Almost every week, Rosie had written to Connie and the family and to her own parents and her sisters and Dermot. When it came to replies, though, the McMullens had to go to Connie for her to send their letters back, for, despite all pleading, she refused to give them Danny and Rosie’s address.
After Anthony’s birth the letters stopped, but although no one knew of the existence of the child they were still worried and both families sent letters asking if things were all right. On Wednesday, 22nd September, Dermot was posting yet another letter to Rosie before school. He was annoyed he was still at school, for in another month he’d be thirteen and by rights should have left in the summer.
However, in 1918 the Government had raised the school-leaving age to fourteen, and while Dermot didn’t mind school he didn’t think two years further learning would make him better at ploughing a field or milking a cow.
It didn’t help either that he looked much older than his years and could have passed for a young man of sixteen or so. Even his voice had deepened, and the slight child had grown tall and broadened out, hardened by the work on the farm, which he found he enjoyed. His face had a healthy glow to it, brought about by good food and fresh air, and while he could still be calculating when he wanted to be, the petulance of childhood had gone. He still had the blond curls, no barber had managed to tame them, but now they just made him look incredibly handsome.
Minnie and Seamus were ridiculously proud of their son, but Rosie’s disappearance had hit Dermot hard and he’d begun, as he grew up, to draw closer to Chrissie and Geraldine. He knew Chrissie was courting a man called Dennis Maloney, whose family owned the grocer’s in Blessington, but she hadn’t told her parents, fearing they might put a stop to it, and said she’d tell them all when she was ready, if and when it became serious. So, for now, she saw her young man sometimes in her lunch hour and on Sunday afternoons when she’d go for a walk with Geraldine and Dermot so that she could meet with Dennis. Geraldine and Dermot would then go off on their own and leave the young couple to their courting.
In this way, Dermot knew a lot about Geraldine, and he began to feel sorry for his sister. While he’d been a child he’d accepted the acclaim and attention given to him without thinking much about it, but as Geraldine spoke he began to think about the things she said and see for himself how unfair it was and how brutal his mother often was with both girls.
He saw Geraldine’s life especially as one of drudgery. She seldom left the farm and Minnie kept her at it from morning till night, berating her for very little and usually following the tirade with a smack or clout. But, though Dermot often felt immensely sorry for her, he knew if he was to say too much about it, it could easily rebound and make things worse.
He wrote none of this to Rosie, who he missed terribly, and asked how things were with her and Danny and wee Bernadette. He’d been as sad as anyone when he heard of the babies Rosie had lost and though he’d mentioned it to no one he’d been worried about the tone of Rosie’s letters before this silence. So he wrote another letter to Rosie, begging her to let him know if anything was the matter, and decided to call in to the Walshes on the way to school and leave it for them to post with their own.
Coming around the side of the house, he waved to the postman as he mounted his bicycle at the head of the lane. He saw through the window as he passed that Matt and Phelan were at their breakfast after milking and Connie was holding a letter in her hand, and he made for the door, which was propped open.
When Dermot heard Connie suddenly burst out, ‘Dear Lord, our Rosie has had a little boy,’ Dermot stopped stock-still in the doorway and no-one noticed him.
Connie went on, ‘He was premature, Danny says, so he’s small, but thriving for all that, born more than four weeks ago. Good God!’
Matt and Phelan stopped their forks halfway to their mouths and stared at her. ‘What in God’s name…Why didn’t she let anyone know?’ Matt demanded.
Connie knew exactly why Rosie had told no-one, for she knew she’d gone through agonies when she’d lost the other two, and her heart went out to her for carrying this secret on her own for months. She scanned down the letter further. ‘That’s not all,’ she burst out. ‘Our Danny, he’s…well, I’ll read the letter out and see what you think about it.’
I’m distracted with worry over Rosie, Mammy, and that’s the truth. She shows no interest in the baby at all. She cannot feed him for the birth wasn’t straightforward; she’d had a fall and cut her head and was rendered unconscious, and the child had to be born by something called caesarean section. The doctor said it had upset her and her milk was dried up. But she doesn’t ever give him a bottle or change him or take notice of him at all. She seems not to hear him even when he cries.
She has two good friends here, but both are widows due to the war. Rita has taken a job now her son is at school and Ida has three children of her own to see to. The care of Anthony is mainly down to me and Bernadette is more of a help than Rosie. I can’t do this indefinitely for it means I can neither look for a job nor take one up if it were offered.
