An End and a Beginning (11 page)

“D'you remember when I ran away from the college that time, you must remember the day, Aunt Brigid.
Try
. I came to you,
here
. It was in the evening time. It was raining, I remember it well, you were having tea with the priest.” The hand trembled in his own. Her head fell forward.

“I don't know who you are, go away,” she said.

“
Hadn't
you better go?” asked the old woman behind him. “I said she doesn't know.”

The room smelt strongly of camphor, lavender. Peter bent down and kissed the top of her head. “Poor Aunt,” he said.

He got up and picked up his hat. Like a sentinel the old woman waited, her eyes never left him, as though the creature in the chair, even she herself, were no longer alone, no longer safe, as though nothing in this world was safe until he had left the house. The woman followed him out of the room. “She is not unhappy,” the woman said. “She has a roof over her head, a bed to lie in. Many have not.”

Peter stood still in the hall, so moved by this scene that he could not answer her, but he gave her arm the slightest touch.

“It's very disappointing to me,” he said. “I came a long way to see her.”

The old woman reached up to him. He could think only of a child, and it would ask him a question.

“Sir?” He looked down at her, and for the first time he saw that she was really frightened.

“Yes?”

“Are you a gunman, are you one of those men that's the curse of Ireland?” But Peter was only thinking of that other room, the chair, the woman, the work-basket, the smells.

“Poor old woman, so old, so far, far away,” he thought. He gripped the woman's arm, and the words flooded out of him.

“I'm always moving towards them, towards somebody, thinking of them—and then in the end it's nothing. They've all changed—everything's so different—it's like a new time, a new country—I—I'll go to Rath Na to-night.” He talked a language that she did not understand.

With one finger she touched the lapel of the man's coat. She whispered up to him. “If you're not one of those terrible men that's murdering the country, then I'll give you a cup of tea,” she said.

He saw it pathetic, he saw it as a bribe, the child afraid of the dark; this small frightened old woman, companion and guard of another.

“You'd like that?” she asked.

His heart went out to these lost people. “I'd love it,” he said.

“In here, sir,” she said.

He followed her into the kitchen and sat down. He watched her as she set about making him the tea. And whilst the kettle lay on the fire, she, too, sat down, and looked closely at him again, but said nothing.

“Anything I touch breaks,” he said to himself.

She got up and made the brew. She served him, and though he was far from hungry, he could not refuse the tiny buttered scone she had handed him on a plate. She stirred and drank her own tea. The fire blazed, and everything was warmed by it. Later, he heard it all out of an old woman's mouth. For suddenly, whilst she drank her tea, and watched him, she knew she believed in him.

“The likeness is there, I knew from the first, but you cannot talk of things in there, not now, all that is too late, she can't be bothered, and
why
bother? I have heard of you. I know who you are.”

“Who am I?”

“The one your mother talked most about,” said the old woman.

He leaned forward in the chair. He looked at the eyes, so brown, so back in the head, so very questioning.

“Please tell me about it. I do not know your name.”

“It wouldn't matter much if you did, sir. Kate Kerrigan.” And she told him. Listening, he pushed away his cup, his plate, sat back in the chair, looked upwards at the ceiling, heard every word from her shaky lips. She stared straight at the window as she spoke.

