A Greyhound of a Girl

There was a face, hanging, right in front of her.

  “Ohmygod!”

  It was a huge face—huge eyes staring at her, and a tongue that was going to—

  “It’s only a cow,” said Tansey.

  “Well, what’s it doing there?!” said Mary.

  “And why shouldn’t it be there?” said Tansey. “The poor ol’ thing is only looking over the hedge.”

  They heard Emer snort, as if she’d suddenly woken up.

  “It was exactly the same as when I was a girl,” she said.

  “And me!” said Scarlett.

  “Shhhh!”

  “And the exact same place.”

  “It can’t be the same cow, surely,” said Emer. “Or can it?”

  “Not at all,” said Tansey. “Sure, the creature would be nearly a hundred if it was the same.”

  “It must have learnt the habit, so,” said Emer. “The cows passed it on, through the years.”

  “Cow to calf.”

  “Maybe it’s the ghost of a cow.”

  Mary could feel the cow’s warm breath on her face.

  “No,” she said. “It’s real.”

  She looked at Tansey.

  “Do you breathe, Tansey?”

  “No, thank God,” said Tansey.

  They heard Scarlett laughing.

  The cow’s big face was still hanging there, in front of Mary. She could see much more now, the hedge and the rest of the cow behind it. So, the face made sense. It had become funny, even sweet. The big eyes were beautiful.

  Mary could see the moonlight in them, two tiny moons, one in each big eye. She patted the cow’s nose.

  “He’s kind of soft.”

  “She,” said Tansey. “That beast’s a girl.”

  “Oh, all the best beasts are girls,” said Emer.

  Mary patted the cow again, and the cow pressed its face closer to Mary’s hand. Saying hello, welcoming her—that was what it felt like.

  “Off we go,” said Tansey—she whispered.

  “Bye, cow,” said Mary.

  She had to walk around the cow’s head, because the cow hadn’t moved. She could hear her mother whispering ahead of her.

  “Bend number five!”

  Mary and Tansey still held hands. Tansey’s hand was very cold but nice—soft and gentle. Any time Mary was about to step into a hole or trip on a stone, Tansey’s fingers seemed to squeeze hers slightly, to warn her.

  The trees were gone from over their heads, so Mary could see a bit more. There was pale, weak light that seemed to be behind the hedges, as if it couldn’t climb over and light the lane properly.

  “Bend number six!”

  “Nearly, nearly there.”

  Mary had never walked into a farmyard before. She’d never been on a real farm.

  “Bend number … seven!”

  But, still, she felt she knew where she was going, that she’d done this before, that the smell—cattle, hens, machinery, oil, dogs—was very familiar.

  She almost bumped into her mother.

  “Sorry.”

  Her mother, with her mother still on her back, had stopped at the gate to the yard. Mary stood with Tansey, just as a cloud shifted in the sky above and the moon lit the yard, just for them.

  “Oh, Lord.”

  It wasn’t a nice surprise.

  The gate was hanging from the post; it hadn’t been closed in years. The yard was empty. There were huge weeds, like bushes, growing everywhere. There were no animals, and no noise. The place was silent. But the biggest, shocking silence was at the far side of the yard.

  The house.

  The roof—the straw thatch—was gone. There was nothing in its place.

  They wouldn’t go any nearer. The moon was out, and it told them that there was no glass in the windows. Nothing shone, or winked. The front door was gone; it was just a door-shaped hole. The weeds would be in there too, inside the house, breaking through the floor, climbing the walls, grabbing the banisters, pulling the place down to the ground—where it had started nearly two hundred years before.

  “That’s a surprise.”

  “And not a pleasant one, faith.”

  “’Twould make you want to cry.”

  “I am crying!” said Scarlett.

  “Me too,” said Mary.

  “Good girls,” said Emer. “Cry for us all.”

  She patted Scarlett’s shoulders and Scarlett let her gently down to the ground. Emer was standing now. She put her arms around Scarlett’s waist.

