Where Old Ghosts Meet by Kate Evans

thing. He told me one time, ‘Peg,’ he said, ‘I’m a clever man by all accounts, but I’m a fool.’ I was shocked he’d say such a thing but I soon come to know what he was talking about. It had to do with plain old common sense. Ordinary things, little problems you’d have from day to day. Oftentimes he just couldn’t decide what was the best thing to do, so in the end he’d head off and do something right foolish. Same when it come to the big things! My dear, he’d look at the facts, up and down and round about, again and again, enough to drive you right cracked, but still he wouldn’t know what to be at.”
    â€œReminds me of my father,” Nora said bitterly.
    Peg picked up her glass and studied the contents for a moment. “I’m sorry to have to be sayin’ all this to you, Nora. It can’t be too nice to be hearin’ all this old stuff, but still and all, it has to be said.” She took another sip of her whiskey and hurried on. “Whatever the reasons, he managed to get himself hooked up to a wife in a hurry.”
    â€œAnd a child!” Nora was thinking of her father, the stalwart Catholic family man, conceived out of wedlock, without love. She stared into her glass.
    Darkness had slipped quietly into the room, closing tightly around the two women. In stark contrast against the sky and the sea, the black headland appeared large and brooding. A trickle of silvery light dodged playfully on the water.
    â€œIt wasn’t even that simple.”
    Nora’s head came around with a start. “What do you mean?”
    â€œThere was no child, not then anyways. The child didn’t arrive for twelve months or more after they married.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe way it was, Matt didn’t even realize that the time had passed for the child to be born. Until one night in the bar, didn’t he hear talk from behind a wooden partition. Two women were hard at it, talkin’about him. Tis high time she dropped that youngster,’ one was saying. ‘Sure, wasn’t she up the pole way before they ever went near the altar?’ ‘Aye, indeed. I’d say she’d want to be puttin’ a bit of a spurt on or that babby’ll be arrivin’ with whiskers on!’ When Matt heard that, it was only then it came to him that he’d been fooled and that everyone knew but himself.”
    â€œGod in heaven, don’t tell me his own mother was part of that deception? Surely not, who could do the like of that?”
    â€œWho’s to know?” Peg’s index finger came up in a cautionary gesture. “Remember, that was a long time ago. Back then there were few questions asked and there were even fewer answers given.”
    â€œWhat did he say, Peg? What did he do?” Nora leaned forward, insisting on the truth. “Did he think that his mother knew all along?” She waited, exasperated. “Don’t tell me he never asked, never confronted her or that Mickey Dolan or the wife?”
    â€œHe did what Matt usually did in those days. He got himself drunk and headed for home.”
    â€œ A double blessing, is a double grace ,” he announced with Shakespearean flourish as he flung open the kitchen door and tried to focus on the image of his mother and his wife both busy by the hearth. The words were barely out of his mouth when a down draft from the open chimney sent a thick belch of black smoke back into the room.
    The mother was by the door in an instant and with a quick shove pushed him out of the way and shut the door. He lost his balance and toppled over.
    â€œA fine state you’re in and you with enough drink in ye to flatten a sailor. Get up outa that. Yer a disgrace to yer country.”
    â€œAh,” he muttered, attempting to get to his feet, “ enterprise … great pitch and moment…lose the name of action . Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, now there’s the