Where Old Ghosts Meet (10 page)

Without a word, Matt began to remove the jacket, looking about as he did so for a place to lay it down.

“You can leave that there.” The driver patted the seat beside him. “By the way, the name's Mattie Duggan. How about yerself?”

“Molloy, Matthew also.”

“Ah, go on! I don't know about you but the Mammy called me after Matt Talbot, ye know, the holy fella who looks after the drunkards.” He laughed. “She thought he'd look after me too, in that department, keep me outta har'ums way. Piss poor job he's done, I'd say, and me drivin' a wagon for J. Arthur Guinness for a livin! Sure, isn't that pullin' the devil be the tail? How about yerself?”

“No, nothing like that, just a name.”

“Fair enough. So I suppose it's off home now to face the music.”

“The music …” He reached for his jacket but a restraining hand touched his arm.

“Hold the head now and take it 'aisy. I'm not takin' a run at ye but tis plain as the hole in a monkey's arse, you've left the priests, right?”

There was no reply.

“What else is a young seminarian doin' walkin' the roads of Ireland, of a Wednesday mornin', in the middle 'eh nowhere, lookin' like he's got the worries of the world on his shoulders.” He leaned over then, lowering his voice. “That's why I'm after gettin' ye to ditch the rig-out. There's no need goin' advertisin' the fact, now, is there? Look at ye now, roll up them sleeves over the elbows and ye could be me assistant and no one 'id twig the differ.”

Matt Molloy began to roll up his white shirt sleeves, exposing his pale arms with their fine dark hair. “I've let her down again,” he blurted out without thinking. “I tried to make a go of it–”

“Now look here, son, I'm tellin' ye now, the mothers of this world are the best and the worst of it,” he said with the conviction of a preacher. “Problem is, some of them just don't know when the feckin' job's done. It's simple as that.” He paused to take a deep breath and once more unleashed the leather reins onto the horses' rumps. “Time comes when they have to be told where to get off.” The horses had picked up the pace and he now had to shout above the clatter. “I remember at school, when I was a young fella, one of the Brothers used to roar at us when we'd be slackin' off: ‘Excelsior, gentlemen, onward and upward, and for the love of God, quit blamin' the world for yer misfortune. Get off yer arse and do somethin' about it.' That used to spur us on for a while anyways. That's what I'm sayin' to you now. Don't go lettin' her rule the roost; otherwise you'll never get to crow when it comes your turn. And wouldn't that be a sorry state of affairs?”

There was no reply.

“What you need is a drop of the pure to straighten you out,” he said with a new air of joviality. “I always says, Never go into battle without powder in your musket. I tell ye now what we'll do. We'll stop for a quick one before I drop ye off at the bridge and that'll get ye fired up and ready to take herself on. What do ye say?”

“I have no money.” His head began to flip back and forth as if seeking a way out.

“I'll buy you a pint, son.”

It had been a long day and he was thirsty. The situation at home had also begun to play on his mind. “All right so.”

“Now, that's the spirit, son.”

“Nora, my dear, that was the beginning of it. Himself and Mattie Duggan got drunk that day and that's how he was when he arrived home. Of course he liked how he felt, liked his newfound courage. He spoke his mind and liked having the guts to do so but once it wore off, he was back to being himself, but by and by, things got out of hand.”

“What about the scholarship?” Nora asked.

“That didn't work out or he never tried; I'm not too sure which, but anyways he settled for whatever work was about, just so as he'd have money enough to get out of the house and go to the bar of an evenin'. There were rackets all the time. His only joy back then was his few books.” She took a deep breath. “By and by, the mother took things in hand and hooked him up with Sadie Dolan, the one he married: that's your grandmother. The mother and the young one's brother, Mickey Dolan, set it all up.”

Nora drew in a quick breath. She could barely fathom what she was hearing. So this Sadie Dolan was her grandmother. She'd never heard the name spoken before. She said it again, under her breath. It didn't rest easy with her. “Mickey Dolan.” She said that name. Already she hated it. She hated the very sound of it.

