The Secret Journey (24 page)

Fanny Fury understood this very well. How often had her husband not urged her to get him home again. If she had differed with Dennis over this vital matter of her father, it was for one reason only. She hated to let him go, even though she knew he must very soon lay down his head to rest for the last time, and wished with her whole heart that this should be in his own land. Yet at the same time acceptance of one fact meant complete denial of another. She wanted him, old and helpless as he was, and yet she dreaded his dying so far from home.

Now, at this time, he seemed more necessary than ever. Gradually her family were drifting away, and here was her old father still alive, still with her, in the spirit and in the flesh, and he seemed to personify the imperishable and eternal. He was the representative of another life, and another time.

She lifted one of his large ponderous and fleshy hands. No sign of recognition came from Anthony Mangan. He was as one dead. His breathing was painful and uneven. The large bald head with its background of funereal black, for an overcoat draped the rail to keep out the draught, glistened like an immense ivory ball. The eyes, little beads of light, sunk in the long fleshy face, stared persistently at a large brown stained patch on the ceiling, and had been staring so this last two hours. Occasionally he uttered a grunt, almost like that of a pig, and his features became tense. His mouth moved convulsively, as though the fever of desperation had suddenly flashed into that yellowish flesh. It was all the voice he had.

Fanny Fury never witnessed this without an accompanying feeling of pity, something akin to the very helplessness of her father. One could not speak to him. All barriers were now raised against speech. One could look upon him, but one could only speak by silence, by certain movements of the hands, certain expressions upon the face. One threw out waves of feeling, of understanding.

For a whole week the black chair in the kitchen had been unoccupied. Nobody ever thought of sitting in it. It would have been a sacrilege to do so, for that chair was his, and his alone. Twice a week the priest from St. Sebastian's called and gave Anthony Mangan the Communion, and this was the only thing that ever disturbed the monotonous rhythm of his existence.

Fanny Fury thought, ‘Maybe he'll be better soon.' Then he would go down to the kitchen again and sit in his chair, on that black throne of his, islanded away from all things, imperiously alone and lonely. The old man seemed always to be sleeping. Sometimes he dreamed and made strange sounds and gestures in his sleep. Time went on. To all in the house Anthony Mangan had ceased to be a person. He was a thing, a part of the furniture. But not to his daughter. To her he was still a person—still human, alive and full of feeling. But to Mr. Fury and his two sons the old man had long since transcended his state as a human being. There were times when the tending of this old man became burdensome, for his utter helplessness made attendance on him night and day absolutely necessary, and sometimes he could be disgusting.

Fanny Fury overcame that obstacle too. She took a bottle from the table, poured a teaspoonful of brandy into a spoon and poured it down her father's throat, and even as she did this, she still hoped, fervently, that she would be able to get him down into the kitchen. All the life of the house was centred there. To be upstairs, away from this centre of existence as it were, was to be as one dead. Hopes could rise in the kitchen, with its everlasting warmth from a fire that never went out. And it was cosy too, with its large and well-scrubbed wooden table set in the middle of the floor, two chairs standing under the window, the great dresser against the wall by the kitchen door, the sofa on the left-hand side of the hearth, and under the cupboard itself, and set as close to the fire as was consistent with safety, Mr. Mangan's high-backed chair.

Here one could get better. But in those damp rooms upstairs, no—so she still hoped.

She settled his head more comfortably on the slobber-stained pillow—she had already washed it three times this week, and could not be bothered again for this week—laid his seemingly boneless hands straight down at his side, and then stepped back from the bed. She tucked his feet in with another overcoat. He seemed to be quite comfortable. She took the lighted candle from the table, and holding it above her head looked round the room. Was everything right for the night? She crossed to the window. It was open, so she threw one of the curtains back. Mr. Mangan's room, fortunately enough, did not look directly on to the bone yard, though the noises from this yard and the voices of men rose into the air and filtered into it.

Still holding high the candle, she took a last look at her father. And then she did a peculiar thing. She began talking to him.

