Winter Song (35 page)

She wrapped the coat more closely about her. Cradle-like the monotonous rhythm of the train rocked her thoughts to and fro. Slowly she withdrew, further and further into herself, the eyes that looked out at the passing, never changing scene lost their curiosity, the country had become dull, the sound of wheels louder in her ears, each movement of the train gave her a sense of strain, and now she began to wonder if it would ever get there. Would it indeed ever stop?

The old man had sunk lower on the seat, by the gradual movement occasioned by the shaking train—she looked at him and thought, ‘I'm glad he's gone off like that.' She saw every rise and fall of his breast as a renewal of strength, of life—she had been amazed at his courage, he had not made a single complaint. ‘How he must be longing to see Peter,' she thought, and remembered the expanse of time between them, ‘He was only a boy—but he still is of course. I could never think of him any other way. I wonder what he looks like this very minute? I wonder what's he looking at, what he's doing—I wonder what he's thinking? I'm sure he thinks of us often—for I'm never tired of thinking of him. At first the disgrace of it shuttered me up—but now that's drawn away fine and gone to nothing. I only know he's still there, alive behind them walls, and that beast he struck at is rotting in her grave. I'm thinking of him there, how he'll take it, poor Denny, he's never seen the inside of a gaol in his life, nor the outside either. I'm hardly thinking of myself at all, and I know I should. This thing always tears at me so, and I've got to brace up, I've simply got to brace up. I wonder what I'll say? I wonder how I'll look to him, and his father. Ah, that hurt on his head will sadden him. He'll see a changed man all right. Yes, I must watch myself. I must try hard not to break down—it upsets him so. Two years they say, and he might, if he's good, get out. But why shouldn't he be good? Of course he is—he always was—apart from the one bad time he had. He might have gone to sea like his father—I know I nearly did push him off one day—but now I'm so glad I didn't. I couldn't stand thinking of another on the ocean, no. I've had enough of it. There's the last creature close to me, lying so still and quiet he might be dead, there's the last that will break water—I swear to God.'

She dozed. She dreamed. She was standing in a big white house, in a green country, that stood on the lip of the shore. And in all rooms were voices, and into them also streamed sun. From some rooms singing, from some laughter. There she stood at the bottom of the big staircase, and calling upon them to come down—and she named them one after the other, as they had come to her in bygone hours, sometimes in a half darkness of a winter's night, and sometimes in the soft, velvety light of a summer morning. She called them—John, Desmond, Maureen, Anthony, Peter, Dennis, Brigid, Joseph, and they were in their rooms, and her lips seemed to cling, embracing the very sound of their names. One after another they came in a morning light, down the great staircase of her dream. And stood in the long, wide, cool hall, with its blue tiles, and the fine film of sand grain blown in from the sea. They followed her into the long room, circled the big oaken table and sat down. And a bell rang. And they all ate, and drank, and she did not. She sat and looked at them, face upon face, and watched their eyes, and their hands, all gathered here, husband and sister, wife and brother. And looking out through a window upon the vast expanse of sea, soundless, spun to silence, and carrying over its surface the soft shimmer of the morning sun, and one to another she watched, and she knew they were altogether, close, heart to heart, and she was happy. And she said to them, ‘I'm really happy to-day. We could go out together, this line of us go out, and walk far along that shore—the salt air and the crack of shells under you, and the warm feel of sand on our bared feet. We could move off towards that high hill there, blue and fast held by the sun. We could climb them stairs, go to any room and there the air that comes in through the high windows is soft as silk. You can look out and see never a wall, nor a brick rising, and never will be, not in this place I was born in—years ago.' She looked at them, and never tired looking at them, and her heart was swollen by a great pride in this place. She moved across the slated floor, put her hands upon her husband, and, with long fingers slowly traced the anatomy of his face. It was clean as the air around them, strong, uplifted, the shoulders strong for burdens, the hands shapely, not broken, and she held these and said, ‘You're a fine man.'

