Winter Song (27 page)

‘Good-night, and thank you,' Mrs Fury replied, and the old man smiled, then turned over on his side. They heard the door close; as soon as it did so, the old man turned to his wife.

‘Where did you go to-day, Fanny?' his arm went round her.

‘On an old, old journey. Won't that do you?'

‘I knew,' he said, ‘ah, why did you bother tramping all that way down there, Fanny?'

‘I wanted to, for you.'

‘I know. Oh, I know you'd do anything for me, Fanny, but I wish you hadn't. I knew the moment you'd gone. I nearly said it to Kilkey, but I didn't. You went to them offices about me.'

‘I did.'

‘What for?'

‘What I went for does not matter any more—either to you or to me.'

‘I could have told you Fanny, I could have told you the foolery of it before ever you went.'

‘And so you dragged it out of me at last. This morning going down on the tram, Denny, I saw the prettiest child you ever saw. She
was
a pretty thing.'

‘What happened?'

She closed her eyes to avoid his look.

‘And when I went into that old place, “The Blue Bird”, I think it used to be called, when I went in, I was at a table, and three such nice young men were there. They were so young and merry—the three of them did so remind me of Peter.'

‘Will you read his letter to-morrow, Fanny?'

‘I will.'

‘I could have told you they'd say no.'

‘Who'd say no?' she asked.

‘Who d'you think?' he replied.

They were close now, as close as they would ever be. Their eyes seemed searching, as though each were endeavouring to discover the other's secret thoughts.

‘This great place has changed, Denny.'

‘Has it? I wouldn't know. I haven't opened my eyes on it since I came home again.'

‘God was good that day.'

‘Just here and there as I went by,' she said, ‘just here and there I came on places that are just the same, like all the showers of days on it would make no difference, no change at all. Yet some places had altered, Denny, and it was like looking on great patches of emptiness. I can't explain …'

‘Don't! Go to sleep.'

‘I hope you'll be well and strong be Friday, Denny, for I'm pledged then, and you're pledged—and we'll tell no one, not even Kilkey, and we'll just go and not be worrying about anything at all, 'cept them wheels turning and spinning us along to where he is.'

‘To Peter?' he asked.

‘To him! Who else, I ask you, who says a great “
NO
” with his head, behind his heart's big “
YES
”—why I could feel him saying it as I read that letter. What a day it has been—two letters, from two children—Ah, it's fine.'

‘You're happy, Fanny, in spite of everything?'

‘Of course I am.'

‘And Desmond?'

‘I've no feeling there at all, nor has he. If them people had said yes and not no, he could have kept his money.'

‘Don't be too hard—he might yet change—he might yet come back to his own kind.'

‘Devil a bit of that.'

‘To-day, as I was sitting there by the window, it was open, but not cold. I heard an old horn blow away down the river, and I heard it blowin' right inside me head, and it broke this awful old dream I had in me, that awful thing that kept pecking at me. I …'

‘Oh, Denny! That's wonderful news—that's wonderful, all that old horror gone out of you. Why that's the loveliest thing I heard this whole day. Ah, I mind the night you said the sea was washing about in your head. You were far away from me then, and try as I might I couldn't get the grip to you—that awful sea had you flat on your back, I could see you floating away, away. I thought you'd go for ever.'

‘I'm all right now,' he said, ‘don't worry about me any more, for I shall walk up the gangway of the boat that carries us home. But I wish we were going …'

‘Enough! One wish is enough. Do go to sleep, man. Be happy now, be happy. Think of Friday morning, away on that train, on our own together. It must be years since we were on a train together. The things I'm looking forward to—seeing that girl of Anthony's, and the little boy and hearing that ship's horn cry over the waters, and pulling up hard against the North Wall—and the air there—and home again with our own. And then we'll spend a few days at Balls Road, then we'll set off on the train for Cork, and the county will be beautiful now. Think of it—I haven't seen it since I was seventeen years of age, Denny—just think of that—and the old Mall again. Ah, it'll be nice seeing Brigid again. She used to laugh at you being the fool of a man, and she hated me for ever leaving Ireland, but she come to see other folks' ways in the end. I feel all lighted up inside with some things, and black with other things. Ah, the grass is green there like no place on earth.

