A Greyhound of a Girl (14 page)

“A ghost.”

Mary didn't hear him, but she knew that they were the words he'd just whispered.

This time she looked.

Tansey was shimmering. Mary could see right through her, even though she was holding Tansey's hand and it still felt cold and solid. It might have
felt
cold and solid, but it almost wasn't there. Tansey was disappearing. The man in the wheelchair hadn't said anything else. But Mary felt Tansey's fingers slip from hers.

Other men and women were looking now, staring at
where Tansey had been standing. Their expressions were much more puzzled than frightened.

“Keep going!” said Scarlett.

“But—”

“Act normal, Mary!”

Act normal? Mary didn't know what “normal” meant. She'd just been holding the hand of the ghost of a woman who'd died in 1928, who seemed to have evaporated just as Mary was getting to know her. She was being stared at by a man with no legs and a burning beard—and other people were staring at her too.

She wanted to cry.

But she kept walking. Her mother grabbed the hand that Tansey had been holding. Usually, Mary wouldn't have let her mother do that. She was too old for it. But her mother's hand was warm, and the hand, the fingers, told her: her mother needed Mary now—and Mary needed her mother.

They walked through the smoke and stares. Mary wanted to look back, to see if she could see Tansey, or a hint of Tansey. But she didn't look. The entrance doors slid open and they went straight in, still holding hands.

he looked at the little girl playing at the well. The little girl, her daughter. The little girl was dropping pebbles, leaning over to hear how long it took before she heard the pebble smack the black water down below.

A little girl, but she was getting bigger by the day. She'd grown out of the green coat. Tansey saw her wearing a new coat one day, the start of the winter days. Tansey knew it was winter by the slant of the sun—because she didn't feel the cold. She wished she could, but she couldn't. She saw Emer in the new coat, and two feelings ripped through her at once, pride and a dead woman's heartache. Emer was growing up—she was already tall and she'd the long legs of a foal—and Tansey could only watch. The new coat was somebody else's choice. The day out to buy it, the trip to Enniscorthy or even Wexford, the adventure of the day,
all the things Tansey had been looking forward to—gone, stopped, never there.

She couldn't go near her. She wouldn't—she'd never frighten Emer. Tansey was dead. She was dead three winters. But she couldn't go.

It was a sad little face, searching for good pebbles. Four of the greyhounds were staring at her, through the fence. But Emer never looked their way. She had a way of avoiding them—she didn't even have to think about it. She could move around and look everywhere, except at the dogs.

She'd found the stone she wanted. Tansey could see, it was bigger than the others. Emer wiped her nose on her sleeve. A mother's job, to make sure she had a hankie. She watched Emer go back over to the well. She watched her lean over. She watched one leg rise off the ground. She waited for Emer to drop the stone into the well. But she didn't. The one foot came down, then both feet were off the ground and Tansey knew this was different, this was bad.

She went over the yard, fast, and through the fence, straight in among the greyhounds. They saw nothing but they knew she was there—and they went wild. They bit at
the air and tumbled over themselves and created a riot that had Jim's mother charging out the back door in a second. She grabbed Emer up off the well and carried her away from it.

Emer was protesting.

“I wasn't falling in! I was not!”

“My heart!” said Jim's mother.

“I was only dropping the stones.”

“You scamp, I told you.”

“I wasn't falling in!”

“But for the hounds you'd be drowned.”

“I hate them.”

“They saved you.”

“They didn't! I saved myself!”

Tansey was back across the yard, in the shade of the milking parlor. She could only watch, and she could only wish that the angry words were being shouted at her. She watched Emer follow her grandmother in the back door. She watched the door being closed.

ranny?”

Mary watched her granny's eyes.

“Granny?”

The eyes opened.

“You're back, are you?”

“I am,” said Mary, and she thought she sounded like Tansey.

“Did you come on your own, did you?”

“No,” said Mary.

“Where's your mammy, then?”

“She's talking to a doctor.”

“Oh, she shouldn't be talking to those fellas. They don't know the half of what they think they know.”

“She's asking if we can, like, take you out,” said Mary.

“Ah, now,” said her granny. “I don't know if I'd be up
to a trip to the zoo or the seaside. If that's the kind of ‘out' you mean.”

