MA WAS LAUGHING gently as she finished her tenth cup of tea that day. She shifted Dee’s loose-limbed weight in her lap and told James Hueston how we drank far too much of the stuff in the Finnerty household; how my dad always said that by the time we hit the grave none of us would ever rot, we’d be too pickled from tea. Ma said that if they dug her up in a hundred years, they’d think she was a saint because, like Bernadette, death would not corrupt her. She laid her head back in solemn beatitude, closed her eyes and laid her free hand on her breast, looking angelic.
‘Saint Olive of the Barry’s Green Label,’ she intoned. ‘Bless my teapot.’
James Hueston chortled in genuine delight, and his amusement pleased Dom, who gave a rusty little chuckle.
Something banged the back of my chair. I spun to look, but nothing was there. Yesterday’s storm was back, gusting against the house with force, shushing through the eaves and down the chimney so that the rooms were filled with tiny stirrings and insistent little thud thud thuds of not-quite-snug doors and windows batting in their frames. I looked around the subtly shifting room and pulled my chair a little closer to the table.
James Hueston laid his cup down, looking questioningly at my ma as he took a pack of Woodbines from his pocket. She nodded and smiled at him and asked Dom would he get the fags from her handbag in the sitting room. Dom didn’t even look in her direction, just continued gazing at James Hueston like a sleepy cat. Ma seemed completely oblivious to how stoned he was, how blissed out.
I jumped to my feet. ‘I’ll get them for you, Ma.’
‘Thanks, love. Bag’s hanging on the back of the armchair.’
Dee was unconscious in Ma’s lap, her curly head lolling into the crook of Ma’s arm, a thin line of drool shining on her chin. Ma was going to get a crick in her neck holding her like that. I was just about to offer to take Dee in and lie her on the sofa when I hesitated. I realised I didn’t want her out of my sight. I wanted her here, with Ma and me and . . . and Dom. All of us together, under the hard spot of the kitchen light, within the benign radius of James Hueston’s presence.
I ran my fingers through Dee’s curls and went into the sitting room. Nan was snoozing on the sofa, her feet up on a little poof. I pulled the tartan car-blanket up around her shoulders and tucked her in a bit. She was deeply asleep, not a stir out of her. In the kitchen I heard James Hueston strike a match, and the sweet smell of his cigarette smoke wafted in to me.
‘Your husband told me about your home, missus. I’m sorry for your troubles.’
Ma made a noncommittal sound.
‘Anything I can do to help while your man is away . . . just ask.’
I was a bit surprised at how dark it had become already. The garden was barely visible through the window. The almost blank glass made me feel watched. I hastily shut the curtains, then went and threw another few bits of turf onto the fire. The room brightened instantly.
‘The two sisters have already offered their help, Mr Hueston. Thank you so much.’
There was a rueful chuckle from the old man. ‘Oh, you’ll have as much help as you can handle, then . . . that Jenny’s a fierce woman.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘May is looking well, is she? Seems happy?’
My mother must have nodded or shrugged, some wordless communication, as there was silence in the next room. I stood at the fire, brushing turf-dust from my hands, and looked around me. Nothing felt right.
Nan sighed, and I jumped as if she’d let out a yell.
James Hueston murmured in the kitchen, ‘I feel I need to apologise to your boys for the state they found me in yesterday. I was . . . well . . .I was very much the worse for wear, missus, and I’d hate for them to think that I was that kind of a man.’
The window was rattling a low, continuous samba behind the curtain – like someone trying to get my attention. I took a deep swallow and struggled with the irrational feeling that I was somehow standing my ground. The back of my neck crawled with the sensation of being watched.
Ma’s big shoulder-bag was just in front of me, but instead of getting her fags and leaving, I stood quietly listening to the shifting, living silence of the room.
The floorboards creaked, the unmistakable feel of someone moving their weight on the floor beside me. Despite the cosy heat and the kindly light, my heart began creeping slowly up my throat. A cold breeze passed over the back of my neck. It felt as though something were circling me, and I had to stop myself from backing up against the wall to ease the vulnerable feeling between my shoulderblades.
Low and almost inaudible, a voice whispered into my ear, ‘Pat.’
I jumped, and my hands flew out as if to ward something off. ‘Who’s that?’ I whispered, scanning the room with bulging eyes.
Ma’s voice drifted from the kitchen, gently encouraging James Hueston to continue. ‘You’d been drinking?’ she said.