  “We’ll cry,” she said.

  “And then we’ll stop. Because it’s only a house.”

  “She’s right,” said Tansey. “’Tis a pity, but nothing else and nothing more.”

  She stood at the gate and sobbed—although ghosts weren’t supposed to. And Mary understood: it wasn’t the old house they were crying about. Not really. It was for themselves they were crying, their endings and starts. There were four of them tonight, but who knew how many there’d be tomorrow night? Two of them had lived in that old roofless house. Two of them now lived in a different house, a house with a roof, in Dublin.

  Things changed.

  Four of them stood together, holding one another. But only three of them actually lived.

  They cried, and they stopped.

  “No greyhounds either,” said Emer.

  “You never liked the greyhounds,” said Tansey.

  “Ah, sure, I liked them enough,” said Emer, “now that they’re gone. I’d prefer to see them here than not see them here, even though they did frighten me. But, sure.”

  She pulled Mary to her, and hugged her. “That’s life.”

  t was three in the morning when they got back to the car.

  “Tired?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “D’you know what?” said Emer from the back of the car as Tansey helped her with her seat belt.

  “I’m as tired as it’s possible to be. But, still and all, I’d love to have a whiff of the sea. So, Scarlett, my lovely daughter …”

  Mary looked at her mother’s smile as it got bigger and took over her face.

  “Yes, Mammy?!”

  “Can you get the sea to come to us?” Emer asked. “Or would it be easier just to drive to the sea?”

  Scarlett started the car.

  “Let’s drive!” she said. “It’s on the way home!”

  “Will there be corners?” asked Tansey.

  “Yes!” said Scarlett. “And bends!”

  “Hear that, Emer?” said Tansey. “There’ll be bends.”

  “More bends,” said Emer. “They’ll be the death of me.”

  Mary heard the two old women in the back laughing as her mother did a U-turn across the empty road.

  “Courtown!” said her mother. “How does that sound?!”

  “I always liked Courtown.”

  “And Courtown always liked you, Emer.”

  “Did you ever bring me to Courtown?” Emer asked Tansey.

  “The once,” said Tansey. “We did. With your father. Before James the Baby—sorry, James the Man—was born.”

  “Did we have a nice time?”

  “Oh, we did. We had a great time altogether. Although, now, you threw your sandwich at a seagull.”

  “Did I?”

  “You did.”

  “Did I hit him?”

  “You did,” said Tansey. “Right on the head. But no harm. He picked up the sandwich in his beak and flew off with it, not a bother on the creature. And you ran after him, wanting the sandwich back. And you fell, and the squeals out of you! Half of Wexford thought the English were after coming back.”

  They laughed and giggled, and stopped. Mary turned and saw that her granny was asleep. Her head was leaning against Tansey’s shoulder. Tansey smiled at her, and Mary smiled back. Then Mary looked in the rearview mirror, to see her granny leaning against nothing.

  “Weird.”

  “What is?!”

  “Nearly everything.”


  Emer missed all the corners and bends to Courtown—it took about forty minutes. But she woke just as Scarlett stopped the car, in a car park right in front of the sea.

  “Oh, look.”

  The moon was a silver line on the water, all the way across the Irish Sea to Wales.

  “It’s like a magic road.”

  “Too straight for my liking.”

  They sat there for a while, then got out of the car and walked across a little bridge, across another narrow road, and up a few steps—Mary helped her granny up the steps—so they could see the sea properly and smell it, and feel the wind. It was chilly, but not too bad. Mary and Scarlett had their jackets, Emer was wearing her dressing gown under her coat—and ghosts don’t feel the cold.

  They sat on the steps, side by side by side by side—Mary with Scarlett, with Emer, with Tansey.

  “I always loved the smell of the sea.”

  “And the sound of the waves!”

  “That too.”

  “Boring,” said Mary. “I’m being cheeky.”

  “Care for a swim, Emer?” said Tansey.

