An End and a Beginning (7 page)

“Well, he's gone, and that's all that matters, and we click, what means five pounds to me and ten bob to you, Guttlaw.”

“Yus.”

“And how about Mrs. McGinty?”

“Her supplied one man. Lackmass got him. Lackmass's the fust man I ever saw with only half a mouth, 'struth. He went along to where he had to go to as he was told by McGinty, and he picked up the first drunk what he saw lying aside a tart, and he heaved him up on his back and carried him out of that red light shop what shall be nameless to you and me, Argy, and carried him all along through them streets, and saw no one, and no one didn't see him, and McGinty was waiting on him soon's he got to her place, standing on her own step she was, gone midnight, and at once she says to Lackmass, ‘Get him down to the
Truculent
right away what's waiting on one miserable man.' And he went off then with this chap still sat on his back, and carried him all again through them streets, and come by that
Truculent
what's fair wrapped up in the dark she is, and he carried him up her gangway, and chucked him down. And as he was coming down again he heard a noise, and he turned, and it was an officer at her gangway head what was shoutin' loud enough to shift his own liver, ‘Where's his bloody leg?' he says, becos you couldn't stand that one on his feet drunk or sober, and Lackmass went off then searching about the quay for his leg what had dropped off him, it having a screw loose in it. But he found it all right lying up agin a coil of manilla, and he picked it up and hurled it back up her gangway where it dropped and rolled heavy along her iron, sounding like thunder. Then he come straight back to Mrs. McGinty and collected his commission what was ten bob same as me.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yus.”

Peter listened, flat to the wall, he knew the words, he understood the language. This was nothing new. And suddenly the two men shifted their positions, and he saw them more clearly. It looked as though Guttlaw had at an early age, been heavily pressed down by nature. He stood sideways to his companion, as though this
was
his position, a sidler up to humanity, a sidler up, drowned in an overcoat. Perhaps he slept in, lived in, this overcoat. A wonderfully long, heel-touching, all-embracing coat. He would drown comfortably inside the cloth. His features were almost hidden by the vast peak of a cap; it was like a visor, it hid the Guttlaw countenance. But he removed it suddenly, and Peter saw that he had a shark's mouth. Guttlaw
was
his mouth. These men were night creatures, they prowled upon night and air; daylight would require big eyes to find them. The taller of the two looked upwards, then stepped clear of the doorway and the light. He was immediately followed by the dwarfish Guttlaw.

“Your way's north, and mine's south.”

“Yus.”

“Night then.”

“Night.”

For some minutes Peter remained pinned to the wall. He watched them go slowly down the street, heard them talking, and waited until he could no longer hear the sound of their footsteps. So this was the place. This was where he would room for the night. It would do, and it was handy to the boat he now intended to catch. He passed beneath the curving light and went inside. He had hardly entered the hall before he was aware of two eyes staring out at him through a wire grille, and as he got nearer he saw the woman stood behind a kind of wire cage. This then was Ma Talon. It certainly could not be anybody else. He advanced on the cage.

“Well?”

“I want a room for one night,” Peter said.

“Sit down.”

He sat down, he studied Ma Talon. Tall, powerfully built, coarse, and, seemingly, stupid with health. She was barrel-shaped. He was struck by the fine head, covered by a mass of almost raven-black hair. She had a neck like the foot of a mast. An amazon indeed, he thought. The moment she spoke he knew where she came from, and it was not Halifax. “The Halifax Stone” came from the country where everything is green.

“Name?”

“Fury.”

“Supper?”

“No.”

She bent to her desk, he watched her writing something in a book, and all the time he was wondering if he had seen her somewhere before. She gave him the impression of ultimate physical power. The moment she raised her head and looked at him again, Peter had the answer. He had seen her like on many occasions. Stood at the bottom of O'Connell St., with the large, flower-filled basket lying at her feet, and an endlessly sweeping skirt widespread, from beneath which would be glimpsed the gay colour of a bright petticoat. Yes, and he had seen her standing in a narrow path, alone, quiet, and very intrigued as the last of the mourners walked away from Paddy Dignam's funeral. He had seen this woman on a Ringsend corner on any fine Sunday morning, talking and laughing with one of God's men, and a darling look sat on her great gob. And certainly she must have often heard the wind curl up out of Dublin Bay and whistle round the Guinness bottle.

