Our Time Is Gone (39 page)

Well, my dear son, I begin to wonder if you will ever be home. Oh, dear, you know this coming home business makes me cry—I mean I'm so glad to see you coming. You know, Anthony—in spite of everything I do love you all very much, and I'd be ready to make a nice home again for you all. I would really, as true as God is in Heaven. That was all I wanted out of life, seeing you all happy, and when you got married, marrying clean decent people, and not running your head into a noose at the first nice face you saw.

Well, son, I seem only to be talking about myself. Do write to me soon. I look forward to your letters so much, for you are the only son who really writes, though poor Peter does too—but only twice a year. I could cry every time I think of him. Poor lad, he was just a young headstrong boy. And in a way it's a curious thing that Maureen should have been the person to first introduce me to that horrible woman. Poor lad, a headstrong silly lad. Yet when he was small he was really lovable, but
different
to everybody. I wonder what he will become if he ever comes home? For the past eight months I have gone almost daily to that nice gentleman Mr. Trears, always hoping he might be able to help. Nothing's happened so far. I was there only the other day. It amazes me to find how really nice these kind of people are. For many a time your father and Desmond have raged against them as though they were devils. But Desmond seems to have altered his opinion. Anyway Mr. Trears, who is a very busy gentleman, was good enough to interest himself in Peter, and the other day we had a cup of tea together. I've always said all along that those kind of people
are
nice when you get to know them. You may laugh, but now when I go down to the office I feel I'm going to see a friend.

Well, Anthony, I'm sure this letter is all over the place and full of dull things. But I find it difficult to talk about things like I used when we were at Hatfields. Oh dear, they were hard days, but very happy ones, too. And talking of Hatfields, I
was
surprised when you wrote and told me about the Postlethwaites. Well! Well! Still, this is a dreadful war, and it's a shame to see the people rushing off to it, almost as though they were people going on holiday. The world's dreadful and God help it, that's all I can say.

Now, my dear son, I will close this letter and hope it finds you well and happy, and that you may soon come home.

Your affectionate mother,

F
ANNY
F
URY
.

PS. Write to Peter, and to Maureen if you know where she is. She liked you best.

She addressed the letter: c/o G.P.O., London.

Mrs. Gumbs knocked at the door. She was going out. Did Mrs. want anything. Paper? Eggs? Oil? Anything? She was going to the shops. She stood there hatless, a shawl over her shoulders, a black shiny bag dangling from one hand, the other rested just under her chin.

‘If you don't mind, Mrs. Gumbs,' she said, ‘would you post this letter for me?'

‘Certainly, Mrs.,' and she put the letter in her bag. She banged the door behind her.

‘I
must
write Denny to-morrow,' she thought, ‘and go to the offices to give my new address.' She made a mental note of these things, and then began tidying the room. It held only half the furniture from Hey's Alley, and it could hold no more. Certain larger articles of furniture, table, dresser, big beds, she had had put away. Denny Fury had said: ‘Make a complete break! Sell the whole bloody lot.' But she refused to do this. Only a fugitive hope for the future or a reluctance to part with things that had been so much of her life had prompted her to store them with a woman who lived in 19 Hey's Alley, and who only charged sixpence a month.

And Mrs. Fury still hoped. Not for Desmond or Maureen. They were out of it. But she hoped for Denny, for her son Peter, for Anthony. She would never let those things go. And she could not but think of them now, as she pottered about this one room, refuelling the fire, tidying up the hearth, dusting the mantelpiece and brushing the floor. Rearranging the artificial flowers on the altar, which she had now made on a wooden box covered with green baize. There it stood, as it had stood in all her life. She would never feel lonely, never. Not whilst that altar stood there. Soon she would be able to go out and get some proper flowers for it.

She rarely went out. Most evenings she spent with her black bag before her, its contents littering the small table, letters, cards, envelopes, old view-cards, holy pictures, rolls of cuttings of Peter's trial. This was the only Peter she now knew. She wondered when, where. Would it be soon or late? Would it be before—no—yes. She hoped to God, soon. The hope burned brightly, she would hold on to it. But at the moment the world was upside down, her world—a series of pieces, the ends of things. Nothing she could hold on to properly. Not yet.