Anthony had to be baptised within hours of his birth and is too small and frail to be left to indifferent and inadequate care. Rosie doesn’t seem to be improving at all. I am at my wits’ end.
I don’t know what I expect you to do, but I had to tell someone how it is. I feel so alone and isolated.
When Connie laid down the letter there were tears in her eyes. Danny had never written before – any letter-writing had been left to Rosie, like Matt had always left it to her – but this letter was written from the heart. She could almost feel the pain sparking off the page, and what in God’s name should she do? Could she do?
‘God,’ Matt said, clearing his voice. ‘It’s a terrible time they’re having over there altogether.’
‘Aye,’ Connie said with a sigh. ‘And what can I do about it? There’s Sarah’s wedding on Saturday, and even after it…God, I can’t just up and fly to Birmingham. To tell you the truth, I’d be feared to go to such a place and not sure I’d be any use if I got there.
‘What I’d like this minute, or at least after the wedding, is for Phelan to fetch Rosie home. Here she would get fit and well and over what ails her, for it’s obvious she isn’t well just now. But Ireland is too dangerous a place for that and with Sam still hanging about with his old cronies they’d soon get word that Rosie was here. And then again, how could we leave Danny all alone in that house?’
Matt saw the problems well enough. ‘Write back to him,’ he advised. ‘Say we’re thinking of him and praying for him and when the wedding is out of the way we’ll have to give the matter some thought. I hate for our son to write for help and us to do naught about it.’
‘Aye,’ Connie said and added, ‘And let’s keep the news of the baby to ourselves for a wee while, till after the wedding. I don’t want people asking the questions about the baby we are not able to answer yet. Anyway, Saturday is Sarah’s day. After that’s over, we’ll tell people.’
Dermot had heard enough. He stuffed the letter into his pocket and made for the hills. There would be no school for him that day, he had thinking to do, and there was no space in the school day for thinking.
By the time Dermot had pounded over the Wicklow Hills for an hour or two, taking care to keep well away from any inhabited cottages where he could be quizzed as to why he wasn’t at school, he had decided what he must do about Rosie. As he ate the sandwiches Minnie had given him for his dinner he’d worked out how it was to be achieved.
He headed for home earlier than he would be expected, for though he hadn’t a watch he could tell by the sun, and he lay in the hills above his home and watched the house. He needed to talk to Geraldine alone and though he could see his father in the fields there was no sign of either his mother or Geraldine outside the house and so he sat and waited.
The dairy led off the kitchen, down a short passage, and there was another door next to the barn that opened onto the yard. When Dermot saw Geraldine open this door and throw water into the gutter, he knew she was probably in the dairy alone – for their mother seldom went in – and had been scalding out the churns.
For all that, he made his way down cautiously and from the back of the house where there was less likelihood of him being seen. He slipped into the barn unobserved and rubbed the window into the dairy with his sleeve before peering through it. As he’d thought, Geraldine was alone, and Dermot tapped urgently on the window.
Geraldine lifted her head at the sound and looked about her, not sure where it had come from, and Dermot knocked again. This time she saw her brother’s face pressed against the glass and went out of the door and into the barn. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘Why aren’t you at school?’
‘Listen, Geraldine,’ Dermot said. ‘We haven’t got long.’
‘Too right we haven’t,’ Geraldine said. ‘I have a churn full of cream to turn into butter before tea-time or I’ll have the head beaten off me.’
‘Listen,’ Dermot commanded. ‘This is more important than butter,’ and he told Geraldine what he’d overheard at the Walshes’.
Geraldine’s mouth had dropped open at the news that their Rosie had given birth to a baby boy and said nothing to any of them. And then Dermot went on to explain how Rosie took no notice of the baby and Geraldine could scarcely believe it, remembering the wonderful mother she’d been with Bernadette and the joy she took in rearing her. ‘You don’t think you’re exaggerating?’
‘I’m telling it as it was read out in the letter,’ Dermot said indignantly. ‘And Danny wouldn’t have written that way for fun. Anyway, keep it to yourself about the baby. I mean, tell Chrissie, but no-one else.’
‘Why? It isn’t a secret, surely.’
