The Secret Journey (73 page)

He went on. Nearly nine o'clock. There was the great clock of the Gelton Town Hall. He stood looking up at it, not as if it were a clock but some extraordinary phenomenon that had just appeared. Behind him a policeman stood, raising himself up and down on his toes. The same streets, same cars, same crowds, the same whirling circle. ‘I'll go home—but first I must see Mrs. Ragner.' Yes. He must see Mrs. Ragner. The maddening circle might dare to revolve—the clock fall with a crash into the street, the world pour into space. He
must
see her. Twice the policeman looked at him. Peter walked away. Soon he was lost in the moving crowds—had become one of the hectic circle. ‘I've still got the two shillings,' he said to himself. ‘That old witch wasn't even worth fivepence.' Laughing, he went into a public bar and stood at the counter. The barman asked for his order. ‘Brandy and soda?' ‘No, a gin, please.' He felt a burning, tingling sensation as it passed down his throat.

‘The world's lousy.'

‘Aye! What's that you're saying, son? The world's lousy? Well, Christ-a-mighty, listen to that! The world's lousy. Say it again.'

‘The world's lousy,' Peter said. He felt a big hand on his shoulder.

‘Gerraway! You're joking. You're just joking. Trying to be funny. Show me how the world's lousy. Better still, drink that off and have another.'

The man drew Peter away from the counter into a corner. ‘Nobody can help you being a silly blighter, you know, but Christ-a-mighty, you mustn't say the world's lousy. Not a young feller like you. Here! Take this glass. Now——' The man raised his glass. ‘To a lovely world,' he said.

The gin had gone to Peter Fury's head. He flopped back in the seat, and leaned his head against the man's shoulder. ‘Now, listen to me,' the man went on, and he exhaled his foul breath into Peter's face. ‘Listen to me, young feller me bloody lad, I can't make you out saying the world's lousy. If there was no women in it maybe—yes—maybe. But you look round, open those mammy eyes of yours. Look at that bit of stuff over there! She's hot stuff. Her name's Rosy. She's a good ‘un. Plenty behind. Ah, you're a bloody caution! What you want is a friend. D'you see, me bloody lad, a friend. Here! Drink that up and have another.'

Peter Fury was now not only helpless but looking thoroughly stupid. Occasionally he burst out laughing, and people turned round to look at him. Then his head fell across the table. He was crying. The whole house looked at him. Conversation ceased. And Rosy herself came across to the table. The man winked at her, saying, ‘He hasn't any money, Rosy—and he's only a kid.'

‘Where's he live?' she asked. She put a black-gloved hand on Peter's hair.

‘Now you're asking me! How do I know?'

‘Where d'you live, dearie?' she asked, and endeavoured to raise the youth's head.

The man sat Peter up. He was dazed, his face was red, his collar loose, two buttons of his coat had gone. ‘Where d'you live? Aye! Half a mo'. Half a mo', Rosy, give us a hand here.'

Between them they managed to get him away from the table. They took him outside. The woman put her hand across his forehead. The man went back to his drinks. She said softly, ‘Be sick! Be sick, dearie!' He leaned heavily against the wall.

‘Leave me alone! Will you leave me alone, you rotten bloody bitch?' Then he was sick. She left him leaning against the wall. She went back and joined her friends. Peter gave great sighs, each retch sent his head spinning round. He staggered towards the urinal. Then he fell flat upon his face. It was black dark. People came out from the bar, stood there a minute or two, and then went back again. Peter lay stretched out, his clothes covered with slime. He fell asleep. In his sleep he sobbed.

‘Here, young feller. Wipe your face.' The man who had picked Peter Fury up from the slate floor of the convenience had carried him to the end of the yard. He leaned him against a gate. ‘You've had too much,' he said. ‘Bet you fell asleep. Now take this brush and then clean your clothes, there's a good lad. I'll leave you a minute.'

Peter began rubbing his head. Where was he? What time was it? Had his mother come back yet? Oh well, he'd better get off to bed. He felt so tired.

‘Here!' said the man, ‘drink that. It's only soda water. Now, where d'you want to get to?' He took the brush from his hand. He opened the sliding gate that led to the rear of the public-house.

‘Banfield Road,' Peter said, and suddenly was sick again. The man helped him into the shed.