She said aloud: ‘I
must
write Denny to-morrow.'

About half-past nine to ten she went to bed. This stood in a corner of the room under the window that looked out on to the yard where the lorries of the forwarding agents were stabled. Sometimes she would wake in the night to the stamping or crying of the horses, and at half-six her day began—had to begin. Such noise nobody could sleep through. The unstabling of horses, the driving out of horses, the cries of the drivers, their jokes and laughter and occasional swearing. But she would soon get used to that. She would lie awake thinking of Anthony coming home. It seemed ages since she had last seen him. And it made her think of making preparations. Getting the place tidy. What would he say, think about this?

When she thought of it properly, wisely, she saw the difficulties. No place to sleep. Where would Anthony go? He'd hate it. Suddenly other plans were in her head, buzzing about like bees.
Something
would be done. She had Denny's money, not much, but still she had it, and Anthony's twelve shillings. She would fix everything up all right. This was only temporary. Just wait. In a few months she'd be all right. Just now she just wanted to be alone. Life for the moment was made up of doing little things, trivial things like eating and sleeping. Life was built up of this, and lying awake in bed remembering things. She wouldn't worry. God was good. Everything would come right in the end. She
knew
. She always said so. Always believed in it. It kept her alive. That was the main thing. Believing. Her sleep was child's sleep, untroubled. She was alone, far away, deep down, and she was unknown. She was at last secure.

Mrs. Gumbs, however, did not think so. She came in one evening from work, and as she always did as she passed Mrs. Fury's room, knocked to bid the time of day. Finding the door half open she looked in. Mrs. Fury was seated at the table and it was littered with her things, for there was the empty black bag on the floor.

‘Evening,' said Mrs. Gumbs, walking into the room.

But Mrs. Fury was so absorbed in the game of looking and picking up and putting down that she never noticed the woman at all.

‘Really,' said Mrs. Gumbs, ‘I don't really know what you get out of those puzzle games of yours, Mrs., but I always feel people are not happy when they keep turning their past out of old handbags. It worries me to see you doing it,' she went on.

They had reached the stage in friendship when it wasn't necessary to ask Mrs. Gumbs to sit down. She was already seated on the chair. She watched Mrs. Fury.

How could anyone who had reared a family suddenly sink to that sort of thing? All right for monks and scholars and people like that. But a woman who all her life had been on the go, suddenly descending to this pottering about in her room all day and looking at the family relics. It didn't seem quite right. She said so.

‘You'll go to pieces, Mrs., that's what'll happen to you, see! Playing with those things. Now I'll give you some advice. What you want, Mrs., is work. See? Work. Something to do. Something to keep your mind on. Now don't you think I'm right?'

‘But I
am
going to work, Mrs. Gumbs,' replied Mrs. Fury. ‘Have some tea, will you?'

‘Oh, you are going to work. It
is
a surprise. Where, may I ask?'

‘Where you work, Mrs. Gumbs. Aboard the ships. I'm going down to-morrow night.'

‘Oh! Now that
is
the right thing to do. That's sensible. No, I don't want any tea, thank you. Mine's just made upstairs. Always is. Nellie's a decent girl,' and without another word Mrs. Gumbs got up and seemed to swing rather than walk out of the room. Mrs. Fury heard her slow tread up the next flight of stairs.

Of course she was going to work. Why not? What had she come here for. Just to sit in the room doing nothing? Ridiculous! Worked all her life. Did Mrs. Gumbs think she was an outright fool? Certainly she was going to do something. One had to. And must. Living was work. But now it could be more. It could be peace for Denny and herself. She'd work—and as Mrs. Gumbs had said—she'd keep her mouth shut. Wouldn't breathe a word. Thank God. She had her health back again. Never depend on anybody ever again. She was off to-morrow night. She'd give Denny a nice surprise one of these days. One that he wouldn't get over in a hurry. Why not write him to-morrow? Poor Denny. She hoped he was all right. He did look sad that morning. He was getting on now. He was getting too tired to shovel any more. Hadn't she seen it? Still, that was his affair. She had tried to keep him off the sea—who wouldn't after one's husband has been on it for forty years or more? But he had gone off to it again, after only a short stay ashore, and had then told her that she had driven him to it by her cantankerous ways.

