The Furys (32 page)

In number seven a man and a woman were seated at the table. They had just finished breakfast. The strong smell of salted fish hung in the air. The woman's portion remained untouched. The small kitchen, like all the cellar kitchens in Vulcan Street, was dark, so that the light had to be put on. With its cheery fire, and heavy curtains hanging over the door, it looked warm and comfortable. The man was dressed only in shirt and trousers. His arms were folded on his chest, and his head was turned towards the now open window. He appeared to be thinking deeply on some matter or other. He was obviously trying to come to a decision about something. The woman, on the other hand, looked straight in front of her. There was nothing upon the wall at which she looked, beyond the cheap red patterned paper that covered it, and a cheap oleograph depicting a Royal personage distributing Maundy money to poor people. But her gaze was so rapt, so intense, that it seemed as though her thoughts had taken flight beyond the wall, and the house itself. Not a word was spoken. Casually she pushed into the middle of the table her untouched portion of salt fish. At that moment the man looked round. ‘Staring again?' he remarked, then resumed his former position. The expression upon his face changed. Then into the air there rose this jingling sound of chains. They looked at each other, as though to say, ‘George is in the yard.'

A cloud of dust rose suddenly, and the man shot out his arm and closed down the window. He looked up at the clock. Almost half-past eleven. He swung round again, and without looking at his wife, exclaimed, ‘I'll be late tonight.' He rose to his feet, pressed his large hands upon the table and looked down at the woman. The hands appeared to grow white beneath the pressure of the great body. As an afterthought he added, ‘What will you do?'

Without raising her head, and still staring abstractedly before her, the woman replied, ‘I'll go out.'

‘Oh!' There was silence. The man looked at the clock again. Desmond Fury was tall and powerfully built. He looked like a butcher or a coal-heaver. His sheer physicalness seemed to dominate that little kitchen. His bullet-like head was closely cropped. He had fair hair. The eyes were of a steel-like blue, cupped and almost hidden by their shaggy brows, which, unlike his hair, were almost black. The nose was small, and seemed out of place on that powerful face, but the broad nostrils made up the deficiency. The shoulders were broad, the arms long. As he stood towering over the woman, she seemed puny and inconsequent. ‘Oh!' he said again. Then he went out into the yard. The woman remained motionless.

She was of medium height, a little given to plumpness. Her hair, like her husband's, was fair. Under the light it appeared almost white. It now hung in two long plaits behind her back. Her face was white, oval in shape, crowned by a broad forehead. This forehead seemed to dominate all other characteristics. The chin was heavy and sensuous-looking. The eyes were set well apart, and of the colour of pitch, and had that luminosity that a tarred surface throws up under a film of water. As she stared at the wall the expression upon her face changed, coming and going like gusts of wind. She heard the noise of running water, and looking out of the window saw her husband coming up the yard. As she looked he stopped and said, ‘Hello!' Then she heard George Postlethwaite's voice. Her husband had stopped to talk to the carter sitting in the yard. The woman got up from the chair and began to clear away the table, gathering the scraps of food into a pan. These she flung into the fire. She carried the dishes out to the back kitchen. As she washed them she sang. The conversation in the yard had now become animated. But Sheila Fury was hardly ever interested in the talk that went on between Mr Postlethwaite and her husband. Having placed the dishes on the shelf, she went upstairs and began to clean the rooms. Her husband's Sunday clothes were already laid out at the end of the bed. As she spread the bed-clothes she exclaimed under her breath, ‘Where does he go? He's always out.' She now looked out through the bedroom window. She could see Mr George Postlethwaite polishing his horse's belly-band. Her husband was sitting on the low wall beside the lavatory. Mrs Fury threw up the window.

‘What time are you going out?' she called down to her husband. ‘Half-past one,' the man shouted back, without looking up.

‘You won't want dinner, then?' said the woman. The man shouted ‘No.' The woman closed down the window. She stood in front of the mirror of the oak dressing-table and began to unwind her hair. The jingling of the harness chain had ceased. Only the two voices rose into the air, the one a light tenor, the other a heavy bass.

Desmond Fury had not seen his family since his marriage. Although Hatfields was but a mile away, he had never ventured near, nor would he ever allow his wife to go there. Mrs Fury had been scandalized by his marriage in a Protestant church, and had closed her door upon him.