“When I was livin' any time was a bright time, especially in the summer's evening when I'd be away down the river, and for hours I just sat under a tree and watched the boys fish. And it was very nice, very nice. And in the mornings I'd be away to the early Mass, and the air so fresh when you were out early, and I'd go out sometimes too in the cool of an evening, and in them times you never looked twice at the man in the road. No, indeed. Lovely days there were, and others knows it, and you could walk upright on the road you trod. I've lived me a long time in this land, and I was always one for staying where I was, not venturing at all really, for I was happy, and what was here suited me well enough and I wanted little more than that. Different days, sir. Different times, indeed, and God save us all, different men. Yes sir, fine, lovely men, and any man of them fit enough to be a king of Ireland. But it all went quickly like the fog goes over the sea, and after that we were very, very afraid, mortal afraid, sir, of any shadow that wasn't our own. Every night of two whole years was a long night, and you knew it well enough when you were close up to it, and there were more shadows walking about then, young man, than there was gnats in the air on a summer's day. The first time I ever come on to a man in a raincoat, and an old cap pulled down over his eyes, and his old back hugging any brick wall that would have him, why then I knew the times was changing, and change they did. Many indeed lived out of the light then, like bats, like rats, and any old wall held a silent man that carried the wrongs of the country under his shirt. But after a while, my dear, they was coming out bold and proper and prancin' in the light of day. Bold and brazen they were, and the dirt of the job hidden away in an old pocket. There was once a man very close to me in Paddy Finch's shop, and he seemed to be waitin' for nothin' at all, an' all the old twisted wrongs of Ireland on his face. But mean indeed against the face that I saw watching me. The poor creature. Why he never bought the tea he came to get that day. I remember it, and the hand that shot out of the pocket then. As bold as brass, as bloody as a slaughter-house. Bad times they were, bad times. And I once was caught on a bridge, and stuck there for four days and nights, because I was caught in between two lots of men that I couldn't pass at all, and missed the Mass that Sunday for the first time in my whole life. I once saw a man put a bullet through the heart of Christ in the dark that was lit up in a frame over a bunch of flowers, because he said the Holy light was a signal to the others. But on the fifth morning they cleared off, and I was able to get back home to your aunt. Ah, she was very, very ill that time. And dreaming out of her at night, and shouting, and crying. But she got better after all, poor creature, though as you may see, sir, there's little she remembers now of the bright times she used to talk about. She may well live to her hundred.” She paused, she looked across at the staring man.

“It doesn't matter,” Peter said, “it doesn't matter now. Please, forget about it, Miss Kerrigan.”

“And it was on a Sunday and I know it well, and two friends of your father's took him off arm in arm for a little walk before Sunday lunch, down to a seat right opposite the ocean. It wasn't far, no, for anywhere you turn your head in this place there's a sea to look at, and many an old bench for them that's minded that way. So off they went, and your mother was to come and join them that way after the eleven o'clock high Mass. Never missed the high Mass, always liked the singing there. And after that she come along to where the old feller was sittin', your father I mean, sir, and he sat down with her, and her old friends had gone off on their business. There was a friend of mine, Jimmy O'Halloran there, too. Sittin' reading his
Independent
he was, and he talked to them for a while. They were living only a few doors from each other at the time. He told me when he come by the house that they were down there, and so silent, he said, so silent, just sitting looking out over the sea. I'm sure they was peaceful there that day.…”

“I don't want to know,” Peter said, half rising, “don't tell me.”

“Have some more tea, my dear,” Miss Kerrigan said.

“I suppose there must have been one mean man in an old coat and the devil's cap, that hadn't been able to pull his gun from a dark pocket. If he put all the wrongs of this land behind the bullets he fired at shadows that morning, and I suppose he must have thought they were the
others
, it was the devil himself that pulled the trigger, and sent bullets flying everywhere, and when your poor mother just slipped off the bench, your father couldn't move an inch, and never a word out of him that morning, never, and never was after that again. Her heart just gave out when she heard the noise of the guns they was firin'. God help us it was terrible, and on such a beautiful mornin'.”

Miss Kerrigan seemed oblivious of the man's presence. Calmly she began stirring her tea. She saw the hands of her visitor gripping the edge of her tablecloth, and she let him be. She had suddenly forgotten what she had told him. She might just as well have been discussing the weather. She sipped her tea, and was very silent.

“More tea, sir?” she said, as though she suddenly realized there was a man before her.

“No—no—no thank you.” Peter Fury was already on his feet.

“If you ever find yourself in these parts again, young man,” said Miss Kerrigan, who, pushing away her cup had also risen, “then do call in and see us, won't you, for we like to see a young face sometimes. And I'll tell your aunt you called, my dear. Maybe the words I speak will have to travel a long way before they reach her, but no matter, I'll tell her all about you, and say you may be comin' again. And now I must be away, and so must you, for I've things to be doin', and maybe you have also. So I'll bid you good-day, young man, and God bless you.”

