Where Old Ghosts Meet (24 page)

She leaned over and poked her husband in the arm. “You know somethin', Matt Molloy? It was my brother sentme to the shop that day to get him a new shirt. He had his eye on a girl in the next town and wanted ‘to put his best foot forward,' so he said. I heard talk that you were home and that you were workin' at Dowd's shop.” She opened and closed her hands as they lay in her lap, as if they were the gateway to someplace deep inside of her.

She lifted her head and looked at the man across from her. “I caught your eye over the counter and in that minute I thought I saw something there. Maybe twas only pity, but it came to me that maybe, just maybe, you might understand what it's like to be cast aside to be lonely and… well, maybe, maybe, you'd know what I mean when I'd say that, sometimes, in the quiet of evening, I can hear the grass whisper to me below in the meadow or that sometimes in the early mornin' when–”

The book snapped shut and made her jump.

“My God, Matt! You frightened me, you did.”

“Did she know? Tell me now, did my mother know?”

“Know what? Blessed God, can't we forget about her, Matt? She's dead and gone!”

“Tell me.” He still hadn't raised his head.

“Can't we just make a life for ourselves and Eamon, and not have her, like a crazed old magpie, forever between us? Forget her.”

“Tell me now.”

“Gentle Redeemer.” Hands flew from her lap. “Wasn't she abroad lookin' for a wife for you, soon as you set foot back in the town? Sadie Dolan wasn't exactly what she had in mind to help her save face, not good enough for Matt Molloy, no, but just the same she had to get you out of the bars and settled down where she could keep an eye on you now, didn't she? So when she heard I'd been walkin' out with you and, Lord preserve us, in the family way, that was it.” She paused to take her breath.

He looked at her then, attentive to every word.

“My brother it was, told her,” she announced with a degree of satisfaction. “He wanted me gone so he could make way for a new woman in the house. He had no use for me anymore.”

“But you weren't, damn it!”

She sighed. “To begin with, I thought I was.” Her voice had dropped so that it was barely audible. “I wanted to tell you straight out. You see, I'd missed twice.” She stole a glance at him but he had turned away. “I was terrified.”Her voice collapsed in a deep sob. “Can't you understand that? Terrified of my own father and brother. My brother knew I'd missed. I don't know how he knew, but he knew. Goddamn him, he knew everything about me, even that. When I discovered it was a false alarm, twas he urged me not to breathe a word. He wanted me gone, kept tellin' me that there was no place for me here and that this was my only chance.”

Pitiful eyes turned to the man at her side. He hadn't moved.

“Jesus, Matt, is it myself I'm talkin' to?”

“You still haven't answered me. Did she know?”

“Of course she bloody knew. They fixed it all, didn't they?” Her cries hit a peak and then collapsed again into a low rattling sob.

“And you agreed.”

She made no reply, just stared into the dying embers of the fire, making no effort to stop the flow of tears that ran down her face and formed a dark patch on the front of her dress.

He opened his book and returned to his reading.

In a flash, her hand came back, and with a single swipe, the book went flying from his hands onto the hot embers of the fire.

A howl, tormented and pitiful, came fromdeep within him and in a single movement he sprang, ripping apart the very space between them. He was on his knees, his bare fingers poking at the glowing coals. The pile of dying embers collapsed, the book sinking farther into the hot ash. His hand touched a red hot coal and he pulled back, bringing his scorched fingers to the cool wetness of his mouth. Then he was back in again, determined. He got hold of the soft leather cover and pulled his beloved Shakespeare from the fire. It was smouldering and coated with hot, white ash. Desperate, he dabbed at the charred pages, spitting on his fingers, touching the glowing edges, brushing the ash, ignoring the agony of his hand.

She watched transfixed as he battled fiercely with the hot coals to save his precious book. “I was wrong,” she said calmly. “You're no different from them.”

“Mammy?” The child stood in the doorway that led to the back room, his eyes wide with fright. “Mammy,” he said again, louder this time, his petrified gaze fixed on his father's face. He began to gnaw on his tiny clenched fist.

