The Walking People

by Mary Beth Keane

  "Our father died," Johanna said sometime after he'd finished and turned a new side to the fire. Thunder clapped, rolled away. Greta could tell she'd been waiting to say it, had started to say it once or twice already but held back until she was sure Michael's story was over. It was a simple statement of fact, the most direct way of bringing their guest up to date. "And two of our brothers have gone to Australia." Her concise summary of the events since Michael was last in Ballyroan took a moment to sink in. Greta knew that in laying it out so bluntly, Johanna was also saying that sad things had happened to them as well. He wasn't the only one. And she'd covered for him, a circumstance that was now making Johanna feel deeply annoyed. Without being one hundred percent sure who the culprit was, without knowing if he'd be back, why he'd done it, if he'd do worse, she'd covered for him, taken the blame, and now here he was proving her a liar. Greta too, because as she always did, Greta had tagged along, nodding her support of Johanna's fib in her wide-eyed goosey way.

  "Greta was home that day, at the time you said, and didn't hear a thing. Weren't you, Greta?" Johanna asked.

  "Johanna!" Greta said.

  "Johanna!" Michael repeated, tapping his forehead with his index finger.

  "Well?" said Johanna. "Greta would know if you knocked and called or if you just waltzed in and helped yourself. Greta?"

  So Greta hadn't been the one swimming after all. Michael turned to look at her as he felt his explanation fall from his lips to the flames of the fire. Dermot always said that no country person will ever side against another country person in support of a traveller, and Michael wondered if the rule applied to country people like Greta, who surely hadn't seen much or had much to do with travellers and who had a kind way about her. Johanna looked like a different girl from the one he remembered from his last time in Ballyroan, but this younger one, Greta, looked almost the same. She was much taller and looked a bit neater—as if she'd finally grown into the clothes she'd been wearing for years—but in the face she was the same. She looked hard at him before stretching a finger under her glasses to rub her eye, and Michael knew she would tell them the truth.

  "Well, girl? Did you hear him calling?" Lily asked.

  "I did," said Greta. "He knocked and shouted hallo and knocked some more, just like he said."

  "Why in the world didn't you answer?" Lily asked. Johanna asked the same question in the way she uncrossed her legs, shifted, then crossed them again. This was not the story Greta told that afternoon when it was just the two of them in the cottage, part scared and part thrilled at the notion of a Peeping Tom, a full twenty-four hours before they'd notice the flowers on Julia Ward's grave and put the pieces together. Since the funeral, each girl had tucked away her suspicions, knowing the mystery would still be there long after Shannon disappeared. Even after Shannon's departure, after their false confession, after spotting the flowers on Julia's grave, the girls had not discussed the possibility of Michael Ward. Johanna's reason was simple: she didn't want to end up being wrong. And here was Greta saying she'd known for certain all along, had heard him calling, had seen him through the window and recognized him, and had kept the nugget of certainty all to herself.

  "I was on my own," Greta said. "And it was a strange voice, a man's voice, and..." She trailed off, hoping she'd said enough.

  "You're a goose, Greta Cahill," Lily said, but her tone said she approved. Her youngest daughter had some sense after all.

  Grateful, Michael Ward turned back to the fire.

  The boy made them an offer, and since he was alone, without money, without his entire extended family waiting in the wings to pounce on any sign of generosity, Lily decided, What harm? The western walls of four different fields had crumbled into heaps during the storm and had to be rebuilt. The leaks in the roof of the hay shed would only get worse. A number of trees that dotted the landscape had lost branches, and some had come down completely. Plus all the regular work. The calving season would begin soon, and Little Tom had to go to the fair to sell one of the heifers. Michael could sleep in the hay shed, in one of the dry sections. With blankets, he'd be as snug as could be. It had been quite a while since Lily made a family decision, since she'd stepped into the pantomime instead of just watching from the audience, and the rest of the family felt comforted when she told the boy where he would sleep and what time they ate their meals. It was as if they'd been seated in the wrong chairs for six years and had finally stood up and switched.

