Winter Song (19 page)

‘Ask Father Moynihan when you see him. It's true enough he paid for my stay here, and he has helped in one way and another, but there was never any heart in it, I know.'

‘All the same, it isn't the time to be saying them things,' he said.

‘He's getting all right,' she thought fiercely, ‘he
is
, he'll get better now. I know he will.'

‘All right, Denny, let's just be quiet, saying nothing, waiting for that man.'

‘Joe always turned up trumps.'

‘He's been rare kind to me,' she said, ‘rare kind, and though there's nothing much to him, in a manner of speaking, he's got a big heart.'

Suddenly he had put his hands on her shoulders.

‘In saying that, I'd forgive you a lot of things what I've never liked in you, Fanny, and the way you done them. Ah, I'm glad you see Joe's a big man, after all.'

She said: ‘He's the best.'

She crossed to the window, saying ‘I wish he'd come. I hate to keep on looking at the clock.' She stood by the window, her hands clutching the red curtains.

She showed no surprise when she saw the taxi draw up at the gates, a man wearing dungarees, a reefer jacket and a bosun's cap, step out. He carried an overcoat on his arm. She watched him come up the path. Then she went back to her husband.

‘He's just come,' she said, ‘Kilkey has come.'

At that moment the Mother Superior herself came in. She was distressed by what she saw, but she betrayed nothing of it. She came across and talked to them. She looked from one to the other.

‘Time has passed them by,' she thought, ‘they're too late for anything. Two old, lost people. Better had they remained here. What on earth could they do now, outside there, in the world.

‘Well,' she said, ‘so I see you're ready, both of you. Tell me, Mr Fury, do you feel strong enough to do this?'

‘He's all right,' it came like a bullet. Mrs Fury was standing beside her—it was her moment of triumph.

‘I was talking to your husband, dear,' replied the Mother Superior.

‘I'm all right,' was all he said.

Joseph Kilkey came in. He gave them a brisk good morning. He stood the old man up, put on the overcoat, the scarf round his neck; he looked at Mrs Fury without smiling, and said, ‘We had better go. That clock is ticking outside. Are you ready?'

‘We're ready.'

She had packed her few belongings in a brown paper parcel. There was nothing for the old man to carry, he owned what he stood in, and nothing more.

The Mother Superior said, her voice gentle now, ‘I hope everything will be all right. I hope you will both be happy again.' She shook hands with them.

‘Thank you, Mother, thank you, and all the others for their kindness. I won't forget it.'

‘Come along,' she said—she put an arm through the old man's, Kilkey took the other. They moved out at funeral pace. At the door they rested awhile, then went on. Down the steps, along the gravel path, and behind them, Mrs Fury, very erect, very calm, looking over their heads, on this clear morning, smelling the sea air, looking away towards the river, saying to herself ‘we are together at last'.

They reached the taxi. The driver helped them in. Mr Kilkey shook hands with the Mother Superior. As he smiled up at her, he suddenly noticed something about the old man. He saw in that moment all his frailty—and as he stepped in behind Mrs Fury, whispered in her ear, ‘I think this was very unwise of you, Fanny, I really do.' She was still calm, she did not look at him when, seated, they faced each other in the taxi. She was free, at last, he was seated by her side. She didn't care, nothing mattered. The taxi drew away—the Mother Superior waved to them.

‘God bless you,' she said.

They waved back. The taxi suddenly turned the corner and was out of sight.

The old man sat huddled tight between them, all three having taken the back seat. Not a word was spoken through the entire journey, and all the time the woman lay back with closed eyes. The cab passed through the busy streets, crowded traffic, bustling people, cars and lorries drove by from the docks. She could open her eyes and look out, but somehow—well, she had seen it all before. Clouds of gulls wheeled high over public buildings, the overhead railway carried the thunder and shatter of ever-moving trains. For her, this was the beginning of a dream journey—her hand tightened suddenly over that of her husband, as though she were communicating to him in some way the tumult in her mind. It rocked under the weight of yesterday, it speculated on to-morrow. What she liked on this journey was the movement under her, the feel of the wheels turning, drawing them farther away from the House of Silence, of regrets, the long days of uncertainty, the nights of loneliness.

