The Walking People

by Mary Beth Keane

  "Greta, love," Michael said, reaching down to pick at some weeds. "Let's just go in to the party. They're waiting for us."

  "I don't understand you," Greta said. Michael put his arm around her shoulder, led her toward the front of the house and the door.

  "A shame Lily couldn't have come," he said. "It would be lovely to see her again." Greta stopped, turned to face him. "Lily? My mother?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice down. She put her face just an inch from his.

  "Michael," she said, gently slapping his face. Once, twice, three times—the slaps got a little harder each time. "Lily is dead. Lily has been dead for a long time. Don't you remember Lily dying and Julia taking the message and me telling you when you got home?"

  "Jesus, Greta." Michael caught both of her wrists in one of his hands. "I was only saying if she was alive, she would have loved to come for a visit. Remember how we used to say we'd pay her way out? It's a shame we never did that. She would have seen Julia was ours if she'd come. Would have seen Julia was happy and all the talk about sending her home would have stopped. Maybe. I don't know. She would have liked to see where you live and the children and the city and all that. I was only just saying." He released her wrists and rubbed his arm where she pinched him. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. "Are you crazy?"

  "Sorry," Greta said. "I'm so sorry, Michael." She reached and touched his face again, this time to soothe it. "I misunderstood."

  As they stood there, Ned Powers pulled into the driveway, hopped out of his car, walked across the lawn with his car keys swinging on his index finger. "Cat's out of the bag, is it? Well, we tried."

  "Ned," Michael said, "I watched you in my rearview the whole way. I went through that light on Central so I'd lose you. Didn't you think it odd I sped through that light?"

  Inside, the welcome was thunderous. Some stayed on script and shouted, "Surprise!" Many others just shouted, or roared, as it sounded to Greta. Wineglasses shook on their stems, the liquid inside lapped at the rim of each glass as if the house had suddenly taken sail on a blustery day. The floor trembled. They attacked Michael one by one, and Greta hung back as he was swept away from her. They clapped his back, grabbed and shook his hand. The women banged against his cheekbone as they leaned in for a kiss. He was pulled into the kitchen, pushed out onto the deck, called back into the dining room to be patted and prodded some more. You knew, they accused him. They recalled stories of running into him in town, on the job, at a card game, and almost but not quite mentioning the party. You knew all along, did you? they asked, and he explained about the cars, about Ned staying so close, and they smacked their heads and laughed. Through all of this, Greta stayed rooted where she stood. Then, as she knew he would, she saw him looking for her. "Greta?" he called over the tops of his friends' heads. "Has anyone seen Greta?"

  The party went by quickly once the guest of honor arrived. Michael shut the door on the last of the guests just before nine o'clock. Greta waved from the window, but she couldn't see them wave back, as bright as the room was lit, as dark as the evening was outside. They might have stayed longer if Ciaran Hughes hadn't started singing. Greta had heard him clear his throat, had observed as he threw out his chest, closed his eyes. He wouldn't, she thought. Would he? "Oh Lord," someone said, winking at Greta before sneaking into the next room. He ignored his wife, who snatched his glass out of his hand, and started with something lively that Greta couldn't place. People stamped their feet through the chorus. He sang another after that, and everyone joined in. Michael, Greta noticed, knew both. But of course the performance had ended up where all vocal performances seemed to end up in Greta's experience—by a lonely prison wall, the low-lying fields of Athenry. When he finished, the guests began placing their small plates on any surface they could find. They tipped back the last drops left in their glasses. Those who'd arrived wearing jackets asked Eavan where they might find them. On their way out, the sandhogs told Michael they'd be seeing him soon.

  "Well," Michael said, sinking into his familiar armchair. Eavan and Gary were sprawled out on the couch, Greta on the armchair opposite Michael. James was stretched out on the floor. Nicole had already gone back to Brooklyn to walk the dog she and James had gotten a few months earlier, a puppy prone to peeing on the carpet if not walked on a precise schedule.

