Our Time Is Gone (48 page)

‘I'll have a pint mixed, Joe.'

‘I'll have a large mild.'

‘And I'll have a glass of stout,' said Mr. Kilkey, as he signalled to the barman, and his two friends went back and sat on the form under the window. They spat a lot into the sawdust. They were very dry, very hot, and very dirty. The ship they had loaded was already blowing loud in the river.

Mr. Kilkey carried the drinks to them. Then he brought his own and sat down.

‘Well, boys, here's all the best of luck to you, and for the sake of all the ships we loaded and unloaded and the one we sank. Remember that one, mates?'

‘Aye! We do that! Here's the skin off your nose, Joe, and all the best till we meet again.'

The other man followed with a similar toast. Then they settled down to animated conversation. How long was this confounded war going on? What a war it was too!

‘You know, Joe, when you come to think of it, we workers could stop this war.'

‘Then why don't you?' said Mr. Kilkey. It came almost like an ultimatum.

‘How the hell can you stop anything?' said the other. ‘When're you off, Joe?'

‘Me?' Mr. Kilkey laughed. Was this the first effect of the glass of stout upon a teetotal anatomy? ‘Me?' said Joe Kilkey. ‘They've made a mistake. If they think I'm going to their war they're crazy. I'm not. That's all.'

‘But you'll have to, Joe. You can't do anything about it. You can't even go back on your job. They know. When are you really going, Kilkey. Tell us?' He leaned over Mr. Kilkey and said in his ear: ‘We won't tell anybody, Joe.'

‘Yes, Joe. Are you going in the lancers or in the lifeguards?'

‘You fellers think I'm joking. Well, you've made a big mistake. If you want to know, I should have reported three days ago. But I didn't. And I won't. And I'll tell you why I won't, mates, while you're still alive to hear it——'

‘Here, half a mo' there, Kilkey, half a mo'. You're not the undertaker, you know.'

‘I wouldn't go to their war because I don't see I've done anybody any harm. I haven't. I can speak honest there. And what's more, I've no more intention than the moon. I never interfered with Germans. Never seen one'cept Blumer, and he's a decent chap. I mean he was. You know, the pork butcher. They have no right to drag you out of your home and fling you into their dirty battles. They
are
dirty, they're filthy, and it's a disgrace! Every day you open the paper you see thousands more killed. No! I refuse that.'

‘Well, I
am
surprised, Kilkey. I never expected that from you. But suppose we lost this war? How'd you like Germans coming over bossing you, eh?'

Mr. Kilkey swigged his beer. ‘Wouldn't be any worse than some English that I've seen in my time. I'm speaking as an Irishman now, mind you.'

‘Ah! That's it! I see,' and the other seemed to echo his words. They saw. It was because he was Irish and the Irish always hated the English.

Joseph Kilkey became suddenly serious. ‘Listen, chums, you're wrong. It's not because I'm Irish at all. I'm just like you, and you.' Here he dug his finger into their chests. ‘Just the same as you. We're workers. I'm not clever. Never let on to be—but I'm not that much of a mug. And I know workers never got anything out of a war.
You
won't—and
you
won't.' He jabbed his finger into their chests again, then struck his own. ‘And
I
won't.'

Mr. Kilkey was becoming really excited about it. Perhaps it was the beer, their good-natured smiles seemed to say.

‘Here, not so loud! It doesn't pay. Shouting all over the house. Good job none of them women are here whose husbands were lost on the Z nineteen.'

‘That's the sad thing,' said Mr. Kilkey. ‘Still, what I said I mean. I'm not going. I'm not the only one. Better men than me by a long shot have refused to go. I wouldn't kill a German for a fortune. They're as good as you or me.'

‘Well, you're a mystery,' said one. ‘A bloody mystery, Joe! I can't believe it.'

‘Nor I. All the same, I wouldn't mind having a smack at them.'

‘You're welcome,' said Joe Kilkey, ‘They'll smack at you in turn. It's all a farce. Well, I'd better be off now. So I'll say so-long. We don't agree, mates. But never mind. We
are
mates. Best of luck, Andy, best of luck, George,' and he took a hand in each of his own and shook them warmly, as he looked at one, and then the other.

Much younger than he, mere lads. What a world!

They all went out into the street. They made their way slowly down the road. It was dark, and the darkness itself heightened by the dead weight of a silence that hung over the long dock road. When they halted, they looked about, looked anywhere but at each other, so that at first glance one took them for three men hopelessly lost on the five-mile length of road.