‘No, it’s just…I heard Connie say that she’ll start telling folk after the wedding. I mean, Rosie’s not right. Danny’s letter was really sad and I think she needs help, they both need help, and I’m going off to give them a hand.’
‘You?’
‘Who else?’ Dermot said. ‘Could you go, or Chrissie, and would Mammy be bothered about Rosie even if I were to tell her? And Connie, I mean Mrs Walsh, is too busy just now getting Sarah’s wedding ready.’
Even as Geraldine conceded that what Dermot said was true, she still said, ‘You can’t go either. You’re just a boy and anyway, Mammy wouldn’t let you.’
‘Mammy isn’t going to know.’
‘She’ll be raging, Dermot.’
‘I don’t care,’ Dermot said defiantly. ‘Rosie is more important than Mammy’s bad humour.’
‘Well just how d’you think it is to be achieved?’ Geraldine said scornfully, thinking this was a pipe dream of Dermot’s. He was not yet thirteen years old, for heaven’s sake.
But Dermot went on seriously. ‘That is a problem, and I’ve thought about it all day. The only day to go is Saturday, as far as I can see.’
‘That’s the day of the wedding.’
‘Aye, quite,’ Dermot said. ‘And they’ll all be at the wedding, nearly the whole village, and I can creep into the Walshes’ house and hopefully find a letter or something with Rosie’s address on it.’
‘And if you don’t?’
‘If I don’t, I’ll find that convent in Handsworth where Connie once let slip they went first. Any would know where that was, I would imagine.’
‘You really mean this, don’t you?’
‘Every word. And once I get the address, I’ll skirt around Blessington, though they’ll all be too busy at the wedding to see me, and catch the tram from Cross Chapel.’
‘And how d’you hope to escape Mammy’s clutches?’
‘I have to sit at the back of the church, don’t I, because I’m one of the ushers,’ Dermot said. ‘So, when everyone is in it will be easy to slip out without Mammy noticing. She won’t know until the Mass is over and you know how Nuptial Mass can go on and on? Afterwards is where you and Chrissie come in. You tell Mammy when she asks that I felt ill and was going for a walk to clear my head.’
‘Dermot, we’ll have to live with her afterwards,’ Geraldine cried. ‘She’ll kill the pair of us.’
‘She won’t. Claim you know nothing of the plans. I’ll back you up when I write.’
Despite herself, Geraldine was thinking that Dermot’s plan could work and if he was right about Rosie someone needed to go and find out what was what. So although she was frightened of what their mother might do, she nodded her head slowly. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do our bit and I know I speak for Chrissie too, for when she knows Rosie’s news she’ll be as anxious to help as I am.’
By the day of the wedding, Dermot had managed to hide a haversack with a few changes of clothes and his jacket on top in the knoll of a tree not far from the church. He would travel in the new suit and jacket his mother had been to Dublin to buy, because he knew it made him look older, and anyway, he wouldn’t take the time to change.
Everything went according to plan. He slipped from the church as the bride began her walk down the aisle in step with music from the organ, and as all eyes were on the bride, no-one noticed him go.
Once outside he wasted no time, and, stopping only to retrieve his haversack, he made for the Walshes’. The deserted farmhouse looked odd and he slipped through the door and looked about him. Where would a person keep letters – he presumed Connie had kept them. He knew she’d missed the family and maybe would read the letters over and over as a comfort, as he did.
Perhaps they would be in one of the drawers of the press. He hated the thought of searching through people’s personal things, but needs must. In the end he had no need to, for a letter was pushed behind a plate on the delph rack and he pulled it out and opened it up and found it to be the one Connie had read aloud.
As he read the letter again, it strengthened his resolve. He was doing the right thing, the only thing, and he gave a sigh as he looked at the address. It seemed a funny address altogether: 6 Back of 42 Upper Thomas Street, Aston, Birmingham 6, England.
Dermot felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen in apprehension of what lay before him. But there was no time for hesitation now. He copied the address onto the piece of paper he’d put in his jacket pocket for the purpose and patted his other pocket where all the money he’d prised from his piggy bank was knotted into a handkerchief. He replaced the letter, picked up his haversack and began his journey.
There was no-one about, for most were at the wedding, and even some shops were closed as he made his way to Cross Chapel without meeting a soul.
