Our Time Is Gone (87 page)

‘I remember now.'

‘You remember?'

‘She ran away. That's it. Where is Joe Kilkey?'

‘You will see him to-morrow.'

‘Give me a drink, Father,'

Father Moynihan held the water to his lips.

And when the old man had drunk—‘It saddens me that she never came—she always used to come.'

‘You must have had a terrible time, Dennis, two ships to fall under you in a week.'

The old man made no reply to this, but he began to stare at the priest, to stare with a fixed interest—he suddenly said ‘Father Moynihan—your hair's grey, you're an old man.'

Father Moynihan laughed. It was the first laugh the old man had heard in that room.

‘D'you want to sit up?' he asked; the old man was already making frantic efforts to do so. He lifted him.

‘Why, you're no weight at all, Dennis, what on earth have you been doing with yourself?'

Somebody was hammering on a typewriter in the office below, the sounds came up like gunshots.

When the priest glanced at the old man again, he found he had slipped down, he seemed to have fallen asleep.

‘I'll wait,' he thought. ‘If he sleeps on I'll stay the night. This man must know what is coming to him before the morning.'

A whisper stole into the silence. ‘I'm listening,' said the old man in the bed. ‘Go on talking, Father.'

‘Your poor wife nearly went out of her mind that awful day. I remember that day as though it were yesterday. A bad day indeed for Gelton. Four hundred men. Kilkey didn't go to work that day. When the news appeared in the paper, he went off down to see Fanny. When he got there, she was gone. And she had done a curious thing. He found the door of the house wide open, anybody could have gone in and stolen her things. Kilkey walked everywhere that day, looking for her. I remember it was a powerful hot July day. The shipping offices on the front were in a state of siege with hundreds of poor women trying to reach the office, to find out the worst or the best, but in the end their hearts were shattered by the silence. There was no news. Hours passed by, still no news. At last it came. I don't know how your wife spent that day. I think perhaps she just walked and walked and stared out to the sea and tired herself out.'

He bent his head—‘Dennis, I went down in the evening to see her, but there was nobody there, and Kilkey had already been there and locked the place up.'

With his lips close to the man's ear, he said. ‘She never went back ever again. The door was shut for good and all. I only found out what happened the next morning. Kilkey came to see me. She had hung about the shipping office most of that day, she saw one and another go, until finally there was only herself left. And she climbed those stairs again, once again, only to hear the clerk say no, no news. The ship had sunk in seven minutes, there were nine survivors out of a total crew of four hundred and thirty-two men. A black week. Many's the door I knocked at that week, with only the barest shred of comfort in my hands. What I am trying to tell you, my dear old friend, is that there is no home any longer.'

He gripped the man's shoulders, and held them tight, he saw the frail, trembling mouth moving, but somehow the words did not come, and he knew now that he had said the best and the worst.

‘No home,' Dennis stuttered at last—‘no home … I always had a home. I had a whole family and fine children. I had a home for fifty years. You're joking with me, Father, you're joking—you were always a one for that.'

‘The terrible row we had the day I sailed,' the old man said.

‘Your wife went to St Stephen's Hospice. She never came out. She has been there a whole year. She had given you up entirely. Many a day I've called to see her there. Kilkey tried very hard—he wanted her to live with him, but it was no use. She had made up her mind. I know it's very hard—a bitter blow, Dennis, but remember what your wife went through, all those weeks, those months. She is there, waiting for you—you are alive by the mercy of God. You may yet build something out of what is left. I will help you—we will all help. But you must try and make up your mind to accept the hard fact that there is no possibility, as she sometimes foolishly thinks, of starting a home again, and hoping that some way or other the family will unite again. It is far too late for that. You have only each other now.'

‘It was all for nothing then?'

Something in the old man broke. The priest tried, but he found he could not answer his question.

‘Listen, Dennis, I've talked too much already.' He thought looking at this shaking creature: ‘What a shame—to come through all that experience, and then to find nothing but emptiness.'

‘You must lie back. Try and get a good night's sleep. Try to think of your wife lying awake in her own lonely bed, thinking and waiting for you. Now compose yourself, and go to sleep.'

The old man looked up at the priest. He did not speak and Father Moyniham was glad of that.