‘It was right that we should have done this, and it was time. One fine day all that horror will be gone from him and we'll be our happy selves again. All those mistakes I made, the times I should have spoken and didn't, the times when I said too much.' She heard Kilkey say, ‘Are you all right, Denny?' The whispered words struck her like blows. She realized now that everything was different—nothing would be the same again. ‘Why should I open my eyes and look at all that, why should I? Many's the time I've walked them roads and streets, that was when my ship was sailing, we were one then. I know every stone in this place, every stone. I shan't look,' she said to herself, ‘I shan't look. Here I am in an old cab, with my husband broken and I haven't even paid for the cab. We are moving towards no home that is ours, with the fire lit and all things cosy. I can't forget it, I can't. I think of them gone away. I can't stop thinking of them—why couldn't we have been happy?'

She suddenly opened her eyes when she heard Kilkey say, ‘We're nearly there.' She looked down at her husband.

‘You're all right?'

‘I'm all right 'cept I feel cold.'

‘We'll all be in in a few minutes,' Kilkey said, glancing at Mrs Fury; he said no more, But she had not forgotten that furious whisper as she entered the cab, ‘I don't think this was very wise of you.'

Coming from Joseph Kilkey it had hurt, and he had meant it to. It had seemed to him nothing short of cruel to have dragged this sick man away from the Hospice but, as he told himself, ‘there is no accounting for that woman, and never was. She's got him back again, and the old hold has come back to her. She'll domineer, as she always did, but I think her driving days are over. He'll not work again—she can never drive him that way. But there'll be another way, she'll find one. The way she looked at me when I came into the room, I won't forget it.'

‘We're here,' he said, as the taxi pulled up, and he got out.

The front door had opened and there was Mrs Turner waiting for them. He seemed extra glad to see that welcoming smile, it was so different to all this, to what sat in the cab. It represented good sense—it represented things that were right, and done right, it represented understanding, ‘a good sensible woman who knows her mind'.

She came out to help them. She gave Mrs Fury a smile, which was returned, she put her arms out and took the weight of the old man. Between the two women he went slowly into the house. Kilkey paid the driver and the car moved off.

Mrs Fury, once inside, stood absentmindedly staring round the kitchen. Mr Kilkey let her know where she was the moment she stepped inside.

‘Sit down, Mrs Fury, and I will get Denny upstairs to bed. You come up when I call.'

But she did not answer, seemed not to have heard him, but remained standing there, lost in some sudden dream. When they had gone, she sat down, but continued to stare at everything, the ornaments on the mantelshelf, the clock, the pictures on the wall, the sewing machine in the corner, the table laid, a bright fire burning. ‘This is like my home,' she said aloud, ‘this is like my home.'

She sat with clasped hands and her eyes never ceased moving, but wandered back and forth, settling on this object and on that, and each thing, each inanimate thing appeared to her to be choked with life—days of her life lit up, burst forth, from the common green vase, from the canvas pipe-rack, from the burning coals of the fire. Home had never been so near and never so far. She felt sad, sick. She was still sitting there when she heard him calling to her.

‘Fanny, you can come up now.'

And the words said for her, ‘This is a home, but my home and not yours, you can come up now, further into my house. This is what a home is, but not yours ever again.'

Her voice shook a little as she called back, ‘I'm coming.'

The very act of climbing these stairs, the half-darkness of them, sent her back to Hatfields, to Price Street, to Hey's Alley, as she climbed them slowly up towards the small room, up through the half-light, the light that fought so desperately under the oceans of brick and mortar. The feel of each bare wooden stair touched something in her, deep, something that had slept for a long, long time, and now awakened by the sound of a foot upon wood.

‘I wish this was my home,' she said, and at the top stair paused for breath. The first thing she saw as she entered the bedroom was the photograph of her daughter.

