The Furys (70 page)

‘Excuse me.' Then he went away behind a meat waggon. It was as if his going had loosened their tongues at last.

‘Peter! I am sure you will be glad you went. Mr Mulcare will look to you. He has promised me that. He is an old friend of your father.' She looked earnestly at her son, as though by her very look she might draw words from him. But Peter merely looked at the ship and said nothing. His bag had fallen from the chute to the ground. He did not pick it up, but sat swinging his legs. His mother was there, sitting by him, and before his eyes were mirrored all the energy and activity which one sees in a departing ship. He saw the crew go aboard, he saw the dockers shouting and laughing, joking with each other as they battened down their hatches. He saw the white burst from the funnel as they tested her whistle. ‘You have changed so much, Peter,' his mother said. She looked away then, knowing he did not care what she said.

Mulcare came back and sat on the chute. The sun came out. Under it the whole scene seemed to change. The dreary atmosphere was gone. In that paradisial moment the ship itself had appeared to move from the quay as though, feeling its warmth, she were straining to be free, to be free from those roofs from those towering cranes, that imprisoned and held her fast. It was as if she had smelt the ocean again, her spirit touched its unfathomable depths.

‘We must go aboard soon,' Mulcare said, and looked away up the shed. How quiet this boy was! Saying nothing, and yet about to tread for the first time upon a long and adventurous road. He looked at Peter. The boy was looking up, higher than the roof, higher than the cranes, higher than any mast, as though thought itself were endeavouring to free his feet from the ground, to drag his body from the dead wood. ‘Cheer up!' Mulcare said. Now he smiled. ‘It's no holiday, of course,' added Mulcare. ‘You'll have to work.'

It was the end. So the woman thought as she looked from one to the other. She felt calm and peaceful. She had only to hear the man say, ‘We must go
now
.' She had only to rise and kiss this boy, and turn away, and she would have turned that last page of the book. She would begin again. After all, she loved him, in spite of everything. He was only young. He could try again. She was glad, glad in her heart that it had all been so. Perhaps it was God's good will. This man would take her son. The sea would do him good. It was all for the best. The end of the page. She turned to Mulcare.

‘I know you will look after him,' she said, sensing the man's desire to be off. More men were climbing her gangway.

‘Don't you worry, Mrs Fury.' He turned to Peter. ‘Pick up your bag.'

The woman caught hold of Peter and embraced him. ‘Remember what I said to you.' That was all. Then she kissed him. ‘Good-bye! God bless you.'

Mulcare looked away up the shed. Peter bent down to pick up his bag. As he swung it from the ground the contents of his inside pocket fell out. ‘Wait, Peter!' Mrs Fury stooped down to pick them up. As she did so, she saw on the ground in front of her two photographs. As she stared at these she knelt down upon the ground. She continued to stare at them. Then she struggled to her feet. Her face went white. She held the photographs of Sheila Fury in her hand. She reached out to Mulcare. ‘Take these,' she said. ‘Take them away,' as though they burned her hand, as though, touching them, they befouled. Mulcare took them from her.

She stood in front of her son, a helpless rage seized her, fleshed itself upon her features. ‘Where did you get them? Have you been with that woman?' she asked.

‘Who is this?' asked Mulcare, quite unaware of the rage that spread like fire across Mrs Fury's face.

Peter said quietly, ‘It's my brother's wife.'

‘What?' said Mulcare. Then he looked at the woman, and he closed his mouth like a trap.

‘His brother's wife! His brother's wife!' the man was saying. ‘But where have I seen her?' The photographs seemed to say. ‘You saw me a little white ago. Your friend and I retired together.' The face seemed to smile out at him.

‘Have you been with that woman?' Mrs Fury seemed ready to explode. Her whole body became tensed, she leaned forward and almost touched her son's face. ‘Have you been with that woman?'

Mulcare dropped the photographs to the ground and stared at Peter.

‘Yes, I have. I have been with her many times,' Peter said.

