Our Time Is Gone (14 page)

The light grew stronger, and then there drifted slowly riverwards the first warning hum, rising from the streets and roads and lanes of Gelton. It climbed air, sounding like the wing-beats of some ghostly bird, and so reached the river itself and the ears of men. Gelton was waking up. Now one, now another ship's bell rang out; the reverberations seemed to make circles in the air, sweep to the river's surface and vanish. A man climbed a rigging. One hauled down the signals. Another paced to and fro upon the bridge. A boy with tousled hair waved a hand towards Mr. Kilkey's ship, as clinging to the little house on his barge he was swept by, a white blob amidst the black mass of coal that lay piled in the holds. A ferry steamer passed across the skyline, her wake dancing behind her. A weak sun came out, flung light on the water, then disappeared again.

Meanwhile, aboard the
Fortunia
, the slings and nets still rose and fell with monotonous regularity. The shed below was piled high with strong-smelling hides. The depths to which Mr. Kilkey now looked down had increased, he could see right down to the very frame of the ship. He saw a vast steel chamber, with men moving about inside it, their footsteps thunderous, their voices volcanic; and rising into the outer air came the smells, the imprisoned smells from far countries, and they rose into Mr. Kilkey's nostrils. But the sea could keep all its smells. In an hour from now he would be ashore, and able to light his pipe. It gave out a far better smell.

He could see two lines of men ascending the gangway of the ship ahead. He saw her derricks unshipped, heard the old cries around hatches, heard the hatches themselves flung off. Another ship to unload, another ship to load for to-morrow. The river was lined with them. He counted them. He had never seen so many ships in the river before. And he never would again, he thought. It was as though all the ships of the world had raised anchor and set their course for Gelton.

Joseph Kilkey brought up his last sling, and he let it hang suspended in the air, for seven bells rang clearly from the bridge of the ship ahead. It was time to go. He was a free man. Even as he got off the hatch his relief was below, waiting.

‘Morning,' Kilkey said, and left the hatch, went straight to the saloon and took his raincoat. He then left the ship.

Down all the roads and streets leading dockwards the day men were streaming. They poured in a flood through the dock gates. The air rang with cries of ‘Morning,' ‘How do.' The night world was going home to sleep. A man caught up with Mr. Kilkey as he turned out of the gate, caught his arm.

‘Which way are you going?'

‘Your way this morning,' replied Mr. Kilkey. ‘Got to pay my dues this morning, or I'll never pay them. Should have gone down last week, but I didn't. Seem to be getting behind in everything lately.'

They fell into step and hurried along, facing an oncoming goods train that was moving ponderously north.

‘Taylor was telling me you nearly did the trick last night,' the man said.

‘Oh aye.' Kilkey laughed. ‘Don't know what the devil I was thinking about. Lucky he was there. Might have been down that blooming hatch.'

‘You don't look quite up to the knocker these days, mate,' the man said.

‘Don't I?'

‘No! As a matter of fact I've heard people saying you weren't half the man you were. But then fellers talk, don't they? If they had no tongues to talk with it would be sad for quite a few.'

‘Perhaps,' Kilkey said. ‘I've been a bit worried lately what with one thing and another. But hang it all everybody is these days. Wonder how the war's getting on?'

‘Not getting on at all if you ask me. Them Germans are showing them something, according to what I read in the papers.'

A newsboy coming along was stopped by Kilkey. He bought one. The two men stood, Kilkey holding the paper outspread.

‘Um! Big battle on the Western Front. Ah, sure, you read the same thing every day. Can't believe the papers half the time,' the man said.

‘Maybe,' Kilkey said, not thinking of any Western Front, but engaged in reading with the greatest interest a small item in the centre of the page. He scratched his head. ‘I'll be hanged,' he exclaimed. Then he folded the paper and they went on.

At the corner of Danton Street the man said, ‘So-long, Joe.'

Mr. Kilkey waved a hand and was gone. He stuffed the newspaper into his pocket. ‘I'll be damned,' he said to himself. ‘I'll be damned.'

Desmond Fury organizing industrial battalions. Good heavens! Looked as though he were now using his heel on the workers, not his toe. And then he took the paper from his pocket, opened it, and stood by a kiosk reading all about the Captain's progress.

