Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [8]
Suddenly everything had changed for Peg Barry. Her day had hardly begun in earnest and already it was upside down. Matt’s grandchild was here in her kitchen, standing not four feet away, tall and lanky, with bare legs and a head of dark curls on her just like his. Her mind was addled. For years she had hoped and prayed for this day, she and Matt both, and now inside of her, something was twisting about like a rope on a winch. She was speechless.
“You are Peg Barry who used to live on Berry Island?” Huge dark eyes, heavily outlined in black, focused on Peg.
Not his eyes. Peg had recovered some of her composure and was taking a long hard look at the stranger. The light from the window was full on her face. She had a good mouth, full and generous. You could tell a lot about a person by their mouth, she always thought. Peg took her time before speaking. “Yes, I’m Peg Barry. You’ve got the right one.”
“The man at the store told me that you knew my grandfather. He said you were the one to talk to.”
“You spoke to John Joe at the store?” There was an edge to her voice. Like a watchful bird ready for flight her eyes darted back and forth. “Might as well have put it on The Doyle Bulletin.” She offered no explanation but it was clear to Nora that she had done the wrong thing.
“I had no real address, just Berry Island and Shoal Cove. I had to ask.” The colour had begun to rise in Nora’s cheeks. She toyed with the idea of turning around and simply walking out the door as the child had done and forgetting the whole business. What did it matter after all these years?
The old woman shifted her weight again, her hand clutching hard at the edge of the table. She winced, her forehead gathering up like a concertina, her eyebrows coming sharply together, but still she never took her eyes off Nora.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have barged in on you like this. I’ll leave now.” Nora made a move towards the door.
“How did you know about Berry Island?”
“A letter he wrote, years ago. My father kept it safe amongst his things.”
“Did he now?” Peg’s mouth clamped shut, the corners dropping to form small fleshy pockets close to her jawline. With a slight toss of her head she turned away. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d care about the like of that.”
Nora’s eyebrows shot up. “I think he cared,” she said, leaping to her father’s defence. And then more hesitant. “He must have. He kept it, didn’t he?”
Peg turned back, a sharp retort ready on the tip of her tongue, but in that brief moment before she spoke, she saw Matt in the young woman, something in the turn of her head, the uncertainty in her eyes. The words died on her lips. Without warning, the fear and apprehension that had gripped her like a tight corset began to fall away. She sighed deeply, a sigh of acceptance. “I wish with all my heart that Matt was here today to see his grandchild.” Her words were only for herself and barely audible.
An uneasy silence settled on the room, like the empty feeling that hangs about after a lie has been told and then exposed.
“Come, my dear,” she said finally. “If I seems a bit strange, don’t pay no attention. It’s just the shock is all.”
She left the table and came towards Nora, rocking slightly from side to side on her painful knees. She clutched Nora’s forearm for support but in the pressure of her fingertips there was also reassurance. Smiling now, she led Nora to the other side of the room where a big over-stuffed armchair and a wooden rocker stood on either side of a small television set.
“I calls this my throne,” she said, relieving some of the tension as she lowered herself into the rocker. It’s nice and high, easy to get into and easy to get out of. You can sit there.” She indicated the armchair. “That’s Matt’s chair; he loved that chair, he did. When I moved here from the island, I brought it with me all the way; up front she was, in the bow of the skiff. I couldn’t part with it. It’s very old, used to be my father’s chair.”
The tip of her shoe touched the floor and her own chair rocked back and forth, making