The Furys (50 page)

‘Pleased to meet you,' Mrs Fury said. She gave him her hand. The boy shook it. And now he held it, thinking, ‘This is the hand – this is the hand that crept round that door.'

The woman was smiling at him. She could feel him trembling. She loosed her hold. Turning to Desmond she said, ‘About supper?'

Desmond was sitting in the chair. For a moment he did not speak. He kept staring at Peter, then at his wife. ‘Is there anything in it?' his eyes seemed to say. ‘Hang it! I can't understand.'

‘It's getting late,' he said.

He looked directly at his brother. Peter did not move. He kept glancing at the woman, at her hand, her arm, her breast, her long body, now hidden behind the black dress. But he had seen it. Yes. He had seen that naked body. He had stripped her at a glance.

Sheila Fury thought, ‘What a funny boy!' She stood, her body hard pressed against the table so that her dress tightened beneath the pressure, and the clear outline of her body was there to see, and Peter had seen it. From her white neck to her firm and supple breasts, and lower. But Desmond too had seen it. He looked at the clock.

‘Too late for supper.'

He was abrupt, and he was now determined. Whilst that woman stood there, her body clearly lined in the light, his own seemed to sing, to cry out, to protest. So he looked at Peter.

‘It is late,' he said. ‘Hadn't you better go? You must come and see us some time. You will, won't you?'

Peter got up. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I shall,' and looked, not at his brother, but directly into the eyes of the woman. In a flash she had divined the position. Her expression changed. Her eyes seemed to ransack Peter as he stood there, whilst the snub that had parted her red lips seemed to say, ‘Well, yes, come. You are so funny. Yes. Do come.'

For Peter the woman did not exist. She had vanished. Through a sort of haze he could see a naked arm floating in the air. And then the arm made short circling movements, as though it wanted to grasp something, to hold it, to embrace it.

‘Surely,' said Sheila, ‘there is time for supper.'

‘And I say there isn't,' replied Desmond. He had moved towards the door.

‘What is all the excitement about?' said Sheila. ‘Cool yourself, man! We can offer your brother a cup of tea, surely.'

‘It's nearly ten o'clock,' said Desmond. ‘Can't you hear those swine outside?'

‘Swine? What swine?' She had fixed her eyes upon her husband, upon his large, brutal-looking mouth, as though the very force of her glance might close it and hold it fast. Desmond caught her arm.

‘Listen!' he said. ‘Listen!'

All three stood listening. From the street came the sound of hoofs. The soldiers had arrived. The woman went into the parlour and looked out through the window.

‘Yes,' she called out. ‘It's those Hussars again.'

Desmond followed his wife into the parlour. Peter remained standing at the kitchen door. The long lobby was in darkness. He too had heard the sound of horses passing down the street. But he was holding on to the kitchen door, looking at the nail to which adhered some threads from Sheila Fury's black dress. He picked these threads off, and stood looking at them. Desmond came in again. Peter hastily dropped the threads and looked at his brother.

‘I must go,' he said, essaying a smile, a smile that he knew well could not conceal his agitation.

‘Yes, of course.' They walked down the lobby.

Sheila Fury came and joined them at the door. Peter, his hand upon the brass knob, turned and looked at the woman. There was nothing to see now, only her white face and those burning eyes.

‘Well, good-night, Peter,' she said. She did not offer him her hand.

Peter opened the door and stood out on the step. Mrs Fury had gone into the parlour again. A mounted soldier drew rein outside the Furys' door.

‘Where is that man going?' The question was addressed to Desmond Fury.

‘Going. He's going home. Where the hell d'you think he's going? To commit suicide or assassinate the King?' He cleared the step at a bound and went up to the soldier.

‘Our orders are to question anybody in the streets, and to arrest where no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming,' the soldier said. He looked down at Desmond Fury.

‘Thank you. We are well aware of that.' He called to his wife. ‘Sheila! Bring out that iron bar.' Mrs Fury came running out with an iron bar in her hand. This bar was an inch thick and three feet long. It had apparently been a railing forced from a gate. Desmond Fury, in full sight of the soldier, handed this bar to Peter. ‘Here!' he said. ‘Now go. If you find any obstacles barring your path you know what to do with it.' He looked up at the soldier. ‘This boy lives only a few streets away,' he said.

