Thirteen

The train shuddered to a halt outside the station, waiting for the signal which would allow it to proceed. Breda, sitting by the window, facing forward, studied the view.

The journey had been long and depressing, right from the moment she had walked up the rickety gangway onto the boat which, even in the harbour, moved and groaned alarmingly under her feet. The Irish Sea had been horrendous, but mercifully her sickness had stopped the moment when, with legs trembling from exhaustion, she had thankfully stepped onto dry land. All the same, this moment of looking out of the train window was amongst the worst so far. The turbulent sea could be consigned to memory; what she saw now was what she would have to live with for who knew how long.

Streets of mean-looking houses ran down towards the railway line. Factories, warehouses, a church, a school, crowded together, no space anywhere. A forest of house chimneys and, rising high above them, great mill chimneys, all belched smoke against what could be seen of a grey sky.

What held the scene together into one coherent whole, silhouetted, was that everything was black. The stone of the buildings was black; the clouds of smoke were black, fading to grey only as they thinned at the distant edges. The school playground was black asphalt, and on the murky canal, which ran close to the railway line, a barge was heaped with shining black coal. Occasional stunted trees had presumably started out green, but now their leaves were black-edged. The woman sitting opposite to Breda was clad in black from head to foot.

The train gave a couple of jerks, then crept forward into the station.

‘You’re here, love!’ the woman said. ‘This is Akersfield!’ She sounded pleased, as if she was introducing a well-known beauty spot.

‘I’ll give you a hand with your luggage,’ she offered. ‘And when we get out of the station I’ll show you your bus stop. Unless of course you’re thinking of taking a taxi?’

From the look of the girl’s luggage – a large, cardboard suitcase and a couple of straw bags – she didn’t look the sort to be taking a taxi, but you could never tell these days, not since the war. Now the most unlikely looking people would jump into a cab, seemingly thinking nothing of it.

‘Indeed no,’ Breda assured her. ‘I’ll be taking the bus. My aunt sent me the directions.’

‘A pity she’ll not be here to meet you, your auntie.’

‘’Twas not possible. I was not knowing the exact time I would arrive. But I’ll be all right.’

She took her ticket out of her handbag. A single ticket, she thought. No going back. Then as she gathered together her luggage, the woman picked up the large suitcase.

‘My word!’ she said. ‘What have you got in this, then? Gold bricks?’

‘Don’t I just wish it was!’ Breda replied. She was worried by how little was left of her savings once she had paid for the journey and bought a few essentials: new shoes, underwear, stockings. She wondered just how long her money would last, and how she would set about earning more. She couldn’t sponge on Aunt Josephine.

The two of them emerged from the station into a fine, grey drizzle which cast a curtain of mist over everything. Breda, giving a quick look around, assumed that this must be the centre of the town. A long rectangle was dominated at one end by a high, Victorian Gothic building with a clock tower, and at the other end by a large church.

‘Yon’s the town hall,’ the woman said, nodding in the direction of the clock tower. ‘We’re very proud of our town hall. The church is St Saviour’s.’

‘They’re most impressive,’ Breda said. ‘Tell me, why are all the buildings black?’

‘Black?’ The woman sounded puzzled. ‘I’d not noticed they were.’ She looked around. ‘Yes, you’re right! They are. I suppose it’s the colour of the stone.’

Funny, she thought, she’d been born and bred in Akersfield, never lived anywhere else, and she’d always thought that stone was black, came out of the ground like that. But come to think of it, in the last year they’d put up half a dozen houses on the edge of town, built of local stone they said, and it was almost golden.

The traffic was dense and noisy: cars, buses, lorries, vans, bicycles. Not as many horses as in Ennis, Breda thought, or even as in Dublin.

‘That’s your bus stop, over the other side,’ the woman said. ‘Number forty-two. I’ll go with you. You take your life in your hands, crossing these roads, and I dare say you’re not used to it.’

‘I’ve been to Dublin,’ Breda boasted.

She did not mention that she had made only three brief visits in the whole of her life, without ever mastering the traffic there. And this place, where she was attempting to cross the road, was a far cry from Kilbally.

‘Thank you,’ she said when they were safely across and the woman had deposited her at the bus stop. ‘’Tis exceedingly kind of you. Would you be telling me your name, now?’

‘Mrs Mabel Proctor.’

‘I am Breda O’Connor.’

‘Well then, Miss O’Connor, I hope you settle well in Akersfield. It’s not always as gloomy as this. And here’s your bus!’

