Winter Song (13 page)

‘She was sick of life!'

‘It's no excuse,' he said, ‘no excuse at all. Think of what my father has been through, and all for nothing. Think of him without even a home to come back to after a lifetime of the sea and any God's amount of spirit in him. She never broke that.'

‘You realize what you are saying,' she said.

‘I do. I came here yesterday with the best intentions in the world and within five minutes I had to go. It was impossible to discuss anything, she's got a bug in her head about me, and nothing will shift it. To-day I find myself in a promising position, I can now help them, make some contribution towards their happiness.…' He paused. ‘I often think that my mother didn't really know how to be happy—my father was quite different. Their natures are different. She called him harum-scarum, indifferent, unambitious. That, most of all, drove her mad. She was determined to make something out of somebody. She had a good try.'

‘You are not with us,' she said quietly, and watched the man smile and shake his head.

‘All the same I am earnest about some things and I am certainly earnest about that. Already I have made arrangements for them to travel to Cork and live with my aunt. She has a big house there—she lives alone. She has often asked my mother to give everything up and go and settle down with her. There were times when she could have done that, but her pride would not let her. Now, I've taken matters into my own hands, for the sake of my father. I want to see him—I want to tell him of plans I have made. I must return to London to-night. I have business to do, my living to look after. You understand that.'

‘I quite understand, but I do not think your parents could travel back under a month. Your father was a wreck a week ago, and it will take him a long time to recover. The doctor is here daily. He says he wants rest, quiet. He was half-starved—neglected. The Apostleship of the Sea have already made strong protests to the Regional Ministry of Transport as to the scandalous way your father was sent back to this country. It makes one feel ashamed of one's own country.'

‘I heard about it, but I was not surprised. Sailors are treated like cattle.'

He got up. ‘Could I see him now?'

He called her ‘miss' … called her ‘Sister'—he seemed quite unaware that she was the Mother Superior at this Hospice.

‘Actually,' she said, by way of reminder, ‘I am the Mother Superior here.'

‘I'm sorry, Mother Superior,' he said. ‘I just didn't know.'

‘Also, this Hospice, as a rule, does not take in people like your mother, or indeed, your father. You perhaps do not know, but this is a Hospice for the dying.'

She looked at him out of her calm eyes, she opened the door for him and he went out. But her words gave him a sudden uncomfortable feeling. It made him feel cold. He stood in the corridor listening.

‘Your mother was in such a distracted state that afternoon—she must have walked many miles—that she was quite unaware of what she had walked into. But, as you know, we never turn anybody away. We had that small room, unoccupied, she was no trouble to us. I think she benefited much from the quiet here.'

‘I was glad to be able to help,' he said.

‘We live on the charity and goodness of others,' she said, ‘please come this way.'

She led him to the end of the corridor. She mounted three stairs, ‘Wait,' she said. He saw her open the door and go inside. He waited, staring at blank white walls, and now the many shut doors fascinated him—he wondered what lay behind them.

So this was one of those Hospices where you came to die. There came to his nostrils in a moment the smell of oils, of incense, the muffled prayers, and he told himself he would be glad when he was out of it, breathing the fresh air, seeing the life moving about the streets, the broad rolling river and the forests of masts.

She was there beside him, saying, ‘You can go in now. I give you twenty minutes by the clock, your mother is at Benediction, which is the only reason you are able to see him alone.'

He whispered, ‘I would rather you did not tell my mother I had seen him.'

‘I could not do that. You will not wait to see your mother?'

‘I should not know what to say to her. I have said so much already, and I know she would only be resentful. My mother hates me, and that is the truth, because I have gone against her most sacred wishes. The fact is, Mother Superior, I told my mother the truth and she did not like the truth.'

She pointed with her finger, she did not answer him—she went quietly downstairs.

All this whiteness, these white walls, those moving white forms, this silence, and against it the mad tick of the clock. It bewildered, it confused him. He stared about him.