Peg forged ahead, speaking rapidly, her voice strong, tinged with a hint of bitterness. “Indeed she wasn't that much of a young one, seven years older than Matt, she was. She'd been passed over in the marriage department, it would seem, and Matt, not knowin' too much what he was about, was easily led. God love him, he was only a youngster at the time, twenty-one years old.”

She poured another drink, held the bottle out to Nora, saw the quick nod and poured.

“One night a few months after they'd met, the Dolan woman tells him she's in the family way and there's nothin' for it but that he do the right thing by her and get married. Yes, my dear, he was on the hook and hauled over the side before he knew it. Just like that!”

“Stupid fool!” Nora could no longer contain her irritation.

“And if he were standing here in the room this minute, you know something? He'd say exactly the same thing. He told me one time, ‘Peg,' he said, ‘I'm a clever man by all accounts, but I'm a fool.' I was shocked he'd say such a thing but I soon come to know what he was talking about. It had to do with plain old common sense. Ordinary things, little problems you'd have from day to day. Oftentimes he just couldn't decide what was the best thing to do, so in the end he'd head off and do something right foolish. Same when it come to the big things! My dear, he'd look at the facts, up and down and round about, again and again, enough to drive you right cracked, but still he wouldn't know what to be at.”

“Reminds me of my father,” Nora said bitterly.

Peg picked up her glass and studied the contents for a moment. “I'm sorry to have to be sayin' all this to you, Nora. It can't be too nice to be hearin' all this old stuff, but still and all, it has to be said.” She took another sip of her whiskey and hurried on. “Whatever the reasons, he managed to get himself hooked up to a wife in a hurry.”

“And a child!” Nora was thinking of her father, the stalwart Catholic family man, conceived out of wedlock, without love. She stared into her glass.

Darkness had slipped quietly into the room, closing tightly around the two women. In stark contrast against the sky and the sea, the black headland appeared large and brooding. A trickle of silvery light dodged playfully on the water.

“It wasn't even that simple.”

Nora's head came around with a start. “What do you mean?”

“There was no child, not then anyways. The child didn't arrive for twelve months or more after they married.”

“What?”

“The way it was, Matt didn't even realize that the time had passed for the child to be born. Until one night in the bar, didn't he hear talk from behind a wooden partition. Two women were hard at it, talkin'about him. Tis high time she dropped that youngster,' one was saying. ‘Sure, wasn't she up the pole way before they ever went near the altar?' ‘Aye, indeed. I'd say she'd want to be puttin' a bit of a spurt on or that babby'll be arrivin' with whiskers on!' When Matt heard that, it was only then it came to him that he'd been fooled and that everyone knew but himself.”

“God in heaven, don't tell me his own mother was part of that deception? Surely not, who could do the like of that?”

“Who's to know?” Peg's index finger came up in a cautionary gesture. “Remember, that was a long time ago. Back then there were few questions asked and there were even fewer answers given.”

“What did he say, Peg? What did he do?” Nora leaned forward, insisting on the truth. “Did he think that his mother knew all along?” She waited, exasperated. “Don't tell me he never asked, never confronted her or that Mickey Dolan or the wife?”

“He did what Matt usually did in those days. He got himself drunk and headed for home.”

“
A double blessing, is a double grace
,” he announced with Shakespearean flourish as he flung open the kitchen door and tried to focus on the image of his mother and his wife both busy by the hearth. The words were barely out of his mouth when a down draft from the open chimney sent a thick belch of black smoke back into the room.

The mother was by the door in an instant and with a quick shove pushed him out of the way and shut the door. He lost his balance and toppled over.

“A fine state you're in and you with enough drink in ye to flatten a sailor. Get up outa that. Yer a disgrace to yer country.”

“Ah,” he muttered, attempting to get to his feet, “
enterprise …
great pitch and moment…lose the name of action
. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, now there's the bucco had the right idea when it came to dealing with the women.”

“For the love of God, Matt, would ye quit yer cod actin' and get to yer feet. Get up outa that. Whatever it is yer blatherin' about, makes no sense to me. Get up, will ye.” A strong young arm caught hold of him and urged him to his feet.