She watched while the bus bore Breda away. Pretty little thing, she thought, and such a soft, Irish voice, a pleasure to listen to. Well, she’d not be without her own kind in Akersfield. There were lots of Irish, though they were mostly townspeople by now, not countrified like this girl. They’d been coming for the last hundred years, seeking a living. They weren’t liked by everyone. A bit unruly they were, especially with the drink in them on a Saturday night, and they did have very large families. Still, speak as you find, and personally she’d found nothing wrong with them. Live and let live, she believed.

Almost as soon as the bus had left the town centre it started to climb. Breda was soon to discover that every road out of Akersfield ran uphill, and most of the smaller streets ran uphill again from the roads. The bus chugged along, frequently in low gear, stopping and starting to accommodate passengers, with jerks which threatened to bring on the sickness Breda thought she had left behind on the boat. She took a deep breath and willed herself to overcome it. Only fifteen minutes on the bus, Aunt Josephine had said. Stay on until the terminus. Surely she could manage that? She would look out of the window, think of other things. There was plenty to occupy her mind.

The rain was heavier now, splashing against the windows, mixing with the dust to form grey splodges which interrupted the view; but since the view was mainly of people huddled under umbrellas, picking their way around the puddles on the glistening wet pavement, there wasn’t much to spoil. She had not thought to bring an umbrella, but even if she had, she wouldn’t have had a spare hand to hold it. Aunt Josephine’s house, she knew, was five minutes from the bus stop. Just long enough to get soaked to the skin.

She was used to rain. There was plenty of it in Kilbally, but it was a different kind of rain there: clean, bright, soft. Nor did she usually walk out in it carrying a heavy suitcase, two large straw holdalls and a handbag.

The bus gradually emptied until, looking around, she saw she was the only passenger left on the lower deck. When it stopped for the last time, the conductor called out to her, ‘This is as far as we go, love!’

He helped her off with her case, deposited it on the pavement, then climbed back and took out a flask of tea. The rain was heavier than ever. Breda looked at her suitcase in despair. How was she going to manage it? And in which direction was Waterloo Terrace? She would have to ask a passer-by, except that there didn’t appear to be any.

Why did I ever leave Kilbally, she asked herself? Why would I not have stuck it out with Luke and Mammy for another year or so? She could have been married in that time to some nice Kilbally fellow, and have a home of her own. Sure, she hadn’t thought much of the local talent when she’d been there, she was always looking for something superior, but looking back, there were some decent fellows: Eamonn Pinch, or Bernard O’Laughton. If either one of them, she thought, was to come up to her this very minute and propose marriage she’d accept at once, and take the next boat back to Ireland.

Well, ’twas not likely to happen and she had better make a move to get out of the rain, not that she could ever get any wetter than she was now!

Not seeing the man walking towards her, she bent down to pick up the suitcase. When she stood up again he was standing in front of her, in Army uniform, one stripe in his sleeve.

‘Could you be telling me where Waterloo Terrace is?’ she asked.

‘Ah! Then if it’s Waterloo Terrace you’re wanting, you must be Breda O’Connor! There can’t be many Irish girls with this amount of luggage looking for Waterloo Terrace on this very afternoon.’

‘I am so, Breda O’Connor,’ she said. ‘And you are . . . ?’

‘I’m your cousin Tony, Tony Maguire. Hand over that case.’

‘’Tis more than pleased I am to do so, and to meet you,’ Breda said. ‘Though I would not have recognized you, since the only photograph I have seen of you, you were a small boy in short pants!’ And rather fat, she thought.

‘That was years ago,’ he said. ‘And the only one I have seen of you, you were in your first Communion dress.’

‘Which was ten years ago,’ Breda said. ‘Sure, haven’t we both changed? And I did not know you were a soldier.’

There was nothing of the round-faced, dumpy little boy about this man, not that she could see much of him because of the rain. He was tall and, underneath his uniform, broad-shouldered. There was an air of strength about him which was emphasized in the easy way he swung the suitcase, and then took one of the straw bags from her. From underneath his uniform cap his black hair fell wetly over his forehead. His eyes, meeting Breda’s, were of so dark a blue as to be almost navy.

‘We’d better get a move on,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in getting wetter than ever.’

He set off at a smart pace. It was not easy to keep up with his long strides. Every so often she had to do a skip and a jump so as not to fall behind. Also, the rain was running down her face and, even worse, in cold trickles down the back of her neck and inside her collar. In quantity, it was the equal of any rain she had seen in Kilbally.