  "Well, what?" Eavan prompted him. Greta tilted her head to read Michael's expression. During the course of the night she'd had to remind him of quite a few names. Wives, mostly. He only saw them once a year, if that often. Perfectly understandable. She could barely remember everyone's name herself. But once, as Greta was coming up the stairs with two more bottles of wine, she'd caught him standing between two groups, looking left and right at the broad backs of his friends, his brow wrinkled in confusion. He looked stormy, ready to lash out, as he did on those mornings when he sat staring at the steering wheel of his car until Greta rushed outside with his keys clutched in her fist. He'd never been an angry person. Only rarely had she ever heard him shout at the children, and this new side of him, the Michael that snapped and grabbed and spoke over her in cross tones, was another inheritance he couldn't refuse.

  She'd kept watching him, clutching the bottles in her hands until, like a child, he lifted his arm, buried his face for a moment in the crook of his elbow, then wiped his mouth with the entire length of his sleeve. "Ah!" he said when he saw her, the storm clouds passing, his face breaking out in a broad grin. He crossed the room, took the bottles from her, and placed them on the floor by the wall. He took her by the hand and led her along with him as he moved from cluster to cluster, thrusting his head into conversations, squeezing her fingers now and again as if to remind himself she was still there.

  Greta had also noticed that Ned Powers paid close attention to his old friend. He made sure to use names when he brought Michael up to speed. "Burke was just saying ... Dunleavy claims..." Watching them interact, these men who had labored alongside each other, argued with each other, thrown punches at each other, defended each other for years, Greta got an idea about how their solution to Michael's increasing forgetfulness might have worked down in the tunnels. No one would have mentioned it, she saw. Not to Michael and not to each other. But every single one of them recognized that same blank look that Greta thought she alone could see. "Ward," one of them said, "remember the time you set the fuse too short and nearly blasted everyone up to the sidewalk?"

  Michael stared at the speaker, watched his friend's mouth shape the words, grinned vacantly when he sensed it was his turn to react. He's winging it, Greta saw.

  "Yes," another said. "It was the afternoon shift, five or six years ago..."

  One by one they filled him in until Michael's face came alive again and he grabbed hold of some detail and ran with it, adding his part of the day.

  Ned Powers had become a surrogate uncle to the children over the years. His wife had never returned from Ireland, but he'd never divorced her. He claimed he'd stopped drinking but didn't believe beer counted as real alcohol. It wasn't unusual to listen to him reflect on the days before he quit drinking, just as he was twisting open a bottle. Michael claimed he never smelled booze on him on the job anymore. Ned flew home to see his daughter twice a year.

  "Ned," Greta had said soon after Michael's arrival, catching Ned alone by the buffet. His small plate was already overloaded with shrimp, cocktail sauce, crackers, cheese. "Have you noticed anything off with Michael in these past few months?" Longer, she added silently.

  "No," Ned said without taking his eyes off the spread before him. His answer was firm, resolute. He would not elaborate. The thought came to Greta so plainly it almost made her laugh: he knew before I did. She looked around at the rest of the men, their faces red and raw from the cold and damp of their workplace, the skin around their eyes grooved from squinting in the dark.

  ***

  "I can't send back the gifts, can I?" Michael asked finally, eyeing the pile on the coffee table.

  "No, Dad," Eavan said.

  "Yo
u can re-gift them," James said. "You'll probably go to a zillion of these over the next year or so."

  "Re-gift?" Michael asked.

  "You know, wrap up the ones you don't want and give them to someone else."

  "That's rude," Eavan said.

  "Why?" Michael and James asked at the same time, Michael's expression honestly curious about why this would be considered rude, James's expression fully aware of the etiquette but calling it ridiculous.

  Greta half listened to Eavan explain. She thought she heard a car stop outside the house, and she was tempted to cup her hands around her eyes and press her face to the glass. She tuned back in when she heard the car pass by.

  "They're still coming," James said to Greta, interrupting Eavan. He leaned up on one elbow, bent one leg at the knee. "When they finally got over the bridge, they decided they'd be better off going to the hotel first, freshening up. Then they figured they'd better get something to eat rather than show up starving." James looked at his watch. "Julia called about an hour ago and said they were still coming."

