Our Time Is Gone (15 page)

‘Morning,' he said. ‘Morning.'

He finished breakfast and went upstairs to bed. He was soon asleep.

When on day-work he spent some of his evenings in the recreation hall of Saint Sebastian's. Lately, however, he had not been there at all. He hated the questions. Always the same.

‘Heard anything of Maureen?'

No. He hadn't. One time in marrying her, he thought he had married the whole of that family. But to-day he could look across to No. 3 Hatfields and see, strangest thing of all, that empty house. He never passed it without realizing how strange it was that the house should be empty. It had been vacant for months now, and there was no sign that it would be taken again, as though the Fury family had left a kind of dead hand over the place.

‘I can never understand—but what the heck am I talking about? Why, of course. It had to be. That woman simply had to leave. It was impossible for her to live there any longer.'

A whole lifetime in that house and now it was empty. Nor had he seen anything of Mrs. Fury, or the children. Almost as though a cyclone had passed overnight and swept them all away. The woman was often in his mind. It worried him not a little to know that she was in Gelton, yet he could not find her. He had made various attempts. To all intents and purposes she seemed to have hidden herself for good. Even Mrs. Ditchley had tried. Mrs. Fury seemed vanished from the earth. ‘She'll change just like that,' he would say, flicking his finger, ‘just like that. She won't get over that business.'

Sometimes he would sit in the parlour window, looking out at the passers-by. Every young woman looked like his wife, every small boy like his son.

He woke at noon and got up. He washed and shaved and dressed, full of the idea of going for a walk into the near-by Corporation Gardens, but he never went; instead he sat all dressed in the parlour chair, looking out of the window and telling himself again and again that something must have happened. Something was wrong. It was Dermod. He was ill. ‘I'm certain. I've had the feeling all last night.'

Not even a fight between two lusty-looking recruits outside disturbed him. Finally he went out the back way and into the gardens. He sat there watching the children playing. Where was
she
now? What was she doing? Still with that fellow, of course. He got up and circled the gardens three times, then went home again. He felt restless to-day. He'd be glad when it was seven o'clock and he could go off to his work. It broke this restlessness, this feeling of knowing nothing, of hoping nothing, of continuous wondering about his family.

Price Street was long and narrow, the houses like a row of cells, each with its green-painted door, and bright brass knocker. They looked like strings of blazing light under the sun. People sat on the steps of their houses, children played in the road. Women chatted, men smoked pipes, leaned on the walls, talked of old times, followed the course of the war with maps and match-sticks, talked over old battles, old ships, old regiments. They were all old. The gutters were full of rubbish, papers, string, orange-peel, apple-cores. The pavement outside each house was scrubbed white. At one end the street was closed by a high wall, and behind it there rumbled night and day the passenger and goods trains of the railway. At the other end it joined the main King's Road. This road was made up entirely of shops; the shops gorged, the queues grew longer towards evening. Windows were up, flies buzzed over masses of food, hands picked and pecked and chose, and some less fortunate went away with empty baskets. The traffic roared backwards and forwards sending clouds of dust into the air, and the queues moved slowly forward and bought what was given them of the dust-laden food.

Mrs. Ditchley stood in this queue patiently hoping that a piece of neck of mutton would be available, at the moment the staple food of Joseph Kilkey. The Hatfields district always appeared to get the wrong end of the sheep. Everybody talked of the war. Nobody found time for anything else. Their lives were surrounded by the bright circle of blood. They took all of pride. It was measured by blood. One who smiled and talked to Mrs. Ditchley about the cruel Germans. A buff envelope turned this to stone, and pride took to its dark corner and wept. Some had lost two. But to lose three was the most wonderful of all, and Mrs. Ditchley's talkative companion described how she had removed the plants from her window and put in their place the photographs of her three sons, suitably draped with the Union Jack, and Price Street was proud. Everybody stopped to look; it was sad, it was beautiful, it was splendid. It shamed, glorified, wept, cursed. It electrified. Three from one house. Amazing. Those who spilt most blood were proudest, the most envied. They were the pillars that took the whole weight of ignorance, the never-emptying vat from which the blood was drawn. And the war went on. Price Street worked, struggled, hoped. Smiled, laughed, sang. They made jokes, became prophets. The street was full of female Napoleons. Forty-one men to the war. Price Street cried this to all other streets. House cried to house: ‘Forty-one men to the war.'

