A Greyhound of a Girl (15 page)

hosts don't sleep.

But sometimes they close their eyes.

Tansey's eyes were closed when she heard the car door being unlocked. She opened them, and saw Mary's face.

“How did you get in without the key?” Mary asked.

“Ah, sure,” said Tansey. “It's one of the tricks. I thought it best to stay hidden away in here. And I like it.”

She could see Scarlett's face now, looking over Mary's shoulder. Then Mary and Scarlett stepped out of the way. And Tansey saw a new face.

The new face stared back at Tansey.

“Emer?” said Tansey.

“What?”

“You're Emer,” said Tansey.

“I know I am,” said Emer.

Scarlett and Mary were there again, at the open back
door of the car, on either side of Emer in the wheelchair. Tansey watched as her daughter, her ancient daughter, put one hand on the arm of the wheelchair and the other on Mary's shoulder. Then she watched her stand up. Her face, her head, disappeared for a while. Then it was back, big and getting bigger, as Emer, helped by Mary, slid into the backseat, beside Tansey. They could hear Scarlett at the back of the car as she tried to fold the wheelchair and put it into the boot.

“I can't do it!” they heard her.

“Let me try,” they heard Mary.

“I think you press this thing here!”

“Mind your fingers.”

“I am—ouch!”

Tansey and Emer looked at each other.

“Do you recognize me, Emer?” Tansey asked.

Emer looked. She looked, and saw—it happened slowly. The face was hazy, as if it was hidden behind a mask made of very thin material. The material got thinner and thinner. And Emer knew who she was looking at.

She spoke very quietly.

“I think I know you,” she said.

“Good girl.”

“You're my mother.”

“Yes,” said Tansey.

“Have you come to collect me?”

“Not yet,” said Tansey. “There's no hurry.”

“But you're dead.”

“I am.”

They heard the boot being slammed. Then Scarlett and Mary walked past them and, at exactly the same time, opened the front doors of the car and climbed in. Then they sat there quietly, almost afraid to turn around and look at the women behind them. Nothing was said, and they couldn't hear breathing.

Then Emer spoke.

“You're a ghost, so.”

“I am.”

“In the back of a car.”

“Yes.”

“That's a new one,” said Emer. “I never saw that in any of the films. A ghost in a car.”

They were quiet again, for a while—for too long.

“Will we go for a drive?!” said Scarlett.

She looked into the rearview mirror and saw her mother, but not Tansey.

“Is she gone?!”

She turned quickly, and saw Tansey looking straight at her. Scarlett screamed—and everyone else in the car seemed to scream. They all screamed once, but the screams were trapped inside the car, so they bounced and ricocheted and were still there when the laughing started.

“I got such a shock!” said Scarlett. “Sorry!”

“Was it the mirror business?” Tansey asked her.

“Yes!” said Scarlett. “I couldn't see you!”

“Ghosts can't be seen in mirrors, Mammy,” Mary told her. “They have no reflections. Or shadows.”

“Oh,” said Scarlett. “I didn't know.”

“Sure, everyone knows that,” said Emer.

“Well, I didn't!”

“Well, then, you should,” said Emer. “And not be screaming like that and scaring the wits out of us all.”

“Emer,” said Tansey.

“What?”

“Stop being so rude,” said Tansey. “Say you're sorry.”

“I will not, faith,” said Emer. “Why should I?”

“I'm your mother,” said Tansey. “So go on now, do what you're told. Say sorry.”

“I'm sorry, Scarlett,” said Emer.

“This is weird,” said Mary. “And I am
so
not being cheeky.”

“What's weird about it?” Emer asked.

She tried to lean forward, so she could see Mary's face properly. But she couldn't.

“Well, for a start,” said Mary, “your mother's younger than mine.”

“You're only jealous,” said Emer. “But I can see your point, all the same.”

She looked at Tansey.

“Are you really a ghost?”

“Oh, I am.”

“And you're really my mother?”

“Yes,” said Tansey. “I am.”

“I'll tell you what's really weird, then,” said Emer. “I'm not all that surprised.”

“And that makes it even weirder,” said Mary.

“That's true, I suppose,” said Emer.

The car park had emptied while they'd been sitting there. The last of the hospital visitors had driven away and there were only a few empty cars left, in a space designed for hundreds.

“We'll go somewhere!” said Scarlett. “Will we?”

She turned the key in the ignition, then stopped.

“I don't want to be pushy,” she said.

“I don't want to stay here,” said Mary. “It's spooky. I'm not being cheeky.”

“Where will we go?” Scarlett asked.

“I'm hungry,” said Mary.

“Are you hungry, Mammy?” said Scarlett.

“No,” said Emer.

“I wish I was,” said Tansey.

“So, where will we go?”