  To the girls she made one warning, and she waited until both Michael and Tom had left the room: "If he ever lays a hand where it doesn't belong, you come straight to me without stopping."

  For Greta, Lily's warning opened up a world of possibilities as abruptly and dramatically as if someone had come into the cottage banging a drum. He might lay a hand on them? Or even if he didn't, he might want to? But which of them, and where would he lay it? And what would it feel like, that broad and weathered hand?

  At supper on the second evening of Michael's stay, Little Tom tried to ask their guest a question. He pointed his finger in the general direction of Michael's chest and jabbed the air. Greta heard three syllables, understood a long e sound in the middle, but she couldn't quite get what he was trying to say. There were words and phrases Little Tom said so often they didn't need repeating, but the guest at the table meant that Little Tom was trying for words the rest of them weren't used to hearing from him. He tried once more, and again all Greta could make out was the long vowel in the middle. Tom tapped Michael's chest, then pointed outside, then looked to Greta for help.

  "Your people?" Greta guessed, and Tom sat back, satisfied. "Where are your people?" Greta asked Michael.

  Michael had spent the day reconstructing part of a wall while Little Tom went to Conch to trade hay and turf for planks of wood to lay over the ground where the paths had been washed away. The girls had returned to the inn, where Johanna rubbed the same old rag over the counters in the kitchen and Greta flopped down on one of the guestroom beds and wondered what Little Tom and Michael were doing at home. That morning, as a solution to the mud that would be kicked up by their wheels while they cycled and would surely make them unpresentable for work, they'd decided to pedal with their shoes and socks in their baskets, their skirts folded up and tucked into the waistbands of their underwear for as long as there were no occupied houses along their route and no one would see them. They stopped a mile away from the inn and fixed themselves, but Greta missed a place in the back where her skirt was still caught up and didn't notice until Mr. Breen said "Oh!" at the sight of her cotton underwear and Johanna burst out laughing. Greta resolved on the spot not to speak to Johanna until she apologized, and so far had kept her promise. After the incident, Mr. Breen excused himself to go assess his own storm damage, and did not return all day.

  "They're in around Kilkee," Michael said. "Could be headed for the Midlands by now."

  "You'll catch them?" Little Tom asked, this a bit more clear than the last. Michael needed the question repeated, and Johanna took it upon herself to change it. "Why'd you leave them?" she asked instead.

  "That's not your business," Lily said.

  "Did they ask you to leave?" Johanna asked.

  "Johanna, you're being very bold," Lily said. Now that she'd come back to life, she resolved to put a cork in Johanna's brazenness, her cursing, her temper, her attitude—as if she alone ran the cottage, owned Ballyroan. She was so like her father—that notion of deserving things, of being entitled to say whatever they damn well pleased.

  "I just left," said Michael, his story even more concise than Johanna's summary of Big Tom's death, the departure of the boys. It was so simple, saying it like that. His father, his sister, his aunts, cousins, brothers, and in-laws all went one way, and he went his own way. But looking at the Cahills, seeing himself stuck in with them at the small table, he was all at once desperate that they not think he disapproved of his family's life, that he thought it was somehow less than the life the Cahills were leading, or any o
ther country family for that matter. It was only that it was lovely and warm inside in the kitchen, the fire roaring, the panes of glass a peephole to the world, where you could sit and appreciate but not necessarily pass through. His father, Michael wanted to explain, thought of all of Ireland as his own, but Michael saw every field, every roof, every turn and dip in the road as belonging to someone else. And they were both right.

  Greta put her fork down and rested her chin on her fist to better hear what he'd say next. But there was no next he could think of. He left. Story told.

  "Just left?" Johanna asked.

  "Just got on my bicycle and left."

  "Were they against it? Were they angry, after?"

  Michael shrugged. "I was gone."