‘How did you know when to meet me?’ she gasped. ‘I did not say.’

‘I didn’t know. It just happened I’m home on leave and Ma said I might as well go down to the bus terminus, just in case. She reckoned you must be due about now.’

‘Well, I’m glad you did. I don’t know how I’d have managed,’ Breda said. She didn’t tell him how much she had wanted to turn around, and go right back home.

As they reached the corner of Waterloo Terrace the rain began to ease off, then stopped, and from behind the grey clouds the sun put out a few weak rays. Wasn’t that surely a good omen, Breda asked herself?

Waterloo Terrace, when it was built more than a hundred years ago, had been a place of genteel importance, its houses occupied by mill managers, head teachers, even a doctor or two, and a solicitor. Servants in uniform had scrubbed the front steps and polished the brass knockers; nursery maids had emerged, pushing smart perambulators to the nearby park. But these were past glories. Waterloo Terrace had long since come down in the world. Where the steps were scrubbed, and edged with white scouring stone, it was now done by the lady of the house herself (or more likely by the eldest child). The only thing which remained the same was that the houses still sheltered large families, though now it was those who couldn’t afford something more up-to-date and convenient.

All the same, to Breda’s eyes, used to the single-storey, whitewashed cottages of Kilbally, the whole terrace was splendid, and in a way she was right. The general air of shabbiness – peeling paint, broken paving stones on the front paths – could not hide its excellent proportions, the large sash windows and solid front doors.

‘What nice houses!’ she said to her cousin.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Though they’ve never looked the same since the Government took away the iron railings and ornamental gates to turn them into planes or tanks. Elegant, those gates were, and whether they were actually used, or left lying around in gigantic scrap heaps, who knows?’

Number 52 was near the far end. It stood out from its neighbours on either side by the whiteness of its net curtains and the neatness of its small front garden, with a square of grass surrounded by narrow borders filled with dahlias and Michaelmas daisies.

As they drew close, the curtains twitched. ‘Ma’s been looking out for you for hours!’ Tony said.

Josephine had seen them. As they walked up the path, the front door opened and she stood there on the top step, a beaming smile on her round face, her arms open wide.

‘Welcome, our Breda!’ she cried. ‘Welcome to Akersfield! And have you noticed, the sun’s come out for you?’

She led the way into the hall. The tiled floor, intricately patterned, was chipped and cracked but shining clean. A wide staircase led up on the left, and on the right-hand side doors gave, presumably, on to rooms. As Breda followed her aunt into the first of the rooms, seven heads turned in her direction, seven pairs of eyes fixed themselves on her.

‘Here we are, then,’ Josephine said. ‘Cousin Breda, all the way from Kilbally in Ireland!’

Four of those looking at her were children, quite small, two of them no more than toddlers, sitting on the floor. There were two young women, who gave her a welcoming smile and, in the best chair, close to the fire, sat a very old woman. There was no smile from her. She stared hard at Breda, scrutinizing her from top to toe. Breda had no doubt who she was: Granny Maguire, about whom Josephine had only ever spoken in despair.

‘This is Grandma,’ Josephine said. ‘My mother-in-law, Mrs Maguire.’

‘Mrs Maguire senior,’ the old woman emphasized.

‘Pleased to meet you!’ Breda was about to add ‘I’ve heard a lot about you’, but she realized that none of it had been good, so she smiled and bit back the words.

‘You’re very young.’ It was an accusation.

‘I’m seventeen, going on eighteen,’ Breda said.

‘When I was eighteen I was married with one child, and another one on the way!’ the old woman said.

One of the young women rolled her eyes at Breda.

‘I’m Kate Cormack,’ she said. ‘And this is my sister, Maureen Denton, though we’re both Maguires . . . ’

‘And the two boys are mine. John is five, and Larry’s just two,’ the younger woman said.

‘And the two girls are mine,’ Kate said. ‘Kitty and Peggy. We’ve each got two more at home . . . ’

‘And as you can see, I’m expecting again,’ Maureen added.

Breda nodded at everyone in turn.

‘I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t get all the children’s names right, just at first.’

‘Don’t let it worry you, love.’ Kate had a strong, comforting voice. It was good to see she was Josephine’s daughter. She had the same easy way with her. ‘We don’t always get them right, do we, Maureen?’

‘Mine learn to answer to anything!’ Maureen said.