The soldier looked at the iron bar. Desmond took the bar from his brother.

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘Beat it now! Our friend has given me his word. In fact, he informs me that nobody is beat up excepting under the greatest provocation. Isn't that so?' But the horse had begun to move. At the top of Vulcan Street there were other horses drawn across the street. Now it wanted to join them. The darkness swallowed it up.

‘Good-night.' Desmond shook hands with Peter. Something made the boy turn his head. Mrs Fury was looking at him from the parlour window.

‘Good-night.' The hand holding his own squeezed tighter so that he almost winced with the pain.

Feeling the woman's eyes upon him, he leaned on to the door and said laughingly. ‘What's the matter with you, Desmond? Are you afraid of me?' In a moment he was pulled forward. He was looking at two rows of teeth. The rest of the face seemed to be hidden in the darkness of the lobby.

‘Afraid? No. But I'm jealous.'

Peter could feel his brother's hot breath upon his face. Ah! So he had suspicions, had even guessed. ‘I'm not clever,' he could hear his brother saying, ‘but I'm not thick either.'

The door banged. Peter was standing in the street. A single lamp shone. The other had been blown out by the wind. He stood looking at the door. In the next house the parlour was lighted up. He heard a man singing. He recognized the voice at once. It was George Postlethwaite. He looked at the window of number seven again. Was she still standing there? No. She had gone.

Then he heard a step in the lobby. He put his ear to the keyhole. Raised voices broke the silence. Mr and Mrs Fury were arguing in the lobby.

‘Now!' Desmond was saying. ‘Now, have you been on that bloody shore again? Where is this shore? What is it? What's there to attract? – or is it some other shore?'

There was no reply from the woman.

‘You were there last Sunday. The people next door saw you. Tell me, for Christ's sake, have you got some holy itch for the sea? What is it? Out! God! You're never in!'

The woman was speaking.

‘Out! What are you talking about? You're never in yourself. Mind your own business.'

‘I am.' Desmond shouted. ‘I am minding my own business. One can't get a word out of you. Where do you go running off to at night? Everybody is talking about it.'

‘Don't press on my arm. It hurts.'

‘Her arm! Oh, that arm.' thought Peter. ‘He's pressing that arm that came round the door. The long white arm.'

‘I'll kill you one of these days, you bitch,' Desmond said.

Peter walked away. Now he knew. Before he had only guessed, groped in the darkness. Now he understood everything. Well, he would see that white arm again soon. ‘Yes. By God, I will!' He was in a ferment. He started to run, stopped. Hang it! What was wrong with him? ‘Keep cool, you fool, Mother will notice. Yes, Mother will notice.'

He pulled his handkerchief out and wiped his face. He felt hot all over. His tongue was dry. At the corner of Price Street he was stopped by the military. Where was he going? What was he so excited about? Why, the fellow was trembling. The soldiers barred his path.

‘What have you done? Murdered somebody?' One soldier poked Peter in the ribs with his finger.

‘Been following one of those bag-women,' another soldier said.

‘I'm going home. Just there. See!' He pointed in the direction of Hatfields.

‘Scoot!'

Peter ran. He knocked at the door. Was he all right? Did he look all right? That fellow had said he was trembling. The door opened.

‘Late,' Mr Fury said. He drew back the door. Peter entered the house, his father following into the kitchen. Mrs Fury was sitting at the table. She did not look at Peter nor her husband. She looked directly in front of her. She looked at nothing. There was nothing to see. Her mind was a complete blank. Peter wanted to say ‘Hello, Mother,' but the look upon Mrs Fury's face prevented it. Mr Fury tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Get your supper and get to bed,' said his father. He too sat down.

Not once during his hurried meal did the woman move. She seemed glued to her chair, that hopeless, almost frozen look upon her face. Mr Fury picked his teeth with one of his wife's hatpins.

Peter, having finished his meal, rose from the table.

‘Good-night, Mother – good-night, Dad.'

