The Walking People

by Mary Beth Keane

  No, Greta thought. It will never, ever happen. Michael Ward barely knew Johanna, barely knew any of them, had expressed no desire to leave Ireland. Greta had seen him that morning, way off in the distance, as she waited outside the cottage for Johanna to find a rag to wipe water off the seats of their bicycles. He'd been working on the stone wall, squatting to pick up one of the largest stones, getting under it with his legs and then his hips, heaving himself and his burden in such a way that they appeared across the sun-starved fields to be one body struggling against an invisible force, the Atlantic wind, or the suck of the rain-soaked ground. When he turned back for the smaller, gap-filling stones, he took one in each hand, palms up like a human scale, before finding a place for each one.

  And the way he talked about oysters caught down around Clarenbridge and Brady Bay, how they tasted of the sea if the sea were reduced to a single perfect mouthful, and how the shells slid and clacked together whenever he added one more to the pile. Greta had listened to his stories at the table, had watched him relax into these memories as he told them, and as she watched him and listened, she felt herself coaxed into forgetting about small worries. This was not a person who would be lured by the train that rushed over people's heads straight to the Statue of Liberty. No, Greta insisted as Johanna's warm legs scissored beside her. No, he would not go. He was not as grown or as travel-wise as he'd seemed at first, when he'd pushed his broad back close to their fire. Sometimes he seemed to Greta even younger than she was, though he was Johanna's age. After being called for supper, he often stood at their back door as if he wasn't quite sure what to do, whether to push his way inside or knock or call out and ask to be let in. But even as she told herself that he'd never go to America, no more than Little Tom or Lily or Greta, she felt the pinprick reminder that he'd already proved his willingness to up and leave everything he knew.

  Johanna would not sleep for hours, thinking of America, wondering how Greta could be so calm when her news was so big. And while Johanna ticked off cities in her mind—New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles—Greta, shoulders turned square to the wall, chest rising and falling in what she hoped was a convincing rhythm, discovered that it was possible to be homesick for a place she'd never left.

  7

  MICHAEL WARD FELT Johanna's eyes following him, just as he had the last time he was in Ballyroan. She was no better at being sly about it now than she'd been back then, and it struck him after a few weeks that maybe she wanted him to notice, wanted him to approach her and ask if there was something she wanted to talk to him about. They spoke only at supper. He ate breakfast long before her, and she and Greta took their tea at the inn. At supper she always took the seat directly opposite him, and she looked away whenever he glanced up. Sometimes he'd catch her eye as he was passing the carrots or the bread, and he'd get the sense that she'd been looking at him for a long time. Conversation, when she initiated it, was meant for everyone to hear.

  "Did you make much progress on the shed?" she might ask. Or "Did the heifer's fever break?" Questions like that couldn't possibly be what was on her mind when she stood in the lane with her bicycle for thirty minutes, watching him run one of Little Tom's razors down his cheeks, an old, spotted hand mirror Lily had lent him angled to catch the light.

  He would answer yes or no, and Little Tom would chime in with his half-talking, half-miming way of communicating; then Greta, who laughed in that childlike way she had at any funny story, would contribute her little bit and, unlike Johanna, never look away whenever he caught her eye.

  Lily had taken to sitting in Big Tom's chair while they ate, leaving room at the table for the young ones. She told them that age was claiming her appetite and that the bits she put in her mouth while she was getting supper together were enough to make a meal. She didn't point out that it was easier to see every look that passed between them from the chair by the fire—or what those looks told her. She too had observed Johanna's behavior toward Michael at the supper table and decided that the girl was trying to impress the boy by acting grown up. Lily was more interested in what she observed in Greta, the flitter of flirtation here and there, the way she tried to tame the wilds of her hair. And once, during the boy's first week with them, she'd come to supper without her glasses, claiming she didn't really need them, only to have to go fetch them when it came time to peel spuds. Poor girl doesn't even know to pretend disinterest, Lily thought as she watched her youngest glance at Michael Ward, then down at her plate, then back at Michael even when he wasn't speaking. Lily watched Michael's reactions carefully and decided there was nothing to fear.

