Winter Song (22 page)

‘Come along,' Kilkey said. ‘What are you standing there for, Fanny? Can't you hear Denny calling you?'

‘Yes, yes,' flurried, her hands clasped to her breast, hurrying in.

‘Denny,' she said, ‘what a fine long sleep you had,' she ran her fingers over his greyish skin, ‘the old lines are going, and that awful wintry, puckered-up look you had. Why Denny, God help you, you're coming around nicely, nicely—I'm so glad. Now you must have some dinner, and a nice cup of tea. I hope you weren't having them dreams.'

Between them they made the pillows comfortable behind his head, they sat him up, then Kilkey went off down to get ready the tray.

‘Are you really getting better, Denny?'

‘Yes, I think I am, Fanny. When will we be going away from here?'

‘Ah! Now that's something I like to hear—any old day now, out of this place. It's great to see you eating and drinking the milk and the tea—why, you'll soon be your old self again. Now, I've something to tell you. We are going to see Peter, the two of us, yes, it's all being arranged for us, for that Delaney man says that, looking at all the circumstances, he thinks the authorities will let us see him before we sail away.'

‘I'd love to see the lad, God knows I would—it was a blow to me when I got that news, and the way I had to hear it, out of fo'c's'le mouths, spinning rough as they do, and the way they lap round any old story with the police in it, they might have been half a pack of hounds.'

‘I was ashamed to write to you that time—I own to it now. I couldn't stand the thought of it, so I let it be, but I'm sorry you had to hear it all by way of wagging old tongues. Never mind, it's all done now—all done. You'll find him changed, I did myself, and you'll have to prepare yourself for surprises. It's strange what the sight of stone can do to a man. Why when I saw him, sitting away at the end of a long table—separated that way, as though we might poison each other by being natural mother and son. Ah, he'd grey to him everywhere—his hair—and the apples out of his cheeks, his skin as grey as grey, which isn't healthy in a young man …'

‘I don't want to hear any more about that now. It's shock enough I had. Ah, the way you talk and talk, Fanny—you would have made a fine preacher, maybe a fine Benedictine if you'd been a man. I keep looking at you at times. I look at you and wonder where the change is—I can't tell—some fine sort of change that's come in quiet, so you wouldn't notice it. I'm thinking here all the time about what that doctor said, Fanny, mind the awful thing it is, to tell a man he can't work any more. Do you think that's true, Fanny—me that's always worked and always healthy with it?'

‘I don't know. I just don't. Forget about him now—he won't be coming here any more. Mr Kilkey's delighted the way you come along, who was for having his own doctor to see you.'

‘I don't want any doctor—I just want to be left alone. I had doctors everywhere. In that hot place in Bahia, then on the ship to New York, then another there, then another ship's doctor and one at Tilbury. I've had me fill of them, so don't be talkin' about them any more.'

‘I won't, Denny—and, another thing, you're right—I always talked far too much. But the change you see in me is just this—that now if I go gabbing out of me, you can tell me to shut up. I'll do anything to please you from this day on.'

‘I can't help wishing in a way,' he spoke slowly, approaching his subject with some trepidation, shyly, ‘I can't help wishing we were going anywhere but to that woman.'

‘You mean Brigid?'

‘I do. She never liked me. I knew it well—she often made fun of me for no reason at all.'

‘But that's just her way, dear—she poked fun at everybody and everything. She's not so serious as one or two are, and never was—who never worried much either, and preferred to live her life close to the Church. She often flayed me alive with her tongue because I married you, but I stood by you, even when I knew she was right.'

‘There you go again, talking, talking.'

‘What else can I do?'

‘Be quiet,' he said, ‘it pleases me—it can please you. I shall look forward so much to seeing my son. I could wish I was seeing them all, altogether, back in our home. Somehow—oh, I won't talk about it any more. Would you get me a drink of water, Fanny, I'm so dry.'

She hurried to the mantelshelf and filled him a cup of water from the jug.

‘Thank you, Ah, that was good. Nice and fresh and cold.'

He exclaimed suddenly, ‘D'you mind this mark down the back of my head?'

