Winter Song (39 page)

‘I understand,' he said.

They then returned to the bedroom. The old man was still there, as in stone, drawn and held in the silence of the room.

‘Where is Kilkey?'

The hands came away from the head, he had moved at last.

‘You had a long sleep in the chair, Denny. Kilkey came up with some dinner, we didn't like to disturb you.'

‘Where's Kilkey now?'

‘In his bed. And the right place to be. That man'll get a good rest the day we go.'

‘I'm always falling asleep now, Fanny, d'you think I'll get back my strength one day?'

‘Of course you will. Now if you eat this plate of food which I've kept hot by the fire, why, you will get your strength. I wish you'd drink more of the milk I get you.'

‘I'm sorry about yesterday, Fanny, something came over me, I don't know what.'

‘It's all right.'

‘Sure?'

‘I'm sure. Here, wake up now and eat this.' She shook him. ‘The priest has been here.'

‘Which priest?'

‘There's only one that I know well enough for him to call on us.'

He began to eat. He sat with the plate on his knees. ‘You mean Father Moynihan.'

‘The very man.'

‘What did he come for?'

‘To see how we are. He wanted us to see him before we go off.'

‘Oh, yes. We're going away, Fanny. I keep forgetting. Poor old Kilkey will miss us, I'm sure. He'll be all on his own again.'

‘I'm afraid so,' she said. She was determined to keep the news of her daughter for another day, when they had got out, had crossed the sea—and were safe.

‘No more travelling,' she thought, ‘it'll be a pleasure to sit down and know that you needn't move again, if you don't want to.'

‘Denny, you remember I asked you if you'd like to come to the Mass at the old church for the last time …?'

‘I'll come, Fanny. I haven't forgotten it.'

‘That's good. Well, Father Moynihan is going to come for us in the morning, he's bringing a taxi. We're going to the first Mass—to avoid meeting people who might recognize us, and we're to have breakfast at his house. I thought it was a sweet thought.'

‘He was always decent,' the old man said.

He held up the plate and she took it. As she did so, he laughed.

‘What are you laughing at?'

He continued to laugh.

‘What on earth are you laughing about?'

‘Oh, I was only just thinking of your fat old sister in Cork. I just had a picture of her in my mind, walking down Heys Road, and that old waddle of hers made me laugh.'

‘Well, it's nice to see you laughing, I must say. Laugh away, man. I'd like to see it so.'

‘Tell me more about Cork,' he said.

‘We're to have the front top bedroom, Denny, a great big room overlooking the harbour. Brigid's woman has had everything fixed up. She even knows the time we're coming. At first I said to Kilkey how we'll take the Cork boat direct, then when Anthony wrote me that letter I changed my mind. So we'll take the boat to the North Wall, and we'll get the tram up to Anthony's place—his wife knows we're coming for he wrote to her. And Kilkey wrote direct to her for me. So there's all the arrangements as I know them. We'll stay a few days with that girl. I'm looking forward to seeing his little boy.'

‘It's funny to think of Anthony having a son. Why, we must be very old, Fanny.'

‘It's no use letting on we're beat, is it?'

‘Indeed, no.'

‘And now you'll dig up your old spirit, Denny, that these last days seems to have sunk away in you—you'll dig that up and hold yourself to it—and you'll try hard not to let me down again. Oh—but I shouldn't be saying such a thing. You do try, I know you do.'

‘I couldn't help yesterday,' he was starting all over again.

‘We've had that,' she said, she waved it away with her hand. ‘Enough now. Try and think of Brigid again. It's a change to hear you laughing.'

In the next room Kilkey lay awake. It was two o'clock. He could not sleep. He tossed and turned, he watched the clock's hands go steadily forward. ‘I'll never sleep.' He could hear them talking in the next room, the low mumbling sounds seemed to wash up against the wall—he could not fathom a word—and he did not want to. The sound floated over his head—he was not thinking of them—he had forgotten them. They had already gone—the house was empty. He had been downstairs and up again, he had been in and out of every room—his mind wandered all over the place. His wife had risen up before him—he could see her clearly—there she was—he had only to hold out his hand to touch her. She was in every room, in every corner, he met her coming up the stairs and he met her coming down. He opened a door and there she was standing behind it, he opened a window and she was looking in at him. But she had not spoken yet. She had stood there, smiling, and she had stretched out her hand.

