An End and a Beginning (20 page)

“
I hate to see your mother unhappy. I love your mother, so much that I can't even tell her how often she's a very silly woman, a very headstrong, independent creature. But she has courage, such determination. A lot of it's wrong, but you have to admire it.
”

“
I never wanted to go,” I said
.

“
You're only a kid, what the hell would you know about it?” He got up and came over to me, he took my hand in a grip of iron
.

“
You must never tell her that, never, you understand. It would break her heart, and if ever you do I'll break your neck.” Then he let go my hand and returned to his chair
.

“
I shall do what the others have done,” I said
.

“
Do what the hell you like. What business is it of mine what any of you do? Where do I come in? By the back door two or three times a year. I'm only the lodger. But this money of mine, it's been a terrible blow, a terrible blow. It's made me unhappy. I'm going out, and when she comes home tell her I've gone off for a little walk.
”

“
Yes, Father,” I said, and I watched him go
.

I sat up waiting for Mother. It was late when she got back. She asked me where Father was, and I said, ‘Out', just like that. We had supper in stony silence. I said good-night and went to bed
.

I couldn't rest. I lay there, listening for the sound of the door, my father returning. And like a tumbril in my mind, backwards and forwards, dragged the question, “How much does faith cost?
”

I heard the door close. Later I heard their raised voices
.

“
How much does it cost?
”

“
Where does she go?
”

“
What is secret in this bloody house?
”

“
Where will it end?
”

I could see the house breaking up, hear it breaking, the door banging as one after another left. For what? Because Mother wanted a priest, because I wanted only her happiness, to break this terrible sadness and loneliness. Because Father only wanted his peace. Because my brothers and sister only wanted their freedom. “I'll look for a ship,” I thought. “I'll get out of the bloody place too.
”

I heard them coming up at last, slowly, one after the other, like tired, bone-weary people, as though their angry words had exhausted them, and I counted their steps on the stairs, heard their door close, heard my mother pray
.

“
Where does the money go?
”

“Where had it gone?” asked Brother Anselm.

“To the same person, the woman Ragner.”

He got up and paced the room, I can see his hands pushed up the capacious sleeves of his brown habit. I just stared at my own, spread flat upon my knees. I remember I was on the point of being sick.

“It was horrible. Horrible.” And the Brother walked up and down, and he waited for the horror to come out.

“Don't be ashamed of that. Be sick. Would you like a little brandy?”

“No, thank you, Brother,” I said. “No thank you.” I could feel him standing behind me, bent over my shoulder.

“I'm glad I came,” I said.

“Your father went back to the sea then?”

“He went his way. There was only Mother and myself. Once a week Maureen and her husband visited the house. It pleased Mother. My sister changed a lot after my father went back to sea. She was sorry for Mother. We all were, even though she had driven them from the house. She even pretended to be happy with her old man.”

“But you never really broke with each other?” he said.

“No. In spite of everything we hung together. But I had no place, I
felt
I had no place. My brothers, even my sister hated me because I had gone to be a priest. They called it senseless, waste, and of course that's what it turned out to be in the end. They despised me for doing what I did, and my mother hated me for
not
doing what she wanted. Perhaps she had a right to be angry, but she should have told me the truth. My father was indifferent. He was always away, his life was cut off from us. Mother was a determined and ambitious woman. She confided in nobody.”

“But your father must have known.”

“Nobody knew, though in the end my sister's husband became involved, and he had to know. I found that out, too. I found out because one evening when my mother went out I followed after her. I had often wondered where she went, and sometimes why she was so long away. She conveyed nothing, hinted nothing. She was in a net of her own making. She could not bear defeat.”

“She was involved with this woman you speak of?”

“Yes,” I said, and I was already there, following behind my mother to the house in Banfield Road.

Hiding. Watching. A squat, brown stone house stood alone, surrounded by nothing save derelict land. I watched her go in through an ever opening and shutting door. I walked up, opened it and looked inside. The longest room I have ever seen, a bare room along one wall of which ran a wooden bench. Two people were seated on this, and one was Mother. A light shining over a desk, and behind it a man and a woman. The man is blue-jerseyed, he looks like a sailor. He stands holding in his hands a ledger that is as big as the Bible. The woman is seated, and is staring at her ringed fingers. She is heavily built, swarthy, black-haired. The light above her head catches the rings on her hands. Only the top of this room is visible, the rest of it is in darkness. I lean close to the wall. The room is full of echoes. I think of a railway station, a platform, two waiting passengers. “Next.
”

A woman rises to her feet and approaches the desk. “Evans.
”

“
Four pounds. Interest owing on previous month, three pounds.
”

She speaks. “You went to the works. You informed them. I asked you not to. My husband knows.
”

“
That is covered by the agreement you signed. Read it again.
”

She turns and walks away, passes me as I stand locked to the wall
.

“
The secret journeys,” I thought, “they all end here. There is no place else.” I am unseen, and I am still listening. “Next.
”

I saw my mother rise and approach the desk. “Fury.
”

“
Dispense with preliminaries, Corkran,” Mrs. Ragner said, “come direct to the loans.
”

“
Yes, ma'm.
”

“
A first loan of twenty-five pounds was made in April last year with an agreed interest of ten pounds, plus a collecting charge of seven and sixpence a month
——”

“
Mrs. Fury is too proud to come to the office with the money, and does not mind paying the collecting charges, but one can be generous with other people's money, Corkran.
”

Mrs. Ragner does not look up. It is not her business. She loans the money
, he
looks at the clients
.