Thus the impasse seemed mutual. Only twice since his marriage had he approached his father. They worked near each other. Beyond a casual inquiry as to how the family was, to which Dennis Fury vaguely replied, ‘Middling,' nothing much was said. Mr Fury senior asked how Sheila was; Desmond replied, ‘Quite well.' Dennis Fury was never inclined to be communicative; Desmond seemed indifferent. But now, with Mr Andrew Postlethwaite's son as a next door neighbour, Desmond often received information about the goings-on at Hatfields.

This Sunday morning George Postlethwaite had a rare netful of news. ‘Aye,' he said, as he polished vigorously at Nabob's belly-band. ‘Aye, that brother of yours is home now. My old lady was telling me he's been home nearly a week. I reckon your old man's trying to get him away to sea …'

‘To sea?' said Desmond. ‘You mean Peter?' George spat suddenly, as though the name Peter was distasteful to him. Funny how the Irish clung to Peter, he was thinking.

‘Yes. Him as I used to play “tally-ho” with afore he went away.' Desmond Fury was looking over the back walls. Peter! The youngest brother! Going to seal Then he laughed.

‘It's a mistake, George,' he said. ‘That young lad is going into the Church.'

‘Church!' exclaimed George. ‘He's going into no church. Your old man told me himself that he's going away to sea. Fellow name of Mulcare's taking him with him to London, soon's this strike's over.'

‘I can't believe it,' remarked Desmond. George Postlethwaite made no reply. It is doubtful whether he would have made one. Mr Postlethwaite's thoughts were now centred round something else. This something was an animal named Nabob. Nabob must be seen to. George turned round and looked up at the man sitting on the wall.

‘What do you think of all these silly blighters downing tools like this? Mugs! Bloody mugs! That's what I say. Now I got to walk two miles through crowds to get to that stable.'

Desmond Fury laughed. ‘Yes, and I think it nearly time they downed tools too. A man wants his rights. Working men aren't greedy, George. Only want their rights.'

‘But what about other people's?' asked George. ‘Yes, what about other people's?' He had to walk two miles to that stable, pushing his way through crowds at every street corner.

‘Are you going to the meeting this afternoon?' asked Mr Fury.

‘Meeting! What meeting?' asked Mr Postlethwaite. He rose to his feet and flung the belly-band on the clothes-line.

‘The meeting in Powell Square. Everybody'll be there – railways, trams, dockers, seamen, carters, labourers, everybody.'

‘No, sir! I'm not going. Not me! I got Nabob. I'd sooner walk two miles to feed my horse than walk three to listen to a lot of gaff.'

‘Don't be so damned thick,' said Desmond Fury warmly. ‘Where would you be now but for the rights that working men have won in these last ten years? The Capitalists would have driven you into the gutter.'

It may have been pure habit, or it may have been instinctive, but George spat again. George was an affable fellow at any time, but to stand and listen to talk about working men's rights on a Sunday morning seemed to him to be beyond comprehension.

‘Rights! What rights? Seems everybody's gassing about rights. What about other people's rights, Fury? What with all these rights that's been fought for and lost, and fought for and lost again, seems to me there's precious little rights left.'

‘Don't be daft.' Desmond Fury's voice rose. ‘Don't be daft.'

‘Daft! Do I ever hear anybody shouting out for their right to be left alone? Do I hear anybody shouting out, “I claim the right to be left in peace – to be dirty, to have some different kinds of pox, to be left alone – alone …”?'

George's sudden volubility was as surprising to Mr Fury as it was to Mrs Postlethwaite. That stout young lady shouted through the window:

‘George! George! It's Sunday.'

‘Course it is!' called back George. ‘Course it's Sunday. But what about these fellers' rights?' He looked at Desmond Fury. ‘What about Nabob's rights, eh? Who thinks of the animals? Nobody.' He strode into the house, exclaiming, ‘Rights! Rights my bottom.'

Desmond Fury remained sitting on the wall. And young Peter was going to sea. ‘H'm,' thought Desmond. ‘George must know a great deal more than that.' Yes. He must talk to George again. What pride prevented him from getting from his own father he would get from George Postlethwaite next door. He jumped down from the wall and went into the house. As he passed into the kitchen, Sheila Fury came downstairs. He looked at her, his whole face mirroring his admiration, and he went forward, catching her hands in his own. ‘You look lovely, Sheila,' he said. ‘Where are you going?'