“Here's your ticket. One bed, one breakfast, room thirty-nine, fourth floor up, don't make a noise, careful of a pot in the window third landing, do not keep lights on after ten, not allowed, do you want calling, and what time?” He told her.

“Which way?”

“That way.”

“Good-night,” Peter said.

But she seemed not to hear him, and it did not matter. He began to climb. The first landing, and then the second, these stairs might yet wind to high heaven. Once or twice he slipped on them, carpetless, much worn, and he was carefully aware of the gigantic pot, the shadow of which he saw even in the half darkness of his climb. The third landing. Darker still, and a silence that seemed absolute. He moved slowly along the corridor, striking matches as he went.

“What an odd place. Good Lord! The times I've passed that light outside, and never once looked in. And here I am actually inside the place. That seaman likes one tight corner of a port without a doubt.” And there was the door. He held up another match. A tall, brown, paint-peeling door, a rusty knob. The moment he touched it it came out and fell to the floor. Another match. This time it worked. He opened the door and went inside. “I wonder why she never supplies anybody with a key.”

He stood in the centre of the dark room, and only by feel did he at last find the window. He tore off its covering. He stood at it, looking out, where in the distance he could see the lights upon the river. Well, here it was. The first move. He was on his way somewhere, at last.

“I am alone,” thought Peter, “I am shut in, I am safe.” He stretched his arms, he slumped down on the bed, his hat fell off, and he watched it roll to the floor. Quietly he removed his shoes, and drawing his feet up the bed began vigorously rubbing them. He sat up, and began a furious swinging of his arms; he rubbed his hands together. And as he drew his feet up under him he realized that he had finally stopped walking, that he was safe in this room. He had come the long way, half sleeping, half dreaming, through the alleys and courts, across the streets, round the corners, in and out of the holes, for this was the patterned way to Mrs. Talon's place, where anything on two legs that called itself human might find a hole to sit in.

“Extraordinary! Just as I closed the Kilkey door, and stood for a moment outside the window, the name came to me. I remember this place.”

He stretched in the bed. “Poor Kilkey. Poor old man. Another tug on the heart would have killed him. And now I'm sorry I was so churlish, so irritable, so bad-tempered towards that harmless old creature. I'll see him again, I'll explain. I'll try to do things sensibly. But now I'm shut in, safe.”

He climbed in under the bedclothes, stretched himself again, wished to get warm. He looked at a brown patch on the ceiling. In the next room a lodger snored, and a step on the stairs sent a noise rattling through his head. He shut his eyes, pressed his fingers over them. He could hear the noise going on in the big kitchen below stairs. From time to time coke fell from the great stove with a clatter. The slightest sound made him jump. Mrs. Talon's voice leaping up out of the darkness had made him shudder. He thought of the walk to the city. The zig-zag route through the endless corridors, between the walls of silence. He thought of the gaunt warehouses, the windswept roads. Walking, unable to stop walking. Feeling cold, trying to get warm, feeling lost, trying to find himself. “I ought to undress,” he thought, “yes, I must undress.”

All day he had swum in the sea, had risen and fallen and tossed on the sweeping waves of memories. He felt ashamed, frightened, horrified. Memories numbed him.

In the next room the snoring grew louder. “Christ!” he shouted, “can't you stop snoring?”

He hammered on the wall. Suddenly he glanced up at the ceiling. “Now I know what that brown patch is,” he said, “it's Hatfields.” Somebody kicked the door.

“I say,
you
in there. I don't know who the hell you are, and I don't care neither, but if you can't sleep, then go out for a bloody walk.” Peter remained quite still. After a moment or two he heard the footsteps dying away in the corridor. Suddenly he was following them, down the stairs, into the street. He was in the road again, walking, to no particular place, for no particular reason, against no clock, the road had no end. He was walking towards the sea, and his father was with him. He fell asleep that way, moving seawards.

Like a white sail upon the water, the bared arms of the waitress at Tilsey's came up to meet him. He clutched in a dream. He clutched hundreds of arms, legs, bodies, called a thousand names, plunged into a burning, sulphurous sea. Then he woke. Somebody was banging on his door, somebody was shouting. “Left your light burning, put it out. Such waste.”