  When Johanna appeared in the hay shed one night, long after the lights had gone out in the cottage, Michael wasn't completely surprised. "Hello," she whispered into the deep cavern of the shed, the hills of stacked hay. "Where are you?"

  "Here," he whispered back. He'd been sleeping. "Hold on." He pulled on his trousers and slid down from his nest in one of the mid-level piles, down to the ground, where Johanna waited. He plucked bits of hay from his hair, brushed it from the seat of his pants. She was wearing a nightdress, with a long sweater over and boots underneath. There was a small space between the top of her boots and the hem of her nightdress that showed pale white skin.

  "I have to talk to you," she said. "Will we take a walk?"

  Michael blinked and stretched, filling his chest with air and reaching as far out into the night as his bones would allow. He counted back and tried to figure out how long it had been since the night Dermot woke him to fetch more turf. Only two weeks, if he'd kept track of his days correctly.

  "I was fast asleep," he said, but she'd already started walking.

  They went down to the river, down past the water bailiff's boarded hut, down near the place where Big Tom drowned and the boys pressed the triggers of their shotguns to begin their journey out of Ireland. Johanna stopped at a sloped stretch of grass, leaned over to press her palm against the ground, and, finding it not too damp, sat down and patted the space next to her. Michael looked back in the direction they'd come from.

  "Mammy's sound asleep," Johanna said.

  Michael sat.

  "She warned us about you, you know. Me and Greta. She warned us you might try something."

  Michael didn't know what to say to that, especially with her looking at him with her nearly black hair loose around her shoulders and smirking like she was daring him to do something. Maybe that's why she'd been staring at him and following him. Maybe she wondered why he hadn't tried anything yet. She was a good-looking girl, dark and fair at the same time. She was tall like her brother, like her father, if Michael's memory served. It was easy to see the shape of her legs under the thin cotton nightdress, and now that she was sitting, the moon yellow and full, he could see the fine hairs on the space of skin above the tops of her boots. This was a girl who swam in her knickers, her skirt, blouse, and shoes left in a heap at the shore for the waves to lap up and swallow. Once, on his second day staying in the Cahills' hay shed, Little Tom had sent him miles down the road in search of a calf gone missing overnight. He never found the calf, but on his way back to the cottage he'd seen them, Johanna and Greta both, cycling their bicycles with their skirts bunched up around their waists, their long white legs folding and reaching and folding again as they pumped the pedals.

  Johanna's laughter caught even Johanna off guard and knocked her back on one elbow. She clapped her free hand over her mouth. "You should see your face," she said.

  He leaned into her briefly, then away, pushing her off balance. "Did you wake me out of my lovely dreams just to make fun?" He was smiling, glad she couldn't see his face redden. He felt the heat travel from the tips of his ears to his throat to his chest. She threw off her own heat, and he could feel that too. It burned through her nightdress and her sweater and bumped up against the cool night air. This was what his father meant about wanting a body next to him, a soft, warm body to lean into and take hold of. This is what his father meant when he told Michael he was hands
ome. It was the same as telling him there was no need to be afraid.

  Johanna sat up, pulled her nightdress tight over her knees, drew her sweater closer around her chest. She was no longer smiling.

  "I want to talk to you about an idea I had."

  What she'd said about Lily warning her and Greta still rang out in Michael's ears. He'd never given her any reason to worry, aside from being eighteen and a boy and a tinker—all things he couldn't help. And Greta! She was as pretty as Johanna, yes, and kinder than Johanna in the way she looked and nodded and never acted as if a person had gone on too long or said silly things, but sometimes she seemed almost as young as she was the last time he was in Ballyroan.

  "Go on," he said.

  "I want to go to America. To New York. Well, later I'd go to other places, but to start, New York."

  Michael waited. He got the feeling that she wasn't looking for congratulations, but he didn't know the right question to ask.