‘D'you know what car? Twenty-nine A. Look! Take a turn to your left when you get to the bottom of this street, cross the road and you'll see the car-stop. Have you your fare?'

Peter stared stupidly at the man. ‘I don't know,' he said, and wanted to be sick again. He kept rubbing his head.

‘Here! That'll take you to Banfield Road—and good luck. Oh! And here's your knife,' the man said, running after him. ‘It fell out of your pocket. You must have failed in the men's place. Lucky they didn't piddle on you. Well, good-night, young ‘un.' Laughing, he went back to the yard, pushed back the gate, shot the bolt, and returned to his work of cleaning the glasses for the night.

In the badly lighted street, Peter leaned against the wall. Knife? What knife? His head was throbbing, and this continuous sickness in his stomach—it seemed everlasting. Where had he been all day? Of course. He hadn't been back to work. He had gone to see if he could find Mrs. Ragner! Knife! Knife! He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the sheath knife. Dropped out of his pocket. When? ‘Oh—I see. Yes. The sheath knife.' He meant to sell it to old Postlethwaite, but he hadn't sold it, and here it was lying in his hand. He put it back in his pocket and staggered down the street. Reaching the bottom, he stood by a hat-shop window. He looked inside. Gradually his weight lay against it. He pressed his face against the cold glass. He imagined he could see himself in it, and began making faces at himself. His arms were spread-eagled above his head. ‘Christ! What have I been doing?' For the fourth time he was sick. ‘Ugh!' he said. ‘Ugh,' and pushed himself away from the window. Funny! He seemed to be walking round in circles all the time, just like those people had been to-day. He looked across the road. What time was it now? He went across and leaned on the lamp-post. A young woman, her arm through her companion's, came along. Peter stopped them. He made to ask a question—looked at the young woman, smiled, and suddenly began to stammer. ‘Could they tell him which was—which was—I—car to Banfield?' He leaned against the women, who promptly pushed him off. ‘How disgusting!' one said, as they hurried on. ‘Hopelessly drunk. And such a nice young chap,' remarked the other. They turned round to look at Peter, who was still leaning against the lamp-post. A tram came up. He saw the lights, but the number danced before his eyes. He made a sort of frantic leap into the roadway. ‘Did this car go to Banfield Road—Banfield House—Ban——?'

‘Come on, hurry up there,' the conductor said. ‘This bloody car goes to Banfield Place, and then to the South Seas.' He pulled Peter on to the tram. ‘Hey there! You've dropped your knife.'

‘Oh yes! Knife, thanks. Thanks.' He pushed it into his pocket and slumped down into the seat. The car roared on its way. The strong draught came in blowing upon Peter's face. It blew his hair over his eyes.

CHAPTER XX

The tram bumped and rattled its way up the Mile Hill. Peter Fury half lay upon the seat nearest the platform. The conductor was whistling the tune of a popular song. Head leaning against the glass, mouth open and panting as though from some terrific exertion, Peter stared up at the deck head, an almost bovine expression upon his face. His coat front was covered with slime. Occasionally the ear-splitting whistle of the tram conductor ceased, and he looked in at the youth on the seat. The car stopped and two elderly men got out. It moved off again, the conductor this time setting the tune to the broken rhythm of the tram. Few people were about. The long line of shops was in darkness, and as the car at last reached the hill-top the atmosphere seemed more stuffy and heavy, the streets with their regiments of mean-looking houses seemed choked by this sea of brick and slate. Here and there lights showed that some occupants of the houses had not yet retired to bed. The tram now ran more smoothly, and this sudden change from the storm and stress of the long climb affected the young man on the seat. He sat up, one hand to his head, and looking towards the conductor asked, ‘Banfield Road?'

‘No.'

Silence again. Apart from the driver and conductor, Peter was the sole passenger on the lower deck. All the way from town he had received the strong clean draught of air in his face, air that had in it something of the salt tang of the sea—until the tram began to near more densely populated areas, where the air was stagnant.

‘Instone Road.' With a dull shriek the tram came to a halt. Peter sat up and yawned, then staggered from the car. He was still a little unsteady on his feet. His head was clearing, though he still held one hand to it—a throbbing, leaden pain seemed to be circling round it. The sick feeling had gone. Lying on the seat, the contents of both coat pockets had tumbled out, but he did not notice them. The conductor, seeing them, picked them up. There was a canvas sheath with a knife in it; a holy picture doubled up and bound with string that, like the card itself, was black and dirty with some sort of grease; a photograph of a woman; a half-empty packet of Tabs cigarettes; and a shilling. The conductor flung them out to the young man. They landed in the gutter. The car went on past Instone Road.

