Where Old Ghosts Meet (4 page)

Peg laughed. “My dear, that's how it is with children. Much the same the world over, always up to some mischief.” It was very quiet in the little kitchen.

“Matt liked to sit in that chair of a night when he read his books.” Peg raised a finger to scratch at the hairline just above her left eye. “Sometimes he'd read to me. He'd say, ‘Listen to this, Peg, listen to this.' He was a wonderful reader, your grandfather. The words would flow so beautiful. Sometimes I didn't understand right, what he was readin' to me, but it put me in mind of music. That was good enough for me most times.” For a while she sat, eyes downcast, lost in thought.

Nora took the chance to study the face of the woman she had come to see. Her skin, pale and dull, hung in limp folds along her jawline. Her mouth had all but disappeared. Across her forehead and about her eyes there were deep careworn lines. Time had not been kind to this face.

“I've never had that chair cleaned, you know. All the dust of the island is still there and the dirt too, I'll allow.” They both laughed softly. It was then Nora saw the bright mischievous twinkle that lit up a pair of lovely grey eyes and transformed the ravaged face to one full of life and humour.

Her eyes wandered from the woman to her surroundings. At a glance Nora could see that the room was a multi-purpose space. Across from where they sat, a small kitchen unit ran along one wall. By a large window on the back wall, there was an old wooden kitchen table surrounded by three old-fashioned chairs. There was clutter everywhere. Things were tucked into corners and piled on every available space. There were letters and brown business envelopes, newspapers piled on the floor, a bag of knitting on a wooden stand, several potted plants and, to her surprise, elegantly perched on the front window ledge, a fat marmalade-coloured cat. It blinked once, a long slow blink as if to acknowledge her presence, and then resumed its frank unperturbed stare.

“Do you have any pictures of my grandfather?” She dragged her eyes away from the cat.

Peg indicated the wall behind Nora, where a whole assortment of photographs all done up in frames hung between the two small front windows. Nora rose from her chair for a closer look. Some of the pictures were old and yellowed, some were new. There was a little girl in a long white communion dress, looking shy, a young man in a soldier's uniform, legs tightly bound from ankle to knee. A coloured portrait of a young woman in a nurse's uniform, holding a bunch of roses, stood out from the others. Then she saw him: a pallid serious face looking right at her. She waited for a rush of affection, a feeling of excitement, but there was nothing. She moved in closer for a better look. He was quite good looking, a strong jawline, a neat well-shaped blunt nose and, on top of all, a thick crop of dark curly hair brushed to one side and sticking up, looking remarkably like a whin bush that had been set in place forever by the prevailing wind. Her hand flew to her own hair. So, she had him to thank for her unruly mop.

“This has to be him,” she said, pointing to the picture. “He's the image of my father, except for the hair.”

Peg nodded.

“I was hoping he'd still be alive but I knew it was a long shot.” She hesitated. “I'm glad that you are here, Peg. May I call you Peg?”

“Yes, my dear, you can indeed. Most people calls me Aunt Peg, but call me whatever you please.”

Nora sat down.

Peg had stopped rocking and now leaned over to speak to Nora. “That letter you have that Matt wrote to your father…” She searched about, looking for the right words. “My dear, I have to tell you about that. It was me got him to write that letter. I didn't know for sure but I felt in my gut that it was the right thing to do. It was some hard for him, writing that. Said he didn't know what to say. A man that loved words so much didn't know what to say! I told him: Write what's in your heart, that's all you need do. You see, he knew a little bit about you all. There was someone lived in Boston who gave him a bit of news time to time. He knew there was grandchildren and he knew when she died, his wife, I mean, and where the family lived to. Just a few facts, far as I could make out, but that was all. Day in, day out, he watched for the mail, looking for a reply. Then, one day, there it was.”

“There's a letter, come from Ireland, looks like.” She was trying her best to stay calm but her heart was flapping like a sheet in a stiff breeze.

Matthew's shoulders tensed, his grip tightening on the newspaper in his hands, but otherwise he never moved.