The night air was raw, the mass of tall warehouses bulky in shadow, a greyish moon riding about their tips; and between streets and alleys, shafts of silver light upon the walls like many great scratches of pencil, and above it all the many odours and scents, sweet and sour, putrid and acrid. No traffic moved. Only a lone ship blew in the river.

‘Must have passed up this here road hundreds of thousands of times, Joe.'

‘Yes, and if everybody had damned common sense they'd go up and down it still—till God's good time, anyhow. Well, chums, I
have
to skip. So-long.'

They parted, Mr. Kilkey for Hey's Alley, the two men for home. And all the way down the long road those two men talked of Joseph Kilkey.

It was after ten when Mr. Kilkey reached Hey's Alley. Instinctively he went down the street on the right-hand side, for he had not lost his vivid memory of the episode of the paper cap and the glass of whisky. It had often made him laugh. The street was silent. Its doors shut, curtains and blinds drawn. A bleak wind began to blow from the north. Papers blew about in the gutters; light from the gas lamp seemed to trickle down with the rubbish.

Mr. Kilkey stood outside No. 17. In the darkness he had failed to notice the absence of curtains on its windows. At last he knocked. The door opened. A sickly-looking light dribbled out of the open kitchen door, and pitted the long narrow lobby with grotesque strips. He then saw by the light from the neighbouring lamp the oddest-looking woman he had ever seen.

Joseph Kilkey's first impulse was to laugh. The woman was completely bald. She was no more than fifty, and her face was red, clean, and had even in that light the look of an apple that lies in the greengrocer's window.

‘Yes,' she said, clutching her hands together over her apron and stared at the visitor. As she spoke she lowered her head.

The head began to fascinate the man. He forgot Desmond, the war, Mrs. Fury, his being called up, the coldness of Blacksea. The head lowered itself and somehow blotted them out. Fine red livid lines draped the head. They seemed like the frenzied clawings of some animal, some claws that had torn away the scalp. The sight of them made him feel sick, and her head was in such striking contrast to the face. At last he managed to speak.

‘Is Mrs. Fury in?' he asked, dodging the woman's sharp eyes, still interested in the top of that striped head. ‘Is Mrs. Fury
in
?' he asked again, as though he had suddenly forgotten that he had already asked this.

‘Never heard of her,' the woman said. ‘Who is she? Fury! Never heard that name.'

‘Oh!' Joseph Kilkey now looked up and down the street.

The woman smiled. ‘Was he sure he wanted Mrs. Fury, not Mrs.——' And now the head was lowered still further, as if the woman were intent upon his seeing the
whole
of that head. She was smiling at him, though he hardly noticed it until he became aware of the teeth, the whole upper row of which now protruded from the mouth and grasped the flesh just under the lower lip. She retained this expression for a few seconds. She was waiting for him to speak.

‘She's a friend of mine—as a matter of fact she's my mother-in-law. It's very strange. She was living here last time I called, a week or so ago.'

‘She's not living here now, anyhow,' said the woman, and the row of teeth suddenly flashed and disappeared inside the mouth. She then gave another smile and asked, as she swayed a little on the step. ‘Do
I
look like her?'

Joseph Kilkey did not answer.

The woman descended the step. She stood almost level with the man. She fastened her eyes on him.

‘Funny,' she said, ‘you coming. Nobody ever comes here. Not to see me! Fancy you coming.'

Was the woman drunk? Mr. Kilkey was telling himself that discoveries were becoming bywords in his life. What a strange woman was this. And Mrs. Fury wasn't here. At last he stammered. ‘Oh! I thought she was. Anyhow, thank you. I'll make enquiries next door.'

‘They wouldn't know either,' the woman went on. Suddenly she laughed and continued. ‘Funny you coming. I work in a bag works, but nobody comes to see me. Every time I move my home I say to myself, ‘Perhaps when I go to the new place somebody will come to see me.' But they never do. Funny, isn't it? See my head? That makes them laugh. I was getting married and then a girl pushed me and I fell on my machine, and all my hair came off and then the chap wouldn't marry me, and I get my bit of compensation, and I move about—about, and nobody comes to see me. Not any place.'Cause I'm bald, I suppose. Funny, isn't it?'