‘I'm tired,' he said.

He turned his head, it seemed to require the greatest effort. He saw the man crossing the room.

‘Hello, dad,' Desmond said and knelt down by the bed. ‘How are you to-day?'

‘Who are you?'

‘It's Desmond.'

He took his father's hand. ‘I've come to see you for a few minutes. The head nun here has said I can stay with you for twenty minutes. I'm so glad to see you.'

‘Are you really?'

He gripped the man's hands. ‘What are they doing to me here? They won't leave me alone. They've took your mother away. I want your mother.'

‘You have to be quiet,' Desmond said.

‘Every day he seems to grow smaller in this bed, one day there'll be nothing there.' The thought sent a lump into his throat. He leaned over and whispered into his father's ear: ‘Can you hear what I'm saying?'

‘You're Desmond, aren't you?'

‘That's right. Now listen, dad. I want you to tell me something straight out. Do you think I'm a hard man?'

He got his answer and it came quicker than he thought.

‘You were cruel to your mother. She tried so hard for you all. I wasn't a very good husband. I know now. She's been telling me some things. You've never seen Peter, you never wrote to him. I know …'

Desmond looked away, he did not know what to say. He had not expected this.

‘I came to discuss something else. As for Peter, I have not forgotten him, and I will be ready to help him the moment he comes out.'

‘He won't want your help.'

‘Do you remember that afternoon, dad, when you found your savings book gone from where you hid it in the chimney? You remember the saving for the rainy day—and it wasn't there, because it had just gone, and gone up in smoke like a lot of other things in order to keep a young lad at a place he did not like. You think I'm hard. One of the things I can't understand about you, dad, is the way you defend mother to the end, even when you know she's wrong …'

‘Is that all you've come to say? I swam for five hours in one sea and was lifted out with a dead boy, God rest him, clinging to my arms, and then I was tossed into another sea and swam in that, and every God's moment your mother was behind me, and I came back all that way because she was here and she was waiting. Did I come back all this way to hear you say that—my own son …'; the weak hand pulled clear of the one that clutched it, the worn body turned over, the face to the wall, and staring at Desmond was the story of his father's courage, the sickening scar from head to neck. He touched the old man's shoulder: ‘You are wrong, dad, really you are wrong. I'll be truthful to you. I'll tell you I always loved you more than I did mother, who many a time led you a merry dance, and you know it. There was no need for any of this, none of it.'

The man turned round and looked at him. He said slowly, ‘It upset me very much. The way she used to meet me, the way we'd go home together, and I'd give Daly my old bag to carry home, and when I got there the whole place fine and shining, and then Father Moynihan told me there was nothing like that any more.'

‘My God,' Desmond thought, ‘the little simple things that made him happy.'

‘Listen, dad, I meant to tell you of plans I've made for mother and you—' He paused—his father had dragged himself into a sitting position—he looked at his son.

‘Plans,' he said, ‘all my whole life your mother was making plans for me and look where I am to-day.'

‘I can help you both, and I will help you. You used to chide us, remember, mother and you, about the dream cottage we were always talking about. Well, it may not be a dream cottage, but it will be a home. It's too late to start anything again, dad, you're an old man and you're tired out. You did the best you could for us all. I always admired you, I think mother knew that—and she didn't like it. She was jealous. Let's forget all that's gone by. Make up your mind, dad, to the hard fact that your sea-going days are over and let mother try to realize that at her age, it's best to settle down and be quiet, you understand.'

‘Sometimes I think about it all, it makes me tired, that's all, but I can shut my eyes and slip out to sea. The other evening your mother was by my bed, holding my hand and gabbling away about all the things she'd meant to do—now, after fifty years of listening, I couldn't listen any more. I just fell off to sleep, but she went on talking and talking and she kept asking me if my head pained and how wonderful it was to come back out of the sea. The good women in this house told me all about it. That's one thing, Desmond, that I'd ask, be nice to these good women, for they are good; they were good to your distracted mother all those long, lonely days. Just be nice, they won't harm you. Will you be nice to them?'

