The Walking People Page 7

  Inside, Lily told the secretary why they were there and handed her the note the dentist had sent. The secretary disappeared to the back room, and Johanna planted herself by the window to watch the people passing on the street below. After a few minutes a young man came out of the back room. "Greta?" he said, turning toward Johanna briefly but then deciding on Greta. "Would you step in, please? Are you Mrs. Cahill?" He came forward to shake Lily's hand. Lily introduced Johanna, and the three of them followed him into his office.

  "You're having trouble with your vision," he said as he positioned Greta by an X painted on the floor. Greta nodded as he pointed toward a chart on the wall and told her to read off the letters. After the very top line, Greta recited letters at random.

  "Whatever trouble she has isn't new," Lily said. "She's been the way she is since the day she was born."

  The doctor had Greta read off the letters with her left eye covered, and again with her right. He made her look into the ceiling light and try not to blink as he squeezed two drops into each eye. Greta couldn't stop her eyelids from fluttering, so he did it again. "That should do it," he said after a third try. Greta's cheeks were wet and streaked dark yellow with the drops that had failed to hit home.

  "I'm staining her eyes," the doctor said. "It makes it easier to see if there's any kind of surface damage. Ulcers, for example." He held Greta's eyes open with his first finger and his thumb. "She'll blink it away after about an hour."

  "I see," Lily said. Pepper had had yellowish pimples and burst blood vessels in his eyes.

  The doctor led Greta to a special chair and fitted a device on her head. Greta looked through a pair of frames while he slid different pieces of glass inside, asking her to look back at the chart after each try. When he settled on one he liked, he told the three Cahills to wait outside. The secretary gestured toward the long, dark sofa and Lily and Greta sat close together on one side of it. Lily waited until the secretary turned back to her work, then she licked the corner of her sleeve and rubbed at Greta's yellow-streaked cheeks. She licked, rubbed, licked, rubbed some more. Johanna stood by a shelf on the other side of the room and examined the different objects on display. She picked up a snow globe and shook it. "Chicago," she announced, and held it up for her mother to see.

  After a half hour, the doctor came out to the waiting room and handed Greta a small hinged box made of wood. Greta opened the box and saw immediately that it was lined with blue material that Lily said was satin. There in the bed of satin sat a pair of glasses held in place with two clips. Not as small as Mrs. Norton's from the shop, but not as yellow as Father Mitchell's.

  "Go on," Johanna said. Lily hushed her.

  Greta put the glasses on and pushed them up to her nose. They slid down. She pushed them up again.

  "Show," Lily said, and Greta turned to her.

  "Well?" Greta asked.

  "Well yourself," Lily said. "You're the one wearing glasses. What do you think?"

  That's when Greta noticed that the world looked slightly different. Objects loomed large and seemed to curve in space. She reached for her face, but the doctor stopped her.

  "You must keep them on. This is important. Even if you feel sick. Even if you get a headache. Keep them on. It'll take a little while to get used to them. Come back to see me in six months."

  Johanna reached over and straightened the glasses on Greta's nose. The frame was black and heavy enough to hold the thickest glass in the doctor's case, and Greta could already feel where the new weight would press down behind her ears and become sore. Next to Johanna, Greta could see the window, the bottles on the ledge, blue and yellow, one with the color purple coming out the top. On the secretary's desk were a teacup and saucer.

  They stopped at a hotel called The Bay. Johanna swore they'd eat their sandwiches later, that they wouldn't go to waste. Greta was most concerned with keeping the glasses balanced on her nose. The hotel had separate entrances for lodgers and diners, so they didn't get to go through the lobby. The girls wanted to know how much it would cost to sleep there and how many nights did people stay, and why didn't they sleep at home, and if they're so far from home what brought them away when it was so close to Christmas.

