The Secret Journey (42 page)

‘Some time ago,' Mr. Kilkey began again, ‘your mother had occasion for some reason or other—maybe you would know—she had to borrow some money.'

‘That's nothing new to me,' said Desmond. ‘She was doing that when I was at school.'

‘Anyhow, this is different, for she got it from a person who demanded security for that money.
I
was the security. Now I'm asking myself whether I wasn't the softest fool in the world. On the other hand, I half believe I'm really cruel at heart. Fury! Do you know what makes me think that?'

‘What?'

‘My coming here to see you. That and nothing else. I feel I've done a lousy trick on your mother. I don't mean directly—I mean somebody else has done it through me. That's what makes me feel mean. Now I'll tell you something more. From that day your mother's never been the same woman. Her light-heartedness, her courage, has gone—even her faith—God forbid,' at which remark Desmond Fury smiled. So his mother was really getting sense at last. ‘At the age of sixty she's suddenly seen what a perfect bloody sod it all is.' So Desmond Fury thought as he sat listening to Mr. Joseph Kilkey's recital.

‘If your mother was a younger woman I wouldn't mind so much,' continued Mr. Kilkey. ‘But she's had a big family. Anyhow, to go on. I signed a note which practically pledged all my furniture in the event of your mother not stumping up. Understand? The curious thing is, that as time goes on your mother's debt is growing bigger instead of smaller. How do I know this? Not because she told me: your mother tells nobody her business. But I found out in a curious way. A few weeks ago Maureen told me that this person had sent in a demand note. From that time onwards my life's been all changed.
All
changed.'

Here Mr. Kilkey became quite dramatic, and again Desmond Fury exclaimed, ‘Ssh! Ssh! Not so bloody loud, man, d'you want the town to hear it all?'

‘And now, for some reason that I don't understand, this woman has suddenly cancelled the security. Maureen has settled with her, and to settle with her, so far as I know, she'd have to have an amount that tallied exactly with the principal of the loan.'

Suddenly, people in the room were looking up from their tables, heads turned in the direction of the two men, one of whom had burst out laughing. Desmond Fury scowled at the curious, then spoke softly into Joseph Kilkey's ear:

‘Kilkey, you're even thicker than I supposed. Ah! you see what we are up against in our fight for better conditions. Absolute ignorance, Mr. Kilkey. No longer can you stand on your dignity as an honest-to-goodness working man. No longer can you cock your head in the air and proclaim, “I'm not so thick as I look.” That's where you made a mistake. You are as thick as you look, Kilkey, but you've got a good heart all the same. No matter! Hearts are no good in our position. It's guts and not heart. To think that you could let yourself be misled. Yes! You are in the same boat as me. Women, confound the bitches, are as sly, and as clever, and as crafty and cunning as foxes. Did you imagine, then, that a security note was cancelled as easy as all that? Now I
am
glad you came, Kilkey, if only to tell you that you were a bloody mug to think that my sister would be happy with you. And more—to even imagine that any woman could tell the truth. Maureen's kidding you up. Don't you see now? Don't say that that solid wall of a head of yours hasn't been pierced by this time. You can't cancel a note like that. It's
you
who ought to see my mother, Kilkey, not me. Be honest now—be sensible. Have I, her eldest son, the slightest obligation to go back to Hatfields and mix myself up in things which I know nothing about—which I haven't even caused? No, sir! I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't move a finger to help anybody. My motto is, look after yourself. I'd sooner trust a fox than a human being any day. Every family, Kilkey, has a mug in it, but I'm not that mug, not in this case. But I know who is. Yes, I know who is. And one of these days he'll pull up with a terrific jerk. It's no use crying, Kilkey, and it's no use sitting on your behind, you can't do it. If you sit on it long enough, you'll find after a while that all you've been doing is acting as ballast for some other swine's behind. You're in a mess. So's the world in a mess. So am I. But every Man Jack for himself. That's what I say. You go home and have it out with Maureen. Yes, Joe Kilkey, if you want any happiness in the future, if you want things to be straight again, you'll only get them straight by being what you hate being. Cruel as hell. Belt her! Knock the truth out of her. That's what I'd do, Kilkey, if I were you. I had an idea all along things weren't right between you two. But you caught her at the wrong time, Kilkey. If you'd waited a little while it might have been different.'