Peter picked up the articles and put them back in his pocket. Then he went off towards Banfield Road. At one point it was so dark he struck a match to see the name of the street in which he stood. A row of dingy brick houses imprisoned in darkness. It was so still here he could hear the sound of his own footsteps. He felt nothing, thought nothing. The power had flooded elsewhere. He saw. He saw most vividly, his vision was searing, penetrative. He could see through the brick walls all the people living behind them. He walked on, hands thrust into his pockets. Sometimes the unconscious action of one's soul determines the body's movement. Peter walked neither slowly nor quickly, but he walked with a sort of quiet determination, and it seemed that all objects within the orbit of his vision succumbed to the penetrating glance. Houses were square and oblong, high and low, squat and dirty, huge and ominous. Walls were brick, brick festered all space, bestowing upon it something paralysing and imperishable. The sea of brick deluged space, poisoned air, filled the still night with the grotesque shadows of itself. Lights appeared and then went out. A footstep rang out upon the hard pavement, a dog barked, a scuffling of cats. He walked on. Always the rushing forth to meet him of shadows, the night deluged with shadows, dark forms looming up from behind the dense curtain of darkness.

Ahead stood a lamp. He began to run towards this, as though some sudden desire urged him to seek shelter in the pale yellowish glow that carpeted a patch of the ground below. He stood in the circle of light and looked around him. All around a black void, and silhouetted against the sky buildings, chimneys, roofs, shapes, and gestures of shapes. This great phalanx of streets and houses seemed to crowd down upon him. He suddenly ran off into the darkness again. Then he stopped. There was Banfield Road! He knew that road as he knew his own hand. And there was the pickle factory, its tall chimneys looking like great pointing fingers towards the sky. Here the air was rank with the smell of onions and sauces and spices whose scents were strange to him. The great factory stood solid, a dull glitter here and there marked its windows. There was a light in the house, the familiar red light he had seen before, but he did not look at this. Instead, with his hands behind his back, he stood looking up at the tall chimneys. Then he crossed the road and stood in front of Banfield House. The walls were no longer brick. Instead they had a sort of glacier-like transparency about them, through which he could see like some ogreish phantom the figure of Daniel Corkran standing in its hall, with that strange enigmatic smile, that partly curled lip, the outrageous waxed moustaches, the carefully parted hair. He could see him moving up and down the hall like some human snake, silent, sly. Banfield House that snuggled against the huge factory, and behind it that stretch of waste ground with its ash and rubble heaps.

He opened the gate and went up the gravel path. And all the memories of the place suddenly crowded in upon his mind. He looked behind him. He imagined he had heard a sound. The light was on. Then somebody was in the house. There was a sound as of a bunch of keys being rattled. He leaped to the path again, hid behind a bush. Silence again. Then he muttered an exclamation. The door was not shut. It was slightly ajar. What could it mean at that hour? Once more he looked about him. Then he went inside—stood trembling, holding his breath. He pushed back the door as he had found it. Then he switched out the red light. He tiptoed towards the stairs and stood for a moment entirely hidden by the curtains. He was only just in time, for the front door suddenly opened, and Daniel Corkran, just returned from his constitutional—a five minutes' pacing of the road past the pickle factory—had returned. Peter heard him say under his breath, ‘I'll swear I left that light on! Perhaps it's short-circuited.' The switch clicked. Peter put both hands to his mouth and stood motionless. Mr. Corkran closed the door, put the catch back and went down the hall to the kitchen. A door closed.

Peter peered through the curtains. In which room was she? He went upstairs, stood for a moment on the landing, and then descended again. The top part of the house seemed to be in darkness. Then he saw a tiny ribbon of light appear from under the door of one of the rooms at the kitchen end of the hall. He knelt down and silently crept along and looked through the keyhole. She was there! He saw her quite clearly. She was seated at the table, her back to him. On the table lay a small heap of money—the familiar black ledger and some blue official-looking documents. She was looking at an illustrated magazine.