  “Ah, no,” said Emer. “Enough is enough. I was never mad about the water. Just the smell of it I always liked.”

  She coughed again, for quite a while.

  “I can’t swim, sure,” she told Tansey. “I never could.”

  “It’s never too late to learn,” said Tansey.

  “Ah, it is,” said Emer. “And I’m not interested in swimming. But that, now—”

  She pointed back at the amusements arcade, the Golden Nugget, behind them.

  “That was only brilliant.”

  “What was?” said Tansey.

  “All the stuff in that place,” said Emer. “The one-armed bandits and penny-rolling machine, and the machine that told your fortune, even though it was only a cod. The noise and the lights. Scarlett loved it too. D’you remember, Scarlett?”

  “Yes!”

  “Pity it’s shut.”

  “We could wait for it to open.”

  “No,” said Emer. “It’s fine. We’ll go in a minute.”

  “All right.”

  Emer pressed her mother’s hand.

  “Is dying a bit like that?” she asked, very quietly—she didn’t want to upset Mary. “The afterlife and the rest of it. Is it noise and whirring lights?”

  “It’s nothing to be frightened of,” said Tansey. “Do you understand me?”

  Emer looked at Tansey.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”

  They cuddled up together. And, beside them, Mary and Scarlett cuddled up together too.

  Tansey spoke, to all of them.

  “We’ll never be far away, you know,” she said. “Even when you can’t see us anymore.”

  Scarlett had started to cry. Tansey leaned across and put her arm around her.

  “When you want to see your mother, look at your own face in the mirror,” she said. “Or look at your Mary’s face. Or Mary’s daughter’s face. Emer will be in there. You’ll see. And so will I. And so will you. And so will Mary.”

  They were all crying again. But it was fine—it was nice.

  It was great.

  “I don’t have a daughter,” said Mary—she wiped her eyes and nose.

  They started laughing. So did Mary. I don’t have a daughter. It was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

  “You will someday,” said Tansey. “Or you might.”

  “That’s weird too,” said Mary. “I’m not being cheeky.”

  “I want to go back to the hospital now,” said Emer.

  And that made them cry even more.

  “Would you like to come home with us, Mammy?” Scarlett asked.

  “Are you talking to me, Scarlett?” said Emer.

  “Yes,” said Scarlett. “Of course.”

  “It’s a bit confusing,” said Emer. “There are three mammies sitting in a row here.”

  “Well, you’re the mammy I was talking to,” said Scarlett. “Would you like to come home with me and Mary?”

  “I’d love to,” said Emer. “But no. I think I’m better off back in the hospital.”

  “Oh, Mammy.”

  “I’m grand, I’m grand. And I’ve had a lovely time. I met my mother—imagine.”

  She laughed—and coughed.

  It was getting colder—or it seemed to be.

  “I’d love an ice cream, though,” said Emer. “A cone.”

  “Oh.”

  “Me too,” said Mary.

  “It’s four in the morning,” said Scarlett.

  “I can help there,” said Tansey. “I’ll get the ice creams. There’s a shop back across with a big cone outside it. That’ll be the place for the ice creams.”

  “You can go through the door!”

  “I can.”

  “Cool.”

  “But,” said Scarlett, “how will you pay?”

  “You’ll give me the money and I’ll leave it there, beside the ice cream machine. It’ll fill their day when they come and open the shop, and us back in Dublin. ‘Who put the money there?’ they’ll be asking.”

  They walked slowly to the car. Tansey went ahead, straight to the shop on the other side of the car park. She stopped in front of the door, shimmered, and disappeared.

  “Ohmygod! That’s so cool.”

  Scarlett and Emer leaned against the car and looked at the sea while Mary waited for Tansey to come back out through the shop door.

  But Tansey didn’t come through the door. It was still dark, but Mary saw something on the roof of the shop. Four white things came out of the chimney, followed by she saw it now—two hands and two arms, the elbows, and a head and shoulders. It was Tansey and, for a second, she looked like the Statue of Liberty, holding up four white flames instead of one.

