Free The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane Page A

in the kitchen?"
    "The table, four chairs, the fire, the window, four pipes on the mantel."
    "Can you see the four pipes on the mantel?"
    "Well, I know they're there. I put them there this morning."
    "But can you see them?"
    Greta walked over to the mantel and stood on her tiptoes. In that position she was just tall enough to rest her nose on the ledge. In front of her, no more than two inches from her face, were the four pipes, and beside them the box of tobacco.
    "I can see them," she said.
    "Mammy, will we go to Galway?" Johanna asked, rocking back and forth from heel to toe.
    "You? Can you not see either?"
    "You wouldn't go without me, Mammy. Now listen, I'll do anything—"
    Big Tom and the boys came in just as Johanna's begging reached a pitch that Big Tom couldn't stand. "Calm yourself, girl," he said, and swiped one of the pipes off the mantel before collapsing into one of the chairs. He scratched at his face, then sucked on his pipe in short, quick puffs until it got going. To Greta, the sound of him getting his pipe started always sounded like a person kissing his or her own hand before blowing the kiss away. Then the boys went at their own pipes, and there were kisses flying all around the kitchen as Lily filled them in about the dentist and the note and the doctor in Galway.
    "And what's wrong with her?" Big Tom asked. "Useless at finding her way at doing things unless she's shown a hundred times, but nothing a doctor can do that her own family can't. The best medicine is like I said—keep her close to home."
    "Peel the potatoes," Lily said to Johanna. "We'll talk after dinner."
    "I can't. Please. I can't do a thing until I know."
    "You should listen to your father, Johanna, and calm down." Lily took one of the boiled potatoes in her hand and peeled off the skin. With each dark piece of skin that fell away, the white inside was revealed in a cloud of steam. Greta had tried to peel a hot potato once, but she burned herself, and Lily had made her feel her hands and compare them to her own. Greta's were soft and smooth; Lily's were as rough as Big Tom's, thick with calluses and scars.
    When Lily was finished peeling the potatoes, she sat on the stool by the fire. Because the kitchen was small and the table seated only four, the family usually ate in shifts: Big Tom and the boys first, Lily and the girls directly after.
    Greta thought the discussion would be put off until after they'd all eaten, but suddenly, from her perch, Lily announced, "We'll go to Galway. The girls and I will go and we'll see what this man has to say."
    Johanna clapped her hands. Greta dropped down to a stool opposite her mother and wondered what other people saw when they looked at things.
    "A bloody waste," Big Tom muttered, and the kitchen was filled with the sound of forks and knives against plates and teeth.
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    The Galway bus came through the Conch crossroads every Tuesday and Thursday, and the journey took two hours. There were some regulars—people who went to Galway once every few weeks to settle up business—but most of the people who went were what Lily called once-in-a-blue-moon types, like themselves. On the Thursday before Christmas, Lily, Johanna, and Greta walked the three miles to the crossroads with a bag of sandwiches and waited for the sound of an engine in the distance. Greta was wearing shoes Lily had bought from a woman in town whose daughter had grown out of them, and Johanna was annoyed that she had boys' shoes and Greta had girls' shoes. To distract them, Lily told them that she could count on one hand the number of times she'd been to Galway. After half an hour they heard the bus approaching. When it appeared, Lily stepped out into the road and held up her hand.
    Greta and Lily shared a seat. Johanna sat by herself across the aisle and looked out the window. There had been a lot of talk about Pepper in the days leading up to their journey, talk Lily tried to hush. Pepper was a fine, strong horse when