She shut her eyes, ‘My God, I do,' she said.

It was the first time he had mentioned it to her. She sat with closed eyes, silent. ‘That horrible thing,' she thought, ‘I was hoping he'd never mention it to me. How ugly it is, it's a wonder he wasn't killed by it.'

‘I asked Joe Kilkey to get a glass for me, so I could look at it, for I've never seen it.'

‘Why d'you want to see it now—it's a hateful thing, Denny, spare your eyes, man.'

‘Get me a mirror,' he said with sudden firmness, determination, ‘go and get it.'

There was one on the mantelpiece.

‘Get two,' he said, ‘the doctors put twenty-eight stitches in it—I remember that.'

She stood before him, the mirror in her hand. ‘
Why
do you want to see it now, Denny?'

‘I want to see it,' he said.

She went below stairs and came up with a second mirror. She handed it to him.

‘There,' she said and turned her back on him. ‘Such a sight for him to see—to be vain about a thing like that.'

‘You'll carry it to the grave,' she found herself saying, ‘isn't that all you need to know.'

‘A fine old mark indeed,' he said, and when she looked at him, he had laid down the two mirrors on the bed.

‘I expect it frightened you, Fanny, that day I first came in.'

‘It was the first cruel thing I saw that morning,' she replied.

‘He's calling you.'

‘I know, I'd better go down.'

‘Don't be long, Fanny.'

‘All right.'

But it was Kilkey who came up shortly after. He saw the mirrors on the blanket and picked them up.

‘What a vain old man,' he said.

Denny Fury smiled. ‘I didn't see it before, not properly, and all the way over I'd hear people talking about it, like I'd come out of the jungle, after being clawed by some wild animal.'

‘I've just told Fanny to make herself comfortable on the sofa. There's a nice fire down there, and the morning paper if she wants to look at it. I want to have a bit of a chat, Denny.'

‘We've been talking all the morning, her and me.'

‘I'll come to the point,' Kilkey said, ‘you can stay here with me if you wish.'

He took the old man's hand. ‘It's no trouble to me. Just make up your mind any old time before Sunday next.'

‘It's made up, Joe, thank you all the same. Me and Fanny are one on this. We're going away from Gelton for good.'

‘Then I'm glad—glad indeed. I'll be able to come over once a year and see how you're getting on, and I always will. And Dermod too, he'll come and I daresay when the bright time comes, Peter will too. And Anthony. Why, his wife's in Dublin. You won't feel lonely. And I think you'll be happy in Cork, a nice little town, I know it well.'

‘It's that Brigid woman worries me. All my life, Kilkey, I aimed to be an independent man, and now here I am at the end of my days, as you might say, being dependent on somebody else—and her own sister too.'

‘Things are different now—that's years ago, man. She's an old woman, surely, and how glad she'll be to have a sister to come and live with her.'

‘It's not like your own home,' the old man replied.

‘Accept things when they come,' Kilkey said, ‘there's no other road out of it. Whatever things happened can't be undone now—or got over, or dodged, you just got to take it. Be glad you're alive. I know I am—I've seen many a bad accident at the docks, and I count myself lucky.'

‘D'you think Maureen will ever come back.'

‘I don't care any more about that,' was Kilkey's reply.

‘Fanny wonders still whether you're going to take us over there. She doesn't want anybody else.'

‘Yes, I promised that,' Kilkey said, ‘I hope you'll be all right to-night, Denny, I'm away at five o'clock.'

‘We'll be all right.'

‘Mrs Turner will be in to get your supper. I told Fanny to knock on the wall if there's anything you want.'

‘Fanny says I look better to-day.'

‘And so you do. In a month you'll be on your feet again, and going about like anybody else.'

‘D'you suppose what they say is true, Kilkey, that I won't work ever again.'

After a pause, Kilkey said, ‘It's true enough, but I wouldn't be worrying myself about that.'

‘It'll feel very strange to me not working.'

‘You can't work forever.'

‘Why,' thought Kilkey, ‘the old man's not got over it yet. He can't believe it, even now.'