He thanked his lucky stars the conductor on the tram was not one he knew, and he asked for a single to Terenure with no hint of nervousness, for he’d taken the journey to Dublin more than once. But in the whole of his life he’d been no further than Dublin, and he couldn’t help little frissons of excitement building up inside him that were mixed a little with fear.
He had time in Dublin to look around for things to eat on the boat and train for he wasn’t sailing until the evening tide. He could have enjoyed himself more, knowing the city well, if he wasn’t so frightened of being discovered and so nervous of what lay ahead. He hoped Chrissie and Geraldine would keep protesting they didn’t know where he’d gone, because he’d hate for his mother to arrive on top of him now and haul him home like a naughty wean, and then, at the end of it all, who would be there to help Rosie?
Dermot had never been on a boat in his life and he had to admit it looked massive in the evening light that was just turning dusky. The boat was called the Hibernian and had he but known it, it was the same boat Rosie and Danny had taken nearly three and a half years before.
He pressed down any feelings of apprehension and boarded the gangplank as if he’d done it every day of his life. He was not a moment too soon, for just minutes after being aboard, the hooters suddenly screeched and black smoke billowed from the funnels as the engines throbbed into life. Dermot watched the lights of the harbour and the town twinkling through the gloom and he breathed a sigh that was relief mixed with trepidation, but he did know that once an expanse of water was between him and his home in Wicklow, he’d feel safer. He stayed on deck, watching the boat churn through the foaming water, till the darkness and the cold drove him into the saloon bar where he opened the food he’d bought in Dublin. But he left some for the train, for he knew that that too would be a long journey.
There was a train in the station to meet the boat and Dermot was glad of it, for he was starting to feel weary. He couldn’t sleep deeply, though, for he knew he had to change trains at a place called Crewe; the man who’d clipped his ticket told him, so he’d have to keep his wits about him, and as it was now black night it was all rather unnerving.
He dozed fitfully and found himself jerked awake at each station and would peer through the dense darkness to find out the name. One of the carriage occupants, seeing his preoccupation with this said, ‘Where you bound for?’
‘Birmingham,’ Dermot answered. ‘I have to change at a place called Crewe, I believe?’
‘Most people change there,’ the man said. ‘And it’s a big place, you can’t miss it.’ And then he added, ‘No need to ask where you’ve come from.’
‘No,’ Dermot said, and because there was surely no harm in telling this man, this stranger, he said, ‘I come from County Wicklow and I’m going to my sister’s place in Birmingham.’
‘Holiday?’
‘Sort of.’
‘You’ll find it a sight different from Ireland.’
‘I will, surely,’ Dermot said. ‘But that’s the beauty of it. There’s no point in going to a place just the same as your own.’
The man laughed. ‘You’re right there,’ he said. ‘How old are you?’
Dermot was prepared for this question and knew that for him to state his real age would be madness, and so he said, ‘I’m fourteen and I’ll be fifteen next month.’
‘Now I’d have put you older,’ the man said, and Dermot gave a secret smile of triumph, for the man hadn’t doubted him in the slightest, and they chatted together amicably until they parted company at Crewe.
Crewe was a big place, bigger than Dermot had ever seen, and it was also confusing and nerve-racking, especially for someone who’d never left his native land before. A railway official helped Dermot find the right train for Birmingham and he reached New Street Station at nearly half past four in the morning, for the station clock showed the time.
He climbed stiffly from the train aching with tiredness and marvelling at the size of the trains and the station and the crowds of people, and feeling a little lost. He was also very hungry, but he’d finished all he had brought and so he sat down on a bench and tried to ignore the pangs of hunger gnawing at his stomach. He watched the station grow quiet after the train had left and the passengers dispersed and wondered what to do next.
He could see that it was dark as pitch outside, and he had no desire to traipse around an alien city at such an hour looking for lodgings, nor could he try and find his way to Rosie’s, and anyway, he was too tired. He lay down on the bench and, despite the chilly wind funnelling through the station, decided to try and sleep for an hour or two. Using his haversack as a pillow, he closed his eyes.
When Minnie first missed Dermot outside the church, Geraldine had told her, as planned, that Dermot had been taken ill and had gone for a walk. The distracted Minnie would then do nothing but go home and see if he’d returned there.
There was, of course, no sign of him, and eventually Seamus prevailed on her to go to the reception at Conlan’s Hotel in Blessington and she’d gone, feeling sure if Dermot wasn’t there already he’d turn up in due course. But there was no sign of Dermot, and by the end of the meal, worry had begun to eat at Minnie. Her fear was that Dermot lay injured somewhere amongst the Wicklow Hills, and Seamus led a search party to look for him.