‘Truth is, missus . . . a bit like your little girl there, I’ve been having some terrible dreams myself lately, and I finally tried to drown them in a bottle. It’s not an excuse, but . . . ’ His voice trailed off, and the kitchen was very quiet for a moment.
The voice spoke in my ear again.
‘Pat.’
I felt a little puff of breath on my cheek and jerked back at the physical intrusion into my space. A welcome spark of anger cut through my fear.
‘Go away,’ I said. ‘Leave us alone.’
There was a pause, as though something had been shocked into stillness. That surprised me, and I felt a little rush of confidence, a real sense of my own power. Behind me, on the mantelpiece, a small china dog began to vibrate, rattling gently against the stone of the mantle. I glared at it.
‘Cut that out,’ I said.
The dog stopped its rapid jittering as suddenly as it had begun. Very, very quietly, but with a strength that amazed me even while I was doing it, I spoke out into the room: ‘I want you to leave him alone. Do you hear me? Leave my brother alone. And leave Francis alone, too. I mean it.’
I heard a desperate rushing noise within the room, and a fierce, cold draught gusted from the fireplace against the back of my legs. There was a low, agonised moaning. To anyone else, it would have been the sound of the wind scouring the house, but I knew it was here, in the room, rising up from the walls. It was the very essence of desolation.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ I said. ‘I want you to leave.’
The wind wailed in the chimney. At that moment, I felt an awful wave of nausea stagger me backwards, and I slumped against the wall. There was a tearing sensation in my chest – a terrible kind of rending – and I grabbed the front of my jumper in sudden agony.
And then there was nothing. No more sound. No more sensation. Just a quiet, empty room, and an unexpected feeling of abandonment and remorse.
‘Oh Patrick!’ said Nan. She was looking up at me with wide-eyed dismay. ‘Oh Patrick,’ she said again. ‘What have you done?’
‘Pat?’ Ma called, worry in her voice. ‘Is your nan alright?’
‘She’s grand, Ma. She’s just talking in her sleep. Hang on and I’ll get her settled.’ Nan and I stared at each other, me splayed against the wall, clutching my chest, she shaking her head slowly, her eyes full of tears. I wobbled across to tuck the blanket a little better around her, and stroked her cheek with the back of my finger. ‘It’s all right, Nan. Everything’s fine. No need to be afraid now.’
But Patrick,’ she quavered. ‘Your poor brother . . . ’ ‘
I stroked her cheek and forced myself to smile at her. Her eyes began to drift shut. ‘He’ll be okay, Nan,’ I murmured. ‘We’ll fix everything, don’t worry.’
‘Your poor brother.’ She was floating off, her eyes closing, her breath deepening. I stayed by her for a few moments, the way I would with Dee, just to make sure she was fully under. Then I straightened up and brought Ma her fags.
Everyone but Dom was looking at me expectantly when I entered the room. I handed Ma her cigarettes and made what felt like a rueful little shape with my mouth. ‘I think the wind startled her a little bit. She’s gone back asleep now.’
There were ahs and nods of understanding from Ma and James Hueston. Dom was not on the same bus at all. He was gazing at James Hueston with a kind of floaty curiosity.
‘What are your bad dreams about?’ he asked.
James Hueston gave him a long, searching look.
Ma shifted Dee and flicked her eyes to the old man. ‘Ah, Dom,’ she said. ‘Mr Hueston mightn’t want to talk about things like that.’
‘It’s alright,’ murmured James Hueston. ‘I don’t mind.’ But then he just sat there, silently looking down at the table, as though gathering the right words. He delicately picked a little flake of stray tobacco from his lip and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger as he thought.
I couldn’t sit down. I just couldn’t. I went to the sink with the pretence of getting myself a drink of water and let the tap run. I could see into the sitting room from here. Nan’s feet were visible, resting on the poof. She seemed fine. The room seemed perfectly peaceful. I felt powerful and dislocated all at once. I had sent that thing packing! With just a command, it had run away. Was that all it had taken? In the end, was that all we’d had to do? Tell the soldier – the bad man – to leave? Command, and he would have to obey?
The window over the sink shook gently in its frame, and I glanced at it. It knocked twice. Bang. Bang. Very angry. Only my own face glared back at me from the glass. The feeling of dislocation grew. My eyes were dark. I looked furious with myself.