  They ordered tea and three cream cakes. Greta thought it was just like a ceremony, almost like Mass, the way the man came over first with the plates, then with the forks and knives, then with the teacups and saucers, then with the teapot, then with the plate of three cakes. It was like what the priest did when he went over to the little gold door, took out the dish and closed the door, walked the dish over to the altar and took the lid off, and held the sacrament up in the air before breaking it into pieces and putting a piece in everyone's mouth. By the time everything was laid out, there wasn't an inch of table left to spare. Twice, Lily reminded them that she could have made the same tea, the same cream cakes in her own kitchen in Ballyroan. She could make them better, actually. And cheaper. They had the eggs and cream and butter themselves. She was about to say it a third time when she heard herself as if from the next table and stopped. She took off her shawl and folded it neatly over the back of Greta's chair. "Plenty of heat in this place, isn't there?" she said, and licked the tip of her finger.

  The streetlights had all come on by the time they left the hotel, but Lily said there was no rush on them. They'd paid for the bus fare, so why not see what was to be seen? Except for when they sat down to eat, Greta had been holding Lily's hand since they left the doctor's office. She'd also given most of her cream cake to Johanna. As they walked, she kept touching the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "You'll get used to them," Lily said, then suggested they go to the cathedral. That way they could sit, light a candle, Greta could calm down. Lily remembered the bridge from the last time she was in the city, and knew the cathedral was just beyond. They had almost made it when Greta pulled her hot hand out of Lily's, walked over to the curb, put her other hand up to stop her glasses from falling off, and vomited. She froze for a moment, a thick rope of drool stretching down between her mouth and the puddle at her feet. Then she sat down on the curb and began to sob.

  Lily rubbed her back. "Isn't it a great day, Greta? You'll be able to see everything very soon. No more Greta the Goose."

  "Please," Greta said, reaching for the glasses. "Mammy, please."

  "You're meant to keep them on."

  "Mammy, Mammy, Mammy," Greta chanted as she breathed in and out, rocked back and forth.

  Johanna said, "Could she take them off if she keeps her eyes well closed? I mean, as tight as tight can be? That way she won't be looking at things the old way. It'll be like when she's asleep. She can't wear them when she's asleep, can she?"

  "Five minutes," Lily said. Lily and Johanna sat down on the curb beside Greta, and Greta handed her glasses to Lily. "Ten Our Fathers," Lily said. "And make sure you keep them well shut." They nodded their heads to pray. Lily kept a close watch on Greta as she rattled off the familiar words. Greta had her head between her knees and was mumbling the prayer over her sobs.

  Johanna, who sat on the other side of Lily, could also concentrate on two things at once. The prayers came so naturally she could recite any one of them without even hearing what she was saying. She made her lips move, and the words came out, but her mind remained in the city. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." She watched the skirts and shoes go by. She watched the wheels of the cars. She could see the spire of the cathedral. In the other direction, she saw where one busy street intersected the other. She glanced down at the river, black now that the light had faded, and watched the outlines of the merchants selling their wares along the quays. She saw the piles of potatoes, fruit, carrots, parsnips. One woman sold dolls, one sold clothes, sweaters, wellies, fishing gear, hard candies, soft candies, chocolates, Christmas cakes. At the very end was an old woman beckoning people to step in and have their fortunes told. Another stood under a streetlamp and hawked paper flowers. Johanna strained her eyes as much as possible, taking in the wom
an's weather-beaten coat, her bare feet stuck into sandals despite the cold.

  "Greta!" Johanna said, hopping to her feet. She half walked, half ran to the other side of the bridge, down the narrow, blackened staircase, down to the river and along the quay. She took in the telltale shelters, cardboard and sheet metal. She took in the people's haphazard dress, layer upon layer upon layer. She noted the grub boxes outside the flaps of the tents. She took in the windburned faces, the black toes, black fingernails. She watched the flap of a tent being pulled open from the inside and saw a boy climb out on hands and knees. She watched him brush off his knees as he made his way down to one of the merchant booths. She observed the older man say something to the boy, something sharp by the way the boy's back straightened up.