They looked at each other, father and son, a long, lost look. He could find nothing to say to the boy. There was nothing to say, nothing to do, so he got up and, taking the charred remains of his book, walked past the child and out the door.

Peg took a deep breath. “When I heard that, the chill inside of me was worse than the chill of that October day on the hill. I never did have a child of my own but …”

Even in the gentle light of the lamp Peg looked pale and dazed. “I don't know if…” Her voice faltered. “It's too difficult.” She reached for her drink and finished it in one gulp. “How can we know what goes on in someone else's head?” It was a question that didn't invite an answer, so she turned away to speak to the night. “He told me that he wrote from New York one time, asking them to come to America. He said he had money saved for their passage. But he never heard back from them, not the word, and he never tried again.”

“That's true!” Nora was suddenly alert. “That is absolutely true. I have the letter here in my handbag.” She reached down for the bag by her feet. Where was it? The chair by her coat. She got up. “It was amongst my father's papers,” she said, rummaging in the clutter of her bag. The light was poor and her hands awkward. Finally she produced the two letters. “This one,” she said, holding on to one and dropping the other back in her bag. “It came from New York; it's from him.” She slipped the folded single sheet from the envelope and passed it to Peg.

Peg looked at Nora and then at the paper in her hand, her eyes wide and incredulous. Here it was, in his neat handwriting, his effort to make amends. She took her time to read, savouring every word. How typical it was of him, short and to the point: his way of protecting himself. You had to know that, to understand.

“I don't think Sadie ever received that letter. Somehow her brother Mickey Dolan intercepted that letter and kept it from her. Look at this.” Nora handed Peg the envelope.

The familiar handwriting looked back at her. She touched the letters. Mrs. Sadie Molloy, Ballyslish, Cullen, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her hand flew to her chest, pressing bony fingers against the cloth of her dress in an effort to control the pounding inside.

“Read the back,” Nora urged Peg turned over the envelope. Different handwriting. Nora heard the breathy mumble as she read. “This letter was found amongst the effects of Mickey Dolan. It was unopened at the time.” Peg looked from the envelope to Nora.

“Who wrote that?”

“My father.”

“Your father! You're sure about that, Nora?”

“Yes, I'm absolutely sure. I don't know how he got hold of it but it was with his papers when he died, that and the other one from Matt, both together.”

“The brother never even opened it then. Is that what you're saying? Never even bothered to see what he was keeping from her? Why would anyone do the like of that?”

“Maybe he wanted to hold on to her as his housekeeper. Remember, they were living with him then. I know he never married, never got the woman he was after. An old man in Cullen told me he was a bachelor.”

“My God, you'd have to be some evil to do the like of that.” Peg studied the envelope again. “Evil.” She read the letter once more then slipped the single page back into the envelope. They fitted together perfectly. She looked at it once more and then passed it to Nora. “I knew it was the truth,” she said. “Knew it right in my gut but I'm glad to see it wrote down.”

“Well, my father knew, but obviously it didn't carry much weight with him. He still decided to shut him out. My mother told me that fear was the reason. She whispered that to me one day shortly before she died, when I tentatively approached the subject of our missing grandfather. ‘Your father was afraid he might turn out to be a drunken old blackguard, like the tinkers. He knew he had a problem with the drink,' she whispered just before she drifted off to sleep. The subject was never mentioned again.”

There was no reaction from Peg. She had withdrawn into her own world.

“Maybe he was right,” Nora mused to herself. She knew about the tinkers. She had seen them many times and they frightened her. On the Fair Day in the town, they parked their caravans under the street light at the end of the road. It was a noisy busy encampment during the day, with cooking and washing, repairing pots and pans, ragged children chasing each other around the area, but when the pubs closed at night, the fighting and brawling could be heard all over the town. One night, she had watched from her bedroom window as a man took a horse whip to a woman as she cowered on the ground, screaming. The children, huddled together, watched from the half-door of the caravan.

