Ghosts


For twenty-odd years we’ve always had Oorawn Sullivans for servants;
why I don’t know, unless it was the only hope of getting something off
the bill. The Sullivan’s bill went back long before my time. When one
of them got married we took her younger sister, and when she died of
consumption we took Kitty. The first week we had Kitty I found her with
all the tea things down the lavatory basin, pulling the chain. She told
me townspeople had great conveniences.

Then one Thursday last summer, Mary, the eldest girl, came in to do her
bit of shopping. I always had a smack for Mary for the way she reared
her family. I heard her whispering something across the counter to Nan
about a bottle of whiskey and cocked my ears. Oorawn is the Irish for a
spring, but it isn’t only water that flows there. All the poteen they
drink in our part of the country rises in Oorawn. When they have a
wedding or a wake they come in for a bottle or two of the legal stuff
and take care that plenty see them with it. A couple of days after they
bring it back under cover and get credit for it. They call it ‘the holy
medal.’

‘What do ye want the medal for, Mary?’ said I, taking a rise out of
her. ‘Is it one of the girls getting married on you?’

‘Wisha, the Lord love you, Mr. Clancy!’ says she. ‘’Tisn’t that at
all, only a cousin that’s coming home from America on Friday. He
mightn’t be able to drink the other stuff.’

‘Which cousin is that, Mary?’ said Nan. ‘I never knew you had cousins
in America.’

‘Wisha, Mrs. Clancy, love,’ said Mary, ‘’tis a cousin called Jer that
we hardly knew we had ourselves,’ and off she went into the usual
rigmarole about her grandfather’s brother that married a woman of the
Lacys from Drumacre; not one of the Red Lacys mind you, but cousins of
theirs. I could just about follow her, she might have been talking
double Dutch for all Nan understood.

‘And how is he going to get up to Oorawn?’ she asked.

‘Oye, he can probably get a lift,’ said Mary, ‘or he might get the bus
as far as Trabawn Cross.’

‘And walk all the way up the valley with his bags!’ said Nan. ‘Ah, Tim
will meet him at the station and drive him up.’ Nan is the kindest
soul in the world with my time and car. Still, I suppose she could
hardly do less, and Kitty with us. So next evening I left her in
charge of the shop and drove up to the station. There was the usual
small handful on the train, but the devil an American boy could I
see. When they cleared there was only a family of four left by the
luggage wagon; father, mother, daughter and son, to judge by
appearances.

‘Is it anyone you were expecting, Tim?’ said Hurley, the stationmaster.

‘Only a Yankee cousin of the Oorawns that’s coming home,’ said I.

‘’Twouldn’t be one of them?’ said Hurley, pointing to the family.

‘I wouldn’t say so,’ said I, ‘but I suppose I’d better make sure.’

I went up to the elder man, a fine, tall, handsomelooking fellow about
the one age with myself.

‘Your name wouldn’t be Sullivan, by any chance?’ said I.

‘That’s right,’ he said, reaching out his hand to me. ‘Are you one of
my Oorawn cousins?’

‘No,’ said I, trusting in God to give me words in the predicament I was
in, ‘only a friend with a car. Mick Hurley and myself will take out the
bags for ye.’

And while we carried out the bags, I was thinking harder than ever I
thought in my life. The American family wasn’t my class at all. And as
for Oorawn, you might as well drop them on a raft in mid-Atlantic. This
was a case for Nan, and damn good right she had to handle it, seeing
’twas she that brought it on us with her interfering in other people’s
business.

‘I’ll have to call at the shop first,’ I said as I got in. ‘Anyway, I
daresay after that journey ye wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea.’

The one thing about being to a good school is that, like Nan, you can
make a fist of anything, even Americans. I took her place in the shop
and she went upstairs with them. She came down about ten minutes after,
looking a bit dazed.

‘Do you know who they are?’ said she, frightened and at the same time
delighted. ‘Sullivan Shoes.’

‘I never heard of Sullivan or his shoes,’ said I, ‘but I wish he was in
mine this minute.’

‘Go up and talk to them while I get the tea,’ said she. ‘I told them
’twas Kitty’s day off. They’re on their way to Paris. We’ll have to
stop them going to Oorawn.’