I swallowed the water convulsively. It was cold enough to splinter my teeth. I tore my eyes from my own reflection and forced myself to sit back down at the table.
‘I’ve been dreaming the same things since the war.’ James glanced at my ma. ‘The First World War,’ he said, and she nodded. ‘I were in the service in the second war, too, but I were a mechanic in the RAF then, didn’t see no action.’
Ma smiled. Her brother Gary had been an RAF mechanic at the end of World War II. She didn’t mention this to James Hueston, but that didn’t surprise me; Ma didn’t talk much about Gary’s being in the British armed forces. There were some people on our road who were pissy about it, and Ma had learnt to carry her pride in her big brother quietly, inside herself.
James was looking down at the glowing tip of his fag as though there were a picture show running there that only he could see. His Woodbine was held between his two middle fingers, the glowing end sheltered in the cup of his palm, the smoke rising up between his fingers. A lot of old men smoked like that. Dad had told me it was from hiding the bright end of their fags at work or at war.
The old man raised the cup of his hand to his mouth, the fag completely invisible to the casual observer, and took a deep pull. The smoke trickled slowly out his nose and from the corners of his mouth as he contemplated my mother.
‘You believe in ghosts, missus?’
Dom jumped, and I sat straighter in my chair. I flicked a wary glance at my mother. Olive Finnerty was the most practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense female you’d ever get to meet. She had no truck with bedtime scares or night terrors. You came complaining to Ma that you were scared of the dark, the most sympathy you’d get would be a clatter to the back of the head and an abrupt command to get a grip on yourself. My stomach tightened in anticipation of her response. I didn’t want her scoffing at this old man, and maybe cutting this important topic off at the knees.
Ma regarded James Hueston thoughtfully. The house moved around us with the storm, shifting and sighing. Dee’s breathing was a gentle, steady undercurrent, and the Aga ticked quietly in the background as the fire in its belly began to die down. Ma nodded. She looked down at Dee, and nodded again. ‘I think any person who believes in the afterlife must automatically have a belief in ghosts, Mr Hueston.’ She gave the old man a very direct look. ‘But I think it’s more likely that a person’d find themselves distressed by their memories than by any supernatural spirit.’
James Hueston chuffed a little breath out his nose. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I been distressed by my memories for most of my life then, missus. And for most of my life, they’ve been just that: memories, bad dreams of things that already happened. I can deal with that, so I can. But recently . . . ’ He paused and took another compulsive drag on his cigarette, as if to stop himself talking; stubbed it out, and ran a hand over his eyes.
I leant forward. ‘Recently, Mister Hueston?’
He didn’t look at me, just reached for another fag and lit it. He blew a long, grey blast of smoke out of his nose and came to a decision. ‘Recently,’ he said, ‘they’ve been more like hauntings.’
‘Yes!’ I cried.
Ma and James looked sharply at me.
Shamie,’ murmured Dom, and they turned to look at him. ‘
He was slouched lazily against the table now, watching the old man from under drowsy lids. He stretched his arm towards James Hueston a little, his palm up as though he wanted the old man to take his hand. The name Shamie bumped something in my memory, tugging at my chest. James Hueston smiled at Dom, sadly – fondly almost – and there was a moment of intimate connection between the two of them that made my stomach tighten. Ma frowned at them with wary uncertainty, and I willed her to back away, to remain an observer for just a moment longer.
‘Aye,’ breathed the old man. ‘I were called Shamie once upon a time.’
Dom’s eyes sparkled with amusement, and he began to hum softly under his breath. I didn’t recognise the tune, but it was pure vaudeville, a real Nan special. James Hueston smiled in recognition of it.
‘Oh aye!’ he said happily. ‘I remember that!’ He began singing in a quiet baritone: ‘I’ll be your little honey, I will promise that, said Nellie as she rolled her dreamy eyes.’ He grinned and began nodding his head in time with the song. Dom joined in the words, their two voices blending sweetly as if they were used to singing together. ‘It’s a sin to say so, Mommy, said the bird on Nellie’s hat. Last night you said the same to Johnny Wise.’
The two of them laughed and Dom sat back in his chair, the picture of relaxed delight. My attention was firmly on my ma, who had a confused, suspicious look on her face.
‘Where did you learn that song, Dom?’ she asked sharply.
