Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [42]
“You said he had a student with him?”
“Yes. He taught school on the island for a spell. It was after he come back home one time. The young teacher to the school up and left suddenly, to get married: I believe there was a love child on the way. Anyway, the parish priest, Father O’Reilly, was to the door the next day lookin’ for Matt to take on the job. Matt wanted none of it but there was no sayin’ no to Father O’Reilly. He would have him.”
“So when was that?”
“October 1928,” she said without hesitation. “He’d been back a year or so by then.”
“So, he’d been gone for a long time, seven or eight years?” She looked for confirmation but there was none. “Did he just show up after all that time, just like that, right out of the blue?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice. “In all that time, did he write, send a postcard, anything?” She threw a worried glance in Peg’s direction but Peg quickly turned away. A wire hairpin dangled from the knot of hair at the top of her head. It danced about as she moved but hung on tenaciously.
“No. There were no letters.”
Nora had to resist an urge to reach out, take the hairpin and tuck it back into place.
“I was some pleased to see him when he come back.”
Nora turned again to take a quick look at Peg.
“Havin’ him around again was like seeing the ice break up in the spring of the year; winter was gone and the good weather was on the way.” Her mouth worked slightly in an effort to find the right words. “My father had been dead several years by then and I was alone. I had my chances, mind, while he was gone, just like father said I would, but there was none could match him, not to my mind anyways, even with all his faults. He had been in New York all that time. Things were booming there, plenty of work to be had and good money to be made, so he said. The old crowd from Dublin had shown up also, doin’ a tour with their plays and he met up with them all again. The two sisters he thought so much of, they were there as well. He talked a lot about them. They were makin’ piles of money on the stage in New York and had all the finery to go with it: silks, velvets, furs. I was a bit jealous, tell truth, but just the same time I wanted to hear all about them.” She laughed at her own foolishness and suddenly startled, pointed her finger to a turn off in the road. “My dear, I’ve been talkin’ too much. Here’s where we turn off.”
A narrow dirt road pointed straight to the horizon. “You’re sure we can drive in?”
“Yes, girl, this is the way the locals come now.”
The narrow path stretched away in a straight line as far as the eye could see. Edging the car carefully along, Nora sat forward, straining to avoid the potholes, praying not to get a flat tire, and trying not to think of what might happen should they become stuck. She brushed aside a fleeting image of herself and Peg huddled under a bush for warmth.
“Can you change a flat tire, Peg?”
“No, girl, but I’ve been in tighter spots than this and managed.” She chuckled, knowing exactly what was in Nora’s mind as she picked her way along the bumpy road. After what seemed like an endless run, the sea appeared, a flat dark blue streak above the craggy cliffs. She parked on a grassy spot and rolled down the window all the way. The scream of the birds rushed in on a stiff breeze.
“What a racket! There must be thousands of them!” Nora had to raise her voice to be heard.
“That’s nothing. Bird Rock is across the barrens a little ways, towards the cliff. That’s where you want to be.” She pointed off to the left.
“You’re not coming?”
“No, my dear, I’d forgotten how wild it is here. I’ll just sit in the car. Off you go and take your time. I’ll be happy here just listening to the birds.”
“You’ll be all right on your own?”
“Yes, off you go and take your time.”
Nora hurried across the wild exposed terrain, battling with every step the fierce wind off the Atlantic. She stopped to catch her breath. To the right