The Furys (21 page)

‘Joe will be here at twelve o'clock,' Maureen said. ‘Will you stay for dinner with us, Auntie? Or are you going home?' Miss Mangan moved uneasily in her chair. Should she stay? Or should she just wait to meet Kilkey and then go off and see her eldest nephew? She looked at Maureen. She was smiling at her now. There was something quite charming, even genuinely affectionate, she felt, in the young woman's desire to have her stay. She could not very well disappoint the child. She drew off her other glove.

‘It's so nice of you, Maureen,' she said. ‘I should love to stay. Indeed. I'm rather anxious to meet Mr Kilkey. But won't I be in your way?'

Maureen laughed in her face. ‘No.' she said, ‘you won't.' She leaned across and said in a low voice. ‘But what else have you brought back with you from Ireland, Auntie? Any secrets? Don't you know anything about Peter? Why he left so suddenly? Dad was awfully angry …'

‘Was your dad ever any different?' remarked Miss Mangan suddenly. ‘One can well understand. Your mother asked me the same question this morning. I know nothing about him. He would tell me nothing. I was amazed when I saw him. Almost a man now, Maureen. You'll hardly know him. So your dad is angry about it! It's a pity. I can't remember a time when he wasn't angry over something. Don't you ever feel that you owed it to yourself to leave Hatfields? What a house it is! It seems they've lived there too long. Years and years. That's what gets your mother down, Maureen. I know it. It's like a prison.'

‘H'm!' Maureen said. ‘You don't know anything about Hatfields, Auntie.'

Miss Mangan threw her head back. ‘You surprise me, Maureen,' she said. ‘You must know by now that your mother has never had one ounce of luck since she went to live there. She's a changed woman since I saw her last. It seems to me that Anthony is wise to stay at sea. Poor boy!'

Maureen rose to her feet. ‘Auntie,' she said, ‘why bring Anthony into it? It's not Mother's fault if she's still in Hatfields.'

‘Oh! Your mother tells me it's all through your father. Then your father says it's your mother's fault …'

‘Hello!' called out a voice suddenly from the back of the house.

‘Why, it's Joe,' exclaimed Maureen, running into the back kitchen. ‘Will you help me with the dinner, Auntie? It's your favourite,' she called out. ‘Boiled bacon, cabbage, and potatoes.'

Mr Kilkey put his head inside the door. ‘Visitors?' he asked, looking at Maureen. They both went into the kitchen.

‘My Aunt Brigid from Cork,' said Maureen. She looked at her aunt. ‘This is Joe, Auntie,' she said. She felt triumphant, as though she had waited all her life for this very occasion.

‘How are you?' asked Mr Kilkey, putting forth a hand. Aunt Brigid hesitated. Her first thought was, ‘What a repulsive-looking man!'; her first feeling one of physical revulsion. They shook hands.

‘Now, Auntie,' Maureen said, laying a hand on Miss Mangan's arm. Mr Kilkey said, ‘Excuse me,' and hurried outside to wash himself. He came in a few minutes later and went straight upstairs. Meanwhile the two women were busy getting the plates. Aunt Brigid laid the table, Maureen carried in the meal. Mr Kilkey came downstairs. He looked at his watch. ‘A bit late,' he said. They all sat down. Mr Kilkey began his dinner, whilst Aunt Brigid drew her plate to her. She was seated at the top of the table. She could see both husband and wife in profile now. She found it difficult to conceal her surprise. It was something more than surprise. Twice Maureen looked her way, and she lowered her head quickly and began using her knife and fork with mock earnestness. It seemed to Aunt Brigid that wherever she turned, wherever her eyes wandered, the face of Mr Kilkey wandered too. And what a face, she was thinking. It was disgusting. To think that her only niece had married that man, with his bald patch at the back of his head, his dirty-looking skin – it reminded Aunt Brigid of wet leather – and his enormous hands. Surely the man must be old enough to be the girl's father.

‘I hope you are enjoying it, Auntie,' said Maureen, looking up at her aunt, whilst she cut more bacon for her husband. Miss Mangan, from the other end of the table, smiled. ‘It's beautiful, Maureen,' she said. ‘You have your mother to thank for that.' At that moment Mr Kilkey looked up from his plate. Miss Mangan again lowered her head. ‘What time does this fellow go back?' she was wondering. She positively hated him now. There must be something in all this. Why had Maureen flung herself at a man like Kilkey? It was disgusting. Maureen said, ‘More, Auntie?'

