The Furys (17 page)

‘H'm, what's the matter with me? That's not the question, Peter. The question is, “What's the matter with you?” I told you to go home to bed. You have no right to be out this time in the morning. I'm your father. You had a right to go when I told you. But you didn't go.'

‘Well. Dad …'

‘The question is, “What's wrong with you?” Yes, answer that. Stuck away for seven years, and now you just drop on us like a jack-in-the-box, and you haven't anything to say.' Mr Fury paused. What was this he was saying? Confound it! He meant to go home. What was he doing in this stinking yard? They were against the wall now, shielded from the light of the bulb swinging above their heads. Then Peter said:

‘I'm sorry. Dad. I didn't ever want to go. I only went to please Mother.' The man fell back against the wall as though he had been struck a blow. He put his hands on the wall, he was like a drunken man. ‘Ah!' he exclaimed. Then he spat on the ground. So the truth was out. Desmond had been right.
He
had been right. Everybody had been right. Excepting that stubborn woman. Yes. That stubborn woman. He looked at Peter.

‘Your mother's sorely disappointed in you,' he said. Then he broke down. He could not help it. Peter went up to him.

‘Dad!' he said. ‘I'm sorry, I …'

‘Go away,' said his father. ‘Go on. Go home at once. Don't stand there.' Then he yelled like a madman. ‘Don't stay there, I tell you. D'you hear me?' He stamped his foot angrily. Peter walked away. Mr Fury turned his face to the wall. Whose fault? The boy's? Fanny's? He had never wanted to go away at all. Seven years. Thinking that over in his mind for seven years. God! He hated the lad now. He hated him. He was the cause of all the trouble. He had turned his own wife into a stubborn, powerful, indefatigable woman. He hated him for his silence. The word ‘ruined' seemed to burst into flame in front of him. Peter looked well. ‘And by heavens he ought to!' he cried in his mind. ‘He ought to. The best of everything for seven years.' He shook himself like a dog and walked out of the yard.

Half-way up the street he saw Peter. When he went up to him he was crying. ‘All right,' his father said, ‘you get to bed. We'll talk about all this tomorrow.' They went to the door. Mr Fury pulled a key from his pocket. When they went into the lobby, the man caught his son by the arm, saying:

‘Ssh! There's somebody moving about. You get up to bed at once.' He pushed his son forward. He was angry and confused. Then he went into the kitchen. A strange feeling overcame him. He sat down on the sofa. He felt old now. Really old. Peter was a failure. The rows they had had over him! Well, he knew what to do now. He had been silent for too long, he had never shown his hand. He got up from the sofa and began walking up and down the kitchen. He noticed that the clock was not in its accustomed place on the mantelshelf. ‘Yes,' he was muttering, ‘yes, I'll show them now. I'll have that fellow before the mast before he has time to say “Bah”.' At that moment Miss Mangan came into the kitchen. He realized at once that she knew. She must have heard him going out. Had she seen Peter too? Must have done. His sister-in-law stood there holding out the clock. He saw how late it was. Not much use turning in now. Then he heard a rustling sound, and at the same time Miss Mangan caught his eye. Yes, she knew all along. They were indeed a pair. They must have been watching them all along. But this woman was no different to his wife. She never said a word. Her expression told its own tale. His anger grew. He said, ‘Go to bed, Brigid.' But the woman stood there as though she were waiting for an earthquake to happen.