I leapt in, drawing her eyes instantly to me. ‘Nan taught it to us, Ma. Mister Hueston was singing it when we first met him on the harbour.’
She regarded me with narrowed eyes. I could practically hear her running Nan’s back-catalogue of songs through her mind. There were hundreds of them, from vaudeville to jazz to musical; I imagined them like cards flipping on a roller-index in her mind: ‘If You Knew Susie’, ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’, ‘Sally’, ‘My Old Man’. James Hueston’s voice intruded on her thoughts, and she turned her attention to him, still frowning.
‘I spent a lot of time in this kitchen when I were a lad.’
Dom nodded in happy recollection, a loopy smile on his face. He was starting to worry me. No, if I was honest with myself, he was starting to infuriate me. If there hadn’t been such a tangle of feet under the table I’d have kicked the legs off him.
Wake up, you bloody lunatic, I thought fiercely. Stop drawing Ma’s attention to yourself!
James Hueston went on talking, looking around the kitchen as he spoke. ‘I were great pals with the two boys who lived here. They were . . . I suppose they were like brothers to me. And their mother . . . ’ He paused a minute, then flicked a glance at my ma. ‘My own mother died when I were three, missus. Nancy Conyngham were like a replacement, you know? Until I were nine years old, I spent more time in this kitchen than I did in my own house.’ He grinned at her; it was a sunny memory for him. She smiled back, softening. ‘Fran and Lorry and I went to school together, ate together. Very often shared the same bed. You know, I can quite honestly say, they were the best years of my life.’
‘Fran and Lorry,’ I whispered.
‘Fran and Lorry Conyngham,’ echoed James Hueston.
Dom had become very still, leaning back in his chair, his arms sprawled on the table. His eyes were focused on nothing, his breathing slow and deep. Still smiling faintly, he looked as though he were peacefully asleep with his eyes open, and I knew that Francis was remembering. He was far away, reliving the memories of the short, happy life the old man was describing.
Ma’s eyes were on James Hueston; she was concerned for him. Like Dom, the old man was far away, walking the private halls of his childhood. But he had already come to the end of his happy memories, it seemed, and my stomach did a slow flip as the sunshine drained from his face.
Still smiling contentedly, Dom glanced at James. The old man’s wretched expression stole the smile from my brother’s eyes. Dom swallowed and pulled himself up, sitting straight in his chair, as if to fully face what came next – as if to brace himself for the truth. He waited, the light glinting off the polished surfaces of his snow-white cheekbones. His eyes became so dark that no light reflected from them at all. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask the question I knew was expanding in his chest, so I did it for him.
‘The boys who lived here,’ I said. ‘They were murdered, weren’t they? They were murdered by a soldier.’
The shock on the old man’s face was almost amused. ‘My God, lad! What a thing to say. Murdered! What on earth made you think that?’
Dom and I traded a confused look. We were both lost. I turned beseechingly back to James Hueston.
‘What then?’ I asked. ‘What happened to Francis?’
He died,’ said James. ‘
His eyes searched mine, trying to fathom my weird questions. Then he turned to look searchingly at Dom, and it hit me like a truck. James didn’t understand! All this time I thought he’d known that this was Francis, right here in front of him, but he hadn’t. What, then, had he seen in the garden when he’d asked, Do you know what’s wrong with your brother? What was it he had been going to tell me?
‘When I were eight,’ said James, ‘poor Fran died of diphtheria. He were ten years old. It were awful. An awful, awful death.’ He shuddered. ‘You know that disease, missus?’ He looked at Ma and she nodded sadly. James Hueston closed his eyes. ‘Poor Fran,’ he said. ‘He were a lovely lad. Kind, full of divilment. What a death.’
‘Oh,’ said Dom, ‘oh.’
‘What . . . what does it do to you?’
‘Ah, Pat!’ Ma shook her head in distress. ‘Don’t.’
But James Hueston tried to explain, holding his throat as an illustration. ‘It chokes you, lad. Your throat swells up inside, and you choke to death.’
Choking. So it hadn’t been asthma at all. Dom had been choking.
Dom was absolutely distraught now, his whole face working for control, his lightless eyes glittering with tears. ‘Shamie,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Shamie, don’t say that.’
James Hueston frowned. I saw something starting to dawn in his face. Then he suddenly sat bolt upright, straight as a rod, and I knew he’d got it. Whatever it was James Hueston had started off thinking about Dom, now he’d got it. His eyes grew rounder and rounder as my brother nodded slowly, staring at him.