‘What!' Then she raised her clenched fists and struck her son between the eyes. ‘What!' she screamed. ‘What!'

Peter drew back, but she moved with him. Her rage, fleshed upon her wild and agitated face, pushed her forward. She struck him again, and saw blood run down her son's face. Again she struck, this time with both fists together. A cloud seemed to blot out everything but this face. Peter was laughing. She struck him again. She felt the soft flesh give way beneath her blows. There was nothing in front of her now save his face. The face of her son who that morning had knelt with her before the altar. The face seemed to grow bigger, to grin at her. And as she struck she shouted. The world disappeared in this great white cloud, and she struck not Peter but everybody. They seemed to float past and receive her cruel blows – one long procession. ‘My God! I thought it had ended,' she was crying in her mind, ‘but it is only beginning.' Again and again she struck, not Peter, not a man, but all men, all those who had cheated and insulted her. Somebody was dragging her back, but her clenched fists, as though now freed from her body, continued to strike. ‘Damn you! Damn you!' she began to scream.

‘Mrs Fury! Mrs Fury!' somebody was whispering in her ear.

‘Damn you! Damn you!' She continued to strike at her son's face.

‘Take that madwoman out of this!' shouted a voice from the gangway.

Blinded by her own tears, she made one last strike at Peter's face. But Mulcare was already dragging the boy up the gangway. Men were waiting to unship it. Somebody had picked up Peter's bag and had carried it on board.

Mrs Fury struck nothing but the empty air.

‘Take that madwoman away!' shouted a man at the top of the gangway. The woman stood still. Looking up, she saw him, her son, Peter, with his bloody face, just as he disappeared round the gangway head. Then she walked back to the house.

