The Furys (20 page)

As she went downstairs Mrs Fury passed her. They smiled. Fanny Fury stood on the landing watching her sister go down the lobby. She smiled again as the door opened, and called down, ‘Will you be out long, Brigid?' The woman at the door hesitated. What a silly question to ask! She called back, ‘I really don't know, Fanny. I may be back about tea-time, but I won't promise. I have to go down to the shipping office after Mass, as I must see what arrangements can be made. I don't want to be stuck here.' The tone of her voice suddenly changed. ‘I don't want to be held up by this strike, Fanny. Well, so long now.' The door closed. As the door of number three Hatfields closed, a half-dozen other doors opened, curtains were drawn back, bedroom blinds peered through. Mrs Postlethwaite herself, never an early riser, felt it incumbent upon herself to rise immediately on hearing the Furys' door close. This aunt from Ireland must be seen. As Miss Mangan walked sedately down the street, she was faintly suspicious that certain curtains upon whose dirtiness she had already formed opinions were moving, and once, as she approached number seven, she deliberately hesitated to hear a remark passed. ‘Why, that's Fury's sister-in-law. Aye. Came over yesterday. Queer bloody lot.' Aunt Brigid went almost crimson, and heaved a sigh of relief when she reached the bottom of the street.

Yes, Fanny had ruined herself marrying that man. Dad had warned her. Now look where she was. Living next to a bone yard. Thank God she had kept by her resolution never to leave Ireland! It seemed to her that Irish people living in England always congregated in the worst quarters of the city. This harum-scarum fellow named Dennis Fury certainly had a lot to answer for. ‘Denny hates me like poison. I know it.' She turned the corner and made her way to Hans Street, which she crossed, and passed through Ash Walk, and so arrived at the chapel. There were hardly a dozen people at the Mass. Following her usual custom, Aunt Brigid went straight up the middle aisle and took one of the front benches. She took out her Prayer Book and followed the Mass in Latin. She knew already that people were looking at her. Once she turned round and smiled at a woman in the bench behind her. A few minutes later the woman herself came into Miss Mangan's bench and knelt beside her. She whispered in her ear, ‘Why, Brigid, I'm so surprised to see you …' and would have gone on but that the ringing of the bell for the Elevation put a brake upon her effusions. Miss Mangan was not used to being interrupted during the saying of the Mass. She supposed it was a common thing in England. How quickly the Irish forgot themselves when once out of their own country! The woman at her side fidgeted about. It seemed she could hardly wait for the last gospel to be read. There was an impatience about her whole attitude to the Mass that shocked the older woman beside her. ‘Obviously,' thought Brigid, ‘this woman is very anxious to see me.' When the Mass was over they went out together. No sooner had they gained the door and street than the other woman began.

‘Fancy! After all these years! And how are you, Brigid? You are looking well.' Miss Mangan had to smile. What a wretched-looking woman this was! Who was she? She didn't even know the person's name. ‘Well, well. You mean to say you don't know Frances Sliney? I never!' ‘Sliney. Sliney.' Aunt Brigid ruffled her brows. ‘Sliney. The Frances Sliney from Cove?' The woman nodded her head. ‘My heavens!' exclaimed Brigid. ‘I would never have known you. You've aged indeed.' Mrs Sliney, in answer to Miss Mangan's many questions, remarked that she had been a certified midwife for some seven years. When Brigid mentioned the word ‘family' the woman laughed and replied, ‘Yes. Eleven of them. And five of them dead. They're all gone now. You remember John?' Brigid Mangan shook her head. She didn't remember anybody of that name in the Sliney family. They walked slowly up Ash Walk. Suddenly a hand touched her shoulder. ‘Well, this is gorgeous,' exclaimed Brigid. The old friends were just beginning to gather. ‘How are you, Miss Pettigrew?' Miss Pettigrew, who admitted her age as eighty-two, smiled, and put out a hand that was so thin and white that Aunt Brigid felt a little afraid of taking hold of it. ‘Still in the same place, Miss Pettigrew?' The old lady nodded her head, so that her poke-bonnet nodded too. The three stood on the edge of the side-walk. Miss Mangan was very anxious to know how far away Vulcan Street was, yet she did not wish to ask directly. She would be patient and wait. Perhaps if she waited long enough she would hear something very interesting. Miss Pettigrew said she must be going. ‘I hope you will come and see me, Miss Mangan,' she said, revealing her toothless cavern of a mouth as she smiled. ‘Don't forget now. I'm in the same old place. Good morning.' She bowed a little stiffly and walked away. ‘Yes, yes, of course,' said Miss Mangan, though she realized at once the impossibility of it. There were too many things to be seen to already.