I saw Kitty coming down the stairs as I was going up, and she was like
a ghost. She must have caught a glimpse of her American cousins and was
thinking about the cabin and the pint of whiskey. With the main
responsibility now off my shoulders I didn’t mind. They were a nice
family; the father was quiet, the mother was bright; Bob, the young
fellow, was writing a book on something—he took after the mother, but
Rose, the girl, was a real beauty. Every damned thing you told her, she
took seriously. She wanted to know had we any fairies! I told her we
had no fairies since the poteen was put down but the ghosts were
something shocking.

‘You mean you have ghosts in this house?’ she said.

‘Dozens of them,’ said I, seeing that we were lacking in a lot of the
conveniences a girl like that would be accustomed to and we might as
well take credit for what she couldn’t see, ‘The mother, God rest her,
knew some of them so well that she used to quarrel with them like
Christians.’

‘Didn’t I tell you what Grandfather used to say about the ghosts on the
farm at home?’ said her father, taking a rise out of her too.

I nearly laughed when he talked about ‘the farm’ but I thought it was
better to leave that to Nan. All the same I was glad when she came in
with the tea. I took a cup and went down to mind the shop, and by the
time I came back she was after persuading them to stop at the Grand
Hotel. I ran the bags over, and then we set out for Oorawn. The car was
pretty full with Rose sitting on Bob’s knee. Their father sat in front
with me where he could see a bit of the country. On a fine evening the
sea road is grand. The sea was like a lake, and the mountains at the
other side had a red light on them like plums.

‘Is there only this road from Oorawn to Cobh?’ he asked me. ‘There’s
only this road from Oorawn to Hell,’ said I. ‘Why?’

‘I was thinking,’ said he, ‘this must be the road my grandfather
travelled on his way to America. He used to describe himself sitting on
their little tin trunk at the back of an open cart. My grandmother was
having her first baby, and she was frightened. He sang for her the
whole way to keep her courage up.’

‘There was many a homesick tear shed along this road,’ I said, because,
damn it, the man touched me the way he spoke.

‘Count the ruined cottages, and you’ll see your grandmother wasn’t
alone.’

Then the road turned off up the valley and over the moors, a bad place
to be on a winter’s day. When we reached the Sullivans what did we see
only Bridgie, rising up like an apparition from behind a bush with her
skirts held up behind, and away she flew like the wind to the house. I
was wishing then I hadn’t Nan with me. It was bad enough, a lonely
cottage in the hills that was expecting one American labouring boy
from Butte, getting a blooming family of millionaires or near
it. Signs on it, that was the last we saw of Bridgie.

I will say for Mary Sullivan that she made a great effort not to look
as put out as she was. I smelt when I went in that she had just been
baking for him.

‘Wisha, and are you Jer?’ she cried, wiping her hands in her apron
before she’d touch him. ‘Law, I’m hearing about you always. And your
family and all! Ye must be dying for a cup of tea!’

‘We’ve just had tea, Mary,’ said Nan, being tactful. ‘I don’t want to
put your cousins out, but Tim and myself have an appointment in town.’

‘Why then, indeed,’ said I, planting my ass on a chair near the fire,
‘the appointment can wait, because out of this house I don’t stir till
Mary Sullivan gives me tea. Have you griddle cake, Mary?’

‘I have, aru,’ said she. ‘Do you like griddle cake?’

Nan gave me a look like a poultice, but the woman didn’t know what she
was talking about. If the Sullivans’ cousins had left that cabin
without a meal, the disgrace of it would have driven Mary to her grave.

‘I hope we’re not putting you out too much, Mrs. Clancy,’ said
Sullivan, ‘but I’d like it too. It isn’t every day a man comes back to
his grandfather’s house.’

‘Your grandfather’s house?’ cried Mary. ‘Ah, my darling, this isn’t your
grandfather’s. Your grandfather’s is about three fields away. ’Tis only
an old ruin now.’

‘Whatever it is,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see it.’

‘Will I show it to you?’ she said, at her wits’ ends to please him.

‘After we have the tea, girl, after we have the tea,’ said I. What a
hurry you’re in to get rid of us!’

‘Hurry?’ she said, laughing. ‘The divil a hurry then, only the state
we’re in. Mrs. Sullivan,’ she said, holding out her two hands to the
American woman, ‘we’re a holy show.’

‘Ah, Mary,’ said I, ‘if you took my advice five years ago and bought a
vacuum cleaner, you needn’t be afraid to hide your face today.’

‘Do you hear him?’ cried Mary. ‘A vacuum! Lord save us! You’ll have to
drink your tea out of a mug.’

‘Have you ne’er a basin?’ said I.