Peter made no reply. He seemed quite ignorant of her movement, unaware that she had left the table, and was already standing by the door, waiting for him to follow.

He gave no sign, but remained motionless, his head turned upwards. Miss Kerrigan had already begun to clear the table. As she did so she became aware of a strange thing. The corners of her beautiful white tablecloth were now crushed in the biggest pair of hands she had ever seen. She removed the cups, the plates, the pot.

“I'll be away to your aunt now, sir,” she said, and left him, and the crushed cloth, and the silent room. She went out so quietly that it seemed she had passed clean through the door like a wraith. Peter sat on, still holding on to the cloth, still looking upwards, and thought nothing, and felt nothing. He remained motionless. The light from the fire threw his shadow clear upon the opposite wall, but Miss Kerrigan, now joined in her whispered chatter with Miss Mangan, would never have recognised it, who had seen so many shadows in her time.

When she returned to the room it was not to see her visitor, nor to ask him if he would like just another cup of tea before he departed. She had forgotten some knitting left on a chair. The room was empty and the man was gone, the cloth ends piled and rumpled where he had let them fall, and she at once started to straighten it out. She did not miss the man; she had long since forgotten him.

4

The bed was warm, comfortable, he stretched, turned over, huddled himself into a heap, and stretched again. It was like lying in the warmest sea. He had never felt so warm, so utterly comfortable. The whole room oozed warmth. The bright blue table, the shining glass, the red carpet, the fire in the grate. With his hands behind his head, he lay back on the pillows.

“It's only at night that I'm really scared. I wake up, I'm back in that place—I can't get it out of my system. It's the nights I hate.”

The scene in the old house in The Mall was still vivid in his mind.

“My mother's sister,” he said, aloud into the room, “never heard of anybody by the name of Fanny.” He thought, too, of the words that had fallen out of an old woman's mouth.

“I'll go from here to-night, might as well. I'll go to this place, I'll hide up there for a bit. But I won't stay there, I won't stay in this accursed bloody country, and never again will I put a foot in it. And I know now that I won't go to America. I'll do nothing to please anybody, leastways
him
. I'll go back to Gelton in good time. I'll find Maureen. Yes, that's what I'll do. I'll find her. Then perhaps she and Kilkey can come together again. I'll get some kind of a job. I'll live with them. It'll be like home.”

His spirits soared, it was so wonderful to think about; it was like reaching the rock, clutching hard after battling through stormy seas.

“That
would
be good. I'll see Dermod, too. I'd like to see him. Maybe I should have done what the old man asked me to do, stayed. Seen the lad. Poor, lonely old Kilkey, and a good chap into the bargain. I always remember how he used to write to me, every month, never failed, punctual as the stroke of a clock. Kilkey? I believe he was happy once—in the days when they lived in Price Street.” He heard the dinner gong sounding in the room below.

“Better go down,” he thought. He felt better, his heart lightened. “Yes, that's as good a plan as any. Get them together again. We'll all live together again.” As he hurried down thick-carpeted stairs he cried in his mind, “Fairy-tale, it's a fairy-tale.”

He ate a good dinner. Afterwards he walked into the bar. He got a drink, and went over to the cheering fire, and, sitting down, was content to listen to the banter and chatter in the crowded room. At nine o'clock he got up, and went and paid his bill. A few minutes later, saying goodbye to nobody except the barman, he left for the railway station.

He was alone in the carriage. The little train dragged leaden out of the station, and soon it had begun to climb. The dark fields floated by, the telegraph posts like many tall, stiff men, slipped quickly past. Suddenly, through the open window, he smelt the fog that was coming in from the sea. He sat bolt upright in his seat. For a moment only he remembered a similar ride, seated between two uniformed men. A little train like this, an open window, the fog oozing in. He knew it was the fog smell that so sharply disturbed him. He peered out into the banked-up darkness, and he watched the poles again, fast flying shadows. He had a sensation of running, and he felt in a moment that he was running towards a new horizon, a new world. The past and its history receded.