Kilkey changed the subject. ‘Well, how about Saturday week? That would suit me all right.'

‘You really want to be bothered with a pair of old fogies like us?' asked Mr Fury.

‘Why shouldn't I?'

‘All right. I'll talk to Fanny. There'll be a heap of things to do, for her, I mean. She hasn't changed very much do you think?

‘Not much. Now, I really must be getting downstairs again. Would you be able to look at the paper if I brought it up?'

‘No, don't bother. Fanny'll read it to me. I lost my spectacles when I lost my bag, and I can't read without them.'

‘All right. I'll go down now. I wish I could sit with you a little longer, but I can't. I'm due down at the Canton Dock at five. My, you daren't be a minute late these days—else your job's gone.'

The old man was looking at him now, looking at him as he had never looked before. ‘Why it's a queer lonely sort of life you lead now,' he said.

‘I've learned to be a bachelor, that's all. Sometimes I feel lonely here, and nothing much to break the monotony of every day, and that's a thing a girl in a home can do.'

‘A pity, a pity. It should never have happened. I've often thought of my daughter, Joe, often. I've worried about her. I've thought of the way her mother drove her along, and so drove her away altogether. You won't say a word about this, Joe, will you, but all the morning poor Fanny's been telling me how sorry she is for everything, and it made me feel quite sad like, looking at her there, being sorry, so I said, “Well, it wasn't all your fault, I should have been more ambitious and done more.” I've never been the man for her, never. Why she would have done better with somebody else, somebody with brains. I never cared about anything much except rolling along any old how.'

‘Come, come, you mustn't talk like that, Denny, my dear, dear man. Not after living fifty years with Fanny. I don't like to hear you saying things like that, you both did what you thought was best at the time. For God's sake, give up. I've been at Fanny about the same thing. Forget the whole blasted lot of it, and look forward to to-morrow.'

Kilkey had become quite excited, he was on his feet now, colour had rushed to his cheeks, he gesticulated with his arms—he seemed to be hurling all the miserable part out of the room.

‘I tell you I'll refuse to talk to you any more, if you go on like that. You've done the things you wanted to do—both of you—and now your children are doing what they want to do. Get better, get out, get away from this place, and forget you ever came to it.'

The old man moved restlessly in the bed, he seemed to be trying to get out of it.

‘What are you trying to do at all?'

‘I'm getting up.'

‘You can't get up.'

‘Ah, let me try. Let me stand on the floor and see how strong I am to-day. I want to get up. I want to do them things you say, get up, get out—away.'

He had managed to throw clear the sheet, He sat up. He put one foot to the ground.

‘Half a minute.'

Kilkey stood by him, he put an arm round his shoulders—‘All right, Denny, just try now.' The old man put his other foot to the floor, stood for a moment, then he smiled at Kilkey.

‘You see,' he said, leaning heavily on the other.

‘You're a game old warrior, I must say. Now, I'll let go for a second,' he said, and he stood clear. He saw the old man draw himself up, stand shaking, and then he caught his arms and said: ‘You're much better. Much better. Fanny will be pleased. I'll call her up.'

He sat the man on the bed. He went to the top of the landing and called ‘Fanny! Fanny!'

She came up at once.

‘Why Denny's heaps better. He's been out on the floor here. In a week, I'm sure he'll be able to walk a bit.'

‘Ah, Denny, you shouldn't have done this. And you, Kilkey, letting the man do such a thing.'

‘I'll be able to walk up that gangway, Fanny,' the old man said. ‘I know I will. I don't want to be carried up a ship's gangway. I don't want that.'

‘Sure I know you don't. Please God, you'll walk up, and you'll walk down too, and me aside of you, and all them travels finished for good. Now get back to bed, like a good man.'

Kilkey had slipped silently out.

She helped him back into bed. ‘You shouldn't have done it,' she kept saying.

‘I don't care now, Fanny, we'll be able to go up that gangway together, why, I'd hate to be carried up on a stretcher.'

‘There'll be no stretcher,' she said, ‘now settle yourself.'

‘I'll do anything you want me to, Fanny,' he replied.