Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [68]
“I was only fifty-five years old the first time the TB boat came to the island. Those days it used to come in the bays and coves all around the coast, to test the people.” She turned to stare out of the window. “It was a grand sight first time she come around the headland, the bull horn blastin’ away, the coloured banners snappin’ in the breeze. Once she was tied up to the wharf the music started up and ‘Mocking Bird Hill’ came singin’ out over the microphone. It was like a garden party. I remember everyone runnin’ down to the water to see what all the excitement was about. We were all invited on board to be tested. Nothin’ to it, we were told, just a little scratch on your arm and that was it. ‘The scratches,’ we used call it after that. All true, but here ten days later, I gets a slip saying the test on me was positive and that the boat would be by again in two weeks to do a chest x-ray.
“I wasn’t so happy next time the boat came about. Turned out the rotten part was lodged there in my right lung this while and I was to go to the hospital in St. John’s for treatment. I told the doctor I felt just fine but he said that was the way sometimes. If I didn’t get treated, in a few months’ time, I’d be in hard shape. Worse still, I could pass it on to Sheila and others. Well that was it.” She pushed back a wisp of hair from her forehead. “One day I was best kind, next I was sick and lookin’ at going to the hospital for a spell. What was I to do? Up until then, I don’t believe Matt had ever interfered in my life, but what he had in mind for me and Sheila that time got me right upset.”
Furious with what Sheila had told her, Peg came barrelling down over the stairs calling out Matt’s name. Sheila passed her in the hallway in tears as she ran out the door. She found him at the table reading the newspaper.
“I hear you’ve been tellin’ Sheila what she must do and what she mustn’t do.”
“Yes, that’s right. I pointed out to her that she’ll need to be around to take care of you when you get back from the hospital. It’s her duty. She can’t be going off and leaving you now. You don’t know what that disease can do to you. You–”
“I don’t know, don’t I? I suppose you think I just rolled up on the beach with the last lot of caplin. Well, I’ll have you know something, Matt Molloy. I’ve been livin’ about these parts all my life and I’ve seen life come and go, watched strong men hackin’ and coughin’ their way to the grave, seen little children come to nothin’ but skin and bones, their faces blue from tryin’ to catch a mouthful of air, and you tell me I don’t know. Oh yes, I knows all right. I knows lots of things, Matt Molloy, things you’ll never know nothin’ about. And there’s something else I knows for certain. Sheila will have her chance to do as she pleases with her life and there’s nothin’ or nobody’s goin’ gettin’ in her way. You may think that child owes me somethin’ for raisin’ her up, but that’s not how I sees it. What I did back then was out of love for her mother, my own sister, and now it’s for love of Sheila herself, but then again I don’t expect you to understand the like of that. So don’t you go tellin’ me what I must do? I knows what to do.”
He had begun to move away from her fury, folding the newspaper and carefully placing it under his arm. “You’ll learn,” he said from the doorway before climbing the stairs