Where Old Ghosts Meet (9 page)

She waited to see if Nora would respond, realized it was not coming but decided to continue anyway.

“Your grandfather was one of them. That place got right in his head, it did, and he couldn't get clear of it. Finally one night, the torment just flowed out of him like a lanced boil.”

Matthew shifted uncomfortably in his chair, not able to find the words to say what was in his mind. Finally he spoke, his voice barely audible. “It was a sad, empty place, Peg, like a prison in some ways.” He leaned forward in his chair, staring into the heart of the fire, the memories coming in bits and pieces. “Long corridors lined with doors that led to bare cells. There was a wall with massive iron gates all around the grounds but the strange thing was that the wall was low enough to be climbed and the gates and doors to the outside never locked, not even at night. Even so the word was, ‘It's very easy to get in but very difficult to get out.' The penalty for leaving was shame, abject shame, not only for the man who left, but even worse, shame for his family. It was like a trap, a mind trap that bound us to the place with invisible ties. Nobody wanted to be labelled ‘Spoiled Priest.'”

The fire collapsed in a spray of bright sparks. He reached for a log and poked it into the firebox and watched until it caught fire and flamed.

“Frank Roche was from a place called Ballina in County Mayo. He was a grand man. Every night around eleven o'clock or so, when he thought we were all asleep, I'd hear Frank's door across the hall open and close quietly, and he'd disappear down the corridor into the dark with his blanket rolled tightly under his arm. One night, I followed him. He went over the wall with his bundle and disappeared into the night. He's a priest now in Boston. I met him a couple of times, but to this day I don't know where he went every night, or if he knew that I knew.”

Peg paused at her knitting. She observed the change that had come over his face: his teeth biting down hard on a tense, rigid jawline, eyes bulging against the rim of their sockets. She wanted so badly to lay down her knitting, to reach out and take his hand into the warmth of her own.

“Tom Murphy was another fellow,” he continued, as if to himself. “He was from Mallow in County Cork. He had the room next to me. Every night was the same. After lights out, I'd listen to him turn and twist in the iron bed and every night he'd cry himself to sleep… like a child. One night I went to him, creeping along the corridor like a thief, speaking his name softly as I entered the room. I sat on the side of his bed in the freezing cold, staring at the putty walls, drenched with condensation. Someone had written with a finger on the wet surface in large uneven capitals A M E N. Heavy drops of water ran down from each crooked letter, making a shiny path all the way to the floor. I shook him then. ‘Tom,' I said, ‘you have to go. For God's sake, go now, before it's too late!' I was whispering in his ear, shaking his shoulder gently. Under the grey blanket the tight ball uncurled slightly and a dark terrified eye appeared above the rim. ‘I can't,' he said, the words hanging in a fog of breath. ‘I could never go home.' He curled up again into a tight bundle.”

The fire shifted and spat a chip of burning wood onto the floor at his feet. He crushed it with the toe of his boot. “Six o'clock every morning, in single file, carrying a jug, we'd walk to the well at the end of the garden to collect water for washing. One frosty morning a few days later, we found Tom, in the well, face down.”

He began to rub one palm against the other, back and forth, back and forth. “The church forbids Christian burial to those who take their own life. The official word was that Tom had accidentally fallen down the well and drowned.” He became very still. “I was tormented by Tom's memory. I cried for him. I cried because I hadn't done enough to help him and I cried over the whole rotten mess.”

Peg set aside her knitting, aware suddenly that the kitchen was unusually quiet. Anxious, she looked towards the window. The wind had dropped, and the snow, just a flurry earlier on, was coming down in thick, heavy flakes and had packed in along the narrow window ledges and against the door frame, cutting out the drafts and quieting the rattle of loose boards and hinges. She turned back to where Matt still sat, transfixed. Tentatively she reached out and touched his arm, but he remained perfectly still, the muscles rigid under her fingers. “Matt,” she began, hoping to say the right thing. “Maybe–”

“Others began to notice the change in me,” he said, ignoring her and at the same time picking up where he'd left off. “Secretly they'd whisper, ‘You're not thinking of waxing now, are you,Molloy?' ‘No, no,' I'd say. ‘If I leave this place, I'll first tell them what I think of them and then I'll walk out the door, in broad daylight, my own man.'” He crossed his legs, locking his fingers tightly about his knee. “‘That's the spirit,' they'd say, ‘no slippin' away in the middle of the night. Face up to it.'Those nights, there were times I never undressed for bed.”

