The Furys (27 page)

Would Maureen recognize his old knock? Three short taps. He expected the door to be opened, expected Maureen to exclaim, ‘Oh, Peter! How are you?' To his surprise the door did not open. Perhaps they were out. He knocked again. Then he stood in front of the window and looked through. There might be a light in the kitchen. As he stood there staring through the opening in the curtains the next door opened, and a slatternly-looking young woman came out on the step. Peter did not hear this door open. He was too engaged in watching for a light in the kitchen. Perhaps they really were out. He turned towards the door, and caught sight of the woman. He could see her face quite clearly, as there was a lamp lighted between numbers thirty-five and thirty-seven. There was something bold and questioning in the glance she gave him. Feeling like a thief, he knocked again, this time with great force. He knew the woman was looking at him. He was certain he had heard somebody talking in the lobby. Surely they weren't actually in, and refusing to open the door! He looked at the woman again.

‘Is Mrs Kilkey in, could you tell me, please?' he asked.

‘I don't know,' the woman replied. She went in and banged the door. It was as though she had banged it directly in his face. Peter scratched his head. ‘What a funny woman!' he thought. Once more he knocked. He was growing impatient, he imagined that every door in Price Street had suddenly opened, and that the people had all come out on their steps to stare at him. He exclaimed angrily, ‘Damn them! Damn them!' He looked through the curtains again. The house seemed in complete darkness. And yet he was certain he had heard somebody talking in the lobby. Could it be that Mr Kilkey … no – impossible. He pushed the idea from his mind. He moved back to the kerb and stared up at the house. No! There was no light in the upper rooms. He said to himself, ‘They must be out.' He walked away. He was suspicious. Could they have possibly shut him out? He could not believe it of his sister. Kilkey, yes. Of course, Maureen might be different now. She was married. She was going to have a child by Mr Kilkey. He had heard his father talking about it. Desmond never once crossed his mind. It was as if this brother was truly lost, severed from the family for ever. ‘I'll go round the back way,' he thought. He walked down the street, and passed into the entry. Here the darkness seemed more intense. He struck a match and held it to the first back door. But it was unnumbered. He went further up. At last! Here was a door with a chalked number. Seven. ‘Good!' He would easily find number thirty-five. He stood before the door now. Suddenly he told himself that this action was mean. It implied that he was suspicious, that he was now certain they had refused to open the door to him. When he climbed the wall and looked up the yard, he nearly loosed his hold from sheer astonishment. The whole yard was brightly illuminated, as the kitchen blinds had not been drawn. He could see everything in the kitchen quite clearly. Two people were sitting at the table. The man had just laid down his newspaper. He now stared through the kitchen window as though he were somehow conscious of the presence of a figure on the wall. But he could not see Peter, for the boy was lying flat upon the wall. The woman was sitting directly facing the window. She was wearing a brown woollen jumper. Her elbows were on the table, her hands, locked together, supported her chin. She too appeared to be looking down the yard. It was his sister Maureen. He knew her at once. She was sitting beneath the gas-light. She was rapt and concentrated in her gaze. ‘And she wouldn't open the door! And she knew I was there!' Peter swore under his breath. Then he raised himself on the wall, and dropped into the darkened entry. For a moment he stood there, looking up and down. There was something furtive in his very demeanour. Suddenly he said, ‘Oh, damn them!' and set off up the entry at a sharp pace. When he came out into the space in front of the warehouses he stopped again, listening. The sounds of hammering came to this ears. He looked up at the light above his head. It threw a sickly yellowish patch of light into the dark area. ‘Damn them!' he said again.

Maureen Fury had seen her brother. She was sitting sewing when he knocked. Her husband was sitting in the opposite chair, his feet upon the kitchen fender. Maureen plied busily with her needle. Occasionally the silence was broken by Mr Kilkey remarking, as he looked up from his paper, that things weren't looking too good. When the knock came to the door, Joseph Kilkey put down his paper.