She walked out of the room, walked round and round the house, looking up at trees, wide open windows, and touching grass drenched in its own greenness. She stood, and putting her hands to her eyes she looked far out, to a thin pencil line of light that marked the horizon, and under it the bright, dancing waters. She stood for a long time, seemed hardly to breathe—lost in this dream country—and behind her, in that long room they were together—a happy family, laughing and singing days out, and drawing the moon down. She heard the curlew cry, and a pocket of wind whistle fugitively by. Then she turned about and slowly came back to the white house.

The train suddenly pulled up with a grinding of brakes; and her dream was ended. She sat up, rubbed her eyes. ‘I must have fallen asleep.'

She got up and looked out. As she did so she heard upon the air the first notes of Whistling Willie. ‘That man,' she exclaimed, ‘I'd forgotten all about him. Why, he's still there.'

And at that moment a voice called, ‘Darnton! Darnton!'

She shook the sleeping man. ‘Denny, get up, we're here. At last. Do wake up, Denny.'

Somewhere lower down a carriage door slammed, somebody was shouting, a noisy truck rolled by. The porter slamming a door called, ‘Darnton. Darnton.'

Violently she shook the sleeping man. ‘Denny, dear—do wake up. We must get out. We must go.'

The old man's eyes opened. He said in a choking voice, ‘I can't get up.'

‘What nonsense. For heaven's sake pull yourself together. We'll be late. Denny,' pulling him, and he said again in the same choking voice—‘I can't move. I can't move, Fanny. I can't move.'

‘Try, God help you—what on earth is come over you? Ah, why you've been dreaming or something—I was myself. I woke up out of a white house in Ireland and all my eye saw was them smudges on the window pane.'

The porter had reached their door. He opened it—looked at the occupants.

‘Are you people getting out or not?' he asked.

She fell into a panic. ‘Oh yes, yes, we're coming right away. Leave us alone. It's my husband, he fell into such a heavy sleep on this long journey, he's a bit confused in his mind.' She got her two arms round the old man and lifted him into a sitting position. The porter had not moved. He looked on with curiosity—he said, ‘Well you can't just sit there, anyhow. This train moves out in fifteen minutes' time, ma'am.'

‘Does it?' She was very confused. ‘Which way?'

He smiled at that, and replied, ‘Why back the way it come, of course.'

She looked at him desperately—‘Please help me with him. I'm sure he'll be all right when he gets out of the carriage and into the air.'

‘Is anybody meeting you here? Where are you going? Can I help you in any way?' and she was touched by the sudden sympathy.

‘Just help me out with him. No, there's nobody meeting us.'

‘Certainly, ma'am, certainly,' and the porter came into the compartment.

He was a big, broad-shouldered man—he took one glance at the old man on the seat, and exclaimed under his breath—‘That's easy'; lifted him in his arms and bore him out to the platform. There he sat him on a bench.

‘I'll get him a drink of water—he certainly doesn't look very well, ma'am. Maybe he fainted. Them carriages are stuffy. Where have you come from?'

‘Gelton.'

‘Why that's a long way,' he said—he then went off to the porters' room for water.

She sat down, put an arm round her husband's shoulder.

‘Denny!
What
is the matter with you?'

Woodenly he replied, ‘I'm sorry, Fanny—I can't move. I can't stand up.'

She spoke fiercely, agitatedly into his ear, he felt her hot breath. ‘Please, please—I beg of you as I've never begged before, rest upon God's strength, Denny, and take my arm, for this is the end of a long journey, and he is waiting, not far away now, so very near to us, now. Please, Denny.'

He looked at her pathetically, ‘If I could rise up, I'd rise up; if I could go, I'd go—my strength's away somehow, Fanny. But I'll try.'

‘There's a fine man you are,' she said, and lifted with all her strength, and prayed in that moment. But he had hardly stood up when he fell back again upon the seat.

Her fear spread like fire. ‘Oh, Christ,' she said into the empty air.

Huddled, he said, ‘I'm sorry, Fanny. I'm terrible sorry indeed—I know something I never knew before now—and it's ice all over me—I'm an old man at last—I'm just an old man.'

‘You're not—you're not, God's truth you're not, darling—only that bloody murdering sea broke you—but you can mend—I know you can. You will, oh, you will!'