  "And I thought you might want to come with me."

  "To America?"

  "Have you been listening? Yes, to America. You've been to England and seen all of Ireland, and you're just after leaving your family behind and wanting to settle. You can't really want to settle here of all places. Why not New York?"

  He was tempted to turn the question right back at her. Why not London? Sydney? Berlin? Why not Ballyroan of all places? Where else could he find land that was like an island you didn't have to row a boat to find?

  "With you and Greta?" he asked.

  "Greta?" Johanna asked after a moment. "No, not with Greta. Just you and me." She was surprised he'd asked after Greta, and she felt guilty all over again that she had not let Greta come with her to fetch Michael from the shed. Greta had woken when Johanna raised their bedroom window and had known immediately where Johanna planned to go. "What are you doing?" Johanna had asked when she saw Greta reaching for her boots, but instead of answering, Greta had stared at Johanna with those big eyes that seemed somehow bigger whenever she was not wearing glasses. For what seemed like ages, Greta remained fixed over her one unlaced boot, the neck of her nightshirt down over her shoulder. "He won't go," she said finally. "It's useless to ask. He won't leave here."

  "We'll see," Johanna had said, and was out the window and across the field before Greta had a chance to catch up.

  "Are you serious?" Michael asked now. People said they wanted to do things all the time, said they were going to do things, said they had plans in the works, started sentences with "this time next year," but most of the time, people were full of it. That's what Michael had figured out. There were lots of people who talked and talked but rarely did.

  "Yes," Johanna said, without feeling the need to go further. Michael believed her.

  "Why me?" he asked. He was just curious, he wasn't saying he'd join her, but Johanna turned toward him, bending one knee and tucking her foot under the other, and he could see that she thought he'd accepted.

  "Because my mother was wrong about you," she said, smiling, and Michael knew that whatever her reasons, she wouldn't share them tonight. She'd grown up around brothers; maybe she wanted him around to feel safe, to navigate the streets of New York City as she imagined he'd navigated the streets of other cities. But New York was not like other cities, and she didn't realize that he'd never been to anyplace except Ballyroan in a group of less than a dozen. He'd never led. He'd only followed, head bent, trying not to wish he were someone else.

  Then she leaned over her bent knee, put her hand on his shoulder, and kissed him. Dermot had hinted around this too. Girls who knew what they wanted. Girls who weren't shy. Most times, Dermot warned, he should stay away from these types. Now Michael wished he'd asked why.

  He'd always wondered if there might be something in life he was brilliant at but never had the chance to try. For a while it was rugby. Dermot had outlawed the sport for being British. Then it was longdistance running. Then it was swimming—if he could just get a few lessons, who knew what his body might do? That night, the old wonder about untried possibilities rushed back. He discovered he was good at something he'd never before attempted—kissing a girl, tasting inside her mouth, finding a route under the flap of her sweater and between the buttons of her nightdress to her breasts, guiding her to the flat of her back, where he pressed her into the damp ground with the weight of his body. He'd seen similar scenes between the cracks of the tent flaps and had paid attention so he'd know what to do when his time came. Now he realized that his body didn't need instruction; it was reaching and pressing as if he'd had a girl under him every night of his life. She pulled him closer when he lodged his knee between her legs, but she stopped him when he reached for her with his hand.

  They sat up, straightened their clothes. "You should be ashamed of yourself," she said, and the feeling of not being able to find the right words swept over him as it had all his life when it came time to beckon people down to his stall to see his grandfather's tin pails.

  "I thought ... I'm sorry."

  "Are you sure you're sorry?"

  He looked up. She was laughing at him again, pulling a face he guessed was meant to mirror his own: serious, terrified, speechless. She was still laughing as she stood and brushed herself off. They walked back toward the cottage.

  "Next time we'll decide when we'll go," Johanna said at the point where he had to veer off toward the hay shed, and she walked toward the dark window of her bedroom. Michael decided he'd wait until next time to tell her he had no interest in New York.