  "They're staying at a hotel?" Michael asked. "But why? With three empty beds here?" He looked at Greta. "Seems like a shame, doesn't it?"

  For Greta, it seemed as if no time had passed since her whispered conversation with Michael at the side of the house. Just like that, the party was reduced to a noisy flash, a scene she'd walked through to get from there to here. "Michael," Greta said for the second time that day, "I don't understand you." She stood and began collecting the refuse of the party. Napkins and plates left on tables, pieces of pretzel on the floor. When she couldn't hold any more in her hands, she went to the kitchen and got a plastic bag.

  "It would have been better," Greta said after a few minutes, "if they'd arrived during the party. If they'd just walked in like everyone else." Now that this possibility had disappeared, she decided it would have been the best. She looked up at the clock on the wall. "It might be midnight before they come."

  During the party she kept finding errands to bring her down to the basement. More soda, more beer, more paper plates. Once down there, she stood in the dark and looked out the single basement window that was so high she had to stand on a chair. The window was level with the ground outside. When no cars passed, the world outside as dark and still as it was on any Friday night, Greta found herself staring at individual blades of grass just inches from her nose, the few stray dandelions that had popped up here and there. Once in a while the grass would sway and bend, the blanket of lawn rippling in a pattern that swirled toward the house and then away. In America they call that a breeze, Greta thought. In Ballyroan they never said the word breeze. The wind coming up from the ocean was either so strong you had to put your shoulder to it or it wasn't worth mentioning. "Tie up that hair," Lily used to shout at them in the mornings. And at night she'd sit Johanna and Greta in front of the fire and tug at knots twisted by the wind, pulled tight by the heavy salt air.

  "So what if it is midnight?" Michael said, addressing the whole room.

  Eavan sat up. "Oh, I almost forgot," she said to Michael. "You weren't here yet when we told everyone that we found out the baby is a girl. Mr. Quinn guessed it, and he was right."

  "Oh, that's right," Greta said, glad of the distraction. "He wasn't here." She turned to Michael, "So what do you think of that?"

  "A girl," Michael repeated, and rubbed the faint stubble on his face. His family waited as Michael accepted the information like a puzzle piece that had no matching shape on the board. If he were drowning right this minute, Greta thought, and I threw him a rope, I wonder would he know what to do.

  Eavan took a breath and seemed to consider what she would say. She put her hand on her belly and spread her fingers wide. "Gary and I are expecting, Dad. You know that. I'm due in October." There was no pain in her tone, no surprise, only patience and determination. "Gary and I are going to have a baby girl, and you're going to be a grandfather."

  When Eavan stopped speaking, she reached over and pressed her hand against Gary's leg. They've talked about it at home, Greta saw. They've pushed away their dinner plates and said to each other, something is wrong.

  "Yes, that's right," Michael said. He placed his arms precisely along the arms of the chair. He brought his knees together. He straightened his back. He cleared his throat. He gazed at the wall behind Eavan as if the plaster and drywall had been torn away and replaced with a vision that drained him, left him in a stupor. Greta braced herself for the list of excuses he always presented whenever he felt backed into a corner, whenever she held her breath and pointed out that he was forgetting an awful lot lately. He was exhausted. He was preoccupied. He was distracted. He was too old to be working down in the tunnels anymore. When he stopped working, he'd get better. She'd see. When he didn't say any of this, she looked closely at the baffled expression that was becoming more familiar to her with each passing week. As clearly as she saw it on the sandhogs' faces, she saw it on Michael's as well. He knows.

  Gary excused himself to go out to the deck for a cigarette.

  Michael brought one hand to his shirt pocket, felt for his handkerchief. Leaving it where he found it, he ran the same hand through his hair, smoothing it down at the back. Then he stood and walked toward the kitchen. "Are there any more of them bacon things?" he asked. Greta, Eavan, and James listened as he pulled trays from the fridge and unwrapped them to see what they contained. They heard him punching buttons on the microwave and a faint whir as the appliance sprang to life.