  "Johanna!" Lily called as she watched Johanna's head disappear down the steps. Greta, her eyes still squeezed shut, her glasses still in Lily's care, stumbled after her mother, feeling for the edge of each step with the toes of her new shoes, listening to the river lick the pilings. Greta pulled back when Lily shouted again. "Mammy," she said, "you're shouting. And I've my eyes closed."

  "Where the hell has she disappeared to?" Lily dropped Greta's hand and walked ahead. "Wait here," she commanded.

  Greta stopped walking, dropped her hands to her sides, stood perfectly still. The way the wind pushed her this way and that, the way the water rushed over the rocks just a few feet away, she felt that she could have been standing in the middle of her own back field, except for the rattle of the occasional bicycle and the buzz of voices. She counted to one hundred. She raised her arms and reached as far as she could in front of her; she reached to her sides. The voices faded, and even the water seemed to grow calmer.

  "Hello?" she said. Her voice came out as a squeak, barely a whisper. She cleared her throat and took a breath to try it again.

  "Hello yourself," said Johanna, her voice landing like a hammer inside the circle Greta had imagined for herself.

  Greta opened her eyes. There was Johanna, white electric light from the lamp over their heads reflected in her ink black hair, and beside her a young tinker boy with wide brown eyes and shoulders unusually broad for a child of eleven. He was standing with his feet wide apart, like his father had done in the Cahills' hall when Jack, Little Tom, and Padraic had stepped forward to help with the body. Johanna was holding his hand.

  "It's Greta, is it?" he said.

  "You remember Michael Ward, don't you?" Johanna asked.

  3

  UNLIKE THEIR SOLITARY spot on the sea ledge in Ballyroan, in the city the Wards were just one among many caravans. Tents and horse-drawn wagons lined the riverbank and rose out of ditches as if a new city had been built overnight. As Lily rushed across the busy street in search of Johanna, she remembered that the tinkers came to Galway at Christmas because there was money to be made. There were holy pictures to be hawked to the pious, wreaths and beads sold to the festive, fortunes told to the desperate who had no family, no faith, only a little droplet of hope that 1957 would be better than 1956. As she rushed down the stairs from the bridge, she could see their campfires dotting the banks like torches lighting the way. Few settled people would walk all that way along the river, pass tent after tent, observe the eyes peering out, and not feel the blood drain out of their faces. She tried to see which direction Johanna had gone, and imagined the tinkers looking up to watch as the settled girl came running toward them, waving, her hair flying behind her like a flag.

  Later, as the bus approached the crossroads in Conch, Lily was still too angry to speak. Anger at Johanna for running off, for never listening. Frustration with herself for not making clear the dangers of the city before they got there, for not telling them there was a difference between giving the poor crathurs butter and flour and a bit of work and actually going to their camps, trying to make friends. Then she felt panic—what kind of girls were these? So brazen, so fearless. That boy was sound enough, but the way his people had stood outside their stalls and watched them had given her chills. Then she felt a surge of love; thanks be to God nothing had happened to the girls. There they were, swinging their legs in their seats, heads swiveled toward the window so they wouldn't have to look at Lily. Greta was fading; Lily could see it. She had her glasses on, but her eyes were closed. She had her arm looped in Johanna's. Then Lily was angry all over again. Never in a million years would she have dreamed of running off on her own mother.

  "Are you going to tell Pop?" Johanna asked once they'd gotten off the bus.

  "You think I'd keep a secret from your father?" Lily said.

  Johanna shrugged. "You didn't tell him Julia came that day until she died and you had to tell him. You don't tell him half of what you give to the tinkers in town. I saw you push a coin into a woman's hand last year and from the look on her face I'd say it was a big one."

  Lily felt her blood rush to her cheeks. With the short winter days, it had been dark for hours. The bus could still be seen in the distance, its electricity-bright inside lighting the fields on either side. Lily reached out and slapped Johanna across the face. She thought about slapping Greta too, but she was afraid she'd break the glasses. Johanna turned away, and Lily slapped her on the side of the head, catching her on the ear. She reached over, got a good grip of the girl's skirt, lifted it, slapped her bare legs. She slapped her and slapped her, the cold night bringing an extra sting to both Johanna's legs and Lily's palm. Greta stood by, sucking her knuckle, gasping back long sobs.