‘How could it have been different? The girl asked me to marry her,' replied Joseph Kilkey.

‘She's making a rare mug of you, anyhow,' remarked Desmond. ‘Naturally, if she didn't get the money from me, she got it elsewhere. But that's not my business, Joe Kilkey, that's yours. You take my advice, and make her tell the truth. She's as hard-faced as the devil. In that drawer in my office there lies a tin box, and it's got money in it. A lot of money. Our members' contributions—and I half believe she expected me to give it to her, the whole bloody lot. And I believe, too, that if she had had half a chance she would have pinched it, Kilkey.'

Joseph Kilkey grew quite pale. ‘That'll do, Fury,' he said coldly. ‘That'll do. It's going a bit too far. Maureen, after all, means something to me, and I don't believe she would ever do such a thing.'

‘Don't you? Women will do anything to get their way, Kilkey, and if you didn't know that much, you know it now. Going far? Christ! I haven't gone as far as Maureen might, if you don't buckle up and control her.' Then, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, he said, ‘You're a bit afraid of her, Kilkey, I can tell that. I could tell it as soon as you came here—as soon as you spoke. That's why we're in the same boat, Joe Kilkey. You see, I love my own wife so much that I'm afraid of her as well. They got us beat, Kilkey. But there's always one way out. Always one way for a man to overcome them,' he said, and smiled. ‘Well, I must be making a move.' He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket, saying, ‘By the way, there's one little favour I'd like you to do for me, Joe Kilkey. Will you give a note to Peter?'

Joseph Kilkey sat up in his chair. Give a note to Peter! Why should he give a note to Peter? He didn't want to have anything to do with that fellow.

Desmond Fury paused, pencil in his hand. ‘You don't mind, do you?'

‘I do mind,' said Mr. Kilkey. ‘Can't you give it to him yourself?'

‘If I saw him I wouldn't bother to ask you at all,' said Desmond.

‘Then see him,' said Mr. Kilkey.

‘No! I don't want to see him,' replied Mr. Fury. ‘Not yet. However, if you don't want to—you don't want to, and that's that. Lord, man, you won't catch the pox from it or anything like that.'

Mr. Kilkey began swinging his hat. ‘All right,' he said. ‘Give me the note,' and he put on his hat and glanced towards the door, whilst the other man wrote in thick pencil upon the sheet of paper, ‘Keep away from Prees Street.' He folded it up and said to Joseph Kilkey, ‘Thank you! You'll already understand why I don't want to go trapesing round Hatfields looking for my brother.' He too got up.

‘I understand all right,' said Mr. Kilkey. ‘Well, it's been nice to meet you, Fury, but at the same time——'

‘At the same time what?' broke in the other, as he pushed the table clear in order to get out. He met Mr. Kilkey's smile with a scowl.

‘I shan't see you again,' Mr. Kilkey said. ‘But I never was a very sociable person, Fury. I take my thick head and ugly face as a penance.'

They went out on to the road.

So Maureen had told him a lie. She hadn't had any money from her brother! Mr. Kilkey felt ashamed—ashamed of the very feeling that this discovery had engendered in him. ‘This man is a brute, he's callous—selfish, aye, and he's ignorant too—but God, he's straight as a die,' thought Joseph Kilkey. He had never liked this man much, he had always thought him a boor, and frightfully cruel to his mother, but somehow this conception was changing in spite of himself. He saw now that Desmond Fury's life was wedded to one single idea. It wasn't a very noble one by any means, but he was so frank about everything, that was it. The absolute frankness. And there was warmth in his handshake as they stood on the parapet and said ‘So-long' to each other. ‘I don't blame you for anything you ever did, Fury,' remarked Mr. Kilkey. ‘Maybe you're right after all, and I'm a bigger mug than I thought I was. It's a swine, Fury, for I was so happy. When I first got married——'

‘When you got married, Kilkey, you should have laid down the law, but more important still, you should have gone to live somewhere else. One can live too near one's mother-in-law. And you can still be happy, Kilkey, if you do what I say. Give her a few belts now and again and knock sense into her.'

