Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [89]
“See, he’ll be all right now a while.”
“Aunt Peg.” Pat spoke in a low voice. “I’ve spoken to the doctor in Placentia. He explained to me how things will be later on. He’ll come to be like a baby again. He’ll need cleanin’ and feedin’ and he might even …Well, he might get out of hand.”
“I know all that, Pat, but right now I can manage. I have good friends here and if things get to be too much, I’ll say. But he’s not goin’ to that hospital and that’s the end of it.”
“I know what you’re like. You get an idea in your head and there’s no movin’ you. But I’ll be out every weekend so long as the weather’s there, to check on you. There’s things you’ll be needin’. I’ll look into that.” He threw an exasperated look in Matt Molloy’s direction and then headed outside to hang the sheets back up on the line.
“Pat was right. Things got to be a whole lot worse and it happened that quick I could hardly believe. ‘Who are you?’ he said to me one day. It hurt me terrible at the time. I remember thinkin’, I’m nobody! It was like all the good had suddenly gone out of me. I don’t know when I ever felt so lonely. Those days he’d slip in and out of my life, sometimes he’d be right here with me; more times he’d be back in Ireland or another place altogether. I couldn’t go with him no more. But it was hard, girl, hard to watch, hard to keep going.”
She looked down at her arthritic hands. “I wasn’t so bad as I am now, but times I’d be that exhausted I’d fall in bed at night and not be able to sleep. When he could still get about, I’d bar the door at night, so he couldn’t get out, but that wouldn’t stop him roamin’ around the house knockin’ things over. Sometimes I’d get up and guide him back to bed but other times, I’d just lie there and listen and hope that God would soon see fit to bring it all to an end.”
She looked at Nora, a long inquiring look. “By and by, he got the pneumonia and that took the good right out of him. He never got out of the bed after that.”
“He don’t look too good, Peg. His breathin’ is shockin’ bad. Maybe we should get the doctor to come from Placentia or maybe Father O’Reilly.” Mary Anne looked from Peg to the wizened man in the bed.
“No, Mary Anne, we’ll do none of that. He wouldn’t want it. I’ll give him a nice wash and a change of bed sheets and clothes and he’ll do better then.” Peg went to the kitchen and filled a basin with warm water and reached for the towel above the stove. She pressed it to her face. It was warm and full of the sweet smell of the outdoors. She smiled tiredly and tucked the towel under her arm.
“See that the clean sheets are put to warm,” she called over her shoulder, and we’ll need a few beach stones from the fire to warm the bed.” She disappeared into the front room and closed the door. He lay on his back, inert, a thin grey man in striped flannel pyjamas, his eyes closed as if sleeping. She paused a moment to look at his skeletal image and turned to place the basin on the side table.
“Who are you?” The voice, surprisingly strong, startled her. It was like some hidden demon had awoken inside of him, had mustered up the strength to be hurtful. His eyelids slipped back in a smooth mechanical movement and she was looking into two eyeballs that were pale and moist like a clam. Peg could just as easily have asked the same question. There was so little left of the man she knew: bones covered with folds of slack yellow skin, dull lank hair, a mind sucked dry like a bone cleaned of its marrow.
“Good morning, Matt. It’s me, Peg. How about a shave and a wash?”
His eyes rolled open but there was no reply.
She lathered the shaving brush like she had watched her father do so often. Early on, when Matt first took to his bed for good, she used to think about her father as she did this part of the job. He always hummed to himself as he shaved and usually burst into song when the job was done. It put her at ease and in a happy frame of mind to remember him. Now, sitting on the side of the bed, she thought only of Matt. She chatted to him as she scraped his hollow face and neck,