He turned to face her, as if suddenly realizing she was there. “I'd take off my shoes and get in under the blanket still fully clothed in the black cassock and try to pass the time until daylight. In some strange way, I missed the sounds of Tom crying from the next room. The silence seemed to haunt me more than the sobbing.” He paused, took a deep breath and turned again to stare into the flames. “One night I woke with a start. I could make out the outline of the small wardrobe in the corner, the wooden table by the window. I thought for sure someone had called my name. I got out of bed, groped about in the dark and finally moved towards the window. He was there, Tom, right outside the window, dripping wet, his face so white. ‘Go, go now,' he was saying, ‘before it's too late.' I wanted to tell him I was sorry… but he was gone. I flung open the window. All that was there was the night. I remember thinking, I'm going mad, but then the realization came to me. Tom had come back to warn me with my own words. Right there and then, I made the decision to go. I undid the buttons of my cassock and let it fall to the ground. One step and I was out. I picked up the garment, did up the buttons and laid it out on the bed with the arms neatly crossed in front. I went to the wardrobe, removed the plain black suit, my only temporal clothing, and when I was ready I sat down to wait for morning.”

Peg waited, expectant. Finally she said, “You did speak up, Matt, in the morning, before you left?”

“No, I was gone before daybreak.”

8

It
was after nine o'clock when they finally rose from the table. “You'll stay the night, Nora, no point heading out now.” Peg looked at Nora earnestly. “There's other people you should talk to who knew Matt, and besides, there's the garden party tomorrow. Gerry Quinlan may well be there. Now there's one to talk to, and God knows who else will be about. You may as well bide awhile, girl, now you're here. You're in no great hurry, are you?”

“No, not really.”

“Then you may as well stay.” Peg leaned into the table. “We'll see this one out, once and for all, you and me.”

Nora nodded. “I'll get my bag from the car before it gets too dark.”

Outside, the community was silent, the evening air still and breathless. When she listened carefully, Nora could hear the ocean tumble onto the beach and the faint rumble of pebbles being sucked away by the ebbing tide. Above her, the sky still reflected the softness of evening. To the southwest a single star, brazen and solitary, winked in the gathering dusk; thousands more peeped out intermittently, awaiting the cover of darkness. She thought about Leitrim and the blackness of the countryside at nighttime, how the sky, frequently laden with heavy rain clouds, would hang overhead like a sodden blanket hiding the brilliance of the stars. She turned away and reached into the car for her bag, making a mental note to have a look at the sky later on when the night was black. With a final glance upwards she headed back into the house.

Peg was not in the kitchen when she returned. She looked about, recalling her arrival that morning as she set her bag down on the floor by her feet. The house was now familiar, the people in the framed photographs no longer strangers. She went to the wall, peering closely at the image of Matt Molloy, trying to find something, anything, to latch onto. He was good-looking, for sure, but his eyes still looked lifeless. Was this how eyes looked in photos? She turned to the other pictures and found a sweet smile, a shy timid look, a strong challenge, a devilish twinkle from the man in uniform. She looked back at Matt Molloy and noticed again the ghost of a smile that barely touched the corners of his mouth. The face somehow seemed more engaging. “Hey, that's better, a smile for your granddaughter.” It was hard to look at that cheerless face and still feel angry. The toilet flushed and she moved away from the wall, feeling a tad foolish.

Peg came in from the hallway. “We'll have a little drink now,” she said. “I have one nights, before I go to bed. A small drop of whiskey helps me sleep. Will you have one?”

“That would be perfect.”

Peg reached into the cupboard below the sink and produced a half-full bottle of whiskey. “Bring a couple of glasses,” she called as she made her way to the table.

