Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [39]
She walked back to the spot where they had been sitting; the grass lay crushed and flat to the ground. She dropped to her knees and reached out a hand to touch the place. It was still warm, and then she was raking the spot, coaxing the grass to stand up again to be whole and straight. She shuffled and fluffed at it, her hands working frantically, until it stood in crooked ragged spikes. Sitting back on her hunkers she looked at the mess. “Damn, damn,” she cried out, her fists pounding the earth. “Stunned, I am. Pure stunned,” she yelled. The tears rose painfully from deep within her chest, filling her head, stinging her eyes until finally she let go. They ran freely down over her hot cheeks and fell into the ragged grass at her knees. Why hadn’t she guessed? She should have seen the signs. In a rage she stumbled to where the two bags of berries lay propped against the rocks. She grabbed both bags and with all her might flung them one after the other as far as she could. The berries flew from the bags in a shower of shining red droplets and disappeared into the long grass.
“God in heaven,” she sobbed, “how innocent am I at all?”
“He wasn’t there when I got home.” She turned to look at Nora. “I waited up for the longest while and in the end I gave up and went to bed. He came back to the house sometime in the night but I never heard him. By morning he was gone, without a word.”
10
The house had settled into a quiet slumber but sleep would not come to Nora. The room was hot and stuffy and the pressures of the day had sapped her energy, leaving her restless and depleted. She wondered about Peg. Was she by some miracle feeling the opposite, unburdened and content, fast asleep in her bed?
Nora’s earlier attempt at opening the window had failed, but this time, driven by heat and frustration, she threw back the covers and hit the floor at a trot. The small slider window was set a little too high on the wall for easy access, so she had to struggle hard, pushing against the glass with her palms, finally managing to inch it open just enough to get her fingers around the edge and pull. The night air rushed in. She closed her eyes and pushed back the tangle of her hair, relieved to feel the cool breeze on her face and neck. She was about to climb back into bed when she remembered the night sky. She moved back to the window. It was a golden night, thick with stars, bright with moonlight. Suddenly she wanted to be outside, to stand again on the little rise at the back of the house where she had stood earlier in the day. She whipped the coloured blanket off the bed, threw it around her shoulders and quietly crept to the bedroom door and eased it open. The whiskey bottle, ominously lit by a streak of moonlight, stood on the kitchen table, solitary, like an actor at centre stage, his moment done. She tiptoed to the back door, her bare feet making no sound. The cat! She looked around, but remembered then that she had seen it follow Peg into her bedroom. The back door was unlocked. She opened it cautiously and stepped outside onto the cool grass. Except for the gentle heaving of the ocean below, the night was eerily quiet. It felt strangely romantic, standing there in the moonlight, a lone figure on the mound, her nightdress flapping around her bare legs. What if anyone should see her? She looked about but there was not a soul to be seen. On the far headland a single light pierced the darkness. In the community of Shoal Cove several houses were still awake. She pictured the people inside, clustered around the TV or drinking mugs of hot tea at the kitchen table, possibly discussing the young woman from away, who, that morning, had shown up on Peg Barry’s doorstep looking for some relative or other. The night, clear, sweet and uncluttered, brushed aside such thoughts.
She searched the sky, picking out the Plough and the North Star and the Great Bear, but that was the limit of her ability. If her grandfather were alive today, she mused, he might have walked her to the edge of the bluff and stood there beside her,