Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [29]
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,