‘She's everywhere already—everywhere—I can see her, feel her all over the place. I'll get Mrs Turner to buy a pair of bright curtains for the front room. I'll get flowers—she loves flowers.' And he was buying flowers in the market, his arms were laden with them. He stood and filled vases in every room.

‘She'll like that. I'll come home in the evening, and she'll be standing there, waiting for me. I can't believe it's happened. If anybody had told me a week ago, I would never have believed them.'

‘I wonder what she's like now? A little girl, by
him
. Extraordinary. Somehow I knew he'd fly, leave her. I even wrote and told her so. Maureen,' he cried in his mind, ‘when you come in it will be the same as it always was, like you had just come in from shopping, from the Sunday Mass, from the shop at the end of the road. I won't say a word—I've forgotten all that happened, I've forgotten it for ever—I'll do my best to make you happy. I'm lying here waiting for Tuesday, waiting for the morning. I can't sleep to-day. I won't sleep—I might as well get up.'

But he did not move. Hands behind his head he stared up at the ceiling, and it lighted up, it had become a screen, the coming days moved across like a film, he saw her move with them, and he smiled, and went on smiling.

‘And yet it's hard to believe, all the same,' he said.

The voices in the next room had ceased.

‘I can't settle,' he said, slipped silently from the bed, dressed, went quickly below.

He knocked on the kitchen wall, sat down, waited for the woman to come in.

‘You should be fast asleep in your bed,' Mrs Turner said, surprised to see him sitting there.

‘I know, but I couldn't settle. I couldn't sleep at all. My wife's running about all over the place. She's running round and round my head. I want you to do something for me. I shan't forget the help you've been, Mrs Turner, since I came to live here. I shan't forget.'

‘Tut! Tut!'

‘I was wondering if on Monday you'd go out and buy a nice gay pair of curtains for the front window …'

‘Of course. What colour?'

‘Just a gay colour. And Maureen loves flowers in the place. Get flowers, and two nice green vases perhaps.'

‘Why, certainly.'

‘And I'd like the whole place shining, Mrs Turner, for the day I bring her back.'

‘I'll do that.' She looked closely at him. ‘You're going to miss your rest this night.'

‘Oh, and I wonder if you'd come in the usual times, seven o'clock and ten o'clock, and see to the people upstairs? And d'you think you can manage to be in about a quarter to seven, just to see them off for the first Mass at St Sebastian's? The priest is coming for them—it's all arranged. Mrs Fury wants to take the Sacrament in the church she was married in, and him too, though I don't think he's attended his duties for many a year.'

‘All right. I'll see to that for you. I'm very pleased, Mr Kilkey, to think you'll have your own woman here at last.'

Something about the word woman seemed to upset him, and he said protestingly, ‘She's only a girl, Mrs Turner—I'm old enough to be her father. But of course you never met my wife.'

‘It's all the same to me—a woman's a woman,' she said.

‘I can manage everything I want now,' he said.

‘All right.'

‘And here's the post,' she said.

Kilkey followed her to the front door. The postman gave him a single post-card. He shut the door, sat down to read it. The handwriting he recognised at once. Then he saw the postmark—Darnton. ‘Good Lord,' he exclaimed, ‘it's from that lad.'

He turned the card over and over in his hands. He could not remember ever having received a post-card—letters, yes—once a month—and then he turned it over again and read: ‘Mother never came. Peter.'

Four words. He read them again. They seemed to him like an accusation.

‘The poor lad. Why, I forgot all about him. Just think of that. My head full of bright things, and all the time that lad sitting there, waiting, and no one came. But this is something she had better not see. No, she must never see this, and I shall never say a word about it. I'll burn it.'