2

Peter had gone up to his room. He lay down on the bed. What had made him suddenly go to the window? He asked himself that question many times. It wasn't the smell that came to him. Of course he had pulled up the window when he heard the door opened. Here he was back again, and the secret was out. His father knew. He never wanted to go. Rain suddenly drove in through the half-open window, making a pattering noise on the bare wooden floor. The house was wrapped in silence. Had Aunt Brigid seen him? He could not drive out the sudden fit of restlessness that had seized him. He got up from the bed, already half-covered with books which he had flung out haphazard from his travelling-bag. He went over and stared into the dressing-mirror. The lamp, standing near, dimmed. He turned up the wick. He studied his expression in the mirror for a long time, allowing his long fingers to trace themselves over his eyes and mouth and nose. He stroked the film of down now growing on his chin. How old his father had looked when, unable to control his feelings, he had cried like a child. A little old man. His mother hardly looked a day older. The scene at the landing-stage lived again in his mind. He was like a stranger. He didn't know them. And his grandfather. How miserable, almost filthy, he looked now. What was Maureen like? And Desmond? He would see them soon. They were married now. He laughed. He was glad Maureen was gone. He had never liked her. She reminded him so much of his Aunt Brigid. Miss Mangan was the living image of his mother, though she lacked his mother's dignity and natural grace, he thought. Fancy Anthony having gone to sea tool He tried to imagine what he looked like. A quartermaster. What changes there had been! He picked up the lamp and looked more closely at the reflection of the figure staring into it. He had tried hard to remember. It was so difficult. Only seven years ago. It had seemed to him like twenty. No. He could not remember the little boy with the badge in the lapel of his serge coat. That was so, so long ago. A new person. A new Peter. He was seized with a sudden desire to look for old photographs of himself. He put the lamp down. Surely there must be some about the room. He had slept in this very room. His room. The bottom drawer of the dressing-table. Yes. Everybody had at one time or other used the same drawer. What a mine of information, what history lying there now! He went on his knees and pulled open the drawer.

It was tightly packed. He pulled the drawer out, and tossed its contents in a heap upon the bed. He buried his hands in them. Then he put the drawer on the floor. He put the lamp back on the table by the bed. He sat down, his eyes held by that great heap of papers with all the memories attaching to them. He rummaged with his hands amongst this pile of old letters, greeting cards, bills, certificates of birth and death, his mother's marriage lines, his father's old sea-book with its salt-stained and faded blue cover, John's Union cards. He held these cards in his hands for some time. Tears came into his eyes. Poor John! He had hardly known him, and now he was dead. Crushed to death at twenty years of age. It was terrible. He remembered the letter his mother had sent him on the day of his brother's tragic accident. He put the Union cards into an envelope. He could not bear to look at them any more. His hands dropped on a long envelope. There was something hard inside. A photograph. He pulled it out. Desmond and his wife. ‘By heck!' he exclaimed under his breath. ‘That's a beautiful face.' He drew nearer to the lamp. Desmond's wife. It was something of a shock at first. The most beautiful face he had ever seen. Beside it his brother looked quite ordinary. There was something fascinating about this face. He could not take his eyes from it. ‘Fancy! Just fancy!' he was saying. His hand was shaking. Then, as though seized with a sudden inexplicable loathing, he flung the photograph down upon the bed. Where were those early photographs of his? He so much desired to see them now. Where could they be? Probably burned, perhaps thrown out with the rubbish long ago. At last! He found them between the covers of his father's sea-book. His father must have carried them about with him. He wanted to laugh. He held one of the photos near to the lamp. Himself at six years of age. Good Lord! It seemed outrageous. He spat at it, saying, ‘Little fool!' But the face continued to stare at him from the hard glossy surface of the card. Peter at six. With those enormous eyes? Then he picked up another. It was a photograph of himself at two years of age, sitting on his mother's knee. He held it over the lamp until it caught fire. He flung the burning card into the grate. ‘What a museum!' he said. ‘What a museum!' He began to bundle the scattered papers together again. He put the drawer on the bed and emptied the papers and cards into it. As he was putting it back he heard the alarm go off below-stairs. He nearly let the drawer fall with fright, and he cursed the clock. Only a minute or two before it struck, his father had gone out and banged the door so loudly that his mother woke up, but Peter was so absorbed in going through the papers and photographs that he had not heard it.