She stared into his eyes, she could feel something rise in her, reach out, clutching him, ‘Come—try again—my dear husband—try for Christ's own sake—think of our son waiting—that cold room—and that eye—Oh, those terrible walls shutting him up.'

The porter came back with the water. He was now genuinely concerned. He held the tumbler to the old man's lips. ‘Drink, father,' he said.

A slamming door made them turn, the silence of the station was torn by a whistle and the porter looked round. He saw the blue-suited, raincoated man coming down the platform—his bowler hat slightly askew, his hands in everlasting pockets, he came by whistling a brave tune into the early afternoon. He stopped.

‘Hello!' he said. ‘Oh dear, what's up? H'm! He do look bad, Mrs—tch, tch, dear, dear, and you'll have to hurry, they hate opening them doors late.'

The porter looked at the woman. ‘You're for the prison?'

‘I am, and I am not—I don't know—Oh God. I don't know where I'm for, over him. I don't know where he's for in a devil ridden moment.'

She cried.

‘I shouldn't cry,' the whistler said, ‘Ah—I shouldn't cry, missus. Him'll be all right in a few minutes. You'll see. Sorry I can't stay to help but I've got me appointment and I has to keep it—tell me his name and I'll say you're coming—you say.'

The woman looked up at this man—she remembered the shattering whistle—she remembered his words. But now she was quite unable to speak. And he stood waiting.

‘Tell you what—we'll get a taxi up there. How's that?'

She looked back at her husband. And in that moment she knew it was too late. She said, dragging the words out, ‘I cannot go. Like him there, I cannot move.'

‘Oh Lord!' the porter said.

‘Tch. Tch!' the whistler said.

‘No. Thank you. Thank you. I cannot go. Tell him nothing. I was never here, nor was he, never. I'll write my son. We cannot move any more.'

‘Righto, Mrs—but I am sorry,' he said, and, ‘ta-ta—I
am
sorry,' and he moved off, looking at his watch. But before he had reached the platform's end he was whistling his tune, and somehow or other he had managed to pick it up again, almost at the very part where he had left off. He vanished from sight.

There was only the old man—the woman—the good-natured porter.

‘What will you do?'

‘We'll go back,' she said.

‘I am very sorry—but couldn't you wait a while? My mother, I'm sure, would put you both up for the night. I'm sure you can see your son to-morrow.'

She shook her head. ‘Thank you. I can't go now.'

‘I'll make you a cup of tea,' the porter said—he dashed away at top speed.

‘A nice mess,' she said, ‘Oh, Denny—I should never have come—there's me foolish again. Oh God, the way I am—carried away by things—that tearing longing I had all that way up—me watching you—hoping till I felt I must burst. I've done them foolish things again. Oh God, what makes me do them?—and my silly dream—I had, I'm always dreaming of something—the fool of a woman I am—I strangle everything in a dream. Denny, we must go back. We must go back. For God's sake, say something.'

His head suddenly wagged, like that of a puppet. ‘I'm so so sorry, Fanny. I can't move any more. I tried—the curse of Christ on the thing that broke me.'

She put a hand to his mouth. ‘Spare me that,' she said.

He heard her crying. He said again—and with the puppet's jerky voice, ‘I'm sorry.'

The porter had come back with two mugs of tea.

‘Drink this. Here is a sandwich. Please eat it.'

He looked at the old man. ‘He can't drink this.'

‘No. Look in my black bag, kind man, look in there, there's the brandy in there I brought for such as this—but never thinking—never thinking. You're very decent to us.'

The porter smiled. ‘That's all right, ma'am. I'll still do what I said—really. Fix you up for the night.'

She shook her head. She could hardly hold the mug to her lips, her mouth trembled, her hands shook. She put the sandwich on the bench. She could not eat it. The porter saw this, ‘Try and eat it,' he said.

‘What I have to do now I do because it is the best,' and she looked up suddenly but seemed unaware of the porter's presence. ‘I can see now it was senseless to come—even to try.'

The porter had gone quietly away with the sandwiches. Soon after he came back with a small newspaper parcel.

‘You can take this with you,' he said, then bent down and touched the woman's arm. ‘Are you
sure
now that you can't stay—and maybe you'll see him to-morrow?'