‘Try to sleep,' he said, covering him, ‘close your eyes now. Remember I will be here. I am here all the time. I shall not leave you.'

The old man turned over on his side. It was growing dark. Father Moynihan moved silently from the bed. He walked to the window. For a long time he stood there, looking out at the dark piled mass outside the window. Then he turned away and went out of the room.

‘There is really no need for me to stay any longer. The old man has fallen asleep. I have told him.'

‘How did he take it, Father Moynihan?'

‘It's hard to say, except for a moment he was quite unable to speak to me. It has been a blow for him. He is such a simple man—they take such blows, not like us, but somehow almost as one might imagine an animal takes a blow. We never know the effect. They never answer under it, nor yet do they wilt. Their hearts are strong. I found it difficult to tell a man, come as he has come out of some mad and mysterious sea, the most simple truth. I thought he might cry—but he did not.'

‘Delahane will get you a cup of strong coffee if you would like one.'

Father Moynihan declined and picked up his hat. ‘It is very late,' he said.

‘Near to midnight, and so you think this Mr Fury can be shifted to-morrow?'

‘Of course. He requires attention that he cannot get here. I will have him removed. I shall come about noon to-morrow. There is still the matter of his wife. I rang up the Hospice and explained roughly what had happened. The Mother Superior will do nothing till I see her. She is a most sensible and understanding woman. I think she can explain to the man's wife and prepare her. She will be shocked when she sees him. I have never seen a man so changed in so short a time—never. He is like a very old child. It quite upset me when he complained she had not come to meet him. Apparently she always went down to the ship to meet him when he came home from sea. He expected everything to be as it was before, his home, his family. Well, I must be off. Good-night, Twomey,' he said, he shook hands with the younger priest, ‘what time do you yourself retire?'

‘I stay here till two. Then I go to bed and Delahane calls me at six unless something has happened to make me rise earlier. Men pass in and out of here in a continuous stream. I sometimes wonder why at this house we have doors at all, for they are never shut. I should be tired, really, but I am not tired—I'm happy to-day. Twelve men out of the sea, Father Moynihan, my flock runs to thousands and thousands.' He smiled, he accompanied Father Moynihan to the door. They stood there talking for a few minutes, then the older man patted the younger's shoulder.

‘Good-night—God bless you.'

Father Twomey stood in the dark doorway watching him go. Soon he was lost to sight, and only the footsteps could be heard. Far out on the river a light blinked, the sound of a syren tore through the night air, and he knew ships moved oceanwards under the heavy sky, moved homewards and dropped anchor to await the morning light.

‘It was that tattooed star, that particular medal that got the old man home at last.' He withdrew into the passage. He heard footsteps, recognized them, Delahane was bringing in night coffee, he hummed the tune he always hummed.

‘It's extraordinary that a man should turn up a whole year after a sinking,' he said, he poured out coffee for both of them.

‘I've known men return after even three years, Delahane, and not only that, I've often thought of their mysterious, secret journeys in the hours they are lost to us.'

‘Just fancy those two young sailors getting drunk in Bahia, and staying drunk every bit of the way home.'

‘I'll bet they're sober now. And that old man upstairs whom they dragged after them, like any sack of potatoes—they've forgotten him, too. In two days they will have forgotten their hazardous voyage, the torpedo, the sudden madness, the sinking. In a week they will be on board again, moving seawards. Sailors and ships die many deaths.'

Delahane, absorbed in his coffee, listening to the first move of a rising wind, had barely listened, nevertheless, he said—‘Indeed they do, Father.'

‘I'm tired, Delahane. You know, I think I'll go up.'

Father Twomey stood up, stretched, yawned, sighed—‘And as soon as Owen comes, you must get off yourself. I have a feeling that we shall not be rung to-night.'

‘What makes you think that, Father?'

‘I don't know. Good-night, Delahane—sleep well.'

‘Good-night, Father.'

Delahane helped himself to more coffee.