After a few minutes he went on again. He crossed the road, caught a south-bound tram and in twenty minutes he was climbing the flight of steps to his union branch office.

Inside he found Mr. Stiggs leaning over his desk. Joseph Kilkey went up to the counter and handed in his card.

‘Morning,' he said. ‘You're early this morning. Only after eight.'

‘The trade union movement never sleeps,' Mr. Stiggs said.

Mr. Stiggs did not stretch, or unbend; he unrolled himself, sat up, pushed back the peak of his cap, stretched his arms out, settled into a more comfortable position, and then took up the card. Mr. Kilkey paid his dues, the card was stamped, and from the fat white hand he received his new union button. This was made of brass, shaped into an anvil. Mr. Kilkey put it in his coat lapel. Then he took a good look at Mr. Stiggs. He was a stranger, quite new to the office. There was something about him that attracted Kilkey. When he smiled the smile enveloped the whole room. The walls and furniture appeared to smile back at him. When he laughed his whole body shook like a jelly. Then suddenly as though from sheer habit Mr. Stiggs pulled down the peak of his cap. Mr. Kilkey had never in his life seen such a big peak to a cap. It was light grey. Beneath it Mr. Stiggs wore a grey suit, and across his chest ran a massive silver watch-chain—Mr. Kilkey supposed it was silver. The collar was prodigious.

‘What d'you think about this war?' Mr. Kilkey asked. He always spent a few minutes in conversation whenever he visited his union branch. Yes, what did Mr. Stiggs think about this awful war? Mr. Stiggs looked serious then. Kilkey leaned on the counter, one clenched fist under his ear.

‘No bloody good for any working-man,' replied Mr. Stiggs. ‘Think it'll last very long, mate?'

‘Nobody can tell that, can they?' replied Kilkey. ‘All we do know is that every day thousands of good fellers are being killed. I suppose it'll go on until those as run it get tired. I think it's dreadful myself. And come to think on it I must say I'm surprised at the turn of things. I mean all these labour leaders becoming the very opposite of what they're supposed to be. Ah well, it's a queer world. You just come to this branch, haven't you?' he asked.

‘Yes. Came from Calton. Not much there, I can tell you. A place full of stiffs and snobs. This is the real thing. You feel you are among workers.'

‘Aye. Well, I'm off. Good morning,' Mr. Kilkey said, and turned towards the door.

‘Morning, mate,' Mr. Stiggs said, and promptly rolled himself up again, leaned heavily over the desk, appeared to be falling asleep.

The door banged. Mr. Kilkey was gone. Mr. Stiggs was not asleep. In fact his mind was very occupied. He thought of to-morrow's charabanc trip to Gorley Woods.

‘It's a caution,' Kilkey thought. ‘I simply can't get over that Desmond Fury. Supposed to be a socialist. Makes you want to be sick, really.'

He reached the bottom of the street, and was now standing in the very centre of Gelton. The long lines of shops were opening for the day. The morning sun poured down, and a shaft of light ran from the top of Braham Street right down to the river itself. Kilkey looked down. How nice and fresh it looked down there. How lazily the ferry boats, the tugs and barges passed up and down the river. Hardly think there was a war at all. But when he turned round he saw soldiers passing to and fro, men in hospital-blue, many sailors. Officers rushed this way and that, and indifferent shopkeepers stood outside looking down at the quiet river, whilst the assistants cleaned windows, polished brass, drew down blinds.

Braham Street was a warm street, the shop windows were a riot of colours. The war seemed very far away. It was only the stream of soldiers and sailors and wounded wending their way up and down that told Mr. Kilkey that it was no joke, that war
was
raging. He looked at one man, then another, one limping, one being wheeled along in a chair. The wounds spelt war for him. He turned and walked away from the river, sauntering slowly along, as though he had not a care in the world, as though he had not worked hard the whole night. Nobody looked at him, and he looked at everybody. It wasn't often he came to town. Mr. Kilkey liked looking at things: shops, buildings, the traffic, clerks and solicitors, the brokers and cotton men rushing to their offices where the charladies had just put everything neat and tidy for the morning. Kilkey looked at more than one of these women, all kneeling at the steps of buildings, indifferent to the noise about them, the tramp, tramp of thousands of feet. ‘I suppose even those women have husbands and sons at this war.'