‘Father,' she said, ‘you were right all along,' and she faltered as though astonished at the sound of her own voice as it broke the silence of the little back room. ‘He has gone away. Denny has gone. Do you understand what it means?' She spoke with confidence, earnestly, as though this helpless figure would hear at last, and hearing, understand.

‘It means he is happy. He has gone away because of your grandson, Peter. And he thought I would collapse when he came home and told me what he had done. But I didn't do that, Father, for somehow I expected it all along. I could feel it in the air. I knew it was coming. Father, you were right. We ought never to have married. Yes, I knew. I knew. Every day, every hour, I knew he was miserable. Knew he ached to go. It's in his blood and maybe he can't help it. But he wasn't honest with me. He wouldn't admit that all this talk about Peter was nothing but a good excuse for being plain about something that was as clear as daylight to me. He wouldn't say openly what was gnawing at him all that time.

‘Now there is only you and I and the two boys. Once there were nine of us. Sometimes when I think of it all I want to get up and fly—fly away, anywhere, and let everything go to the devil. You'll say, “Fanny, you were a fool.” But we're all foolish. Dennis says that for thirty years he's heard nothing but the word money ringing in his ears. “Money.”' The woman laughed.

‘Money! Well, I suppose we all talk about that, even millionaires want money, and some people want the moon. Well,
I've
had none of their money. Whatever came into this house went on to their own backs and into their own bellies. Not mine. I've ceased wondering what money is really like. It doesn't worry me any more. All I want to do is to pay my way. No more than that, and that's about all life is, God knows. Just paying one's way. Here at least. But there's one place where we won't ever require it, and where there won't be any more worries.'

She took a large spotted handkerchief from her pocket and went over and wiped the old man's mouth.

‘Ah! They're all going off now, Father. Getting fed up with things. Even Maureen and Joe are going to leave the neighbourhood. What do you think of that? All clearing out one after another. I know what I'd do if I had my time all over again. I'd burn death-candles at their heads the moment they were born.'

She closed her eyes, her body seemed to relax, sagged, and suddenly she was seated on the bed again, the lighted candle still in her hand, whilst the other stroked the old man's face. She had felt that strange upwelling desire to speak, and she had surrendered to it. As she looked into the old man's face, her mind became crowded with pictures that passed across it like a film. Peter would be downstairs, waiting for her. But she could not move. She was indifferent to everything except this panorama that floated to and fro upon the surface of her mind.

Suddenly that helpless figure in the bed vanished. She saw no aged and paralysed man, but one who was tall, of fine physique—an upright and generous man. She could hear his voice, his laughter. What had been a blur became shadow—and shadow had become flesh. She could see her father quite clearly now, as she had seen him years ago in Ireland. She looked down, in these miraculous moments, upon something which had once been and could never come again. And this was the invisible link which bound them, father and daughter, something deeper than flesh and deeper than blood, an essence of the spirit, an invisible golden cord that held them together. She would always see her father thus, the finer thing, the man who had been, that seemingly imperishable and staunch link that held the memory of all that had been beautiful and happy in her life.

This imprisoned and ageing flesh was but the magic mirror through which she could see like many bright suns the happy days of her childhood in Ireland. Through him she could resurrect those times past and gone. She could put out a hand and touch them, those magic and lovely days. Suns that sent warmth into her heart. In such moments her whole soul surrendered to a feeling, delicious, joyous, and yet melancholy, to which she could give no utterance.

It was like an unsung song, or the soundless break of waters against the shore. Out of the memories of those lovely island days she drew as from some deep and fathomless well a secret, painful, and voiceless joy. The days she had used to spend wandering with her father in the green lanes—the Sunday drives in the carriage, seated between her father and mother when they went off to chapel at Barrymore. These memories were like the waters of content, into which she could sink herself. She remembered everything, and remembering, that hidden joy became wild and exultant, for she was a child once again. ‘Yes,' she was thinking, ‘and that's where he should really be—in his own land,' for soon, she told herself, Anthony Mangan must rest, and what more natural than that he should be with her own mother in Cork? But how could she let him go? This one remaining link with that buried life. She dreaded to think of it. Her mind refused to face the inevitable. ‘Yes. He is very low. Very low. Perhaps I should have Dr. Dunfrey in again to see him.' And now she did really feel afraid. She
had
to realize it. ‘I don't suppose,' she thought, ‘I don't suppose Dad will ever speak again. Poor Father. It seems cruel. Perhaps I was wrong to bring him here, after all. This was not his life. This fighting and struggling, this scrimping and scraping, this endless——'

She got up from the bed. ‘How mad I am to be dreaming like this!' she said aloud, gave a last look at her father, blew out the candle, and then went downstairs.