  "So you didn't give them any warning," said Johanna. A statement instead of a question. She understood enough now to fill in the blanks. He'd defied them, gone against their wishes. They'd had ideas about what he should do with his life, about what was possible, and he'd matched them with his own ideas. Giving warning would have only made the process more miserable for both sides. No, the only thing to do was to up and leave. It wasn't that he didn't love them—anyone could see that.

  Johanna had high color in her cheeks, and Lily poured her another glass of milk. Gradually the Cahills and Michael Ward went back to their salted potatoes, except for Greta, who continued to stare. There was a question no one had thought to ask.

  "Will they have you back if you change your mind?" she asked after watching him shovel a few forkfuls into his mouth.

  "They might. But they mightn't either," Michael said. "Only one way to find out."

  To try, Greta thought. To cycle all the way back the way he came and ask to be let back in. She couldn't see it happening, not with the way he'd made himself at home at their table.

  In bed that night, Greta felt a rare power. Johanna wanted to talk, was busting to talk, but she didn't want to apologize for not telling Greta that her skirt was caught up or for laughing. Plus, she still felt she deserved her own apology for Greta's not telling the whole story about that first day Michael Ward had come around. The trouble was that Greta could wait forever. As Lily liked to say, Greta had a little thing called patience. Lily said the word as if it were a virtue, when really it was the most frustrating quality a person could have. Especially when Johanna was dying to talk and Greta could wait and wait and wait.

  "So I was thinking," Johanna began, holding the bait above Greta's side of the bed, willing her to flip over and engage.

  "Hmm," Greta said, no lilt of a question mark at the end. She was pretending to be half asleep and didn't care one bit that Johanna knew she was pretending.

  "Are you listening?" Johanna asked, moving closer to Greta's side, leaning her face toward Greta's neck. She couldn't stop herself. She exhaled a long, hot breath next to Greta's ear and bit her lip to keep from laughing as she braced for Greta's arm to fly around and smack her.

  "No," Greta said, no sign of drowsiness in her voice, no sign that she'd even felt Johanna's breath. After a minute or so, to prove one had nothing to do with the other, she shifted closer to the wall.

  Johanna flipped over to her back and sighed. "Come on now, Greta. I was just having a laugh," she said.

  Greta shot up. "What about me? Those underpants had a hole, you know. And what if they'd been stained? And what if they'd been riding up? He must've gotten an eyeful. He just about fainted."

  "So what? That man could use a shock. He can barely put a full sentence together as it is." And again: "It was a laugh."

  "No it wasn't."

  "Yes it was."

  "I would never have done it to you."

  That was true, but what did that have to do with anything? "Maybe you should. Then we'd both have a laugh once in a while."

  Greta lay back down and turned to the wall. The conversation was over if Johanna did not do what she had to do.

  "I'm sorry," Johanna said finally to Greta's back.

  "You're not a bit sorry," Greta said.

  "I swear to God."

  "You should say you're sorry for swearing to God as well."

  "Ah, but my rule is one apology per day."

  "It only counts if you're really sorry. And you're not. You'd do it again tomorrow if you had the chance." Greta sat up once more and faced her sister. "Wouldn't you?"

  "No!" Johanna insisted. "I've learned my lesson. Cross my heart hope to die."

  Greta sighed, tumbled back down toward her pillow, and Johanna knew it was over. She began again. "So I was thinking."

  "Yes?" Greta said. "Jesus. Now I have to coax it out of you?"

  "I'm getting to it, and here it is. I've been thinking, and I've decided it wouldn't be so hard to go to America and get a job and a place to live like Shannon said."

  It was the moment Greta had been bracing herself for, and now that it had arrived, she couldn't think of a single decent response. The energy pulsing from Johanna's side of the bed lit up the dark room as thoroughly as the electricity that hummed through the wires and the walls. Greta blinked, reached up to adjust her glasses before remembering they were safe on the top of the dresser until morning. Johanna waited for her to say something.

  "What about Mr. Breen?" Greta asked, but even as the words came out, she felt how feeble they were.