Mr. Kilkey did not answer the woman. He looked up and down the street again, this time almost frantically. It was getting late. This woman was awkward. What a queer day it was. First Blacksea, then the convent, then the pub and now this. He made to go, but somehow he couldn't; his foot wouldn't move.

‘Fancy somebody coming to see me after all, and me moving and moving. I tried to get doctors to grow my hair. And they tried wigs on me, but I couldn't wear them. How old d'you think I am, mister? Thirty-one! Funny, isn't it? No wigs would do. Skin was ruined, they said. So I got the compensation. I came here. It was like the other places. Nobody wanted to come to see me. I was bald, you see. Funny, isn't it? Gelton
is
a big city, isn't it? You get lost in it. I like being lost. Do you, mister? I go out at night, and sometimes I get into the habit of going up one side of the street and down the other. But the police stopped that. You know what they are. My mother died about six months ago. It is funny you coming. Nobody
ever
comes. So you want Mrs. Fury. Sorry. I don't know her. G'night, mister.'

The door slammed violently on Joseph Kilkey.

‘Good
Lord
!' he said aloud.

He tried the next door, and the next. He tried the four little shops that stood on the corners of Hey's Alley. He met with shakes of the head, guarded ‘No's'—indifferent: ‘Never heard of her. Who? Fury? Don't know!'

They didn't know her. Who was she? Fury? H'm! Well, she wasn't
there
, anyhow.

All that journey for nothing. When had she gone—where? Why had she gone like that? Left the hospital. ‘I'm hanged,' said Mr. Kilkey. ‘Nothing will alter my opinion now that that poor woman is wrong in her head. Well, it might have been sooner, God knows that.' A wasted day. A long day with nothing in it to remember except that long ride back to Gelton with his son. Nearly eleven o'clock. He'd better go home. He suddenly leaned against the wall at the end of the street.

‘A big city,' she had said.

Yes, it was a big city. And this was hidden in it and he'd never known. Aye! It was a big city all right. ‘I'm off anyhow,' he said, and slowly turned out of the street.

But the bald-headed woman remained in his mind. Never went out except at night. Nobody came to see her. A girl knocked her across the machine. Whole scalp gone. Her young man wouldn't marry. ‘Funny, isn't it?' and he found himself repeating the woman's words. Funny! Yes. It was! Well, the more I see the more I realize the truth of that saying, ‘Be lucky you're born.' Some people didn't even know they were born.

He travelled back on a car packed with night workers. The smell of beer was strong, of tobacco suffocating. Everybody on top talked. He had to listen. War! War! The bloody Germans! The square-headed swine! The cheap joke, the dirty joke, the bloodthirsty oaths. The tram rocked and ahead the lines shone, two long ribbons of cold silver, between avenues of brick and slate. A man sang. One talked of derricks. Another cried out: ‘I'd have told him to stick it up his——'

The crowd laughed, and the tram lurched on towards the docks. Lights were dimmed, blinds drawn over the windows.

‘Pretty lousy on the West Front to-night, eh, lads?'

The car stopped at the end of the King's Road. Mr. Kilkey got off. Price Street was in darkness too, but No. 8 showed a glimmer of light. His clumsy walk sounded like thunder on the stones. Mrs. Ditchley's door opened. She seemed to have been waiting for him.

‘Come in, Mr. Kilkey. I want to talk to you,' she said, and he followed her into the house.

‘Anything wrong, Mrs. Ditchley?' he asked. He stood by the kitchen door.

‘Yes, and no! I wouldn't bother you except I've been worried about it. And you away the whole day. You look tired. And where's the little lad?'

He told her everything.

‘How awfully disappointing for you. Sit down. I've the kettle ready. Tea in a tick. You
do
look tired. I've been worried, Mr. Kilkey.'

‘I'm—well, what's been worrying you?' he asked. He lay his hat on the dresser.

‘Well, some soldier men came about eleven. I didn't understand it,' she began. ‘They knocked here too. Impudent lot they were. Quite a crowd gathered——'

‘Yes?'

‘And they were here again at seven, Mr. Kilkey. I'm quite worried about it. There were four of them this evening. Local lads I think, too. I never in all my life heard such talk. Whatever you've done, Mr. Kilkey—mind you, it's none of my business—and I speak only as your friend—but whatever you've done, they've got their knife into you. They asked me when you'd be in. I said I didn't know, that I only minded my own business. A foul-mouthed lot. But one of the men who came this morning was a sergeant or something. He seemed rather nice. Well, there it is. Now I'll get that tea.'