In this atmosphere Joseph Kilkey lived and worked. Wakened one morning about six o'clock by sounds of shrieking next door, he had got dressed and gone below. He had hammered on the door and been let in. A woman beat the table with her fists and the fists cried, and the wood cried that Harry had gone. Mr. Kilkey endeavoured to console the woman. She had no children. He was struck by the appalling news, for he had known the man well. The woman struck him in the back with her fist.

‘Died for the likes of bastards like you,' she said.

Ever since, this woman had walked past him with bowed head, as though she were ashamed to look him in the face, and now he always crossed to the other side of the street whenever he saw her coming. Price Street was like a barracks. Apart from Kilkey there were only two other able-bodied men in it who still walked about in civilian clothes. Joseph Kilkey felt he no longer belonged, anywhere. He had thought of shifting, but always at the last moment hope made him change his mind.
She
might yet come home. Everything might yet be all right. Even his few friends had changed; some had already gone to the war, the remaining few appeared anxious for him to go, and Joseph Kilkey knew his job was at stake. Still there was Mrs. Ditchley, ‘a nice, sensible woman.'

She returned from her shopping expedition towards four in the afternoon, discovered Mr. Kilkey going through a pile of letters that were spread out on the table. He looked up as she entered, something seemed to tell him that she had something exciting to say. Now she hurried so fast up the yard that Mr. Kilkey supposed the whole German army might be after her.

‘Oh!' she exclaimed, ‘I've had such a shock.' She sat down to recover her breath.

Mr. Kilkey relieved her of the shopping-bag. ‘What's the matter, Mrs. Ditchley?' he asked.

‘Everything. They're ransacking that poor Mr. Lazarus's shop. It's awful. I was standing in the queue, I was talking to that Mrs. Bolgers who lost her three lads in the war, when we heard the row. It's simply dreadful. Crowds of people from all over the place. It's a disgrace. The people are just like cannibals. Just like cannibals. They've chased Mr. Lazarus and his missus and family out of the place, and I saw women running off with the food from the shop, besides the others who are dragging the furniture into the street and smashing and burning it up. They say they're Germans, but I doubt it. Why, I believe he sent a son to the war in the British army. Course you hear nothing else but rumours these days!'

She paused again for breath. Meanwhile Mr. Kilkey was putting the morning's shopping on the table, calculating the cost under his breath.

‘And the police!' burst in the woman. ‘Why, I never saw anything like it! Never. Just standing there watching. They say they're afraid of the people, though I doubt it. I never knew a Gelton policeman who was afraid of anything. They just don't want to interfere.'

‘Perhaps it even amuses them,' remarked Mr. Kilkey. ‘Now you come along,' he said. ‘You get back to your place, Mrs. Ditchley, and have a lie down. It's upset you, I can see. But I do believe it's this big ship just being sunk that's caused that flare-up. It was the same thing when the
Media
got sunk. Come on now.' He led the trembling and excited woman down the yard and saw her into her own kitchen.

‘D'you think this awful war will last very long, Mr. Kilkey?' she asked.

‘Heaven alone knows that. One time I used to hear people spouting about how the working men could stop the war if they wanted to, but it doesn't look much like it to me. No, Mrs., this war'll stop when the big fellers say it will. Not before. And the worst of it is that even women are fighting in it, so they say. I'm quite certain that all these soldier lads want is to be back in their old jobs.'

‘Oh! And there's this,' Mrs. Ditchley said. ‘Somebody in the queue gave it to me; who I couldn't say, never seen the person before. A note. Here.'

‘Thanks. Now you take it easy a bit,' and then he went off, squeezing the note in his hand. He read it going up the yard.

17 H
EY
'
S
A
LLEY
.

D
EAR
J
OE
,

Could you manage to come down here and see me this evening? Fanny's in hospital and her condition is worse so they say. I feel too dead beat to drag all the way up to Hatfields, and in any case I'm rather ashamed of being seen anywhere round that neighbourhood now. Do come if you can.