‘So this was their room, his and hers together, once on a time, so close and warm. And all these days I've been thinking of nothing but how lonely I was, and here I can see it, here in this little room—the cold of his own lonely life. God, I am a selfish woman. Thinking of nothing but my own. Poor Kilkey. I see it now. All, every bit of that great hurt to him, who never spoke, or revealed, who never begrudged, who made me smile, many a time,
made
me, like he had put his fingers in my mouth and forced my lips apart, and said “smile”.'

‘Won't you sit down, dear?' Mrs. Turner was saying. ‘Come along now, I've made a lovely little fire. You can sit cosy by his bed. I'll bring you something nice and hot directly,' and Kilkey said, ‘Yes, do sit down, Fanny,' and the woman could feel the warmth of the words, like every word was velvet, drawing her close, and she removed her coat and sat down.

‘That's right. Make yourself comfortable. I brought that old arm-chair up here last night. I didn't think I could get it in, but there it is. Now just sit nice and easy. I must say Denny doesn't seem any the worse for the little outing,' he looked directly at her, at the eyes, he saw the hurt there—he was sorry now. ‘Ah, forget what I said as we came away. I was just a little scared—he looked so powerful pale to me,' and then he smiled and went out. They were alone at last, the door closed, they were safe. Nobody could come here and separate them, nobody. She looked at her husband. The strain of the journey had told on him—she saw it at once, but smiling, she said, ‘Well, Denny, think of it, here we are in a little house again. Fancy, it does seem strange, it seems so long since we were together in a house.'

‘I wish I was stronger, I'd get up, I would, Fanny. But all the same, it pleases me, lying here, just looking at you. You haven't changed a bit, you're the old Fanny.'

‘I do wish,' she began, but he said somewhat abruptly—‘Wish nothing—when you say that word, you drag me back over many an old road and there on it I can see the wishes I had myself; don't wish, Fanny, just be quiet, be easy.'

‘I'll say nothing. I'm happy now—we're together again. Let it be.'

‘Help me to sit up. That doctor won't be coming any more?' he asked.

‘No, dear. The only doctor you'll ever see is sitting right here, holding your hand. You know, if you could only tell me about that time, all of it, beginning to end, you remember Denny, the sea on fire, where the sun had fell into it and all that swimming about, and all that hoping and the boy on your chest, and the great thing that hurt you like it did, and you thinking of me in them minutes—if
only
you could remember it all, and tell me all of it, why, God knows I feel you'd never have a nasty dream again.'

‘I wish I could, Fanny, I wish I could. That night you came in and sat on my bed I could hear you talking, about them children it was, and then all of a sudden I slipped away out of that bed into the sea again.'

‘And you never heard me talking—all that time?'

He smiled. ‘You were talking to yourself. You have to be careful now, Fanny,' he added, ‘you've got a husband who can slip away into the sea any time he wishes.'

‘Oh, don't talk like that, Denny, it only makes me afraid.'

‘Why, I wouldn't be scaring you like that,' his hand pulled weakly on her own.

She leaned over and kissed him. ‘You're still the same Denny to me, and all I want is you.'

Mrs. Turner came in with hot rum and milk, some sandwiches.

‘You look rested already,' she said.

‘Where is Mr Kilkey?'

‘He's below and having his bite, and then he'll be coming up to see you, and away to bed after that. The man has been working all night, but you know that anyhow.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘Poor man. I wish that firm would be a bit easy with him and change his shift. He's always working nights now, and it doesn't seem right that a man should be always taking his sleep while the sun's shining. There now, I hope you'll make that disappear nicely, it'll do you good.'

She put the tray on the bed.

‘Thank you very much,' Mrs Fury said, ‘you are very good, I must say.'

‘Not at all.'

Mrs Turner left them. When they heard her talking below, Mrs Fury said, ‘Just fancy, Denny, Kilkey's been out all night, and he comes straight away from his work and fetches us home like this.' He did not attempt to answer her. He was sat up in bed, the stick-like arms bared to the shoulders. He had rolled up his sleeves, and now as he ate his sandwich and sipped at his milk, she saw them for the first time.

‘How thin you really are,' she said.