Winter Song by James Hanley Page B

always has tea with you on Wednesdays.…’
    The woman’s hand had stolen from under the bedclothes; it sought and found the other’s hands.
    â€˜I’ve lived a long time for nothing.’
    â€˜You mustn’t say a thing like that, my child. You did marry and rear a family.’
    â€˜They’ve gone. They’ve all gone. Left me. I did try. It was them who were wrong, not me. Pollution. That’s what it was—pollution from the very beginning. I ought to have known. Peter killed me. I see my mistake now. He was never meant to be anything.’
    â€˜You must not say such things, dear, it is wicked. One does one’s best. That is all. You must try to be a little braver than that. Remember the promises you made. The things you said. You must try to think of other things—you are not really an old woman, Mrs Fury, you know you’re not.’
    â€˜Don’t you think I am, Mother?’
    â€˜I certainly don’t, and you must break away from this corner you’ve led yourself to. We have all had our disappointments, you are no exception. Try to think of others more often, and not so much of yourself.’
    â€˜You’re quite right, I shouldn’t. I’m sorry, but I felt so sad to-day. I was thinking of those long walks I used to make when my husband would be docking; it seems such a long time—such a long time. Everybody’s kind to me—I know that, but it was a dreadful thing to happen to him. Many a time I wish I’d never set foot in this city.’
    â€˜Sometimes,’ said the Mother Superior, ‘strange things happen. The other day Father Twomey was telling me a queer story about a sailor who was given up for lost. He was lost for five whole years, think of it—he had lost his memory—he didn’t know who he was and to where he belonged. Why only yesterday there came a man to his office, a man who was given up for dead over a year ago, a poor wreck of an old man who had sailed back to his own place from the other side of the world. A sick old man, a tired man. Father Twomey was telling your parish priest about it. A very strange thing indeed. They have him safe now, however, and soon they say they’ll have him where he belongs and with his own. So you see one should go on hoping right up to the last. To have faith, that is the thing. I know you never talk of your husband, yet I know you’ve never really forgotten him.’
    The woman half rose in her bed ‘You mean I should go on hoping. If that was ever to be, I’d know then how to value what was dear to me, and I’d have him and myself out of this place and far away—far away from everything. He was a good man—I misunderstood him—a harum-scarum sort of man he was, but oh, a good heart. I’ve been ashamed ever since when I think of how it was my tongue drove him out of my life. I’d give anything—anything, and how I’ve wished and wished and wished, many’s the night I’ve hugged myself to myself and thought of him in some far sea for ever.’
    The Mother Superior put an arm round the woman. ‘They say this man has had a cruel time of it—that he’s so tired, but they think soon he’ll get back his health and strength. Two drunken young men brought him all that way to Gelton. He couldn’t speak. He just lay and lay. They had the doctor to him. They said he might have to go into hospital. After a while they asked him his name and he said Gelton. They stripped and bathed him. He was very thin and frail. They found a medal of St Christopher on his neck …’
    â€˜Denny always wore that medal, Mother—all his life wore it to his neck.’
    â€˜And they also found certain tattoo marks on him, a snake on his forearm, a blue five-pointed star under one of his thumbs.’
    She felt the body in her grasp suddenly become tense—she looked down at the woman. Her mouth was partly