Mrs Sliney towered over Aunt Brigid. She kept leaning over and putting her face close to her as she went on animatedly telling the history of her years in Gelton, her marriage, her ambitions, her husband's recent promotion at sea. Miss Mangan felt rather bewildered with it all. Mrs Sliney suddenly stopped. Miss Mangan looked round and noted a row of five cottages alongside of which stood a small tin chapel. Miss Mangan's quick eye caught the words, ‘Welsh Methodist'. Mrs Sliney was pointing at one of the cottages and saying, ‘I live just over there. Won't you come and have a bite of breakfast with me?' She looked so appealingly at Miss Mangan that the woman hesitated before crossing the street. What time was it? Nearly ten. H'm! There wasn't much time to waste. The woman still held her with the same appealing glance.

‘I'll slip in for a few minutes,' Aunt Brigid said. They crossed the street and entered the first of the five cottages. It was dark and stuffy inside. Mrs Sliney, like Mrs Fury, was very fond of huge fires, though, unlike Miss Mangan's sister, she rarely opened a window. ‘Well now,' exclaimed Mrs Sliney, ‘just drop your coat off, Brigid. You'll feel cold going out again.' She watched the woman take her coat off and stand resplendent in her bright green gown. Mrs Sliney felt that Miss Mangan dressed outrageously for a woman of her years.

‘I have some tea ready,' she said. ‘Won't you take a tot of rum in it?' Miss Mangan sat down as far away from the great fire as possible. She leaned her head to one side and replied, ‘Hardly. Hardly, Frances.' Then, after a long pause, ‘Oh, very well. Heaven knows when I'll see you again.' She watched the woman go outside. Then she let her eyes wander about the dark kitchen.

Mrs Sliney came back with two cups of tea and a small bottle. She sat down. She poured a little rum into each cup. ‘There you are, Brigid,' she said, and began to stir her own tea. She kept looking at the woman in the green gown. Miss Mangan, looking up suddenly, caught the other's eye. This woman, she told herself, was envious of her. But why? Even Fanny had stared at her in the same queer way. Had marriage destroyed something in them that now shone triumphantly in her own person? ‘There's something in it,' thought Aunt Brigid. She was looking in the mirror again. Of course, and she must admit it, she
was
looking extraordinarily well. That's what it was. She looked so well. Even a little prosperous. Mrs Sliney coughed.

‘I hear you brought the boy over with you,' she said. ‘How is he getting along these times?' Miss Mangan looked into the fire. She felt she ought to be wary at this stage. How was he getting on? In plain English it really meant: Why had he to leave the college so suddenly? ‘How quickly things spread about,' she was thinking, oblivious of the fact that Mrs Sliney was refilling her tea-cup. She expected this. She pushed the cup in on the table and assumed an attitude of imminent departure. ‘Oh, well!' she exclaimed, half rising from the chair, ‘now you are asking me a question.' She rose to her feet. ‘I hardly know myself, and I'm certain his mother doesn't.'

Mrs Sliney said ‘Oh!' and registered an expression of complete astonishment. This was interesting. ‘How strange, Brigid!' she said. ‘I suppose you're going up to see the daughter now, are you?'

‘That's just where I'm going,' replied Aunt Brigid, drawing on her gloves. ‘And then I'm going down to the shipping office to see about my journey back. I don't wish to be stranded here, what with all this talk of a strike.' She fastened her coat.

‘Yes. She's having a child shortly, isn't she? As for this strike, Brigid, I think it's just a lot of guff. Just guff.'

‘Indeed! I wish I could be as optimistic as that,' said Miss Mangan, moving towards the door. ‘I was glancing at the headlines in the paper this morning. But then you never were one for reading much, were you, Frances?' and she smiled at Mrs Sliney.

‘How long are you staying?' Aunt Brigid drew herself up at the front door. ‘No longer than I can help, I assure you. It's a dirty place and no mistake.'

Mrs Sliney said, ‘H'm!' and opened the door. ‘It's a pity you going back so soon,' remarked Mrs Sliney. ‘It would have been nice for you to have met some of the girls.'

Aunt Brigid was already in the street, feeling a little cleaner, filled with an earnest desire to be gone. There was something about the slatternly-looking woman on the doorstep that filled her with horror at the thought of ever being domiciled in Gelton. ‘It's a dirty morning,' she remarked, looking away up the street. The woman nodded her head.