Her head moved on the pillow, and her shoulders. She tried to sit up. “But d'you know what?” she said. “It's lovely to see you, anyway. You're a bit of a tonic.”

“I'm a gin and a tonic?”

“You are indeed,” said her granny.

Mary helped her with one of the pillows. She put it behind her granny's back.

“Now,” said her granny. “So she's talking to one of the doctors, is she?”

“Yes.”

“The big fella?”

“No,” said Mary. “A woman.”

“Oh,” said her granny. “Grand.”

She looked carefully at Mary. “But I'm really not well, you know,” she said, quietly, seriously.

“I know,” said Mary. “We know.”

“‘We know,'” her granny repeated. “So, why do
we
want to get me out of this bed?”

Mary thought about this.

“To meet someone,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Someone special.”

“Oh,” said her granny. “Someone special. That'll be Elvis, will it?”

She smiled.

“Better,” said Mary.

“Better than Elvis?”

They were joking, but it was a serious conversation. They were often like that, Mary and her granny, when they were alone together.

“Yes,” said Mary. “Like, way better.”

Scarlett came into the room. She sat on the bed.

“The doctor says fine,” she told Mary—and Emer.

“Fine what?” said Emer.

“It's fine for us to take you out for a little while,” said Scarlett. “So. Well, Mammy. Is there one more adventure in you?”

“Adventure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

Emer closed her eyes and opened them again, as if to make sure that Mary and Scarlett were still real and there.

“Well, now,” she said. “I think there just might be one more small adventure left in me. And it'll be nice to get away from all the coughs and splutters.”

She sat up properly, for the first time in more than a week.

“God, now,” she said. “I felt that.”

She pulled back the sheet.

“Look at the skinny legs on me,” she said. “I'm like a chicken on a supermarket shelf.”

“No, you're not!”

“Cluck cluck.”

Emer brought her legs to the side of the bed, and let them drop. Her toes nearly touched the floor.

“I'm still lanky Emer,” she said. “Bring your shoulder over here now,” she said to Mary.

Mary stood right beside her granny. Emer put her hand on Mary's shoulder.

“You've grown again,” she said.

“Have I?” said Mary.

“You have.”

“Cool.”

Emer held on to Mary's shoulder, and stood.

“God, now,” she said. “I haven't been this high in months.”

She took a step. Mary went with her.

“Good girl.”

She took another step.

“Nothing to it.”

And another.

“Oh, boy.”

And another.

“Are you all right?” Scarlett asked.

“I'm grand,” said Emer.

She leaned on Mary.

“I'm grand. But I'll be needing one of those chairs with the wheels for the rest of the journey, wherever it is we're headed. The ol' legs are rattling here.”

“There's a wheelchair right behind you!”

“Lovely,” said Emer. “A Rolls-Royce, I hope.”

She held on to Mary's shoulder—Mary could feel her granny's fingers through her hoodie, and she thought her granny felt nervous—as she lowered herself into the wheelchair.

“There now,” said Emer. “I landed safely.”

The nice nurse was walking past the door.

“You're off out,” she said.

“I am,” said Emer.

“Somewhere nice?”

“Ah, now,” said Emer. “Anywhere's nice with this gang.”

“Be sure to wrap up,” said the nurse. “It's a cranky enough night out there.”

Scarlett put a blanket over Emer's legs.

“That's nice,” said Emer.

Mary and Scarlett collected what they thought Emer might need, her dressing gown, her coin purse, her handbag, her slippers, her coat and a cardigan.

Mary got down on her knees in front of the wheelchair.

“Don't run over me, Granny.”

She put the slippers on Emer's feet while Scarlett wrapped the dressing gown around Emer's shoulders.

“Lovely,” said Emer. “Why are we doing this again?”

“You're meeting someone,” said Mary.

“Oh, that's right,” said Emer.

“I remember. Who?”

“Someone special.”

“That's right.”

“Someone who really wants to meet you.”

“Grand,” said Emer. “But I'm too old to be getting married again, you know.”

Scarlett laughed.

“Ready?!”

“Anchors aweigh,” said Emer.