‘No, child, thanks,' she replied, and looked along at Maureen.

‘Ah!' she exclaimed under her breath. ‘I've got it now.' Why hadn't she noticed it before? It was staring her in the face. That young woman was coarsened. Yes. Coarsened. That was the change. ‘My heavens!' she kept repeating in her mind. She looked at Maureen again, saying slowly to herself. ‘Maureen is now in a jute factory. She rather likes it. The hours are long but the wages are good.' That was nearly three years – no, impossible, it was much longer than that, Miss Mangan was thinking. Her sister had written to her about it. ‘Maureen has gone out to work. I didn't want her to go, but the girl was so restless, I let her go. It's in a jute factory. She seems to like it.' Yes, thought Aunt Brigid, she could read every one of those words on her niece's face. So that was the jute factory. The long hours. Maureen looked twenty years older. Mr Kilkey pushed his chair away, saying, ‘Excuse me. I must go now.' He went to the mantelshelf for a cigarette, lit it, and went outside. Miss Mangan turned her head and looked out of the back window.

‘What a peculiar street you live in!' she exclaimed. ‘You have the railway at the back.' She supposed that Kilkey man had brought her here.

‘Yes,' Maureen said. ‘But it's quiet here, and handy for Joe's work.'

‘Of course,' Aunt Brigid replied. She too got up, saying, ‘Let me help you clear these off, child.' Mr Kilkey pushed his head round the door.

‘So long,' he said. They heard the door bang.

They began to clear off the things from the table. Miss Mangan still felt a little bewildered. Now that Kilkey had gone, they might be able to sit in peace and talk about things. Looking at her niece, she could already imagine her framing the very question she so much dreaded to answer. Well, what could she say other than that Joseph Kilkey was disappointing? She kept looking at Maureen's swollen belly. They washed and dried the things. Suddenly Maureen said:

‘When you come to think of it, Aunt Brigid, it's terrible the bad luck Mother has. Isn't it awful about Anthony?'

Miss Mangan hung up the towel on the rack. ‘Yes,' continued Maureen, ‘just think of it! But of course Mother told you all about it, didn't she?' Aunt Brigid nodded her head, saying, ‘Yes, child. She told me. It's frightful. What a handful your mother has to look after! I suppose sometimes when you sit down and think it over you feel you are well out of it.' She looked at Maureen as if to say, ‘That's solemn truth.' But the young woman made no reply. She emptied the basin and wiped it out. ‘Let's go into the kitchen,' she said. They went in.

‘I'll make a drink of tea later on,' Maureen said. They sat down.

‘Your grand-dad seems to be quite helpless now,' remarked Aunt Brigid as she made herself comfortable in the chair. ‘It nearly broke my heart to see him in such a pitiable condition.'

‘Mother does her best. She can't do any more,' said Maureen sharply, at which remark Aunt Brigid sat up.

‘Oh, I know, I know. Your mother does her best. But it is sad. One never imagines they will reach that stage, though. I remember when I saw him last he was a hale and hearty man.' The young woman rose in her chair. This surely was some reflection upon her mother.

‘But he's old, Aunt. All old people are like that. Besides, it takes Mother all her time looking after the family and keeping the house over their heads.'

‘Yes,' replied Miss Mangan, ‘your mother seems to be fairly on her own now, what with yourself and Desmond out of the house. How is he getting on? That was another surprise. I hear he's on the permanent way, near your father.' Maureen sat silent. She realized the probable course her aunt's conversation would take.

‘I don't know anything about Desmond,' Maureen said coldly. ‘Nobody does. He's cut himself off from everybody, marrying that woman like he did. I never see him. I mind my own business and he minds his. Father is the only person who ever sees him, and then only because they practically work together. He's well left alone, as Mother says. He always was a bit of a suspicious character anyhow. But honestly, Auntie, don't you think Mother has much more to do than worry about him? She has Peter on her hands now, and Dad working ashore. And, before she knows where she is, Anthony will be home too. A cripple, I suppose. Don't you think that Mother doesn't realize things. She does. Only too well. Sometimes I think she's been a fool, but that's neither here nor there. I say again that you don't know Mother. You haven't lived with her in Hatfields for thirty years, have you? No. One would think that now two of us are gone she would get a little more air, a little more peace. But she never does.' Suddenly Aunt Brigid exclaimed:

‘But why did you leave the house so suddenly, Maureen?'