Ma cleared her throat, all her attention on James Hueston – all her concern focused on him and the distress he was showing. ‘So,’ she ventured, ‘if you were around when the Conynghams were children, you must have known my mother-in-law.’ It was clear from the tone of Ma’s voice and her too-bright expression that she was trying to change the sadness of the conversation and bring James back to happier times. He dragged his attention to her, only half his mind on her question, his eyes owlish.
Beg . . . beg your pardon, missus?’ ‘
‘My mother-in-law; she would have been Cheryl Byrne back then. May Conyngham said . . . ’
‘Cheryl Byrne? Jesus, missus! Do you mean Lacy? Lacy is your . . . ?’ James snapped his eyes to Dom, then to me, examining us. Dom was nodding again, empathising with his confusion. ‘Oh God, I see it now!’ he exclaimed. ‘Their hair! Their eyes! And sure, your husband was the image of Cheryl! How could I not have noticed that?’ He became utterly speechless for a moment, his hands making little disbelieving movements. ‘Cheryl . . . but sure, she left after the war. She went . . . she disappeared into Dublin. They said she married late . . . some old man with a big family. Had herself a child with him . . . that must be . . . her boy is your husband?’ He looked at Ma as if she needed to reconfirm the facts for him.
Ma smiled and nodded. ‘That’s David,’ she said.
There was a breathy whisper of sound from him, and he sank back in his chair. He looked very fragile to me just then, with the light blaring down on his thin old face. The flesh under his eyes and around his jaw seemed too loose and too pale. He looked as though he’d just been punched in the stomach. For a moment I wondered at how all this might affect someone of his age. Then I felt guilty, because despite the impact this was obviously having on him, I still wanted to grab the front of his shirt and shake him ’til all the answers fell out.
‘Who’s the man?’ I demanded. ‘Who’s the soldier? What happened to Lorry?’
Ma looked at me as if I had two heads, but James’s attention had slid past us, to the doorway of the sitting room, and I don’t think he’d heard me at all. His mouth fell open, and he rose slowly to his feet.
‘Lacy,’ he breathed.
I’m so glad you’re here, Shamie. Laurence told me you had ‘come home, but I wasn’t sure I’d get to see you.’
Nan was standing on the threshold, the tartan car-blanket held around her shoulders like a shawl. Her long white hair had come loose in shining waves around her face, and she looked utterly changed. There was something girlish about her; she was barely recognisable.
Ma made a move to go to her, but she was pinned down under Dee’s sprawling weight. I half rose from my seat, alarmed. Nan was so thistledown-looking, so fey! It felt like she might just float off if I didn’t catch her quick. Dom beat me to it. With one of those alien gestures of courtliness, he stood and pulled his chair out, gesturing for Nan to take his seat. Nan didn’t acknowledge him. She had eyes only for James Hueston.
The two old people stood for a moment gazing at each other, and for that moment the house was completely still – no sounds of the storm, no noise from the Aga, nothing. It was as though everything had paused just for them; as if their years of history had earnt them one perfect bubble of calm.
Then James Hueston pushed his chair abruptly backwards and strode around to Nan. All the time he was rounding the table, Nan held his eyes with this – this gentle look on her face. He stopped very close to her; then he hugged her, inhaling as he did so, her hair, her soft, powdery scent. Nan laid her forehead on his shoulder, and for a moment James held her close, her hands trapped against his chest, her hair falling forward across his arms.
Shamie,’ she whispered. She pulled back so that James had to ‘hold her at arm’s length. ‘You shouldn’t wear your uniform,’ she said. ‘It’s not safe. They’ve been spitting on the poor boys getting off the boats.’
James looked down at his ordinary brown jacket and cord trousers and laughed bitterly. ‘It’s a bit late to be finding that out now, Lacy darlin’.’
She put a hand to his cheek, deeply sympathetic, so very tender. The rest of us may as well have been spectres for all the two of them noticed us. Our eyes hopped between them, from one to the other and back, but we’d faded like wallpaper into the background of their existence.
‘Did you have trouble when you got here, Shamie? Were people cruel? There’s been such awful things said . . . ’ Her lips trembled for a moment, and she bit them and ducked her head, her hand still on his cheek. She patted his face, without looking at him, and he pulled her back in, his chin on the top of her head. He stroked her hair and stared blankly at the wall behind her.