Nobody replied to him. He went upstairs. The moment he reached his room he pushed the catch back. Then he opened the drawers. He was searching for an envelope. That long envelope with something hard in it. Ah! Here it was! The very thing. Feverishly he pulled out the photograph of Desmond and his wife. As he tore off that of the woman, he thought, ‘How did it come here?' But perhaps Desmond had given it secretly to his father. He flung the other half, from the glossed surface of which Desmond's hard face looked out – though it had seemed to soften a little as for the occasion – into the grate. Then he set fire to it. He had torn it in two. He had freed the one from the other. He undressed and climbed into bed. Then he lighted the lamp, lay back and held the photograph of Sheila Fury in front of him. He knew then that it had been worth it. Those seven years at college – that accidental meeting. He kissed the face that looked out at him from the cardboard. ‘There can't be any mistake about it,' he thought. Then he hurriedly placed the photograph under the pillow, blew out the lamp and stretched himself in the bed.

Mr Fury passed the door. He was going to bed. Below, tired of silence, of the spectacle of his wife sitting frozen and dumb at the table, he had said, ‘I'm going to bed, Fanny.' She did not answer. Just looked ahead at nothing in particular. In his room, Peter had begun an excursion into a new, strange, and wonderful world.

The gas burned low, finally went out. But Mrs Fury was still sitting at the table. There seemed nothing else to do but sit there, staring at the wall.

3

Hatfields, like its neighbours, Vulcan Street and Price Street, abutted on to the main King's Road. King's Road was about a mile in length. It ran parallel with Harbour Road, at the end of which stood Mile Hill. When one had descended Mile Hill, flanked on either side by shops, public houses, and occasional waste ground, occupied at week-ends by travellers in linoleum, one had reached the city. Hatfields also ran flush into Dacre Road. At the bottom of Dacre Road there were the docks. Eleven and a half miles of them. This Dock Road ran right into the city and beyond it. Mrs Fury was now debating in her mind which way she should go. The top road seemed the more favourable, but it had its disadvantages. It was heavily patrolled. From Harbour Road came the looters and the roughs. It was not advisable to go that way. One was bound to be held up.

On the other hand, to go along Dock Road was to invite attentions of a disagreeable kind. One never knew from what dark hole or corner a man would emerge, a most repulsive sort of person who made a habit of accosting women, old and young.

There were a number of these men always frequenting that area. They were mostly tramps. At night they slept out on the shore. Here their instincts seemed to have full rein, and more than one woman taking a morning walk along the shore was surprised when from behind some sand-hill there suddenly emerged one of these species, entirely naked.

As the woman stood, hesitating, at the corner of Hatfields, these things passed across her mind. In a series of pictures she could see them. But the Dock Road would be patrolled too. Her husband was right. Still, she was out now, and besides, it just had to be done.

Mr Lake sat in that office of his for no other purpose than to be seen, to be interviewed upon the vital matter of her son. The fact that she had not had any recent letter from him only served to make her more determined than ever. After all, it was important. She could not see why or how she should be stopped by anybody. This proposed journey was nothing new to Mrs Fury. She was used to it. It wasn't so much the having to walk, that was nothing – she could walk miles – no, it was all the obstacles placed in one's path by these disputes. The merest loafer at the street corner felt it to be his shining hour. He stepped out into the road and asked people where they were going. To town! H'm! Then he pulled his cap down hard over his eyes.

‘Can't go that way, ma'am.'

‘Why?' the person would ask. ‘Why not?'

‘Dangerous!' He was a well-informed fellow, he knew. But if the person liked, he would take her another way. In brief, for a small financial consideration, he would free her path of all obstacles. The pedestrian generally fell for it. Yes. One's path was barred by obstacles. Those obstacles were explanations. Explanations all the way there and all the way back.

‘Where are you going? Why? What is that you are carrying?'

Tiring, irritating. It made one's walk a veritable torture.

‘I'll call into the chapel on my way,' she said to herself, and immediately turned towards Ash Walk. The streets were deserted. Only smoke pouring out from the forest of chimneys indicated that behind the bricks and mortar people lived, that these people were now rising, washing, dressing, making breakfast.