‘Dad's gone off to work,' he said to himself. He heard somebody climb the stairs. Then the climber coughed. His Aunt Brigid. He knew that cough so well. So she had been talking to his father. He got into bed and blew out the lamp. He could not rid himself of the feeling of shame. It clung to him. He shuddered when he remembered how he had left the college in Ireland. Like a thief, hardly lifting his head. He remembered the Brother at the college gate saying, ‘Good-bye. Fury. Good luck.' He remembered the long walk to his aunt's house. Her questions. His own stubborn refusal to say a word. The journey to the boat. The Arklow murderer. The arrival at the Stage. The welcome his mother had given him. It had only heightened his sense of shame. But he couldn't help it. He had seen the thing coming. He put his head under the clothes and exclaimed passionately, ‘No. It couldn't be helped.' Here he was back again. More of a stranger than ever. Tomorrow his mother would ask him everything. Tomorrow. Why, it was six o'clock now. The paper in the grate still smouldered. The faces – there were three of them – still hovered about in the air above him. Once Peter, aged two, stuck out a tongue and grimaced. Then the beautiful woman standing beside his brother suddenly smiled, and he saw that she looked even more beautiful than the photograph. He closed his eyes. The figure of his grandfather appeared. Peter grimaced at the sallow leathery skin. How he hated that face! And his eyes were like little wax beads. He sat up in the bed. Why, his grandfather had never spoken a word. Not a word to anybody. And they had to carry him about everywhere. He could see his father now, as he half knelt, holding on to his grandfather, calling out frantically to his mother, ‘Fanny! Fanny!' How funny it had all seemed. But now those figures vanished, and in their place came the little old man from the bone yard. This little man with the thin grey hair was his father. He would not believe it. Whom did he love the more, his father or his mother? He did not know.

He knew his mother more intimately than he did his father. He had hardly seen him. A lump came into his throat. He hated to go to sleep. Sleeping involved waking, waking meant morning and questions. Why had his mother liked him better than the rest of the family? The way she had clung to him at the landing-stage. Absence seemed to have intensified the bond, a sort of spiritual harmony that had held them together for years. Peter stretched himself in the bed. After a while he dozed off. Then a sharp knock came to the door. He shivered. Must have fallen asleep. How long had he been asleep? He looked up. His mother was standing in the middle of the room. The light from the gas below-stairs threw shadows upon the landing wall. Mrs Fury was fully dressed. She had even washed and combed her hair. ‘Time to get up, Peter,' she said. ‘It's a quarter past seven.'

‘Yes, Mother.' He sat up in bed. He avoided her glance. He could not look her in the face. And she stared so. His mother went out. Yes. He was really back home again now. He jumped out of bed and began to dress. No. He hadn't been dreaming. He was really back home. He could hear his mother washing crockery in the back kitchen. He went downstairs. The kitchen fire blazed. The big chair which his grandfather occupied all day was empty. Mr Mangan did not rise until nine, when he was washed and dressed by his daughter and carried downstairs. Peter sat in this chair, his feet high up on the kitchen hob. He was fastening his bootlaces. His mother came in and laid the table. He looked across at her, but she avoided his glance. Then she went out again. ‘Peter!' she called. ‘Better come out and wash yourself before breakfast.'

‘Yes, Mother,' replied Peter.

Somebody was coming downstairs. Aunt Brigid came through the back kitchen. Peter looked at her. How horrible she looked, he thought. Her hair hung down over her shoulders, her eyes were half closed. She coughed. She put her hand on the latch. ‘Good-morning, Peter.' The boy did not reply. She went out to the yard.

Peter filled the wash-bowl with cold water and began to wash. As he wiped himself with the towel he stole occasional glances into the kitchen. It was empty. Mrs Fury had gone upstairs. There was a rap at the door. Peter dropped the towel, saying ‘Post!' and ran out of the back kitchen. He stopped. Aunt Brigid was coming in, and already his mother had rushed downstairs to get the letter. He could even hear her slight exclamation as she picked it up from the floor. He went back again and started to dry himself. Aunt Brigid was standing by the big fire in the kitchen. She heard her sister pass upstairs. She sat down in her father's chair. Miss Mangan was so preoccupied with her own plan of campaign that she could hardly wait until breakfast was over. She must go upstairs immediately and dress. There was Maureen to see, and, of course, her eldest nephew. It would be mean of her to go away without seeing them, and she was still optimistic enough to believe that she would be safely on the ten o'clock boat the next night. She had brought Peter over. There was nothing more to do. She had not slept the whole night, and still looked tired. What with her sister and Denny and Peter, her imagination had run riot. Peter came into the kitchen and sat down opposite to her on the sofa. Miss Mangan said, ‘Well, Peter,' paused, then got up and went out to the hall. She met Mrs Fury coming downstairs.

‘Why, Fanny!' she exclaimed, ‘are you ill?' The woman grinned. ‘No, no,' she replied. ‘Whatever put that idea into your head?' They went into the kitchen together. When Peter looked at his mother he knew the secret was out. There was no denying it now. She had had a letter from the Principal. The very expression upon her face was proof enough. They all three sat down. Aunt Brigid became talkative.