‘God knows when we'll see you again,' she said, laughing.

‘It's been nice to see you,' Aunt Brigid said, putting forth all the control she was capable of. ‘Perhaps some day …'

‘Yes, yes. Of course … well, bye-bye, Brigid.' They shook hands.

Mrs Sliney stood watching Miss Mangan's stately stride until she had turned the corner by the chapel. Then she went in and banged the door. Aunt Brigid, having passed the chapel, paused for a moment by a grocer's shop, looking into the window. She looked at nothing in particular. She was making up her mind. Her eye caught the clock on the wall inside the shop. Time was getting on. Ought she to go to Vulcan Street? She would certainly like to see Desmond. He had been her favourite, and, of course, that wife of his? She simply must see her. But she did not like to ask the direction to Vulcan Street. She turned away from the shop and walked on. ‘How beastly people are!' she said to herself. A boy running towards her reminded her that she was not even sure of the number of the street where Maureen lived. She stopped the boy. ‘Where is Price Street, sonny?' she asked, automatically putting her hand in her bag to get a penny for him. The boy turned away and pointed to a narrow street almost opposite them.

‘Over there'm,' he said, taking the penny from Miss Mangan. ‘Thank you'm.' Miss Mangan walked on. At last she was in the street. Number thirty-five. She mustn't forget it now. As she wandered slowly down, her observant eye scrutinized the various windows. Number twenty-five. Not far now. She stopped outside the house. The step had been newly scrubbed. ‘My!' she exclaimed, as she noticed the bright yellow curtains of number thirty-seven, which appeared to throw out a challenge to Mrs Kilkey's bright green ones. She knocked at the door. When the young woman opened it, the recognition was not so spontaneous as Aunt Brigid had hoped. ‘Well, Maureen,' she exclaimed, turning her head sharply to glance up the street, and thinking, ‘What a place to have brought Maureen!' The young woman jumped down to the step and flung her arms about her aunt, exclaiming, ‘Why, it's Aunt Brigid. How are you, Auntie?' Miss Mangan smiled. They went in together.

Maureen drew out a chair for her aunt, and Miss Mangan sat down.

‘Oh!' Aunt Brigid said. ‘I walked all the way here.'

‘Let me help you, Auntie.' she said. The woman stood up, and Maureen took off her coat. ‘Your gloves, Auntie.' Miss Mangan said, ‘All right, child. Just hang the coat up anywhere. And how are you?' She turned and looked at her niece. There was something hard and penetrating in her glance. Maureen came forward, standing in front of the fire, her hands clasped behind her back.

‘Is Peter home? How is he? What does he look like? I wanted to meet you last night, but I couldn't very well go, as Joe wasn't feeling too well.' Miss Mangan never slackened in her penetrating stare.

‘Oh, Peter! Strange child. He's as big as an elephant now. But then you'll be going up there tonight, won't you?'

‘Yes, Auntie.' Aunt Brigid put out a hand and caught her niece by the hem of her skirt. ‘Come here.' Maureen took a chair and sat opposite her aunt. ‘How are you? I heard the news from your mother. Tell me, are you happy, Maureen?' It seemed to the young woman that her aunt's eyes suddenly changed colour. There was a silence. Miss Mangan laid her hand on Maureen's knee, her eyes now taking in her niece's altered form. ‘You are happy, then?' she repeated, and Maureen, as though just wakened from a long sleep, sat up suddenly and replied:

‘Oh yes, Auntie. Oh yes. I like Joe. We are happy here.'

Aunt Brigid slowly drew off her right glove and laid it on the table. ‘How did it happen, Maureen? I can tell you it was a great surprise to me. Your mother never dropped me a line about it. Your mother is a strange woman, child. Even with Desmond.' The same dignified silence. ‘What is the use of it? I ask you. It's time your mother had a little common sense.' She tapped her foot upon the freshly scrubbed flags.

‘But Mother wrote to you, Auntie,' replied Maureen, with some astonishment.

‘Perhaps she did, but I didn't get it, Maureen,' replied Aunt Brigid coldly. Pause. ‘What time will your husband be in for dinner?' She sat back in her chair, assuming her favourite position, head a little to one side, arms spread out upon her knees. Now that she was able to study her niece more closely, she realized how alike both mother and daughter were. The same head, the same eyes, nose, and mouth. The same self-assurance, the same tensity. But there was something else. A change in Maureen, and she had been quick to notice it. Yes. She had changed, but in what way? She could not take her eyes off the young woman.