Nora shuddered. “Maybe he was right,” she said to herself.

21

“
Joinin'
up with Canada in '49 was amixed blessing. Everything was changin', and changin' very fast. It was hard to keep up sometimes with all the changes. There was talk about movin' people off the islands. Services like schools and health care to all those isolated spots was costin' the government too much money. They couldn't pay for it no more, so we were told. The plan was to move us to what they called ‘growth centres,' where there were jobs for all and a decent livin' to be made. We could ‘burn our boats,' so they said. Imagine! Well the rackets! Some couldn't wait to be gone. Others, well, there was no way they were being told what to do. Families that had been there for generations weren't about to tear up their homes and gardens, and families, all they ever knew.

“In the late '50s it all came to a head for us on Berry Island. There was an allowance to be had from government to help with the move: $300 to $600 depending on the number of children in the family. The catch was that all hands had to leave. Anyone stayed behind, then the deal was off. They were on their own. Well, my dear, up she went!”

Peg rose to fill the kettle again. “I remember one night there was a meeting called to the school. I went to that meeting. I'd been to many over the years but this was to be the final one. I had my mind made up. I was gettin' on and I could see a time comin' when I'd need a few services handy to me and besides, there was nothin' much on the island for the youngsters nomore. Things were closin' down all over the place. The priest was gone, the school had only a few youngsters and the store was shapin' up the same way.” She laid a plate with thick slices of homemade bread on the table, with a dish of margarine and a pot of dark red berry jam. The pot of tea arrived and Peg poured, the hot steam rising over the table. It smelled good.

“As I saw things then, it seemed like every day brought something new. We were part of a big country now and we had best get aboard or be left behind.” She began to spread margarine on the bread and pile jam on top.

Nora followed her lead. “And Matt?”

Peg swallowed a piece of bread and jam and licked the tips of her fingers. “Matt,” she said hesitantly, “he was a bit tormented over the whole idea of movin' but I thought he'd come around. Tell truth, I was kind of surprised he was of that mind, havin' moved about so much in his life. I wouldn't have thought it would bother him too much. But when I come to think on it afterwards I suppose it was understandable for him to be concerned. He was content where he was to, best he'd ever been. By then he'd been livin' on the island on and off for a good many years, and here by all accounts he was to be forced to pull up and leave. ‘There's nothin' decided yet,' I told him, ‘but if you want to be a part of what's goin' on you'd best come and hear what others have to say.' So the night of the vote I persuaded him to come down to the school.”

There was standing room only in the schoolhouse that night. The women had come early and sat in rows, jammed into the wooden desks, their heads swivelling back and forth, watchful and expectant. The men stood shoulders to the walls, unshaven, the look of a long hard day set in their faces. A few young people hung about by the doorway in a loose group, detached, awaiting a decision. Matt Molloy sat on the wood box, partly concealed by the belly of the stove. He had not been in this room since the day he'd had the confrontation with Gerry Quinlan twenty or more years before.

Now the tide had turned. Gerry was back for tonight's vote. He stood up front behind the teacher's desk, suitably attired in a dark suit, shirt and tie, a lawyer representing the Government, adviser and confidant of the merchant who now stood alongside of him as Justice of the Peace on the island. He stood out in the crowded room, confident, quick, vocal and hard driving, clearly in control. He was now the big shot from St. John's, loved by some, despised by others. “Joey's Boy,” was how some referred to him, those who had no time for Joey Smallwood, the upstart premier of the province. Joey, “the little fella from Gambo,” who had wooed the people into giving away their country just a few years before and now he was after them again, this time, to give up their homes.

His old teacher looked across the room and took in the measure of Gerry Quinlan, noting the feeling of urgent impatience that surrounded the man. He had a job to do tonight, and a boat to catch tomorrow. Gerry knew the game, knew what he wanted.

“Now, is there anyone else would like to speak to this motion before we cast our vote?” It was an officious sounding call from the justice. There was a swell of voices in the crowd, which faded to a murmur, sporadic coughing, bodies shifted. It was time.