Emer tried to lean forward again, and this time she managed it. Her face was at Mary's shoulder.

“I want to go to Wexford,” she said.

“Wexford!”

“Wexford,” said Emer. “The farm. That's what I want to see and that's where I want to go.”

She fell back into her seat.

“But it's such a long drive!” said Scarlett. “And it's dark and quite late already and—”

“I want to go there as well,” said Tansey.

“But I told Doctor Patel that we'd bring Mammy—Emer—back in an hour!”

“I want to go to Wexford too,” said Mary.

“But the farm doesn't belong to the family anymore!”

“I only want to see it,” said Emer. “Sure, I don't want to rob their cattle.”

“You're being cheeky again, Emer,” said Tansey.

“Sorry, Scarlett, love.”

“Oh-kay!” said Scarlett. “Let's go to Wexford!”

“Cool,” said Mary.

Scarlett started the car. Before she took her foot off the brake, she and Mary heard a voice behind them.

“I have to go pee.”

“Who said that?!”

“Ghosts don't pee, dear,” said Tansey.

Mary sat up a bit, so she could see in the rearview mirror. She could only see her granny. There was no hint of Tansey back there. She didn't turn around. She kept looking in the mirror.

“Do you have to go pee, Granny?” she asked, as she watched her granny's eyes closing. The car was dark, but there was a fluorescent light on the low ceiling of the car park, just behind the car's rear window, so Mary could see her granny perfectly. She'd fallen asleep.

“Put your belt on, Mary!” said Scarlett.

“In a sec.”

Mary's granny was asleep and she was leaning against something that Mary couldn't see—as if an invisible hand was stopping her from falling sideways. And there was something else. Mary looked at one of her granny's hands. It looked like it was in midair, and holding something that Mary couldn't see.

She turned now, and saw it. Her granny's hand was on Tansey's lap and holding Tansey's hand.

“That is so cool,” said Mary.

Tansey smiled at her.

Mary put on her seat belt.

t was quiet. Scarlett just drove. Mary looked out the window. She didn't ask for music or food. Her granny was asleep and Mary knew it was special, this trip. It was something that hadn't been planned. It was actually impossible. Four generations of women—“I'm a
woman
,” Mary said to herself—heading off on a journey in a car. One of them dead, one of them dying, one of them driving, one of them just starting out.
I'm a woman
. She looked out the window and knew where she was, for a while. They were driving beside the sea, still in Dublin. The lights lit places and buildings she'd seen before. The big chimneys of the power station were behind them, and they'd just passed one of those things, a Martello tower, that had been built when Napoleon Bonaparte or someone like that had been thinking of invading Ireland—or something. The name of this place came into her head. Sandymount.

Then the sea was gone and they were on a motorway—Mary could tell by the way her mother put her foot on the pedal and made the car go much faster. She didn't know where they were anymore. The road was everything for a while. There was nothing else to look at in the dark.

“No corners.”

“Who spoke?!”

“I did,” said Emer.

“You're awake!”

“That's good to know.”

Mary was suddenly aware: she'd been asleep. She was awake now, though—definitely. Her granny's voice had woken her—she thought.

She turned so she could see her granny.

“What did you say, Granny?” she asked.

“No corners,” said Emer.

“What d'you mean, like?”

“I mean, there aren't any corners on the road,” said Emer. “And there should be. Are we going the right way at all?”

“Yes!”

“Where's Ashford, so?” said Emer.

“It's bypassed!” said Scarlett.

“It's what?”

“Bypassed!”

“My God.”

They were quiet for a while.

“Are there no corners at all anymore, Scarlett?”

“No!” said Scarlett. “At least, I don't think so. It's straight all the way. Sorry.”

Tansey spoke now, for the first time in ages.

“I always liked a good corner,” she said.

“Ah, sure, stop,” said Emer. “There's nothing like a good corner.”

“You never know what you're going to get.”

“Now you're talking … Mammy.”

Mary heard the two women behind her giggling.

“What's so funny?”

“Me,” said Emer. “Calling this one here ‘Mammy.' It's gas.”

“She
is
your mammy.”

“I know,” said Emer. “But it's still gas. Sure, I'm eighty-something, I forget how much. And this one here's well over a hundred.”

“I am.”

Mary smiled, but she began to worry as she watched
her granny's eyes start to close again. There was something about it—even in the dark, or maybe because of the dark. Her granny's face seemed to close too, as her eyes closed. As if she'd stopped being her granny, or anyone. But she kept looking, even though it was awkward, trying to look behind her while the car was moving fast and she was strapped in. She wanted to see something first, something to reassure her, a yawn or a little twitch, something to tell her that her granny was just asleep.

“We should maybe have waited till daylight,” said Tansey. “There's nothing to look at.”