‘I can’t say I expected it, Lacy,’ he said. ‘I can’t say I did. There were . . . It were all very different when I got home. I were still the same lad – still an Irish lad – but all some folk seemed to see was the uniform.’
‘They’ve been so cruel,’ she said. ‘The whole family. The whole damnable lot. I wasn’t certain I could bear it. At times I felt that I was going mad. If it hadn’t been for Jenny . . .She stayed such a good friend—’
‘May wouldn’t see me,’ he interrupted. The words came out under pressure, bluntly, as if he was telling a dark secret for the first time. ‘I waited for her on Church Street. She spat in my face.’
Dom gasped at that and whispered, ‘No.’ The thought of his sister spitting in Shamie’s face was obviously too terrible for Francis to contemplate.
‘I think I’m going to go to Dublin,’ whispered Nan, her eyes open, her forehead resting on James’s chest. ‘I think I’ll disappear.’
James Hueston pushed her back and held her away from him so that he could look at her. He was angry with her, frustrated. ‘I looked for you!’ he cried. ‘When I came back from the war. I couldn’t believe you’d left. Lacy, I had a picture. A photograph. For you. I had his things. Why didn’t you wait? Why didn’t you leave word for me to find you?’
Nan ran her fingers down his jacket, counting buttons that weren’t there, straightening a lapel that didn’t exist. ‘Ah, Shamie. He’s gone. And soon you’ll be gone. What use are photographs to me?’
‘What do you mean, I’ll be gone?’
She looked into his eyes, and there was my nan. That straightforward, no-nonsense look. ‘You won’t stay to take this abuse. Not after all you’ve been through. Not James Plunkett Hueston. To hell with them and their narrow world. I give you a month, and you’ll be off, to make a life for yourself!’ She gave his nose a cheeky tweak, and he ghosted a smile at her.
‘You’re not wrong on that,’ he said. ‘I went back to England within the year, joined the merchant navy, and then the RAF. I saw the world, Lacy.’
She tilted her head at him and brushed his hair back. ‘Tell me you’ll have a great life,’ she whispered. It was as though he’d never spoken; she was far away, in another world, another time, gazing up into a young man’s face, their whole life ahead of them. ‘Tell me you’ll have the wonderful life he never got.’
James swallowed and said nothing, just kissed her forehead – a lingering kiss to seal his lips – and then pulled her in to rest his chin on her head again.
They stood that way for a long while. Eventually my ma spoke, quietly so as not to break the connection between the two old people. ‘Mr Hueston?’ she said. ‘Were you sweethearts? Cheryl and yourself? Were you in love?’
James Hueston didn’t stop stroking my nan’s hair, but his eyes shifted to my brother. Stop looking at Dom! I almost shouted it at him. Ma’ll get suspicious! Sure enough, Ma followed the old man’s eyes with a puzzled frown.
Dom was still standing with his hands resting on the back of his chair like the world’s most patient maître d’ waiting to seat a customer. He and James Hueston gazed at each other across the top of Nan’s head. Dom’s expression was tragic, a bleeding wound, every conflicted twist and turn of Francis’s thoughts and emotions running across his polished-marble face like cloud-shadows on a hill. He was staring across the yawning gap of almost a century to the friend Francis had once loved; the friend who’d lived. A friend who knew the secrets that Francis perhaps no longer wanted to hear.
‘Are you alright, Dom?’ said Ma.
I got to my feet. ‘I think Nan needs to sit down, Mister Hueston. She can have Dom’s chair.’
James guided Nan to the chair and got her seated, tucking the car-blanket around her shoulders. She participated only on the most surface level, already miles away again. Dom stood behind them, looking as though he might fade away any minute; like he might just let go of the chair and slide to the floor. I shot a glance at Ma. She was frowning at him – squinting as if trying to see him through a fog. She had gathered Dee into a tight little hedgehog shape on her lap and was holding her very tightly. Her expression said, What’s going on?
James Hueston turned his honest face to her, and she latched onto his words as if they were a life raft – gratefully allowing herself be distracted from the shambling wreck of her son.
‘Lacy and I weren’t sweethearts, missus. She were always the little pal of my heart, but we weren’t never that way with each other. No, when we were teenagers, Lacy were engaged to my best friend. That is, she were engaged to Francis’s brother, Lorry.’