Chrissie and Geraldine watched these proceedings with trepidation, knowing that their mother’s worry would turn in the end to anger, and the more she fretted, the greater would be her fury. As darkness rendered the search useless, Minnie informed the Guard and even in front of him, Chrissie and Geraldine still stuck to their story. The Guard, however, knowing the nature of young boys, asked if anything was missing.
That had given Minnie a jolt and she’d checked his room and found his haversack, jacket and numerous other clothes to be gone. The Guard then took a different view of it. He told Minnie the boy had gone off on some adventure of his own and would probably come back of his own accord, and so not to fret. ‘Boys will be boys,’ he said, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if he didn’t just turn up in the morning as if nothing had happened.
But Minnie knew he wouldn’t, for suddenly in a flash, she knew where he’d gone. At the wedding reception Connie had told her about Rosie and the premature baby and the letter Danny had sent. ‘I’m not broadcasting it to the town until after the wedding,’ she’d said. ‘But you have a right to know as Rosie’s mother and grandmother to the wee boy.’
Minnie somehow knew that Dermot had discovered the letter Danny had sent, and he’d gone running to Rosie as he used to do when he was small. She was even more certain of this when she found the piggy bank, that had been stuffed with money, to be empty. She knew too the girls must have been fully aware of where he’d gone. It didn’t matter how much they protested ignorance of Dermot’s intentions, Minnie’s anger had to have some outlet.
She’d used the strap on her daughters before, many times, but never with the intensity she wielded it that day. At first she fell upon the pair of them like a wild animal, kicking and punching them before lashing into them with the strap until their screams brought Seamus running from the fields where he was checking the stock before turning in.
‘For God’s sake, woman,’ he cried, pulling his wife away and holding her arms. ‘Enough is enough. What’s done is done and nothing will be gained by this carry-on.’
Minnie’s eyes were wild, her face was brick-red and her hair had sprung from the grips holding it in place. Strands of it hung about her face and she was out of breath and panting heavily. She appealed to Seamus. ‘He’s gone to Rosie, our Dermot. That’s where he always used to go whenever he was missing.’
‘He doesn’t know her address.’
‘How do we know that?’ Minnie said. ‘Connie may have given it to him. Anyway,’ she went on, as Seamus shook his head, ‘however and wherever he got it, that’s what he’s done. I know it, and I also know he wouldn’t have been able to do it alone. These,’ she said, indicating her cowering daughters, ‘knew all about it. They must have known.’
Seamus regarded his daughters, no longer screaming but holding one another while they sobbed. He took in their bruised faces and the marks across their arms and their backs, where the strap had ripped into their smart wedding clothes, shredding them into strips, and he said to Minnie, ‘If you’re right and Dermot is away to Rosie we shall hear soon enough and nothing is to be gained by beating the girls. There is to be no more of it and let us hope you haven’t alerted half the county. Come away to the fire now.’ And to his daughters he said curtly, ‘If you had any knowledge of what Dermot was up to you have only yourselves to blame for your mother’s chastisement. Get to bed now, the pair of you.’
Trembling with shock and distress, the girls were quick to do as their father bid. The tears still flowed and they silently helped one another where the clothes were stuck to their backs. The weals from the strap still bled and they lay on their stomachs, their backs being too sore, and eventually Chrissie rubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown and whispered fiercely, ‘I hate her!’
‘Ssh.’
‘I don’t want to ssh,’ Chrissie said. ‘I hate her I tell you.’
‘I know,’ Geraldine whispered. ‘And so do I.’
‘She’ll not lay a hand on me again,’ Chrissie said. ‘That I know, for I’ll give her the same back.’
‘Chrissie!’ Geraldine said, shocked that Chrissie should talk of raising her hand to their mother.
‘I will,’ Chrissie maintained. ‘I will. If we’d joined forces today she’d never have managed the two of us.’
Geraldine acknowledged this was true and that surely her mother hadn’t the right to do what she had done. Every bit of her ached or throbbed, but what was the point of talking about it all now. Weariness suddenly caused her to yawn and she said, ‘Let’s try to sleep now. Things may look better in the morning, they often do.’