When he reached the top of Braham Street he stood waiting for a tram home. Some early shoppers were waiting there too, a soldier and a sailor just come from trench and ship. People glanced at them sympathetically, and they in turn looked at everything, including the sympathetic passers-by, but their thoughts were homing far from war. The tram came along and Mr. Kilkey got on. On the top deck he found a corner seat and sat down. Soldier and sailor followed. The sun shone through the windows, and each time a passenger took his seat a cloud of dust rose in the air. Mr. Kilkey looked out through the window, forgot the war, thought of Maureen and his son. Home to Price Street again. ‘Something tells me the kid isn't right, somehow.'

Passengers ascended and descended. He hardly noticed them. The passing shops were a blur, his mind was full of wife and son. The tram stopped at Hatfields. He got off and made for Price Street. He recognized faces, the faces recognized him. But he had passed up and down this street so many thousands of times that nobody took the slightest notice of him. The occasional ‘good morning' or ‘good evening' was a habit, a simple muscular movement of the tongue. Mr. Kilkey replied by habit and went on his way.

The neighbours knew all about him. In fact some of them, never too friendly, were now wondering why this ‘big strong feller' wasn't doing his bit for King and country. The inhabitants of Price Street who annually honoured the memory of Prince William of Orange took the worst possible view. He was Irish. That was enough for them. ‘Dirty lot of bastards.' That's what they were. Stabbing England in the back already. Hadn't they tried to do the dirty in Ireland? You couldn't trust them. Some said Mr. Kilkey was a ‘fine strong man,' but the work he did could well be done by an older man, or even a woman. The really antagonistic, of none too active an imagination, were already saying that Mr. Kilkey might well be connected with those ‘murdering bastards' in Ireland. It was always those who looked the most innocent, etc. Lately, even to see Joseph Kilkey in his best suit, and leaving the house of an evening, was to assume at once that he was having a rendezvous with a woman. A married man. But what could one expect, anyhow? No doubt at all he must have led his wife a pretty dance. The Irish were like that, anyhow. And so on and so on.

All this had no effect whatever on Joseph Kilkey. He had expected it. The war seemed to have altered everything for the worse, and somehow it looked as though things would never be the same again. Even the ordinary good feelings between neighbours was fast vanishing. What made life worse for him was the sudden pride that Price Street felt in itself. Every house had contributed a soldier or sailor to the war, some had sent two and three. One woman had lost two sons, a third returned and was put into a lunatic asylum. Immediately she draped her front window with the Union Jack, large photographs of her sons, announced on a poster specially printed that she had given three sons for King and country. She was the most honoured woman in the street. She loathed the sight of Joseph Kilkey. Whenever he saw her he hurried on. Inside his home was the best place. But he never returned to it without feeling sad, yet he always hoped Maureen would return. Sometimes he would imagine that wife and son were there all the time, that as soon as he opened his door they would be smiling down at him on the step. The woman next door would chaff him, light-heartedly call him a fool. He would smile. He had been called that any number of times. Perhaps he was.

Now he reached the house and found Mrs. Ditchley already waiting for him. She had made his breakfast, made up his bed, and was on the point of going. ‘Morning, Mrs. Ditchley. Anything happened? Any news.'

‘Morning,' she said. ‘No,' she said, brushing the tablecloth with her hand. ‘No.' What a man! Always expecting news, the same kind of news. A ridiculous man in some ways. Mrs. Ditchley was a realist. She had told him again and again that what he ought to have done was to go after this man and wring his neck, and bring back Maureen by the scruff of
her
neck. All he did was shake his head.

‘No! If she wants to go, let her go. She'll learn. She's young yet.'

‘Well, you are a fool, I must say,' she remarked. When the child followed his wife Mrs. Ditchley flung up her hands in despair. But she went on looking after him. A good chap in many ways, but a fool just the same.

‘Everything's set,' she said.

‘Thank you, Mrs. Ditchley.'

She stood watching him remove coat and cap, sat down whilst he went into the back kitchen to wash. When he came back and sat down to breakfast she got up.

‘I must go now. See you in the evening. Ta-ta.'