Peg held out the thin greyish-white envelope edged with green and orange squares. “Here, Matt, take it. It's for you.” She pushed the letter towards him, nodding encouragement.

After a moment he folded the newspaper carefully and set it to one side. She put the letter in front of him. She watched, as, like a dog sizing up a new bone, he regarded the rectangular envelope. He touched the stamps, running his finger corner to corner around the serrated edge. “Eire.” He spoke the word on the stamp softly and a moment later picked up the letter and asked for a knife.

Peg hurried to the drawer and set a knife by his hand.

He turned the envelope over and then carefully slit it along the crease. The single sheet of thin transparent paper was folded neatly three ways from top to bottom. It crackled to the touch.

Peg moved away and busied herself at the fire, but a few minutes later when she glanced over her shoulder he was staring out the window. The single sheet of paper lay discarded on the tabletop.

“What does it say?” There was no need to ask who it was from.

He didn't answer right away but then, without even a glance at the paper, he spoke the contents in a dull monotone:

Dear Mr. Molloy,

I regret to inform you, that at this time, I cannot see
my way to issuing you an invitation to come to Ireland with
a view to meeting with me, my wife and my children. As you have not seen fit to contact me over the past forty-six
years and consequently know little about us, I think that this
move would be inappropriate and an exercise in futility.

Yours sincerely,
Eamon Molloy

“I don't want to say anything out of turn about your father, but that letter, well, the letter sounded just like something from a government official. I tried to console him, saying that one day maybe things would change. Now, can you believe it? After all these years, you've come. I was right. Now, I think we should have a cup of tea, girl, or maybe a bite to eat. It's getting on for lunch time.”

3

Peg
held the loaf of bread close to her chest, drawing the serrated blade back and forth with a well-practiced hand. Crumbs tumbled to the floor and onto the table but she took no notice. Balancing the thick slice of bread between the knife blade and her thumb, she passed the bread to Nora and then proceeded to cut a second slice for herself.

“I'll get the soup.” Nora went to fetch the two steaming bowls.

“It's just a bit of pea soup I made yesterday.” Peg brushed the crumbs off the table and sat down.

“It looks delicious. You still cook for yourself every day?”

“Yes, girl. I like everything fresh. Might as well boil up them newspapers,” she nodded at the pile stacked at the end of the table, “as eat that old garbage you get to the store. Besides, I like to do a bit of cookin'. Gives me something to do.”

The sun had edged its way around the corner of the house and fell diagonally across the table. Feeling the warmth on her shoulder and forearm, Nora looked up. “What a grand view you have from here.”

“On a day like today everything looks grand, girl. But there's days I can't see beyond the rise out there, the fog is that thick. It's the same with the snow and sleet: everything blotted out, just like you've pulled down a blind. Can't see a blessed thing then. But it can shift about just like that and then the cliffs and the rocks come out of nowhere, right at you. It's all fine and grand so long as you're in here lookin' out, but if you're out there lookin' for a way in, it's not so grand then.”

“Does the water freeze over in winter?”

“No, girl, not really. But time to time we get a skim of ice close to shore, and in the spring of the year the slob ice sometimes comes in the bay. The youngsters go pan hoppin' then. You know, jumpin' from one pan of ice to the other, playin' about. When we were to the island we seemed to get it worse. Winter months I remember lying in the bed, a gale blowin' outside. Nights like that you'd think the house would just take off with the lot of us still in our beds and be gone out to sea. Next mornin' when we'd wake, the spray off the water would be froze solid on the windows to the front of the house.” She finished up her soup, wiping around the edges of her bowl with the last crust of bread.

“Matt never liked to be on the water,” she said suddenly. “Made him sick to his stomach, but now he loved the sound and the smell of the sea.” She dabbed at the corners of her mouth. “Of an evenin' he'd walk up over the hills and down in the coves. He paid no heed to the weather. He'd just sit for hours and watch the waves, and the tide and the kelp floatin' about on the rocks. Put him in mind of Ireland, he told me one time.” She began to tease at the woolly fringe of her placemat, picking apart the matted strands with her thumbnail.