‘Why?’ said she. ‘Would you prefer a basin? Or is it making fun of me
you are?’

The two younger girls were standing in front of Rose with their fingers
in their mouths, looking at her as if she were a shop window.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Have a good look at your cousin, and stick to
the books and maybe ye’d be like her some day.’

‘Wisha, how in God’s name would they, Mr. Clancy?’ said Mary, really
upset at last. ‘And don’t be putting foolish notions into the
children’s heads... Your daughter is a picture, Jer,’ she said with the
tears of delight standing in her eyes, and then she took Rose’s two
hands and held them. ‘You are, treasure,’ she said, ‘I could be looking
at you all day and not get tired.’

‘Why then, indeed, Miss Sullivan,’ I said to Mary ‘as we’re getting so
polite with our misters and misses, you’re not too bad-looking
yourself.’

‘Och, go away, you ould divil, you,’ said she, giving me a push. Nan
was mortified. She felt she’d never get a day’s good of Kitty after
that push.

‘There never was a Sullivan yet without good looks, Mary,’ said
Sullivan, ‘and you have your share.’

‘Wisha, God forgive you, Jer Sullivan!’ she said, blushing up, but I
could see the way the spirits rose in her.

We had the tea, and the griddle cake, and the boiled eggs and then we
had the whiskey.—the first bottle of proper whiskey opened in Oorawn
for generations, as I told them—and then Sullivan got up.

‘Now, Mary,’ he said, ‘if youll forgive me, I’d like to see the old
place before it gets too dark.’

I noticed he brought his glass. He went on ahead with Mary; his wife
and daughter with Nan, Bob with me, and the kids bringing up the rear,
too bewitched to talk. Mary was apologising for the dirt of the
fields.

The sun was going down when we reached the ruin of the little cabin. It
was all overgrown, and a big hawthorn growing on the hearth. Sullivan’s
face was a study.

‘Grandfather used to say that the first Sullivan to come back should
lay a wreath on the grave of the landlord that evicted us,’ he said in
a quiet voice.

‘A wreath, is it?’ cried Mary, not understanding his form of fun. ‘I
know what sort of a wreath I’d lay on it.’

‘Now,’ he said gently, a little embarrassed by us all, ‘I’d like to
stay here for a few minutes by myself, if you won’t think it rude of
me.’

‘Don’t stay too long,’ said his wife, ‘It’s turned quite chilly.’

We left him behind us, and made our way back over the fields.

‘He’s a very gentlemanly sort of man,’ said Mary Sullivan to me. ‘Oh,
law, wasn’t it awful the way ye caught Bridgie?’

I saw the girl thought it was the same thing that was detaining her
cousin, but I didn’t try to enlighten her. I knew what he wanted with
in the old ruin by himself. He was hoping for ghosts; ghosts of his
grandfather’s people that might be hanging round the old cabin so that
they could see him there and know he had brought no disgrace on the
name. I was touched by it the way I was touched by what he said about
his grandfather. There was something genuine about the man that I
couldn’t help liking. I had an idea that the Sullivans would have no
reason to regret his coming.

‘Well,’ I said, when he came back with his empty glass (I was afraid
that someone would start asking him questions and he wouldn’t like it),
‘we may as well be making tracks.’

As we were driving back down the hill I was pointing out the various
landmarks to him. Behind us, Nan was explaining to his wife that Oorawn
was exceptional and that all the ‘peasants’ weren’t as backward as the
Sullivans. Some of them had fine cottages with beautiful gardens. You
could see the Americans were a bit disappointed because there wasn’t a
garden.

Then as we reached the coastroad Nan tapped me on the shoulder and
said: ‘We’ll call at Hopkins’ as we are passing, Tim.’

‘We will not,’ I said.

‘We must, Tim,’ she said, getting as sweet as honey to cover up my bad
temper. ‘Mrs. Hopkins promised me a few slips.’

As long as Nan is in the shop she never yet has learned anything about
country people. How the blazes would she and she calling them
‘peasants’? I knew well the game she was up to. She wanted to show the
Sullivans that we had good society, and herself and myself were the hub
of it. But I had thought even she would know who the Hopkins were and
why we couldn’t bring the Sullivans there. She didn’t. She nagged and
nagged till I lost my temper.

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘go to Hopkins and be damned to you!’

And I turned in by the gate with the urns on top of the pillars. The
Major was out under the portico with his dirty old cap over his eyes,
and his face lit up when he saw me. The Major’s wife won’t let him take
a drink unless ’tis with visitors, and he knew I could lower it for
him.