It was Mrs. Talon making her rounds. Mrs. Talon who never appeared to sleep, but was always moving about her big, rambling establishment, the huge bunch of keys slung by a chain at her waist, and they rattled in every corridor, and behind every door. She was
never
tired, as though, unlike others, she broke down the onslaughts of nature, defying them. She was wide awake now, at half-past four in the morning. Far below a number of late callers were having tea in the enormous kitchen, and some men on early shift were having their breakfast.

“Put out the light, it's not included to that extent.” The tired voice came to her through the door, and it said, with tremendous effort, “It's
out.
”

“And I should damn well think so. The very idea of it.”

“I must have left it on,” Peter thought, “fell asleep, been dreaming.”

His hand reached high above the bed, and as he took the switch between finger and thumb, he gave a quick glance about the room. The very look of it exhausted him. He turned out the light, and buried his head under the clothes. He dozed off, woke again, dozed. Early traffic rambled along the roads, a steam engine whistled, a ship's siren answered the minute hoot of a tug.

“Perhaps I'm ill, perhaps I'm ill, and I don't know it.” He pressed his head into the straw pillow.

“Perhaps I'm dreaming, just dreaming.”

“Somehow I can't believe—I mean—can't believe I'm no longer
there
, can't believe about mother, that
she's
no longer here, she was good—so was I—once.”

He fell asleep, and it was the striking of a church clock that eventually woke him. He counted the strokes. “Seven o'clock.” He opened his eyes under the blanket, the darkness there was warm, inviting. There were two hard kicks on the door. “Seven o'clock, number three.” At The Curving Light, nobody knocked on a door.

“All right,” faintly, muffled.

“Just telling you, that's all.” The voice was light, high-pitched, perhaps a girl, perhaps the voice of a boy.

Slowly he put out his head. A greyish light filled the room. He sat up. The first thing he saw was a cigarette lying on the floor. He stared at this as though he had never seen one before. He looked at the walls, the wash-basin, the photograph on the mantelpiece, the bricked-up grate. He looked upwards, and the brown patch was still there. Suddenly the room was clear, revealed. He watched the linoleum rise and fall from the draught under the door. He
felt
the room, every object in it touched him, from the dirty windows to the brown, damp patch. He shut his eyes, he felt it creeping towards him. Then he jumped from the bed. “I must get down below. I must move. I must hurry.”

He picked up his hat, coat, handkerchief, he almost ran down stairs. When he reached the kitchen the heat of the coke stove rushed out at him, and he drew back, leaning on the door. He thought he would faint.

“You all right?” Peter saw a red face, a dockgateman's hat, bright buttons.

“I'm all right,” he said.

He pushed his way into the kitchen, and took his place at the long wooden table. An arm came over his shoulder. “Breakfast.”

A mug of tea, a rasher of fat bacon, two slices of bread. “Hope you slept well, mister.”

He heard the keys rattling behind him, against the Talon thigh.

“And at any time,” Mrs. Talon said, “at any time, mister, if any of your friends want a room, just mention me. Talon's the name. Ma Talon. Just mention The Curving Light. Don't mind gaol-birds, don't mind nobody much, so long's they pay. Yes.”

“Yes,” Peter said, but he did not turn to look at her. He had seen her the previous evening, and once was enough.

But she was there again, closer, bent over him. “What'll you do, mister?”

“I don't know,” he said, more conscious of the weight, the height that towered above him.

“A pity,” Mrs. Talon said, and went away, and he heard the keys rattle all the way through the enormous kitchen.

He drank the harsh, strong tea. He felt the thick, hot fluid stick in his throat. And then he was quietly studying the other occupants of the table. Nobody bothered, nobody noticed him. He was just
an
-other. What to do now? How to pass the time, kill it. Not outside, not another walk. He had had enough of that. He would go back to his room and stay there. He would stay there until it was time to go to the boat. One and another got up and left the cavernous room. He was alone at the table. He had better see Mrs. Talon, settle things. There was nothing to pack, nothing to carry. A very much simplified journey. He got up and walked across to the stove, and stood staring at its red glow. Looking about him he knew that he hated this place, but at least it had served its purpose. Another visit to The Curving Light would be quite impossible. It suddenly struck him as very odd that anybody should be singing at this hour of the day, one of the kitchen helps, and a very young voice at that. Looking the length of this room he saw daylight at its end. Walking towards it he arrived at the open front door. He leaned against this, taking in great gulps of the morning air. People passed in and out, and each time he moved his body slightly to allow them to pass. Nobody spoke to him. He might have been one of the doorposts.