‘Who's that, I wonder?' he asked, looking across at his wife. His face wore a peculiarly woeful expression. If there was anything Mr Kilkey hated, it was this invasion of his quiet hour by visitors. Seven to eight o'clock was Mr Kilkey's time for reading the newspaper. It was his hour for reflection from beginning to end, not even omitting the obituary notices. Maureen put down her sewing. ‘I'll see,' she said, and got up from her chair. At once her husband's expression changed. There was something about Maureen that held his attention. Indeed, Mr Joseph Kilkey felt a peculiar pleasure at this momentary glimpse of Maureen's physical proportions. She went into the parlour and looked through the window. The action had a significance of its own. She never went direct to the door and opened it, but always spied through the window to see who the visitor might be. Nor was this habit confined to Mrs Kilkey. The inhabitants of Price Street all did the same thing. There were so many unwelcome visitors to the street. The parlour window was a sort of observation post. There decision was come to. Now, as she looked out through the chink in the curtains, she espied the tall youth. He was without a hat. Peter never wore any headwear. Yes. This was her brother. She could see him quite clearly by the light of the lamp. Had he seen her? she wondered, and drew back from the curtain. Yes. That was Peter. Her brother, whom she had not seen for seven years. He had changed, grown tremendously, broadened out, but she would have known him anywhere. Maureen tiptoed back into the kitchen, and sat down in the chair. Mr Kilkey looked at her, his lips framing a question. Maureen picked up her sewing as though nothing had happened. At that moment the knock came again.

‘Who is it?' asked Mr Kilkey. He sat forward in his chair. ‘Who is it?'

‘Oh, somebody selling stuff, I think,' she replied. She flushed. Mr Kilkey thought this rather strange. Now the knocking was repeated. There was real determination and vehemence behind the knock this time.

‘That's nobody selling stuff, Maureen,' Mr Kilkey said. He got up from his chair and made to go to the door, but at the same time Maureen also rose and barred his path.

‘It's all right,' Maureen said. ‘Sit down.' She pressed close to him. He could feel her body against his own. He saw her bosom rise and fall. Mr Kilkey suddenly embraced his wife. The visitor was forgotten. ‘Sit down,' Maureen repeated. She pushed him back into the chair. The man laughed. ‘Who is it?' he asked again. ‘Somebody you don't want to see …'

‘It's Peter. It's my brother Peter.' She sat down and took up her sewing. An expression of absolute astonishment passed swiftly, like a gust of wind, across Joseph Kilkey's face. He scratched his head. He was really astonished.

‘And why don't you open the door, Maureen? Don't you want to see him? He's your brother. You haven't seen the lad for years.'

‘No,' Maureen exclaimed, and the very tone of her voice seemed to spell finality. ‘No,' she repeated with great emphasis. Mr Kilkey picked up the newspaper, and carefully folding it, placed it in the cupboard. Then he stretched out in the chair, looking up at the ceiling. He noticed then for the first time that the ceiling was badly stained. Probably the roof was leaking. The events of the day, the ways of the world, passed completely out of his mind. There was something else to reflect upon now. Something that was near, very near, to him. He was completely at a loss to understand his wife's attitude towards the boy. The visitor had evidently gone, probably having given it up as hopeless. The final knock seemed to ring in Mr Kilkey's ears. There was something demanding about it, as though the person had put into it his anger at such treatment. He lowered his head, he wanted to ask his wife a question. But, seeing the look upon Maureen's face, he reverted to his former position, and allowed his eyes to wander about the stained ceiling. He could see at once how determined Maureen was. ‘Her mother all over,' he thought. Absolute determination. Ruthless. How positively ugly she looked now, with that thin set mouth of hers! No. She wouldn't see Peter. He knew it only too well. Not all the armed folks of the country would get Maureen out of that chair. It may have been the striking of the clock, or the sudden barking of a dog in a near-by yard, that made Mr Kilkey sit up suddenly and stare confusedly about him. His train of thought had been interrupted. Mrs Kilkey seemed to have forgotten her husband's existence. And yet she was thinking of nothing in particular excepting the task in hand. Occasionally she thought of her mother, and even told herself that she ought to go round and see her. Perhaps tonight. She had something to say when she went to Hatfields. She must think carefully about it. Mr Kilkey again looked at his wife. For some time his eyes focused themselves upon her hands. Against this restless, almost agitated play of her fingers the silence of the kitchen became irritating. Now Joseph Kilkey was a man who adored silence. There was nothing, indeed, that he liked better than to get his feet upon the fender. There was something grand, something magic, about the very action, as though as his feet gripped the fender he exclaimed to himself, ‘There! Now I'm settled.' The world might be full of events great and small, happenings sad and joyous, but to Mr Kilkey there was something indeed above all this. It was holy and sacred, it was full of beauty. A man could always, by the very act of closing his door and putting his feet upon the fender, shut out the world and commune with himself. But this silence was different. It irritated, goaded one.

Something was hidden behind it. At last he cried out, ‘I don't understand, Maureen, hanged if I do! Why didn't you want to see your brother?' The question was direct, there was such a demanding note about it, that for a moment Maureen Kilkey made no reply. This was a new Mr Kilkey, without a shadow of doubt. Marriage indeed must be one long educational process. She put down her sewing, closed the work-box, and pushed it on to the sewing-machine.