‘That's what I just can't do,' said Mr. Kilkey. ‘I tried once and it nearly broke me up. I never forgot it. I couldn't hurt a flea. Honest, I couldn't.'

‘You're quite hopeless, Kilkey. That's why I know you'll never be in the Federation. You can't fight for any rights. You never will, Joseph Kilkey, you were made to be trodden on. Never mind, there's a good time coming for us workers. I just festered in Hatfields, Kilkey, festered in it. Nobody has any go in them. People live there year after year, having kids, and the kids live there, and they go on and on, and nothing ever happens. Something gets sucked right out of you. Christ! many a time I have a good laugh when I think of the things I used to do—the things I thought about and learnt. Ah! But I chucked it all to hell. Let them all smother in Hatfields. That's what I say, Joe Kilkey. We don't agree. Not on any single point—for if I said the world was lousy and the social system an insult you wouldn't agree. What is it, Joe, just ignorance or bloody pigheaded indifference?'

People passed by them, and one or two, more curious than the rest, looked their way, paused for a second, and then went on. Joseph Kilkey and Desmond Fury stood arguing at the edge of the side-walk, but this world went on moving and living. The world forgot them. Joseph Kilkey now seemed rather disinclined to go at all. He let Desmond Fury talk on, not that it was all so very interesting, or that he, Joseph Kilkey was registering it in some corner of his mind for future contemplation, but merely because he felt he needed this man—he needed to be near him—to have his human companionship. But Desmond came to a halt. Another look at his watch—a hasty glance up and down the street, and then, as though celebrating the occasion, yet another warm handshake for the little man, and then he said, ‘Well, Kilkey, I must be away. I am a very busy man these days. Best of luck.' And he swung away, leaving Mr. Kilkey still standing on the side-walk, hands in his pockets, and mind completely indifferent to the passing scene. He was thinking of all that man had said—he was saying to himself, ‘Yes, I could go home now, and get her by the throat and shake the life out of her.' But shaking the life out of Maureen wasn't, in his opinion, any help at all. No! He, Mr. Kilkey had his own ideas, and he stood for simple decency, he would appeal to her. What more could he do? A wrong word, a wrong gesture, and Maureen would clear, he knew it. He knew it too well.

‘But I'll win. I'll win. And without hurting a hair of her head.'

He walked off down the street and was soon lost amongst the crowds, whose one occupation this morning seemed to be walking up and down the main streets of Gelton, occasionally stopping to look into the magnificently dressed shop windows, and then resuming their promenading, for promenading it seemed to be.

‘What a lot of people have nothing to do,' he said to himself as he turned round the corner and so slipped clear of the main stream of traffic. A morning walk in the city of Gelton was quite a novelty to Mr. Kilkey. The shops, the faces, the traffic, the large buildings, the various street cries, and above this a sort of hum—as though some hidden orchestra were voicing the spirit and essence of the city upon the smoke and breath-laden air—pleased him. Mr. Kilkey quite lost himself, he became a part of the city, breathing its air, feeling its warmth, admiring the very pavements made white by the sun. He walked down to the river-front, and seating himself on a bench, decided to buy a morning paper and catch the first tram home. Suddenly he remembered the note Desmond Fury had written. He had crushed it into his pocket and forgotten all about it. He now took it out. It was crumpled and had a grease-mark on it from the bit of candle that for some reason or other had found its way into the pocket of his best suit. He looked a long time at the note, but he did not read it.

‘He says I'm a mug,' thought Mr. Kilkey. ‘And by God I believe I am to even think of doing a bit of dirty work for him.'

He got up and walked across to the railings, saying, ‘I'm a mug, am I?' and commenced to tear the note into shreds. He flung them into the dock and watched them float slowly away on the outgoing tide. Then he went to the kiosk and bought a copy of the
Gelton Times
. A few minutes later a north-bound car came along and Mr. Kilkey immediately boarded it for home.

‘I'm glad I went,' he said to himself, as with a screeching sound the tram started on its journey.

Everything was going swimmingly. In fact, there hardly seemed to be anything wrong at all, unless, of course, it was Fanny's sudden surrender. That was unusual. Such were Brigid Mangan's thoughts as she lay on the bed in her sister's room. To-morrow she'd be gone, and they could remain here. She would remain in Ireland. And that was the end of the matter.