  "That's the end of it now," Lily announced finally, and struck out in the dark toward home. Greta rushed up beside her and grabbed her hand. By the time they'd covered the three miles, Lily didn't see any reason to tell Big Tom what had happened.

  Winter turned into spring, and with spring came the water bailiff. Big Tom had a routine he did every year where, without warning, he would put his finger over his lips and shush everyone around him. If he was eating, he'd put his fork down and go over to the window. If he was milking, he'd stop mid-pull. In the spring of 1957 he clenched his pipe in his teeth, stomped across the kitchen, and threw open the back door. "Do you hear them?" he demanded, asking Lily and each of his children one by one. Just like every year, they fell for it, if only for a few seconds. His expression was serious, his voice grave. "By God, I can hear them, and my ears are a lot older than yours."

  "What is it?" Johanna asked. The boys had already caught on.

  "Now, Tom," Lily said, hurrying over to the window. "It's bad enough as it is. I don't think we need a performance."

  "Oh," said Johanna, and sat back. "I know."

  "Greta," Big Tom said, "close your eyes now, girl, and listen well."

  "The hens. Is it?"

  "Now that you've got glasses, have you forgotten how to use your ears? What else?"

  Greta listened, but couldn't hear anything. Big Tom was grinning, everyone was looking at her. The routine was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't remember the answer. She took off her glasses, and just as she had them folded and safe on her lap, she heard the water bailiff's bicycle coming up the road. She knew it was the bailiff by the loose gear that hung down and clanged against the spokes of his front wheel. The bailiff's arrival signaled only one thing.

  "The salmon," Greta said.

  "By God, I never lost faith in you, girl," said Big Tom, laying his hand on her head. Greta flushed, felt loved. But still, it was confusing. Mr. Joyce said that the water bailiff was supposed to guard the river against people who would take the fish, but Big Tom looked forward to him every year. It was as if the salmon waited patiently at a starting line way downstream until they heard the bailiff's bicycle, which they understood as the signal to take off. Big Tom and the bailiff were friends—Greta often heard them talking in the field behind the cottage. They'd been in the same primary class. Big Tom often mentioned the nine children the bailiff had at home, and how much it costs to feed such a family, and to mention it so often meant that they must be friends. But then sometimes when they passed on the road
they acted as if they didn't know each other at all.

  Big Tom and the boys managed the odd catch in the late summer and early autumn, but spring was the real salmon season. According to Lily, there were poets who said that to see the rivers of Connaught in the spring and early summer was to see water turned to silver. On a clear day the fish caught the sun like thousands of mirrors just below the water, and once in a while, out of impatience or determination to get ahead, one would burst out of the water and shoot into the air, arcing against the sky before diving in again. They were so crowded and the water rushed so quickly that sometimes one of the fish would get trapped against a rock and pounded by the impact of the water and its fellow salmon until it died, sometimes slipping back into the water, sometimes left on the rock to dry in the sun and the wind.

  Every spring, the water bailiff unlocked the little hut on the bank of the river and swept it out. He set up his wireless, turned the old stool right side up, and got a long stick to knock down the cobwebs. He leaned his shotgun against the wall.

  According to Big Tom, the Ballyroan portion of the river was the best. The salmon were drawn to the blackwater pools, deepest where the river ran behind the Cahill cottage. Where the river ran near town was too public. Too public for what, Greta didn't know. For fishing, she supposed. So many people talking and walking around on land would scare the fish away. And maybe where the river ran near town there was no good spot to fish at night, when it was quiet enough to trick the fish. She also wasn't sure why, when Big Tom and Jack discovered someone from Conch fishing in the Ballyroan section of the river one night, they'd come home in a panic and discussed it at the table all night.