‘Just in time for a little drink, Clancy,’ he said. ‘And is that your
charming wife?’

‘These are some American friends called Sullivan,’ said I, ‘that want
to see your house, and I came with them to make sure you didn’t try to
sell them anything.’

‘You talk about selling things!’ he said, delighted with me. ‘You
damned old ruffian! In the good old days I’d have been on the
magistrate’s bench and seen you up in the County Gaol. Don’t believe a
word this old rascal says to you, Mrs. Sullivan,’ he says, pawing the
American woman’s hand.

It seemed supper was late, and Mrs Hopkins asked us to have it with
them. It went against my grain, but I knew it was what Nan wanted. The
Major’s wife was one of the Fays of Frankfort. In her young days it
used to be naval officers, but since the daughter grew up she went in
more for social welfare. The Americans were delighted with the big
staircase and the plaster panel on the first landing with a big
picture in the middle of it. Then Bella came down after changing, a
big, tall, broody-looking girl. You never saw anyone light up like
that American boy did. We had our supper in the front room overlooking
the bay, and they were delighted again with the fireplace and the
paneling, and then Bella took Bob and Rose off to see the house. They
came back in great excitement, and their mother and father had to be
shown it.

“You don’t want to see the Bossi mantelpiece, Clancy?’ says the Major,
going off into a roar as he filled my glass.

‘If ’tis one of those fireplaces you can’t put your boots on, I
don’t,’ said I.

‘Or the historic plaster ceiling in the saloon, Clancy?’ he says. ‘I’m
sure you’d love the historic plaster ceiling. Wonderful for shooting at
with champagne corks. Pop!’

‘Don’t forget to show them your ghost!’ said I. ‘Was it some priest ye
hanged or someone ye put out of his house?’

‘Look at him!’ said the major. ‘You can see the sort of chap he is,
sitting there drinking my whiskey and hating me.’

Nan gave me a look meaning that she didn’t know where her wits were
when she married me, but I was past caring. The younger ones went out
to the garden, and after a while the others joined them. Nan was
collecting her slips. The major was taking advantage of me beyond my
capacity. I knew what he’d say after when his wife studied the
decanter that ’twas my doing.

They all came back for a drink and Sullivan was talking to Mrs Hopkins
about the backwardness of ‘the peasants’ and she was telling him about
her club for peasant reform. He mentioned the subject of bath-rooms,
and I could see he had Bridgie on his mind. The Major couldn’t get it
out of his head that I was trying to sell something to the Americans
and using his house as a blind. He kept looking at me and roaring. And,
God forgive me, there was I roaring too, calculating how many gallons
of petrol it would take to send his historic old house blazing to
Heaven. I was excited and when I have a few drinks in I’m very
wicked.

By the time we left, the Sullivans were arranging to take Bella out on
their way back through London. I tore back the road with the rocks
rising up at me like theatre scenery, thinking of the couple that
travelled the same road on their tin trunk so long ago. Sullivan had
the same thought in his mind.

‘That was a delightful end to a remarkable day,’ he said.

‘It was,’ I said. ‘Almost as remarkable as the day.’

“You probably can’t appreciate what it meant to me,’ he said.

‘You might be surprised,’ I said.

‘All my life,’ he said, ‘I wanted to stand in the spot where the old
couple set off on their journey, and now I feel something inside me is
satisfied.’

‘And you laid a wreath on the grave of the man who evicted them as
well,’ said I. ‘Don’t forget that.’

The funny thing was, it was his wife that knew what I meant.

‘What’s that?’ she said, leaning forward to me. “You mean the Hopkins
were the landlords who evicted them?’

‘They were,’ said I. ‘And cruel bad landlords, too.’

I knew ’twas wicked of me, but the man had roused something in me. What
right had any of them to look down on the Sullivans? They were country
people as I was, and it was people like them that had gone crying down
every road in Ireland to the sea. But they were delighted, delighted!
Mrs. Sullivan and Nan and Bob and Rose, they couldn’t-get over the
coincidence of it. You’d think ’twas an entertainment I put on for
their benefit. But Sullivan wasn’t delighted, and well I knew he
wouldn’t be. The rest were nice, but they were outside it. They could
go looking for ghosts, but he had ghosts there inside himself and I
knew in my heart that till the day he died he would never get over the
feeling that his money had put him astray and he had turned his back on
them.


(1972)