‘And that’s not the end of it,’ Kate said. ‘There’s Michael’s brood, two so far, and if Betty has anything to do with it, which she usually does, more to follow.’

‘Why are we sitting in the front room?’ Grandma Maguire demanded suddenly. ‘We don’t usually sit in here. I prefer the kitchen. This place never gets properly warmed up.’

‘You know why we’re in here. It’s because it seemed a nicer way to welcome Breda,’ Josephine said patiently. ‘But if you want to go back in the kitchen, that’s all right.’

‘Not on my own! I haven’t reached my eighty-fourth year to be shunted off on my own, though I dare say that’s what you’d like.’

‘Wouldn’t we just!’ Maureen spoke quietly, through clenched teeth.

‘What’s that you said? Speak up!’ Grandma Maguire ordered.

‘I said I’ll have to be going,’ Maureen said. ‘If I’m not there when Peter gets home for his tea, there’ll be ructions. Though he’ll be a bit late because there’s a meeting after school.’

‘Peter teaches history at the local secondary school,’ Josephine explained.

Then she took another look at Breda.

‘Good heavens, child! What am I thinking of? You’re wet through! I’ll take you upstairs to your room and you can get changed. Mind you strip right down to your skin. I don’t want you catching your death of cold the minute you get here. What would Molly say?’

Tony came back into the room.

‘I’ve taken Breda’s case up,’ he said. He smiled across at the old woman. ‘Hello, Grandma! All right, are you?’

Her thin mouth turned up fractionally at the corners, her face creased into the vestige of a smile. It was clear who her favourite was.

‘I would be,’ she grumbled, ‘if they’d let me sit in the kitchen instead of in this place. It’s too cold in here! Anyway, give your old Grandma a kiss.’

She tilted her head and he planted a kiss on her cheek.

‘Grandma Josie said you could go in the kitchen,’ Kitty said in her clear, five-year-old voice. ‘I heard her say it!’

Mrs Maguire senior turned swiftly on her great-granddaughter.

‘You’re a rude little girl! You’re too cheeky by half! Children should be seen and not heard!’

Kitty turned to her mother. ‘Why doesn’t she want to hear me? She’s always saying “speak up”, so I did.’

‘Come along, Breda,’ Josephine said.

Breda realized, suddenly, how wet she was, and she was beginning to feel cold. She followed her aunt up the stairs. The first flight, as far as the landing, was wide and shallow, with a handsome banister rail and balusters, but from the landing to the attic, which was where her aunt now led her, the stairs were narrow and steep, covered in oilcloth, and with no rail. Except on her visits to Moira, she had never lived in a house with stairs.

Josephine opened a door at the top. ‘This is your room. I’m afraid it’s a bit small,’ she apologized, ‘but at least you have it to yourself. To put you on the floor below you’d have had to share with Grandma.’

‘It’s very nice,’ Breda assured her. It was certainly small; a narrow bed, a small chest of drawers, a chair, and a curtained-off corner to serve as a wardrobe, completely filled it. But she would have slept in a broom cupboard rather than share with that awful old woman. She shuddered at the thought.

‘There now! You’re shivering! And it’s all my fault.’

‘I’m not really, Auntie Josephine. I’m all right.’

‘Call me Auntie Josie! It’s friendlier. Now mind you change right down to the skin. There’s a clean towel on the bed, give yourself a brisk rub down, then come downstairs and I’ll have tea ready. Oh, I do hope you’re going to be happy here, love!’

‘I will be, Auntie Josie,’ Breda promised.

She was not as sure as she sounded. There were so many of them, and all strangers, however well-meaning. Not a single person in Kilbally had been a stranger to her. ‘Had been’, she thought. No longer ‘is’, because she had left Kilbally. ‘Had been’, wasn’t it now?

Longing for Kilbally pierced her like a sword: longing for Mammy, for the customers she might at this very moment have been serving in Luke O’Reilly’s shop, for any familiar face she had known all her life, even that of Father Curran. The pain of loss ran through her body. What had she done? But it was done. She must turn around and face the future, whatever it might turn out to be.

She stripped off her clothes as if she was stripping off her old life, then rubbed herself down with the towel, and put on dry ones. She tried to make something of her hair but the rain had twisted it into tight curls, which she loathed, and all the brushing in the world would not smooth them out. Oh, how she longed for straight hair!

She shaped her mouth with the lipstick Moira had given her in Dublin. ‘You’d look a different person with a bit of make-up on,’ Moira had said. And indeed wasn’t that what she wanted half the time, to be different?

