The Secret Journey by James Hanley

Author:James Hanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497699861
Publisher: Open Road Media

He took off his shoes, crept upstairs, and tiptoed to his mother’s room. He stood listening. He could hear her deep breathing. He opened the door and looked in. Mrs. Fury was fast asleep.

Closing the door, he went into Mr. Mangan’s room. Not a sound, and the room quite dark in spite of the uncurtained window. It was open, and the smell of the fog was in the room. He took a match from his pocket and struck it on his trousers’ leg. The fog seemed to smother the light. It went out. ‘Yes. He’s gone! Can you believe it. Really gone!’

The bed was stripped except for the mattress: something made him put his hand under this. It touched papers. He drew them out, held them in his hand for a moment, then quickly pushed them back again. He felt like a thief. Why had he done it? He had not known they were there. If anybody had opened the door they would not have seen him, for the fog was thick in the room.

He left the room as silently as he had entered and went to his own. Here the window had been open all day, and this like the back room was full of fog. Somehow it seemed nothing to him that his grandfather’s room should look so cold and deserted, and now full of the fog that still rolled in across the river. Anthony Mangan’s own life was like that fog now. But the fog had crept in here too. Into his own room.

He went downstairs again; a stair creaked, and he swore under his breath. How warm and cheery the kitchen looked after those damp, cold rooms. There was the sofa. His father used to lie on that of an evening when he came home tired after the day’s work. And there was the table. The same old table. He remembered when half a dozen sat round it. The whole family, including his grandfather.

And how bare the dresser seemed. There was his mother’s old hat—hanging over the wooden eagle that ornamented the top part of the dresser. And there one of his father’s greasy caps. The big green vases were no longer there.

‘I wonder what she’s done with them? I saw them there yesterday.’ And how pitifully worn the arm-chair looked, its side greased and stained from dungareed elbows. He sat down in this chair and looked into the fire. For the first time ever since he could remember, the fire had not been backed up. It was, in fact, fast going out. It seemed so strange not to see the pile of slack and cinders heaped upon it, to hear the low murmurs that came through the bars.

There was the tin blower his father had made, but where was it now? ‘Mother must have forgotten it,’ he thought. ‘Perhaps I had better back it up, after all. It does save time in the morning.’ And he began putting coal on piece by piece, fearful of waking her.

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