He flung the post-card into the flames and watched it burn.

‘Now there is something that I can do. I'll write to Peter at once.'

Procuring a pen and paper he sat down and began to write.

114, B
ONIM
R
OAD
, G
ELTON
.

Friday 18th.

My dear Peter
,

Why, that was an awful thing to happen, I know. But let me explain to you. Your poor father was taken ill on the train and couldn't go further. Why, I'm sorry to the depths I am that this should have happened. But content yourself, if you can
—
for your father
—
oh, he's cruelly old all of a sudden, Peter. Well, he's a bit better now. But the oddest things happen. He often falls asleep now
—
he tires so easily, he kind of rises and falls. The pity of it
—
the arrangements
—
the obstacles, the efforts, and then the wishes. Your mother is full of courage. She got him down to that station, into that train, nobody else could have done it. She did try, and so did he. Don't think too hard about this. To-morrow night I'm taking them to Dublin. But I believe you knew that already. I never saw two people whose minds were more strongly made up, than your mother and father
—
who can think of nothing except of going away from this place. Your mother has come to hate it with an utmost violent bitter hate. When she looks around her, so she says to me, her mind sees nothing but waste, waste
.

Ah, well, there are some consolations, Peter. They
are
together at last, for good. That is a nice thing to keep in your mind. Believe well that I shall see them safely to your Aunt Brigid's house. Your mother will write to you as soon as she is settled. They were both of them quite broken up after the disappointment of yesterday. Never mind
—
things will change. Things will brighten. Your brother Desmond has indeed been good
—
in his way of being good. I never met him of course. He did offer to take them home
—
but that old something between your mother and him
—
something as hard as bone
—
stopped that. She refused to let him take her over. She said he was a hypocrite, and told him that he was ashamed to be seen with them. I don't know the real truth of that. Anyhow, be pleased to know they're off. To-day your mother is settled in her mind, even happy, almost gay with the thought of going home to Ireland. And your father, too. They love each other very much, Peter, they've often fought and argued, but they're very close, and her faith has kept your mother upright many a day. I've probably seen more of your mother than you have yourself
—
and I say that she is a good woman
—
silly sometimes
—
headstrong, even stubborn, but a good heart, and that counts more than all the money you could ever lay hands to. As I write this letter they are sitting up there together, in my room, and they have a nice fire to sit by
—
nothing to trouble them now
—
and sometimes I hear them talking about the olden days. They never quarrel. It is a good thing. They are too old to start that again. They have you always in their thoughts, Peter, be assured of that, and be assured, too, that there are some decent people in the world, and Mr Delaney of the St Vincent de Paul is one of them. I saw him a short time ago, and he told me that he would help you when you came out. Also he said he is still trying for a reconsideration of your case, and possibly some remission of sentence. That should be some comfort to you. Now to other things, I daresay you must often wonder about Gelton
—
how it's getting on and all the rest of it. Well, Gelton is still sprawling everywhere. By that I mean that every day it laps up a bit more grass. Soon there'll be no more country around the city at all, it'll all be eaten up. Things are very bad here. Many men are out of work
—
the only building being done seems to be by the banks
—
the dry docks are full of rusty ships
—
soon the wet docks may be dry too. If I were you I should go to America when you come out. There's nothing here now. You've lots of relations New York way. Go there. But in the end you'll make up your own mind. To return for a minute to your parents. I'm glad they're going back. But I don't think I would ever go back there myself. I'm no longer interested in the place. It's a poor hungry old place, and not much good for a man to earn a living in, unless you're a farmer. But I've spent a deal of my life here
—
and I've worked with the English people, and I like them. I think they're fine, and when you get underneath them, they're very fine. So I shall spend the rest of my life in the place that first gave me a man's job, and still gives me the same. Of course I'm a skilled man, as you know, and have been with the same firm for years and years. I don't think there is anything exciting or startling that I can tell you about this place. I got out of Price Street, after what happened, and came further north, and I'm still here
.