Her eyes suddenly lowered, and with one sweeping glance she surveyed her person as she replied, ‘Out.'

‘What else?' The man released her hands and sat down. As he leaned back in the chair his eyes wandered slowly from the woman's dainty feet to the crown of her head. Desmond Fury idolized this woman. As she passed over to the dresser to get her ear-rings from the drawer he followed her movements with his eyes. There was something in the mere sitting on the chair, of watching her body move, that imparted a sort of glow – a kind of thrill passed through his own body. The woman was never unconscious of this admiration. She always knew when his eyes were upon her. Now she turned and looked at him, her two hands busy affixing the ear-ring in her right ear. It seemed to him that, no matter which way this woman moved, he was caught up in that movement. Bending, rising, kneeling, walking, each one of these actions seemed to live for him, as though her body itself were speaking. Just to sit and look at her was ravishing. Now she was going out. He rose from the chair. ‘I must get ready myself. I shall be late.' He passed upstairs, and began to dress. Something of the woman's presence appeared to remain in the room, the air was full of a cheap though delicate scent. As he put on collar and tie he noticed here and there powder smears. He dipped his finger into these and smelt it. This slight action seemed to alter his appearance at once. There was something repulsive about the huge man dipping his finger in the powder and smelling it. Completely dressed, he looked at himself in the glass. ‘Look all right,' he said to himself. Then he went downstairs. The woman was now standing in the lobby. She appeared to be waiting for him. Having seen to the fire and made the doors secure, he joined her in the lobby.

‘You're not going to that damned shore again?' he asked tentatively. ‘No.' They went out.

As they passed down the street, neighbours on Sunday sentry duty remarked one to the other, ‘There she goes. That actress woman.'

This remark had once come to Desmond's ears. Hearing it, he experienced a new pride in his wife, at the same time cursing the neighbours for the remark. Vulcan Street was intensely anxious about Mrs Sheila Fury. She was ‘a cut above the ordinary', she was something alien in their midst. When the bottom of the street was reached, husband and wife parted company.

‘I'll be out till about ten,' Desmond said, his hand in Sheila's.

‘I won't be that late,' remarked Sheila.

Desmond Fury stood watching her go. When she had gone about one hundred yards she turned into a side street. The man followed. When he reached this street, his wife had already arrived at the end of it. He saw her turn left. He stopped, looking at the spot where he had last seen her, as though a hole had come suddenly into the earth and she had disappeared into it. ‘Damn!' he exclaimed under his breath. ‘Why did I follow her? What am I getting suspicious about?' No. It was surely mean to follow her like that. He turned round and retraced his steps. He had a four-mile walk in front of him. Well, the weather was fine, and it was a downhill journey. The city was bare of traffic. The streets were crowded. The people talked about the great strike. Desmond hurried on. The pavements were aflood with feet. Everybody seemed to be going towards town. It would be a grand meeting. They would show their bosses where they got off at. And before they knew where they were, they would have the police with them. Such were Desmond Fury's thoughts as he hurried towards town.

‘Strange, isn't it?' remarked Mrs Postlethwaite, as she came out of the parlour of number nine. George was shaving in the back kitchen.

‘Aye.' He paused, hand in the air, and looked round. ‘Are you going to bed now?' The woman nodded her head. Mrs Postlethwaite was stout; indeed, her stoutness seemed on the increase, though this fact did not worry Mr Postlethwaite.

‘Aye,' said George again. ‘'Tis funny. She goes off on her own quite a lot now. Must be something up.'

‘H'm! Yes,' remarked his wife. She picked up the newspaper and went upstairs. Like George. Mrs Postlethwaite was pleased with the world. Sundays always found her very busy. She rose early, cooked the breakfast, laid dinner, and whilst that was cooking, proceeded to give number nine Vulcan Street a thorough clean down, whilst her husband spent most of his morning cleaning up Nabob's harness. Dinner over, she retired to read the Sunday paper, whilst George went off to Crocus Street to see to the horse. In the evening they went out, sometimes to the landing-stage to sit and watch the traffic on the river, or sometimes to the Park. The Postlethwaites did not go to church or chapel. They went to a mission once a month. The mission had a band. George beat the big drum in the band. Once a year the mission went on a treat, sometimes to the famous Correll Grounds, kindly lent by the Earl of Tolly. Sometimes they went on a cruise in the Channel.