘it's no use talking like that. We have to think about now.' He crossed to the table and refilled his cup with tea.

‘Have we?' said Anthony, rising to his feet. ‘Then let's talk about now to-morrow. Good-night,' and he limped out of the kitchen to bed.

Yes. Peter could clothe that delight he had felt—that happiness, that feeling which had so stirred and moved him, those bright colours that had enchanted him, that lovely face that followed him about, that flesh that sent the blood whirring through his brain—he could clothe all that, even that quavering pain he now felt, he could clothe it all with the flesh of reality. He could clothe his youth, his enthusiasm, his yearning, his love of beautiful things, with something that a while ago had seemed far off and of no significance. Now it was very near to him. The mesh of reality was all about. It was fashioned from the life all about him. He could cover his illusions with the life of Hatfields, the daily life of his mother—of all mothers in that street. He had been living on illusions. What he thought was full and living was dead and empty. His innocent hopes, his faith in that woman, mocked him. He could scourge himself for his foolishness.

He was a cheat. He had thought he was running towards happiness—and he was not. He was running away from the miserable life of Hatfields.

‘Yes! I never once thought of Mother, never once—of all she had to do, of her smiles when she thought she was really being sucked down. Poor Mother,' he said. ‘A fool! But she can't help being a fool.' He got up, took the clock from the mantelshelf and wound it. At least there was one, yes, one who might have comforted her, gone round many a time and sat with her. Maureen. Bitter, sour, mean. All because she made a mistake. No! That's wrong. Just mad with herself because she hadn't the bloody brains to see her mistake until it was too late. He locked the doors, hung his coat on the nail on the wall, and went upstairs. He set down the clock.

‘If I went in now I know what she'd be doing. Kneeling! Praying! To St. Anthony maybe. To find her money.' As if money by some mistake would pour through the ceiling! He went to her room door.

Something told him that she was lying awake. He knocked. He heard Anthony snoring. Then his mother said jerkily, ‘Who is there?'

‘Me, Mother. I'm coming in a minute. I haven't a match! I think there's one on your table,' and he entered the dark room. He searched about on the dressing-table for the matches he did not really want, and then said, ‘Oh! Here's one!'

He went across to the bed, and kneeling down, said, ‘Mother! I
am
sorry! Really, really sorry. You have been so good—a brick.' And he placed his hand in hers. It seemed quite cold. ‘Please don't worry, Mother. Please don't worry, there's one decent thing I can do anyway.'

‘Go to bed, Peter,' she said. ‘You'll never get up in the morning. Good-night.'

‘Oh, yes I will,' he said laughingly—thinking, ‘She and not the clock will wake me.' He crossed to the door. ‘Good-night.'

At half-past five o'clock he woke his mother. He had a cup of hot tea in his hand. ‘Drink this tea, Mother!' he said. ‘It's nice and hot. You weren't asleep, only pretending.'

She sat up in the bed. ‘I must have been dreaming,' she said.

Peter lit a candle and placed it on the table by the bed. ‘I set the alarm half an hour earlier,' he said, and sat down whilst she drank the tea. ‘Shall I make Anthony a cup?'

‘No. Don't bother. He sleeps like a log. He'd probably growl if you woke him.' She handed him the cup. ‘That was lovely,' she said. ‘Have you a cold?' she asked. ‘Surely not. Your hand is all shaking.'