She looked at her husband. ‘I don't want to see him,' she said slowly. ‘I haven't the faintest intention of seeing him.' She turned round in her chair, so that she sat facing the kitchen window. She put her elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her cupped hands. It was then that Peter, climbing the wall, had first seen her.

‘But it's ridiculous!' exclaimed Mr Kilkey. ‘After
all,
he's your brother! What has he done?'

Maureen swung round. ‘What has he done?' She laughed. ‘He hasn't done anything to me. I wouldn't let him …'

‘Well then …' went on Mr Kilkey. ‘I don't see why you …' Maureen shut him up at once.

‘I'll tell you what he's done!' she exclaimed. ‘He's made my mother's life one long prison, that's what he's done. Sometimes I think she deserves it. She never takes advice.
Never.
It was silly. The amount of money that was expended on that fellow – what for?' She laughed again. ‘Waste! waste!' She paused. She had been going to add, ‘and no return,' but suddenly refrained. She respected her husband's ideas. Why should she offend Joseph Kilkey?

‘All along Mother was told how useless it would be. It only tied her down. And now she's got her reward. She ought never to have sent him. The others got no such consideration. None at all. Mother has tried hard. But she's only a fool. A fool!' Maureen became quite passionate, the colour rose to her cheeks, she stood up now, one hand gripping the table. ‘She thought she was doing her best. But she couldn't have done anything worse. I've told her time and time again. I've almost begged her, on my knees, to give it up. She'll get no thanks. No thanks. I've said, “Why don't you get out of the house – out of the street?” She won't. It's like a prison. She's been tied there years and years. And what does she say? She says, “If your father had been different.” I think it's really silly. Dad has worked hard all his life. He has seen little of Mother, little of any of us. At her request he gave up going to sea, and took that job on the railway. But I knew he did it for Mother's sake. In a way I was glad. At least, they would be with each other. But what has happened? He hates the job. Hates it like poison. He wants to go to sea again. I know it full well. Mother is seeing it now. This restlessness, this continual tugging at something he can never get. It's like a child trying to get a toy beyond his reach. But that isn't all. Mother began her campaign. “Thirty years of this,” she said. Dad asked, “What?” Mother said, “This gaol. This gaol.”' Again Maureen laughed. ‘But she made it herself through her own foolishness, through her own insane idea of getting Peter into the Church.'

Mr Kilkey got up from the chair.

‘Maureen,' he said, ‘Maureen.' There was great tenderness in his voice – ‘Maureen, I never thought you could talk like that of your mother.' Then he sat down, as though he had expended all effort. He could say no more. After a while he said, ‘I'm surprised! I'm surprised!'

‘You don't know anything,' exclaimed Maureen. She added heatedly, ‘How
could
you be expected to know?' Then she went upstairs. Mr Kilkey remained rigid in his chair, as though the very words had bound him. Maureen stood by the bed in her room. ‘Yes,' she thought, ‘what does he know? What does anybody know? But I know! I know!' She had not lived at Hatfields all those years for nothing. She was neither blind nor dumb. She loved her father. All his life her mother had tormented him with his mistake.
His
mistake. And what was that? Dennis Fury at a most impressionable age had run away from home. He had left behind him security, comfort, money, a good home, and a chance of education. He had taken to the sea. And now her mother did nothing but taunt him with the errors he had made. She was in no way blind to her mother's struggles. She had seen them. In fact, she sometimes felt proud that she had a mother like Fanny Fury. But her actions, her ideas, her ambitions. Where had they taken root? What was this maddening thing that ringed her mother's life? Frustration? Suddenly she went across to the window and looked out. There was nothing to be seen but Price Street, dark and gloomy, a sort of black pit, over which there hung a cloud of smoke, of grease and steam. A sort of blessed trinity, the very essence of the world in which she lived. The thing was, her mother was not content. Well, why wasn't she content? What did she want to do? Maureen asked herself the questions. But there was no answer to them. It was like knocking at a door which will never be opened. ‘Here,' she thought, ‘here I had better stop.' She didn't want to think any more about it. Peter she could not forget. She had sensed the full measure of her mother's disappointment. Yes. It was a disappointment. No matter how mad the action, it was a cruel blow. The belief was there, the very essence of trust, almost childish. Yes. If Peter had succeeded and become a priest, the whole texture of her mother's life would have been changed. But he hadn't succeeded. On the contrary, he had failed. Well, she wasn't going to dwell upon why he had failed. That was best left alone. She sighed.