Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [80]
Peg looked at Nora and then at the paper in her hand, her eyes wide and incredulous. Here it was, in his neat handwriting, his effort to make amends. She took her time to read, savouring every word. How typical it was of him, short and to the point: his way of protecting himself. You had to know that, to understand.
“I don’t think Sadie ever received that letter. Somehow her brother Mickey Dolan intercepted that letter and kept it from her. Look at this.” Nora handed Peg the envelope.
The familiar handwriting looked back at her. She touched the letters. Mrs. Sadie Molloy, Ballyslish, Cullen, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her hand flew to her chest, pressing bony fingers against the cloth of her dress in an effort to control the pounding inside.
“Read the back,” Nora urged Peg turned over the envelope. Different handwriting. Nora heard the breathy mumble as she read. “This letter was found amongst the effects of Mickey Dolan. It was unopened at the time.” Peg looked from the envelope to Nora.
“Who wrote that?”
“My father.”
“Your father! You’re sure about that, Nora?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure. I don’t know how he got hold of it but it was with his papers when he died, that and the other one from Matt, both together.”
“The brother never even opened it then. Is that what you’re saying? Never even bothered to see what he was keeping from her? Why would anyone do the like of that?”
“Maybe he wanted to hold on to her as his housekeeper. Remember, they were living with him then. I know he never married, never got the woman he was after. An old man in Cullen told me he was a bachelor.”
“My God, you’d have to be some evil to do the like of that.” Peg studied the envelope again. “Evil.” She read the letter once more then slipped the single page back into the envelope. They fitted together perfectly. She looked at it once more and then passed it to Nora. “I knew it was the truth,” she said. “Knew it right in my gut but I’m glad to see it wrote down.”
“Well, my father knew, but obviously it didn’t carry much weight with him. He still decided to shut him out. My mother told me that fear was the reason. She whispered that to me one day shortly before she died, when I tentatively approached the subject of our missing grandfather. ‘Your father was afraid he might turn out to be a drunken old blackguard, like the tinkers. He knew he had a problem with the drink,’ she whispered just before she drifted off to sleep. The subject was never mentioned again.”
There was no reaction from Peg. She had withdrawn into her own world.
“Maybe he was right,” Nora mused to herself. She knew about the tinkers. She had seen them many times and they frightened her. On the Fair Day in the town, they parked their caravans under the street light at the end of the road. It was a noisy busy encampment during the day, with cooking and washing, repairing pots and pans, ragged children chasing each other around the area, but when the pubs closed at night, the fighting and brawling could be heard all over the town. One night, she had watched from her bedroom window as a man took a horse whip to a woman as she cowered on the ground, screaming. The children, huddled together, watched from the half-door of the caravan.
Nora shuddered. “Maybe he was right,” she said to herself.
21
“Joinin’ up with Canada in ’49 was amixed blessing. Everything was changin’, and changin’ very fast. It was hard to keep up sometimes with all the changes. There was talk about movin’ people off the islands. Services like schools and health care to all those isolated spots was costin’ the government too much money. They couldn’t pay for it no more, so we were told. The plan was to move us to what they called ‘growth centres,’ where there were jobs for all and a decent livin’ to be made. We could ‘burn our boats,’ so they said. Imagine! Well the rackets! Some couldn’t wait to be gone. Others, well, there was no way they were being told