‘I thought you'd fallen asleep,' exclaimed Peter, pushing a chair to the table for his mother.

Mrs. Fury sat down.

‘Did you?' she said.

How quiet, how strange the house was since Dennis had gone. It seemed to dawn on her now with such terrible certainty. The house seemed deserted. Yes, even the smoke from that horrible shag which he smoked—she missed that, for it was unusual to find the air freed from those overhanging clouds of bluish-black smoke that Mr. Dennis Fury sent up from the hot bowl of his pipe. It seemed unthinkable to suppose for a single moment that he had actually gone. Might he not drop in at any moment? Perhaps he was upstairs after all, fast asleep, or maybe sitting on the closet reading the back numbers of
Ireland's Own
.

‘What are you smiling at, Mother?' asked Peter.

‘Nothing,' she said coldly. ‘I didn't know I was smiling at anything.'

‘You were,' he replied, filling her cup with tea, which he also sugared and milked. ‘Bread, Mother?' he asked.

The woman said, ‘No, thanks,' and was thinking, ‘Why all this sudden attention?' It seemed rather late in the day. She began sipping her tea.

‘Mother,' began Peter, pushing his cup and plate away, ‘something is not quite right in this house. You're worrying about something. Won't you tell me what it is? I'll try and help you.' He stopped suddenly. ‘Don't laugh,' he went on. ‘I mean it. What is all the trouble between Mrs. Ragner and you?'

Fanny Fury's body seemed to stiffen in the chair as she said, ‘You surprise me.'

‘Well! What if I do?' remarked Peter. ‘We're always surprising each other.'

‘I have never been in the habit of telling my business to my children. Why should I tell it now?—least of all to you. Peter, the time to help me isn't now. It's gone. That's all too late. In any case, I can look after myself. Why should I trouble my children at all? Bitter experience has taught me to keep my mouth shut. Anyway, I don't want to talk about anything. I am worried about your grandfather. He is very ill. Your grandfather means a lot to me. You may not think so, but he does.'

‘How are you going to look after him?' asked Peter. ‘There is nobody here now.'

‘I shall see to that too. Did you suppose I should ask you to stay?' she went on, her tone of voice cold and indifferent. ‘Did you?' she repeated. And without waiting for him to reply, went on, ‘Are you as considerate as all that? You who have been home nearly a week, and whom I've hardly seen. Who comes and goes like a lodger—who feels because he has handed his wages over that the matter is closed. Haven't you any feeling at all? I don't believe you have. You may have'—she raised her head and looked him straight in the face—‘for somebody outside the house. But I'm not going to worry myself about that any longer. You are no child now, Peter, though sometimes I get a little pleasure when I think of a time when you really were. But all that has finished now. If you want to help me you can do it by carrying on as you are. You go to sea day after to-morrow. Well, you must do that. I can manage along quite well. When I find that things are getting on top of me, I shall ask Anthony to get work ashore. It's hard for me to have to say it, but that boy, whom you were all so fond of calling “Softy,” has proved himself the best of the crew. Desmond and I have forgotten each other, and perhaps that is as well. If Maureen calls, it is only to insult me. The best you can manage is to run a message for me. You were always good at running messages. I won't speak of your father. He stands by himself. Outside of everything. But this I can say, and I say it with great pride. If any of you can prove as good a man by the time you've reached his age, well, you will be able to pat yourselves on the back. No, Peter. You have forced me to be frank with you, and I am being frank. I'm not thinking of your college affair. I've forgotten all that long ago. It's hard for me to have to say it, but I distrust you. I can see now why your father did not want you back. But now, even now …'