Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [62]
“So he ran out on everyone a second time. I didn’t know that. What happened? Can you recall or do you know?”
“Oh yes, I know. It was my fault but I was only a youngster, and as I said, it was all a bit foolish. You want to hear that, too?”
She nodded.
“It was Christmas time and us youngsters decided to put on a concert. We wrote the skits, did up the songs and decided on the stories. I put it all together, taking into account all he’d shown us about setting things up and creating atmosphere, making believe. We held it down to our place on Old Christmas Day. Being Christmas and all, my mother got right into the spirit of things and made a big boiler of soup with doughboys enough for the crowd. Everyone was there, all packed into the kitchen. For a while we thought he wasn’t going to show up, but just as we got under way he arrived and stood down back by the door beside my father, even though there was a seat specially set aside for him up front by Father O’Reilly. We had a fine time, everyone doing their bit. Young Joey Coady, I told you about, did the best kind of take-off of Father O’Reilly giving his sermon on Sunday. Up on top of a chair he was, decked out finest kind in an altar boy’s outfit, lookin’ like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, wagging his finger at the congregation and givin’ it to her good as Father O’Reilly any day. It was a grand bit of fun and the crowd loved it and I was glad for Joey.”
“And the priest?”
“Oh, he was the best kind.”
“And did you perform?”
“Yes, I took my turn.” He drew in a deep breath. “I was expected to play the accordion and maybe give a song. That’s probably what I should have done. But I was seventeen years old, getting ready to write grade eleven exams in the summer of that year and I had a plan. This was my chance to show him what I had learned. We had been studying Shakespeare’s Henry V together and had talked at length about the dignity and manliness that the king had shown in his great speech to his men before the battle of Agincourt, and how those qualities had inspired his army to rise above the boastful frivolity of the French and eventually win the day against all odds.”
She nodded and, smiling, quoted in a low voice, “And he which hath no stomach to this fight, / Let him depart.”
“You know it.” He beamed. “I loved that speech. It was burned into my imagination and I lived every word of it that evening. “This day is called the feast of Crispian: / He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, / Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, / And rouse him to the name of Crispian.”
He laughed as she added a new line. “This story shall the good man teach his son.”
They touched bottles with a soft clink, confirming their togetherness at that moment.
“We few,” he began and she joined in, “we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.”
Then, all of a sudden it hit her. Her heart began to thump. He need go no further. She knew, she just knew, with absolute certainty what was coming next: the curt dismissal, the bitter blow that in a matter of seconds would shatter a cherished dream, and then the aftermath, the misery of feeling silly and stupid and sorry, so bitterly sorry for having tried to reach for something that was out of the ordinary, something exciting, ridiculous. Her father, his own son, could do the same in an instant, without a second thought or a hint of remorse. She knew from experience, and the memory hurt her more than she could have believed.
“I was good, you know!” His laugh pierced the quietness in the room.
She felt a surge of relief that seemed to calm the frenzy in her chest.
“Next day