  "Don't be thick, Greta. I'd say we're about two months off from being told to hit the road. Sooner, if he gets up the courage. We don't do a goddamned thing all day. Come to think of it, I've been meaning to tell you to be more grateful when you get paid. Get absolutely sickening about it, how much it means to you, and say things like this will keep you afloat for the week, and your family afloat, and bless him a bit and say Mammy includes him in the family prayers and all that. Don't say all the same things I say, so listen to me when I do it. I've been doing it these last few weeks, and he goes absolutely green, but I think it buys us another few weeks."

  "God, you're wicked," Greta breathed into the space above their bed, already feeling a tightness in her chest about what she would say to Mr. Breen in two days' time. So far, they'd spent most days avoiding each other.

  "Mammy would never let you go."

  "No, I'd say she wouldn't," Johanna agreed.

  "So?"

  "So I thought I might take a page from Michael Ward's book and just leave."

  Greta felt the tightness in her chest spread down her limbs to the tips of her fingers, her toes. She felt heavy, sunk into the mattress, attached to its corners by her ankles and her wrists. She'd need help when the time came to get up.

  "You can't just go. There's paperwork." Greta didn't know exactly what getting to America entailed, but she knew it was complicated. Whenever she'd heard the process described, she felt like pushing the information away with both hands, denying it entrance to her brain where it would only take up room and give her a headache. She was often amazed at how people knew how to do things, which offices to contact, where to show up, what papers were required, and then how they kept all of those things in order, ready to be presented whenever asked. She knew there were trips to Galway, doctor's visits, health certificates. Passport must be applied for, picture taken, contacts made on the other side, a sponsor found, money saved or acquired. It had been complicated enough when the boys went to Australia on short notice, but it was worse now, just a few years later, and going to America was more of a production than going to Australia. Everyone knew that. If you managed to get inside America's boundaries, sometimes it was impossible to come back.

  "If so many other people managed to figure it out," Johanna said, "so can I."

  The reasoning was typical Johanna. There were many things other people had figured out that Greta was quite certain she couldn't. As she considered what her sister was telling her, she told herself the plan wasn't real yet, just a notion that might pass by morning. It was best to stick to the practical questions: How? When? In answering, Johanna might see that she hadn't thought things out at all, that the actual leap t
o New York would be far more difficult than anything she'd imagined.

  "When are you aiming for?" Greta asked. But before Johanna could answer, Greta added, "Mammy would be heartbroken."

  "I know," Johanna said, "and you'll have a big job consoling her."

  "And what about me?"

  "You?" Johanna grabbed Greta at the ribs, managed to tickle her for a few seconds before she twisted away. "You'll be heartbroken too, but I'll visit. I won't be one of those who goes forever. I promise. And you'll have to be reminding Mammy of that every day."

  Greta saw herself from Johanna's side of the bed, no more capable of wandering outside the realm of the familiar than she'd been as a little girl, one hand sweeping along the rough surface of the stone wall that led her from the farthest field back to the cottage, counting the steps in her head. Maybe she was right, Greta admitted. But it would be nice to be asked. It would be nice for someone to think she could manage it, even if she wasn't sure herself.

  "No, Johanna. I mean, what if I want to go too?"

  "You go? Now, Greta, please. Don't be silly."

  "Wouldn't you rather have me with you than go by yourself?"

  Johanna was quiet, and more telling than her silence was the way her body went still. She quit switching between her side and her back, stopped plumping the pillow, stopped tugging at the nightshirt that always got twisted up around her waist.

  Making an offer to go to America with Johanna, hinting at a secret wish to go didn't make the possibility of actually going any more real. It will pass, Greta told herself. Tomorrow she'll have another idea.

  "What if I wasn't going alone?" Johanna asked.

  "Excuse me?"

  "What if I already had someone in mind? Someone who's seen a little more of the world than I have, has been to London, has had all kinds of jobs, isn't afraid of work, who might be willing to strike out with me."