Desmond smiled, he bent his head and suddenly kissed his father's forehead, he had never shown such affection—if it surprised his father, it certainly surprised himself.

‘You will forget everything, dad, and not listen to everything mother says. Go home to Ireland where you belong, both of you—things are falling to pieces in this city, and one fine day there'll be another war coming, if only to show you, and men like you, the almighty effort you can make to achieve nothing.'

He stopped. He knew he must not go on, and he was in danger of going on and on, like a parrot—he had said enough.

‘I'm going away now, dad—I'll see you both again, never fear, but I must go back to-night, I've my living to earn.'

‘How is that wife of yours? A pity your mother never opened her heart to her, silly.'

‘She said to me, only just before I came away, that she liked you and wished she had known you.'

‘She said that.'

‘She did.'

‘I'm sorry you're out of the Church, son, sorry indeed, but I won't hold it against you, none of us are saints. Ah, I'm tired—I get tired so easily. Tell me, isn't there a broad stripe of sorts down the back of my head? D'you think it looks very bad?'

‘You'd hardly notice it, dad.'

‘I suppose you couldn't get me the little mirror out of the locker. I could see for myself.'

Desmond shook his head.

‘I'd rather not.'

‘Well, I'll get your mother to show it me. They took her away from me last night; they said she was annoying me, but she wasn't, the poor creature's half off her head with the delight of me being alive. I know. Sure, don't I know—the way she fusses round me. Ah, I like your poor mother for it. She has a good heart—I'd begrudge nothing to a good heart. Will you get me a drink? I'm so dry. This morning they made me eat something and I was sick after that.'

‘There's somebody coming, dad, I can hear them. I must go now. Cheer up, I'll be thinking of you, of both of you. I'll see you again. Get well, dad, get well.'

The old man opened his mouth to reply, but only air came out.

Desmond laid him back on the pillows. ‘All this talking,' he thought, ‘it's killing him, I'm sure it's killing him. Oh, why do we have to talk at all? Why can't we just sit and look at each other and say nothing at all?'

‘Goodbye, dad.'

There was no answer. When he turned away he found the door open, the Mother Superior standing there, and a gentleman in white beside her. ‘The doctor,' he said to himself. He went out, he said ‘Good afternoon,' to the doctor.

‘Are you the old man's son?'

Desmond nodded. ‘I am glad you are here,' he beckoned him outside.

‘Your father,' he began, and the pause frightened Desmond, ‘your father, I'm sorry to say …'

‘Yes, doctor?'

‘He may never recover. I have never seen a man so thin, so exhausted. I hope you haven't been here too long. It's bad for him.'

‘He has not been here very long, doctor,' the Mother Superior said, ‘he
had
to see his father to-day, family matter.'

‘If we could get him back again,' went on the doctor, ‘he slips away so often. Apart from this extreme weakness of constitution, there's his mind—he wanders a lot.'

‘I know that already.'

‘He will never work again.'

‘I know that too. There will never be any need for him to work again.'

‘If I may say so—the fact is that your father has worked
too
hard—and too long, he's spent.'

Desmond did not answer—he thought, ‘At any moment death will come into it.' He thought of their days, the last days, he thought of the dream cottage. Perhaps even that was too late.

‘Will he always be like this, doctor? I mean …'

‘He's overstrained—he's in his late sixties, isn't he?'

‘Yes. He's sixty-eight.'

‘There was a time in his life—what time I don't know—but there was a time when he should have stopped, and didn't. I have now received a full report about your father. I got this with the help of two other men who brought him home. They, like he, were shipwrecked. When I look at your father, I ask myself how any man, he isn't a big man—I ask myself how this frame could have withstood it. Twice within a week he was swimming in the sea. I don't know where he got the strength.'