  “Ohmygod.”

  Tansey stepped on to the top of the chimney, then off it, and she glided down the roof. She seemed to slide right down the wall, to the ground. Mary saw her walking toward the car.

  “Why did you go that way?” Mary asked.

  “I could come back out through the door because, well, I’m not real, I suppose, and that’s what I can do. I’m not solid when I don’t need to be. But the ice creams are solid, for a few minutes anyway, till they melt. So I couldn’t get the ice cream through the door. Only up the chimney.”

  “They’re not covered in soot, are they?”

  “Only my one,” said Tansey. “And I won’t be eating it. I only have it to keep you company.”

  She handed out the cones, and they sat on the bonnet of the car and looked back at the sea for a while, until Emer was ready to go.

  “That was lovely,” said Emer. “Imagine. My mother stole an ice cream for me.”

  “I didn’t steal it, Emer,” said Tansey.

  “Ah, but it’s the thought that counts,” said Emer.

  y the time they got to the hospital, daylight was pushing the night away. Scarlett parked the car at the front door, just as it started to rain.

  There was no one standing outside the hospital. It was like the whole world was still sleeping. Mary liked it. She’d never been up this late—this early—before.

  “Come on, Mary!” said Scarlett.

  She opened her door and got out.

  Mary quickly understood: they were going to leave Tansey and Emer alone together for a little while, before Emer went back in to her bed. She opened her door and ran after Scarlett, to the bus shelter.

  They stood there, and listened to the rain tapping the plastic roof.

  “It’s cold,” said Mary.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s sad.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Scarlett. “But it’s—I don’t know—wonderful too. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “But it’s still sad.”

  “I know.”

  Back in the back of the car, Tansey and Emer said nothing for a while. They looked out at the rain, until there was too much rain and nothing to s
ee.

  “They’ll get wet,” said Tansey.

  “Good enough.”

  “Ah, now.”

  They laughed, but only a little bit.

  “The feel of the rain,” said Emer. “On your skin. You only appreciate that when it’s about to be taken off you.”

  “Not everything’s great, you know,” said Tansey, “just because it’s going to stop. You would never eat your turnips. You always said you hated them.”

  “And I still do.”

  “You won’t miss them, so.”

  “I will not.”

  “See now.”

  “But I’ll miss hating them.”

  “Were you as cranky as this all your life?”

  “I was, of course.”

  “Good girl.”

  They sat quietly for a while. The rain ran down the windows. Then it slowed—it made no sound—and stopped. The early sunlight filled the car.

  “Nice and warm now,” said Emer.

  “Are you still frightened, Emer?” Tansey asked.

  “I am,” said Emer. “A bit. But that’s natural, I suppose. Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll put it this way,” said Emer. “I’m a little bit frightened, but I’m not really worried anymore. Does that make sense?”

  “It makes a lot of sense,” said Tansey.

  Mary and Scarlett saw one of the back doors open—the door on Emer’s side. They ran over to the car, to help her out. Emer stood, and looked up at the sky.

  “That’s a grand day now,” she said.

  Mary looked into the car. Tansey was still sitting in there.

  “Are you not getting out?”

  “No,” said Tansey. “I’m grand in here.”

  “Oh,” said Mary. “Okay. Will I close the door?”

  “Do.”

  Mary grabbed the door handle.

  “But before you do,” said Tansey. “There’s one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Remember the leaves.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’ll do,” said Tansey. “Good girl. I’m that proud of you, Mary. Shut the door now.”

  Mary closed the door. She had to slam it. She tapped the glass.

  “I didn’t mean the slam,” she said.

  They heard Tansey through the glass.

  “You’re grand.”

  They got the wheelchair out, and went into the hospital. They made their way to the lift, and slowly up to Emer’s ward. They helped her take off her coat and dressing gown.