This woman was full of surprises. Nora, smiling to herself, reached for the glasses. “Big ones or small ones?”

“Well, not too small, girl, but we have to be respectable, in case we have callers. There's some can smell a drop of liquor a mile away and they'd be here in a minute if they thought there was a drink to be had and maybe a bit of gossip to go along with it.”

She made herself comfortable at the table and poured two good measures of whiskey. They each added water and took a sip.

“Matt never took a drink, all the time I knew him,” she said, wiping a finger carefully along her lower lip as if anxious not to lose a drop. “Years ago, there was no liquor about except maybe Christmas time or the like. The men might have a bit of home brew then or maybe some partridgeberry wine. But even that he never touched. He told me that at one time it was a problem for him, but he always said that the finest drink was good whiskey and a little water. So when it come time I could afford to have a drink and could buy it to the store, I chose whiskey, like he said.”

“And you like it?”

“Indeed I do.” She lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed. “When I'm alone it takes me out of myself, lifts my mind. It's company.”

“I suppose it's lonely, being on your own?”

“Only nighttimes, and mostly in the winter. I know everyone in the community but they have their own families and they're busy with their children and all that. People don't drop by no more, like they used to in the old days.” She looked fondly at the child's bouquet on the table. “Times I don't see them too much. But that's the way. I try to keep busy and mostly I manage.”

“So he had a problem with drink at one time?”

“Like I said, never while I knew him, but it seems that after he left the priests, he took to the drink pretty heavy. It's funny the way things happen.”

She sipped her drink, taking her time, picking at a little spot on the glass with her fingernail. “Walking out the gates of the seminary in the middle of the night was one thing, but what to do then was another. He had no money, nothin' much but the clothes on his back and, as he said, all he could do was head for home. He had the idea that he'd bring his mother around to lettin' him put in again for the King's Scholarship he'd won before he went away. He thought maybe they'd consider him again. That way he could get to the college and become a teacher. Well, I suppose it was an all right plan. Anyways he struck out for home, got a ride in the back of a train part of the way and then began to walk.”

It was close to midday when he stepped off the train and into the sunshine. He set a good pace as he struck out along the road for home.

“Can I give ye a lift?” The call came from behind.

Matt Molloy stopped in his tracks. A long low wagon stacked with barrels of stout and drawn by a fine team of dray horses, their brasses gleaming bright in the sunlight, pulled up beside him. He read the gold-edged lettering on the side of the wagon: J. Arthur Guinness. A bead of sweat ran from under the brim of his black felt hat and settled on the end of his chin. He wiped it away hurriedly. Another followed. “Thank you,” he said, and without a second thought, he threw his almost empty suitcase onto the wagon and pulled himself up onto the seat beside the driver. The team of drays shifted restlessly.

“Whoa there!” The command was low and guttural. Huge fists, the fingers bristling with coarse black hairs, tightened on the leather reins. “Are ye right so?”

“Yes, yes, I am. Thanks.”

There was a sharp snap as the reins hit the horses' rumps and the team pulled away. “Come from Dublin?”

“Yes.”

“And where would you be off to?”

“Cullen,” Matt said, looking away.

“I can take you as far as Strokestown and drop you by Rulky Bridge. It's just a walk from there.”

“Thanks.”

The horse brasses jingled, the clip-clop of iron-clad hooves punctuated the silence of the countryside. Horse and driver had found a steady rhythm. Beneath the black cloth of his jacket, Matt Molloy's shoulders relaxed slightly.

The driver gave him a sideways glance. “If you'll take my advice, you'll ditch that black rig-out. Here, give us that oul' hat too. You'll not be needin' that where you're goin'. Ye're out, right? Jumped ship. The hat gives the game away.” He held out his hand.

Slowly Matt removed his black felt hat and handed it to his companion. Their eyes met for an instant, and then with a quick flick, the hat went sailing over the hedge and disappeared. The reins snapped. “Now while you're at it, why don't ye ditch that oul' jacket too?”