“
The payments on the first loan lapsed on six occasions, and I think there was an added interest of eight shillings and sixpence charged on these monthly sums?
”

“
Yes, ma'm. And in November of that year the interest had exceeded the actual loan, so that in December last there was a total owing of thirty-nine pounds eleven shillings
——”

“
And a second loan of fifty pounds was made on Jan
. I
st last in order to clear off the balance on the first loan, and a payment was made to the client of ten pounds nine shillings. The interest on the second loan was twenty-seven pounds. The balance then stood at seventy-seven pounds, plus the usual collecting charges, and any interest due on lapsed payments.
”

“
That loan was covered by a guarantee.
”

“
Yes. The document is here. It authorized us to collect direct from the shipowners. The collecting charges were seven shillings monthly. But in May of this year payments ceased owing to the client's husband being in hospital in New York for two months due to an accident, and the interest charges rose as from that date.
”

“
I think the contents of the house were valued and a document signed by Mrs. Fury giving us the right to foreclose in event of non-payment.
”

“
Correct, ma'm.
”

“
And in July the balance on the second loan stood at eighty-eight pounds?
”

“
Correct.
”

“
There was then a six-weeks lapse in payments and the usual letter was sent?
”

“
On two occasions, but there was no answer, and accordingly I called on the client. In that interview I explained to her the gravity of the situation, and I took the opportunity of pointing out that the matter must be settled.
”

“
An offer of a third loan of one hundred pounds was made in order to clear off the balance owing on the second loan, providing the usual sureties were forthcoming.
”

“
Certain insurance policies were surrendered and the loan made. An interest of forty-two pounds was attached, but no collecting charges were made as the client herself called with the monthly payments.
”

“
That is correct. But the position is that the guarantor Kilkey has now withdrawn from the matter.
”

“
I called on him for verification and I understand he could no longer cover the fifty per cent, ma'm.
”

“
There is no deterioration in the value of the house contents?
”

“
None. This was again valued last week, though it was with some difficulty that I got into the house.
”

“
Some question of an interest in a small legacy was then proposed?
”

“
Yes, but refused. The sum it would produce would not cover the liability.
”

“
If the furniture is realized upon, there would still be a balance of some thirty pounds? Is that correct?
”

“
Correct.
”

“
And to clear off the present liability involves a downright payment of one hundred and seven pounds capital, and forty-nine pounds interest.
”

“
Correct.
”

“
Has the client that sum with her?” Mrs. Ragner still studies her rings. Not once has she looked upwards
.

“
Have you that sum with you?” the man asked
.

“
I have forty pounds.
”

“
We require the full sum, a final settlement, Corkran. The client is unsatisfactory. We can foreclose?
”

“
Correct.
”

Mrs. Ragner appeared to be talking to her ringed fingers. “We require a final settlement, Corkran. Give a receipt for the forty pounds, a balance of one hundred and sixteen pounds to be paid within five days.
”

“
Here is your receipt,” the man said, and I saw him hand it to my mother. The woman behind the desk had risen to her feet, turned quickly, and vanished behind thick red curtains. The whole thing was machine-like, impersonal. I stood there and I felt stunned. I could scarcely breath. This woman might have been talking to herself, there was something nightmarish about that long room. I never forgot the room, never. The man then spoke. He shut his ledger, gathered together the papers off the desk, saying as he did so, “That is all. There is nothing to wait for.
”

I watched him, too, vanish behind that curtain. And I watched my mother standing there, her hands gripping the back of the chair. A complete silence enveloped the room. At any moment she might turn, and I could not look at her. I knew I could not, and I knew I could not wait. If she had fallen I could not have moved. Slowly I walked myself backwards, always keeping close to the wall, until finally I reached the door, through which I noiselessly passed, and the moment I reached the open air I began to run, and never stopped running until I had reached the house. I went upstairs to my room. I locked the door
.

“It was a terrible sacrifice,” Father Anselm said.

But he might well have been talking to the wall. I wasn't there, I was still back, back in the room, sat on my own bed in the darkness, feeling as though I had watched Mother being kicked, feeling as though the house itself was being crushed to pieces. I felt bitterly sorry for her. Yet I dreaded her coming back, dreaded having to go down, to meet her, to see her face, to have to wait for her to speak
.

“
God! How lonely she must feel,” I thought, and the moment I heard the key in the lock I rushed downstairs and opened the door to her. “I'm glad you're back, Mother,” I said
.

“
Are you?” She walked past me down the hall, removed her hat and coat and hung them up. “Where is your father?
”

“
Out,” I said
.

“
We seem never to be together any more,” she said. “Never.” There was such sadness in her voice. She went and stood in front of the fire, her hands clasped in front of her. I spoke at last. I had to
.

“
I am taking ship on Wednesday next,” I said, “I got a berth yesterday.
”

She made no reply, and it did not seem necessary
.

“
If I had known how much was involved I would never have gone to study for the priesthood.
”

I was seated at the table behind her. In her very height, in the way she stood there, I had the measure of her curious strength
.

“
Father knows about the money taken from the chimney shelf,” I said
.

Silence
.

“
And Maureen knows about the document signed by her husband.
”

“
And Father knows that his wages were collected monthly by Mr. Corkran who is employed by the Ragner woman.
”

And I know what was involved the morning the Bursar came to me and informed me that a quarter's fees were unpaid and that I might have to leave.
”