Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [6]
Nora sat huddled on a mossy mound, trying to capture the home that had once been there, but silence settled heavily on the clearing so that she barely heard the misty rain as it touched the leaves. One day, more than a half-century ago, her grandfather had walked away from this place, leaving behind his wife and little son. He had never returned. She had, at one time, on a memorial card, seen a picture of the woman he had deserted. It was a grainy kind of photo. Nora couldn’t even recall the face. However, she did remember clearly one day when she was maybe nine or ten years old. Her father had appeared in the kitchen dressed in his best suit of clothes, carrying a small briefcase.
“I’ll be back in a day or two.” It was just a statement of fact and invited no comment. With that, he walked out of the kitchen, quietly closing the door behind him.
She had clutched her mother’s hand tightly.
“What’s wrong, Mammy?”
“Your father’s mother died today. He’s gone to the funeral.”
“And are we not going?”
“No, child, we’re not. Daddy wants to be alone today.”
“But I could hold his hand, Mammy, and I promise I wouldn’t say a word.”
Her mother had drawn her close. “Maybe if you and I hold hands tightly, Daddy will feel that we are beside him.”
Nora fingered the soft green moss on the rock. Her mother, she thought sadly, always the conciliator, always trying to make things right. Late afternoon was drawing in, slowly deepening the shadows in the hollow. Nora decided to go back to the car and head for home.
That night in the small bedroom that she and Maureen had shared all their lives, Nora’s sleep was troubled and fretful. In her dreams she was in an empty room standing on a stepladder, scraping wallpaper. She held a large wet sponge which she passed slowly, ever so slowly, across the dry surface, watching the colours deepen and spread. Water ran down her arm, falling pat, pat, pat on the paper below. As she slipped the thin metal edge of the scraper beneath a puffy bulge, the paper came away in long damp swales and fell to the ground. Underneath, there was another layer of paper, and another. She remembered feeling tired and frustrated, wanting to give up, when suddenly, she sensed a presence hovering close beside her and a voice, soft but insistent, repeating over and over “good girl… good girl.” There was yet another layer of paper: faded water lilies on a pale background. Beneath the water lilies was the bare wall.
2
In the small community of Shoal Cove, Newfoundland, Peg Barry moved quietly about her kitchen. Mornings were always the same: first a cup of tea with two spoons of sugar – that was the only time she took sugar in her tea – and then later on a bowl of hot porridge with a teaspoon of molasses, no milk. Her breakfast was almost ready. She was late today, had stayed longer than usual sitting outside her front door enjoying her tea with sugar in the early morning sunshine. To her mind it was the best time of the day: before the sun became too hot and too many people were about. When her food was ready she sat down to the table, dropping heavily into her chair with a little groan, glad to be off her feet. Before she ever got out of bed these days she could tell the weather by the ache in her bones. But she wasn’t complaining, for otherwise she was in good health.
Peg’s place was a small boxy house set a little way back from the road. It had neither character nor style, one of those modern homes built cheaply without a whole lot of thought. At this stage in her life she cared little about the outside appearance. Inside it was warm and comfortable, easy to care for and it suited her needs just fine; besides, from her window out back she had the finest view of the bay in the whole of the community. She had moved there from Berry Island a few years back, in ’62, around the time that many of the island communities were being resettled. The government was encouraging people to move to the mainland where they said better services and more jobs were available. She had held on for several years