Nora watched and listened.

“June 10, 1920,” Peg continued, feeling grateful for the silence and the lack of small talk. She turned to look out across the water to the horizon. “It was a beautiful day, the day he arrived on the island, not so hot as today, but sunny and bright.” She smoothed the unruly fringe with her fingertips and pressed it flat to the table. “I was in the garden to the side of the house getting the ground ready to set out the cabbages. Tell truth I saw his shadow before I saw him. It was a long dark shadow with a hat and it fell right across where I was to. When I come about, the sun was in my eyes so I had a hard time to see who was there. ‘That's heavy soil you have there, it needs to be worked.' Them's the first words he spoke to me. It seemed like he'd been close by, watchin' for a while and I didn't know. I was stunned for a minute but by and by I got a good look at him. First thing I noticed was the white shirt; all proper he was done up in a suit and a soft kind of hat. He looked for all the world like a priest except that the clothes were not real black, just dark. The only thing out of place was the suitcase in his hand.”

Her eyes twinkled as she turned to Nora. “‘Well,' I said to myself, ‘God be praised, it's not every day a fine looking man in a nice shirt and suit shows up to my door.' He was too, a fine looking man,” she added quickly. “Not a big man, but sort of regular size with a nice serious face. He was no youngster either; thirty-four years old he was then. ‘Am I speaking with Mrs. Barry?' he says. ‘Yes,' I said to him, ‘I'm Peg Barry.'

“With that he set the suitcase on the ground by his feet, took off his hat and began to tell me he'd met Johnny, my husband, in London a few years earlier. Johnny was on leave and was headed back to the front the next day. Matt made him a promise he'd come and see me. Well, my dear, if he'd taken the spade from my hand and knocked me to the ground I wouldn't have been more shocked.” She turned to explain, “Johnny, my husband, twenty-four years old he was when he marched off to war one day and never came back. Missing in action is what they wrote me. Gone, like last year's snow, disappeared into the ground in France. I never laid eyes on him no more.” Her voice trailed off like a wisp of smoke.

She found a small smooth dent in the table and began to rub gently with her forefinger. “I made supper for Matt that evening while he sat and talked to my father. Those days my father was poorly. He'd had a stroke the winter before and couldn't get about no more. His mind was the finest kind but he had a hard time talking. You had to listen close to know what he'd be trying to say. When the neighbours used to come and visit him, they'd talk like he wasn't there, like he was gone with the fairies or couldn't hear no more. Instead they'd go on to me with their old men's talk and foolish jabbering. To begin with, I tried to include my father in the talk and be interested in what they had to say but in the end I'd just say yes and no and wish them gone. But now Matt, he sat and talked to him and listened to what he had to say. He told him about London in war time and about Ireland and the troubles there. He took time with him, answered his questions, what he could understand of them, and never seemed to get crooked. At the time I thought how nice it was to hear again the sound of a man's voice about the place: a young man's voice. My father asked him to bide awhile with us and I was right delighted.”

She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Later that night when my father got tired of all the talk, I saw him to bed in the front room: that was where he slept those days. It was easier for me. When I come back to the fire and sat down, it was a bit awkward between us, but after a bit I got around to speaking.”

“About Johnny, a message written on a piece of paper…well, it doesn't put a man to rest, you know.”

Matthew Molloy leaned forward in his chair, his elbows coming to rest on his knees, his hands clasped together. “I'm sorry,” he said softly.

She leaned forward, alert, anxious not to miss a word. The back of his head was close to her face. There was a faint oily smell off his scalp. The hair was thick and coarse, cut close in at the back and sides. Her eyes followed the curve of his head up to the crown where tight curls twisted and turned into a thick clump. About his ears, tiny flecks of grey showed through. In that moment, she had an urge to reach out and touch those curls, to reassure herself that it was someone real who sat in the chair beside her, but even as the thought crossed her mind, his head came up, as if he had sensed what she was about to do.