“
Ah wife! The fair Ophelia.
”

“Mother of God, you're gone cracked in the head with all that oul' rubbish you've been readin'. Here, catch a hold of me.”

“
Is it my wife has come to help her husband in his hour of need?
Thank you, madam.” His hand touched the tight curve of her swollen belly and he let it linger there for a moment.

She tensed, tightened her grip on his arm and then continued to pull him upwards. “Look, over there, Matt, by the fire. My brother Mickey, he's been here tonight with a little cradle was mine once. It could do with a cleanin' but it'll be grand for the child.”

He steadied himself, turning slowly in the direction she was pointing. A rough wooden cradle sat on the floor by the hob.

“Now isn't Mickey Dolan the great fella? Knew exactly when to turn up trumps!” He moved unsteadily across the room, stopping for a moment to size up this new treasure and then bending over, he peered into the empty cradle.

“Now there's a fine looking youngster if I ever saw one, and would you look at the size of it!” He moved closer, making little clucking noises. “Now, tell me, wife,” he continued. “How is it that our little babby has whiskers?”

There was a hollow silence in the kitchen. The two women glanced quickly at each other.

He straightened up and turned to smile, a strange baleful smile, first at his mother then at his wife. “How is it,” he repeated, taking on a menacing tone, “that this babby has whiskers?”

“It was a bit of a miscalculation,” his wife rushed to explain, “a wee biteen of a mistake, with the time, is all.”

He moved in closer, peering into her eyes, his whiskey breath in her face. “
Confess yourself to heaven / Repent what's past, avoid what is
to come, / And do not spread the compost on the weeds, / To make them
ranker.
”

“Jesus in the garden! Do we have to stand around here all night listenin' to this oul' gibberish? Your wife told ye, she made a mistake. Don't ye understand or do ye want it straight from the Holy Ghost himself … in several languages?”

He whipped around to face his mother, eyeball to eyeball. “
Beware of entrance to a quarrel; mother dear / But being in, / Bear't that
the opposed may beware of thee.
”

His mother stared back, cutting straight through the glazed eyes. She held the stare for a moment then turned away and reached for the Tilley lamp. Holding the light high, she leaned forward, bringing her face close to his. “Yer an eejit, Matt Molloy, of the first order.”

The fire spat in the grate.

“I'm goin' to bed. There's some of us have a day's work to do come mornin'. Go on to bed, Sadie, ye need yer rest, and leave our very own Shakespeare here to himself.”

His eyes followed his wife as she moved away and disappeared behind the curtain into the shadow of their bedroom.

Peg looked into Nora's startled eyes. “Your father was born not long after that. Not a happy situation, I'll allow. But that's how it was, how your grandfather told it to me.”

9

A
mixture of anger, pity, and disbelief tugged at every muscle and fibre of Nora's body, leaving her feeling confused and miserable. She pushed away from the table and, turning her back on Peg, gripped her forehead, feeling around her temples the beginnings of a headache.

So often she had thought of her grandfather as a kind of comic figure, a lone Irishman footloose and fancy-free in America; here today, gone tomorrow! That was Maureen's fault, she thought angrily, with her constant playacting, her tendency to make light of everything, always poking fun at the “Returned Yanks” who came back to Ireland on holidays with their gaudy clothes and flaunting their wealth. What would she think now? Would she still find it funny?

“Nora.” Peg's voice interrupted her thoughts. She had no idea how long she had been sitting with her back to the woman, lost in her own world.

“I'm sorry, I'm afraid I was miles away.” She turned around and pulled her chair in closer to the table.

“Nora.” Peg was hesitant. “I know I don't know you well enough to be speakin' so plainly but I'm gettin' on now and want someone to understand how it was between Matt and me. In the past I've tried talkin' to others, my sister when she was alive, a friend or two, but they just thought I was soft in the head. In the end I gave up, because I knew there was no sense talkin' or trying to explain what they didn't want to know or could never understand. But you want to know. Don't you?”