D
ENNIS
F
URY
.

Mr. Kilkey squeezed the note into a tiny ball, rubbed it between his fingers. Then he hurried up the yard. A few minutes later he came out, putting coat and cap on as he ran. In the entry he stopped, looked up and down, then ran again.

‘Saw it coming,' he said to himself. ‘Saw this coming.'

He turned the corner, bumped into a man making a convenience of the entry. Hey's Alley. So that was where they lived. And Fanny was in hospital. Well! Well! ‘Good Lord,' he exclaimed. ‘But I could see it coming.'

Yes, he saw it coming. ‘Hey's Alley. Never heard of the place. New one on me. So that woman's on her back at last. Knew it! Knew it! Saw it coming.'

He reached the street, slowed down until he was clear of it, and in the King's Road began to run again.

‘Five o'clock—nine o'clock. Five o'clock—nine o'clock,' he was saying to himself as he ran. ‘Might manage it. Doesn't say where, which place she's in, either. Just do it, I reckon. In hospital. Knew it. Knew it. Saw it coming.'

He caught the first tram going south. ‘Where's Hey's Alley?' he asked the conductor.

‘Don't know,' he replied.

‘Where's Hey's Alley?' asked Mr. Kilkey of a fellow-passenger.

‘I dunno,' the man said.

Mr. Kilkey looked round, caught a man's eye, asked: ‘You know, mate?'

‘Don't know, mate. Never even heard of the bloody place.'

The tram swung round the corner.

CHAPTER III

I

One passed by, glanced in, went on. One came, stopped watched a moment, wondering. Each saw through the glass door. Each went away. The annexe was newly built, one could smell the newness in the air. The room where the woman lay was oblong in shape. High ceiling, bare walls, polished floor, a rough table. Two chairs, the white-railed bed, the chart of the patient overhead. The room was soundless, the woman lay motionless in the bed. Beyond it the hours had a beat and rhythmic rising and falling, and through them as through a torrent the life of the day passed. Within the room hours stood still under the arch that silence made. Now the woman stirred uneasily in the bed. Now turned this way, then that. A hand rose, fell listless to the bed. The mouth trembled, the nose showed bone under the thin skin. The bed pulled downwards, the head sunk in the pillow. The cheeks were drawn, the forehead a map of lines, a railway junction upon the flesh. The hair was matted, the eyes closed and sunk. The woman was sixty-three. The prone position enhanced the length of her body. She was thin. Something about the face attracted. Behind it something throbbed and struck like a hammer. The hammer struck downwards upon the woman's brain. It beat like a hear. It was tireless. It struck again and again. The body, seized by frenzy, tossed and threshed upon the bed.

One came and watched, went away. The hammer struck downwards and from the burst of sparks grew a bright circle. She saw things in the circle, and as she saw them the circle moved, slow, then fast, then furious. She cried, shouted; once screwed up her mouth.

One came again down the corridor, opened the door, looked in, waiting. The woman cried again, then yelled. The hammer struck again. She saw a man standing over her.

‘Wretch,' she cried. ‘Beastly wretch.'

The one watching came in, looked at a small bright instrument in his hand. The gentle sea of outside sounds washed over the room, disturbed the air, broke silence; the arch fell. A clock struck. The sounds washed out again. The woman shouted: ‘Peter!' An arm flayed the air. The circle grew wider, more bore down upon her, more sparks, more men. She saw clearly: ‘What have you done?'

The man with the instrument approached the bed. He watched the first movements, understanding all. He bent over the woman.

She was by the window when he came in. They looked at each other. He shouted. She was afraid. She went and sat on the sofa. This was her son. He was tall, he was like her. He was his mother all over. She saw this. Behind her, looking out of the window, the other son. Fair haired. He was silent. ‘What is this?'

The one who shouted, shouted again: ‘You and your bloody money! Money! Money! Money!' Then he thumped the table with his fist. ‘Your rotten stinking, bloody money—
MONEY
—MONEY.' He laughed—said: ‘Here! There!' He talked fast. Began to slobber. He bent over her; she was so near to him that she felt his breath upon her face. She looked into his eyes.