She was ready now, as ready as she ever would be. She battled with her reluctance to go downstairs and join the others. It was all too much, she was tired from the travelling. Why wouldn’t she allow herself five minutes more before going down?

There was a window in her room, small and high up, so that the only way to see out of it would be to stand on the chair. She lifted the chair into position and climbed onto it. It was rickety, but no matter. If she fell, ’twas not far to the floor.

The wideness of the view from the window came as a surprise. Waterloo Terrace must be quite high. In the near vicinity was a park, with wide avenues, a bandstand, glimpses of a lake through trees which were beginning to take on their autumn tints. Beyond the park was the main road along which, she reckoned, she had travelled on the bus.

At the far side of the road the land dropped sharply away to the valley, then climbed almost as steeply up the hill on the other side. Buildings crowded against each other: houses, factories, churches, with small patches of green and a few trees interspersed here and there. Over the lowest part of the valley there was the same haze of smoke she had seen in the centre of the town, but at the top of the far hill, stretching the whole width of the horizon, the buildings gave way to a strip of purple and mauve, brilliant in the late sun, which met the sky then merged into it. She was contemplating this, wondering about it, when a knock came at the door.

‘It’s me, Maureen! Can I come in?’

She was in the room before Breda could answer, or climb down from the chair.

‘I have to leave,’ Maureen said. ‘I’ll see you some time tomorrow. I drop in on Mam most days. What are you looking at?’

‘The view,’ Breda answered. ‘It’s interesting. There’s a band of purple on the horizon just where the sky begins. What would that be?’

‘Oh, that’s the moors,’ Maureen explained. ‘I dare say the heather isn’t quite over. When it is, the moor will be brown, and then in the spring it’ll be fresh green again. Once you get out of the centre you can see the moors from most parts of Akersfield.’

‘Shall I be able to go there?’ Breda asked.

‘Of course! Why not? One of us will take you. Are you a good walker?’

‘Not bad,’ Breda said.

Perhaps Tony would take her if he was still on leave. On the other hand, he probably had a girlfriend, or even a fiancée, who wouldn’t let him out of her sight.

‘Why not come downstairs now?’ Maureen suggested. ‘Tea’s nearly ready, and I hope you’re hungry because Mam’s prepared a feast – as far as rations allow.’

‘I am famished,’ Breda admitted, getting down from the chair.

‘And by the way,’ Maureen said, ‘don’t let Grandma Maguire upset you, though she’ll try it on. Best ignore her. She’s a cross we all have to bear, poor Mam most of all. I don’t know how she stands it. I’d murder the old witch!’

Breda followed Maureen downstairs, this time into the large kitchen. The table was set for tea, and at first glance it was crowded with food, but a second look showed the food to be spread out, more than one plate of the same dish, so as to fill the space and hide the lack of variety, to give the appearance of plenty. Even so, Breda thought, there was plenty. There were savoury sandwiches with a filling of sardines which had been mashed up with breadcrumbs to make them go further, fresh baked bread and teacakes, two dishes of home-made plum jam – the plum harvest had been good all over the country – and a cake. And who would know to look at that, Josephine thought, that it contained vinegar in place of an egg?

‘Come and sit down, Breda love!’ She indicated a place beside her own.

‘Are you going to sit to the table, Grandma?’ she asked her mother-in-law. ‘Or will I be giving you a tray?’

Grandma Maguire cast an eye over the table. ‘I’ll not bother to sit to, if this is all it is. You can give me a bit on a tray. A bit of everything. I like ham and eggs for my tea, not this airy-fairy stuff.’

‘Don’t we all,’ Josephine said. She would have given a back tooth, if she’d had one left, for a plate of ham, cut thick, fried and served with two eggs. She was sick of eking out the rations and even more sick of hearing her mother-in-law’s grumbles about food.

‘Two years after the war,’ Grandma Maguire said, coming in on cue. ‘And there’s less food than ever! Why?’

‘I’ve explained,’ Josephine said. Tve explained a dozen times. We have people in other countries to feed now. You wouldn’t want them to starve, would you?’

‘Serve ’em right,’ the old lady spoke savagely through a mouthful of teacake. ‘Bloody Germans! They’re the enemy, aren’t they?’

‘The war’s over, Grandma!’ Kate said. She had stayed on to tea with Kitty and Peggy.

‘Take no notice and make a good tea,’ she whispered to Breda. ‘There’s plenty. Mam does wonders.’