Chrissie shook her head. She’d never feel differently about this business, but she heard the tiredness in Geraldine’s voice and gave her arm a little squeeze. ‘All right.’ And as Dermot landed on the shores of Holyhead, his sisters eventually slept fitfully.
Dermot was woken by an early morning train pulling into the station in a cloud of steam, with singing rails and the squeal of brakes. For a second or two he was disorientated, wondering where he was, and then he rolled off the bench thankfully enough for it was hard and knobbly and he was suddenly so cold his teeth chattered.
He was also wondering if he’d done the wrong thing, for although he looked older than his years he wasn’t quite thirteen and he suddenly felt unequal to the task before him. Why and how did he think he was the one to help Rosie? Wouldn’t one of the girls have been better?
Impetus had carried him so far, leaving little time to think, but no-one knew what was wrong with Rosie, so he didn’t even know what he would be facing. He also wondered at the financial state of the family. Danny had no job, for if he had Rosie would have told them in her letters home. Wouldn’t it add to their financial burden if he landed on their doorstep?
He had money with him for now. His parents had given him plenty each week, since almost the day of his birth, and he’d happily share that but it wouldn’t last forever.
However he decided, he couldn’t just give up and go home without even seeing Rosie after coming that far, and so he left the station and went out into the streets, quiet because it was Sunday so there wasn’t one person around to ask for directions. He didn’t quite know what to do, but he acknowledged that there was nothing to be gained by standing about and he decided to walk around a bit and see if he could find someone to ask how a person could get to this place called Aston.
Although used to Dublin, Dermot was amazed at the array of shops Birmingham had to offer, fine buildings too. He wandered through the city streets and didn’t see a soul and he thanked his lucky stars it was at least dry and fine.
Eventually, he came to a road called Colmore Row and in the distance he could see the spire of a church, and he made for it, knowing that while Sunday was a quiet day for shoppers it was often a busy one for the churches.
It was a pleasant church called St Phillip’s and set in a garden of sorts, where lawns were interwoven with paths. It was nice, Dermot thought, to find that little oasis of green in the city centre.
As he approached the church, a handful of people came out of the door from the early Holy Communion Service, the first people Dermot had seen, and he approached them with the address held in his hand.
‘Well,’ said the first man he asked. ‘There are many trams to Aston, but as you are here now you’d best get to Steel House Lane and get on there.’
‘Steel House Lane? Dermot repeated.
‘It’s aptly named,’ the man said. ‘For the police station is there. I can tell from your accent you’re not from these parts.’
‘No, I’m over here to see my sister,’ Dermot said. ‘She’s been ill and I didn’t tell her I was coming. It’s meant to be a surprise.’
‘I trust a pleasant one?’ the man said with a smile and Dermot smiled too. ‘I hope so.’
The man’s directions were easy to follow and Dermot went on down Colmore Row, passing Snow Hill Station on the opposite side and a large Picture House. Like Rosie he had a longing to see the moving pictures inside one of those places. He could only imagine it, but he didn’t linger and strode on. Just as the man said, the police station was on one side of the road and the workhouse on the other. It had a plaque outside saying it was the General Hospital, but it was easy to see what it had originally been built for and, Dermot thought, was very like the workhouse in Dublin that his mother had pointed out one time.
Outside it, though, were the tram stops, and the man said he could catch any tram for they all ran through Aston. Dermot then had quite a wait because it was Sunday service, and when he alighted from the tram at Aston Cross, as the conductor had advised, the big green clock showed him it was turned half past seven.
He looked around. The tram had continued along a main road, past the Ansell’s Brewery and behind that was a large tower with HP Sauce written on it in big letters. There were streets and streets of houses, and like his sister Rosie he’d been shocked by them for in all his life he’d never seen the like of them. He’d been brought up on a spacious farm and even his trips to Dublin had been confined to the shopping areas. This was his first introduction to a city’s back-to-back housing and he wasn’t impressed by it one bit.
Nothing had prepared him for what he saw as he walked up Upper Thomas Street. Even that fine September morning the houses were so grim and dismal he couldn’t imagine anyone living in them. And yet it was obvious they did. Rosie did for a start, and that fact depressed him totally. He wandered up the road in a sort of daze. He found Aston Park at the top of the road and was absurdly pleased about that, and he went through the open gates, needing a little time to himself before he had the courage to call on Rosie.