‘Well,' thought Maureen, ‘that is a straight question, anyway.'

‘Why did I leave? Why did I marry Kilkey? Not for a joke, Auntie.'

‘I'm quite serious, child,' said Aunt Brigid.

‘I married him because I loved him,' said Maureen. She stood up and pushed the chair away. ‘Aunt Brigid,' she said, ‘you don't understand things. That's the solemn truth, isn't it?' Aunt Brigid shifted her right leg on to the fender. She did not reply. She felt there was no reply to make. She had been working out a little theory of her own. Now it had turned out to be correct. Now she realized that change, that something that Maureen lacked, had lost. She wasn't happy. ‘Like her mother,' thought Miss Mangan; ‘she's made a bad job of it, and hides the mistake behind her stubbornness.' What was there to say? Nothing. She looked up at the clock. A quarter past two. Maureen looked at the clock now, as though she had seen mirrored in its face Aunt Brigid's secret thoughts. Then they met each other's glance. ‘I suppose I'll see you up at the house, then?' Aunt Brigid said, after a long silence.

‘If I have time,' Maureen said abruptly.

‘But surely you'll want to see your brother,' remarked Miss Mangan.

‘Oh, he'll be coming down,' she replied.

Maureen was thinking: ‘She's come down here to get some information. She wants to see her favourite Desmond, but she doesn't like to ask me where he lives. Sly woman! All her talk gets nowhere. She doesn't like Joe. One can see that at a glance. She doesn't understand Mother. She never did. They never agreed. She's just an old matronly lady who ought never to be out after dark. She ought to go back to Ireland as soon as she can.' Miss Mangan casually remarked that she must get the tram directly to the Front.

‘I should hate to be stranded here, child,' she said.

‘Of course, Auntie,' Maureen replied. ‘You can catch a tram at the bottom of the street.' Miss Mangan picked up her gloves. If that wasn't an ultimatum nothing ever was, she was telling herself. She looked curiously at her niece as she drew on her gloves. Maureen blushed. Why did she always stare at people like that? The young woman, conscious of these glances, these penetrating surveys of the lower part of her person, imagined that the citizen to come had suddenly moved. Aunt Brigid got up. ‘My coat, Maureen,' she said. Maureen went out for her coat. ‘Poor child!' thought Miss Mangan. ‘And that's the factory for you! She would have done much better to have taken on a domestic job in a priest's house. The girl is ruined.' Maureen returned with the coat. Miss Mangan drew herself to her full height, as though to emphasize the splendour of her bright green gown. Maureen helped her on with the coat. ‘I'm so glad you stayed for dinner, Auntie,' she said at last. It had been so embarrassing. Well, they both knew how they felt about each other. But why on earth had she come? Her mother didn't know. That was certain.

‘Fancy that Miss Pettigrew being alive yet,' remarked Miss Mangan as she buttoned up her coat. ‘I was talking to her this morning. It's amazing. She must be almost the same age as your grand-dad.'

‘Yes,' Maureen said. They moved towards the door.

‘It's been nice to see you,' Aunt Brigid said. She stood down on the step. ‘A dirty little hole!' she said to herself as she surveyed the two rows of grey-looking houses. Maureen, as though divining her thought, suddenly exclaimed, ‘You find it different here, don't you, Auntie? The King's Road is …' But Miss Mangan, seeing the point, retreated skilfully. Observing a large number of men at the bottom of the street, she remarked with astonishment:

‘Whatever are all those men doing there, Maureen?'

The young woman looked down the street and laughed. ‘Oh! they're only from the sheds yonder. It's the dinner hour for them. It's like that every day, Auntie.'

‘Don't you find the trains distracting? Especially at night-time?'

‘Oh, no. We're used to that,' replied Maureen. ‘One gets used to everything here in time. As soon as one realizes that it is impossible to get outside of it, the better one settles down,' she concluded.

‘Now what can she mean by that?' thought Miss Mangan. She drew up the collar of her coat. ‘I think it's going to rain again.'

‘I don't think so,' said Maureen. ‘Why, there's your tram now, Auntie,' she added with emphasis, as a car came slowly round the corner.

Aunt Brigid put out a hand and drew Maureen's face to her own. ‘Goodbye, my child. Take care of yourself now. I may not see you again.'