  "I like to touch him when I remind him of something," Greta said. "I think it helps. Sometimes I pinch him or step on his toe. Sometimes I make him repeat what I've just told him."

  "I wish you wouldn't do that, Mom," James said. "It won't help. Julia knows a neurologist in White Plains. We were thinking he should go in the next few weeks, you know, now that he's finished working."

  "You were thinking? How long ago did you notice?" Greta asked James. He shrugged, looked over at Eavan.

  "How long ago did you notice?" Eavan asked as she roused herself from her nest on the couch, one hand canvassing her belly, the other firmly planted in the cushion to give her leverage. She headed toward the back door to follow Gary, saying as she walked, "You'll need help, Mom. Not yet, but in a little while." James jumped up from his position on the floor, said, "She's right," waited a few seconds with his arms folded across his chest, and then yawned and left the room. A moment later Greta heard the television spring to life in his old bedroom.

  I'll need help, Greta repeated to herself. How grown up these kids have become. How like adults, though they've never had a thing to worry about in their lives. For the first time in many years, she thought of her father's body laid out on his bed, his limbs gone slack like a drunk she'd once seen being carried through Conch, moaning, his cap pulled low on his face. She knew when she first heard the gunshot. She knew when they carried him inside. She knew the next morning, when the air in the cottage felt a touch too dense, like a great storm was coming even though the sky was blue. In the years between then and now, she'd added details—not a single leaf left on the trees, the fire cracking and popping as if it wanted to say something, unnerving her so much that she refused to sit by it even when Lily begged her, even when her toes and fingers felt as cold as the iron hooks of the old net, left all night to soak up black water while the salmon and the minnows swam all around.

  What they must have said about Lily at home after she and Johanna left. How the Cahill girls had run off with a tinker. It's no wonder, they would have said, without faith, without schooling, backward as they'd grown out there alone in Ballyroan. How Lily must have steeled herself against their talk whenever she went in to town.

  "Do you really think they'll still come tonight?" Greta asked loudly, calling the question out to the corners of the house where they'd disappeared to wait. If not tonight, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the next day. If not the next day, then the one after that. It would not be possible to avoid them, and as Gre
ta listened to Michael move about the kitchen, open and close cabinets, riffle through the cutlery drawer for something he would not find, Greta began to want to see them. Not talk, not yet, but see. Little Tom as a man in his seventies. Johanna as a mother of young men.

  "Greta?" Michael called. "I need you a minute." Greta was tugged out of her chair by his voice, drawn into the kitchen by the whiff of panic in his tone.

  "What do I eat this with?" he demanded, waving his arm over the table, where he'd laid out and unwrapped every leftover Greta and Eavan had packed away. Above his feast he held two knives, one in each hand.

  "I guess all the forks are dirty. You can use—" Greta meant to reach above the refrigerator for the container of plastic cutlery, but out of habit she opened the drawer instead. There, clean, shining, were more than a dozen forks. She plucked one out and handed it to him. In return, he handed her his extra knife.

  "Perfect," he said, and began fishing strawberries from the fruit salad.

  "Did you not look in the drawer already, Michael? Did I not hear you rooting around?"

  He looked up with a full mouth, not quite sure what she was asking him. "You're tired, Greta," he said. "Sit down. Have something to eat."

  As Michael chewed, he remembered a little girl standing by a river, arms raised, eyes closed tight. The girl's name was Greta, he knew very well, and she was the same as this Greta whose two eyes watched him eat from behind glasses he didn't recognize.

  "I hear something," James called through the house. "Julia's car. It's stopping. It's them."

  Greta took a breath and stood.

  "A bit late, isn't it?" Michael asked as he reached across the table for more fruit. He saw that Greta had gone pale, that her lips had become a single thin stroke of red in the middle of her face. He watched as she stood and swept her hands over the front of her sweater, her hips, the thighs of her pants, as if she were brushing away crumbs only she could see. He watched her walk away from the table. He watched her walk across the kitchen. He leaned back in his chair and watched her walk down the hall to the door, which jingled when she pulled it open.