  In mid-July, when Mr. Breen finally got around to letting Johanna and Greta go, he opened with a story about seals. "Girls," he said, "you'll appreciate this, living where you do out beyond." At first Greta thought he was retelling the priest's homily, knowing they didn't often go to Mass. Then she thought it was a story he'd read in the Irish Times, knowing they didn't ever buy the Irish Times. But no, it was his own story, and one glance at Johanna told Greta that her sister already knew how the story would end. He told them that selkies were the most mysterious of sea creatures, long studied and written about, and the thing that made them most special was the belief among some people—not himself, mind you—that they had human souls. Some believe that on every ninth day the selkies swim to shore, shimmy out of their thick gray-blue skins, rise up on two legs, and become women who walk and talk and appear to the world just like normal women. Greta wondered if he really thought they hadn't heard this legend—being, like he said, from out beyond. But there was no stopping him, and as he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed out the door toward the ocean.

  "I'm not a believer, mind you," he said for the third time, "but a thinking person would wonder. If it's been written about and talked about for so long by so many people, mightn't they be as likely right as the nonbelievers? Neither side has proof one way or the other."

  Johanna yawned. Greta shrugged. She never thought she'd hear a grown man discuss it so seriously. It was a story told to children at school or before the fire on a stormy summer night. Then again, the legend of the selkie was the reason so many otherwise levelheaded fisherman were against killing the seals, even when they were desperate and their lobster traps came up empty. Mr. Breen's face was glistening, as if he'd just emerged from the ocean himself, and he pressed his forehead and his cheeks with a napkin.

  "I tell you this, girls, in explanation. Will we sit down? Will I make the tea?" He got up and plugged in the electric kettle. Then he unplugged it, filled it with water, and plugged it in again. He rooted around the cupboard.

  "In the tin," Johanna called. "Beside the breadbox." She made no effort to help him and slid down in her chair until her knees were jammed up against the leg of the table.

  They all waited in silence until the water boiled, then Mr. Breen came back with the pot in one hand and three cups hanging from three fingers of the other.

  "You see, I was down at the water yesterday, watching the seals swim and climb out of the water onto that piece that juts out from Harry's Point, an
d as God is my witness, I heard my wife speaking in my ear."

  "Oh?" Johanna asked, still slouched in her chair. "What did she say?"

  "Will I tell ye? She said 'Jim'—she called me Jim—'why do you have those two lovely girls cooped up in that inn to be bored and feeling useless all day when they could be out enjoying the fine weather?' And I thought to myself, good question."

  "Did you tell her you're paying us wages?" Johanna asked.

  "Which we're very thankful for," Greta added.

  "Well, she knows that of course," Mr. Breen said. "And that's the second problem."

  "The only problem, since we solved the first," Johanna said.

  "Did we? We did, yes. Well, as you know, there was big promise of a tourist boom in this part of the country, but we've seen none of it yet, not a bit, and to put it as simply as possible, I just can't swing it until the boom arrives. Ye've been a great help, an honest-to-goodness boost, and I'm sorry."

  "Your wife came back as a selkie and told you to let us go." Johanna was like the man on the wireless news who said in one sentence what the man before him had taken fifteen minutes to explain.

  "No, no, no," Mr. Breen protested, dabbing at his sideburns with his napkin while he let out short barks of nervous laughter. "When you put it that way..." He laughed some more, his body rocking the small table and the lukewarm tea inside their cups.

  When it came time to go, Mr. Breen walked with them around the side of the inn to their bicycles. "A departure gift," he said, handing each girl an envelope with her name printed carefully across the front. They thanked him, shook his hand. Each tucked the envelope into a pocket and waited until they'd cycled out of sight to pull over and open them. Inside Greta's was a card with a picture of the baby Jesus and the word "Hark!" She opened the card, and a ten-pound note slid out and landed on the road. She trapped it under the sole of her shoe while she read the message: