An End and a Beginning (19 page)

“
We will help no more. And I intend to get away out of it, to find my own life. We will give no more.
”

I was mystified, stunned. “Give what?
”

“
Money,” he said, “money,” hissing it in my ear
.

He grabbed me by the shoulder. “And I'll tell you something else. Another plan. You know that chap Kilkey who comes around here Sundays with the priest, collecting, short thick-set chap around about forty. A rigger with Reynolds?
”

“
I think I do,” I said
.

“
Mother is planning for him to marry Maureen.
”

“
Maureen. Marry, she's hardly sixteen yet.
”

“
For the good of her soul perhaps,” Desmond said
.

“
Does she want to marry him?
”

“
Ask her,” he said. “I expect she'll be glad to get away, whether she loves him or not.
”

“
I never realized, I
——”

“
It's time you did.
”

“
Maureen,” I thought, “she's only a girl, so young.” Planned. By Mother. I couldn't believe it. But I could the other. I was being sacrificed for an idea. More words to lock up, to carry inside me, back across the sea, to the seminary, to the small room, back to the studies, back on the only road. And every step back I told myself that it was finished, and it was. I made up my mind. I cannot work. I will run away, this very night, I plan to do it, I pack some things. The time comes and I cannot move
.

A letter has come, from home, from Mother. The wound is in it, it's everywhere, her sadness, her loneliness. It is what I do that makes her happy, it makes up for all. “I never wanted Gelton, Peter, never, but your father would have his way. It is not my choice, it is not my land, there is much that disgusts me. I never wished anything more in my life than to bring up a family of good men. I do not understand the people here, I never will. Your father says that we will all go back home one fine day. Each trip he comes home it is the same thing. I wait.
”

The wound bleeds. “Desmond is very angry with me. He is against you, Peter, he always was. He has not our nature. He despises his religion. Your father seems indifferent and doesn't care. Even Maureen is turning against me, becoming hard, selfish. At first they were agreeable, and what I asked from each was never much, but now they begrudge it. Desmond says he will leave the house if the nonsense goes on. That is the name he gives it. It has grieved me much. You are the only one I really love, Peter, and I know you will grow up into a good man. I rely on you.
”

The anchor is down, the chain around my neck. I am fourteen, and in my tiny study God is mountain size and looks down on me. “I so look forward to seeing you again, my dear. God bless you. Your most loving mother.
”

The resolve is gone, the plan is in shreds. I stay. I sit on others' backs
.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Brother Anselm said, “for I feel sure you will feel relieved when you have emptied yourself of it.”

“Yes, Brother Anselm, I will feel more contented in my mind,” I said.

“The gaol will never hurt so much as the knife,” he said, “and you'll carry it with you for the remainder of your life. The mark of man is his conscience, and something dies in us if we refuse to acknowledge it. It is good to confess. We live on one another. You were very young, and perhaps too young to know that goodness is sometimes like the blind man who rejoices only in his sightless eyes. I feel like that about your mother. Poor woman. How simple the wish. To go back to your roots, to dream of it all your life, to want nothing but that. It wasn't much, was it?”

And I said immediately, “No, Brother. Indeed, it was not.”

“But I gather she got what she wanted in the end. She went back with your father?”

“She did indeed.”

“I am glad of that,” he said. And I shut my eyes, against the sight of the mound, the bare tree. I felt tears start up in me, and when I opened them again Brother Anselm had turned away, as though he knew, understood, and I respected him for the silence that he kept. Everywhere I was open, raw. It is how I am.

“Your father gave up the sea?”

“In the end, yes.”

“Your sister married, and your eldest brother left home?”

“Yes.” He is telling me my own story.

“You had run away from the seminary. What made you do that? Were you ashamed?”

“Of myself.”

“Why?”

“I knew. I understood,” I said. I opened a door in my mind, and it was another day.

Day of the fog, of the knock, of the woman, of the house shouting, “Pay. Pay.” A cold day, forbidding, and everything drowned, streets and roads, ships and river, men, houses and rooms, everything swallowed up in the deepest fog. My mother is out. She often is, nobody knows where, the journeys are secret. My father is home, the anchor is down, he will sail no more. I am glad for her, a city is less lonely. I have run away from the seminary, and it's the end. I have done with it, I will have none of it. I told her, told her to her face. Even now my cheek burns from the struck blow, but it hurt her more than it hurt me
.

“
Why have you done this to me?
”

“
Because I know,” I said
.

“
Know what?
”

“
Everything.
”

She stands there, mute, white with anger, with bitterness. I think of her as a force, as a pressure all over the house
.

“
I know
everything.”
And then the blow. After that she got her coat and hat and left the room without another word. A door banged. I thought I was alone in the house, and I felt it was the end, really the end. I thought of building up, of striving towards something new, I ached for a beginning. I walked into another room. It was empty, dark, the light was beginning to go. I stood by the window, I thought of my mother, gone off, God knows where, towering in her rage, defeat, I imagined her walking straight to the church, the oasis, her love, her strength, the faith that was as warm as blood. I could see her there, the very savagery of her nature broken as she knelt, to ask, to understand. The light went at last, I stood in the dark. A silent house. I wondered when she would return. I went upstairs to my room, sat there a while, came down again. I walked into the sitting-room, as dark, as silent, and yet I heard breathing. I stood quite still. Then I struck a match
.

“
Father! What on earth's wrong? Are you ill?” I drew the curtains, filled the room with light. My father was limp, speechless in a chair, a low chair, and his arms hung heavy at his sides, and he was hunched. The fingers of his hands seemed on the point of trailing the carpet at which he stared. My heart missed a beat, I knelt down. “How long have you been here?
”

“
Since two o'clock.
”

“
Why?
”

“
Because I am not wanted until ten when the
Langsby
comes in.
”

“
You've sat here all this time. Why? Are you ill?
”

“
I am not ill.
”

I knelt down and looked at him, and only then did I notice the colour of his hands. He raised his head, stared at me, but said nothing
.

“
I'll get you a drink,” I said, and ran out, and I brought back a little whisky. “Drink it. Mother's out, she won't be long.
”

He opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out, he closed it again
.

“
What is wrong?
”

“
Even my savings have gone.
”

“
Your savings, what savings?
”

“
It doesn't matter,” he said, and his head lay heavy on my arm
.

“
It's not there, it's gone, all of it.
”

“What's
gone?
”

“
The money,” he said
.

“
Where?
”

“
I just don't know,” he said
.

I hardly realized he was talking to me, yet the room was suddenly full of words. Only then did I notice a trail of soot upon the carpet, and the blackened hands
.

“
I had planned to take your mother back to Ireland for two weeks. I have saved for two years. Now she must stay where she is, and so must I.
”

“
Father! Listen to me, just for once, just this time.
”

“
Get out of my bloody sight,” he said. And I walked out of his bloody sight. I ran from the house. I walked the streets, I passed and re-passed the house, I could not look at it
.

“
Die, priest,” I kept saying to myself. “Die, priest,” and then I was hurrying towards my sister's house. “She'll know, know all.
”

She is wearing a plain green dress, sat sewing in a chair, the light behind her. The planned wife. How much a girl she is against what she waits for, the aged man, the willed one, the leathern husband who could be her father thrice. The set of the head, the youth of her neck, the childish hands, each seems to me to mirror my mother's iron will and determination. I dared not ask her how she was, I dared not say, “Maureen. Are you happy?
”

She got up, she flung down her sewing, she embraced me. “I'm so glad to see you,” she said, “I'll make some tea, Peter.
”

“
I won't stay, I can't.
”

“
Why not?
”

“
There are things you must tell me, Maureen.
”

“
What things?
”

“
Tell me how much I cost,” I said. “Perhaps three years ago I was too young to ask. To-day I am not too young to find out.
”

“
Sit down.
”

I sat down. She took my hands, looked at me, and said quietly, as casually as though she were talking about the weather, “First I will tell you why I'm here. I do not love this man I married. He's a good man, after his own fashion. That was why Mother insisted on my marrying him. She thinks I will be safe in a heathen country. That is her view. She hates this place, and she has often told me there was never any need to leave home, and she calls father a coward for doing so. I married Kilkey to get out of her sight, to get out of that house.
”

“
How much did I cost?
”

“
Poor father. He's the one I think of most in this place. Many a night I lie on my back and I think of the ship. I think of him lying in his bunk, miles from our life, miles from this world. Just think of it, Peter. The number of oceans that father's crossed, and he hardly ever sees the sea at all. I think of thousands of iron steps, I hear him climbing down. I'm sure he always thinks of Mother
, and
us. He is good. I remember one evening
——”

“How much did I cost?”

“
You ask that? You can ask me that?
”

“
How
much?”
and I gripped her hands so tightly that she winced
.

“
How
dare
you?
”

“
You're like the rest of them,” I said, “you hate me, don't you?
”

“
I can't talk to you,” she said, and drew away from me. There was a dead silence. “I can't even see you,” she said, and turned her hack on me
.

“
What have I done?
”

“
Ask father.
”

“
But what, what, Christ! Why are you so mysterious about it?
”

“
I like that
—
from the priest to be,” she said
.

“What?”
I shouted
.

“
Ask Kilkey. He'll be here soon. He'll tell you. But he'll smile first, he'll tell me how much he loves me, he'll dream of the brat.” Still with her back to me she walked slowly from the room, and left me standing there. I waited a while, listening, I even thought she might come down again, might even call to me, and when she did not I knew that the only thing to do was to leave and walk back to the house
.

A mysterious house, so silent, not a light in it, a fire almost black, my mother still out. I thought about father and went to him. He had not moved. I closed the door quietly and approached his chair. I knelt down. I spoke. “Father! Are you all right now? Shall I light the light?
”

“
If you want to.
”

“
Has Mother been back?
”

“
I don't know, I didn't hear her. I didn't know she'd gone out.
”

“
She's been out for hours.
”

“
She'll be back. She always comes back,” he said
.

“
I wonder where she's gone?
”

“
I wouldn't know. I'm simply the lodger in this house,” he said
.

“
Do come into the other room. You can't sit there, without a fire. Come on, Father,” and I helped him up and we went back to the living-room
.

“
There,” and he sat down by the fire. I looked across at him, and when I looked I felt ashamed all over again, and I thought, “His back, too.
”

“
Father!
”

“
Yes, what is it?
”

“
Why is Mother so unhappy, she's been like that ever since we came to England.
”

“
Because we had to leave Ireland,” he said. “And she's angry too.
”

“
We had to leave?
”

“
Bloody fools we would have been to have stayed,” he said
.

“
What did you think of Mother sending me away to that seminary?
”

“
Not much, but it pleased her, it made her happy.
”

“
And now that I've run away and come home again?
”