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CHAPTER I

Mrs. Anna Ragner was a lady who had certain very definite ideas not only about the state of the world, but about the society which inhabited it. For one thing, she believed that people were divided into two classes, those who waited and those who were attended to at once. Mrs. Ragner had passed the stage where sociologists had divided the world's inhabitants into three classes. The word class was not in that lady's vocabulary. It belonged to the dictionary of the social sciences. Mrs. Anna Ragner spoke of persons, not classes. Necessity created her. Therefore Mrs. Ragner's sustenance was necessity. She was of middle age and unmarried. Her form was designed by nature to fit easily into any kind of dress. All designs and all colours suited this plump lady. She looked well in everything she wore, though curiously enough she lacked that essential feminine vanity which would have set the seal upon her perfection. She had lived in Gelton for a number of years, but her history was as obscure even as her big, ugly-looking house that was situated in Banfield Road. This road lay at the top of a hill in the northern district of Gelton. Banfield House stood alone, flanked by patches of waste ground. It was old, squat, ugly. There was something solid about it, something impregnable; it suggested the bleakness of a fort on windswept rock. At the back of the house there stood a large sauce and pickle factory. All day the odours of essences and spices floated about Banfield House, but if passers-by were conscious of them, Anna Ragner who lived in their midst was not. Such smells were part of the atmosphere, like the air, the bricks, the stone steps, and heavy, dusty windows, all of which windows, with the exception of the sitting-room ones, were covered with iron bars. Anna Ragner liked these. It seemed fitting indeed that one of her calling should have bars upon her windows. Mrs. Anna Ragner's mission in life was to supply money to needy clients. Necessity created the clients, and society created necessity. Only by the harmonious working of this trinity could she live. Mrs. Ragner always sat at the top of the long, low-ceilinged sitting-room when interviewing her clients. The windows were never opened. In cold weather she had an oil-stove by her side. The clients sat at the other end of the room. They were always orderly, patient, and even on the windiest nights never seemed to feel the cold draughts along the bare wooden floor. Huddled together they kept each other warm. Anna Ragner did not supply warmth to clients, only money. During interviews she was attended by her factotum, a Mr. Corkran. He was the only person living with Mrs. Ragner. He had a room of his own at the top of the house. They rarely saw each other except during hours of business, and that was always in the evening, as during the day Mrs. Ragner attended at her small office in the city to interview other clients. They took their meals, which Mr. Corkran himself cooked, in their own rooms. This gentleman was an ex-sailor, a man who had sailed the world over, and who now, fortified by the touchstone of experience, had settled himself permanently in the house in Banfield Road. Mr. Corkran knew his employer better than anybody, and none knew Mr. Corkran better than Mrs. Ragner. They respected each other. No more than that. Neither cherished any affection for the other. Clients had often remarked to each other that Mr. Corkran was living with the woman as his wife, that he had had complete control over everything. But this was wrong. Anna Ragner would have thought any such associations repulsive. One thing, however, seemed certain—that the one could not exist without the other. Mr. Corkran not only looked after the domestic side of the business, but he also acted as counsellor on money matters. Also when necessity arose he could deal effectively with stubborn or bullying clients. Mrs. Ragner would never have thought of having a woman about the house, for in her opinion this ex-sailor was worth a hundred of them. She made him an allowance. He paid the rent, bought the food and cooked it. He cleaned the house, and washed the clothes, even Anna Ragner's. He saw to everything. Mr. Corkran's imagination never shaped or fashioned a future. Working with Mrs. Ragner was in no sense a means to an end. He neither thought of marrying her nor of inheriting her money. He was perfectly content. He was happy, and even told the lady so. He called the house ‘his haven.' He had no friends. If he had relations Mrs. Ragner had never seen them. He was entirely alone, Banfield Road was his world and he was wholly absorbed in the life there. He had become one with the rhythm of that life, and nothing could disturb it. After seeing her clients in the evening Mrs. Ragner generally went out, but when she did not, she passed her time alone in her own room. Her favourite pastime was going through the letters of clients. Her psychological bent expressed itself in this way. She would look at a letter, speak the name aloud, and then try to conjure up in her mind a picture of its writer. If a person whom she had already met, the picture stood out crystal-clear at once. She liked faces, the faces of people who knew how to keep their mouths closed and listen to what she said, suggested, or commanded. She liked the faces of proud people when they called about a little matter of a loan. The map of a human face as it looked down at her seated at her desk was the only geography in which this woman was interested. As for Mr. Corkran, after his services were dispensed with, he retired to his own room to read. Daniel Corkran's speciality was murder, but murder with an atmosphere. He liked murders in March, bodies found in entries or alleys, outside conveniences, and in bleak back-yards of public-houses. About midnight he would get up and, leaving the room, walk along the landing in his home-made rope shoes about which he was very proud, and stand silently outside the door of Mrs. Ragner's room. He would say, ‘Goodnight, mam.' He never waited for an answer, but went straight back to his room. Mrs. Ragner, hearing that voice, would call back, ‘Good-night, Corkran. See everything is locked up.' To this request there was never any reply. To ask that gentleman if he had locked up was really an insult to his intelligence. On only one occasion had Mr. Corkran entered Mrs. Ragner's room at the late hour of eleven or half-past. This was when by some peculiar oversight he had forgotten to empty a certain vessel. It was the only occasion on which he had seen his employer undressed. Instinct rather than mere curiosity caused him to open wide those strange eyes he had, as he beheld Mrs. Ragner's legs, and not only her legs but her expansive bosom with its heavy breasts. ‘Why haven't you removed this?' Mrs. Ragner had demanded, and fixed him with a penetrating glance that seemed more suited to her necessitous clients than to a faithful and devoted servant. Mr. Corkran, whose eyes, satisfied with that glimpse of the white and heavy flesh, had said ‘Sorry, mam,' had picked up the vessel and had taken it out and emptied it. Neither had suffered embarrassment, and Mr. Corkran had completely forgotten the matter. The next morning when he served her breakfast she said sharply, glancing at that weather-beaten face with its so knowledgeable air, ‘Understand, Corkran, that when I call, I must be attended to at once.'