‘To be getting away from these old walls at last. I hope Kilkey will forgive me for running off like that—I'll explain to him in the morning. I'll not forget his kindness to us whilst I live. He'll miss us, too. We'll be all good out of it, and him alone but with his fine son to stand beside him. I often wonder where my poor girl is—I often wonder. I met that Mr Lake, the man you knew so well—he's changed, very much so. Though I knew him, I was surprised he didn't know me, nor the name. I must look very different now. I don't know what I look like, I've never looked in a mirror for ages and ages—I suppose I'm really old at last.'

‘You look fine, Fanny,' the old man whispered in her ear, ‘and I'm as proud of you as on the day I first met you—that first fine shining morning.'

Chapter 7

They were seated together on the park bench. He wore a cap, the new blue overcoat she had bought him. She wore the clothes she always did, she rarely altered her attire, the long coat, the felt hat, the gloves. In front of them a small group of children were playing. The woman looked to right and left, then said in an undertone, ‘I can't believe it, but we're really alone at last.' Whenever she glanced at him, it was always the scar that met her eyes; he had become, he
was
the scar. Her smile was one of triumph. She had said she could get him out, she had vowed it, and she had got him out. It had been a struggle and always there was Kilkey, the gentle man, the careful man, ‘Be careful, Fanny, I'm against it. He can't do it.' But he had, she had got him downstairs, fully dressed and into the street. For him it was adventure, he pleased her by his co-operation, by his delight in walking by her side and once, as they turned the corner to the park gates, he said ‘Do I look very pulled about?'

‘You're fine, Denny, you're grand. You can feel the fresh air on your face at last, and what could be nicer to look at than them children playing in front of you? We've caught the sun too, and it's warm. The weather has been good these two days.'

Coming down the road he had hobbled, his weight against her, yet she had hardly noticed it, he might never have been there. And, glancing sideways at him, she saw at once how the sun made his eyes water, and she drew down the peak of the cap a little further. ‘It's a long time since we sat together on a bench in the park, isn't it, Denny?'

‘I remember that other park, Fanny, we used to sit watching the boys playing football.' He turned and looked up at her, ‘I remember once when we had a high and strong argument about nothing at all. I remember that truly because that day I made up my mind to board the ships again.'

‘And here you are back again, and it might never have happened at all. When I was riding in that tram yesterday an idea came into my head, and I told myself I'll have one more ride in a tram, and I'll take you with me, and we'll go right around this place, right down and right up and everywhere about, just seeing the things we used to know, but now I don't want to any more. Yesterday spoiled all that for me. I'll never wish to see this place again, once we're out of it. It doesn't—it isn't the same—there used to be something nice about Gelton, something kind to it, many a thing you could warm to, but not now.'

‘Was he
very
angry with you yesterday, Fanny?'

‘A bit! But after I told him what I'd been doing he never minded at all. Mind you, I liked him for his worrying. Kilkey will never alter—there's a fixed creature for you, if ever you saw one fixed—and straight—oh, very straight. My, that man's strong. The muscles on him …'

‘When are we going to this place?'

‘Northerton? Friday morning.'

‘Ah, I'm glad of that—I do want to see Peter—I do want to see him. I'm sorry you went and upset yourself last night, Fanny. It hurt me deeply seeing you so taken up with his letter. I begin to see now what it was like, and what you must have gone through them times I was away on the ships. Perhaps I could have been a better husband to you. Perhaps I could. I hold nothing against you, Fanny, and I forgive you everything because it's silly not to, to be rubbing away on old bones only wears them out. I forgive you for smashing up the home I worked so hard to build. I've not been blind these days, even though some of them were hard to get through and I was all shot and shook up after the journey home. But it hurt coming home to nothing. It did. But now I'll forget it all. We're nearly seventy now, we're still together. That's all that matters any more. They've all gone—the lot of them—and somehow I don't care, it doesn't matter. I'm glad I'm alive, glad I came through, glad to be sitting beside you on this old bench. Nice and quiet, peaceful—nobody interfering.'