‘Imagine that old chap upstairs, talking about getting another ship, already! Why, he must be out of his mind entirely. I think I'll have a fine big yawn myself.' He put down the coffee mug. He lay back in the chair. ‘I hope Owen won't be too long. Why, I've had as heavy a day as the priest himself.' Coals fell from the fire. Outside the wind increased its velocity, the windows shook. Suddenly he heard a thud on the upper floor, and then the shouts. ‘Oh, Lord! He's off again. That old chap's having his nightmare. It would happen, just when I'm thinking of bed.'

He heard the priest calling to him ‘You had better come up, Delahane.'

‘Coming,' shouted Delahane, ‘coming. Why, that noise will wake the other men. It's that fiery sea again, I'll bet—and that lad Lenahan—I wonder what it means?'

He dashed upstairs to the old man's room. They found he had rolled out of the bed. They heard him say, ‘Up, son. Keep up, hold on, Lenahan.'

Chapter 2

‘Good-Morning,' the white-robed nun said. ‘I see you are writing again.'

‘Only a letter.'

‘
Another
one?'

There is no answer. The nun puts down the tray, goes quietly out. The woman continues writing. There is some steaming stew, bread, a glass of water. Her lunch. The small, white-walled room is quite silent, it accentuates the clock's soft tick, the scratching of the pen nib. The walls are bare, except that there hangs over the mantelshelf a large metal crucifix. The cleanly-scrubbed floor boards are covered by two rugs, one alongside the small iron bed, the other in front of the fireplace. The fire smokes, it is heavy with slack coal. The woman is still writing. She stops suddenly and rises to her feet. As she does so, she glances out through the window, the sea is there. But she looks at it with indifferent eyes, an immense volume of water flowing for no particular reason. She turns her back on the window and approaches the table. She is tall, thin, grey-haired, the eyes seem too bright, the line of the mouth too hard, there is some exaggeration here.… She wears a long blue dress. Round her neck hangs a silver chain, from the chain a long silver crucifix. She sits down and begins her meal. Her long thin hands tremble as she eats. They carry the legacy of labour, discoloration of age. The features are without expression, there is something wooden, lifeless, it is the eyes that exaggerate—too bright, too lively. She talks to herself as she eats.

‘I will write to Anthony to-morrow.'

‘In two years he will be home from China.'

She has eaten her lunch. She sits staring at the empty tray. As she sits, she listens. She is always listening. The creaking of doors, the soft swish of a dress, the clock's tick, a bell ringing somewhere behind the room, voices that die on the air, the sound of wheels on a gravel path. In the corner nearest the door there is a small shelf containing reading matter, some newspapers, magazines, a book or two. She has read the newspapers. They bring in messages from outside, from the world. At the door of this room the torrent of life beats in vain. The silence holds it—keeps it out. Later in the afternoon she will sit in the cane arm-chair by the fire, read
The Life of St Thérèse
. She will stare long, thoughtfully at the frontispiece, the picture of the Saint, not of this world, beyond humanity. She does not
quite
understand what it all means, but it is something to do. At four o'clock she will get up, put on her shawl, leave the room and join the small procession of priest and nuns down the white corridor, over soundless carpet, then across the lawn, over sour wintry grass. In the chapel she will kneel, but not pray. She has tried very hard, but cannot pray. But she kneels and listens and as the flute-like voices of the choir bursts upon the air, she smiles, the hard mouth softens. She loves to hear the small voices storming Heaven. At half-past four she will have tea. Sister Angelica will bring it, Sister Angelica will sit and talk to her, the room may break with a sudden laugh as memory stirs, but at five o'clock there is silence again. She is terribly alone, yet not lonely. She can stir things to life in the abyss of her mind. She can, if she wills it, descend to the depths of it, and travel far. Back to that long, wide, hollow and endless day when the storm broke and the ship was wrecked. The dream journey through turbulent streets, against many cries and through all the roar and scream of Gelton's life, along the road where ships lie, and the air heavy with the odour of the five oceans and the seven seas, walking, always walking towards exhaustion, down the road, at first endless, but that had stopped here, in this great white house with its tall iron gates, by going beyond which you may walk into the sea. That is as far back as she can remember, and there is nothing else worth remembering. These journeys of memories are the cries upon tiredness returned from them. She may lie down on her bed and fashion sleep more easily. Not always are the journeys of memory successful. There are the pills in the bottle on her table. They often help.