Cantankerous!
He
was the cantankerous one. She gathered her past together and put it back into the bag, which she put at the back of the cupboard. She could hear Mrs. Gumbs pottering about upstairs. That was the trouble. There was nothing to do. She was happy now. She had made up her mind.

Mrs. Gumbs knocked again.

‘That's funny,' Mrs. Fury said. ‘I was just going out for a walk myself.'

‘Splendid! Where'll we go? I like to sit on the benches at the end of the court and watch the ships going up and down the river.'

They went off together. Down three flights of stairs, and at the bottom sat two stout women, one of whom was entertaining the other with the most sensational news from the
Gelton Times
.

‘Mary Gumbs's new friend,' said the reader, as Mrs. Fury and Mrs. Gumbs walked off towards the river, then she went on reading about the Gelton robberies.

‘I think you were wise, Mrs.,' Mrs. Gumbs remarked. ‘Very wise.
I
know.'

Of course she did. She knew everything. Another occupant of the bench looked at Mrs. Gumbs, got up and walked away. The two women looked at the river.

‘I've worked at the same job for years,' continued Mrs. Gumbs, ‘on the ships. And it's interesting work, Mrs., though it
is
scrubbing and polishing, it
is
interesting. You see interesting people too. Captains and engineers, divers, people like that. And I don't mind talking to them either, once in a while. They are broad minded. Mr. Leatherer, he's our boss, you'll like him. He's been in the same job years. Just bossing us women—and of course there's money in it, too, that is if you like money. A tip here and there. I once got a whole bucket of dripping and two large jars of jam off a German cook. You'll soon find out that pottering about in your room is only good for the undertakers. You have to keep moving along, Mrs. Working—I always said it, always will—never killed anybody. There's a lot of people in this world, Mrs., who ought to be made to work hard. I've seen some of them. Cures everything. Nonsense, pains and aches, softness in the head! If I hadn't worked hard all my life I'd be dead long ago,' and she went on talking, asking questions, answering them, airing opinions, making suggestions, though she stopped short of outright prophecy, until Mrs. Fury began to wonder whether Mrs. Gumbs's ideas about keeping the mouth shut weren't fast receding. She had never heard anybody talk quite so much, nor indeed strike so many variations from a single thought. Yet she took a great liking to the woman.

She couldn't be called young, yet somehow she couldn't be called old. There was a fixity about Mrs. Gumbs. She balanced perfectly between the extremes. She looked old, but walked as sharply as any youngster of twenty. She wore clothes that suited her age and a hat that covered grey hair. Beneath it lay a mind that had not lost its nimbleness, and a heart that beat with real interest in the job of living. It must be this secret of work. Mrs. Gumbs's law and Bible. She appeared to have no friends. Fanny Fury had never seen her with any. Once or twice on Friday evenings the woman had shown an interest in Mrs. Fury's dressing up and making herself look extra nice and then going off as quietly as a mouse. She wondered where. Until one such evening she offered to accompany Mrs. Fury to ‘wherever you go.'

Mrs. Fury felt no embarrassment in saying ‘no ‘gracefully and with dignity. These Friday evening journeys were lone journeys, secret pilgrimages to church, and there she prayed to God. To have taken Mrs. Gumbs would have been wrong.

Mrs. Gumbs had some queer ideas about God, and that settled the matter. To Mrs. Fury there could be no
queer
ideas about God. If Mrs. Gumbs doubted,
she
believed. It brought a temporary coolness between them, though Mrs. Gumbs, who had such a large ‘experience of the world and life,' had begun to see something entirely new in Fanny Fury. Something new to admire and even to be amazed about. She developed a curiosity, which, however, remained a curiosity. Her mind refused to let it go beyond the seeding stage. She wanted to enquire, but she didn't. She wanted some idea of Mrs. Fury's feelings about God—but she never questioned. She would sit in her window and look down into the yard and watch Mrs. Fury go off. To Mrs. Gumbs there was something beautiful and steadfast about this belief, and these pilgrimages, and once she almost went after Fanny Fury just in order to say: ‘Mrs., there must be something wonderful about your God.'