His eyes rested on her face. ‘You're old too, Fanny, don't forget that. I knew there was a something gnawing at you, ever since I came back, I could see it plain there—that little bit of shame you had when I first came on you in that Hospice place. But let it fly away now—for ever—it's finished. Let's take things easy again. That's why I was so angry with you yesterday, rushing away like that—oh, I know you did it with a good heart, but what do I care? What's a miserable old pension compared with rising up out of a sea that tried every way to get me? I tell myself that all the while, and in my mind I say “lucky you”.

‘And I don't like to see you giving way like this, Fanny,' he went on, ‘it breaks you to pieces in the end. I think of you as when we last saw each other. I used to be proud of you coming down to meet me—you were finer than them others—the way you walked, the way you could look. You were a fine creature, so now bear up, Fanny, don't worry about a single thing any more. Will you promise me that?'

‘I promise. I'll do anything you want, Denny, from now on.'

‘All right, that's a promise then—I'll keep you to it. I've been thinking about Cork lately. I mind the sea air there was wonderful—it might make a new man of me.'

‘It will.'

‘There'll be mornings when we'll go out for a walk down the Mall, just taking things easy, like you own the world, looking at the ships—the little boats in the harbour.'

‘So you see,' she said to herself, ‘so you see there's little we want, the simple things always took his fancy, and I like them too. when you go clever you don't like that any more. If any of my children had stood here now and heard that old man's chatter, they'd have laughed, they'd have thought it funny. Ah well,' she sighed, looked up.

‘Father Moynihan is coming to see us before we go.'

‘How grey he's gone.'

‘He has indeed, but no other change. I remember him coming here as a young man. He's spent his whole life in St Sebastian's parish. I would have liked us to have gone to Communion there this last time. I told him that, but he said no, I'll come to you.'

The old man nodded—his attention had suddenly been taken up by the sight of an old man approaching their bench. He was tall and stooped, he wore a shiny peaked bo'sun's cap, a reefer jacket—he looked somewhat out of place here, and once or twice he looked at the two people on the bench. He stopped, looked more closely at them, then passed on.

‘You see him,' the old man whispered to his wife.

‘Indeed I do.'

‘He's an old sailor, too, Fanny. I couldn't place him, but I know that face. I've seen it on many a ship, and hanged if I can remember his name. No matter, but if I stayed on in Gelton, Fanny, I could end like that. The scores of old sailors I've found walking about in these parts—I expect he's away there dreaming of some ship he'll never see. An old sailor washed up for ever and hard bound in a city. Fanny. Ah, it's a sad sight, and it makes me glad I'm going. Yes, this very morning and this very minute, I'm glad.'

She saw at once that the sight of the other old man had upset him, and she said, ‘Well, let's go, Denny—he may come back here—and if you don't want to be talking to him, let's away.'

But the man had passed out of sight, behind two miserable trees that somehow seemed lost, out of sympathy with this artificial bit of country.

‘Not yet, never mind him, he won't worry us. But all the same, I'm glad he came by. I haven't seen a real old-timer for many a day, and it's pulled me up sharp indeed, and it's told me I'm a lucky man. Maybe that poor feller hasn't home or a wife, I know the type well, Fanny, in and out of the publics, cadging a drink and sleeping, God knows where, every night and always moving, always on the go, up and down, pacing his last ship.'

Suddenly his face lighted up, ‘Kilkey's boy is a fine looking lad, isn't he? I was looking at some of them photos that Joe lent me, a fine lad. I'm glad … there's something that'll always be not quite right in Kilkey's home. He's not the bachelor type at all, and it's pathetic looking at Maureen's picture stuck over his bed. He's got the patience of a mule. D'you suppose she'll ever come back to him? I wonder where on earth she is now?'