The Secret Journey by James Hanley

Mother—if I live at Hatfields—it will always be under a cloud. I could never be happy. I would be observing the other things, obeying the very things I didn’t believe in. It would be one long series of lies, lies, lies. It couldn’t be otherwise. I haven’t the heart to tell Mother what I really think. That’s why I hated the college. Hated being a boy at school. You couldn’t say anything at all. Now I want to say almost everything—but am prevented.’
    â€˜What prevents you?’ asked Maureen. They had moved out of the shelter of the doorway, and walked slowly along past Miss Pettigrew’s sweet-shop. Then they turned the corner and did not stop until they came to Mr. Dingle’s wine-shop, in whose spacious doorway they sought shelter.
    â€˜Oh, I can’t help it. I love Mother, you see, and she knows it. In fact, I sometimes think she plays on it. Really, at heart, I believe she wouldn’t rest.’
    Maureen stopped his mouth with her own. ‘I have to run now. Good-night. Remember what I told you.’
    He stood looking after her until she vanished in the darkness. Then he thrust his hands in his pockets and walked slowly on. His thoughts carried him to that dark and deserted street near the Custom House, but his feet were carrying him towards Hatfields. Suddenly he stopped.
    â€˜Why should I go back there now? To sit and listen to them talking. About what might have been—about what Dad didn’t do. What he should have done. What Mother would do if she had her time all over again. To the devil with that!’ thought Peter, and turning round walked back the way he had come. Fresh air was much better. He went on smiling to himself, whistling a tune of a popular song. He was grown up. He was feeling very happy.
    The only early visitor Mrs. Fanny Fury had ever received into her house was her own husband—and in those far-off days when he was at sea. Sometimes his ship docked in the middle of the night—sometimes in the early morning. But the early open door had been closed for nearly three years. There were no early visitors. Mr. Fury went off to work at six, and the door did not open again except to the usual tradesmen until he returned home from work at five o’clock in the evening. With the exception of the head of the household, everybody at number three used the back-door entrance. In fact, much of Hatfields’ business was done at the back entrance. Front doors were only for one purpose. To be opened to visitors. Families went in and out of the back door. Number seven’s front door had never been opened for a year, so that people had ceased to believe that anybody lived there at all. Its occupants, however, could generally be seen passing up and down the entry.
    When Mrs. Fury opened her front door at half-past eight in the morning it was to find her daughter with the child standing on the step. (When Maureen Kilkey wanted business done she liked to get it done at once.) Without showing the surprise she naturally felt, she opened wide the door, and mother and child passed into the kitchen.
    Immediately she sat down, Mrs. Fury said, ‘You are early. Is anything wrong?’
    Maureen did not reply at once. She was looking at a neatly made parcel of sandwiches on the dresser. She realized they were sandwiches at once, for beside them there lay a neatly folded bundle of blue dungarees.
    â€˜Hasn’t Dad gone out?’ asked Mrs. Kilkey. She placed the boy on the mat, who at once became quite indifferent to his relations and began a brave attempt to pull the fender from the hearth. Maureen nudged him gently with her foot.
    â€˜Stop it,’ she said, whereon, quite unconcerned, the child looked up at her and smiled—a smile that seemed to say, ‘Don’t you wish you could lie down on the mat and play with the fender?’
    Mrs. Fury smiled down at the child, though one realized it was a forced smile. She sat