‘I’ve brought some butter with me from Kilbally,’ Breda said. ‘I will get it after tea, unless you want it now. And Luke O’Reilly sent some tea and some biscuits.’

Tony, coming into the room as Breda was speaking, slid into the chair opposite to her. ‘Ah! So it was food in your case; I thought it was lead-lined,’ he said.

‘I enjoy a nice biscuit,’ Grandma Maguire said. ‘What we get are like sawdust! Or else they’re so hard they break my dentures.’

‘You shall have one of Breda’s with your bed-time drink, old lady,’ Tony promised her, winking at Breda.

He really was an attractive man, and not just to look at, not only because he was enhanced by his uniform, Breda thought. When he entered the room he brought an air of liveliness with him.

Brendan Maguire came in from work. He was quite different to look at from his son: short, stocky, his greying hair receding to give him a high forehead. When his wife introduced Breda he gave her a nod, then took his place at the table.

‘I hope you don’t mind we didn’t wait for you, love,’ Josephine said anxiously. ‘Breda hadn’t eaten for hours. In fact I expected you earlier, with it raining.’

She poured him a cup of tea, put in a spoonful of sugar and stirred it for him. ‘There you are, love!’

‘We’ve been working inside,’ Brendan said. He was a builder who could turn his hand to most jobs with a certain degree of competence, though he was not a master craftsman at any one of them. Indeed, he was completely self-taught.

He tucked into his food with serious dedication, not attempting any conversation. Breda ate heartily. She was so hungry that a plate of dry bread would have been acceptable, and Auntie Josie’s offering was a mile above that.

‘Have another piece of cake, love,’ her aunt urged. ‘Don’t hang back. Eat your fill! You’re a growing girl.’

‘She’s grown-up,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m a growing girl. She’s growed!’

‘Thank you. I really couldn’t eat another thing,’ Breda said.

Then suddenly she was uncommonly tired. All she wanted now was to go to bed and sleep until morning.

‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ Tony offered. ‘The rain’s stopped.’

He wouldn’t mind dropping in at the Cow and Calf, showing off his new cousin. She was a good looker and no mistake!

Wouldn’t he just ask me when I’m ready to drop, Breda thought? Could she possibly raise the energy?

‘Breda’s too tired, on her first evening here,’ Josephine interrupted. ‘She needs an early night. Leave it until tomorrow!’

‘I really would like to go tomorrow,’ Breda said. ‘I’d look forward to it. But Auntie Josie’s right about this evening. Also, I have to write to Mammy. I promised I’d do that as soon as I got here.’

‘As you wish!’ Tony said. He sounded quite good-natured about it. ‘Tomorrow it is!’ In any case he had half fixed a date with Joyce Denton. She’d be mad if he didn’t show up.

‘And don’t forget when you do go, you can’t take her in the Cow and Calf,’ his mother said. ‘She’s only seventeen!’

In her young days, she thought, respectable young women didn’t go into public houses, not even with a man they knew. But her day had been a long time ago. She had come from Ireland before the First World War, the war to end all wars, only it hadn’t. King Edward had been on the throne then; there was an air of fun and lightness, but it was still respectable, at least in her class, though they did say there were some fine goings on in the aristocracy. It had all been different then. At this distance, with two wars in between, it seemed another life.

An hour later, though it was still daylight, Breda sat up in bed writing to her mother. She was so tired that she had been tempted to leave it until next morning, but to do it now would bring Mammy closer.

It was difficult to know what to say and what to leave out. Her heart was full of longings, misgivings, regrets, but she would not put any of these on paper, she would mention only the pleasant things. So she wrote of how she liked her room, though it was small; of her welcome from the family and a word or two about each of them; of how Tony had met her at the bus stop and carried her case. She said that Uncle Brendan was rather quiet but perhaps he had had a hard day. She did, however, permit herself one outburst.

‘Grandma Maguire is a dragon, an ogre. I am sure she does not like me and I shall keep well out of her way. I miss you, Mammy. Lots of love.’

It was dark by the time she had finished. She folded the letter and put it in the envelope, then turned out the light. In the darkness two tears rolled down her cheeks but before she could cry herself to sleep she was asleep.

She slept the sleep of the young and very tired, hearing nothing of her aunt putting a protesting Grandma Maguire to bed, then of her uncle and aunt arguing in the bedroom. Nor did she hear Tony coming into the house much later, noisily singing.